History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 49

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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Musical Societies .- Before glancing at the musi- cal associations and other indications of the musical culture of the city now, it may be as well to look back a moment at the associations which have been formed here, served their occasion, and passed away. The first was the "Handelian" Society of 1828, which furnished the music for the celebration of the Fourth of July that year. Who composed it and what be- came of it are undiscoverable facts now. The next of which any positive evidence exists, except the choirs of churches,-and only the Episcopal in 1838, the Catholic in 1841, and Mr. Beecher's about the same time, had choirs,-was a society mainly com- posed of those who had been members of Mr. Beecher's choir, Mr. A. G. Willard (the leader), John L. Ketcham, Alex. Davidson (son-in-law of Governor Noble), Mrs. Dr. Ackley (daughter of Mr. Baldwin, first president of Wabash College), Lawrence

M. Vance, and others. Professor P. R. Pearsall was the teacher and instrumental performer. No man in the city did so much as he to develop and diffuse a better musical taste in the city. He died a few years ago at the advanced age of eighty-six, as active, cheerful, and social as most men of half his years. Other societies came up and went down with no result and no record. In 1863 " The Musicale," a society formed by Mr. J. A. Butterfield, a music pub- lisher and dealer here, wholly of skilled musicians, per- formed classic music only, and only in the houses of the members, for a few years, making a public appearance but once. In the summer of 1864, Pro- fessor Benjamin Owen formed a class in vocal music, as Professor Sharpe had done ten years before, and gave public concerts with them. It broke up about 1867. In September, 1867, the " Mendelssohn Society" was formed, with Wm. H. Churchman as president; Gen. Daniel Macanley, vice-president ; Charles P. Jacobs, secretary; Thomas N. Caulfield, director. When Mr. Caulfield removed in 1868, Professor Carl Bergstein was chosen leader. The society is not now in existence.

The " Maennerchor," formed in 1854, is the oldest and largest musical association in the city. It is German, as its name indicates, but no good music comes amiss to it. The first leaders were Mr. Long- reich, Mr. Despa, Mr. Kantman, Professor Weegman, aud Professor Bergstein. It directed the great Saengerfest here in 1867, and again in 1883. The net proceeds of the festival were given to the Ger- man-English School, the Benevolent Society, and the German Benevolent Society. Its hall is the former City Hall on East Washington Street. Last summer it gave a performance in the Grand Opera-House of the opera of " Stradella" in so good a style that one unacquainted with the company would have con- cluded that it was a professional association of a very fair grade. In 1869, in October, three German musical societies were compounded by the influence of Professor Bergstein,-the Liederkranz, Harmonie, and Frohsino. The union was at first temporary to celebrate the Humboldt centennial. Afterwards it was made permanent under the name of the " Har- monie." Ladies were not admitted as members. Its

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meetings were held twice a week in Marmont's Hall, southwest corner of Georgia and Illinois Streets. The " Liederkranz" and the " Harmonie" have been reconstructed since the combination, and are now in existence separately. The " Turn-Verein" has a musical association in its membership. The " Druid Maennerchor" was formed in 1868, exclu- sively for members of that order, with Philip Reich- wein for president, and August Mueller, director. The " Choral Union" was formed about 1869, for the general purpose of promoting musical taste and culture, and performing occasionally the higher styles of musical composition, both vocally and instru- mentally. The first officers were M. R. Barnard, president ; Wm. C. Sinock, secretary ; Professor J. S. Black, director ; E. C. Mayhew and George B. Loomis, leaders. Nothing has been heard of it recently, at least since Professor Black and Mr. Barnard left the city. The " Philharmonic Orchestra" was organized about the same time as the preceding, with Dr. R. A. Barnes as leader. The " Lyra" is an old and well- established German musical society of large member- ship and means, and has a fine hall in the building which has replaced the old " Washington Hall," opposite Masonic Hall. It is rather a rival of the Maennerchor. Benham's Musical Review was pub- lished here for some half-dozen years before 1870, and for two or three years after that. In 1869, Mr. A. G. Willard began the publication of the Musical Visitor here. Both have long been suspended. Among the prominent musicians of the city, profes- sional and amateur, have been Professor Pearsall, Mr. A. G. Willard, Professor Bergstein, Professor Lizus, Professor Ernestinoff, Professor Baker, Professor Barus, Professor Beissenherz, Mr. Mueller, Mr. Vogt (orchestra leaders the last three), Mr. Athlick Smith, Mr. M. H. Spades and Mrs. Spades, Mrs. Leon Bailey, Mr. and Mrs. Sam. Morrison, Mr. O. W. Williams, Mrs. E. W. Halford, Miss Mackenzie, Mrs. John C. New, Mrs. Lynn, Mr. Ora Pearson, and others not recalled at this moment.

