History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 27

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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should be Jevied to pay it, and the proposition was carried by only eleven votes. That made the whole tax-rate forty-five cents on one hundred dollars, and made a general growl of discontent. Aside from these necessary improvements, the citizens have made a beautiful and desirable one of their own in the lines of shade-trees-the maples, and catalpas occa- sionally-that border all the principal streets of resi- dence, making continuous arehes of grateful shade for miles. Much pride is taken in this voluntary decoration of the streets, and the Council has sup- ported it by appointing a forester to look after the general interests of shade-trecs in streets and parks.

The city has four parks,-the Cirele, Military, University, and Garfield. The last is far larger than all the others together, and is the only one the city really owns, and the only one the city has never tried to improve. It lies a little south of the southern boundary, at the junction of Pleasant Run and Bean Creek, contains about one hundred and ten acres, and possesses an agreeable diversity of forest and meadow, level and ascent, and might easily and cheaply be made a popular resort. It cost about one thousand dollars an aere. The other three parks belong to the State, but are given to the city as places of recrea- tion on condition of their proper care and mainte- nance. They have all been handsomely laid out with walks and turf-plats and patches of trecs and shrubbery, with a considerable pond and fountain in Military Park. It is the remains of the old Military Ground, or Reservation, that figures so frequently in the early history of the city. It contains about twenty aeres, the others about four acres each.

The city had no police force till 1854. In Septem- ber of that year it appointed fourteen men to that ser- vice, with Jefferson Springsteen as captain. The ordi- nance creating this foree was repealed Dec. 17, 1855, partly because the citizens grumbled at the expensc, and partly because an attempt to arrest some offend- ing Germans in August-under the prohibitory liquor act which went into force the preceding June and was never regarded by anybody-made a riot on East Washington Street that ended in several of the Ger- mans being wounded by pistol-shots. The eitizens and the Council sustained the police, but the Su-

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preme Court speedily killed the prohibitory law. The expense was serious, the police services not conspicuous then, and the Germans were bitterly exasperated at the force. Early in the following year, however, a second force of ten men, under Capt. Jesse Van Blaricum, was created. This was ended the next May by hostile party actiou, which made a substitute of one officer in each ward ap- pointed by the marshal. The next May saw a change of party power, and another police force of seven men, under Capt. A. D. Rose, was created. Two men were added to this force the next year, 1858, under Capt. Samuel Lefevre. Rose went back in 1859, and the force was increased to two men from each ward in 1861, making fourteen men. Rose held till October, and was succeeded by Thomas Ramsey. Two men were dropped the same year, and John R. Cotton took command the next May, 1862, when the two day-patrolmen were re- placed, and the force uniformed at the city's expense. Thomas D. Amos was made captain in 1863, the force increased by a lieutenant and twenty-five men, -eighteen for the night- and seven for the day- patrol. David M. Powell succeeded as chicf the same year, and the city obtained material help, in preserving peace, from the military authorities, which were then strong, and the force of rowdies and scoundrels equally strong, and needing the com- bined repression of both powers. The ordinance of March, 1864, established police districts, and Sam- uel A. Cramer was made captain in May. During the State Fair of 1864 twenty-six special policemen were added. On the 5th of December an ordinance added sixteen men till the following May, and made the chief's salary fifteen hundred dollars. The pay of the men was also increased in 1863 and 1864, being fixed finally at two dollars and a half and three dollars a day. In 1865, Jesse Van Blaricum was again made chief, with two lieutenants, nine day- and eighteen night-patrolmen, two detectives, and sixteen specials. He was succeeded in April, 1866, by Thomas S. Wilson, and he in 1870 by Henry Paul. Eli Thompson came in 1871 and continued till 1874, when he was succceded by Frank Wilson, who held two years, and was followed in 1876 by A. C.

Dewey for a year, when Albert Travis succeeded from 1877 to 1880, and Robert C. Williamson fol- lowed till 1883, when the Metropolitan Police Act superseded him and the whole city force. The number was varied occasionally during this time, but was never so low as in the days preceding 1870. The present condition of the force under the new system will be found in the preliminary statement of the general condition of the city, and need not be repeated here. The Metropolitan force was created by an act of the Legislature of the winter of 1883, authorizing the appointment of three commissioners by the State officers, who should hold office three years, one retiring each year, and who should ap- point and control the whole police force of the city. They made Maj. Robbins chief, who retired recently, and was succeeded by John A. Lang, who had pre- viously been a captain. Maj. Robbins had given offense to many by regulations in derogation of the State law touching the conduct of liquor saloons. In 1865, Alexis Coquillard organized a force of a dozen men to patrol the business streets and protect business property at the expense of the persons served. The Council gave them police powers. A. D. Rose subsequently commanded it. Capt. Thomas new commands it, in a considerably enlarged force however. Besides these there are a half-dozen at the Union Depet, appointed and paid by the Union Railway Company, who are invested with police powers by the Council, and later by the Metropolitan authority. In this account of the police force of the city the facts are derived from Mr. Ignatius Brown's sketch, so far as its earlier history is concerned.

