USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana > Part 21
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board of justices was on the 6th of September, 1824, at the house of John Carr, the court-house not being quite finished yet. Joel Wright was elected presi- dent over Wilkes Reagin and Obed Foote. The members present were Joel Wright, Henry D. Bell, Obed Foote, Jeremiah J. Corbaley, John C. Hume, William D. Rooker, Sismund Basye, Wilkes Reagin, and Joseph Beeler. It may be noted as a mark of the culture of the times that the president of the board signs himself " Preasadent of the Bord."
The work of the Board, whether of justices or com- missioners, was largely of a routine character ; receiv- ing petitions for the opening of county roads and neighborhood roads, appointing " viewers" to examine and report on the proposed lines, allowing little claims for services or labor of one kind or another, licensing stores composed the bulk of it. Occasionally a con- stable was appointed and a list of grand and petit jurors provided for the clerk to draw from in court terms. The first roll of grand jurors, selected from among the tax-payers of the county at the May session, 1822, and numbering " fifty-four discreet householders," will not be uninteresting :
Alexander Ralston.
John MeClung.
Joseph C. Reed.
Thomas O'Neal.
Reuben Putnam.
Thomas Anderson.
John Allison.
Joseph Catterlin. William C. Blackmore.
Asahel Dunning. William Dyer.
Elijah Fox. Samuel D. Honelly.
Samuel Harding.
William Conner.
Aaron Lambeth.
Curtis Mallory.
Morris Morris. Wilkes Reagin.
George Norwood.
George Smith.
Daniel Pettingill.
Joel Wright.
William D. Rooker. Robert Brenton.
John Myers.
Jeremiah J. Corbaley.
James Paige.
Judah Leaming.
Collins Thorp.
Alexis Jackson.
John Fineh.
Samuel G. Mitehell.
Archibald C. Reed.
Samuel Morrow.
John Smoek. James Porter.
David Wood.
William Reagin.
Peter Harmonson.
George Buckner.
John Fox.
John Hawkins.
Isaae Wilson.
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THE CAPITAL IN THE WOODS.
Isaac Coe.
Isaac Stevens.
Francis Davis.
Amasa Makepeace.
James Givan.
Joseph McCormick.
Jeremiah Johnson.
William Bush.
Zenas Lake.
William Forster.
A sample of the ordinary business of the county will serve as well as a full copy of the records to inform the reader of its character. Here is an allow- ance : " It is ordered that Calvin Fletcher be allowed five dollars and fifty cents for three days' services in appraising town lots under the direction of the lister (Col. James Paxton), and Caleb Scudder be allowed one dollar and fifty cents for one day's similar services, all payable out of the county treasury." " Allowed Joseph Clark, for making two jury boxes to contain the selected names for the grand and petit jurors, one dollar." "It is ordered that Calvin Fletcher and John Packer be appointed to serve as overscers of the poor in Centre-Warren township for, during, and until the next session on the second Monday of May next." " Allowed Francis Davis, David Wood, and Demas L. McFarland one dollar and fifty cents cach for two days' services in viewing Harding's road (line of old National road), and to Alexander W. Russell, for two days' services in surveying the same, two dol- lars, payable," etc. Whenever a road was petitioned for and favorably considered-usually the result, though sometimes remonstrances were put in and the road disallowed-three reputable citizens and house- holders were appointed to "view" it, and upon their report the road was ordered opened. The routes were always indicated by the lines of the Congressional survey, " section," " township," and " range," and marked, as the reports frequently say, "with two hacks with tomahawk" or " two chops with an axe" on the trees at certain points. Some petitions wanted the road opened " to the centre of town." There were no cleared streets, not even Washington, at the first meetings for county business. Roads out of and through the town were cow-paths or stumpy openings too densely closed in with trees and brush to allow one neighbor to see the house of another within hail- ing distance. These will serve as specimens of the county road-work, and it was a large portion of all that was done. At every session there were from two to a 8
half-dozen road petitions to act on, " viewers" to ap- point, and reports to receive. Here is a specimen of a " store license :" " James Givan and son having satisfied the Board that they have not in amount more than one thousand dollars in stock of foreign merchan- dise, it is ordered that on producing the treasurer's receipt for ten dollars they receive a license to retail foreign merchandise in this county for one year." The. tavern license was twelve dollars, and three taverns paid it in 1823,-Hawkins', Carter's, and Blake & Henderson's. Occasionally allowances were made for the support of paupers by private citizens for a short time, and like allowances were made to doctors for services to the same class. Once in 1825 an allow- ance of three dollars is made to Samuel Duke for a coffin for a drowned negro, apparently the first person drowned in the settlement. The following order possesses the interest of novelty, at least to the great majority of readers, who are not aware that debtors could be imprisoned like thieves in Marion County in early times : " Allowed to Hervey Bates for meat and drink furnished to John J. E. Barnett and Samuel Roberts (one of the first constables), insolvent per- sons confined in the county jail at the suit of the State." The amount is not given, as the item is one of several allowed to Mr. Bates as sheriff. The appointment of supervisors of roads, of school dis- tricts, of the poor, the resignations and elections of justices and constables, levies of taxes will about complete the list of the labors of the County Board, added to those above named, during the twelve ycars that the town and county governments were identical.
