History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 17

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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In one case the victim was a boy of a family by the name of Catlin, or something like it, living on the southeast corner of Alabama and Washington Streets. Who the victimizing witch was does not appear to have been known. The boy was ailing and distressed, and witcheraft was finally decided to be the source of the trouble, and Dr. John L. Rich- mond, pastor of the Baptist Church as well as prac- ticing physician, was applied to for an effective exor- cism of the evil spirit. The old doctor was a good deal of a wag as well as a shrewd, hard-headed man,

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF PIONEER LIFE.

and he concluded that a remedy adapted to the faith and brains of the family would be the best he could use, so he arranged with one of his students, Mr. Barrett, a brother of Mrs. Bolton, the Hoosier poet- ess, to play the defeated and exorcised witch when the proper ceremonies had been completed. He com- pounded in the presence of the awe-struck family a charm of magic power in the shape of a ball of cat's hair, hog's lard, aod a lot of other Macbeth remedies, and after a proper incantation, with many flourishes and ceremonies, threw the ball into the fire. The lard blazed up at once, and as it burned ont the lights were put out, till at last all was dark, and then Bar- rett, the witch, ran through the honsc sprinkling beef blood as he went, to indicate that the witch's blood had been spilt and her power was at an end. The victim was cured at once, but was attacked again in a week or two and another ceremony applied. What the outcome was the legend does not relate. The incident is worth preserving to show that the negroes of the South who believe in voodoo and fetish are not so much more ignorant than some of the white ancestors of the city as we should like to believe.

Among the fancies of this past generation was one that if a boy killed a toad his father's cow would give bloody milk ; if a man met a funeral procession, and did not turn back and accompany it, the next procession would be his owu ; if a knife was dropped from the table a visitor was coming; if the nose itched a visitor was likely to come; if a dog howled long at night a death was soon going to occur in the house ; if a cat rubbed its face frequently the weather was going to be dry ; if one pared his nails on Sun- day he'd be made ashamed of something before the end of the week ; if he killed a snake and left it lying belly upward there would be rain before night ; the first note of a dove in the spring would be heard in the direction in which the hearer would travel farthest that year; a new moon lying flat on its back portends a dry moon, because the water cannot get out of the hollow of the crescent, but if it is sloping or vertical the omen is of a wet month, be- cause the hollow can be emptied,-this is an Indian fancy ; water in which a gold coin has lain for some

hours is a remedy for scrofula ; abundance of dog- fennel indicates a sickly season ; dreams were accepted as "signs," and "dream books" were no unusual accompaniment of combs and brushes on a woman's toilet table.

The Hoosier dialect has been frequently attempted by authors of more or less pretension, but with no great success. "The Hoosier Schoolmaster," though written professedly as a picture of Hoosier life and language, misses the latter sometimes as badly as an Englishman misses the Yankee dialect. Our young poet, James W. Riley, strikes it more fairly than any other delineator, but some of its peculiarities, or those of the people using it, which gave it a tone and a turn of humor similar to that noticed in the Lowland dialect of the Scotch, had measurably dis- appeared before Mr. Riley was old enough to catch it in its full-grown raciness and quaintness. If he were twenty years older, we might expect from him as perfect a picture of Hoosier backwoods life as we have of the South in "Georgia Scenes" and " Simon Suggs," or of Yankec land in the " Bigelow Papers." The prevailing dialect of Indiana was that of the South. The bulk of the first settlers were from Kentucky or Tennessee or the Carolinas through the older portions of this State, or of Ohio some- times, sometimes by direct immigration. The East- ern immigration was mostly modified into a Western tone by a preceding residence in some part of the West. Thus little of the Yankee got here in so decided a form as to stay or affect the conditions around it. Correct pronunciation was positively regarded by the Southern immigration as a mark of aristocracy or, as they called it, " quality," and the . children in some cases discountenanced in acquiring or using it. The " ing" in "evening" or " morning" or any other words was softened into " in'," the full sound being held finical and " stuck up." So it was no unusual thing to hear such a comical string of emasculated " nasals" as the question of a promi- nent Indiana lawyer of the Kentucky " persuasion," " Where were you a standin' at the time of your perceivin' of the hearin' of the firin' of the pistol ?" Other mispronunciations went to the Hoosier shibbo- leth, as tenaciously maintained as this. To " set"