In 1826, as already related, a fire company was organized under Capt. John Hawkins, to operate with buckets and ladders. It maintained its organi- zation till 1835, when it was absorbed by the Marion Engine Company, organized to operate the " Marion Engine," purchased at the joint expense of the State and city in that year. It was an " end-brake," re- quiring about twenty-four men to work it fully, and a powerful and very serviceable " machine" it proved. It was made by Merrick, of Philadelphia. A two-story frame house was built for it in 1837 on the north of the Circle, the City Council meeting

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in the upper rooms. It was burned in 1851, and with it a large portion of the eity records. In 1855 a handsome two-story brick was erected for it at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and New York Street. In 1840 a second engine, and second-hand engine, too, called the "Good Intent," was purchased and " ran" with the Marion for a year ; then a por- tion of the company, under John H. Wright, took her and formed the " Relief Company" to work her. The members of both these companies were among the leading citizens. Caleb Scudder was the first captain of the Marion, and James M. Ray the first secretary. Capt. Scudder was succeeded by James Blake, Dr. John L. Mothershead, and others of the same position. John H. Wright was a leading mer- chant here, and one of the founders of the pork- packing business. The law at that time exempted firemen from city taxes and jury duty, and though these were slight considerations to the first of our volunteer firemen, they were considerable induce- ments to their successors, who were of the class that usually make up fire companies in other cities. Ten years of active service entitled a member to retire as an " honorary," with all his exemptions. This per- mission was taken advantage of by the early mem- bers as fast as it could be used, and the consequence was that by the year 1850 very few of them were left in either company in active service. The later ' companies never boasted of the possession of any of the " pioneers."

For nearly ten years these two companies remained alone, depending on church and hotel bells and per- sonal and general yells to make their alarms, and on private wells and the creek and canal for their supply of water. Private wells were made available some- times by letting down a "worm" fence or tearing away a panel of pieket fence, and sometimes by " lines of buckets," that is, of spectators passing buckets from the well to the engine. At the first organization of a fire company, in 1826, every householder was expected to give all the bucket help he could, but no " fire-buckets" for that especial service were made for some years after, probably not till the Marion Engine Company was organized. Then they came, great awkward leather affairs, made by our own harness-

makers in some cases, if not all, and painted blue inside by Samuel S. Rooker, the pioneer painter. They were about a foot and a half high, a foot across the mouth, ten inches at the bottom, with a swell in the middle that gave them the look of a small beer keg, with a leather-covered rope round the mouth, and a broad leather strap for a handle, which made them easy to carry but exceedingly hard to discharge with a throw, such an effort being likely to leave half the contents scattered over the person of the adventurous thrower. A later style of bucket, which was smaller, conical, with a considerable spread at the mouth, suc- ceeded and did better work.

In 1849 the " Western Liberties Company" was organized in the west of the city and took the old " Good Intent" from the " Relief Company," when the latter got a "row-boat" engine, in which the men were all seated and the brakes worked horizontally. This was housed in a two-story brick on the west side of Meridian Street, in what is now " Hubbard's Block." In 1858, near the end of the volunteer ser- vice, with the help of the Council and the subscrip- tions of citizens, the " Relief" purchased a handsome end-brake engine and used it till disbanded in Novem- ber, 1859. The " row-boat" they broke up and sold the next spring. The Marion Company exchanged their well-tried engine for a fine side-brake in 1858, but never used it much, and it was sold to a Peru company, in 1860, for two thousand one hundred and thirty dollars. The later companies having short lives and little history, need little notice. The " Western Liberties," formed in 1849, used the "Good Intent" in a house on the point between Washington Street and the National road till 1857, when a brick building was erected for them on West Washington Street, where one of the steam- engines is stationed now, and a new engine called the " Indiana" given them. Like most of the other companies, they were disbanded in 1859 and their engine sold. The " Invincibles," derisively ealled the " Wooden Shoes" by the older companies, or- ganized in May, 1852, and got a little iron-box, end-brake engine called the " Victory," which, light and easily handled, and working well with a strong company, was always early and frequently first at fires,

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the great point of competition with volunteer com- panies. In 1857 they obtained a fine new engine, the " Conquerer," and used it till August, 1859, when they were disbanded. Their house was a brick on the east side of New Jersey Street, a half-square north of Washington. It was afterwards a notorious bagnio during the war. The "Invincibles" went into the " paid" department in 1860, with their engine, but remained only a few months, when they finally dis- banded and sold their engine to Fort Wayne. The " Union Company" was organized in 1855; a handsome two-story brick house was built for them on the south side of East South Street, now occupied by a steam- engine, and a fine large end-brake engine given them, which they called " The Spirit of 7 and 6" because they represented those two wards. They were dis- banded in November, 1859.

