USA > Indiana > Fayette County > History of Fayette County, Indiana : her people, industries and institutions > Part 58
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The institution, for such it may be called, gradually died down and by the early eighties the meetings became infrequent and eventually were dis- continued altogether. Many of the singers are still living in the country and they still recall with pleasant memories the days of the old singing school. It has passed away ; its history has been told ; but it was one of those features of life in other days which always stood for brighter and better things.
INDEPENDENCE DAY, 1831.
The citizens of Connersville and of Fayette county observed the Fourth of July, 1831, by a celebration at a grove about one-half mile below the village.
The day was ushered in by the firing of cannon. A procession was formed in front of the court house, led by the military, and marched to the grove, where about three thousand persons had assembled. The marshals of the day were Colonel Caldwell and N. McClure, and the officers in charge of the exercises were John Hubbell, president; Allen Crisler, vice-president ; Rev. William Miller, chaplain; S. W. Parker, orator; James Ross, reader. Prayer was offered by the chaplain, which was followed by the reading of the Declaration of Independence. Next came a volley from the artillery; then music, which was followed by an oration, and music and firing of the artil- lery followed, which closed the exercises of the morning. An excellent dinner was served at the grove by Newton Claypool, and some fourteen toasts were drunk. The day was fine, though a shower fell just as the exercises were closing. In the evening a ball was held at the Claypool tavern.
INDUSTRIES OF FAYETTE COUNTY IN EARLY DAYS.
From an early industrial review of Fayette county, not including the early industries of the county seat, it is noted that during the forties there were in this county thirty still-houses, twenty-nine saw-mills, twenty-four grist-mills, six tanyards, one tile and brick yard, one oil mill, four carding and fulling plants, one wooden-bowl factory, one hominy-mill, one woolen-mill, one looking-glass factory, one hemp-mill and one shingle-mill. Of these Con- nersville township had four saw-mills, seven grist-mills and ten still-honses; Harrison township had seven saw-mills, four grist-mills and three still- houses; Jackson township, four saw-mills, four grist-mills and four still- houses ; Posey township, one saw-mill and one grist-mill; Jennings, one saw-
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mill, one grist-mill and seven still-houses; Waterloo, one saw-mill; Fairview, two saw-mills ; Orange, three saw-mills and two grist-mills, and Columbia, six saw-mills, five grist-mills and five still-houses. Harrison township had one tanyard; Jackson, two; Posey, one; Fairview, one, and Orange, one. The only brick yard was in Harrison township and Jackson and Posey each had a woolen mill. Harrison had a shingle factory and a wooden-bowl factory, while Jackson had the only hominy mill. The oil-mill was in Connersville township.
THE WAWASSA PAPER-MILL.
More than forty years ago there existed a flourishing industry along the banks of the old White Water canal about one mile south of the present village of Alpine, an industry which was established a year or two after the Civil War and continued uninterruptedly until it was destroyed by fire in 1875. This industry, the first and only paper-mill ever established in Fay- ette county, employed from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty employees, many of whom were women, when it was running at full capacity, and dis- tributed hundreds of thousands of dollars during its career of a decade. Important as was this industry for the decade that it existed there are few people of the county now living who have any idea of its magnitude; that it it was an extensive plant covering at least fifteen acres; that raw material was shipped in from South America and Europe; that the manufactured product was shipped out in carload lots to the four corners of the earth.
The Wawassa paper-mills, the name "Wawassa" being a curious cor- ruption of the initials of W. A. Smith, the principal owner of the mill, was established as a branch of the paper-mills of Bremmaker, Moore & Com- pany, of Louisville, Kentucky. The mill was operated by water power exclu- sively, the company utilizing the old canal bed, diverting the water from the river by a dam across the river just above Alpine. There were times, it is true, when the mill had to shut down on account of low water; other times when men had to be sent up to the diversion dam to break the ice in order to get the water turned into the canal; but these shut-down intervals were few, and for the most part of the ten years the mills were in operation they were run day and night, and seven days in the week.
