History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 4

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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railroad or ordinary service no less than nine bridges, all of iron or mixed iron and timber. They are, be- ginning at the north, the Lafayette or Crawfordsville road wagon-bridge, the Upper Belt road bridge, the Michigan Street and Washington Street wagon- bridges, the old National road bridge, the St. Louis Railroad bridge, the Vandalia Railroad bridge, the Old Cemetery wagon-bridge, the Vincennes Railroad bridge, the Morris Street wagon-bridge, the Lower Belt road bridge,-eleven in all. The bridges on the smaller streams and the remainder of the canal are too numerous to be worth special notice.

Turnpikes .-- All the wagon-roads out of the city are now graveled, and little inferior to macadamized roads. For a few years, some thirty years or so ago, a sort of mania for plank-roads ran over the State, and the western division of the National road was planked. It had then been given to the State by the general government (as had all the remainder of the road to the States through which it passed), and by the State had been assigned to a plank-road company, which made this improvement. It was a failure after the first few months. The planks warped, the ends turned up, and the covering soon became a nuisance, and was abandoned for coarse gravel, which packs solidly and makes a fairly smooth, durable, and dry road. Many of the county and neighborhood roads have been improved in the same way. Most of these improved roads are held by companies and are main- tained by tolls, which in the case of the city roads prove to be a handsome return upon the investment. Some of them have been sold to the county and made free, but several are still held by the companies. The principal roads leading out of the city are the east and west divisions of the National road ; northeast, the Pendleton road ; southeast, the south division of the Michigan road and the Old Shelbyville road ; south, the Madison road, the "Three Notch" road, the Bluff road; southwest, the Mooresville road ; northwest, the Crawfordsville and Lafayette road and the north division of the Michigan road ; north, the Westfield and the Old Noblesville road.

Area and Present Condition .- The original city plat was a square mile, laid off in the centre of four square miles donated by Congress in 1816 for a site

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

for the State capital. The half-mile border around this square was made "out-lots," and used as farm lands for years, but after 1847 was rapidly absorbed into the city, until at the commencement of the civil war the entire "donation" was included in the city, and was more or less compactly built over. The town government was extended over the whole four sections in 1838, but it was ten years later, following the completion of the first railway, before any consider- able occupancy of this tract was attempted, and then it was mainly in the vicinity of the new railway depot. Many additions of greater or less extent have been made, more than doubling the area of the original four sections of the " donation." It is estimated now (1883) that an area of about eleven square miles (or seven thousand acres) is included in the limits of the city. It occupies a little more than one-fourth of the area of Centre township, which is a little larger than a Congressional township of six miles square.

Population .- The first estimate of population rests upon an enumeration made by visitors of the Union Sunday-school in the spring of 1824, when 100 families were counted upon the " donation," making a probable population of 500 or more, represented by 100 voters, or 120 possibly, with 50 voters repre- senting nobody but themselves, or a total population of near 600. In 1827 a careful census was taken, and the population found to count up 1066. In 1830 it was about 1500; in 1840, 4000; in 1850, 8034 ; in 1860, 18,611; in 1870, 48,244; in 1880, 75,056. It is now estimated at about 95,000, of which one-sixth is foreign-born, mainly Irish and Germans, the former counting a little more than half of the latter, or, with all other foreign-born population, making a little more than half of all of that class. In 1880 the whole of German birth was 6070; of Irish birth, 3660; and of all other foreign nationalities, 2880. The proportions are now about 8000, 4000, and 3000. The basis of the estimate of population that gives the closest as well as the most trustworthy result is that of the enu- meration of school children under the law. This is made every year to determine the ratio of distribu- tion of the State's school fund, and is probably as accurate as the national census. It shows the pro-

portion of children of "school age" (from six to twenty-one) in 1880 to have been to the whole popu- lation as one to two and four-fifths. The school enumeration for 1883 makes the total 33,079, which gives at the ascertained ratio a population a little less than 93,000. The estimate of the secretary of the Board of Trade is 100,000, but no safe basis of calculation will give that result. A fair estimate ou the 1st of January, 1884, makes the population 95,000.

