USA > Indiana > Contributions to the early history of the Presbyterian Church in Indiana : together with biographical notices of the pioneer ministers > Part 12
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1 Naturally William Conner, "the Father of Central Indiana," at whose house the commissioners met, about sixteen miles north of the present capital, strongly favored the selection of that locality, now Noblesville.
2 By General Marston G. Clark, brother of General George Rogers Clark, "Tecum- seh " was suggested. Another commissioner advocated " Suwaroff."
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George Pogue, a blacksmith, according to tradition came to the site of Indianapolis from the Whitewater,' March 2, 1819. About the same time came also John and James McCormick. These were the earliest arrivals. Late in 1820 and in the following spring, this patch of forest having now acquired celebrity from the commissioners' report to the legislature, other frontiersmen appeared. In April, 1821, the surveyors, under Alexander Ralston, commenced the labor of laying off the town, and on the tenth of October following the state agent, General John Carr, opened the public sale of alternate lots in Matthias Nowland's log tavern, on Washington, west of Missouri Street. The sale occupied several days, and three hun- dred and fourteen lots were disposed of. The Indianapo- lis history was thus fairly begun.
These beginnings were in the literal wilderness. The forests were most dense. What sort of trees stood com- pactly for a hundred miles in every direction from this classical clearing may be suspected from the fact that in the winter of 1820 under the river bank, near Washington Street, a hollow sycamore log furnished Wyandotte John a commodious dwelling. The undergrowth of hazel and pawpaw and spicewood was nearly impenetrable. To all ordinary effort the region was inaccessible on account of the mud, the level surface and the thick shade effecting a direful conspiracy of bogs. An Episcopal missionary sent from Philadelphia declared that, though an old traveler, he had never in any part of the world felt himself to be in greater peril than when attempting to ride a horse through the mire from Madison to the new capital. The agues were as colossal as the swamps and the timber. At times the whole population was prostrated. It would not seem that the attractions of the place were remarkable. A Pari-
J The first emigrants from the eastward and from Kentucky were nearly equal in numbers. The former were known as the " Whitewater " people.
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sian transported over the poplars and walnuts in the summer of 1821, and set down at Carter's tavern on "Berry's Trace," would soon have begun to sigh for home.
But let it not be supposed that the isolated, sallow, log-cabined settlement was either puny or pitiable. The truth is that a singularly hardy and energetic population were already here, and such were their mental and social qualities that at least on its well days and intermittently the hamlet had an air not only of cheerfulness but of dig- nity. Calvin Fletcher, Harvey Gregg, and Obed Foote were the attorneys. Isaac Coc, Samuel G. Mitchell, and Livingston Dunlap dispensed the Peruvian bark and calo- mel, and were assisted by Jonathan Cool whenever old rye and old rhymes could spare him. Daniel Shaffer, the Pennsylvania Dutchman and the hero of the early "rais- ings," opened, on the south bank of Pogue's Creek, the first store. He soon had important rivals in John Givan and Nicholas McCarty. Colonel James Blake was the steam-engine of the place in those days when steam- engines were almost unknown. James M. Ray, the clerk at the sale of lots, became the first county clerk. Caleb Scudder was the cabinet-maker, Wilkes Reagan the butcher, and John Van Blaricum the horse-shoer. Amos Hanway made the wash-tubs and buckets, and Samuel S. Rooker, the first sign-painter, soon had orders from Car- ter's "Rosebush" and Hawkins's "Eagle" Tavern. Samuel Henderson was postmaster until 1829; Morris Morris and Daniel Yandes were projecting corn-fields and tan-yards ; George Smith, of the coming Gazette news- paper, made himself queer with a long queue supersti- tiously tied with an eel-skin string ; and John McCormick was the crack fisherman, who, it was said, could in two or three hours load a canoe with "gar" from his lucky gig.
