History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 16

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

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There has been an almost complete reversal of con- ditions since the beginning of the period of musical culture. Then the young lady who could play the piano or " sing by note" was the exception ; now the young lady who cannot is the exception. Of classic music very little was known, so little that when Madame Bishop first sang here in Masonic Hall in November, 1851, the first time that a celebrated vo- calist had ever appeared herc, her performance of " Casta Diva" provoked a general smile, and not a few called it " squalling." Now there are few edu- cated ladies in this city who are not familiar with most of the best-known efforts of the great composers. It may amuse them to learn the kind of songs that were usually sung for social entertainment by the

young people who are now their parents or grand- parents. Along in 1837 or 1838, when work on the canal was going on, a song much liked by the country boys and girls related to that sort of occupation. It began in this way : " I landed in sweet Philadelphia, but being quite late in the fall, I didn't' stay long in that city, but anchored out on the canawl." Another, with a touch of broad humor, sang the horrors of a wreck on the " raging canawl": " We had a load of Dutch, aud we stowed 'em in the hold ; they were not the least concerned about the welfare of their souls. The captain went below, and implored them for to pray, but all the answer he could get was ' Ich kan se nich versteh'." Of the amatory kind there was the " Gallant Hussar," the " Minstrel returned from the Wars," "Gaily the Troubadour," " Barbara Allen," some of Burns' songs, popular everywhere, " William Riley," with, a few years later, a profusion of the earlier efforts of the colored muse, and a few as early as 1839 or thereabouts, such as " Jenny, git your hoe-cake done," "Jim Brown," " Clar de Kitchen," and the like. Patriotic songs were popu- lar and far more frequent than patriotic songs now, though far inferior in style and literary qualities, but by no means deficient in the spirit of the airs. Onc of these was known all over the West as the " Hunters of Kentucky," and celebrated the battle of New Or- leans. Another little less popular paid tribute to Perry and his heroes, beginning, "The tenth of Sep- tember let us all remember as long as the world on its axis rolls round." Another lamented St. Clair's defcat. Another crowed lustily over the victory on Lake Champlain, under the title, " The Noble Lads of Canada." The chorus of the first verses ran thus : " We're the noble lads of Canada, come to arms, boys, come !" that of the last verse, owning defeat, changed tone, " We've got too far from Canada, run for life, boys, run !" Among the settlers from Guilford County, N. C., there was the fag end of a queer old patriotic song touching the French and English wars of the time of Wolfe and the conquest of Canada : " We'll seud the news to France, how we made those Frenchmen dance when we conquered the place called Belle Isle," followed by a chorus that appeared to be a jumble of unmeaning French words, or, if

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

ever intelligible, so spoiled in pronunciation as to be mere gibberish. There were a number of comic songs that were frequently sung, of which four or five will serve for samples : " Poor Old Maids," "Near Fly-Market lived a dame," "Sukey Suds, she stood at her washing-tub" (a parody on " Lord Lovel"), " The Cork Leg," " Billy Barlow," "Three Jolly Welshmen," " I fell in love with a cook." Most of these, sentimental, patriotic, and comic, were contained in some of the collections called " Western Songster" or "Columbian Minstrel," or something of that kind. They are pretty much all forgotten now, except by an occasional relic of old times who retains them as indications of what old times were. People of education and cultivated tastes sang better songs, of course, but those cited were the favorites, or of the class of favorites of the great mass of town and country people.

During this period of comparatively primitive con- ditions of life there was a steady increase of both edu- cational facilities and of the disposition to use them. The schools were all private, however, taught for two to four dollars a quarter per pupil, sometimes in pri- vate houses, sometimes in churches, and sometimes in buildings erected or altered purposely for them. The elementary course of instruction was much the same as in all schools of that time, and not greatly different from what it is now,-" Kirkham's Gram- mar," "Olney's Geography," "Pike's Arithmetic," " English Reader" or "School Companion," " Day's Algebra." The "Anthon Classics" and " Davies' Mathematics" came later. " Webster's Spelling- Book" was first seen here about 1833, shortly pre- ceding the other illumination from the great star shower in November. It was blue bound, and actually "in boards." The sides were made of thin veneers of sugar or beech apparently, pasted over with blue paper, and the usual calamity of the text- book was a back split and more or less of it torn off. The blackboard was not generally used, except in the town. Classic studies were rather unusual till the second decade of the settlement was well advanced. Music was taught to the boys in the " Old Seminary" by Rev. James S. Kemper and his brother, and in the female seminaries of course. With the County

