USA > Indiana > Historic Indiana : being chapters in the story of the Hoosier state from the romantic period of foreign exploration and dominion through pioneer days, stirring war times, and periods of peaceful progress, to the present time > Part 11
USA > Indiana > Historic Indiana : being chapters in the story of the Hoosier state from the romantic period of foreign exploration and dominion through pioneer days, stirring war times, and periods of peaceful progress, to the present time, centennial ed. > Part 11
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
The dress of the prominent men of this time was of blue cloth with brass button's, buff small-clothes, a white vest, and fine linen ruffled shirts, the hair in a queue, and the hat of beaver. A list of prices charged for tailor's work in 1816 mentions three dollars as the charge for making a gentleman's cloak, five-fifty for a surtout, two-seventy-five for hussars, three dollars for shirrivallies, two-fifty for short breeches, and five dollars for making a dragoon's coat. If mother did the sewing, as in most families at that time she did, the tailor would cut a man's coat for a dollar, and
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the waistcoat and pantaloons for thirty-seven and a half cents each.
The court-houses in those days were built of logs, and the sheriffs seem to have been selected as officials, on account of their fine voices to call the jurors and witnesses from the woods to the door of the court building, and their ability to run down and catch offenders. The condition under which justice was dispensed is reflected in the memory of a prosecuting attorney in the Third District. He says:
" We rode the circuit on horseback. There were no bridges over the streams, but we rode good swimming horses, and never faltered for high water, but plunged in and always found the opposite side somehow. The great variety of trials and incidents in the circuit gave to the life of a travelling attorney an interest that we all relished exceed- ingly. There was no dyspepsia, no gout, no ennui, no neuralgia. All was good humor, fine jokes well received, good appetites and sound sleeping, cheerful landlords and good-natured landladies at the head of the tables in the taverns. We rode first-class horses, costing from fifty to ninety dollars, the highest price. They were trained to travel on cross-pole and to swim the creeks."
The story of the change of capitals is a reflection of the development of the Territory from the French trading era through American settlement to a real- ization of future conditions, when the whole State should be inhabited. Vincennes was one of the oldest towns in the western part of the continent. We know it first as the French trading-post. The antiquity is not so great as the lack of written history. Judge Law claimed 1710 as the year of the building of the fort, and that Father Mermat was the first mission- ary, and was sent to the post in 1712. Mr. Myers
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has made most interesting researches into the sub- ject, and Mr. Dunn, after a careful survey of all of the evidence obtainable, places the first foundation of a town in Indiana at the military post at Vincennes, about the year 1731. From the first it was included by the French Government in the Province of Louisi- ana; it was located on the east bank of the Wabash amidst broad prairies. As time went on, English- speaking people were added to the original French inhabitants, and when the American Congress granted Territorial government Vincennes was designated as the little capital, and the Legislature sat there until 1814. Governor William Henry Harrison had oc- cupied this town as his official residence, while ruler of the Northwest Territory. The Vincennes University was granted a charter in 1807, and with it authority to raise by lottery twenty thousand dollars for its establishment and maintenance. In that time lot- teries constituted a very prevalent way of raising funds with which to build churches and schools, to pave the streets, to construct turnpikes, and to buy fire- engines. When the Territorial Legislature was in session, in 1813, it passed a bill, much against the wishes of the old French town, removing the seat of Territorial government from Vincennes to the town of Corydon, in Harrison County, where the Assembly met the following December. One argument that was used for the necessity of this removal was the peril from hostile Indians on the border of the State, and the danger in which the archives might be found in case of an incursion! Madison, Salem, and other towns aspired to become the seat of government; the latter village threatened to take up the capital, and bear it off bodily! Madison offered one thousand
