USA > Indiana > Vigo County > History of Indiana from its exploration to 1922, Vol II > Part 2
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4 Robert Weems, "Settlement of Worthington and Old Point Commerce," Indiana Magazine of History, XII, 60. See also the various county histories.
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WEALTH
§ 99 WEALTH
Indiana prospered between 1850 and 1860. The property valuation jumped from $202,000,000 to $528,000,000, an increase of 160 per cent. Over 3,000,000 acres of land were cleared and plowed while the farms more than doubled in value. Over $10,- 000,000 worth of farm machinery was in use in 1860. There was an average gain of two horses and three milk cows to each farm, the total for the state in 1860 being 409,000 horses, 18,000 mules, 491,000 milk cows, 95,000 work oxen, 582,000 stock cattle, 2,157,375 sheep, 2,498,000 hogs. The annual crop of wheat jumped from 6,000,000 bushels in 1850 to 15,000,000 bushels in 1860; rye from 78,000 to 400,000 bushels ; corn from 53,000,000 to 69,000,000 bushels; oats dropped from 5,655,000 to 5,000,000 bushels; tobacco increased from 1,000,000 to over 7,000,000 pounds; potatoes from 2,000,000 to 3,873,000 bushels; and orchard products from $324,000 to $1,212,000 worth. The cultivation of rice, cotton and hemp practically disappeared. Hops dropped from 92,000 to 74,000 pounds; flax from 584,000 to 73,000; maple sugar from 2,921,000 to 1,515,000 pounds. Beeswax and honey increased from 935,000 to 1,221,000 pounds. Homemade manufactures declined from $1,631,000 in 1850 to $847,000 worth in 1860, while the value of slaughtered animals increased from $6,567,000 in 1850 to $9,592,000 in 1860.5
These statistics show the economic changes un- derneath the social. The fields of hemp and flax gave way to the sheep pasture as the people passed from the linsey-woolsey to the homespun period. The de- cline in household manufactures kept pace with the increase in export products such as flour and pork. The 18,000,000 pounds of butter took the place in
5 U. S. Census, tables 35 and 36.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
large part on the farmers' tables of the wild meat from the forest. Each well-established farm by 1860 had a team of driving horses for the carriage, which explains the increase of 100,000 horses during the decade. The enormous increase in the acreage and produce of hay, wheat, clover and orchards shows directly the result of the agricultural societies and the study of agriculture by the farmers. The reign of corn and pork was being challenged. The number of sheep increased almost 100 per cent. while the number of hogs increased only about 12 per cent. The total number of cattle also nearly doubled. While the total corn crop gained only 33 per cent., wheat, hay and clover gained 150 per cent., 100 per cent. and 140 per cent. respectively.
§ 100 DRESS
The increase in wealth brought a new era in dress. As noted above, the everyday wear of the farmers became homespun, the cloth for which was made of wool raised on the farm, spun, woven and made up by the household. Religious scruples in many places limited indulgence in the most fashionable clothing, but it is not far from the fact to say that every well- to-do farmer had a suit of English broadcloth, a beaver hat, and high-top boots. The dress of the fashionable women was past description. Nothing but an inspection of the fashion plates of Godey's, Peterson and Frank Leslie will give an adequate idea. Ladies' skirts frequently were eight feet in diameter, kept fully expanded by metal or grapevine hoops. The waist was tightly laced so that the whole figure resembled an old-fashioned Hubbard squash. Over the shoulders mantillas took the place of the earlier shawls or woven blankets. On the head were worn light bonnets made of tulle, silk, and velvet,
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SOCIETY
decorated with lace and flowers, fastened on with broad, white strings, plaited and edged with lace, tied in a huge bow under the chin. Huge ruffles or flounces a foot wide circled the ample skirts and sleeves, while bands of lace fastened at one edge passed suspender-like over the shoulders. A woman so dressed must have been almost helpless and it is safe to say the farmers' wives soon shed this finery when they reached home. The children's clothes were almost exactly like those of their elders except for size.
§ 101 SOCIETY
In spite of the growing diversity in wealth, so- ciety remained democratic. There was a great deal of visiting, the visitors usually coming on Saturday night and remaining until Sunday afternoon. The chief attraction was the Sunday dinner. It was usual for everybody either to be guests or hosts at dinner after the sermon on Sunday.
