History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 20

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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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

Society was formed, with Benjamin Parke as presi- dent and Bethuel F. Morris as secretary. John H. Farnham was afterwards secretary, and the books and papers were long kept in the office of Henry P. Co- burn, clerk of the Supreme Court. The library was given to the Union Library Society about 1846, and when that association went to pieces the library went to pieces too. The Historical Association numbered among its members some of the most distinguished men in the State, and among its " honorary members" were Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass, John C. Calhoun, and other men of national renown. It has been revived within a few years by some of the leading citizens of the State, who are interested in historical affairs, and promises to be a useful as well as durable organization. In the fall of 1831 the In- dianapolis " Lyceum" or " Athenaeum" was organized to promote literary culture by lectures and scientific discussions. It lasted usefully for a few years, and was succeeded by the Young Men's Literary Society in 1835. This organization was superseded by the Union Literary Society, composed mainly of the elder pupils of the " Old Seminary," which collected a considerable library, was incorporated in 1846 or 1847, and began the lecture system here by procuring lectures from Mr. Beecher, Rev. Mr. Johnson, Mr. Fisher, of Cincinnati, and others. It was disbanded by gradual decay, but in 1853 its last effort obtained a lecture by Horace Greeley on Henry Clay.

In 1831, near the end of the first division of the city's second period or stage of growth, came the first illusive promise of public improvements, which soon grew strong enough to realize itself partially, and to send a forecast nearly twoscore years ahead of the fact that only began to be forcefully felt in 1850 or just before. The Legislature on the 2d and 3d of February chartered a group of railroads that reads in its titles very much like a time-table in the Union Depot to-day. There was the Madison and Indianap- olis, the Lawrenceburg and Indianapolis, the New Albany, Salem and Indianapolis, the Ohio and In- dianapolis. Surveys were made on all them, and some grading done in patches, but nothing came of any of them except the Madison and Indianapolis, which was incorporated in the State's great and disas-

trous " Internal Improvement System" of 1836. This reference is all that need be made here, as the history of the city's railroad system will appear fully in its proper place.

Almost contemporaneously with the charters of these railroads came the only steamer that ever reached Indianapolis. It was on the 11th of April, 1831. The steamer was the "Robert Hanna," owned by Gen. Robert Hanna, one of the prominent citizens, and some of his associates, who intended to use it in the transportation of stone and timber for the work on the National road, a contract for which they held. The arrival created a great excitement. Between a steamer actually at the wharf, as it were, and the recent charter of four or five railroads the victims of chills and many disappointments began to take heart and hope . that their dreams, when the capital came, might be prophecies after all. The cannon was fired, crowds visited the vessel, a public meeting was held on the 12th, with Judge Blackford, president, and Judge Morrison, secretary, to make a formal welcome, and a banquet for the officers and owners. Resolutions demanded the improvement of the river, and the speeches expressed the usual invariable confidence of " the realization of our most sanguine expectations." That was the end of it. After making a couple of little excursions up the river on the 12th, she started back down the river on the 13th. It was a slow voyage. The pilot-house and chimneys got in the way of the tree limbs, the bends were too short for her length, the bars too frequent and shallow. She knocked off her pilot-house and damaged her wheel- house in one of her excursions, and scared her un- familiar passengers so badly that a good many jumped off into the water. With such ill omens and a slow voyage down, probably nobody was surprised to hear that she had grounded at Hog Island, where the captain's child was drowned, and never got off till the fall rise came. Hopes of river navigation never flourished after this experiment. It was a very gen- eral belief that the river would be made practically navigable as Congress had formally declared it to be, and to this impression must be attributed the early preference of settlers fer locations near the river. On the 12th of February, 1825, Alexander Ralston, who

107

THE CAPITAL IN THE WOODS.

had laid out the town, was appointed by the legisla- tive commissioners to make a survey of the river and estimate the cost of clearing out the obstructions and the extent of practicable navigability.