The present management of the public musical associations of the city is as follows: The " Lieder- kranz" meets Wednesdays and Fridays, at Union Hall. W. H. Scherer is president; Gustav Her-

mann, secretary ; Frederick Mack, treasurer. Ernst Emestinoff, musical director. The "Lyra" meets Tuesday and Saturday evenings, at Lyra Hall. Ed. Raschig is president; F. Mumnenhoff, secretary ; John Wocher, Jr., treasurer ; Reinhold Miller, mu- sical director. The " Maennerchor" meets Wednesday and Friday evenings, at Maennerchor Hall (formerly City Hall). C. E. Emerich is president ; Fred. Merz, secretary ; Carl Barus, musical director. The bands of music are the " Indianapolis City Band," No. 268 East Washington Street, Reinhold Miller, manager, B. Vogt, conductor ; " Union Band," No. 361 East McCarty Street, Robert Dehne, leader ; " Beissen- herz's Band," No. 400 North New Jersey, H. D. Beissenherz, manager. The " Eureka," a colored musical organization, is both vocal and instrumental.

Fine Arts .- Although the first State-House had to seek an architect in New York, the new one and the new court-house found home talent and taste suf- ficient for all needs, and it would be hard to match either with any public building of any period or cost. There were good architects here, however, before Isaac Hodgson and Edwin May. John Elder (father of John R. Elder, of the Locomotive and Sentinel, now a railroad manager in New Orleans) was one of the earliest architects in the city. Not much was needed of that order of skill, as houses were chiefly frame, and whatever they were in material they were sure to be the same square, plain structures, with no more conception of ornament or variety, even of paint, than a saw-log. In nothing, except music, is the improvement of taste more noticeable than in the houses now built for residence. The " goods-box" . order of architecture has disappeared. Houses have fronts varied by porches, porticos, pillars, projections, painting, offsets, bay-windows, ornamental wood-work, costing but very little more than the square, staring, white family depositories of the last generation, but with a suggestion of beauty wholly invisible in the other. Door-frames are one color, the panels another, window-sash and frames are varied, the main tone of the house-color is different from either, fences and gates are tinted differently. Color is used largely to produce variety, both in outside and inside work. The man who would have put two colors in or on his

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house thirty years ago would have been unanimously suspected of mental aberration. The consequence of this taste, or want of it (partly the effect of enforced economy, no doubt), was that one man was about as competent an architect as another. There was no more room for taste than in building a pig-pen or an ash- hopper. Following Mr. Elder in this primitive era was Mr. Colestock, and later Mr. Willis, who planned the first Masonic Hall. Then came Mr. Tinsley, who was concerned with the asylums and some of the bet- ter business blocks. The architects now here can hold their own with any in the country, as witness the scores of fine residences in the North End, the

painting, except that which devised the "rosebush" for Carter's tavern or the " eagle" for Hawkins'. In 1831, however, a portrait-painter by the name of M. G. Rogers came and took a room in Henderson's tavern, and advertised his presence and pursuit. He stayed but a few weeks, in the latter part of the winter, with what advantage to himself or what benefit to the artistic taste of the community nobody will ever know. Very soon after him, in 1833, Mr. Jacob Cox came here, with his brothers, and began the tin- and copper-smith business, keeping it up manfully for a score of years, but all the time feeling an irrepressible longing for the pursuit of art. He

NORTH SIDE OF WASHINGTON BETWEEN PENNSYLVANIA AND DELAWARE STREETS, 1856.

SOUTH SIDE OF WASHINGTON BETWEEN PENNSYLVANIA AND DELAWARE STREETS, 1848.

`superb business blocks, the churches, and city school- houses. This is not the place to specify them or their peculiar merits, and this reference is all that can be made without invidious suggestion. The business houses of the times before the impulse of improve- ment brought by the railroads had changed them may be judged by the illustrations in this chapter.