The " Rovers" organized in 1858 in the north- western part of the city, and were given a house and one of the old engines. Before anything more could be done the volunteer system was so obviously breaking down that the company was disbanded in June, 1859. The " Hook-and-Ladder Company" was organized in 1843, and did all that their means and opportunities allowed till they were disbanded with the other com- panies in 1859. Its house was on the west end of the East Market space. Besides these regular com- panies there were two companies of boys engaged in the volunteer service for a time, the " O. K. Bucket Company" and the "Young America Hook-and- Ladder Company." The former was organized in 1849, used the old city buckets for a time, and were then provided with new and better ones and with a handsome light wagon to carry them. This com- pany was often of considerable service to the others by its ready supply of buckets. They had a frame house on the northeast corner of Maryland and Me- ridian Streets. They were disbanded in 1854, reor- ganized next year, again disbanded and organized as an engine company with the little iron-box " Vic- tory." The " Young America Company" were given their " hooks" and other apparatus in 1858, but did little, and were disbanded in November, 1859. There were no "hose companies" in the volunteer service, though in each engine company there came !

to be in the latter days a sort of separate formation of "engine" and " hose" men. The officers were a captain (who was also president), secretary; treasurer, engine directors, hose directors, and messenger, the latter being paid some fifty dollars a year by the Council to attend to the apparatus and keep it in re- pair. A " suction hose" man was usually appointed from the most experienced members, his duty being to couple the sections of the " suction" hose and at- tach it to the engine, a service on which a good deal of the readiness of the engine for action depended.

Until 1852-53 the cost of the volunteer system was a trifle. Occasional repairs of hose, rarer repairs of engines, and an occasional repainting made the sum of it; but as the character of the service changed by the retirement of the original members, the pioneers both of the city and the service, the expenses increased. The companies were less associations of citizens for mutual protection than unpaid employés of the publie, and they became clamorous for larger outlays, not in wages, but in parades and houses and fine ap- paratus. They were entirely independent, however, and to remedy some of the evils of rivalry and occa- sional contention it was determined in 1853 to sub- ject them fully to the city authority, and a chief fire engineer was appointed with two assistants. The first chief was Joseph Little, the first assistant B. R. Sulgrove, second, William King. Obedience was made the condition of aid from the Council. As a protection against a power which might be tyranni- cally used the firemen determined to unite on their part to secure co-operation and unity of purpose, and they formed the Fire Association, with B. R. Sul- grove as president. It was composed of delegates elected from each company, and met monthly in the upper room of the "Relief Company" on Meridian Street. It was recognized by the Council as the representative of the whole body of firemen, and of course became at once a formidable political power. By a sort of tacit agreement the city clerk was as- signed to the firemen. Their " legislature" assumed to determine all fire appropriations, and as they felt their power more clearly they made their demands more imperiously. The citizens grumbled at the ex- pense and the Council at the usurpation of its power,

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and finally the association split into factions, the pres- idency began to be "log-rolled" and intrigued for, and the end was evidently close at hand. It came with the election of Joseph W. Davis, captain of the " Invincibles," as fire engineer in 1858. He had made warm friends and bitter enemics, and the ani- mosities went into the association when he went into the fire chieftancy. The firemen had held their power by union against the hostility of the citizens, and now their union was broken. In 1859 an at- tempt was made, by the election of John E. Foudray as chief, to restore harmony and maintain the volun- teer system, but it was idle. Steam had made its way to recognition and favor because, as Miles Greenwood, the chief of Cincinnati, said, " it neither drank whiskey nor threw brickbats," and stcam made its way here in the fall of 1859. An order for a Lee & Larned rotary engine was made then, and the en- gine received the following March. It was put in the house of the " Westerns" and the steam depart- ment fairly established, though for some months two hand-engines and the hook-and-ladder wagon were retained. The steam-engine was in charge of Frank Glazier, the hand-engines of Charles Richman and William Sherwood, and the hook-and-ladder of Wil- liam N. Darnell. The volunteer system died in No- vember, 1859. Joseph W. Davis was chief of the new paid department, with a salary of three hundred dollars. In August, 1860, a small " Latta" was bought and put in the Marion house on Massachu- setts Avenue. In October a Seneca Falls engine was obtained and put in the Union house on South Street. The first of these was in charge of Charles Curtiss, the second of Daniel Glazier. The hand- engines were then permanently dismissed and the last vestiges of the volunteer system lost.