During the summer he made the survey, and re- ported that an annual outlay of fifteen hundred dol- lars would make the stream navigable for three months in each year. From Sample's Mills, in Randolph County, to Indianapolis was one hundred and thirty miles, from here to the junction with White River proper two hundred and eighty-five miles, and from there to the Wabash forty miles, with a fall of eighteen inches eight miles above Martinsville, and another of nine feet in three hundred and ten miles above the junction, with a great drift at the line of Daviess and Greenc Counties. On the basis of this report Congress was several times petitioned by the Legislature to make an appropriation for the proposed improvement, but nothing was ever done. The State made some considerable appropriations, expended by the County Board along the river, but no improvement of any real value could be made by such disjointed labors and slender means, if indeed anything could be done by any possible expenditure short of a system of " slack- water" dams and locks. Schemes for this sert of improvement were urged upon the Legislature by John Matthews and others for several years after 1830, and renewed again in 1851, when the " White River Navigation Company" was chartered for twenty years. That was all that was ever done. In 1865 a little pienie steamer called the "Governor Morton" was built by some of the citizens, and made some short excursions during the year following, but she never amounted to anything. She sank below the old bridge after a life of a year, and her machinery was taken out and put into some sort of a mill. This is all of the history of the navigation of White River, except that the steamer " Traveler" came up as far as Spencer in 1830, and the " Victory" came up within fifty-five miles of this place the same year. Of the use of the river for commercial purposes more will be said under the head of " Transportation."

The first stage line into the town was started by Mr. Johnson, a relative of Col. Richard M. Johnson, to Madison in the summer of 1828. Mr. Johnson

about the same time established a coach-making or repairing shop on the block where the post-office and the Odd-Fellows' Hall stand. On the 8th of July, 1827, the National road commissioner, Mr. Knight, was in the town, and fixed the line to this point. The next year, in September and October, the con- tracts for the work were let, greatly to the satisfac- tion of the town, which had been so long locked up by cow-paths, Indian trails, and swampy roads cross- layed. The old bridge across the river was built by William Wernweg and Walter Blake for eiglitcen thousand dollars, on plans furnished by the late Laza- rus B. Wilson. It was completed in 1834, the con- tract being let July 26, 1831. The macadamizing of the road was completed nearly through the town and about three miles west, just beyond Eagle Creek, and abandoned in 1839 in consequence of the failure of Congress to continue the appropriations. The road following Washington Street enabled that thorough- fare to get the first improvement that any street ever got in the place, but no sidewalk work was done for several years. After remaining in this incomplete condition for a number of years Congress finally sur- rendered to each State the portion of the National road in its limits, and about the time the railroads began advancing pretty rapidly the State gave the road to a " Plank-Road Company," which covered it with narrow, heavy oak plank, and made an admirable road till the plank began to warp. In a few years the plank-work was abandoned and the road, like hundreds of others all over the State, was heavily graveled and made an excellent turnpike, in which condition it remains to-day.

The first " show," McComber's Menageric, ap- peared in the town on the 26th and 27th of July, 1830, and exhibited on the open space back of Hen- derson's tavern, about where the Central Engine house is, or a little north and east of it. Another exhibited at the same place on the 23d and 24th of August of the same year, showing among other curi- osities a "rompo." Tradition does not retain a de- scription of this mysterious beast. The next sum- mer saw the introduction here of the first soda foun- tain in Dunlap & MeDougal's drug-store on East Washington Street, near the middle of the block be-

THE OLD NATIONAL ROAD BRIDGE OVER WHITE RIVER.'

ME.SIRK'S, PINZE

LUHA

GAVIS'M

raw

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

108

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THE CAPITAL IN THE WOODS.

