USA > Indiana > Vigo County > History of Indiana from its exploration to 1922, Vol II > Part 11
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
ous conjectures." It took twenty years for this "hiatus," as Mills called it, between the people and the educational leaders to be closed. The official leader of the one was the township trustee, of the other was the state superintendent. The law of 1852 was far in advance of the conditions in Indiana. There were neither officers nor teachers to carry it into effect, nor money to pay either. It required fully a half century to remove these three obstacles. One can scarcely say after reading the superintendents' reports whether the Indiana school system has grown from the top down or from the bottom up.
In 1853 colored children were omitted from regis- tration and the property of colored people dropped from the tax duplicate. Each teacher was required before receiving pay to file with the township clerk a sworn report of his school, showing numbers en- rolled, days taught, books used and branches taught. The greatest change of this year, however, took the actual licensing of teachers out of the hands of the state superintendent and placed it in the hands of a commissioner appointed by the board of county com- missioners. The board might at its discretion ap- point one or three school examiners. Teachers' licenses were to be of three, six, twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four months grades and the applicant was re- quired to pass on orthography, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and grammar.40 The law of 1855 provided one library for each township and cor- rected the inequalities produced in distribution by the former law. The school term of three months was made sixty-five days and the day six hours.
40 Laws of Indiana, 1853, ch. 106. In 1855 the whole law was rewritten in the light of the supreme court decisions. Cities and towns were made school corporations.
709
THE SCHOOLS AND THE COURTS
The General Assembly of 1859 reorganized the township government, placing it in the hands of one trustee, elected annually, and abolishing the town- ship secretary and treasurer. In accordance with this the trustee was given the control over school affairs formerly possessed by all the township offi- cers. The demand for local autonomy, however, was so strong that the appointment of teachers was taken from the township trustee and placed in the hands of the district directors, who were compelled to employ whomever a majority of the inhabitants designated and dismiss any teacher whom a majority demanded to be dismissed. The trustee was also compelled to permit the schoolhouse, when unoccupied by a public school, to be used for any purpose for which a ma- jority of the inhabitants wanted it.41
As noted previously, the supreme court in 1857 almost destroyed the school system. The Assembly of 1861 as a consequence rewrote the law again. The voters of each city and town were directed to elect one or more trustees, as in the townships, to have charge of the schools. Special taxes were authorized in the local corporations to build and equip houses. The patrons of each district were required to meet on the first Saturday of October and elect a director to look after the school. The patrons not only retained complete control over the teacher as before, but over locating, repairing, building and removing the house. The county commissioners now appointed one exam- iner for a term of three years. The examinations for license were both oral and written. The three months certificate was dropped. Stated public examinations were to be held not less than every three months. Each male applicant paid the examiner one dollar
41 Laws of Indiana, 1859, chs. CXVII and CXXXIII.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
and each female applicant paid fifty cents. The school revenues were to be distributed twice each year as at present.42 The law of 1861 gave the county examiner power to prescribe text books, but this was changed in 1863 and that power given to the state board. By the request of a trustee a particular appli- cant might be excused on a certain branch, in which case his license would be good only for the district designated. The examiner was also authorized to visit the schools of the county, the first legal, expert supervision provided for by state law.
The Assembly of 1865 abolished all laws on the subject of common schools and for the third time re- wrote the school law. School trustees in cities and towns were to be elected by the governing boards of the same. The school trustees in the various school corporations were given power to levy taxes for building purposes. The county teachers' institute also dates from this year, holding which was made the duty of the county examiner. The school term was defined as sixty days, the school week as five. Physiology and United States history were added to the list of common school branches, and the township trustees were given custody of the township libra- ries.43 The land-grant endowment for Purdue was accepted from congress and the law establishing the State Normal was enacted at the special session fol- lowing. The year 1865 saw the school system again taking form. At the following general session in 1867 the last limitation placed on the common schools by the supreme court was lifted. This was done on the recommendations of both the governor and state superintendent who relied for success on a new su-
