History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 11

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942

USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana > Part 11

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

NOTABLE EVENTS AND INCIDENTS.

horses. Ludlow took one path and Mingo another. Harper followed Ludlow and Hudson trailed Mingo, keeping some fifty yards behind. They traveled some short distance from the camp, when Harper shot Ludlow through the body ; he fell dead on his face. Hudson, on hearing the crack of the rifle of Harper, immediately shot Mingo, the ball entering just below his shoulders and passing clear through his body. The party then met and proceeded to within gunshot of the camp. Sawyer shot one of the squaws through the head, Bridge, Sr., shot another squaw, and Bridge, Jr., the other. Sawyer then fired at the oldest boy, but only wounded him. The other children were shot by some of the party. Harper then led the way on to the camp. The two squaws, one boy, and the two little girls lay dead, but the oldest boy was still living. Sawyer took him by the legs and knocked his brains out against the end of a log. The camp was then robbed of everything worth carrying away.

" Harper, the ringleader, left immediately for Ohio, and was never taken. (He is said by tradition to have reached Ohio, eighty miles away through the woods, in twenty-four hours.) Hudson, Sawyer, Bridge, Sr., and Bridge, Jr., were arrested, and when I first saw them they were confined in a square log jail, built of heavy beech and sugar-tree logs, notched down elosely, and fitting tight above, below, and on the sides. The prisoners wero all heavily ironed and sitting on the straw on the floor. Hud- son was a man of about middle size, with a bad look, dark eye, and bushy hair, about thirty-five years of age in appearance. Sawyer was about the same age, rather heavier than Hudson, but there was nothing in his appearance that would have marked him in a crowd as any other than a common farmer. Bridge, Sr., was much older than Sawyer, his head was quite gray ; he was above the common height, slender, and a little bent while standing. Bridge, Jr., was a tall stripling some eighteen years of age. Bridge, Sr., was the father of Bridge, Jr., and the brother-in-law of Sawyer.

" The news of these Indian murders flew upon the wings of the wind. The settlers became greatly alarmed, fearing the retaliatory vengeance of the tribes, and especially of the other bands of the Sen-

eeas (Shawanese). The facts reached Mr. John Johnston at the Indian ageney at Piqua, Ohio. An account was sent from the agency to the War De- partment. Col. Johnston and William Conner visited all the Indian tribes and assured them that the gov- ernment would punish the offenders, and obtained the promises of the chiefs and warriors that they would wait and see what their ' Great Father' would do before they took the matter into their own hands. This quieted the fears of the settlers, and prepara- tions were made for the trials. A new log build- ing was erected at the north part of Pendleton, with two rooms, one for the court and one for the grand jury. The court-room was about twenty by thirty feet, with a heavy puneheon floor, a platform at one end three feet high, with a strong railing in front, a bench for the judges, a plain table for the elerk in front on the floor, a long bench for the counsel, a little pen for the prisoners, a side beneh for the wit- nesses, and a long pole in front, substantially sup- ported, to separate the crowd from the court and har. - A guard day and night was placed around the jail. The court was composed of Mr. Wick, presiding judge, Samuel Holliday and Adam Winchell, associ- ates. Judge Wiek was young on the bench, but with much experience in criminal trials. Judge Winchell was a blacksmith, and had ironed the pris- oners. Moses Cox was the elerk. He could barely write his name, and when a candidate for justice of the peace at Connersville he boasted of his superior qualifications : ' I have been sued on every section of the statute, and know all about the law, while my competitor has never been sued, and knows nothing about the statute.' Samuel Cory, the sheriff, was a fine specimen of a woods Hoosier, tall and strong- boned, with a hearty laugh, without fear of man or beast, and with a voice that made the woods ring as he called the jurors and witnesses. Col. John- ston, the Indian agent, was directed to attend the trial to see that the witnesses were present and to pay their fees. Gen. Noble, then a United States senator, was employed by the Secretary of War to prosecute, with power to fee an assistant. Philip Sweetzer, a young son-in-law of the general, of high promise in his profession, was selected as assistant.

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

Calvin Fletcher, then a young man of more than or- dinary ability, and a good criminal lawyer, was the regular proseenting attorney." In another allusion to these cases Mr. Smith mentions the lawyers who were present,-Gen. James Noble, Philip Sweetzer, Harvey Gregg, Lot Bloomfield, James Rariden, Charles H. Test, Calvin Fletcher, Daniel B. Wiek, and William R. Morris, of this State, and Gen. Sampson Masen and Moses Vance, of Ohio. These last were defending.