Government .- The city government is composed of a mayor, Board of Aldermen, Common Council, clerk, treasurer, and assessor, elected by popular vote; marshal, chief of the fire department, attorney, elected by the Council ; and a Board of Police Com- missioners, appointed hy the State officers and paid by the city, who have entire control of the police force, also paid by the city. The officers elected by the people serve two years, the others one. The police commissioners go out and are replaced in sue- cessive years, one in one, one in two, and one in three.

Police .- The police force consists of a chief, two captains, and sixty-five men. Besides the regular force there are three or four specially in charge of the Union Depot, authorized by the city but paid by the Union Railway Company. The merchants' police, a small force of men, is appointed by the city, but paid by the citizens whose property is specially in their care.

The Fire Department consists of a chief and his assistants, and a working force, held in this service exclusively, of seventy-seven men, including the officers named. It has six steam-engines, four hose-reels, two hook-and-ladder wagons, uses six hundred and twenty-two hydrants, one hundred and forty-nine cisterns, ranging in capacity from one thousand to two thousand five hundred barrels, and one hundred and thirty electric signal-boxes or alarm stations.

Streets .- There are four hundred and fifty streets, and larger alleys used as streets, all more or less improved by grading and graveling or bowldering. A very few are paved with wooden blocks, and one of these has within a year been torn up and

AREA AND PRESENT CONDITION OF INDIANAPOLIS.

replaced by bowlders. A large number of streets are bowldered, but much the larger portion are graded and covered heavily with coarse gravel, which is found to make a good durable street, given to grind into dust and mud, but always available and cheap. The aggregate length of streets is not accu- rately known, but as a few are four miles long or more, and a great many from one to two miles, the aggregate length is conjectured to be probably be- tween seven hundred and eight hundred miles. On them is a total length of water-main of fifty-one miles, with twenty-five large iron drinking-fountains " for man and beast." With these are ninety miles of gas-mains and two thousand four hundred and seventy-nine lamps. There are thirteen lines of street railways, owning five hundred mules and em- ploying one hundred drivers. All belong to one company.

Parks .- A very pleasing feature of the city is its parks, of which there are four : 1st, Circle Park, in- tended to have been put in the centre of the " dona- tion," as the site of the Governor's official residence, but never used for that purpose, and, on account of the propinquity of Pogue's Run bottom, put a little aside from the central point, which is a half-square south of the southeast corner of Washington and Illinois Streets; 2d, Military Park, the remains of a military reservation ; 3d, University Park, held by the city on consent of the Legislature, but given originally to help endow a State University at the capital; 4th, Garfield Park, originally Southern Park, a large tract at the extreme south of the city, pur- chased some years ago to give the population of that part of the city a place of recreation, but so far in- adequately improved.

Taxes .- The levy for general purposes last year was 90 cents on $100, for school purposes 22 cents, making a total of $1.12, the legal limit of taxation for city purposes. This rate is levied on a total valuation of 852,633,510, divided into "realty," $22,863,525 ; "improvements," $16,363,200 ; " per- sonal," $13,406,755. There are some slight diserep- aneies in these statements, as the assessors' returns had not been corrected when this report was given. The total valuation of property for taxation in 1850 2

was $2,326,185 ; in 1860, $10,700,000 ; in 1866, the first valuation after the close of the war, $24,835,750; in 1870, $24,656,460. A decline in real estate came in 1868, the valuation dropping from $25,500,000 in 1867 to $24,000,000' in 1868, and to $22,000,000 in 1869, recovering partially in 1870, and rising to $30,000,000 in 1871. The rise continued till 1874, then the financial crash of 1873 began to operate, and a second decline begao, which is now about overcome. The city revenue for the last year was $591,312.