42 Laws of Indiana, 1861, ch. XLI.
48 Laws of Indiana, 1865, ch. I.
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THE SCHOOLS AND THE COURTS
preme court and a favorable public opinion. The law of March 9, 1867, gave local school corporations power to levy and collect taxes for tuition purposes. This fund came to be known as the special tuition fund and the one for building, the special school fund. Both are kept separate.4+
The issue of Civil war compelled the Assembly again in 1869 to open the schools to colored children. The trustees, however, were required to keep separ- ate schools for white and colored pupils. The same year saw the German language enter the grades as a subject for study. Its teaching was conditioned on the demands of parents with twenty-five children of school age.45
No considerable changes were made in the school law in 1871 except a special act for Indianapolis, but in 1873 the whole law was rewritten for the fourth and last time. The acts of 1849, 1852, 1855, 1861 and 1865 had repealed all former acts concerning com- mon schools, but the law of 1873 took the form of an amendment, a form which has been followed since. In cities and towns the school trustees were to be elected by the city councils or town boards. The maximum local tax levy was raised to fifty cents on the hundred and one dollar on the poll, district meet- ings were empowered to demand subjects besides the common branches ; cities and towns were authorized to hire superintendents to be paid from the special school fund; joint graded schools could be established
44 Laws of Indiana, 1867, ch. XII. It is surprising that no case was brought to test the constitutionality of this act till 1885, eighteen years after its passage. In the case of Schenck v. Rob- Inson, 102 Ind. Rep. 307, brought up from Switzerland, the supreme court held the law constitutional.
45 Laws of Indiana, 1869, chs. XV and XVI.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
by adjoining corporations; the township trustees were authorized to elect a county superintendent to take the place of the county examiner. The superin- tendent was supposed to be a professional educator and devote his whole time to the improvement of the schools of the county. This was the reform sug- gested by Caleb Mills in 1854, and closed the gap be- tween the state superintendent and the township trustees. The county superintendent, the township trustees and the trustees of towns and cities were constituted a county board of education. On at least one Saturday each month the superintendent was directed to hold a township institute, devoted to questions of class room procedure.16 With the pas- sage of this law the common school system was prac- tically completed. Its characteristic feature was the district school. This school, with the township lib- rary, the literary, the spelling school, and above all, its old-fashioned, inimitable teacher, characterized a distinct period in our history. At its best, the dis- trict school turned out the self-made, common school- educated men whose biographies are met with now so frequently. The best of these schools have not been surpassed, the poorest were indescribable. The best was a happy combination of community and teacher for which the system can take little credit. The individuality of the teacher, now largely lost in our organization, then was the chief force in the school. A rapidly increasing number of the teach- ers were native Indianians, and as this number in- creased the schools improved. The development of our school system will be treated later.17
46 Laws of Indiana, 1873, chs. XXIV and XXV.
47 There is a vast amount of literature on the subject. Only a few references to the legal documents have been given. The newspapers, the Indiana School Journal, the State Superintend-
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THE SCHOOLS AND THE COURTS
ent's Reports, the statutes and supreme court reports constitute the best sources for the study. The newspapers from 1840 to 1870 contain numberless essays, written in the florid styie Illus- trated by Caleb Mills, dealing with the beauties and treasures of the cultivated intellect. The style is that of the stump speaker and camp meeting orator of the period-more ornate, but also more classic, than we are accustomed to.
CHAPTER XXV
BUILDING THE RAILROADS
§ 126 GENERAL CONDITIONS
ONE of the most difficult fields of historical inves- tigation is that of industrial development. The peo- ple who spent their lives building railroads and those among whom the work was done regarded it as such commonplace routine work that no record was ever thought necessary. Of course one can go to the statute books and find the charters, can go to the offi- cial reports and get items of cost, capital stock, ex- pense and income, but the vital facts of the railroads are more elusive. Nothing in the state has had a more tremendous influence or is more intimately linked with the life, occupation and character of the people than its railroads. This has been true in Indiana for fifty years and is still true. The location and growth of towns and cities, the localization of industry, the kind and amount of crops and to some extent the intelligence and progress of the different communities, are directly dependent on the railroads. In the old days when each farm produced everything its owner's family consumed, transportation facili- ties were negligible; but with the specialization of society and the interdependence of sections, the state could live scarcely a month if all the railroads were suddenly destroyed.