In 1863 an alarm-bell was placed in an open frame- work tower in the rear of the Glenn Block on Wash- ington Street, and was rung by an apparatus from the cupola on the block, where a watch was stationed day and night. Till 1868 this watch designated the locality of a fire by striking the number of the ward ; then in February a system of automatic telegraph signals was introduced, at an expense of six thousand dollars, and has continued in operation ever since.

The signals are made by a little motion of an ap- paratus in a locked iron box, which communicates electrically with all the fire-bells in the city, each box automatically ringing a certain number of strokes, desiguating its locality, and repeating them five times. The keys of the boxes are kept in adjacent houses, and their places and their signals published, so that at any alarm anybody may know almost the exact place of the fire.

The water supply, as already stated, was for a con- siderable time dependent on private wells, though as early as 1840, or thereabouts, one or two public wells were dug for the engines. These were increased afterwards, but no cisterns were made till 1852, when a cistern tax was levied and sixteen constructed in different parts of the city. Two small three hun- dred-barrel cisterns were made in 1850, but their inadequacy only proved the necessity of more. There are now one hundred and forty-nine in the city, many of them exceeding two thousand barrels, besides the supply from the water-works by five hundred and thirty-two hydrants. The present steam paid department consists of seventy-six men (thirteen firemen, six engineers, six stokers, twenty-two hosemen, six laddermen, nineteen drivers, two tele- graph-men, one supply-driver, one watchman at head- quarters), eight engines (of which six are in service, one in reserve, one used for filling cisterns), ten reels in service, two in reserve, one chemical apparatus or engine, two hook-and-ladder wagons, two supply- wagons, thirty-four horses, three watch-tower men, fifteen chemical extinguishers (hand), twelve horses, one hundred and eight fire-alarm boxes. The water supply, as already stated, is furnished by the Holly system of "direct pressure," and the hose can be used effectively directly from the hydrants.

The notable fires in the city are not numerous, and Done have been very destructive. In 1826 or 1827 the residence of Nicholas McCarty, on West Mary- land Street, was hurned, and was the second fire in the place. That of Maj. Carter's tavern, in 1825, already related, was the first. The next was the first tobacco-factory on Kentucky Avenue, which was burned in 1838, causing an uninsured loss of ten thousand dollars. On 4th February, 1843, the

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Washington Hall was seriously damaged by fire. In 1852 the row of two-story frames from the Capi- tal House, east to the alley at Tomlinson's Block, was burned, the most extensive fire in area that had then occurred in the place. In 1853 all the stables and out-buildings in the rear of the " Wright House," or Washington Hall, were burned, making a very large and destructive conflagration. In 1852 the Eagle Machine-Works were damaged to the extent of twenty thousand dollars, and the next year by an- other fire nearly as serious. In 1853 the grist-mill of Morris Brothers, on the corner north of the Eagle Machine-Works, was totally destroyed and never re- built. In 1856, Carlisle's mill, on the canal basin at the end of Market Street, was burned. In 1858 the smoke-house of W. & I. Mansur's pork-house was burned, causing a serious loss of cured meats. In the spring of 1865 the most disastrous fire ever known here took place in Kingan's new pork-house, then but a single year in operation. The loss was two hundred and forty thousand dollars, but largely insured. In 1874, March 22d, both sides of North Pennsylvania Street, including the "Exchange Block" and the unfinished hotel, now the Denison, and the " Martindale Block," were nearly destroyed, causing a loss, mostly insured, of two hundred thou- sand dollars. In 1876, Tousey & Wiggans' meat storage-house, on South Pennsylvania Street, was damaged by fire to the extent of ten thousand dollars or more, insured. In June, 1875, Elevator B was to- tally destroyed, with a loss of thirty thousand dollars. In 1876 the street-car stables were burned. In the winter of 1880, Ferguson's pork-house, south of the Vandalia road, on the east bank of the river, was en- tirely destroyed, with a loss of two hundred thousand dollars. In the winter of 1878-79 the " Centennial Block," on South Meridian Street, was damaged to the extent of thirty thousand dollars. The most important fires of the past year were the following :

March 13 .- Corner Dakota Street, J. Shellen- berger, butter-dish factory, cause unknown; loss, $10,900.50; insurance, $7500.

