USA > Indiana > Rush County > Centennial history of Rush County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 25
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In that same year there was a story of the annual meeting of the Farmers' Insurance Association of Rush county, an association which had been organized for some years, and the membership of which at that time was 207, with property insured to the amount of $347,370. In Feb- ruary, 1880, notice was given of a meeting to be held for the purpose of effecting a definite organization of the Citizens Building Association, the stock for which (cap- ital $100,000) had all been subscribed; president, J. B. Reeve, the other offices of the association being held by W. A. Pugh, Edwin Farrar and M. C. Tingley. An item in the first week in January, 1871, sets out that the state- ment of the banks of Rushville show individual deposits of more than $250,000. When the panic of 1873 came on Rushville apparently was in a good situation to meet it, for an article under the head of "Monetary Panic" calmly observed that there was little excitement in Rush- ville, and that people here are generally inclined to wait patiently until the storm blows over and business resumes normal conditions. It was pointed out that the banks were known to be sound and under careful management, and "so far have been called on, with very few exceptions, to meet only the ordinary demands. Under present cir- cumstances both banks are refusing to discount, but are extending such favors as they can to their customers. Grain dealers are not offering to buy, but farmers have expressed no disposition to sell in the present condition of the market." It is a matter of recollection on the part of those who were contemporaries of the great crash of '73 that Rushville came through the monetary crisis in fine shape. The building and loan idea "caught on" here in such a way that company after company was or- ganized. In May, 1892, there was a story regarding the organization of the eleventh such institution, the Equit- able. Early in 1905 the affairs of the Equitable Building and Loan Association came under investigation and an examination revealed a deficit of about $20,000, the grave
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statement being made that "of this sum $16,000 cannot be accounted for." The liabilities of the concern were stated to be $24.000, with assets of $8.000. The hint was carried that the failure was not believed to be due to dis- honesty. but "merely defective bookkeeping." In May of that same year (1905) there was carried the story of the failure of a private bank at Arlington, the same hay- ing been in operation eighteen months under the direction of Horace Goodrich and Oliver Jones. of Pendleton. It is set out that people had complete confidence in the bank, but that the Rushville banks would not honor checks drawn on it just before the end came. According to a statement of the owners of the bank the liabilities of the concern were placed at $11.000. with assets of $14.000, "but citizens say the assets are only $7,200." It was stated the failure was due to the inability of the bank to realize on loans which it had made. A week or two later it was stated that Frank Downey, as trustee, had wound up the affairs of the bank, the books of which showed a deficit of $6,451.06, "which will be fully met."
MAIN STREET, RUSIIVILLE, LOOKING NORTHI
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STREET SCENE IN RUSIIVILLE
CHAPTER XII
THE PRESS OF RUSH COUNTY
If tradition be correct the first newspaper published in Rush county was printed on an improvised press in the clearing that came to be the city of Rushville, the bed of this press being a sawed sycamore stump, planed to a proper level, the platen a stout board and the "devil's tail" or lever controlling the impression of the platen, a pole of proper size to give a good hand grasp. At least that is Doctor Arnold's story of the creation in the fall of 1822 of the Dog Fennel Gazette, an apparent forerunner of the later Gazette, copies of which, under the manage- ment of D. M. Wickham, whom Doctor Arnold credits with the publication of the Dog Fennel Gazette are extant in the public library. This story has it that Wickham presently improved on his stump press and "built a better one of timbers." This is an interesting story, and as a tradition is one of the quaintest of Indiana pioneer days, but it is believed the student of the times would better take it with a bit of reserve, as many strange and wholly imaginative tales are told of the early days of journalism in the middle West, and this one possibly has been told of other communities than this. Wickham was certainly not far from a base of supplies, and it surely would seem that the same ox-team that brought his type outfit up here could have hauled a small press at the same time, hence the suspicion that the sycamore stump story is mythical. Certainly his type faces were not whittled out of shoe- pegs, and it is equally likely that his press was not cut out of a sycamore log.