Seminary and the rival schools that followed it, and the female schools of higher pretensions than the mixed schools that had preceded them, which also came in the track of the Old Seminary, came a more extended course of study. In not a few cases it cov- ered as thorough a reading of the usual classic authors as any Western college, and the mathematical course ran the whole length of the science, fron algebra and Euclid to the " Differential Calculus" and " McLau- rin's Theorem." So far in advance of the general mathematical instruction of the period was the course pursued in the " Old Seminary" that Mr. Kemper's class in " analytical geometry" had to copy his manu- script treatise on " Conic Sections," prepared by the late celebrated astronomer, Professor Mitchell, but never published, and study that. A fanciful but by no means idle variation of the usual school course was introduced here about 1843 or 1844 by an itiu- erant teacher, who made a specialty of geography, and taught it by the "singing" method. A large map of one of the continents was set where all could see it, and the teacher with a long stick would point to one object and another, and call its name in a sort of sing-song or "intoning" fashion, and the pupils would repeat it after him. He would take the bays along the ocean coast, for instance, beginning with the most northerly, and call them over in this sing- ing way in exact succession, going back to the first after each addition, thus keeping the whole series constantly in mind, and repeating it till it became fixed and indelible. Location was, in a general way, conveyed in the order of names, and the teacher's stick helped its definiteness by indicating it on the map as the name was sung. In the same way the capes, lakes, rivers, capitals, principal cities, and other important geographical features were taught more rapidly and effectively than by the humdrum method of ordinary schools. The lessons drew large audiences to the Methodist Church, where they were given. Lessons in penmanship were given by the usual infallible methods in from six to a dozen lessons by wandering teachers ; so was music, and occasion- ally modern languages. French was always taught in the female seminaries, and was also taught in the " Old Seminary" by Mr. Kemper, and in " Franklin

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF PIONEER LIFE.

Institute" by Mr. Marston, but German was never taught at all, or only in a very few unsuspected cases, till about 1848, when Professor Samuel K. Hoshour, afterwards president of Butler University, and one of the most noted teachers of Eastern Indiana, formed a German elass here, and Mr. Paul Geiser, a young German of good abilities and attainments, then editing the Volksblatt, the first German paper here, taught a private class for a short time.

The games of the pupils were much the same as now,-tops, marbles, hop-scotch, ball, prisoner's base, shinny. The games requiring room were more com- mon then, because adequate room cannot be had now, and it was all around most school-houses forty or more years ago. Several forms of ball games were practiced, --- " cat," with one or two bases, "town ball," very similar to base ball, "bull-pen," "ante and over," " hand up," the last three rarely seen or heard of since the town began filling up. In " bull-pen" four corners were occupied by four players, who threw the ball from one to the other till one saw a chance to hiit one of the players in the square, called the " pen," who ran constantly from one part to another, to keep at the greatest distance from the ball. If he missed he was out. If he hit, the boy who was hit or any one in the "pen" who got the ball first threw it at any one of the corner players who was handicst, and if he was hit he was out; if he was not, the other was out. In " hand up" the ball was knocked against a wall with the bare hand, usually at the " bounce." In " ante and over," or " antuy over," the players stood in two groups, one on cach side of the school-house. The one with the ball threw it over the house, calling out " ante and over." If the other side caught it they ran round the house to hit some of the players of the throwing side. Shinny, though, was the king game of the school-boy of the latter part of this period. It was played with a stout club curved at the bottom,-young sugars were usually taken, as their roots ran close along the surface of the ground,-and frequently charred to make them hard and prevent them from splinter- ing in their violent collisions with stones and gravelly surfaces. A ball, usually of wood, a couple of inches in diameter, was the other implement of the game.