Of the primitive population it will be seen that a large
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and influential portion was Presbyterian. A minister soon came to them. In August, 1821, two months before the sale of lots, the first Presbyterian sermon was delivered. The service was held under a large black walnut tree near the southwest corner of Washington and Mississippi Streets, the underbrush having been laboriously cleared away for the occasion. It may be worth while to attempt a reproduction of the scene. Dr. Isaac Coe, James Blake, Caleb Scudder, and James M. Ray were the acknowledged leaders. Coe, by virtue of his talents, zeal, and ecclesias- tical experience, was, then and afterward, foremost. He
was as sound a stick of Calvinism as ever grew. He came from sturdy stock. The first of the name who emigrated to America was Robert Coe, from Ipswich, Suffolkshire, England, with seventy-four other pilgrims, in the ship Francis, captain John Cutting, in the year 1634. He resided first at Watertown, Mass., and afterward at Stam- ford, Conn. The grandfather of this first emigrant, of the same name, suffered martyrdom in Suffolkshire in Septem- ber, 1555. He was burned by Queen Mary and is
mentioned in Fox's "Book of Martyrs." Dr. Isaac Coe came from Virginia to Indianapolis, by Madison, in May, 1821. He was a man of mind, educated, thoroughly settled in the highest principles of morality, and a com- petent guide in all Christian affairs. Blake, whose cheer- ful energy in days of war and peace was itself an inspiration, had before him a long and prominent career of usefulness. Scudder, in a quiet sphere, illustrated the value to a young community of mature and modest virtue. Ray surviving until March, 1881, was permitted to teach another generation what serenity and strength religion can afford for days of darkness. 1 Brought together under the big tree on that memorable August day, these four men
1 For notices of the pioneers of the town see Ignatius Brown's " Historical Sketch," Holloway's " Indianapolis," and Nowland's " Early Reminiscences of Indianapolis."
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were destined in yet closer bonds to toil side by side for many a year.
The preacher at this first service, a stout, florid man, with a great voice and a big wart on his forehead, was the Rev. Ludwell G. Gaines, of Ohio, an itinerant sent to the field by the Assembly's Committee of Missions. James M. Ray writes :
He was a robust man, earnest in impressing the value of religion and good morals in our young community, and was listened to with interest and quietly by about two hundred and fifty of the settlers (as we called each other then). His forcible appeals tended to strengthen those among the first comers who wished to have Sunday kept from the beginning in the future capital of the state and to have the day rescued from the indul- gence in shooting game and fishing then general in the West.
Licensed by Miami Presbytery April 5, 1821, imme- diately after his Indiana tour, Mr. Gaines was in October appointed to the charge of Hopewell and Somerset in Ohio. He died February 6, 1861. " He was a man of deep piety and earnest devotion to his Master's work."
It was some time before this community of Presbyterians again heard a sermon from one of their own ministers, though late the same autumn,1 on his way to Missouri, whither the Connecticut Missionary Society had sent him, young David Choate Proctor passed through Indiana and Illinois. The lack of a minister was in part supplied by the diligence of Isaac Coe, who opened a Bible class, February 20, 1822, at the house of Lismund Basye .? Two or three months later, returning homewards from the Mis- sissippi, Mr. Proctor spent a week during the month of May at Indianapolis, on several occasions preaching to the
1 Cf. " Life and Times of Stephen Bliss," pp. 56-9. (It was after, not before, the occasion alluded to by the biographer of Bliss that Proctor's service at Indianapolis began.)
2 Cf. Greene's " Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Indianapolis Sabbath Schools," p. 5.
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people. An effort was made to detain him permanently, and four hundred dollars were subscribed for three fourths of his time for one year from the first of the ensuing Octo- ber. The remaining Sabbath of each month was to be given to Bloomington. Meanwhile the Rev. Isaac Reed visited the congregation about the first of June ; and finally, according to the previous arrangement, Mr. Proc- tor in October assumed charge of the parish, and thus became the first settled minister at the capital. During this early period the extemporized pulpit was for the sum- mer in Caleb Scudder's cabinet-shop, and through the winter at the residence of Judge McIlvaine.
On Friday, March 7, 1823, the first number of the Western Censor and Emigrants' Guide contained the following :
PUBLIC NOTICE :- The Presbyterian congregation will meet on Saturday, the 22d day of March, inst., at one o'clock, at the schoolhouse in the town of Indianapolis, for the purpose of incor- porating themselves, agreeably to an act of the legislature, and electing trustees. It is particularly requested that all persons who subscribed for building a meeting-house and for the support of Mr. Proctor will attend.
The subscription for the meeting-house had already reached the sum of twelve hundred dollars. The second number of the Censor, March 19, says :
We understand that the establishment of a Sunday-school is in contemplation in this town. We hope for the benefit of society that it will be successful. The advantages that have been de- rived from these institutions in many parts of the United States have already had a very considerable effect upon society.