The conviction and execution of the prisoners, ex- cept Harper, who escaped, and young Bridge, who was pardoned, are related in the sketch already re- ferred to. Mr. Nowland describes the novel gallows that was used : " A wagon was drawn up the side of the hill on planks, so that the wheels would move easily. A post was placed on the side of the hill, just above the wagon. To this post the wagon was fastened by a rope, so that when the rope was cut the wagon would run down the hill without aid. The . two old men were placed in the tail of the wagon, the ropes adjusted, and at the signal the rope was cut, and the wagon ran from under the men. Sawyer broke his arms loose, caught the rope, and raised himself about eighteen inches. The sheriff quickly caught him by the ankles, and gave a sudden jerk, which brought the body down, and he died without another struggle." The extended quotation from Mr. Smith's reminiseences is interesting, not only as an account of an affair of national importance, and especially important to the settlers of Indianapolis and the country around, but as a picture of the primitive baek woods court-house and modes of court business. These executions, as before remarked, are claimed to be the first that ever occurred in the United States as the penalty, judicially inflicted, of the murder of Indians by whites. Hudson escaped once after his sentence, and hid in a hollow log in the darkness of an unusually dark night, but was soon discovered and arrested. Many years ago it used to be told among the old settlers and their chil- dren that Governor Ray, in the speech announeing the pardon of young Bridge, June 30, 1825, after his father and Sawyer had been hung, said to the young murderer : " There are but two powers in the

universe that can now save your life. One is the Almighty God and the other is the Executive of Indiana." It was probably a joke manufactured after the old Governor's eccentricities had become so striking and notorious that such an imputation eould not harm him. He was long a noted citizen of In- dianapolis.

Governor Ray was Lieutenant-Governor with Gov- ernor Hendricks, and from February 25th, when Hendricks went to the National Senate, he was act- ing Governor. He was subsequently elected two full terms, and left the office, the last he ever held, in December, 1831. He came to the capital about the time the Legislature met, Jan. 10, 1825, bought property here, and remained here till he died, about 1850. He owned a considerable portion of the square on Washington Street, opposite the court- house, near where Carter's tavern had stood, and in his later life, when his mind began to be considerably unsettled, he imagined a magnificent railroad system, of which this block of his was to be the centre. Ra- diating lines were to penetrate the country in all di- rections, with villages every five miles, towns every twenty miles, and eities every fifty miles. Deep gorges among hills were to be crossed on a natural trestle-work, made by sawing off the tops of trees level with the track, and laying sills on these. Oddly enough this very expedient has been used on the Denver and Rio Grande Narrow-Gange Road, or a road among the mountains in that region. Not less singular is the fact that this " dream of a sick brain," as everybody thought it when it was told and talked about, has proved a most substantial reality, except that Governor Ray's court-house block is not the site of the great central hub depot. In 1826 his influenee with the Indians, says Mr. Nowland, when he was a commissioner, with Gen. Tip- ton, of this State, and Gen. Cass, of Michigan, to pro- cure a cession of the lands of the Pottawatomies and Eel River and Wabash Miamis, seeured from the In- dians a grant to the State of one section of land for every mile of road, a hundred feet wide, from Lake Michigan through Indianapolis to the Ohio, at any point fixed by the Legislature. It was a most valuable donation, and the "old Michigan road,"

NOTABLE EVENTS AND INCIDENTS.

running through Shelbyville, Greensburg, Napoleon, to Madison, the point selected by the Legislature, was long the best improved road in the State, and never inferior to any but the completed portions of the National road. The Governor's son, James Brown Gay Ray, died when a boy, but a daughter survived him, and continues his abilities, without his vagaries, in some of our best citizens.