Painting in the early days of the city was confined to portraits wholly, at least so far as remunerative work was concerned. If landscape or "figure" work was attempted it was to indulge the artist's taste or ambition, not to fill an order from an esthetic patron. For the first ten years we have no account of any

manifested it when a lad of a dozen years of age, and it grew with his growth, in spite of prudent parental repression, which sought a remedy in a dif- ferent occupation. Excepting in a casual way, he did not paint much till the campaign of 1840 made a large demand for banners with appropriate party symbols,-Whig symbols in his casc, "the same old coon" especially,-and these he painted with a decided advantage of reputation and some money, which led him to pay more attention to his art and less to his trade. Hc painted a good deal in the next two years, and made portraits of Senator Oliver H. Smith, Gov- ernor Bigger, Governor Wallace, and others, of such

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striking accuracy of likeness and artistic effect that they were quite the talk of the town at their appear- ance. In 1842 he went to Cincinnati and opened a studio with John Dunn, son of a former State treas- urer of Indiana, and remained five months, in that time securing the patronage and high regard of Miles Greenwood and other Cincinnatians, whose approval and patronage were a good thing for any- body to have. He returned here, kept his business (with occasional intervals of painting) till about 1858, when he left the shop for the studio altogether.

While the "Cincinnati Art Union" was in ex-

man Lieber had then recently opened his art estab- lishment, and contributed largely to the success of the society, which was mainly of his origination. The pictures sent in by Mr. Cox, Peter Fishe Read, James F. Gookins, and others were exhibited in his picture-room, and the association given quarters there. A number of citizens acquired excellent specimens of home art during the existence of this society. Since its extinction Mr. Cox has painted steadily and with great variety of subjects and treatment, and those who can judge say with steady improve- ment, though now over the Scriptural limit of three-

SOUTH SIDE OF WASHINGTON BETWEEN MERIDIAN AND PENNSYLVANIA STREETS, 1848.

NORTH SIDE OF WASHINGTON BETWEEN MERIDIAN AND PENNSYLVANIA STREETS, 1854.

istence Mr. Cox painted one or two pictures for each annual exhibition, and they were all bought at good prices. The "Union," however, was ahead of the times, and went down after a struggle of four or five years, from 1848 to 1854, or thereabouts. During this period he improved greatly in his landscape work, and occasionally attempted " historical" or " figure" pieces less successfully. He has done far better in this way in his later years. In 1856 the " Indianapolis Art Society" was formed for the pur- pose of encouraging art by securing the sales of the work of home artists, and accomplished a good deal of its purpose in the few years that it lived. Her-

score and ten. He is the pioneer artist of Indian- apolis and of the State, and easily the most eminent. In his life and labors the art history of Indianapolis is almost embodied. There was little outside of him for twenty-five years after 1840. There were other artists of talent and skill and good repute here at times, but none have remained long enough to be identified with the place. Mr. Whitridge, Mr. Eaton, Mr. Gookins, Mr. Read, Mr. Freeman, Mr. Steele, Mr. Rowley, Mrs. Guffin, and others went away after a residence of a few months or a few years. Mr. Cox has never changed. Several artists of distinction here were his pupils, particularly Mrs.

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Guffin, Miss Julia Cox. (his daughter, now Mrs. White), and Henry W. Waugh.

About the time Mr. Cox began applying himself wholly to his art, a young man about as ill dressed as a man could be and appear on the street, came here and lived for a time with Dr. Abner Pope. He painted a portrait of the doctor that commanded general admiration. He remained painting here for a year or so, and then went to Cincinnati, where he became one of the distinguished artists of the West. He was Joseph O. Eaton. He removed to New York during the latter part of the war, or at its close, and with him went William Miller, a little, gifted, misshapen fellow who painted miniatures, and for several years visited the city for a few months, makiog his home with the late Dr. Mears and keeping a studio in the "Sanders Block," West Washington Street, near Meridian. At about the same time a portrait painter by the name of Brown had a studio in the same building for a year or two. In 1842,-not far from the time of the arrival of · the other artists,-Mr. T. W. Whitridge came here and remained longer, made a better impression, and did more work than any artist who at that time had been here, not excluding our own home artists. He opened the first daguerrean gallery here in the second story of the frame building still standing on the corner of Washington Street and the alley on the south side between Meridian and Illinois. Some of his paintings are owned here still, and some are kept by Mr. Beecher in his Brooklyn house. This distinguished preacher was a warm friend and frequent visitor of the artist. When Mr. Whitridge left for New York, or possibly before, Dr. Luke Munsell opened a gallery in the building where the " Hubbard Block" stands. In 1845 this gallery, or one in the same place, was conducted by Peter McNaught. These were the first develop- ments of an art which now produces here works with no superior in any city in the country. For a number of years after Mr. Whitridge left, Mr. Cox had the field all to himself, but it was unhappily hardly worth having.