The main building was about two hundred feet long and eighty feet wide, while attached to this were numerous other smaller buildings, all of which were connected to the main structure. There were large warehouses for the storing of raw supplies, the manufactured product, and for offices. The company also built two large boarding houses for the use of its
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employees, one for the women and the other for the men. A cluster of about a dozen houses sprang up around the mill; a school house was built; a physi- cian located there; a shoe cobbler found plenty of work among the employees ; church services were held. although no house of worship was erected; but, strange to say, there was never a store established at the place. The employees traded at Laurel, two miles to the south; at Alpine, one mile north; or at Connersville, seven miles up the river.
When the mills were opened they began to manufacture paper out of poplar, at first using the tops and branches of the trees, but later putting in machinery to handle the boles of the trees. They sometimes bought a tract of wooded land, cut out the poplar, sold the remainder of the marketable timber, and then disposed of the land. After the poplar began to get scarce, they began to make paper out of straw. They even went so far as to install a threshing machine adjoining their plant, and farmers in the community hauled their grain to the company's plant to be threshed, the farmer receiv- ing a good price for his straw as well as getting his threshing done for him. Straw was also shipped in from the northern part of the state, this being the first baled straw seen in the neighborhood. This threshing machine, probably the first in the county, was installed about 1870.
Still later the company successfully manufactured paper out of corn- stalks, and the farmers in the community hauled the stalks in by the thousands of tons. This, however, was not profitable for the farmer, and the com- pany soon found that they could not depend on the cornstalk output. They next turned to South America for raw material, and the Fayette county cornstalk was replaced by jute from Argentina, but the problem of trans- portation was too expensive to allow any extensive use of jute. Of. course, during all the years the mills were in operation rags had been used for the highest grade of paper. What the future of the mills would have been, if they had not been destroyed by fire, can only be conjectured, but it seems from the best evidence at hand that they were fast becoming, if not already, a losing proposition for their owners. In fact, it was believed at the time of the fire that it was not altogether a matter of accident. Certainly the owners had the plant fully insured, and they expressed no disappointment when it burned to the ground.
The establishment was never rebuilt and this first paper-mill in the county was also the last one. Several years later Stephen Limpus bought eleven thousand pounds of scrap iron which was picked up around the plant, and a few years later several more thousands were found in the bottoms of
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decayed vats or covered over with refuse. The wayfarer who today tries to find any evidence of the location of the once flourishing industry will look in vain. . Every vestige of it has disappeared; only the memory of it is left.
RELICS OF FAYETTE COUNTY IN INDIANA UNIVERSITY.
During the past few years, and especially during 1916, efforts have been made to collect all kinds of Indian relics as well as the various tools, imple- ments, utensils and the like, used by the pioneers in the early period of the state's settlement. Indiana University has been very active in building up a museum of these relics of an early day and has been fortunate in securing a number of donations of this character.
One of the most valuable of these collections came from Fayette county and represented the painstaking work of a lifetime on the part of the late Milton Trusler. At his death his collection passed into the hands of his daughter, Mrs. Anna Brumfiel, and she in turn left it to her son, Milton Brumfiel, who presented it to the University. The collection numbered several hundred pieces, representing almost every phase of Indian labor and achievement, some of the pieces even dating back to the days of the Mound Builders. A short time before his death Mr. Trusler was offered six hundred dollars for the collection, but he refused to consider any kind of a financial offer, the collection to him not being a thing whose value was to be considered from a financial standpoint.
It is indeed fortunate that the collection is to be kept in the state and certainly no more appropriate place for it could have been found than in the State University. The university has made it a part of the large col- lection which it has succeeded in securing during the past few years, and there it may be found in the future, the university receiving it with the understanding that it be kept intact.
A TRIO OF CATASTROPHES IN CONNERSVILLE.