tween Pennsylvania Street and the alley west of it on the north side, subsequently kept by Scudder & Han- neman. In February, 1831, the first artist, a por- trait-painter by the name of M. G. Rogers, came here for a professional visit. The 8th of January, so long celebrated in one way or another by the ad- mirers of " Old Hickory," was celebrated in Indian- apolis for the first time in 1830, when an address was delivered by Alexander F. Morrison, brother of the late Judge James and the banker William H., who had recently removed here and started an administra- tion paper called the Indiana Democrat. It suc- ceeded the Gazette, and became the Sentinel in 1841, as will appear more fully in the history of the press. The celebrations of the Fourth of July were kept up, and in 1830 there were two, one of the Sunday- schools under Marshal James Blake, and one of the citizens under Marshal Demas McFarland. The deaths of Adams and Jefferson were celebrated here on the 12th of August with appropriate funeral cere- monies. The first three-story brick building was erected by William Sanders, north side of Washing- ton Street, a little west of Meridian, in the summer of 1831. It is still standing in an improved condi- tion. That same summer showed Indianapolis the first elephant, two of them in fact, an adult and a baby. They were not in a menagerie, but traveling on their own merits. The population of Centre town- ship by the census of 1830 was one thousand and ninety-four.

Pretty nearly midway between the statement of the census and the condition of the settlement at the removal of the capital is the estimate of February, 1827, in the Journal. The town had then the new " court-house, a Presbyterian Church with thirty members, a Baptist Church with thirty-six members, a Methodist Church with ninety-three members, worshiping in a cabin but building a brick church," the walls of which were completed and inclosed in the fall. A Sunday-school had been in exist- ence five years, and had then twenty teachers and one hundred and fifty pupils. There were twenty- five brick houses in the place, sixty frames, and eighty hewed and rough log; rents were high and houses in demand. The Governor's house in the Circle was

then in progress, and six two-story and five one-story brick houses with a large number of frames had been built that year. The editor thought the condition of things promising enough to inaugurate an era of manufactures and steam-power to produce at home the ten thousand dollars' worth of goods brought from abroad. Among the year's importations were seventy- six kegs of tobacco, two hundred barrels of flour, one hundred kegs of powder, four thousand five hundred pounds of yarn, and two hundred and thirteen bar- rels of whiskey, besides seventy-one made here (Bayou Blue), a pretty profuse supply of whiskey for a popu- lation of but little more than one thousand, and a considerable number of them women and children, who could not be expected to drink much. Probably half was sold to the country around or even farther away, but even the half, or one hundred and forty-two barrels, about five thousand gallons, would make five gallons for every mouth, little and big, in the dona- tion, and twenty probably for every adult male. The large importation of powder shows that no little de- pendence was still placed in the rifle as the food provider.

On the 3d of June, 1832, the news of the out- break of the Sac and Fox Indians under Black Hawk reached the town, and next day a call was made for a hundred and fifty men of the Fortieth Regiment, belonging to this county, and for as many more from the adjoining counties, to rendezvous here on the 9th, each man mounted, and armed with rifle, knife, and tomahawk, and a supply of powder for the cam- paign. When assembled here they were organized in three companies, under Capts. James P. Drake, John W. Redding, and Henry Brenton. There was some competition for the command of the battalion between Col. A. W. Russell and George L. Kinnard, a member of Congress in 1835, and scalded to death by the explosion of a steamer on the Ohio, while on his way to the national capital. He began here as a school-teacher a few years before this military expe- dition. An adjustment was made which gave the command to Russell and the adjutancy to Kinnard. The night before the expedition started a consider- able portion was encamped on the southeast corner of the Military Ground, at the present crossing of Wash-

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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

ington and West Streets, and the next morning, while the people of the town were gathering round ob- serving the unwonted spectacle, the men were mould- ing bullets by their camp-fires, or throwing toma- hawks at a mark. When all were mounted and ready to march they made as fine a body of men as could have been found in any army in the world. They went from here to Chicago, then a fort and an Indian trading- post, guided by William Conner, found the war virtually at an end, and marched round the end of the lake to South Bend, where the late John D. Defrees, then editing a paper there, gave them the name they have worn ever since, and will as long as the memory or history of the expedition remains, the " Bloody Three Hundred." It was said that some of them wanted to fight about it, but the cooler heads dissuaded them. The only warlike incident of the little campaign was the firing of a frightened picket at a vagrant cow one night, which alarmed the whole camp. The battalion returned on the 3d of July, and took part in the celebration next day. The fol- lowing January they were paid by Maj. Larned. William Warren, whose hands were blown off while firing a salute to the command, was afterwards pen- sioned by act of Congress, obtained by Mr. Kinnard, under some neat little confusion of him with the military expedition, with which he. had no more to do than he had with the " Russian Expedition." He was digging a cellar when he joined the gun squad. The "good old times" were not so much more squeamish or scrupulous than ours after all.