James B. Dunlap, son of Dr. L. Dunlap, very early manifested signs of artistic talent. He never culti-

vated it systematically, or he might have been one of the prominent artists of the country. He was in Cali- fornia for some years, and there made a bust of Capt. . Sutter, the noted Calfornia pioneer and owner of the first " gold diggings," which was very widely noticed and commended as a fine work of plastic art. He returned to Indianapolis before the civil war broke out, and did something in the way of portrait-paint- ing, but he never accomplished anything at all equal to his abilities.

Of late years, during the last decade, there has been a notable increase of students of art and artists working their way into a reputation and a comfort- able living. Of these it would be invidious to speak as of older artists or those who have gone away. It remains to notice the " Art Loan Exhibition," at the English Opera-House, in December, 1883. This was in a considerable mcasure the work of Miss Ketcham, and it is likely to be but the beginning of a long series of such exhibitions. An art school has recently been advertised by Mrs. Sewall, secre- tary of the association, to be held in the Old Ply- mouth Church building, now a part of the " English Block," and taught partly by Mr. MacDonald, of Chicago, and partly by Miss Ketcham, who, says the notice, " will be present at the art rooms, and will see that each student desiring to practice during those days has an opportunity to do so without in- terruption. During these days Miss Ketcham is employed to give instruction in china painting to special pupils in that branch. Lessons in china painting will not be given on the last three days of eachı week."

In the way of sculpture Indianapolis has done little and promises little. One or two lady artists have done some good modeling, but it is not said that they will prosecute sculpture as a pursuit. The limestone figures on the court-house are mere " architectural, not artistic, sculptures," says the architect, and it is well. The statue of Franklin on the " Franklin Insurance Company's" building manifests a good deal of the native ability required for sculpture, and the artist, a Mr. Mahoney, may make a high reputation if he tries.

Clubs .- The literary societies of the last genera-

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tion, in which the members debated the comparative merits of Luther and Columbus, printing and steam, or read essays, have become "elubs" in these latter days, and rate themselves in a different order of intellectual diversion and development from their predecessors. They have a full right to. Though the debating societies of the time, from 1835 to 1850, sometimes contained full-grown men and solid brains, they were generally made up of boys from fifteen to twenty. The literary clubs of to-day contain some of the best thinkers and best-informed men in the State, and they do not meet to talk nonsense or waste time; that is, the better grade of clubs, both male and female. It is impossible to say how many there are, or what they are, there are so many hidden away in corners and sections of the community concerning themselves only with their own neighborhood. The " Indianapolis Literary Club" of gentlemen is the oldest, largest, and ablest, presumably, and the " Ladies' Literary Club" is of the same quality of the other sex. The " Meridian Club" is of the English, or stereotyped class, social, possibly con- vivial at times, and concerned more with the table than the library. The club-house of the " Meridian" is the residence built by the late W. H. Talbott, on the southwest corner of Meridian and Ohio Streets. It seems to be well sustained. There are, of course, several political elubs in Presidential campaigns, but they are temporary, and not of the character of the clubs referred to here. The Scotch have a " Burns" or " Caledonian Club," and a " Caledonian Quoiting Club ;" there are several dancing clubs, and musical clubs, and charitable clubs, and convivial clubs, and possibly missionary clubs. The city bristles with clubs like an army of Fijians or ancient Britons.