The events and incidents illustrating the develop- ment of the town during seven years, from the organ- ization of the first municipal government in 1832 to the abandonment of the public works in 1839, which forms the second division of the second period of the city's history, may be treated in four groups : 1st, The temporary improvement in business and real estate values, originating in the confidence of an early completion of the State's "Internal Improvement System ;" 2d, The first establishment of some of the industries which are now among the chief agencies of the city's prosperity ; 3d, Enlarged educational ad-
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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.
vantages ; 4th, The organization of some of the usual business conveniences of cities.
Ist. Within three years after the organization of the town government the swell of the " Internal Im- provement" tide began to be felt. Prices of lots stiff- ened and speculation began to reach out for chances. The State had spent one hundred thousand dollars in making roads, but that could not go far in ereating transportation facilities in a country of dense woods and few settlements. What the people wanted was means of getting away and getting home with goods and produce, and country roads were a very inade- quate provision. Railroads were a recent improve- ment about which the whole country was excited, and Indiana wanted railroads. The Wabash and Erie Canal was advancing with the help of Congressional grants, but water-ways were wanted for the central and eastern parts of the State. A canal to connect the Ohio with the Wabash Canal was to pass through here. A railroad to make a similar connection higher up the Ohio was also to pass through here. Other railroads, as before noted, aimed here either as a terminus or necessary junction. The Leg- islature of 1835-36, the first that met in the new State-House, was confidently expected to go largely into the improvement business and give Indianapolis an especially elevating lift. Thus started the first speculative movement in the history of the city. The Legislature did not disappoint expectation. The " Internal Improvement Bill," giving State aid to five or six railroad, turnpike, and canal projects, notably the Central Canal and the Madison Railroad, and ordering the issue of ten million dollars of bonds to make the aid effective, was passed on the 26th of January, 1836, and was welcomed iu advance on the 16th with bonfires and a brilliant illumination, the first ever witnessed here, and the saddest in the out- come that was ever witnessed anywhere. The canal it was known would pass through one of the western streets, and speculation moved that way. Some of the heaviest sales that had ever been made were of lots on Washington Street, along the two blocks be- tween Mississippi and Missouri. William Quarles, one of the most prominent criminal lawyers of the State, built a residence as close to the line of the
canal as he could get. The settlement which had so long been moving eastward, away from the river and the site of the first settlement, began moving back. Houses were rising rapidly and settlers eoming in en- couragingly. The great erash came the next year, but it did not disturb the confidence of the people here. The State's bouds still supplied money, kept the publie works going, and furnished means of spec- ulation and appearances of prosperity ; but in 1839 the shoek fell with full force here, after sending ahead premonitory tremors for several months. Prices fell and speculators were ruined ; business was univer- sally embarrassed ; real estate, both town and country, was abundant but unavailable,-it would not bring cash and could not pay debts. A good many sacri- ficed all they had and even then did not pay all they owed. Many others made compromises that enabled them to look around and wait for chances, and finally came out with a good start in another race. The Bankrupt Act of 1841 proved a great help to strug- gling honesty with unavailable means, yet fewer of the business men of Indianapolis than of probably any town in the State sought its relief. The great " Internal Improvement System," which was expected to prove so great a blessing, turned out an almost unmitigated curse. For six years it burdened the tax-payer and for twenty discredited the State. The failure to keep up the interest in 1841 and thence on to 1846, when the Butler compromise with the bondholders was completed (by giving up the Wabash Canal for seven million five hundred thousand dollars, half of the principal debt, and issuing two and a half per eent. bonds for the unpaid interest and five per eent. bonds for the other half of the principal), placed Indiana among the repudiating States, and was a drag on her and the capital town for many a year.