The newspaper of pioneer days had a hard row to hoe, no doubt. Old files reveal many a plaintive call on delinquent subscribers to pay up and other plaintive calls
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on subscribers to bring in farm produce or other mer- chantable commodities to apply on their accounts. Of course, money was scarce hereabout in those days, and barter and trade was common, but some real money was essential to the production of a newspaper and the trou- bles of the pioneer editor must have been many and bitter. As an offset, nature being both provident and prodigal in compensatory adjustments, no one but a man of those peculiar temperamental qualifications which marked the editor of the days before newspapers lost their individ- uality and became merely commercial propositions would have tackled the job of getting out a newspaper in a half wilderness, and so the pioneer newspaper man probably accepted his fate, was willing to live slipshod "for the good of the cause," didn't mind whether he had a haircut occasionally or not, and just "took things as they came," hanging on until literally starved out and then pass his little outfit on to some other ambitious would-be molder of public opinion of similar temperamental qualification, who would find in turn that the world cared too little for mere opinions to be willing to pay for them in printed form, and he would starve out and move on, the process being repeated until the Civil war period, when the value of news began to be appreciated, and newspapers became what their name implied instead of mere mediums of per- sonal expression. It then was found that people would pay for news and the day of the commercial success of newspapers hereabout had dawned.
BRIEF RESUME OF NEWSPAPER HISTORY
No better or more comprehensive statement regard- ing the early history of journalism in Rush county can be given in brief than that of the late John F. Moses, who for many years was a leader in the newspaper field in this part of the state, and who in a historical sketch relat- ing to newspapers, published in 1908, carried the story of The Dog Fennel Gazette, quoting Doctor Arnold, and con-
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tinued as follows: "In September, 1831, he [Wickham] issued the first number of the American, its neat appear- ance indicating better facilities. He had four four-col- umn pages and lasted about two years. He soon made a third venture with a paper called the Gazette, of about the same size, but not so attractive in appearance. His pa- pers favored the policies of Andrew Jackson. Following him Samuel Davis and Thomas Wallaace started the Herald, a Whig paper. About 1840, Donovan & Tizzard bought it, changed the name to the Hoosier and Demo- cratic Archive, and switched it over to the Democracy. Samuel S. Bratton bought them out and renamed it the Jacksonian. He had a long line of successors, among them Finley Bigger, George W. Hargitt, John L. Robin- son, E. S. Hibben, Lucien Norris, W. S. Conde, James Moody and George W. Bates. At the beginning of the Civil war William A. Cullen was its editor. Its fortunes waned during the '60s, and it was reorganized, shares of stock being subscribed over the county by leading Dem- ocrats, and Robert S. Sproul was put in charge. George H. Puntenney and William E. Wallace bought it in 1873 and successfully managed it, most of the time in partner- ship, for thirty-four years. They started the Daily Jacksonian in 1895. Mr. Puntenney retired in 1900. In July, 1907, Mr. Wallace sold the office to a new company, the Democrat Publishing Company, which had recently bought and consolidated the Graphic, the Daily Star and the Independent. The Jacksonian was merged with the others into the daily and weekly Democrat, and the his- toric old name disappeared. The Independent was started in 1904 by John Rutledge. P. A. and O. C. Hack- leman established the Rushville Whig on April 25, 1840, and the former was its able editor. They sold it to R. F. Brown in 1844. Granville Cowing and Norvell W. Cox, who came next after him, changed its name to the True Republican, in 1846. General Hackleman remained as editor. At different times since it has carried the names
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of T. Wallace & Co .. Wallace & Bell, Cowing & Kemper, Shaddinger, Cox & Cowing. Andrew Hall. L. J. Cox. Conde & Shumm, William Shum, Drebert & Harrison and Frank T. Drebert. The late George C. Clark was editor at one time. In 1876, Mr. Brebert sold to Stivers Bros. John F. Moses bought the paper in Jamiary, 1877, and sold it to U. D. Cole in April, 1881. but resumed editorial work in 1883: in 1884 he acquired a controlling interest and edited the paper until April 1. 1903. when Jacob Feudner, who had held an interest since 1884. be- came sole owner. Mr. Cole retired in 1887. The Republi- cun was made a semi-weekly in 1891, and Mr. Feudner started a daily in 1904. The Graphic was founded by Dr. S. W. McMahan and George W. Campbell in 1882; John K. Gowdy bought Campbell's interest in 1886. Newby & Butler leased it for some time, after which it was sold to Samuel J. Finney. Like the other papers it had many owners, among them the names of Hazelrigg Bros .. John Q. Thomas, Louis C. Lambert and Thomas A. Geraghty are recalled. The latter gentleman also published the Daily Star, founded in 1891. Both papers have recently been merged into the Democrat. The American was es- tablished by James E. Naden in 1894, who has been its only owner up to this time." And that was the story of the local newspaper field in 1908. Since then the law of selection and elimination has continued operative and there are now in Rushville but three papers, the Daily Republican, the Daily News and the American, the latter a semi-weekly, of which papers "more anon."