During the summer and early fall of 1832 sub- scriptions were made and steps taken to build a market-house, the leading men being Charles I. Hand and the late John Givan, then a prominent and honored citizen, in later life a pauper and semi- tramp. It was built the following summer where it still stands, greatly extended to be sure, but other- wise unchanged, and wholly inadequate to its por- poses. Efforts have very recently been made to re- place the old structure with one suitable to the size and needs of the city, built with the bequest made some years ago by the late Stephen Tomlinson, but considerable opposition was made in consequence of the coupling of a city hall with the market building,

and the alleged probability that the expense would exceed the bequest and create a necessity for more city tax, and some technical oversight in letting the contract brought an injunction from the court on the project, and thus it still lies. Thomas McOuat, Josiah Davis, and John Walton were the committee charged with the supervision of the work on the first and present market-house. Under the act of Jan. 26, 1832, authorizing a lease of a seminary site to the trustees of the county seminary, Demas McFar- land, Dr. Livingston Dunlap, and J. S. Hall, the trustees, obtained the lease the same year, and began measures for erecting the building. The most im- portant event of this year, however, was the incor- poration of the town under the general law.

There was no separation of the town from the rest of the county till now. All had been gov- erned alike by State laws and the officers appointed by them. On the 3d of September, 1832, a public meeting was held in the court-house, and it was de- cided to incorporate the town under the general in- corporation act. An election for five trustees was held the same month, and Henry P. Coburn, John Wilkins, Samuel Merrill, Samuel Henderson, and John G. Brown were chosen. They organized by making Mr. Henderson president aud Israel P. Grif- fith secretary. Five wards were made of the old plat,-First, all east of Alabama Street ; Second, from Alabama to Pennsylvania; Third, from Pcno- sylvania to Meridian; Fourth, from Meridian to Tennessee ; Fifth, all west of Tennessee. Tho first marshal and collector was Samuel Jennison ; the first assessor, Glidden True; the first market-master, Fleming T. Luse. Other officers were appointed later. In December two general ordinances were published, one for the general regulation of the town, the other relating specially to the markets. The general ordinance created the offices of clerk, marshal and collector, treasurer and assessor, all held under bond and security. Assessments were to be made in January, and tax collections reported to the treasurer in June. It will not be uninteresting to note the leading offenses defined by this first act of municipal legislation,-firing guns or flying kites on the streets, leaving cellar-doors open or teams un-

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THIE CAPITAL IN THE WOODS.

hitched, driving across or on foot-paths, racing horses, letting hogs run at large, keeping stallions on Washington Street, keeping piles of wood on the same street more than twelve hours, or piles of shavings anywhere more than two days, keeping a drinking-honse or a "show" without license. Of- fenders were to be sued in twenty days before a jus- tice of the peace in the name of the trustees. Meetings of the Board were to be held on the first Friday of each month, but at any time on a proper call. The market ordinance provided for markets on Wednesdays and Saturdays, two hours after daylight, the market-master to look after weights and the qual- ities of marketable articles, as he does now. Huck- stering was prohibited. Town elections were to be held annually in September.

Under this first municipal organization the town continued till 1836, then the Legislature passed a special act of incorporation legalizing the action of the trustees previously. The wards were left un- changed, but the election was shifted from September to April. The trustees were to elect a president, elerk, marshal, lister or assessor, collector, and other customary town officers. They were also to levy taxes and improve the streets and sidewalks at the cost of the owners of the adjacent property. The rate of taxation could not exceed one-half of one per cont., and could only be levied on property within the town plat. The act of incorporation included the whole donation for all purposes but taxation. The new Board continued the old ordinances mainly un- changed. Settlement was made by the former officer to April, 1836, the treasurer showing the receipt of a revenue for the year of sixteen hundred and ten dol- Jars, and the expenditure of all but one hundred and twenty-four dollars, a far more liberal margin than can be found between receipts and expenses nowadays. On the 17th of February, 1838, a reincorporation aet was passed, making no material change, however, except increasing the wards to six, electing the presi- dent of the Board by a general popular vote, and each ward trustee by the voters of the ward. Pre- viously all had been elected by a general vote. The Board was to be the " Common Council," and elected annually, four to make a quorum. The president