The canal and railroad intended for this place were not wholly thrown away, however. The Madison Railroad was completed aod running north to Vernon a year or two before the panie struck it. Until 1843 the State operated it with little advantage to anybody. Then it was sold to a company, as will be more par- tieularly related in the part of the work treating of "Transportation" and railroads. The canal was worked in many places at once along a large part of
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THE CAPITAL IN THE WOODS.
its length, but mainly from the river at Noblesville to the lower part of Morgan County. A large force was engaged in and near the town, and it was at that time, from 1837 to 1839, that songs of " the eanawl" were so popular with the "uncultured." Some allu- sion to them was made in the preceding chapter. Of course there were frequent rows and bloody fights. On one occasion in 1838 two faetions of the Irish hands kept up a fight nearly all day, engaging some hundreds altogether and furnishing a good many sur- gical subjects, but none fortunately for the sexton. For two years long lines of little shanties, stuck in among heaps of sand and piles of logs and brush cut out of the line of the eanal, were conspicuous features of a dreary seene that they made doubly dreary. Simultaneously with the eanal work was going on the grading and metaling of the National road, and the two evil attractions brought here an unusual force of worthless or mischievous characters, as noted in a previous chapter. Their outrages both of violence and theft became intolerable, and a publie meeting was called to devise a remedy. It was decided to make an organization of the citizens, something like a Vigilance Committee, with the conspicuous difference that it was intended to enforce instead of supersede the laws. This movement had a wholesome effect, which was strengthened afterward by the rough band- ling of the leader, Burkhart, as related in the sketch of the history of eamp-meetings.
The canal was entirely completed between the city and Broad Ripple, where there was a feeder-dam, and for a time used a little for the legitimate purpose of transporting wood and corn and occasional loads of hay or lumber, and a good deal for the less legiti- mate purpose of bathing and fishing. If passengers ever uscd it they did it in a skiff. An eager run was made for water-power, as will be noticed further along in the account of the manufactures of this period. . A stone loek was put in at Market Street, and a raee- way taken westward north of Market, as may be seen to-day, for mills nearer the river. Two wooden loeks were put in at the bluff of the swamp called " Palmer's Glade," near the line of Kansas Street, but never finished. The canal was never used for anything but a mill-race below the stone lock, and for many of its
last years it was not used for that. It was made a sort of open sewer, into which cverybody who lived handy threw their old boots and dead cats, ashes and rotten cabbage, till it was too offensive to be borne. In 1870 it was abandoned altogether below Market Street, and a sewer was laid in the bottom of it from Market to Louisiana Street, where it connected with the main sewer down Kentucky Avenue. Then it was rapidly filled up as far down as Merrill Street, and in scattered places farther south, till it was measurably effaced. Recently it has been built in and over, and on the site of the steel-rail rolling-mill has been so completely destroyed that the most familiar eye fails to discern its place, and only in a short "reach" above Morris Street can any remains be detected. From Market Street to the Ripple it is now an important adjunct of the water-works, and is used for boating, swimming, fishing, skating, and in packing far more than the river is or ever was. The account of the changes in this portion of it belongs to the sketch of the water- works. The owners of the ground (or their assignees) through which the canal diverged eastward from Missouri Street at the crossing of Merrill, reaching nearly to Tennessee Street, when abandoned by the State's assignees as a means of navigation and hydraulic power, reclaimed their proprietary rights. The In- dianapolis, Cincinnati and Lafayette Railroad Com- pany, which had purchased of the State's assignees the lower part of the work, brought suit to restrain them from filling it up or obstrueting it. Judge Drum- mond, of the United States Court, in an elaborate opinion, sustained the rights of the original owners of the ground, and thus this costly work was legally allowed to be wiped out, so far as the lower station of it is concerned. It was virtually. finished, except an aqueduet at Pleasant Run and some of the southern erecks, nearly or quite to the Bluffs, but after the abandonment of 1839 it was never used, never held water, and was soon overgrown with underbrush.