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

was the right way to "sit"; an Indian did not " scalp," he "skelped"; a murderer did not " stab," he " stabbed"; a child did not " long" for a thing, he " honed" for it,-slang retains this Hoosier archaism ; a woman was not " dull," she was " daunsy"; com- monly a gun was "shot" instead of " fired" in all moods and tenses. Indianapolis usually lost the first three syllables and became " Nopolis." It took the life- time of a generation to teach the country settler to twist the "dia" of Indianapolis into the Yankee "j" and make " Injenapolis" of it. Most of them do not do it fully yet, and probably never will. One good feature of the backwoods dialeet was that it had no euphemisms. There were no delicate names for dirty things. If a woman's virtue was smirched she was not a " courtesan," or even a " prostitute," the name was hard Saxon. A drunken man was not " intoxicated," or " tight," or "full," or "slewed," or "screwed," he was plain drunk. It was an honest dialect.

The race prejudices of the South were imported with its dialect into the New Purchase in full vigor. The colored man counted for little and claimed noth- ing. The inborn tribal animosity of the time ocea- sionally broke out in riots, the only serious disturb- ances of the peace ever known here till the outbreak of the civil war. Probably the first exhibition of it was the meanest, though the least violent. Cader Carter, a quadroon, with the unmistakable eyes and heavy features of his colored ancestors, was an un- usually active politician of the Gen. Jackson school. He lived in 1836 or thereabouts with Jesse Wright, one of the leading Democrats of the county and at one time one of the County Board. When Mr. Wright was a candidate he was warmly opposed, and Carter made himself conspicuously active for his patron. The opposing party resolved to put Carter out of the fight and the election by drawing his colored blood, so to speak, and they proved his African contamina- tion beyond the legal limit, and the active and blatant politician was silenced. The Whigs did that. When, as heretofore noticed, the public works in this State were abandoned in 1838-39, a large body of idle and worthless men were left here to live as they could. They soon made quarrels with the few colored resi-

dents here, and several times they attempted to mob a family by the name of Overall, living on what was then open ground a little east of the Military Ground, between Market and Ohio Streets. The negroes de- fended themselves with fire-arms, and the mob suc- ceeded in doing nothing more than making an alarm a few times. Not long after the completion of the first Episcopalian Church in 1838, a young lady was brought here from the East to play the organ. With her came her sister, who married a colored man within a few months after her arrival. The affair got wind in some way, and a mob of unruly men and half- grown boys, led by Josiah Simcox, surrounded the house containing the bridal party and captured the groom. The bride was not badly used, but the col- ored offender was ridden on a rail (it is not believed that he was tarred and feathered to any distressing extent) and warned to leave, which he and his wife did at once. In 1845, some years beyond the limit of the period to which this sketch of the social and moral condition of the city and adjacent country re- lates, but logically connected with the subject of race prejudices, a negro by the name of John Tucker was murdered by a mob, near the corner of Illinois and Washington Streets, on the Fourth of July. As usually happens in such cases, the least guilty of the offenders was caught and punished, the worst escaped and never returned. It may be noted here that the leader of the mob in the miscegenation case never dared to return to the town openly, though he did secretly at times. The only other disturbance of the publie peace that originated in race prejudice oc- curred at the election in 1875. One negro was killed and one or two others hurt. The police were mixed in it, and it was at least as much a political as tribal difficulty. The colored citizens of Indianap- olis have been in the main as orderly, respectable, and industrious as any class of the population.