The first catastrophe resulting in the loss of more than one life in Con- nersville occurred in the evening of March 21, 1866. On the afternoon of that day a terrible cyclone swept over the northern part of the town and in addition to unroofing a number of houses, as well as completely destroying some, it seriously damaged the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad bridge across White Water. Whether the amount of damage done to the
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bridge was known or not, it is evident that the evening train was not aware of its weakened condition. The train plunged into the river just after getting on the bridge and three people lost their lives.
The second disaster, while resulting in no lives being lost, yet was one of the most serious railroad wrecks that has ever occurred in the county. On July 15, 1892, two freight trains met at the end of the Cincinnati, Hamil- ton & Dayton bridge and came together with such force that one was driven back across the bridge, while at the same time the end span of the bridge on either side was torn out, leaving the center span intact, and with a few of the cars still standing on it. A picture of the wreck in the possession of Theodore Heinemann gives a good view of the wreck and leaves the impression that the "buckling up" of the trains as actually happened would be an impossibility. But it did happen; the picture tells the story. Fortu- nately no one was killed.
The third catastrophe, and one resulting in the loss of four lives, was the result of a natural-gas explosion on December 12, 1898, in the Perry block on Fifth street, on the site now occupied by the Commercial Club. The proprietor of the store in which the explosion took place was Henry Luking. On the afternoon of the day when the accident occurred, he com- plained of feeling ill and sent for Dr. G. W. McNutt, his intimate friend. While waiting for the physician, J. D. McNaughton, a plumber, came into the store to locate the leak which was presumably the cause of the illness of Luking. About the same time Patrick Ready came into the store, followed shortly afterwards by Doctor McNutt. The physician had scarcely entered the door when the explosion occurred. It completely demolished the build- ing, killed the four men and shook the entire city. School had been dis- missed just a few minutes before the accident happened and scores of school children had passed along in front of the building just before the explosion took place. Had it occurred a few minutes sooner undoubtedly a number of the children would have been killed.
A MONUMENT OF TEETH.
It takes all kinds of men to make this world. One of the many varieties of men who have made Connersville their home in past generations was a dentist by the name of John Doughty. This dentist was nothing if not peculiar, as is evidenced by the unique monument which he designed for him- self before his death. In the course of a long and eventful tooth-pulling career he had amassed thousands of teeth, all of which he very religiously
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saved, but it was not until his death that it was known why he saved them. It appears that he wanted to use them to make a monument to place over his remains that future generations might know the vocation he followed while on earth. To this end he cemented together his accumulated teeth of many years into a pyramid and left directions that this unique monument be incased in a glass case and placed over his grave. The glass case is still there, but the teeth have disappeared, but when or why they were removed is one of the many things which the historian has not discovered.
MRS. NANCY HAWKINS HACKLEMAN.
It is not definitely known who has the honor of being the oldest person who has ever lived in Fayette county, but there can be little doubt that Mrs. Nancy Hawkins Hackleman is the oldest native-born person now living in the county.
Mrs. Hackleman is a daughter of John and Susan Hawkins and was born in the western part of Harrison township, December 7, 1821, being now in her ninety-sixth year. She was the youngest of eleven children born to her parents. After her mother's death her father married a second time, and to this marriage were born two sons and two daughters, the sons, Elisha and Pleasant, now living in Illinois.
When Nancy Hawkins was sixteen years of age she married William Hackleman, their marriage occurring on October 22, 1837. They were the parents of six sons, one of whom died in infancy. Three, now deceased, served in the Civil War, one of them dying in the service and the other two from disease contracted while at the front. Two sons, John and Edmund, are still living, the mother making her home with the latter in Harrison township. The husband of Mrs. Hackleman died on July 23, 1856, and she has remained a widow for the sixty-one years which have elapsed since the death of her husband.