On April 2, the same paper continues :
We are requested to state that the Sunday-school will hold its first meeting on Sunday morning, the 6th inst., at Mr. Scudder's cabinet-shop.
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According to appointment the school did meet amidst the saws and the shavings. James M. Ray was elected superintendent and thirty scholars were enrolled, of whom some came six miles. Thus began the march of that grand army for so many years marshalled, each Fourth of July, by Colonel James Blake, to hear the Declaration of Independence and eat gingerbread in the State-House Square. One of the original members of the first school says :
Fifty years ago to-day I entered that school, a boy eight years old, and did not know one letter of the alphabet, nor do I believe that among the ten or twelve boys present there was one who could spell his own name, or would know it should he see it in print. The incidents of that day were calculated to make a lasting impression on the young mind. The Sunday-school had been the topic of conversation with the boys of the village for some time. We thought it a great innovation upon our personal rights. We thought that Messrs. Coe, Blake, and Ray, who organized the school, were assuming power they had no right to. I was assigned to the class of the late James Blake, who taught me the alphabet, as well as to spell and read. In Mr. Blake's class I learned to repeat the Catechism, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments. I remained in that school some nine or ten years and there learned many useful and instructive lessons. The rules at first were most rigid, and delinquency on the part of the scholars was severely reprimanded and reported to their parents. One of the rules required that we should attend church on the Sabbath; hence Sunday was a day of rest to the ground squirrels and rabbits. Birds were left uninterrupted to build their nests.1
1
Thus far there was only the Sabbath-school-a union school, heartily supported by Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and New Lights, who for five years wrought harmoniously together .? But by the Sunday-school is
1 Letter of J. H. B. Nowland in Greene's pamphlet, p. 16.
2 The separate Methodist school was not established until April 24, 1829. That of the Baptists was organized in 1833.
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sure to grow the church. Accordingly says the Censor newspaper, June 18, 1823 :
We are requested to give information that a Presbyterian church will be formed in this place and the sacrament attended on the first Sabbath in July. The service on this occasion will , commence on the Friday preceding at two o'clock.
This arrangement was afterward slightly changed, and the Censor, July 9, announced that
On Saturday, the 5th inst. (July, 1823), a Presbyterian church was constituted in this town. Fifteen members were received into communion. The Rev. Mr. Proctor, the resident minister, was assisted on the occasion by the Rev. Mr. Martin, the Rev. Mr. Reed, and the Rev. Mr. Day, who went away pleased with the conduct and orderly deportment of our citizens.
So early had the backwoods capital established a reputa- tion for propriety and order.
For the Saturday service the congregation found the usual shelter in the cabinet-shop. Thither the fifteen persons who were to compose the society, with their friends, made their way through the thickets and along the cow-tracks. The next day, for the first communion season, they were to have a grander welcome. The twelve-hundred-dollar meeting-house was not complete, but could be occupied. Thirty-four by fifty-four feet it was, on Pennsylvania Street, just north of Market. There assembled the Sunday congregation with eloquent " Father" Martin, ubiquitous Isaac Reed, and Ezra H. Day, so near the end of his short career, to assist Mr. Proctor in the administration of the sacrament. That day's work, setting up God's altars in what was to be the most populous and important community of the state, was one well worth the toilsome journeys from Livonia, from the " Cottage of Peace" in Owen County, and from New Albany. To complete the picture it is necessary to sketch the career and character of the central figure
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of the occasion, who for a few months longer was to remain in charge of the flock.
DAVID CHOATE PROCTOR, born in New Hampshire in 1792, a graduate of Dartmouth and of Andover, was licensed by a Congregational Association, and in 1822, having received ordination, came to the West, under ap- pointment from the Connecticut Missionary Society. He crossed the Wabash about March Ist, and on the 5th of the same month organized the first Presbyterian church in Edwards County, Il1.1 He visited Indianapolis in the following May and concluded his engagement with the congregation there for one year from the subsequent October. From Indianapolis he removed to Kentucky in the fall of 1823 and took charge of the Springfield and Lebanon churches. His services at Lebanon were highly acceptable," but in 1826 he was called to the presidency of Centre College at Danville, a position which he held from the resignation of Dr. Chamberlain until the election of Dr. Blackburn in the ensuing year. Upon his marriage he settled upon the venerable plantation near Shelbyville. When the education of his children required it he trans- ferred his residence for four years to New Haven, Conn., having previously disposed of his estate. Returning to Kentucky, he purchased a farm near Frankfort, where he died of pneumonia January 18, 1865.