If the Southern immigrant brought his dialeet and race prejudices, the Eastern immigrant brought his bigotry in no less fullness of fragrance, and made the whole social structure redolent of it. Maj. Carter's antipathy to the fiddle, as related in Mr. Nowland's anecdote, was but a slight exaggeration of the feeling of a large element of the community. Social pleas-

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF PIONEER LIFE.

ures, pleasant games, dances were discountenanced as downright immoral or tending in that direction. It is only within the last two decades that dances at private houses have been conceded a reputable char- acter not inconsistent with religious duty. Many a gay young soul has been " hauled over the coals" by elders and pastors for daneing, and it is barely twenty- five years since the Widows' and Orphans' Society squarely refused a benefit tendered it by Mr. Sher- loek, of the old Metropolitan Theatre, soon after its opening, in the fall of 1858. The society needed money badly, and had been begging for contributions. The benefit would have given it full five hundred dollars. But the Puritanical exacerbations that came in the early settlement of the place condemned the theatre as immoral, and would have none of its avails. The male advisers of the female directors so decided, and so it was done. It did not occur to them that Christ never asked the young man to whom he said, " Go sell that thou hast and give to the ponr," whether his father had made his money by selling rotten olives in Tyre or charging Pompey's soldiers five prices for wheat. As long as he came by it fairly and could use it for good, it was to be used for good. Ten years afterwards this same society sup- ported and conducted an amateur dramatic exhibition of regular stage comedies to raise money it needed, showing what a change in public sentiment had been made in the period including the war and a few years of peace at either end of it. Now social dances are as common as social conversations. Clubs for diver- sion or instruction are to be counted by scores. Dra- matie societies, operatie associations, masquerades, fancy dress balls, and all manner of forbidden delights are held as innocent as the old-time " singing-school" and " quilting" or " corn-shueking."

Among the notable exhibitions of religious zeal in the latter part of the period covered by this sketelı were public debates on points of sectarian theology. Challenges were issued by denominational " sluggers" in the very spirit of a challenge to Hanlon for a rowing match or to Schaffer for a game of billiards, except that there was no " stake" and no " gate- money." They were really an opportunity for a little personal parade, and that was no doubt the frequent

motivo of them, though the parties persuaded them- selves they were doing the Lord's service therein. Probably nobody was ever converted by such discus- sions, except from a moderate into a bigoted sectarian. The old denominations were not forward in those demonstrations. They took the defensive against the attacks of recent organizations like the " Disciples," as they were then called, now the " Christians," and by nickname always " Campbellites," and the Univer- salists. It was as common to see challenges from noted debaters of those denominations in their de- nominational papers as it is to see boxing or rowiog challenges now io sporting papers. The first one was held in the early part of 1830, beginning January 21st, on the subject of " Eternal Punishment," be- tween Rev. Edwin Ray, a distinguished pioneer Meth- odist preacher, and Rev. Jonathan Kidwell, a Uni- versalist. Probably the most noted of these debates occurred in 1838, between Rev. John O'Kane, a dis- tingnished evangelist of the " Disciples," and Rev. Mr. Haines, a Baptist at Belleville, Hendricks Co. Several have been held in the city the last ten or a dozen years ago between President Burgess, of But- ler University, and Rev. W. W. Curry, the one a " Christian," the other a Universalist. One day in 1840, while the excitement of the "log cabin and hard cider" campaign was at its height and had filled " Main Street"-as Washington Street was then called-with a big Whig procession and the attendant crowd, Mr. O'Kane and Henry Ward Beecher met on the corner where the Palmer House (now Occi- dental) was in course of erection, and good-humoredly discussed politics during the passing of the procession, but getting upon more familiar ground when it had passed, talked of religious matters, and Mr. O'Kane said, "Suppose we have a debate on it." "No," said Mr. Beecher, laughing ; "you'd use me up, and I can't afford to be demolished so young." It is worth noting that certain preachers of that early day were noted revivalists, as Moody and Sankey and Mr. Harrison are now. Edwin Ray, father of John W. Ray, of this city, and brother-in-law of Mr. Nowland, was one of these; John Strange was another, both Methodists. John L. Jones, a Baptist, and later a Christian, and James McVey, also a Christian, were

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

widely known for their persuasive powers or " exhor- tations." They were all men of rare native eloquence, like Wirt's Bliod Preacher, and like him almost un- known outside of the denominations that cherished and admired them. Lorenzo Dow, who preached here in 1827, and was onee a national notoriety, was merely an oddity of no great force of any kind except in his legs,-he traveled well.