The railroad is a modern invention. Men are liv- ing, older than the oldest railroad in the United States-the Baltimore & Ohio, begun in 1827. Less than a year ago a conductor of one of the first trains
1
715
GENERAL CONDITIONS
run in Indiana died. Yet the generation of railroad builders in Indiana has passed away. During the decade from 1825 to 1835 there was a great deal of discussion in Indiana as to the relative merits of railroads, canals and turnpikes. Before the bar of public opinion of that day the case for railroads was lost, and Indiana from 1834 to 1850 devoted nearly all of its public resources, including a munificent land-grant from congress, to the construction of canals and pikes. With the failure of that system the construction of railroads began.
Indiana by 1840 was all but bankrupt, and though the majority of the citizens felt that the state ought to build transportation facilities all knew it would be many years before it could do so. It was therefore necessary to find some other method of financing the railroads. The pioneer railroad of Indiana, the Mad- ison & Indianapolis, had been financed by the state and by 1850 was earning good dividends.1 The ex- perience gained on the Madison road was valuable to the railroad builders of the state. Some years before this, in 1825, an American engineer had gone to Eng- land to make a study of railroading and his large volumes of reports were the texts for the builders.2
When the state definitely gave up its plan of in- ternal improvements, by the law of January 28, 1842, it thereby marked the beginning of the railroad era. The people were rid of all illusions of state-owned enterprises and ready to go to work as best they could by private means. The roads and canals which they had built were of no value, but the lesson was invaluable. Since then the state has neither built any
1 It was a part of the Internal Improvement scheme of 1836. See ch. XVI, supra.
2 Seymour Dunbar, History of Travel in America, III, 898. The volumes referred to are Strickland's Reports.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
roads nor in any other way competed with private initiative in commercial matters.
Nothing of importance was done toward building railroads before 1850 except on the Madison & Indi- anapolis. The promoters of this road dreamed of a system which would gather the produce of the state together at Indianapolis, whence by the Madison railroad it would go to the Ohio river, where it would find an outlet either east or west. Five steamboats would connect at Madison for Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, or New Orleans. Branch roads were planned from the main trunk between Madison and Indianapolis, leading out to Shelbyville, Mar- tinsville, Mooresville, Bloomington and perhaps other towns. From Indianapolis radiating lines would reach east and west and north to all parts of the state, even to Michigan and northern Illinois. Madison was to become the depot of this entire region. Its population doubled during the forties.
Before 1850 popular intelligence concerning rail- roads was very meager. Strickland's Reports on Canals, Railways and Roads was the best treatise, but it cost too much to be popular. It was not then possible to form a corporation and raise money by issuing bonds, but it was though possible to organize the people along the proposed road into a kind of mutual improvement society. This is substantially what was done in Indiana before the Civil war. The idea of a privately owned railroad on which the roll- ing stock of the owner alone could operate, like all railroads at present, was not common. Plainly the people thought of the railroad as another form of pub- lic highway, different from the state road, the pike and the canal, but still a public highway. With this thought, farmers along the right-of-way subscribed for stock, intending to pay for it by working on the
2
EARLY MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION
717
PIONEER RAILROADS
road and in this manner the roads were actually financed and built.
§ 127 PIONEER RAILROADS
Between 1832 and 1860 perhaps a hundred differ- ent railroad companies were incorporated in Indiana. In 1847 there were at least eighteen such charters issued by the General Assembly.3
One of the earliest roads of the state, antedating all in charter and partial construction, was the Indi- anapolis & Lawrenceburg. Originally a private com- pany, the line was surveyed, perhaps before 1830, and some work done near, and in, Lawrenceburg. It was on this line that John Walker built an experi- mental section of track near Shelbyville and operated his horse car on the Fourth of July, 1832. It was chartered in 1832 and received assistance from the state under the law of 1836, but nothing was done toward construction till about 1848.