2d. Before the organization of the town govern- ment no attempt was made at manufacturing other than the usual custom work of the mechanics who are among the early settlers of all towns, except in iron, leather, pottery, and the preparation of ginseng. There were two pottery establishments in the place
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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.
as early as 1832 or earlier, and a third not far from the same time. One of the early two was on Mary- land Street, near Tennessee, the site of the Chamber of Commerce, belonging to a Mr. Myers; the other was removed to make room for the State Bank build- ing in 1840, and was established by Robert Brenton. It occupied the peak between Illinois Street and Kentucky Avenue, very near the first school-house. The third was on Washington Street, north side, near New Jersey, and set its furnace in the " ravine" that ran through the ground down to the creek, as described in the " topography" of the town. These probably made ware for stock, besides what was made on order, before the town organization. Daniel Yandes, one of the industrial pioneers and benefactors of the settlement, in connection with John Wilkins, carried on a tannery on Alabama Street, near the site of the city station-house, for several years before. As early as 1830 or earlier James Blake and Nicholas McCarty established a ginseng or, as it was called in its day, a "sang"-factory, on the south bluff of Pogue's Run Valley, near the Cincinnati Railroad depot site. Mr. McCarty bought the ginseng of farmers here, and through his agents and branch stores in other places, and Mr. Blake attended to the preparation of it and its shipment to Philadelphia for the Chinese market. Very near the time of the first town organization Joshua Grover did some iron foundry work, but nothing of any importance was at- tempted till August, 1832. Then R. A. McPherson & Co. established a considerable foundry on the west side of the river, at the end of the bridge then in progress. It failed, however, about the same time the big steam-mill enterprise failed, as before related. These are all of the more extended industries that preceded the town government. There were the grist- and saw-mills and carding-machines, and the usual blacksmith, earpenter, wagon-maker, tailor, shoemaker, cabinet, and other shops, and the town fiddler, Bill Bagwell, made cigars on the southwest corner of Illinois and Maryland Streets, but the workmen usually kept no journeymen, and did all their own work for customers. For twenty years or more apprentices were taken under indenture to learn the trade and live with their masters, getting a sum
of money and a suit of clothes at twenty-one, but the apprentice system passed away with the changes brought by the railroads. It is supposed that Mr. Johnson, who established the first stage line in 1828, opened a shop for coach repairs, and later for manu- facture, about the time of the establishment of the town government.
Enterprise began to appear more conspicuously soon after this. In 1834, John L. Young and Wil- liam Wernweg started the first brewery, on Maryland Street, south side, half-way between Missouri and West. About 1840 it was taken by Joseph Laux, and later by Mr. Meikel. About the same time a rope-walk was started on Market Street, east of the market-house, and a linseed-oil mill was put in opera- tion by John S. Barnes and Williamson Maxwell in a stable on the alley south of Maryland Street, near Missouri, close to the grounds of the present ward school. Seudder & Hannaman got it the next year, and moved it to the river bank in 1839. In 1835 the same enterprising firm began the manufacture of tobacco in the log building on Kentucky Avenue, below Merrill, where a carding-machine, run by horse-power, had previously been operated. In that year James Bradley, with one or two associates, cut, cured, and packed pork in Myers' old pottery-shop, on the site of the Chamber of Commerce, for the first time in the history of the place. It was the feeble beginning, ending in failure, of what has grown to be the largest industrial interest of the city. Its ill- fortune warned enterprise away for several years, but when it eame again, a half-dozen years later, it "came to stay." In 1835, Robert Underhill and John Wood started a steam foundry on Pennsyl- vania Street, near the site of the Second Presby- terian Church, and maintained it successfully in making plow points, mill gearing, and domestic hol- low-ware till 1852, when he removed to South Penn- sylvauia Street, began a larger establishment, failed, and left the building to other uses, and it was burned in 1858. In 1836-37, Young & Pottage, carrying on the hardware business, on the southwest corner of Meridian and Washington Streets, engaged John J. Nash to make carpenters' planes, and the excellence of his work commanded a profitable trade as long as
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THE CAPITAL IN THE WOODS.