AN INTERESTING RELIC OF PIONEER DAYS
So far as known the oldest copy of a newspaper now in hand in Rush county is a well preserved copy of The Indianion, published at Rushville in the 30s, and which is in the possession of Miss Eleanor B. Sleeth, of the county recorder's office, who has preserved it among other papers which were included in the collection of her
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maternal grandfather, Dr. William Frame, who prob- ably had preserved this particular copy of The Indianian because in it was carried the announcement of his candi- dacy for the legislature from this district. The Indianian was a four-column folio, published and edited by William J. Brown, and from the appearance of the time-stained sheet probably was printed on a Franklin press with a somewhat too loose blanket, or maybe on that type of roller press which later became widely popular in rural printshops as the old "army" press, of sacred memory to that generation of printers now fast vanishing off the face of the earth. At any rate, the blanket of the press was too loose for the best effect, but the reading matter is there, none the worse for the deep impression, and mighty interesting reading at this period. This copy of The Indianian is No. 48, of Vol. I, and is dated May 11, 1831, hence the paper had been started in the spring of 1830, but of its eventual fate there is no hint nor clue for this is the first mention of this paper that has appeared in any of the historical sketches relating to the newspa- pers of Rush county. Even the graphic little sketch of the press compiled by the late John F. Moses in 1908 is silent as to The Indianian, although what otherwise ap- pears to have been a complete roster of the papers pub- lished in this county is carried through, and it may be said that no one in Rush county had a better acquaintance both with the facts and the traditions of the press here- abouts than had Mr. Moses. Just how The Indianian came to be lost even to tradition, can not now be told, but that it had been appearing at Rushville for forty-eight weeks in the spring of 1831, is evident on the face of the interesting little old paper, so highly prized by Miss Sleeth and her sister, Miss Mary Sleeth, the public libra- rian. Under its "masthead" The Indianian carried the following: "Notice to Agents-The following gentlemen are requested to act as agents for this paper: Abner Conde, Esq., Moscow; Nathan Tompkins, p. m., Little
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Flat Rock: Moses Clifford, Esq., near West Liberty ; Joseph Chapman, Greenfield: John Hawkins, Indian- apolis; Col. Thos. Hendricks, Greensburg: John McPike, Esq., Lawrenceburg." The paper carries as a sub-title the patriotic motto: "Where Liberty Dwells. There Is My Country," and the leading editorial is a flattering encomium on Joseph Holman. Esq., whose somewhat tedi- ons letter, announcing his candidacy for Congress from the Third Indiana district. filled all but about a "stick" of the first page. The second page carries a letter from Noah Noble, then candidate for governor and a three- column clipping from a Washington paper of April 20, covering capital gossip of that date. The only "local" item of any consequence is a column story of the organ- ization of a Sunday School Union at a meeting held at the office of JJoseph Nicholas in Rushville, at which the following officers were elected: President, William B. Laughlin : vice-president, William Beal, Esq. ; secretary, Hon. Charles H. Test, and treasurer, Joseph Nicholas. Esq. Announcement of the August election carried the names of the following candidates: Governor-Noah Noble, James Scott, Milton Stapp : lieutenant governor- Amos Lane, Alexander S. Burnet, James Gregory and David Wallace: Congress-Oliver H. Smith, John Test, Joseph Holman and Jonathan McCarty: legislative- Marinus Willett, William Frame, John Alley, William P. Rush, John Wood and William B. Laughlin. Advertise- ments carry the business announcements of Lydia Me- Murtrie, millinery : Joseph True, tailor; Eliza Laughlin, mantua making and millinery; Cassander Barrett, mil- linery : John B. Irvin, tailor, who "is prepared to do work in the neatest manner for the Farmer, the Dandy, the Methodist and the Quaker." The advertising columns on the fourth page, closed with the display announcement. that " Sugar will be received in payment for subscriptions at this office." A column of poetry and the "dead letter" list, the latter carrying upward of 120 names, complete
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the last page, the other advertising columns being filled with "taken up" notices relating to estrayed animals and legal notices. The dead letter list is signed by Marinus Willett, postmaster, who also, as noted above, was at the same time aspiring to go to the legislature.