The usual Fourth of July celebration was held at Reagin's, as the year before, with Gabriel J. Johnson as orator for the citizens and Maj. J. W. Redding for the militia. Squire Foote was the reader. The August election following showed a change in the lines of parties from the position in 1822, when " White Water" was arrayed against " Kentucky." Now the contestants were two Kentuckians, Col. A. W. Russell and Morris Morris, candidates for sheriff to succeed Mr. Bates. Russell was elected by two hundred and sixty-five to one hundred and forty- eight for Mr. Morris. At the Presidential election in November, Clay received two hundred and thirteen votes, Jackson ninety-nine, and Adams sixteen. Clay had all the " Kentucky" strength and a good deal . of the " White Water." The poll in the county was one hundred and two less in the Presidential than in the State election, supposed to have been the re- sult of removals to the adjacent regions in the inter- val. In April the Sunday-school visitors reported a resident population on the donation of one hundred and seventy-two voters, and forty-five single women from fifteen to forty-five. The voters would indicate a population of about eight hundred. A little more than two years before the Gazette, as before noted, had enumerated sixty-one men of seventeen different pursuits, who were supposed to be about half of the adult male population of the spring of 1822, indi- cating a total population of about six hundred. This was not increased in the election on 1st of April. So the growth of the town in two years, from April 22d to April 24th, seems to have been about three hundred residents. It does not fairly show the addi- tional immigration in that time, however, because a good many who came to the town afterwards re- moved to the country. A large emigration to the Wabash passed through the town this year. The

streets and the lots along Washington Street, and di- verging from it in some places, were more or less cleared of trees, the court-house was in progress, the Presbyterian Church well advanced, a school-house built, two or three religious organizations holding regular services, two new and superior hotels ad- vancing, a distillery on the bayou, a woolen-mill and three or four grist- and saw-mills at work, so that there was no cause for serious discouragement, though progress was not rapid enough to excite any very sanguine hopes. The river and all its tributaries were flooded during the spring, and a keel-boat called the " Dandy" came up on the rise on the 22d of May, with twenty-eight tons of salt and whiskey. This flood is said by the sketch of 1857 and that of Mr. Merrill of 1850 to have been the greatest ever known in the river. It was probably equaled by that of 1828 and 1847, and very closely approached by that of February of this year (1883). The State's revenue from Marion County in 1824 was one hundred and fifty-four dollars and twenty-five cents.

In anticipation of the meeting of the Legislature the citizens formed a " mock" body in the fall of 1824 called the " Indianapolis Legislature," the members of which assigned themselves to any counties they chose, and discussed pretty much the same questions as the real Legislature had discussed, or would when it met. It elected its own Governor about as often as it wanted to get a freslı message or inaugural, which was sure to be a humorous affair, and its debates were not unfrequently a good deal better than those of the body it represented. The men who engaged in them were sometimes ex-members, and occasionally actual members of the real body, and the information and arguments elicited in the sham debate more than once decided the result of the real one. The meet- ings were continued till about 1836. They were dis- continued then for several years, but revived for a while during the winter of 1842 or 1843 or there- abouts .. In November, Samuel Merrill, treasurer of the State, arrived at the capital with several wagon- loads of records and money, and thenceforward the chosen capital was the real one.

During the preceding summer and fall a brick

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND. MARION COUNTY.

house had been built for the residence of the treas- urer, with a little brick office at the west side, on the southwest corner of Washington and Tennessee Streets, where the State buildings now are. Mr. Merrill was the first occupant, keeping the place till 1834, when he gave way to the late Nathan B. Palmer, who succeeded him in the treasurer's office by election of the Legislature. He remained here, however, and became one of the men who gave the town its impulse to intellectual and moral as well as material improvement.

Samuel Merrill was born in Peacham, Vt., Oct. 29, 1792. He died in Indianapolis, Aug. 24, 1855. He entered an advanced class in Dartmouth College, but did not graduate, for in his junior year he left to join his elder brother, James, in teaching in York, Pa. There he spent three years in teaching and studying law, having for his familiar associates Thad- deus Stevens, John Blanchard, and his elder brother, James Merrill, all from Peacham, Vt., and all men who have made their mark on their age. At the end of this time he removed to Vevay, in this State, and established himself in the practice of law. In 1821 he was elected to the Legislature for two years, and during his term of office he was elected treasurer of State. In the discharge of the duties of this office he removed first to Corydon, and thence in 1824 to this place. He held the office of treasurer of State till 1834, when he was chosen president of the State Bank. The dutics of this office he discharged with the most unwearied fidelity and unimpeachable honesty till 1844, when his public life terminated, with the exception of four years of service as the president of the Madison and Indianapolis Railroad Company. For several years before his death he was engaged in the book trade, still continued by his son. His daughter Kate until very recently was Professor of English Literature in Butler University. Mr. Merrill assisted in forming Henry Ward Beecher's church here, and was all his life after most earnest and devoted in all good works.