Besides the church and school, the chief social centers were the village stores and the flour mills. There was a general readjustment of town and vil- lage sites. In the earlier period towns had been located generally on navigable waters or on canal sites. Now the building of railroads from one large city to another left many a struggling village on one side and there was nothing left for it but to move to the nearest point on the railroad or die. At these villages the local stump speaker held forth, the wan- dering preacher sermonized the neighbors, the writ- ing, singing and spelling schools met, and above all for its social influence it was where the neighborhood board met to manufacture public opinion. Through this village committee must pass every bit of news, political, religious or otherwise, before it could have any effect on the community. It was not so much
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
what the information was as how it affected certain members of the committee which sat almost continu- ously, jackknife in hand, at the store, blacksmith shop or some other convenient place in the village. When news was scarce these guardians of the people pitched horse shoes, played checkers, superintended the rifle-matches, the Christmas trees and attended to all duties not strictly provided for by the General Assembly. It seems that the influence of this insti- tution almost equalled that of the church or the school. It is certain no teacher or preacher could long maintain his position against a hostile public opinion created by this village club.
The village store's only rival in the formation of public opinion was the neighborhood mill. Only rarely was the mill located at the village, the forces determining their location being entirely different. Early Indiana was rich in water power. There was not a county in the state but had several good mill streams. An early law enabled one to condemn mill- sites and many grist mills date from very early times. However, the water mills reached their climax in the decade of the fifties. The farmers were pro- ducing enormous crops of wheat and corn and the railroads had not yet begun to carry them to the larger mills or elevators. This surplus grain was ground at the water mills, of which there were usual- ly a dozen in each county.6
6 Noah J. Major, Pioneers of Morgan County, 415. "The reader will please pardon me if I linger too long around this his- toric mill yard, once so full of life and energy, now nothing but a dreary little corn field. Once the hum of machinery was heard from Monday morning till Saturday night, and in the dry summer months never ceased, day or night. People came from near and far, waited all night and two days for their turn, putting in their time fishing. *
* * It was here for many years that house and barn patterns were sawed out; here, also, was sawed the
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MORALS
The miller frequently added a saw mill, a tannery and a carding mill to his plant, rounding out his business by putting up a large store where all the neighborhood produce was bought and shipped by this pioneer merchant prince to New Orleans by flat- boat. The flour and meal ground in Indiana in 1860 was valued at $11,200,000, an increase over 1850 of 104 per cent. The lumber sawed was valued at $3,169,000. One can easily infer that the men who gathered at these industrial centers were far differ- ent from those who congregated at the village. If one was the forerunner of our literary and country clubs and other places of amusement and recreation, the other was the predecessor of the commercial clubs. The building of railroads and the extraordin- ary demands of the Civil war ruined the country milling business. Of the hundred of mills that pros- pered in the fifties scarce a score now remain to do a small neighborhood service.
§ 102 MORALS
The moral condition of the people seems to have improved steadily till the outbreak of the Civil war. The total number of inmates in the state prison dur- ing 1859 was 556. Of these, 276 were serving two- year terms, nearly all for some form of larceny. Of life prisoners there were only 19. The greater part of this crime was attributed by the warden to intem- perance, 446 being listed as drunkards or moderate drinkers. These convicts were huddled together in a small prison at Jeffersonville. The most troublesome
lumber for flatboats each returning year from 1830 to 1856. Here, too, the greatest boatyard in the county was established. Boats one hundred feet long by twenty feet wide were built and turned in the basin above the dam." The writer was describing Cox's mill near Martinsville. Still more famous socially was the Hamer mill, two miles east of Mitchell.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
crime was horse-stealing. Bands of these criminals rendezvoused in the swampy thickets of the north part of the state in easy reach of central Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. Other bands had their headquarters along the Ohio river hills and took their stolen horses across the river to dispose of them. The courts were unable to break up these or- ganizations and vigilance committees had to take the matter in hand. Detailed accounts of these petty wars can be found in the county histories.