Miss Sleeth also has a copy of the Rushville Whig, Vol. VI, No. 9, date of June 27, 1845, which is an earlier copy than any on file in the bound files preserved in the office of the county recorder, and which she also found in the collection preserved by her grandfather Frame, whose name appears in this copy as one of the leading commer- cial advertisers of that time. The Whig at that time was being published by R. F. Brown, whose possible kinship to the William J. Brown, of the earlier Indianian, offers an interesting conjecture. The Whig of this date was printed as a five-column (wide measure) folio and both typography and presswork were excellent. Poetry and clippings fill the first page and the second page is filled with advertising, chiefly of patent medicines of a pecu- liarly weird description, and probable potent brew, some of these advertisements carrying personal recommenda- tions as eloquent and as misleading as are put forth by a similar class of advertising carried in some papers today, an indication that human credulity is about as open to false impressions as in the days of the pioneers. The ed- itorial page is given up to articles mostly defensive of the principles of the Whig party, and is conducted in the vig- orous and rather flamboyant style of the period. Of course, as in all papers of that period, politics was the uppermost topic and very little attention was given to merely local happenings, it probably being taken for granted that everybody knew the news of the community anyway, so why waste good space in the paper printing it ? The Whig's "masthead" announced that "White- water canal scrip will be received for advertising and also for subscriptions." The advertising columns carried the business announcements of Worster & Maddux, groceries
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and miscellanies: H. G. & M. Sexton, drugs; William Frame & Company, boots and shoes : Posey & Flinn, gen- eral merchants: E. Barrow, general merchandise: J. W. Ferguson, tailor; T. & R. Pugh, general store : G. & S. J. Hibben, general store: A. S. & JJ. Lakin, boots and shoes : J. S. Campbell. hats: B. W. S. Caldwell, cabinet making and undertaking; A. S. & JJ. H. Lakin, hotel-the Frank- lin House-"the three-story frame building in Rush- ville :" F. & W. Crawford, hardware; Kennedy & Hall, dry goods: Isaac Ogden, chair manufacturer, and H. A. Norris, resident dentist. "all kinds of merchantable produce taken." There were also several cards announc- ing the professional presence of the lawyers of that period and quite a number of legal notices.
PRESERVATION OF NEWSPAPER FILES
When the estate of George C. Clark, lawyer, banker and publicist, and in his generation one of the best known and most influential citizens of Rushville, was being set- tled in 1900, there was discovered among his effects a considerable collection of old newspapers, mostly local papers, which had been preserved with much care by Mr. Clark, and which in the ordinary course of the disposition of such effects might easily have gone to the junk man, for to most persons a paper is fit only for the waste basket after it is a day old. Happily, one of the appraisers of the Clark estate was Ernest B. Thomas, and when he came to look over the papers he at once recognized their great value, for many of these old papers antedated any kept on file in the local newspaper offices and some of them were copies of papers no longer existing, so that the col- lection was recognized as of sufficient historical value to warrant an effort at permanent preservation. Mr. Thomas took the matter up with the county commission- ors and seeured an order for a sufficient sum to cover the binding of the old papers, and then turned them over to the county as a nucleus for whatever collection later
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might be made of a local historical character, a sort of a basis for the archives of a possible future Rush County Historical Society. With this as a nucleus the commis- sioners secured from the local newspapers the files then extant in the several offices and gave them space in the record room of the county recorder's office, where they are secure against loss by fire, and have since then had bound files of the several newspapers of the county seat preserved and kept in the recorder's office, the law war- ranting such action as a means of preserving legal publications.