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dollars bonus to secure it! In the year 1820, after much heated discussion, and many objections from the southern section of the State, the General Assembly of Indiana appointed ten commissioners, from as many different counties, to select a site for the per- manent seat of the State government. It was rec- ognized that in time the capital must occupy a central location. This would make the proposed site come within what was then the wilderness, called the "New Purchase," a tract ceded by the Indians ten years before. It would also rule out any favoritism toward sections already occupied. The commission met at the house of William Conner, on the west fork of the White River, in May of the same year. That well-known citizen, General John Tipton, one of the commissioners, has left a journal, which is a circumstantial account, of great interest, describing the journey taken in the work of determining the exact location for the future permanent capital of Indiana. General Tipton had been a soldier in the battle of Tippecanoe, nine years before, and knew the territory that was to be traversed. It was he who purchased the land on which that battle was fought, where the soldiers, who fell in that conflict, were buried, and presented the historic field to the State. He was afterwards United States Senator. A few extracts from General Tipton's diary will give an idea of the frontier conditions which prevailed at that time where the new capital was to be founded. We reproduce it without corrections. He says:
"On Wednesday the 17 of May 1820 I set out from Cory- don in Company with Gov'r Jennings. I had been ap- pointed by the last legislature one of the commissioners to select & locate a site for the permanent seat of govern-
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ment of the state of Ind'a (we took with us Bill a Black Bouy) Haveing laid in plenty of Baker [bacon?] coffy &c and provided a tent we stopt at B. Bells two hours then set out and at 7 came to Mr. Winemans [?] on Blue River. stopt for the K't [night] "thursday the 18th. "some frost; set out early Stopt at Salem had breckfast paid $1.00 B &c and Bo't some powder paper &c paid 2.12 } Set out at 11 crost Muscakituck paid 25 cts and stopt at Col Durhams in Vallonia who was also a Commissioner here we found Gen'l Bartholomew one of the commissioners I cleaned out my gun after dinner we went to shooting"
"Sunday 21 set out at ¿ p 4; at 5 passed a corner of S 36 T II N of R 4 E passed a plaice where Bartholomew and my self had encamped in June 1813 missed our way traveled east then turned Back; at 8 stopt on a mudy Branch Boiled our coffy set out at 9 or } p 9. I killed a deer the first I have killed since 1814 at 10 came on the traice at creek, found tree where I had wrote my name and dated the 19th June 1813 we traveled fast and at 7 encamped on a small creek having traveled about 45 miles (horseback of course)
Monday, 22d
"a fine clier morning we set out at sunrise at 2 p 6 crost fall creek at a ripple stopt to B [bathe?] shave put on clean clothes &c this creek runs between 30 & forty miles perrelled with White river and about 6 or 8 miles from it in this creek we saw plenty of fine fish; set out at 9 and passed a corner of S 32 & 33 in T 17 N of R 4 E at 15 P II came to the lower Delaware Town crost the river went up to the n w side and at once came to the house of William Conner the place appointed for the meeting of the commissioners he lives on a Prairie of about 250 acres of the White R bottom a number of Indian Huts near his house: on our arrival we found G Hunt of Wayne County John Conner of Fayette Stephen Ludlow of Dear- born John Gilliland of Switzerland & Thos Emmison (Emerson) of Knox waiting us Wm Prince and F Rapp
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not being up, we waited until late in the evening We then met and were sworn according to law and adjourned until tomorrow evening"
"Wednesday the 24th a dark morning. at 9 Gov'r Jennings with the other comr. came on us set out for the mouth of fall creek Last Kt I staid in an Indian town saw some drunk Indians this morning sat at the Table of a Frenchman who has long lived with the Indians and lives with them he furnished his table for us with eggs: altered times since 1813 when I was last there hunting the Indians with whom we now eat drink and sleep they have now sold their land for a trifle and prepareing to leave the country, where they have laid their fathers and relatives, in which we are now hunting a site for the seat of Govrt of our State."
After selecting a site near Fall Creek and having it surveyed, they started homeward, concluding the journal with this entry :
"Sunday the II. Stopt at Major Arganbrites [?], had dinner, etc. At dark got safe home, having been absent 27 days, the compensation allowed us commisioners by the law being $2 for every 25 miles traveled to and from the place where we met, and $2 for each day's service while engaged in the discharge of our duty, my pay for the trip being $58-not half what I could have made in my office. A very poor compensation." 1
The site selected was a heavily wooded miasmatic wilderness, sixty miles from nearest civilization, and at that time most inconveniently inland, so far as real navigation was to be had; and this remained the handicap of Indianapolis for a decade. Indian trails were the only paths to the place, and there
1 Tipton, John, "Journal," published in vol. i., No. 2, p. 74, Ind. Mag. of Hist., 1905.
.