About 1850 a determined attack was begun on the liquor traffic. Drinking had been universal among the pioneers, but the Protestant churches, especially the Methodist and Quaker, had made endless war on the traffic. As the villages grew into cities the saloons (then called groceries or tippling houses) developed into harbors for the improvident and the vicious. The Southeast Indiana conference of the Methodist church at its annual session of 1853 adopted resolu- tions condemning the making, handling or use of liquor and demanded of the next General Assembly the enactment of a Maine Law for Indiana."
The General Assembly of 1853 passed a license law with a township option provision.8 The contest at the local option elections in the April elections of 1853 had spread the agitation broadcast, to the dis- gust of the conservative element in both clerical and political organizations. Such cities as Indianapolis, New Albany, Lafayette, Greencastle and Lawrence- burg voted dry, while Madison, Jeffersonville and Terre Haute voted to retain saloons.º The old Wash-
7 Indianapolis Morning Journal, November 16, 1853. These resolutions show approximately the position taken by the Method- ist, Baptist, Quaker and Presbyterian churches.
8 Laws of Indiana, 1853, ch. 66.
9 Washington Democrat, April 22, 1853. A discussion of this movement as a political issue will be found elsewhere.
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PUBLIC HEALTH
ingtonians, the newer Sons of Temperance, and the Grand Union Daughters of Temperance organized for the conflict.
§ 103 PUBLIC HEALTH
Little or no progress had been made in public sanitation. The causes of disease were not known by the physicians, although medical practice was much improved. The influence of the medical schools was beginning to be seen in the changed attitude of the people toward the herb doctors. However, it was not customary to call a physician until the patient's life was in danger or until a case of pneumonia, typhoid fever or some usually fatal illness became well defined. No effort was made to prevent disease. Typhoid fever would scourge a whole community until its mysterious course was arrested by the autumn rains or winter. As if to aid its deadly pro- gress, all the well persons of the neighborhood, in relays of four or five, would "sit up" with the patient without ever suspecting that they might thereby contract the disease. In the year 1859, by way of example, the deaths in August, September and October, the typhoid months, were 1,500, 1,633, and 1,364; while for the three preceding months there were, all told, 3,358 deaths and for the succeeding three there were 2,991; an excess of 1,139 over the preceding spring months and 1,506 over the succeed- ing winter months. The death toll of typhoid fever seems to have been about 500 persons per month, though the total number directly attributed to this malady was 1,763.1º Consumption, with 1,704 vic- tims, pneumonia with 1,149, scarlatina with 1,432,
10 U. S. Census, 1860, table 6. Before me is a worn copy of Wilitam C. Barton's Vegetable Materia Medica of the United States, from the library of one of the hest physicians of that time. It contains descriptions of the common medicinal plants, with directions for gathering, curing and making them into medicines.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
croup with 778, brain fever with 642, whooping cough with 322 and dysentery with 918, were the other troublesome diseases. It will be noted that the last five affected children almost entirely. Infantile mor- tality was high. While the statistics are not at hand, it seems that half the children in the family died be- fore reaching maturity.
There were very few public cemeteries at this time. Each farm, as a rule, had, somewhere near the house, a small plot which was used as a family bury- ing ground. A great many of these private ceme- teries may still be seen in Indiana, but in most cases the farm has changed hands too often and the un- marked graves have been neglected. By far the larger part of the first generation of Indianians are now in unmarked graves. All traces of their exist- ences have disappeared as completely as those of the forest, the wild animals and the Indians, their con- temporaries.
Scenes of physical suffering and death were com- mon, so much so that it had a strange effect on the naturally buoyant Hoosier character. All who have read the stories and ballads common in Indiana at this time have been amused at the pathos. Such bal- lads as "Lily Dale," "Sweet William," "Barbara Allen," "Fuller and Warren" illustrate the charac- teristics. This has been wrongly attributed to affec- tation, but it was nothing more than an expression of this native hilarity subdued by moments of sad- ness. These mournsome songs were usually sung on the most convivial occasions and were not intended by the singers to express sorrow.