It is not improbable that the severity of religious opinion held by the professedly religious settlers may have reacted upon the portion less rigidly trained and made them, externally at least, more indifferent than they would have been. At all events, among a con- siderable section of the Southern immigration dis- paraging or even scandalous jokes on preachers and prominent ehureh members were no unusual enter- tainment of social or accidental gatherings. Some parodies of camp-meeting songs and occasional popu- lar phrases, now forgotten, also indicated this re- pellanee of overstrained discipline and harsh judg- ment. The nickname of Rev. Jame's Havens, " Old Sorrel," eame in this way. The " experience" of " Unele Jimmy Hittleman," an enthusiastic but illit- erate Methodist, of genuine piety, was a frequent theme of joke and coarse parody. A favorite revival song was made to read,-

" I went behind a stump to pray, Glory hallelujah ! The devil eame and scared me away, Glory hallelujah ! Oh, Zion hallelujah !"

Popular phrases and proverbial sayings were some- times framed from this sentiment of antagonism to ironelad religious feeling. One man was said to "pray his congregation to hell and baek." A preacher of an orthodox seet once boasted that the members of his church could be found "all the way from heaven to hell." " Yes," retorted a heterodox adherent of another denomination, " and the nearer hell the thickcr you'll find them." " Grace was said when the hog was shot" was a common announce- ment at the beginning of a dinner to put aside for- malities.

Until the Washingtonian temperance movement reached here, along in 1840 or 1841, under the lead

of a Mr. Matthews, the use of liquor was hardly less general or habitual than the use of coffee. Nowa- days the exceptional man of good social position is the man who drinks publicly. In the early days under consideration the exceptional man was the man that would not drink anywhere, publicly or privately, though excess was rarer then than now. Liquor at social gatherings of the most respectable settlers was quite regular and in good taste, if the liquor was good. It was not esteemed a solecismo of even clerical conduct for a minister to " take some- thing." Whiskey with tansy was considered a good general prophylaetie, or, as Gen. S. F. Cary used to say, he was told by his father "it was good for worms" in children, and for almost anything in adults. Dogwood bark and prickly ash made a good medicine for the chills, or the whiskey they were soaked in. Though excess was not common, it was not considered so disreputable as now. A strictly temperanee beverage, antedating lemonade and "pop," though very like the latter, was "spruee beer." It was largely consumed with the " gingerbread" of the period, cut in fipenny-bit squares called " quarter sections." This luxury was so great a favorite as to be very generally called " Hoosier bait." Spruee beer was not unfrequently made in households and consumed by the family like milk or coffee. South- ern settlers, accustomed to " persimmon beer," were the chief or only home manufacturers. " Mead" and " metheglin" were oeeasionally made of honey, but at home usually. Whiskey was different. Among the very first manufactured produets of the settle- ment, as early probably as the removal of the capital, was whiskey distilled at the little establishment on the bayou, near the site of the Nordyke & Marmon Machine-Works, and ealled " Bayou Blue." It could not have been of a very high quality, but it was cheap and plenty, with occasional reinforcements brought by keel-boats " cordeled" up the river. Whiskey and gunpowder were the leading artieles of importa- tion for a good while. In 1828 a temperance society was formed here, but it does not appear that any public or concerted effort was made to arrest drink- ing, though the very existence of such an association among the best class of citizens would have some

DISEASES ONCE PREVALENT.

good effect. A change in society sentiment may have begun with this society, but it grew with the Washingtonian movement, and has grown steadily wider and stronger, till to-day the reversal of condi- tions of the use of liquor is complete. The senti- ment against it is as general and fixed as it was for it in early times.

The reports of the Board of Health show that the death-rate of Indianapolis is smaller than that of most cities of any considerable size, and lower than that of Philadelphia, which is the healthiest large city in the world. But, as already related, the first years of the settlement were disastrously unhealthy, and ill-repute of the place repelled settlement and de- layed improvement so greatly that it would hardly be too much to say that the ague had shaken the town out of five years' growth. The change has come slowly. The " sickly season" thirty years ago was as definite a dread as Indian summer is a pleasurable anticipation. There were plenty of old residents who expected the chills just as the victim of hay-fever expects his annual swelled nose and watery eyes. How this change has come, what influences have worked towards it, will be best exhibited in a paper read to the Medical Society of this county by Mr. George W. Sloan, of Browning & Sloan, late presi- dent of the National Pharmaceutical Association.