In spite of her age, Mrs. Hackleman is very active and is able to read without the use of glasses. At the last election she assisted at a pole-raising by running up the flag after the pole had been set. When asked as to what incident in her long life had remained the most vivid in her recollection, she said that it was a Christmas dinner which was given when she was about fourteen years of age. On the day before her father had gone out into the woods with his gun to get some fresh meat of some kind-hoping to shoot a deer or bear. Late in the afternoon, while the children were sitting
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around the old fireplace, their father came in dragging a large bear and the family feasted on roast bear meat the following day.
Many things have been advanced as essentials toward a long life. Mrs. Hackleman attributes her long life to the fact that she has always eaten meat three times a day and has never worried about things she could not help. She has never been ill and still manifests a cheery disposition towards those around her. She expects to be in good health four years from now, and be in shape to make a good start on the second century of her life. May she have her wish.
CONNERSVILLE AS A SHOW TOWN.
Every person who was living in Connersville in the latter part of the sixties and during the seventies will recall the interest that was taken in the old time circus. For at least a decade there was nothing quite so exciting in the city as the annual coming in and going out of the circus which made its winter headquarters here. In those days the ambition of nearly every young man in the city was to be identified with the show as a performer or as a member of the executive staff of the show. At least one young man succeeded in making a name for himself as a performer, while there were several who held some official position with the show.
The performer was William Conwell, who is credited with being the first acrobat in the world to be able to turn a triple sommersault. As may be well imagined he excited so much envy in the hearts of the other young men of the city that large numbers of them tried, but in vain, to emulate him. It is said by those who recall those days that there was scarcely a boy in the city who did not imperil his life in an endeavor to turn a flipflop or perform some other feat of acrobatic skill. But Conwell was the only one who ever became famous in this line. While with his show in Russia he met and married a Russian girl. His widow is still living in Connersville and their son, Fritz, is now a well known artist of Chicago. Connersville has also produced one circus clown, who at one time was a feature of John Robinson's shows. His show name was Bartine, but to his Connersville friends he was plain Charles Bassore. After retiring from Robinson's shows he made a few ineffectual attempts to start a show of his own.
The show which made Connersville its headquarters for several years was the Van Amburg-Golden show, probably the best-known of the wagon shows of its day. At one time the animals were kept in the large brick building which still stands near the Cincinnati, Indianapolis & Western Rail-
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road station. It was in this building that the largest elephant then in cap- tivity in this country died. This elephant, known as "Tip-Po," was an unruly beast, particularly after having to remain in inactivity for a time, and it is supposed that a dose of poison hastened his retirement from circus life. After his death the question of the disposition of his huge body was of a size commensurate with his bulk. It was finally decided to draw and quarter the body and haul it off in sections to a large hill about a mile north- west of the city for interment. This was finally done and the hill was at once christened Elephant Hill, a name it bears to this day, though the osseous remains of the huge pachyderm have long since been disinterred and now occupy a prominent place in the museum of Earlham College at Richmond, Indiana, where the visitor may see "Tip-Po's" articulated ossified structure in all its bony grandeur.
Probably the best known of the showmen of those days was Frank Hiatt, a native of New York, and now a resident of Connersville, who was for many years manager of Barnum's show. He became identified with Connersville because of his marriage to a girl of the city. Another of the well-remembered citizens of Connersville in the show business was the uncle of Hyatt L. Frost, who was ticket agent with Van Amberg-Goldens for several years. Other local men who figured in the circus life forty years ago were Samuel and Charles Beck and Manford E. Dale.
The shows wintering in Connersville had many of their wagons made by local shops and all of them were annually redecorated by the scenic artists of the city. The two biggest days of the year for Connersville were the days in the spring when the shows took the road for the summer and the days when they returned in the fall to go into winter quarters. But the wagon show, like the canal, is a thing of the past as far as Connersville is concerned; no more will the youth of the city indulge in the festive flipflop; no more will the gaily painted chariots be seen unloading here for the winter ; but the county will have one thing left for all time to come which shall be as a reminder of those days that are no more-Elephant Hill will continue to cast its huge shadow over the surrounding territory and stand as a monu- ยท ment to the circus days of Connersville.