The following account of the journey of the capi- tal from Corydon to Indianapolis, written by a mem- ber of Mr. Merrill's family, is interesting, not only as the first account of the migration ever published, but |

as a very graphic description of the condition and ways of life of the Indianians nearly sixty years ago : " The journey of about one hundred and sixty miles occupied two weeks. The best day's travel was eleven miles. One day the wagons accomplished but two miles, passages through the woods having to be cut on account of the impassable character of the road. Four four-horse wagons and one or two saddle-horses formed the means of conveyance for two families, consisting of about a dozen persons, and for a printing-press and the State treasury of silver in strong wooden boxes. The gentlemen slept in the wagons or on the ground to protect the silver, the families found shelter at night in log cabins which stood along the road at rare though not incon- venient intervals. The country people werc, many of them, as rude as their dwellings, which usually consisted of but one room, serving for all the pur- poses of domestic life,-cooking, eating, sleeping, spinning and weaving, and the entertainment of com- pany. At one place a young man, who perhaps had come miles to visit his sweetheart, sat up with her all night on the only vacant space in the room, the hearth of the big fireplace. He kept on his cap, which was of coonskin, the tail hanging down behind, and gave the children the impression that he was a bear."

At the time of the removal William Hendricks was Governor, but was elected to the National Senate that winter, and on Feb. 12, 1825, acting Lieutenant- Governor Ray, who had been made president of the Senate when Lieutenant-Governor Ratliff Boone re- tired, succeeded to the Governorship, and was regu- larly elected the following August, and again in 1828. The Secretary of State was Robert A. New, from 1816 to 1825, succeeded by W. W. Wick; the audi- tor, William H. Lilley, from 1816 to 1829, suc- ceeded in 1829 by Morris Morris, who held till 1844; the treasurer, Samuel Merrill, from 1823 to 1834, succeeded by Nathan B. Palmer. The Legis- lature, which met in January, took the court-house before it was entirely finished, the House sitting in the lower room, the Senate in the upper. The treas- urer occupied the building especially erected for him, and the other State officers went where they could. For uearly thirty years after the erection of the

ORIGINAL ENTRIES OF LANDS IN THE COUNTY.

" Governor's house" in the Circle in 1827, as before noted, the Supreme judges had their " chambers" there, and most or all of the State officers were there for a time except the treasurer. His residence and office were abandoned before the late war and rented. It would be useless if it were possible to hunt out all the rooms the State auditor and secretary occupied up to the time they took permanent possession of the building expressly erected for them in 1865, but it may be noted that after the completion of Masonic Hall, in 1850, they went there, and subsequently moved into the " McOuat Block," on Kentucky Avenue, where they remained till their final change. The clerk of the Supreme Court previously had his office in a little building in the Court-House Square, and when that was torn down went to the State- House. The reporter of the Supreme Court has never had a public office, and the attorney-general and superintendent of public instruction, after their offices were created, found accommodations where they chose till the " State Building" was erected and enlarged. The State Library was kept in the " Gov- ernor's house" for a time, in charge of the State offi- cers there, but in 1841, John Cook, a bustling, " log- rolling," pushing little fellow, recently from Ohio, got himself made librarian, and the library was put in the south rooms, west side, of the State-House. Cook was succeeded in 1843, under a Democratic Legislature, by Samuel P. Daniels, an old resident and a tailor, and he by the late John B. Dillon, au- thor of two " Histories of Indiana," and he, in 1850, by Nathaniel Bolton, first editor of the town, as al- ready related. The adjutaot-general's office was hardly a visible appendage to the commander-in-chief of the State's army and navy till 1846, when the Mexican war made it a place of large responsibility and heavy duties, with Gen. David Reynolds as occu- pant. During the late war it became again one of the most important offices of the State, and was held by Gen. Wallacc, Gen. Noble, and Gen. Terrell. It has never been reduced since to the unimportance of its early existence. It and the State Library and the State geologist's office arc now in a building opposite the east entrance of the new State-House. The library is now, in addition to its proper use, a museum of

relics of the Mexican war and the civil war, while the geologist's office is one of the finest museums of geo- logical and paleontological specimens in the world.