" Those who have been engaged in the practice of medicine for fifteen or twenty years or longer have noticed a material change in many of the forms of disease incident to this locality, and especially a dim- inution in the amount of those forms commonly known as bilious fever and fever and ague. In the first place, it should be remembered that this State was for the most part densely timbercd, and this was supplemented by a thick matting of underbrush. These combined influences protected the surface from the direct rays of the sun, hence there was but little chance for rapid evaporation. The result was a thick slimy ooze, which was kept renewed by each rain during the early summer months. This condition ex- tended over a large portion of this and adjoining States, especially in the valleys formed by the various water-courses. We there have with the addition of heat the proper conditions for decay and the con-

sequent production of noxious gases incident thereto, which gases during the early summer are absorbed by the tender succulent leaves of the plants and trees. But as the summer advances these leaves become hardened by the heat and continued dryness of the later summer, and their power of absorption is very much lessened. Hence the above-mentioned products of decomposition were given off into the atmosphere from an extended surface of country, and the conse- quent result was a poisonous air. In addition, the people, or at least a large portion of them, lived in poorly-constructed houses, often built of logs, with the floor resting upon the ground, and were compelled to breathe air tainted with decaying woody matter. Frequently the same apartment was used for the pur- poses of cooking, eating, and sleeping, while the food was often the same articles three times a day,-pork in some form, corn-bread, and coffee. It would be diffi- cult to name three articles more difficult of digestion. The water was often of poor quality, owing in many cases to shallowness of the wells, and no care being taken to protect them from surface pollution.

" From the foregoing statement of the condition of things within a few years past, in which we have an unwholesome atmosphere to breathe, poor and un- healthy homes to live in, indigestible food to eat, and polluted water to drink, is it to be wondered at that sickness was rife ? It is within the memory of many that the sick were more numerous than the well, when the fall sickness was as confidently expected (and the people were rarely disappointed) and prepared for as was the winter. These were the influences that made Indiana known as the home of fever and ague, and the times when one of our drug-houses could spring the price of quinine by simply telegraphing an order to the Eastern market for one or two thousand ounces of that staple. This State was also the paradise of the patent medicine men who made liver pills and ague remedies.

" This condition has very materially changed within a few years, consequent upon a clearing off of the tim- ber, the ditching and draining of the swamps, and tile draining of the surface of the country. This, together with the replacing of the cabins with good brick or frame dwellings, with cellars, plastered walls, separate

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

apartments for living, eating, and sleeping, an abund- ance of the best of food, pure air, and good water has done the work. To this also may be added an improve- ment in the manner of clothing. It is not many years since the use of woolen underclothing was the exception, while overcoats, especially for children, were almost unknown. Now all, both young and old, are clad with warm underwear, and in addition a majority are sup- plied with water-proof garments which protect them from the dampness. These have removed the causes from which a great deal of the bilious type of disease was derived.

" Again, another effect of the drying of the surface has been to more nearly equalize the temperature of the days and nights. As the low, swampy morasses did not contain water of sufficient depth to retain an adequate amount of heat to radiate during the night, the consequence was, when the heat of day was past, condensation began almost simultaneously with the setting of the sun, the result being hot days and cool nights. To this latter course many thinking minds have attributed the so-called malarious disturbance. Nevertheless, my mind clings to the former, and as an additional argument in its favor will cite what frequently happens in the spring of the year, especi- ally in our cities, after a severe winter. The remnants of the last year's vegetation, with the droppings from domestic animals, together with the usual amount of kitchen refuse that finds its way into our streets and alleys, have accumulated during the winter months. This has been held solid, as it were, by the ice and snow until perhaps the last of March, at which time the sun is high and its power great. The result is that almost at once this mass of matter begins the process of decomposition under the combined influ- ence of heat and moisture. This period of the year is fruitful of neuralgia, rheumatism, and other diseases that are attributed to a malarious cause, and this condition lasts until the fresh leaves put forth upon the trees and the green grass appears, when almost within the space of a week the major part of the sickness disappears, and then ensues the most healthful portion of the year, the season when the vegetation is fresh aud its absorbing power greatest."

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 17

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