the firm continued. In 1836, Hiram Devinney be- gan the manufacture of mattresses, cushions, and similar work, near Maryland Street and the line of the canal. In 1839, Scudder & Hannaman built a carding-mill on the river bank, near the site of the water-works, and added some spinning, weaving, and fulling machinery. About the same time Na- thaniel West established a mill of the same kind at the crossing of the canal and the Michigan road, long called Cottontown. He also carried on cotton- spinning there at the same time. At very nearly the same time a German by the name of Protzman, the first leader of the first brass band in the town, began the manufacture of soap, on the canal, near McCarty Street, then a lane, among cow-pastures and corn fields ; and about that time, too, Nicholas Mc- Carty began the manufacture of hemp, grown on his Bayon farm, on the canal, near the present line of Ray Street. Within a few months William Sheets established the first paper-mill on the canal and race at Market Street, and maintained it successfully nearly all his life after. In 1839 or 1840 a hay- press was set up on the lot opposite the northwest corner of the State-House Square, and a considerable quantity of hay was pressed there for shipment by flat-boats down the Mississippi River. There were two or three at one time, but the business was not maintained long. These early industries will be noticed more particularly in the department of Manufactures.
It will be noticed that several of the industries re- ferred to here were started in 1838 and 1839, just before the failure of the public works. The canal, it was confidently believed, would some time be completed, and, in any event, it supplied a consider- able water-power, which could be leased on favorable terms of the State. This is the explanation of the matter. By the 11th of June, 1838, sites were leased for one woolen-mill and one cotton-mill, two paper-mills, one oil-, two grist., and two saw-mills, and the buildings soon after erected and set to work. There was long complaint of the inadequacy of the power, and the frequent obstructions from grasses and other vegetable growths, and of the offensiveness of the canal-bed when the water was shut off to allow the grass to be cut. The Legislature ordered it sold
Jan. 19, 1850, and it was sold in 1851 to Gould & Jackson, who sold the next fall to the " Central. Canal Hydraulic Water- Works and Manufacturing Company," an association whose multitudinous name was the best part of it. From that concern the canal passed to other hands, and finally, as already stated, into the possession of the present Water-Works Company, where it is likely to stay.
In February, 1835, the State Board of Agriculture was chartered by the Legislature, with James Blake, Larkin Simms, John Owen, and M. M. Henkle direc- tors, of whom Mr. Blake was president, and Mr. Henkle secretary. They offered premiums for essays, and made rules for the organization of county asso- ciations. A State Agricultural Convention was held in the State-House Dec. 14, 1835, and two or three smaller meetings were held annually afterwards, but . the enterprise was premature. A County Society was formed in June, 1835, with Nathan B. Palmer as president and Douglass Maguire as secretary, and col- lected subscriptions for a premium fund, aided to the extent of fifty dollars by the board of justices, which was disbursed on the last day of October in one hun- dred and eighty-four dollars of premiums on exhibi- tions made in the court-house yard at that time. For the premiums of the next fair four hundred dollars was subscribed, and the exhibitions promised to be- come as permanent as the State Fairs are now, but the crash of 1837 ruined this with 'many another promising project of improvement. The " Benevolent Society," still the most extensive, active, and effective of the city's charities, was organized in November, 1835, with much the same arrangement as now,-a president, secretary, treasurer, depositary, and visitors. The latter collected clothes, money, household goods, groceries, anything that the destitute could use, and stored them with the depositary, to be delivered on proper orders. Several associations have been formed on the same plan since, particularly the " Ladies' Relief Society" and the " Flower Mission," but one has disbanded, and the other, active and beneficent as it is, can hardly hope to reach the extent of service of the association now nearly a half-century old.
3d. The improvement of educational agencies in this interval following the institution of the town gov-
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