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were no accommodations upon arrival. There were few people in the village, and settlers were so slow to choose it as a place to live, that at the end of the time named, when the Legislature should actually sit in the new capital, it had only one thousand popu- lation. The jealousy felt by the other sections against the new seat of government was shown in many ways. In 1820, Brookville had been made head- quarters for the entries of lands, for all the State northward of the Wabash. All purchasers must visit that village. For five years, the little town had en- joyed the prosperity and distinction of being the political and social centre of that part of the State. When the land office was moved to the new capital, the change was most bitterly opposed. In a pompous speech by one of the local celebrities, he referred to the little insignificant capital in the woods, as a place buried in miasmatic solitude and surrounded by a bound- less contiguity of shade. There was much discussion about what the embryo capital should be called. Indian names seemed to be in the minds of all. "Te- cumseh " was rejected, as too closely connected with past horrors, and "Suwarrow" was also dropped. Finally Indiana-polis was agreed upon, as combining a notion of the aborigines and a future metropolis.
The county was organized, and in 1821 Alexander Ralston and his assistants laid out the capital on the present beautiful lines. Ralston was a Scotchman of ability, and fortunately had seen Old World cities and had assisted in the work of surveying the city of Washington, which gave him the advantage of a broader view of the future requirements of a capital city than would have been supplied by a frontiersman. To this training, and the sense of space which the
.
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wilderness must have impressed on one, the city is indebted for its broad streets and liberal plan.
The lots were offered for sale to secure funds to build the State buildings, but few buyers came forward. The important business lots of the present day, on the corner of Washington and Delaware Streets, sold for $560.00, and others likewise. After ten years the author- ities put the price at $10.00 for the lowest lot, and in 1842, they had closed the city out for $125,000.00! With this fund they built the State-house, Court-house, Gov- ernor's residence, Clerks' Office, and Treasurer's Office, which would not allow much margin for "graft," even in the crude architecture adopted for these State buildings. In November, 1824, Mr. Samuel Merrill, the Treasurer, brought the State papers and books from Corydon to the new capital in one wagon, with his family in another. The roads were so execrable at that season of the year that twelve miles and a half a day was all the distance they could cover. In January, 1825, the first Legisla- ture met in Indianapolis, and the permanent capital was established. For several decades many other towns in the State, especially those on the rivers, were of more commercial importance, and more attractive socially, than Indianapolis. The meeting of the Legis- lature was the only event of interest; and it was twenty-two years before the first railroad made the town accessible.
In 1825, when General de La Fayette made a tour of America, he could not journey to the capital of the new State and Indiana's Governor went to Jeffersonville, on the Ohio River, to welcome the hero to Indiana soil. In the forest adjoining that village a feast was spread, to which the General was conducted by the State militia and children strewed flowers in his path. At
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the head of the long two-hundred-and-fifty-foot table, was an arch with the inscription, "Indiana welcomes La Fayette, the champion of liberty in both hemi- spheres."
After Indianapolis actually became the seat of govern- ment, the authorities being anxious to have the streets opened up, gave the magnificent timber, in what is now Washington Street, to the contractor for removing it. After the trees were felled, there were no mills to cut them up, and no demand for lumber, so the logs were rolled up in piles and burned, to the loss of the contractor and the regret of later generations. Great sugar groves occupied the ground where the Soldiers' Monument now stands, and where the State-house is situated. The first mail route was established in 1822 by popular subscription, and in the same year a newspaper ap- peared, as the forerunner of that brilliant series of journals which have since characterized the city. In the following year, a Union Sunday-School was started and the first of several Presbyterian Churches was organized a few months later. Said Henry Ward Beecher when pastor of one of them: "We have given Indianapolis a deep-blue Presbyterian tinge, which should last for several generations to keep her straight."