BUNKER HILL.
To the historian, Bunker Hill is one of the most interesting spots in Fayette county. Surrounding the place in the northwestern part of Con- nersville township are many traditions all of which have more or less his-
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toric value. But it can be truthfully said that at one time Bunker Hill was the chief industrial center of the county. It was during the construction of the old national road and later the White Water canal that the vicinity of . Bunker Hill was a seat of great activity. Stone was quarried out of the hills for all of the canal locks and the contractors, Capt. James Vance and Gen. William Caldwell, employed as high as two to three hundred men at one time in the quarries. Not only was stone furnished for the canal, but it was also used for the foundations of many business houses in Conners- ville, and for the abutments of bridges on the national road between Center- ville and Lewisville. The lumber industry was also one of importance in the immediate vicinity.
No tradition in connection with this locality is more interesting than that surrounding the origin of the name, Bunker Hill, as applied to this particular spot. During the time that the old stone quarries were running full blast, and the hill region was distinctly a center of activity, there were two local citizens, who, for some reason lost in the pages of history, had had trouble with each other of a serious nature. Their friends, seeing the thickening of bad blood between them, urged upon them that there was only one way to settle the matter, namely, to fight a duel. At a point on the top of a commanding hill selected by mutual friends, on a certain day and hour and in the presence of judges and a crowd of spectators, the enemies faced each other with the weapons characteristic of a duel. They advanced toward each other at the command to fire, but instead of discharging their pistols, they shook hands-and the duel was over. The crowd, feeling that they had been outrageously deceived, then and there dubbed the hill Bunker Hill, in honor of the eminence of that name which was the scene of a sanguinary fight in the Revolution. Thus the name comes down to the present, a kind of embalmed reminder that there was a time when so-called affairs of honor were not unknown in this vicinity.
ORIGIN OF RURAL FREE DELIVERY.
Few people living in Fayette county are aware of the fact that the present rural free delivery as it exists in the United States originated in the fertile brain of a farmer of this county; that in a two-story grange hall in the southeastern corner of Jackson township was born the idea which was ultimately to result in bringing the daily mail of the farmer to his doorstep; that a plain, unpretentious farmer in a regular meeting of the grange one
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evening in this same hall first promulgated the idea that the farmer was as much entitled to daily mail service as his brother in the city.
Such is the case however. The hall still stands just across the road from the Ireland Universalist church; the night in question was in the year 1880; the farmer with the idea was the late Milton Trusler. On this par- ticular night some of the state officials of the grange were present, and after hearing Mr. Trusler, the master of the grange, set forth his ideas along this line, they became as enthusiastic in its favor as the speaker. In fact, they prevailed upon Mr. Trusler to travel over the state and agitate the question of rural free mail delivery. In a short time the name of Trusler was known throughout the length and breadth of the state as the father of the system, and his name and idea were associated in the papers throughout the nation. The Indiana Farmer devoted one page in its issue to him, publishing a pic- ture of the grange hall and of Mr. Trusler, calling him the "Author of Rural Free Delivery." The Associated Press featured him as the originator of the idea, and the papers from Maine to California carried articles to this effect.
As a result of his speeches before the granges of the state, Mr. Trusler became master of the state grange and retained this position for nine suc- cessive years. As head of the state grange he attended the national con- ventions of the order and there he always spoke on the question nearest his heart. This constant agitation on his part, ably seconded by the papers of the country, finally resulted in the establishment of the rural free delivery service. Before Mr. Trusler died he had the satisfaction of getting his mail delivered to his door each day-and thus was realized the idea born in the fertile brain of a plain farmer of Fayette county.
AGENTS FOR LOANING OF SURPLUS REVENUE FUND.
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