Business .- The secretary of the Board of Trade reports for the year ending with the end of 1882 that there were 772 manufacturing establishments in the city, with $12,270,000 of capital, employing an average of 12,000 hands at an average rate of $2.20 a day, using $18,730,000 of material, and producing $30,100,000 of merchantable goods. The wholesale trade in sixteen lines of business amounted to $25,- 440,000. The total clearances of the clearing-house was $101,577,523. There are 12 banks in the city, 6 national and 6 private, with a total capital of $2,880,000. The average of monthly deposits was $11,435,000. Total receipts of grain for 1882, 21,. 242,897 bushels; of coal, about 400,000 tons, or 202,711 for the last six months. Of live-stock, 5,319,611 hogs, 640,363 cattle, 849,936 sheep, 50,- 795 horses, of which there was disposed of in the city 3,020,913 hogs, 106,178 cattle, 70,543 sheep, 2533 horses. Of lumber, 125,000 M's, or 125,- 000,000 feet. The Board of Trade has 1000 mem- bers.

Railroads .- Counting the two divisions of the Jeffersonville Railroad separately, as they were built and operated at first, there are fourteen railroads com- pleted and in operation centring in Indianapolis, running altogether 114 passenger trains both ways daily, and handling here an average of 2500 freight cars daily, each car having a capacity of twelve tons at least, and making a total daily tonnage of 30,000 tons, equal to the trade of a seaport receiving and sending out thirty vessels daily of 1000 tons each. Besides the fourteen lines of railroad centring in the city, there is the Union Railway Company with a length of track enough to connect them all at

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

the Union Passenger Depot, and now by lease in control of the Belt Railway, which very nearly en- circles the city, and connects all the roads for freight purposes by a line that enables transfers of cars and trains to be made outside of the city, avoiding the obstruction of many streets. Two new roads are in progress. Every county in the State but three can be reached by rail, and nearly every county-seat can be visited and a return made the same day.

Newspapers and Periodicals. - There are six daily newspapers in the city, all morning issues ex- cept one. There is one semi-weekly, twenty-five weeklies (including the weekly editions of dailies), one semi-monthly, and seventeen monthlies.

Amusements .- There are four theatres, one hun- dred and sixty public halls, four military companies, four musical societies, and three brass bands ; ten libraries, including the State and City and County, and the State Geological Museum, containing over 100,000 specimens, and valued at over $100,000.

Business Associations .- Insurance fifteen ; for man- ufactures and other purposes incorporated, sixty-one, with a capital of $8,300,000; building and loan socie- ties nineteen, with an aggregate capital of $1,755,000; miscellaneous associations, fifty-five ; hotels, forty.

Professions .- Lawyers, two hundred ; physicians, two hundred and thirty-two. (School-teachers and preachers, see Schools and Churches.)

Secret Societies .- The secret societies number 23, with 143 lodges or separate organizations. The Ma- sons have 21 lodges of whites and 6 of colored mem- bers ; the Odd-Fellows have 23 in all ; the Knights of Pythias have 13; the Hibernians have 3. Be- sides these the Red Men, and Elks, and Druids, and several other orders have each one or more lodges.

Churches .- Baptist, 13; Catholic, 7; Christian, 6; Congregational, 2; Episcopal, 5 ; Reformed Epis- copal, 1; Evangelical Alliance, 1; United Brethren, 1; Friends, 1; German Reformed, 3; Hebrews, 2 ; Lutheran, 6; Methodist, 23; Protestant Methodist, 1; Presbyterian, 14; Swedenborgian, 1; United Presbyterian, 1. In all there are 88 churches in the city. Two denominations that at one time were quite prominent, the Universalist and Unitarian, have disap- peared altogether in the last few years as distinct sects.

Health and Sanitary Conditions. - The station at Indianapolis of the United States Signal Service reports for the last year an annual mean of tempera- ture of 53.8 ; an annual mean of humidity of 71.1; 107 clear days, 141 fair days, and 117 cloudy days ; a mean fall of rain and snow of 53.68 inches; the highest temperature 94°, the lowest 10° below zero. Drainage is effected by an incomplete but steadily advancing system of sewage, with two trunk lines at present on Washington and South Streets, and a number of small tributary sewers. The health of the city is surpassed by no city and not many rural regions in the world. The last report of the Board of Health covers seven months froin January to July, inclusive, 1883, and shows, with the months of the preceding year back to July, an average of less than 140 a month. This gives a death-rate of 18§ in 1000; that of London is 21} per 1000, of Paris 26}, of Vienna 29, of New York 293. Very few rural communities in Europe or this country show a death- rate lower than 19 in 1000.