3 These roads were as follows: Page.
Brownstown & Scipio. 46
Kosciusko, Elkhart & Miami. 124
Boonville & Ohio. 368
Peru & Indianapolis. 411
Crawfordsville & Indianapolis. 494
Lafayette, Monticello, Winamac & Michigan City 349
Junction Railroad Company. 496 Crawfordsville, Covington & Illinois. 510
Newcastle & Knightstown 518
Newcastle & Richmond. 521 Buffalo & Mississippi. 535
Richmond & Hagerstown 543 Crawfordsville & Wabash revived. 554 Mooresville Branch. 556
Lake Michigan, Logansport & Ohio River 570
Mount Vernon & New Harmony 593
Wabash & Greenville. 605
Ohio & Mississippi (B. & O.) 619
-Laws of Indiana, 1847.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
By act of that year the old corporation was re- vived by George H. Dunn and his associates, who undertook to construct the line to Rushville, with a branch over to Greensburg.4
Before the building of the road had progressed as far as Greensburg it was decided to make Indianapo- lis the terminus. It now became the Lawrenceburg & Upper Mississippi Valley. In 1851 it was merged with the Shelbyville & Rushville company to con- struct the road from Shelbyville to Indianapolis. In 1853 the line was completed. Mr. Dunn had worked twenty years to accomplish this and died the year following. The demand for this road arose from the trade relations between Cincinnati and the central part of Indiana, Cincinnati serving as the base of supplies during the first three quarters of the cen- tury. After trying for ten years to use the Ohio & Mississippi tracks into Cincinnati, the company bought the old Whitewater canal bed and in 1863 opened its own tracks into that city. A branch from Fairland to Martinsville was built for the company in 1866 by Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside. From Mar- tinsville it operated the Vandalia down White river to the coal fields. In 1866 the company united with the Lafayette & Indianapolis to form the Cincinnati, Indianapolis & Lafayette.5
While Cincinnati was crowding Madison on the east, Louisville was crowding on the west. Each city was anxious to tap the trade of central Indiana, then rapidly concentrating at Indianapolis. Louisville had an ambition to be the gateway between the north and the south for the exchange of their produce. The
4 Laws of Indiana, Local, 1848, ch. LXXIX. See an account of the Shelbyville experiment in Hendricks, A Popular History of Indiana, 217.
5 Indianapolis Sentinel, Aug. 5, 1869.
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PIONEER RAILROADS
Louisville & Nashville railroad was begun in 1850 and from Nashville was designed to have radiating branches throughout the interior south. On the north a like terminus was hoped for at Indianapolis, with like radiating branches. A railroad bridge across the Ohio river would give Louisville an ad- vantage which no other Ohio river city could claim. Moreover the water's edge could be reached on either side at Louisville with very little grade. The floor of the river, only a few feet below the surface of the water at ordinary stage, was of solid rock. Nature had made the Falls City the natural gateway between the two sections.
The Ohio & Indianapolis railroad was chartered, along with seven others, by the Assembly of 1831.6 Men from Indianapolis, Columbus and Jeffersonville were the promoters, but they expected their capital largely from Louisville. Nothing was done until 1848. The company was then revived and work pushed. By the close of 1852 the road was completed to Columbus, from which point its trains entered Indianapolis over the tracks of the Madison road. This agreement lasted until 1866 when the two com- panies were consolidated, the Indianapolis & Jeffer- sonville line becoming the main, and the Madison, the branch. The road has always prospered, especi- ally during the Civil war. The big bridge across the