The players were arrayed in lines facing each other, their respective goals or " homes" being the limits of the play-ground. The game was for one side or the other to carry the ball " home" against the resistance of the other side trying to carry it to their " home." Two players in the middle began the game by one taking the ball and calling to the other, " high buck or low doe," and throwing the ball in the air or on the ground according to the answer. The struggles were violent always, and the misdirected blows some- times serious ; scalps were laid open, legs lamed, eyes blacked, fingers and noses broken, shins skinned or bruised. A hard shinny player was rarely without a sore or limp or sprain somewhere. Though abandoned long ago by the school-boys of the later generation, partly from its violence and partly from the lack of convenient room, shinny is still revived at the annual reunions of the "Old Seminary Boys," who, if they did not intend it, made it the ruling game of the time forty odd years ago. And the bald-headed grandfathers who play it now-the judges, gen- erals, preachers, editors, doctors, legislators-some- times exhibit a good deal of the skill they learned before the "hard cider" campaign of 1840. The history and condition of the schools will be treated in a special division of the work. The purpose here is merely to notice such incidental subjects connected with the schools and pupils of early times as will give the reader some idea of them beyond their studies, and that could not be so readily introduced into the body of a work dealing with public affairs.

The reference to the occupations and diversions of the school-boy of the first generation would be incom- plete if it omitted an account of one almost universal duty and one entirely universal diversion. Driving cows to pasture and home was the duty, and swimming was the amusement. A large portion of the donation outside the old plat of the town was used as farm- land and pastures, with no small share of the vacant squares inside the town limits. For a trifle a cow- owner, and that was pretty much everybody that had a house and family, could rent one of these pastures, keep a cow from straying, keep her well fed, and have her handy whenever she was wanted. A boy any- where from six to sixteen could drive her out in the

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

morning after milking and back in the evening after school. It was something for idle hands to do. Cow- driving was a part of every Indianapolis boy's disci- pline in early times. Of course he got fun out of it as well in gathering nuts, chasing ground-squirrels, or taking surreptitious swims. The chief " swimming- holes" in the creek were Noble's and Morris', the former on the property of Governor Noble, near Market Street and the creek, the latter just south of the house of Morris Morris on South Meridian Street. The spot is now covered by the south side of the Union Depot. In the river the larger boys made their favorite resort at the " snag," near the site of Kingan's upper pork- bouse. The "tumbles" of the canal, or rather of the "race" from it into the river, one in the Military Ground at the north end of the basin, the other at the river, where it still remains elose to the water-works, were also favorite bathing-places. It is among the amusing traditions of the adventures of the boys in their indulgence of this diversion that one Sunday, instead of decorously betaking themselves to Sunday- school, a dozen or so slipped off to Morris' hole. James Blake found it out, and mounted his horse, called his eolored man to follow him, and went down to the " old swimming-hole." The darkey captured the clothes unperceived, and gave them up suit at a time as his master direeted till all were dressed. Then the old superintendent started the darkey ahead, kept the frightened boys close together following, and brought up the rear himself to prevent escapes. Thus the delinquent procession marehed up to the old Presby- terian Church, on North Pennsylvania Street, and the " hookey players" were forced to do proper Sun- day duty. It was said that the stern old Puritan even ventured to give some of them an oeeasional elip with his whip as a reminder of their double sin of running away from school and enjoying themselves on Sunday.

JAMES BLAKE was the son of James Blake who came from Ireland in 1774, and lived to the age of ninety-nine years, being among the earliest settlers of York County, Pa., where his son was born March 3, 1791. He when a youth enlisted in the war of 1812, and marched to Baltimore when that city was threat- ened by the British forces, serving in the army until