The first violators of the law in the village had to be sent sixty miles overland to Fayette County, to the nearest jail; and the earliest couples that were married went to the same county-seat to get a license. As there was no outlet to markets, corn sold for ten cents a bushel, butter from three to eight cents a pound, eggs for five cents a dozen, and chickens for sixty cents a dozen. Dr. W. H. Wishard said in an address on the medical men and the practice in the early day in that city:
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"Indianapolis was laid out in a dense forest with a heavy undergrowth of spice wood, prickly ash, weeds, and grape- vines, that made it impossible, in many places, for a man to go through the forest on horseback. There was but one road open that might be called a highway. That was from Brookville. There was an Indian trail from Straw- town and Conner's Prairie to Vincennes. In 1821, there was not one well person in ten. Dr. Coe was the only physician able for duty. He could be seen at all hours of the day and night wending his way from cabin to cabin, through the most impenetrable forest; the owls hooting and the wolves serenading him in his lonely walk, and the rattlesnakes shaking their tails every few rods to notify him that they were on the warpath. This picture is not overdrawn. The sickness and fatality of that year brought Indianapolis into such disrepute that it discouraged emigration. As the doctors had to ride into the country ten or fifteen miles, it was no unusual thing for a doctor to get lost and have to spend the night in the saddle or up a sapling. Such nights were not the most pleasant. The music was varied between the panthers, wolves, owls, and raccoon fights."1
In this fashion the practice of medicine was followed in Indianapolis when the capital was moved to the town in 1824. In those times, the regular practition- ers had the competition of certain old crones, who gathered herbs and simples in the right time of the moon, and administered this tea with weird and mysterious incantations, which the ignorant believed was working wonderful cures. There were no grist mills, and all the flour and meal must be carted a distance of sixty miles. The "cassimeres, bombazettes, dress shawls, cap-stuff, nankeen, and cambrick," that
1 Wishard, Dr. W. H., Address, printed by State Medical Society of Indiana.
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were advertised for my lady's Sunday apparel, were brought from Cincinnati in pack-saddles, when the roads were too bad for the professional teamsters to pass over the trail. Teaming was a calling in those days for the stout-hearted. They decorated their horses with bows over the hames, which were hung with bells to make music wherever they floundered. Twelve days from Cincinnati, and ten from Lawrence- burg, was the length of time required when the roads were at their best. Two dollars a hundredweight was the minimum charge, and it took four horses to pull the load even when the weather was fine.
But in time, fertile lands and official importance off- set the lack of river transportation, and gradually an excellent class of settlers was attracted to central Indiana. Mr. Fletcher wrote back to a Virginia friend:
"I am much pleased with the inhabitants of this new purchase. We have none here but independent free- holders, and a much more enlightened set of people than any others I have seen in a western country. We have emancipators from Kentucky, who are a sober class, and we have the thrift of Ohio. Our laws and constitution are truly republican. All fines on military delinquents and for misdemeanors are appropriated to the use of the county seminaries in the State."1
Judge Banta told of one bully, who used to boast that he maintained one corner of Johnson County Seminary, by his fines for disturbing the peace. Through two decades, Indianapolis sought by the construction of turnpikes, the National road, and canals, to overcome the disadvantages of its inland location until railroads were introduced. After the Civil War, Indianapolis
1 Indiana Magazine of History, vol. ii., 1906.
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became the metropolis as well as the beautiful capital. In the last quarter of a century, she attained her present reputation for commercial, intellectual, and social leadership, as well as being the official centre of the State.
The new State was now steadily growing in population and wealth, in fact the population doubled between 1830 and 1841, but in 1832 there was a border war that startled the settlers and brought out the State militia and a large number of volunteers from Indiana. Black Hawk, the chief of the Sac Indians, with headquarters on Rock River in Illinois, had refused to submit peace- fully to the banishment of the tribes west of the Mis- sissippi. He was a cunning and skilful leader and rallied the Fox and Sac tribes into armed resistance. The northwestern part of Indiana was but sparsely settled at that time. The lonely homes that dotted the prairies, west and north of the Wabash River, were still exposed to attack from any band of Indians that might steal upon them from northern Illinois. The Pottawatomie and Miami tribes were still on their reservations, on the Mississinewa River. In May, 1832, the Governor of Illinois had called his troops to arms; and the news came that several persons had been murdered on Hickory Creek, and that the hostile Indians were infesting the country around Chicago. The counties along the Wabash hastily assembled bands of volunteers, and rode forth to defend the out- lying borders. Scouts ranged over the country in every direction, hunting for detached bands of savages. The settlers on the border, from Vincennes to La Porte, flocked into the villages and camped around the towns for protection. The scattered people in the outlying counties gathered into the fort and block-
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houses, in terror of the scalping invaders. Many false reports further terrified the poor squatters: at one time it would be that the Miamis were rising; at another that the Indians, a thousand strong, were crossing Nine-Mile Prairie killing as they went; again word would come in from Sugar River that the whoop of the invaders was ringing through the forest there. Meanwhile the Illinois troops fought several fierce en- gagements and were driving the savages from their State towards Wisconsin. On the second of August Black Hawk was overtaken, his troops defeated, and he foiled in his desperate plans. The chief was made a prisoner; which terminated the horrors of that short but savage war. Indiana was not invaded; the troops she raised were not needed, but there was every reason for the terrors of the settlers and the prompt response of the volunteers. The people throughout that region were familiar with danger from experience not long past. The bloody tragedies enacted in the earlier settlements were fresh in their memories. There were but few families then residing in the State who had not lost some of their number by the hostile Indians.