In person Mr. Proctor was of medium height, of dark complexion, and of attractive presence. He was of a social disposition, fond of anecdotes, and devoted to his horse. Later in life he cultivated a marked decorum of manner and of speech. In reply to an ordinary question about the probabilities of the weather he would be likely to say : "Really, sir, I cannot affirm." To his friends he was
1 " Life and Times of Stephen Bliss," pp. 56-9.
2 " Historical Discourse Preached at Lebanon " by the Rev. A. A. Hogue, Louisville, 1859, pp. 9, 10.
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strongly attached and was accustomed to "use hospital- ity." "I reckon Kentucky would suit him," said one who knew his early characteristics and the cordiality of southern society. "A real Yankee he was in some things," is the recollection of another who had in mind his minute and sagacious advice to seamstresses and cooks. In busi- ness affairs his precision and order became proverbial, these qualities also appearing in the carefulness of his toilet. His thrift was extraordinary. "There was not a man in Shelby County whose judgment about a horse would be more valued." Dr. Thomas H. Cleland speaks of his recollection of names and faces : "He knew every chick and child." One who was long associated with him writes :
He was a well-educated minister. His preaching was sound and useful, though not particularly attractive in the manner of utterance. Very few of our ministers in Kentucky have done so much gratuitous labor in feeble churches and destitute regions. If he had given himself wholly to the work he would have done more, but he was exceedingly sensitive and rather than be de- pendent on anybody he chose to "labor with his own hands " and preach without compensation. I think he misjudged in his plans of life and usefulness, but I confess to an admiration for his generosity and independence.1
1 MS. letter of the Rev. Dr. Edward P. Humphrey, dated June 27, 1876.
CHAPTER X.
EXTENSION TOWARD THE NORTH.
1822.
THUS far the labors of Protestant missionaries had been almost wholly confined to the southern half of Indiana. That vast northern tract of swamp and forest which with char- acteristic acumen and enterprise the French priests had ex- plored and seized upon two hundred years before, until now had continued to be the happy hunting ground of Indians. Wallace, a Presbyterian chaplain, had at an early day gone with the troops to the junction of the St. Joseph and the St. Mary,' but the church sent no successor after him. There was indeed too scanty a white population to require a stated ministry. Not until 1821, when the surveys for the capital were completed, did the conditions annexed to the treaty of St. Mary's expel the red man from these ancient haunts of duck and deer. Their enforced depart- ure was the signal for moving the line of settlements north- ward. With the settlers promptly came a missionary of the General Assembly. In December, 1822, John Ross, who afterward attained a longevity entirely unique in our annals, preached the first Presbyterian sermon to the resi- dents of Fort Wayne. From May, 1820, to the time of Mr. Ross's visit, the Rev. Isaac McCoy, of the Baptist Church, had resided there, preaching the gospel and main- taining a mission school for the benefit of the Indians. In August, 1822, a Baptist society was organized, consist- ing of the mission family, two Indian women, and one 1 See Chapter 1V.
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black man. ' Mr. Ross found at the settlement about one hundred and fifty persons, including French and half- breeds, mainly engaged in the Indian trade. The nearest village was at Shane's Prairie, forty miles distant. Except as the trace was dotted with occasional cabins, a day's journey apart, all northwest of Piqua was a wilderness.
The missionary, who at the time was pastor of a church in the New Jersey settlement on the Big Miami, opposite Franklin, took passage in a light two-horse wagon, with Matthias Griggs, of Lebanon, Ohio, afterward a member of the church at Fort Wayne and now about to visit that place on a trading expedition with hats and dried fruits. In a letter dated November 26, 1859, Mr. Ross describes the peril and exposure of the journey ; how their first night's encampment in the woods, a few miles north of Dayton, was made memorable by the howling of wolves on every side ; how the snow-storm afterward met them in the wilderness with intense cold, which froze fast in the mud the wheels of their wagon ; how, failing to strike fire from the flint, the woodsman's last hope, they were com- pelled to leave their conveyance under guard of a faithful dog ; how, by walking and leading their horses, the cold being too severe to ride, they reached Fort Wayne at a late hour on a wintry night ; and with what kindness he was received by Samuel Hanna, afterward long an honored elder in the Fort Wayne church. Mr. Ross says :
The next day being the Sabbath, I preached in the fort morning and afternoon, because there was no other convenient place to preach in. I visited the place five times from 1822 to 1826. I was once sent out to Fort Wayne by the Synod of Ohio. In all my visitations I preached in St. Mary's, Shane's Prairie, and Willshire, and scattered religious tracts and Bibles. There was no place that appeared to me so unpromising as Fort Wayne. There was no Sabbath kept, but on the part of a few.2