On the 16th of November, 1824, John Douglass, State printer at Corydon, who had come out with Mr. Merrill, bought the interest of Harvey Gregg in the Western Censor and Emigrant's Guide. On the 11th of January, the day after the first meeting of the Legislature, the paper appeared as the In- diana Journal, a name it has retained through many changes of ownership, with a reputation and influence as unchanging as its name. Much of the carly suc- cess of the paper was due to Mr. Douglass.

The first period of the history of the city and county-substantially identical-ends with the ar- rival of the State capital. Of improvements, trade, political movements, increase of population as accu- curate a view has been presented as can be obtained at this remote period, but a glance at the settlement of the surrounding townships and at the county business will make it more comprehensive and satis- . factory. From 1821, when the government lands in the New Purchase were first opened to sale, till 1824 or the beginning of 1825, when the capital was fully established here, the entries of land in the different townships, as appears from the " Tract Book" in the county auditor's office, were as appears in the follow- ing list. It will be scen that the larger portion of the entries of the first two years were in Centre and the two lines of townships west and about it, the eastern portion of the county attracting little immi- gration till the central and western were pretty well filled :

CENTRE TOWNSHIP OUTSIDE THE CITY.

Town 15 North, Range 3 East.

Name and Date.

Acres.

Sec- tion.

Robert Harding and Isaac Wilson, July, 1821 .. ...

258

Jesse Mckay and Joseph Frazee, July, 182]

James Rariden, July, 1821

Eliakim Harding, July, 1821

Jonathan Lyons, July, 1821

Daniel Yandes, July, 1821.

160

William Myers, July, 1821.

James H. McClure, July, 1821

Daniel Yandes and Ephraim D. Reed, July, 1821.

William Sanders, July, 1821.

160

Richard T. Kcen, July, 1821 80

James HI. MeClure, July, 1821

Eliakim Harding, July, 1821 80

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

Name and Date.

Acres.

Sec- tion.

Name and Date.

Асгев.

Sac- tion.

David Wood, July, 1821.

160

David Aere, February, 1823 80

John Hunt, July, 1821.

Ilorvey Gregg, January, 1823. 80

John Smoek, July, 1821.

Robert Weightman, November, 1822.

Armstrong Brandon, July, 1821.

Jonathan Gillam, July, 1821.

James Pell, July, 1821 42

William MeLaughlin, October, 1821

William A. Joboson, July, 1821

Joho Graham, August, 1821 80

John Stephens, December, 1821.

John Graham, August, 1821. 80

Alexander Ewing, July, 1821.

S. G. Iluntingdon, August, 1821. 80

William Wiles, July, 1821.

William Sanders, July, 1822 80

John Stephens, February, 1821.

Jacob Mason, January, 1822.

Michael Vanblaricum, July, 1821

Obed Foote, October, 1821

Joel Wright, July, 1821.

Joseph Catterlio, July, 1821

Morris Morris, July, 1821

160

Archibald C. Reid, July, 1821 80

155

Zadoe Smith, August, 1821

David Mallery, August, 1821. 80

Cornelius Vanarsdal, July, 1821

104

James Curry, August, 1821

Cornelius Vanarsdal, July, 1821.

James Curry, August, 1821

Abraham Heaton, August, 1821 71

Henry Bowser, August, 1821

160

Noah Sinks, October, 1823.

Jacob Moyer, September, 1821

158

John G. Brown, July, 1821

Ilenry Bowser, August, 1821.

160

Alexander Ewing, July, 1821

Henry Bowser, August, 1821.

James Lewis, August, 1821.

Jobo Diokson, July, 1821 78

Jobn Stephens, December, 1821.

Otis Hobart, December, 1821. SO

Robert Brenton, July, 1821

160

Jobn Ilobart, December, 1821

Elial T. Foote, July, 1821

Ilervey Bates, June, 1822.

George Vandegriff, July, 1821

James T. Bradley, July, 1821.

John Hobart, December, 1821.

Henry Bradley, July, 1821 80

. 24

Joseph Greer, July, 1822 80

John Cutler, July, 1821.

Isaae Limpus, July, 1821.

John Smoek and John Cutler, July, 1821

Robert MeGill, July, 1822.

Wiekliff Kitobell, July, 1821. 160

Town 15 North, Range 4 East.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 11

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 942

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942