6 Laws of Indiana, 1831, ch. CLII. Page.
From Lawrenceburg to Indianapolis 173 From Madison to Indianapolis and Lafayette. 181 From Falls of Ohio to Lafayette. 189
From Lafayette to Trail creek, in Laporte County 197 From Harrison to Indianapolis. 205
From New Albany to Indianapolis and the Wabash River 214
From Richmond to Eaton. 223
From Jeffersonville to Indianapolis
227
720
HISTORY OF INDIANA
Ohio, however, was not completed till 1870, though chartered in Kentucky in 1829 and again in 1856.7
First of the east and west lines was the Terre Haute & Richmond, later the Terre Haute & Indian- apolis and at present the Vandalia, a part of the Pennsylvania system. On May 12, 1847, there assem- bled in Indianapolis a group of railroad men from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.8 Judge Elisha M. Huntington, Chauncey Rose and W. R. McKeen were the leading promoters in Indiana, Mr. Rose be- ing its first president and its builder. Thomas A. Morris, the surveyor of the Lawrenceburg & Indian- apolis, and later its president, surveyed two routes, the northern and southern; the southern was chosen, the northern being the line of the present Big Four through Danville and Greencastle. Work was begun on the southern route in December, 1848. The road was completed in 1852 at a cost of $1,311,672, a large part of which was subscribed by farmers along the way in Vigo and Putnam counties and worked out on the building of the road.9 In 1851 the road was divided and Indianapolis made the eastern terminal. The net earnings of the road in 1852 were $71,446; in 1868 they were $552,664. Of all early Indiana rail- roads this was the best. In 1868 a second track was begun. The road hauled an immense amount of coal from the Brazil fields. Its freight business in 1868 was $624,697.
The charter of this road, January 26, 1847, is a good example of these early charters. The capital stock was fixed at $800,000. Specific directions were given for organizing the directors, keeping the books and selling the stock. Work must begin within five
7 Indianapolis Sentinel, May 22, 1869.
8 Indianapolis Journal, May 14, 1847.
9 Indianapolis Sentinel, July 24, 1869.
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PIONEER RAILROADS
years and be completed within fifteen. The corpora- tion was given full power to prescribe the kind of carriages that should be used on its road, whether they should be propelled by horse power or steam and what toll should be charged. County commis- sioners were given power to take stock or assist in building the road. After the dividends had equaled the total cost of the road and ten per cent per annum the General Assembly should have power so to regu- late the tolls that the annual earnings would not ex- ceed fifteen per cent. The excess should be paid over to the state for the benefit of the common schools. The company was required to keep an accurate ac- count of all building expenses and the state retained the option to buy the road after twenty-five years.10
On the 19th of January, 1846, a charter was granted to the Indianapolis & Peru road, intended primarily as a feeder of the Madison & Indianapo- lis.11 No well-known names appear on the first board of the company, which was organized at Tipton, July 25, 1846. It was intended to build it entirely with local capital, land and labor being taken in payment for stock. Up to the close of 1853 only $261,950 worth of stock had been sold, a large part of which was for unavailable real estate. In 1854 a bond issue of $500,- 000 was ordered and turned over to a contractor who opened the road in 1854. On a large part of the way flat iron rails, discarded by the Madison road, had been used. The road was poorly built and the coun- try undeveloped. On the first of January, 1854, it was consolidated with the Madison road. Neither road, however, was paying expenses, and the union was soon dissolved. In 1864 it was sold at auction. The second mortgage holders bought it in and ex-
10 Laws of Indiana, Local, 1846, ch. XXIII.
11 Laws of Indiana, Local, 1845, ch. CLXXXVI.
722
HISTORY OF INDIANA
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tended it to Chicago. With the improvement of the farms in Hamilton, Tipton and Howard counties the road was enabled to do a paying business and was soon brought into first class condition. For a long time it enjoyed the larger part of the Chicago traffic.12 It is now a part of the Lake Erie & Western.
The Indianapolis & Bellefontaine railroad was chartered, February 17, 1848.13 This was one of the earliest examples of a connecting road. It was, by its charter, to connect its tracks at Indianapolis with the Madison & Indianapolis and, passing by Pendleton, Anderson, Muncie and Winchester, at the eastern state line with the Bellefontatine & Indiana. The charter was granted to citizens of Madison, Dela- ware and Randolph counties. The stock subscribed was to consist of "lands, labor, money or materials for construction"-a large part consisting of lands subscribed or donated to the company. The counties were empowered to take stock and the state reserved the right to purchase the entire road after sixty years by paying the cost of construction plus six per cent. interest.
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