§ 104 SOCIAL GATHERINGS
Public meetings of the fifties were noticeable for their formality and dignity. The people were the first of three or four generations to appear in formal
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society, and naturally the tendency to overdress and overact the occasion was great. One must not get the idea that the old pioneer time had been sloughed as a snake does his skin. Half of Indiana was still in the log-cabin, hunting-shirt era. The polish that ap- peared in the cities and in the more prosperous farm communities was mocked in most places, but it was the herald of better times. Manners were still rough and coarse as compared with the present. Gentlemen of society, in their long bell coats, white vests and ruffled shirts, swore like slave drivers. Women, after a few short years in the whirl of fashion, settled down into comfortable clothing, did from ten to six- teen hours of hard work per day, raised a large fam- ily, in the meantime smoking their clay pipes with what composure they could.11
Most of the amusements of pioneer times con- tinued throughout this period. At the schoolhouse the young folks gathered of evenings for the spelling
11 The following paragraph by a reporter for the Rural New Yorker is worth considering:
Our route lay through Northern Indiana and Central Michi- gan. The scenery was beautiful, and crops seemed promising; but, if physiognomy denotes inner sanctity and intelligence, one can but infer that the light of the Gospel truth and education has illuminated to a very limited extent this part of the "Mighty West." Unless a marked advance is soon made in their moral state and political condition, we are seriously afraid that a day of retribution will find a majority of the people wanting both in theory and practice. The Hoosiers are strangers to the day of grace; their portion is among the Gentiles. In many regions of the State they are so industrious that the memory of the oldest settler runneth not back to the time when Sabbath day, Fourth of July, or any other holiday mentionable in the English lan- guage was observed. Governor Slade's philanthropic mission of sending from the East into this inhabitation of darkness, female
teachers does not work out the promised glorious result.
* * We hope, however, for the advent of better times. "Let us learn to labor and to wait."-Washington Democrat, September 23, 1853.
*
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
match, the singing school, the writing school and especially for the "literary" or debate. All of these were largely patronized throughout the decade. Old folks as well as young, took part in all these meet- ings. Each was essentially a contest in which groups or "sides" contested against groups. The individual contests were going out of fashion in the older com- munities. One school frequently challenged another ; one singing class challenged another in an adjoining neighborhood; one debating society challenged an- other; or even one writing class entered the lists against another. These writing schools had no con- nection with the district school, but were composed of grown persons under the tuition of an itinerant teacher. The same is true of the singing school. The writing school usually met of evenings while the singing school held on Sunday. Elaborate rules gov- erned all these contests. They were not dress affairs, though lads and lassies usually attended in pairs and took full advantage of the opportunities offered for "sparking."
More elaborate and formal were the Sunday meetings at the church house. Here the best and starchiest dress was required. At Quarterly meet- ings and Associations baskets of fried chicken, cakes and pies were brought and at the noon intermission the table cloth was spread on the grass under the trees. On these occasions friends and relatives from distant neighborhoods combined the pleasures of worship with those of a social visit. In many local- ities these meetings were the greatest events of the year.
The great American holidays were usually ob- served, each in its peculiar way. The Fourth of July was a dress occasion on which, in the towns, the lead- ing citizens and ladies sat down to a formal banquet, after which lugubrious toasts to our glorious country
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SOCIAL GATHERINGS
were given. In the rural districts the folks gathered in a grove, sometimes listened to the readings of the Declaration or a pompous oration by some member of the bar or more often danced in the sawdust to the music of the fiddle. The other great holiday was Christmas, on the eve of which a sleigh ride to the Christmas tree was good sport for the grown boys and girls, while the little ones hung up their stock- ings in eager expectation of the visit of Santa Claus. Bands of young men armed with muskets, horns and conch-shells made the rounds of the neighborhood on Christmas eve, shooting in front of houses and demanding treats of liquor, apples, pies or cakes, according to taste or local custom. On Christmas day kinfolks gathered together to enjoy a sumptuous feast, greatest of the year in many homes.