had the jurisdiction and powers of a justice of the peace, and the marshal those of a constable. The trustees received twelve dollars a year, or one dollar for each regular monthly meeting. The new wards were : First, all east of Alabama ; Second, to Penn- sylvania; Third, to Meridian ; Fourth, to Illinois ; Fifth, to Mississippi ; Sixth, to the river. Tax sales for delinquencies could be made by the new charter, and the first was made on the 25th of October, 1839. The four boundary streets of the city plat, North, South, East, and West, had previously been mere alleys, or elosed altogether in places, but the new Council ordered them opened. This city organiza- tion continued until it was changed for something like a regular city government of a mayor and Council, in 1847. Some amendments were made from time to time, but nothing that affected the general course of publie business. In February, 1839, the taxes collected in West Indianapolis (now Indianola), west of the river, were ordered to be expended, and alleys were authorized to be opened in the donation. In 1840, in February, councilmen were required to serve two years instead of one, and were given twenty-four dollars a year. In February, 1841, the marshal was elected by popular vote, and on Jan. 15, 1844, all the town officers were changed from appointment by the Council to election by the people. No effort at street improvement was made till 1836, and no city engineer employed till that year. No grading or paving of sidewalks was attempted till 1839 or thereabouts. The first survey attempted for any such purpose was made by William Sullivan, for many years a justice of the peace, at one time a teacher in the Old Semi- nary, and one of the most honored of the old resi- dents. He made a survey of the street and alley between Meridian and Pennsylvania, north side of Washington, in 1838. In 1841, James Wood was employed to make a general survey, and did so. His grades were followed till it was found that his whole scheme of survey was based on the idea of turning the city surface into an inclined plane sloping to the southwest corner and into the river, without regard to natural features favoring a less artificial and ex- pensive drainage. Of the changes of municipal gov- ernment after the first organization as a city in 1847,

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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

an account will be found under the heading of " Municipal Government."

For the first twelve years of the existence of the town its history and that of the county are identical. The laws and officers of both were the same, the taxes, improvements, and changes the same, so far as they were dependent on public and official action. For a period still longer, as before suggested, there was a close identity of social condition. The sepa- ration legally came in 1832, but the other only became distinct a decade later. There is not much to say of the county outside of the town in this period of identity. After the erection of the public buildings, already noted, there was little to do and little means to do with. The following statement of receipts for the first half-dozen years of the county organization will tell the story of its financial condi- tion. Treasurer Yandes' report for 1822 shows that the total receipts from licenses and taxes was nine hundred and seventy-five dollars and eighty-four eents. Another statement shows the net revenue of this first year to be eight hundred and fifty-five dol- lars. The following table of receipts and expenses of the county from its organization to the separation of the town by incorporation is compiled from the records of the County Board :

Receipts.

Expenses.

For 1822

$855.00

For 1822 Not stated.

1823

730.29

1823 $863.70}

1824

689.60

1824 962.27₴

1825

S45.93

1825 1235.18}

1826

915.91

1826 501.73

1827

1157.87

1827 683.69

1828

918.69

1928 688.15₺

1829

1786.73₺

1829

1034.13}

1830

2095.488

1830 1045.34}

1831

2242.454

1831

1330.59

1832

3176.21}

1832 2788.03}

The County Board, when the county was organized, consisted of three commissioners, as already noted. On the 31st of January, 1824, an aet of the Legisla- ture changed this mode of doing county business for a board composed of all the justices of the peace of the county. This was repealed in February, 1831, and the board of three commissioners restored. In 1835 this was again made to give place to a board of justices, which was once more and finally displaced by commissioners in 1837. The first meeting of the

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 20

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