1 Williams's " Historical Sketch," pp. 12, 13.
2 Williams's " Historical Sketch," pp. 13-5. It was not until November, 1829, that any further missionary work was attempted at Fort Wayne. The A. II. M. Society
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JOHN Ross, who assisted so prominently in laying the foundations of Christian society at Kekionga, had a remarkable career. He was born of Roman Catholic parents in Dublin, Ireland, July 23, 1783. Early made an orphan, he went to Liverpool when about eighteen years of age, and became a shoemaker's apprentice. He was three times impressed into the British service, the third time just as he had completed his apprenticeship. Sent to the West Indies, he finally effected an escape with six com- rades, and concealing himself in an American vessel landed at New London, Conn., hatless, shoeless, and penniless. For a time he was employed at his trade, but experiencing conversion began a course of study for the Protestant ministry. Graduating from Middlebury College and from Princeton Seminary at the age of thirty-four, he was mar- ried at Stonington, Conn., and labored as a missionary in Philadelphia. He was settled at Somerset, Pa., and suc- cessively at Gallipolis, Ripley,1 and the Jersey settlement in Butler County, Ohio, coming from the latter parish to Richmond, Ind., in the year 1824. During a pastorate there of five years he removed to a farm near the town, where he resided for sixteen years, supplying vacancies as he was able, and until financial reverses compelled his removal. Again becoming a laborious itinerant, his last
then sent out the Rev. Charles E. Furman, in response to an appeal from Allen Ham- ilton, the postmaster, who represented that there were five hundred people there and no preaching within eighty miles. Mr. Furman continued his labor in the place for about six months. In June, 1831, the Rev. James Chute, of the Presbytery of Columbus, vis- ited Fort Wayne, and on the first of July following organized the first Presbyterian church, consisting of seven members, Smalwood Noel and Jolin McIntosh being ruling elders. In September, under appointment of the A. H. M. Society, Mr. Chute took up his residence in the place. He was born at Boxford, Essex County, Mass., November 15, 1788 ; graduated from Dartmouth in 1813; studied divinity under the tutelage of Dr. J. L. Wilson, of Cincinnati; and died at Fort Wayne, December 28, 1835. Cf. " Memoir of the Rev. James Chute," privately printed, 1874.
1 Mr. Ross was succeeded at Ripley by John Rankin of "underground railroad " fame. A son of the latter recollects that the people of the parish used to illustrate the amiable unworldliness of Father Ross by narrating how, though without a horse, he bought up sets of harness because they were cheap, and in his garden diligently pulled up the big corn to give the weaker stalks a chance.
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settlement was at Burlington, Ind. Overcome finally by the infirmities of age, he found a home under the roof of his daughter at Tipton, where he lingered until March II, 1876, having nearly completed his ninety-third year. He was a faithful minister of the New Testament and showed through all his public life a trust in providence which early perils and deliverances had been well calculated to de- velop. 1
While the new ground in the extreme north was being broken the more familiar region along the Ohio was at the same time receiving attention. In the church at New Albany, too long neglected, hope was rekindled by the ·coming of a pastor.
The plat of the city of New Albany had been drafted in 1813. Five years later than that, however, large trunks of trees which had been felled but not removed lay over most of the town." But the place had "a steam saw-mill, sev- eral stores, mechanics' shops, and a boat yard for the building of steamboats." Joel Scribner, a prominent landowner and one of the first settlers, was a Presbyterian. On the 19th of February, 1816, a church was organized at Jeffersonville, composed of members residing there and at New Albany, which was called " The Union Church of Jef- fersonville and New Albany." Thomas Posey, governor of the territory, and his wife, John Gibson and his wife, James M. Tunstal, James Scribner, Joel Scribner, Phebe Scribner, Esther Scribner, and Anna M. Gibson consti- tuted the membership. Thomas Posey and Joel Scribner were chosen elders. Subsequently Mary Merriwether and Mary Wilson were admitted to the communion. On the
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