Schools .- The free school system went into opera- tion in 1853, when the accumulation of public funds had allowed the previous purchase of grounds and the erection of houses sufficient for the town's needs, a popular vote six years before having authorized a special city tax for school purposes. The average at- tendance at the outset in April, 1853, was 340. In three years it was 1400. It is now (1883) 9938, while 13,685 children are enrolled on the school rec- ords, and the city contains a juvenile population of school age (from six to twenty-one) of 33,079. The enrollment is considerably less than half of the popu- lation, while the attendance is about one-third. This is a reduction of three per cent. in two years. There are now belonging to the public school system 29 brick houses and 2 frame. Of these 2 are one story, 25 are two stories, 3 of three stories ; 8 have four rooms or less, 11 have eight rooms, 12 have nine rooms. In all there are 245 rooms, with a seating capacity of 12,746, nearly equal to the entire enrollment. Value of grounds and buildings, $938,419.30. There are 19 male teachers, 234 female teachers ; 21 are col- ored, 232 white. Salaries iu the High School, maximum $2000, minimum $700, average $1037;

GENERAL VIEW AND HISTORICAL OUTLINE.

in Primary schools, maximum $1100, minimum $650, average $900.92; grade teachers, maximum $650, minimum $300, average $500.

Private schools are nearly as numerous as public schools, but, of course, less largely attended. There are twenty-six of these, some of them of a denominational character, some wholly secular, but most of a higher grade than the primaries of the publie system. A few will rank with the preparatory schools of the best colleges. Besides there are five kindergartens. Of the collegiate class of educational institutions, there are four medical schools authorized to give diplomas and degrees, one law school of the same grade, and, more considerable than these, Butler Uni- versity, now at Irvington, formerly the Northwestern Christian University, and located in the northeastern part of the city.

Under the same management as the public schools is the Public Library, supported by a tax of two cents on one hundred dollars, and containing about forty thousand volumes.

General View and Historical Outline .- A sum- mary of the history of the city and of its different stages of growth, with a glance at its present condi- tion, will give the reader a more definite and durable impression of such points as he may desire to retain for his own purposes or for the information of others, than he could obtain from the best methodized and most complete system of details unaccompanied by such an outline. This "general view" will, there- fore, present the epochs in the progress of Indianap- olis, and leave the details of development in each to the chapters treating the different departments which make up the body of its history.

The first settlement of Marion County may be safely dated in the spring of 1820, though there is a probability of the arrival of one settler a year earlier, and contemporaneously with the Whetzel (relatives of the noted Indian-fighter of West Virginia, Lewis Whetzel) settlement at the bluffs of White River, or, as the Indians called it, Wah-me-ca-me-ca. In the fall of 1818 the Delaware tribes by treaty ceded to the United States the region now known as Cen- tral Indiana, with a reservation of possession till 1821. Little more regard was paid to Indian rights

then than since, and settlers began, with leave or without it, to take up lands in the " New Purchase," as it was called, within six months after the bargain was made. By midsummer, 1820, there was a little village collected along and near the cast bank of White River, and on the 7th of June the commis- sioners of the State Legislature selected it as the site of the future capital. Congress had given the State, on its admission into the Union in 1816, four sec- tions, or two miles square, for a capital site, on any of the unsold lands of the government, and at the junction of Fall Creek and White River the location was fixed. The town was laid out in the summer of 1821, one mile square, with the remainder of the four sections divided round it into " out-lots." The first sale of lots was held in the fall of that year, the procceds to go to the erection of such buildings as the State should require at its capital. Here begins the first stage of the city's existence.

First Period .- From the first undisputed settle- ment in the spring of 1820 to the removal of the State offices from Corydon in the fall of 1824, and the first meeting of the Legislature the following winter, a period of nearly five years, Indianapolis was a pioneer village, scattered about in the dense woods, grievously troubled with chills and fever, and little more encouraged for the future than any other little county town. The first newspaper was started in 1822, the next in 1823; the first Sunday-school in 1823; the first church was built in 1824; the post- office opened in Marelı, 1822.