The oldest of the papers saved from the Clark collec- tion is a copy of The Indiana Jacksonian, published at Rushville, this copy being of date March 2, 1854, the issue being No. 9 of Vol. IV. G. W. Hargitt is named as editor and proprietor and William P. Hargitt as printer. The first column of the first page of this paper carries a story of a Rush county temperance convention held at the court house on February 22, to draft resolutions denouncing the evils of intemperance, and for the purpose of appoint- ing a vigilance committee representative of all the town- ships in the county to exert local influence in behalf of a proposed prohibition law. The Rev. James Havens was chairman of this convention, and Squire W. Robinson was secretary. The paper had a good deal of Cincinnati advertising, and carried the common run of patent med- icine advertisements of the period. Local advertisements were those of William Havens, McCarty's shop, M. Smith & Son, Rush & Doggett, J. S. Campbell (postoffice and bookstore), Mauzy & Bro., L. H. Thomas & J. Riden- baugh, Donaldson & Pugh, L. & T. Maddux, C. S. Donald- son, Hibben & Flinn, Carmichael & Abernathy, W. W. & H. E. Carr, Bell & Dixon, J. C. Callaghan, E. Armstrong, Joel Wolfe-"The Wolfe House," J. Bacchus-"The Hoosier House," Dr. R. D. Mauzy, Carmichael & Rush, Oglesby & Lakin, William J. Porter, Peter Rider & Thomas Poe, William Crawford, Poe & McGraw, Mar-
21
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garet Frazier. A. F. Woodcock. B. W. S. Caldwell. Glore & Erickson, R. Poundstone, Hackleman's. George C. Clark, Lewis H. Thomas, JJohn Dixon. Dr. William A. Pugh. W. C. Sneed and Doctor Moffett. Hard times evidently came knocking at the door of the Jacksonian about that time, for in February. 1855. Hargitt sold the paper, making the announcement in his valedictory ad- dress that "there are many-too many-of my subscrib- ers who have never paid me a cent for five years. A de- sire to settle with such delinquents and to get my business in a manageable shape has induced me to sell out." In the next issue announcement is made that B. Burns is the editor and proprietor of the paper and John L. Robinson, corresponding editor. the leading editorial of that issue bearing the name of the latter. Whether these gentlemen had better luck with their subscribers than the Hargitts had time perhaps developed, though it is not unlikely that they also had difficulty in making collections, for the lot of the newspaper man in those days was notori- ously full of vicissitude. his labor too frequently being regarded in his community as a labor of love for which mere money would be but an ignominious reward, and his pay for valuable service more often was taken in the chips and whetstones of merchantable commodities rather than in the more liquid currency of the realm. The first copy of the Rushville Republican found on file in this collection is that of No. 31 of Vol. II of that paper. date of August 2, 1854. Cowing & Kemper then being the pub- lishers. Reference to the paper's "masthead" in the next vear. 1855. reveals that Shaddinger, Cox & Cowing (N. Shaddinger, L. J. Cox. W. JJ. Cowing) then were the pub- lishers. Further reference to the various changes in the ownership of these two old papers is made elsewhere in the more detailed account of the history of the same. With one of the files of these old papers rescued from the Clark collection are several "posters," announcing polit- ical meetings of the period. a copy of one of which will be
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interesting to the present generation, as follows, the same carrying date of December 26, 1859: "Union Meeting- In view of the recent events at Harpers Ferry, and of the general excitement which exists throughout the whole country concerning a question of a nature calculated to divide the Union into sections, seriously threatening its stability, and in view of the further fact that the friends of the Union, in various states, are holding meetings for the purpose of strengthening the bonds which unite us together as one people, the undersigned hereby call a meeting for a like purpose, to assemble at Rushville on the last day of this year, December 31, 1859. All parties friendly to the above specified objects are cordially and earnestly invited to attend and participate." This call was signed by John S. Campbell, Thomas Pugh, Thomas J. Meredith, George Hibben, William A. Cullen, Hiram Weed, Joseph Hamilton, William C. McReynolds, Lot Pugh, John Megee, George W. Sloan, Henry Dixon, E. Wagoner, J. J. Amos, Jr., Robert J. Price, Taylor Wad- dell, William Crawford, Benjamin Mitchell, C. S. Don- aldson, B. F. Johnson, Thomas Matlock, E. C. Hibben, John Heaton, James L. Mahan, J. O. Callahan, William B. Cassady, Benjamin F. Voiles, Matthew Smith, M. M. Fairley, J. L. Winship, J. T. Bigger, James Hamilton, D. W. Pugh, David Wiggins and Sampson Cassady. And then on through the years of the Civil war period, of which the above was just the opening, these old papers carry on the local side of the most engrossing story ever evolved in this country, glimpses of the bitter dissensions of that trying period, reflections of heartaches too poign- ant for expression, tales of a time that tried men's souls -- all lying there bound between the musty covers of these old newspaper volumes awaiting a local analysis that never yet has been made, an opportunity right at hand for the thesis of some ambitious student with an instinct for historical expression that ought to carry far along the way to the goal of a coveted degree.
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