Hotels .- It is not certain that the first house built in Indianapolis was not a tavern. John Mc- Cormick's house was a tavern in 1820, and his has a reasonable probability to sustain its claim of being the first one. It stood on the river bank near the site of the east end of the old National Road bridge. How long he kept it as a place of entertainment for " man and beast" no record shows. He was probably soon crowded out by his later neighbors, Nowland, Carter, and Hawkins. Of these early hotels, or " taverns,"

as they were always called, an account has been given in the general history, but a word may be added as to their later history. On the death of Mr. Nowland in November, 1822, his widow, for many years as well known as the Governor of the State, took boarders and kept a boarding-house till within a few years of her death, a period of full thirty years. Her house for most of this period was on the south side of Washington Street, on the site of the great drug house of Browning & Sloan, and here, during sessions of the Legislature, the genial landlady, who was everybody's friend and had a friend in every- body, was sure to hold a large patronage of members and visitors. Though less pretentious than the larger hotels, it was not less widely or favorably known. Major Carter's first tavern, the " Rose- bush," a two-story frame on the site of 40 West Washington Street, was moved off after he left it in 1823, and finally stopped on West Street near Maryland. His two-story frame opposite the court -. house was burned during the first session of the Legislature. The ground soon afterward was oc- eupied by a row of two-story brick buildings, in one of which ex-Governor Ray kept a hotel for some years before his death. The " Eagle Tavern" of John Hawkins, on the north side of Washington Street, a half-square east of Meridian, was a double log cabin in a wood so dense that the trees of which it was built were cut upon the site it stood upon, and at the time a person in the door could not see another person on the other side of the street a half- block away; or, to measure by existing objects, a person in front of the " Iron Block" could not see another at the east end of Yohn's Block. In 1826-27 it was replaced by a two-story brick, long known as the " Union Hotel," and long kept by Basil Brown, the typical landlord of the time. John Hare, and John Cain, and Mr. Jordan also kept it. In 1849 it was replaced by a four-story brick, opened by John Cain, July 14, 1850, as the " Capital House." He was succeeded by Lemuel Frazier, Daniel D. Sloan, and others till the spring of 1857, when the Sentinel, under J. J. Bingham, moved its entire es- tablishment there and was terribly blown up the first night by a defective boiler. Thus ends the history

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of the Hawkins tavern and its site in that direc- tion

Pretty nearly opposite, where the Glenn Block is now, James Blake and Samuel Henderson built a two-story frame tavern in the summer and fall of 1823, and opened it with a ball Jan. 12, 1824. This was the "Washington Hall," then and for thirty years the best-known hotel in Indiana. It was the Whig headquarters, as the hotel opposite was the Democratic headquarters till the opening of the Palmer House in 1841 changed them. In 1836 the frame was moved east to the next lot, and a three-story brick with a basement and a recessed portico with pillars, and with two rear two-story buildings extending' to the alley, was erected at a cost of thirty thousand dollars by the " Washington Hall Company," composed of Messrs. Yandes, Blake, Henderson, McCarty, and others. It was opened by Edmund Browning, then recently from Dayton, Ohio, . Nov. 16, 1837, and kept by him till 15th of March, 1851. He was succeeded hy Henry Achey, Robert Browning, Burgess & Townley, Gen. W. J. Elliott, father of Judge Byron K. Elliott, of the Supreme Bench, and he by Louis Eppinger. The house was then bought by the Glenns and remodeled into the present block. In the winter of 1843 the most de- structive fire which had then ever occurred in the town took place here. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher dis- tinguished himself in the labor of extinguishing it.

In 1840-41, Nathan B. Palmer, then State Treas- urer, built a two-story brick, with a wooden story on top of it, on the southeast corner of Illinois and Washington Streets, which was opened in the sum- mer of 1841 by John C. Parker, of Charleston, Clarke Co., Ind., under the name of the " Palmer House." In 1856 the lessee, Dr. Barbour, made a four-story brick of it, and extended it southward to the alley. Besides Mr. Parker and Dr. Barbour, the Palmer House has been kept by J. D. Carmichael, Dennis Tuttle, Charles W. Hall, and B. Mason. Some years ago it was rearranged and improved, and the name was changed to the " Occidental," under which it has been regarded as one of the best houses in the city.

In 1834, John Little opened a two-story frame

tavern, called from its sign the "Sun" tavern, on the southeast corner of Washington and New Jersey Streets, commanding a large patronage of horseback- travelers, who constituted a large portion of all the travelers of those days. A three-story L was added in 1847 by his sons, Matthew and Ingraham, and four years later the original building was moved over to the northeast corner of Washington and East Streets, and was replaced by a three-story brick. The old building was kept as a hotel for some years, and then it and the grounds were turned into a beer garden. The " Little House" has retained its name, though like the others it has frequently changed landlords. It has been the " Little House," or " Lit- tle's Hotel," for fifty years.

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 49

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