The militia muster had yielded its former prestige partly to the election day and partly to the barbecue, the former taking over the business and the latter the pleasure. The procedure on election day varied so much in different parts of the state that no detailed description would be fair to more than one commun- ity. In the great majority of townships the election was an orderly, quiet, business-like poll of the voters. In other townships it was bedlam on a spree. The barbecue, originally appropriate for any gathering, had by 1850 become appropriated almost exclusively for political meetings. Beef was the proper meat for barbecuing. It was not a fashionable meeting. All classes attended, dressed in all styles from the fringed hunting shirt and moccasins to the bell- shaped great coat and bee-gum beaver. Usually some political speaker harangued the multitude, and not infrequently two or three speakers were going simul- taneously. One hundred farm wagons, mingled with a considerable number of ox-teams and stylish fam- ily carriages could be counted on the grounds.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
The feast was not altogether lovely from our point of view. Swarms of flies and gnats covered the meat except when shooed away by the feasters. Kegs of corn whiskey and hard cider were consumed by the multitude, resulting in the usual coarse behavior. Frequently the revelry continued far into the night or not seldom throughout the second day during which the people camped on the ground and spent the time around the camp fire in social visits. Naturally the young folks enjoyed themselves to the limit.
§ 105 TRAVEL
There were in Indiana in 1854 twelve daily, two tri-weekly, one semi-weekly, one hundred and twenty- one weekly, one fortnightly and six monthly news- papers. Only nineteen counties were entirely with- out newspapers.12 The reading of these papers, with their stories of the outside world, the wonders of the cities and the lure of the great west, created uncon- trollable desire to see the world. The new railroads and palatial steamboats offered the means and the returns from good crops and profitable commerce furnished the necessary funds. Cincinnati and New Orleans were the attractive western cities. It was counted the treat of a lifetime to make the trip to New Orleans on such a steamer as the "Shotwell," "Antelope," "Diana" or, above all, on the "Eclipse."18 More than a score of elegant sidewheel-
12 Indianapolis Journal, Jan. 27, 1854.
13 The following description Is from De la Hunt, History of Perry County, 177:
Greatest and grandest of all craft ever afloat on western waters was the "Eclipse," whose name accurately indicated her character. Built in 1851-52 in New Albany, at a cost of $375,000, she passed Cannelton, March 24, 1852, on her maiden trip to New Orleans, and her like had never been seen, nor will It be again beheld. In mere dimensions she excelled all records, a hull 363 feet
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TRAVEL
ers plied between Louisville and New Albany and New Orleans. Almost equally numerous and splen- did were the boats in the Louisville-St. Louis trade. The elite of southern Indiana met the barons of the Blue Grass in the cabins of these steamers on equal
long, waterwheels 42 feet in diameter, with 14-foot buckets, sus- tained by shafts of 22-inch diameter, weighing 13 tons each. Two large engines, of 36-inch cylinders, with 11-foot stroke, generated the motive power, besides four smaller engines, for hoisting freight and pumping water. Eight large boilers were 321/2 feet in length by 42 inches in diameter, besides seven cylinder boilers 35 feet by 12 inches. Her smokestacks measured a diameter of 85 inches and towered 86 feet above the hurricane deck. The first passengers' cabin extended a length of 300 feet, and it was here that money had been squandered with lavishness unparalleled. Five thousand dollars was spent on the carpet alone, woven in Brussels from original designs and specifications sent from New Albany while the boat was being built. This carpet consisted of two immense rugs the full width of the cabin, extending fore and aft from the central gangway and woven with eyelets by which they could be buttoned down at the edges and readily lifted for cleaning. Every piece of chinaware was made from special patterns by the Haviland potteries at Limoges, the smaller plates, cups and saucers bearing the initial "E" in gold near the edge, while the larger dishes were marked "Eclipse" in gilded letters. A flying golden eagle surmounted this as a crest upon the tall ware, such as tureens, comport dishes and pitchers. The silver was all sterling, made to special order and engraved with name in ornate script, while all the cutlery and service was of the same costly description. Added to all this, the mere gold leaf used in decoration when building the boat amounted to $4,875, a single detail of the extravagance displayed throughout. One hundred and twenty people made up the full crew in every capacity, under command of Capt. E. T. Sturgeon, so the passen- gers were literally on a floating hotel, with servants trained to anticipate every wish. Besides the all-surpassing splendour of her equipment, the "Eclipse" was the swiftest long-distance boat ever in the Mississippi valley, and as such her record remains unbroken, disregarding numerous spurt records, where fast steam- ers made extraordinary time over short courses. In 1853 occurred the memorable speed contest between the "Eclipse" and the "A. L.
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