Second Period .- From the arrival of the capital, in a four-horse wagon and ten days from the Ohio, to the completion of the first railway in October, 1847, an interval of nearly twenty-three years, the town was passing through its second stage. It grew from a village to a respectable town, with several par- tially developed germs of industries, which have since become second to very few in the Union, and with a mayor and Council and the name and airs of a city. For the first eleven years of this period the State Legislature met in the county court-house. In 1832 came the first town government by " trustees," changed to " councilmen" in 1838, and to "mayor and Council" in 1847. In 1835 the old State-

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

House was completed, and the first fire-engine bought. In 1834 the first bank (the old State Bank) was chartered. In 1832 the first manufacturing enter- prise was put in operation, and failed in a year or two more. The first brewery, tobacco-factory, linseed- oil mill, paper-mill, merchant flour-mill, woolen-mill, soap-factory, the first pork-packing, all date from about 1835 to 1840. An iron foundry was at- tempted in 1832, but failed very soon. In 1842 the first steps were taken to establish the Asylum for the Insane. In 1843 the first tax was levied to prc- pare for the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb. In 1845 a similar levy was made to establish the Asylum for the Blind. These are all located in or near the city. This was a period of planting rather than growth. The failure of the " Internal Improve- ment" system in 1839 left the town with a few miles of useless canal. The river was never naviga- ble except for flat-boats in spring freshcts. But one steamer ever reached the town, and it did not get back for six months. There were no means of trans- portation, natural or artificial, but dirt-roads " cross- layed" or "corduroyed," and covered four-horse wagons hauling from Cincinnati at a dollar a hun- dred. All this restriction of business and inter- course changed a good deal with the completion of the old Madison Railroad, which had formed part of the State's system of improvements, and been sold to a company when the State failed. Within a half- dozen years came a half-dozen more railroads, and the city entered what may be called its " third period," though, except in its greater rate of progress, there is little to distinguish it from that which fol- lowed it and covers the city's history to the present time.

Third Period .- From the completion of the first railroad, Oct. 1, 1847, to the breaking out of the civil war in April, 1861, a period of thirteen years and a half, there was a decided quickening of the city's energy and development. To it belongs the establishment of the free school system in 1853, and the permanent establishment of all the present lead- ing industries in iron, lumber, grain, and pork. There were the seeds and some wholesome sprouts of all these before, but with the opening of railroad

transportation came an impulse that made almost a new creation. The Jeffersonville Railroad, the Belle- fontaine (Bec Line), the Vandalia, and the Lafayette were all completed in 1852, and portions of all were in operation a year or two earlier. The Central (Pan Handle) was completed in 1853, the Peru in 1854, the Cincinnati (now with Lafayette making Cin- cinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Chicago) in 1853, the Union tracks and depot in 1853. With the concentration of the State's troops here dur- ing the war, and the business of all kinds required for their care, equipment, and transportation, came a sudden force of growth which compelled business to betake itself to several convenient streets, when previously it had been confined mainly to Wash- ington Street and the vicinity of the Union Depot. Population more than doubled during this period, from eight thousand in 1850 to cighteen thousand in 1860, but it nearly tripled from 1860 to 1870. 'The civil war and the changes it forced or aided may, therefore, properly mark an epoch in the city's history and begin the " fourth period."

Fourth Period .- From 1861 to 1883, twenty-two years, population increased from forty-eight thousand to about ninety-five thousand, and the amount of busi- ness increased in a still larger proportion. The Junc- tion, the Vincennes, the Bloomington and Western, the St. Louis, the Springfield and Decatur, the Chi- cago Air Line, and the Belt Railroads have all been built in this period, and two others projected. Other results are better exhibited in a condensed state- went of the present condition of the city, produced by the changes and advances in the sixty-three years covered by these four periods. One form of these combined results may be stated in the favorite boast of the citizens, that "Indianapolis is the largest wholly inland city in the United States." It has not and never has had any navigable water nearer than the Ohio and the lower Wabash, except, as already remarked, that freshets in the river occasionally let a few flat-boats, loaded with grain, or whiskey, or pork, or poultry, or hay, down into the Mississippi to the towns in the cotton and sugar region. But these opportunities were uncertain, and the voyages were uncertain when opportunities were used, so that flat-

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 4

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