Col. Cockrum tells a droll story of this war, illustra- tive of the courage of pioneer women. The head of a family, living west of Lafayette, in great affright, gathered up his children in a cart, and, driving up to the door, was amazed to find that his wife had no in- tention of running from the savages on hearsay of danger. She told him that if he wished to go he might, but that when he recovered from his scare he would find her and the baby at the same old cabin. Bidding her a final, affectionate farewell, he still insisted on her going with him. "No," she said; "take the children and go. If I never see you again, I shall die with the
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satisfaction of knowing that I had a husband who thought too much of his scalp to permit any Indian to have his black glossy locks as an ornament to his helmet." The husband and children remained away a few days, and no Indians materializing, he returned and found Bowser and Tige barking a welcome. Upon going into the cabin, they were welcomed by the courageous wife, who had one foot on the rocker and the other on the treadle of the spinning-wheel, while both hands were busy with the distaff. Looking around the house, the brave man espied a fine wild gobbler ready for dinner and a fresh coon-skin hanging on the wall. With beautiful consistency he exclaimed : "Mandy, why in thunderation have you been so free in using my powder?" She composedly replied : "Never mind, Ebenezer, there is plenty left. If you hear of an Indian crossing the Mississippi River, you wont need it, for you 'll be on the go to Lafayette again."
In the beginning of Indiana's history as a separate commonwealth there was no State currency in cir- culation. Barter was universal. The only specie ever seen was the British and Spanish silver coinage. There were no gold coins in circulation in this section of the country until after the discovery of gold mines in California. For small change, Spanish dollars were cut into quarters, eighths, and sixteenths. These were called "bits," "two-bits," and "fo-pence" pieces. A fip was equal to five cents, you often heard an article priced at a "fip-and-a-bit. ' The government de- manded cash payments for lands, but aside from this purchase only salt, hardware, and a few such imported commodities brought actual money ; all else was trade in the West.
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The first constitution of Indiana had tried to safe- guard the currency of the future; but financial troubles began before the organization of the State, with the volume of Ohio bank-notes, which were disbursed by the General Government during the War of 1812-14. The Territorial bank which had been chartered at Vincennes was made a State institution in 1817, with branches at Corydon, Brookfield, Vevay, and Madison. This little chain of banks began well, and would have been a great financial blessing to the new country had they not drifted into reckless ways. Soon they con- tracted debts to an amount double that of their de- posits, embezzled large sums from those deposits, and, issuing currency beyond all possible means in their power of redemption, brought ruin upon themselves and thousands of people. This heedless pace caused them to forfeit their charter in 1821. The one at Madison was more honestly managed, and eventually redeemed its notes. So serious was the condition of affairs that it became necessary for the Federal Government to reduce the price of entry lands from two dollars to a dollar and a quarter per acre, to cancel its claims to interest, and permit a re-arrangement of smaller hold- ings, clear of debt, for the larger tracts then in the possession of settlers. At this time the demand for the produce of the West had fallen off, three years of devastating sickness prevailed in the section, and the new State passed through a period of the deepest gloom, followed by fairer sailing and better times. A deter- mination to overcome the lack of transportation facili- ties originated the system of internal improvements, which was inaugurated in 1832, and prosecuted during the years immediately following. Again there was a season of prosperity. As the public works progressed,
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