the declaration of peace in 1815. He then resumed his trade of a wagoner, and drove a six-horse team between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In November, 1818, he started on horseback for the West, going as far as St. Louis, and returning the following spring to complete arrangements for a final removal thither. On the 25th of July, 1821, he settled at Indianapolis, where he resided until his death. His history for fifty years was the history of Indianapolis, and no citizen has ever been more closely identified with the rise and progress of the city and its philanthropic and benevo- lent institutions than he. He, with Nicholas MeCarty and James M. Ray, nearly fifty years ago built the first steam-mill in Indianapolis, and thus was the pio- neer in the manufacturing which is now so vital an element in the city's prosperity. As a surveyor, he assisted in laying out and platting the city. He was selected as commissioner to receive plans and proposals for the old State-House. He was the first to urge upon the Legislature the importance of establishing a hospital for the insane, and opened a correspondence with the Eastern States on the subject. To him was intrusted the duty of selecting a location for that in- stitution. He was an early friend and member of the first board of directors of the Madison and Indianap- olis Railroad, and was also director of the Lafayette and Indianapolis Railroad. He was a trustee of Hanover College, Indiana, and of the Miami Univer- sity, of Oxford, Ohio, and at his death the Indiana commissioner for the erection of the Gettysburg Monument. For thirty-five years he was president of the Indianapolis Benevolent Society, and present at every anniversary with two exceptions. In 1847 he was the most liberal contributor to the relief of starving Ireland. Mr. Blake was a prime mover in the organization of the Indiana Branch of the Amer- ican Colonization Society. He was the founder of the Indianapolis Rolling-Mill, and embarked a large part of his fortune in that undertaking, having also started the first wholesale dry-goods house. On all pub- lie occasions Mr. Blake was looked to as the leader and manager of affairs. When the people of Indianapolis assembled to pay a tribute of respect to a deceased President, Governor, or other great man, Mr. Blake was selected to conduct and manage the matter.

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GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF PIONEER LIFE.

When Kossuth, the distinguished Hungarian, visited Indiana, when the soldiers returned from the Mexican war, when the farmers came in with a procession of wagons filled with food and supplies for soldiers' fami- lies, when the Indiana soldiers came home from the South, Mr. Blake was the marshal of the day, and no public pageant seemed complete without him. His whole life was crowned with useful labors. There was, in fact, no enterprise or movement appealing to publie spirit in which Mr. Blake was not conspicuous, constant, and efficient. He was among the first to organize a Sunday-school in the city of Indianapolis, and was ever foremost in this Christian work. For thirty years his majestic form headed the long and beautiful array of Sunday-school children in their Fourth of July celebration. In the temperance movement as in other matters he was a leader, and his adhesion to the Democracy was first broken by its conflict with his former adhesion to the cause of temperance. He was the patriarch of his church, admired and revered by all. In every relation of life-as head of a family, leader of society, chief of his church, or manager of business enterprises-he was always foremost, always honored, equally for his power and his disinterestedness. If Mr. Blake had pursued his own advantage with half the zcal he de- voted to the service of others and the good of the city, he might easily have counted his wealth by mil- lions. His ambition to become a useful citizen and a public benefactor outweighed all other considerations. He was not politically ambitious, and never held public office other than that of county commissioner. His desire for power never scemed to extend beyond the command of a Sunday-school procession or the presidency of a charitable meeting. The city of Indianapolis lost in him a man of intrinsic worth and a useful citizen, and the community a kind and sym- pathizing friend. Mr. Blake was married in March, 1831, to Miss Eliza Sproule, of Baltimore, to whom were born four children,-William MeConnell, James Ray, Walter Alexander (deceased), and John Gurley. The death of James Blake occurred Nov. 26, 1870.

A prominent figure in the memories of most school- boys of that day is Henry Hoagland, the idiot son of a bricklayer of high respectability and good sense.

Henry was a mere animal, with no human sense and hardly any human expression. He wandered harm- lessly everywhere, bareheaded and barefooted, because he preferred to be, carefully avoided by very small children and carefully followed and incessantly tor- mented by larger ones, who wanted to hear his queer muddled oaths and gabble. Sometimes he was dan- gerous when worried by his nimble persecutors too far, and he frequently frightened women in his furious moods and sometimes hurt the boys he caught. He was kept at the "County Asylum" or " Poor-House" for many years after it was put in condition for the care of such inmates, but he frequently got away and wandered into town. Another of later arrival and pleasanter character was John D. Hopkins, who ap- peared here first in the latter part of the second decade of the settlement, bareheaded and barefooted, with a Bible or hymn-book in his hand, and walking at a brisk pace with a peculiar stiff-kneed step along the streets talking to himself. At times he would mount a horse-block or a goods-box, sing a hymn of his own making, and preach a wild, rambling sermon. Very early among his visits here he brought with him a number of sheet-copies of a song he called the " Good Gathering," sung to an old camp-meeting tune. These he sold, and he supported himself on sueh little gratui- ties as the crowd that stopped to hear him sing or to joke with him would give him. The song may be judged by one couplet,-