April 20 .- Pogue's Run and East Michigan Street, J. R. Pearson et al., butter-dish factory, incendiary ; loss, $4489.36 ; insurance, $6000.

May 9 .- Corner Kentucky Avenue and Sharpe Street, Indianapolis Stove Company, stove foundry, cause unknown; loss, $21,938 ; insurance, $15,980. Corner Kentucky Avenue and Sharpe Street, Eagle Machine-Works, storage-room, communicated ; loss, $5200; insurance, $2000. Corner Kentucky Ave- nue and Sharpe Street, W. W. Cheezum, saloon and residence, communicated ; loss, $1239; insurance, $1000. No. 21 Sharpe Street, Gus. Wilde, resi- dence, communicated ; loss, $650; insurance, $900.

July 2 .- 354 East Washington Street, Helm & Hartman, flour-mill; loss, $5057.45; insurance, $4100.

Sept. 28 .- McIntire Street near Canal, T. P. Haughey, glue-factory ; loss, $6047.05; insurance, $9550.

Oct. 31 .- Second Street and Canal, J. F. Failey, wheel-works; loss, $6204.66 ; insurance, $18,000.

Jan. 6, 1884 .- Tennessee Street, stables of the Citizens' Street Railway Company, damaged to the amount of $10,000.

CHAPTER VII.

CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS .- ( Continued.)

COMMERCIAL AND MERCANTILE INTERESTS OF THE CITY.

THE early commerce of Indianapolis was a matter of road-wagons and country stores. The most of it was barter and all of it was mixed. Dry-goods, drugs and groceries, cutlery, queensware and leather, books, tubs, and salt fish were all to be found in the same establishment, and whiskey was universal. A half-dozen yards of red flannel swung over the door on two sticks and hung down the sides was an un- failing sign; a name over the door was not. The trade that was not barter-and that was not much- was managed with Spanish silver. The railroads of those days did all the transportation, but the rails were as often an obstruction as an assistance, as already related. The cars that ran upon them and across them were usually drawn by four horses,-rarely less

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than three,-and rang their bells in a bow above the the only trader in Indianapolis in that line or that hames in an incessant and not unmusical jangle. ; direction.

The canvas cover was full a dozen feet along the top, JOHN WOOD, who was of Scotch-Irish parentage, was born July 25, 1784, in Orange County, N. Y., where his boyhood was spent in school or in varions active pursuits. He married, in 1806, Miss Rachel Brown, and had children,-Daniel B. and Rachel (Mrs. George Myers), both of whom died in Lan- easter, Ohio, in 1832, and one whose death occurred in infancy. He married a second time, in 1812, Miss Sarah West, of Brown Connty, Ohio, to whom following the deep hollow from the uptilt at each end, aud six or seven in diameter. A good big wagon loaded and belled, with a good team well harnessed, and a driver of the Clem Peery school mounted in his " wagon" saddle-a different variety from the " riding" saddle, being made with black harness-leather skirts cut square-on the " near" wheel-horse, and driving with a ten-feet line of ineh bridle-lcather fastened to the "bit" of the were born children, - Eleanor (Mrs. Thomas M. " near" leader, his " blacksnake" whip in hand- . and your teamster would have held it a shame to nsc anything else-eraeking as merrily as an Italian eab- driver, was an inspiriting sight. In good weather, along the old Michigan road, on the way to Cincin- nati by ·Lawrenceburg, or to Madison by Napoleon, one might sometimes see a dozen of these gigantic white caterpillars following each other, loaded with goods for McCarty, or Wright, or Hedderly, or Han- naman, or Justin Smith, and driven by Clem Peery, Bill Stuek, his brother Perry, Sam Ritchey and his brother Arnold, Wash Norwood, or Charley O'Neal, a brother of the noted criminal lawyer Hngh O'Neal, or some of the teaming fraternity, who took the place of the railroads, engines, and trains of to-day. They rarely took anything away, so the trip one way had to pay for both. Our exports usually went ont afoot. Hog driving was almost a separate occupation forty years ago and before, and all the time till railroads JOHN WOOD. came. It was a slow, cold, wearisome business, for it could only be done in winter; was usually done to Cincinnati; the roads were rough, the way long, and the night was consumed in feeding the " grunting herd." Wagons sometimes followed to take care of the lame and exhausted, or what are now called "slow" hogs. The hog drover, in his normal night condition, was covered with the slop

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 27

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