" Good gathering is sailing around, round, and rounds Amidst many waters and hath no bounds ; Come join the good gathering army,"

the last a refrain to every couplet. During the po- litical campaigns he changed from a preacher to a stumper, and made speeches at five cents apiece on any side the purchaser wished. He was said to have entered the army during the civil war, and died there. At all events he has not been seen here since, and bad not but rarely for some time before. He was believed very generally to be careful of his money, and to have bought a good farm with it. At least he was sober, healthy, unusually robust, and when he chose to work few could equal him. His wanderings appear to have been the effect of a sort of periodie mental disturb- ance. Another well-known character of this period

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

was " Old Charley," a withered, weak-minded old colored man, who was the first auction bell-ringer here. There was nothing about him to make him noted but the fact that everybody saw him oftener than anybody else who was not in the family. His bent form, his old plug hat with an auction-bill tied in front, his noisy bell, traveling up and down Washington Street, were as familiar to every man, woman, and child as the court-house steeple. Dr. Cool, in his later years, became a sort of public character in consequence of his constant drunkenness. He came here in 1821, an experienced and reputable physician, but bad habits got the mastery of him, and in his last years he was little better than a vagrant.

Joe Lawson, known to both the early and later generation for his vagrancy, oddity, " dirt," and oc- casional gleams of wit and sense, figured contempo- raneously in part with Hopkins and Old Charley, but not so conspicuously as later. He was the brother of the wife of Dr. Soule, one of the earliest resident dentists, and son of Bishop Soule, of Tennessee. It was said Joe was always dirty, harmless, and good- humored, too much crippled to work, and too much indisposed if he had not been incapacitated. He usually lived on the " ernmbs" of hotel tables, and wore any clothes that anybody gave him. No human being in forty years or more has seen him clean and decently dressed. He used to make great fun for the boys and for members of the Legislature by singing sentimental songs and reciting Shakespeare. He lived at the County Asylum a long time, and was then brought to the city, given a little shanty in Blake's woods, and supported by contributions of old residents. The last of the Indianapolis characters was the late John Givan. He and his brother James came here in 1820, in the fall or winter, opened one of the earliest stores here, and were both among the most prominent and active citizens. John was one of the half-dozen or more candidates for recorder at the first county election in April, 1822. After the death of his brother his business declined, and he be- came a sort of " old junk" dealer near the court- house. Then he quit all pretence of merchandising and lived a loose, half-vagrant life, supporting him- self mainly by little services for men occupying rooms

in connection with their offices, and by serving as nurse to sick men who had no families or home. The last four or five years were smoothed for him by a provision made up by the Board of Trade and other business men, of which a committee used to clothe, house, and feed him comfortably. It was a tribute to the remains of the oldest merchant in the city and the remains of a once honorable and esti - mable man. Liquor ruined him, but to the last his memory was amazingly tenacions of dates and little events of the early history of Indianapolis, and he was always more than ready to tell them to anybody. He died three or four years ago.

Among the early settlers were a good many from the slave States of the class since widely koown as " poor whites," who brought here all the silly super- stitions they had learned among the slaves at home. A belief in witchcraft was the most conspicuous of these, with a score of omens and portents and pro- phetie dreams. Some of this class used to talk of a widow by the name of Myers, whose husband had a pottery where the Chamber of Commerce is, as a witch and having bewitched the cows of several of the neighbors whom she had a grudge against. The persecuted cattle either gave no milk or gave bloody milk, or the milk would not churn to any purpose, -- " the butter would not come," as they called it,-and the calves died, or the cows had " hollow horn" or the " tail-worm," all the effect of witchcraft. No one of the set seemed to think it possible the ailments were the effect of natural causes. Some sort of remedy was applied, partly of mild incantation and partly of suitable medicine, but nobody ever learned the composition of either.

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 16

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