History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 69

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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Church, Father Segrist, but there are several very pretty memorials of the dead in this little necropolis.

plats, and roads follow the natural undulations of the surface. The forest-trees are left in their native beauty or trimmed only where disfigured, and in places where the farm was cleared for cultivation flowering trees and evergreens and flower-beds and borders are set, making by far the most attractive and tasteful resort about the city, and a resort that no impudence or vicious temerity can abuse, for the superintendent and his men live on the ground and keep watch upon it day and night.

CROWN HILL CEMETERY .- This is the chief cemetery of Indianapolis, and grows constantly more conspicuous and more closely associated with the memories and interests of the city. Happily it is in the hands of a superintendent able to do full justice to the opportunities the situation gives him, by apply- ing sound judgment and cultivated taste to its improve- ment. The history of Crown Hill and its conversion to its present uses is a very short one. It was a farm, In the first four years after the organization of the Cemetery Association was completed and the sale of lots commenced, the total amount of sales was $172,060.70. In the past five years only $54,298.17 of lets were sold in Greenwood, and in the first twelve years only $128,892.49 in Spring Grove. The pro- ceeds of lot-sales are to be applied to the improve- ment of the grounds. No profits are made and no dividends declared, nor can there ever be. Every purchaser of a lot is a stockholder as fully as every other one, and he has his right to a voice in what is done, but his benefits, outside of his burial rights, end there. The second article of incorporation says,- " The distinct and irrevocable principle on which this association is founded and to remain forever (cx- cept as hereinafter allowed) is that the entire fund arising from the sale of burial-lots and the proceeds of any investment of said funds shall be and they are specifically dedicated to the purchase and improve- ment of the grounds for the cemetery, and keeping them durably and permanently inclosed and in per- petual repair through all future time, including all incidental expenses for approach to the cemetery and the proper management of the same, and that no part of such funds shall, as dividends, profits, or in any manner whatever, inure to the corporators." The exception to the permanence of this provision is thus defined in the thirteenth article : that "after twenty- five years shall have expired from the organization of this corporation, by a vote of twenty-five of the cor- porators living in the county of Marion, Ind., and after a fund has accumulated which will amply and permanently provide for the preservation, sustaining, and ornamenting the cemetery, such alteration may partly used as a nursery by Martin Williams, about three miles northwest of the Circle, on the east side of the Michigan road. On it, and forming its north- western extremity, is the only earthly projection near the city that can be called a hill. It is nearly two hundred feet higher than the level of the river. On the 25th of September, 1863, an association was formed, with James M. Ray as president, Theodore P. Haughey as secretary, and Stoughton A. Fletcher, Jr., as treasurer, with seven directors, to provide a cemetery to take the place (when required) of the old City Cemetery. S. A. Fletcher, Sr., proposed to advance the money to purchase a site, without inter- est, and a committee selected Crown Hill. The farm, with the hill and some adjacent tracts needed to square the whole plat, contained two hundred and fifty acres and cost fifty-one thousand five hundred dollars. Frederick W. Chislett, of the Pittsburgh Cemetery, was chosen superintendent, and remains so, and is likely to till he dies. The dedication was made the following year, with a speech from ex- United States Senator Albert S. White, of Lafayette. Lots were rapidly bought and improvement systemat- ically begun. Nothing was done at hap-hazard, but all, however scattered, as parts of a well-defined plan. It is now as beautiful a cemetery as there is in the world, excepting none of the celebrated mortuary achieve- ments of the East,-Mount Auburn, Laurel Hill, or Greenwood. This, of course, is mainly due to the superintendent, who determined at the outset to have none of the rectangular lots and railings that so dis- figure some otherwise beautiful cemeteries. There are uo fences nor railings, no formal squares, but winding drives and foot-walks mark the boundaries of burial- | be made at any annual meeting in the principles and

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limitations of these articles as that out of the surplus funds of this cemetery or association contributions and appropriations may be made by the managers in aid of the poor of Indianapolis."

A burial-vault was early erected on one of the main lines of road, and near it on the south and east is the National Cemetery, where the dead of the Union army who died here, or whose bodies have been brought here, are buried. Here lies the body of Governor Morton among the men in whose service he sacrificed his health and strength, as they sacri- ficed their own in the service of the country. On the east of this section a chapel of Gothic architec- ture, striking and handsome, with burial-vaults at- tached, was built a few years ago at a cost of thirty thousand dollars. Illinois Street, running out into the Westfield pike, passes the eastern side of the cemetery, where a gate opens into a long and, in summer, delightfully shady drive over to the im- proved portion of the grounds on the west. A road opened within a year or two extends Tennessee Street to the south side of the cemetery. The last is now chiefly used.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHURCHES OF INDIANAPOLIS.

THE primitive churches of the city and of the entire West, where there were no rituals or authori- tative forms, differed little from each other in public observances or the rites of worship, and a stranger might easily mistake one for the other, as preachers are said to have done sometimes, till the sermon came to enlighten him. It was a rare sermon that did not betray the sectarian east of the congregation. Now the points of identity or similarity have made a com- plete revolution. The differences are more dis- cernible in forms and methods than sermons. It is a rare sermon now that indicates the sectarian attitude or tendency of the church. Forty and fifty years ago it was a rare one that did not. There

might be nothing precedent in the seating of the congregation, in the hymns or prayers or attitudes, to distinguish a Methodist from a Baptist meeting, but the sermon would do it. The tendency of the religious feeling of those days was to sects and sepa- rations. It magnified differences. It hunted more diligently than intelligently for Scriptural excuses for division. It perverted texts to support creeds and uncharitable criticisms of varying creeds. The best sermon was that which made the best array of plausibilities for sectarian separation. The truest preacher was he who could make most nearly in- contestable the saving efficacy of what Baptist A. believed and the futility of what Methodist B. be- lieved. Thus, as related in the general history, came frequent collisions and public debates and acrimonious feelings. The condition of society out of which they grew is hardly conceivable to a com- munity that hears Rev. Myron Reed, of the Pres- byterian Church, speak with fraternal warmth of the pious zeal of the Catholic Father Bessonies. It was little less than sinful in early days to commend any- thing that another church or preacher did. The rigidly righteous took it for a sinful compliance, a giving way to the worldly spirit, a warning of evil, if not worse. The iron fixedness of faith of the Puritans was the dominant characteristic of the re- ligious element of the community. It had its ad- mirable qualities for the generation in which it was active, but it passed away with other conditions of the times, and allowed the approach of the change in which to-day we rarely hear sectarian differences alluded to in the pulpit. The sermou in a Meth- odist Church might be acceptably preached in any other of the four score of churches of different creeds, and pulpits are exchanged with no disturb- ance of religious complacency. The changes of material condition are hardly more striking than the changes of moral condition. The log house, little . handsomer or handier than the barn in the next field, has given place to stone and brick edifices that are as sightly as costly, the benches or split-bottomed chairs to carved and cushioned pews, the hearty but dissonant singing to the trim accuracy of a paid choir and a professional organist, the cheap exhorter and

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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

extempore outgiving to the high-paid pastor and written sermon ; but no one of these nor all together are more impressive to the thoughtful mind than the change which has so nearly obliterated the sectarian differences so obtrusive a generation ago. Church members may have grown more worldly-minded, more luxurious, more of the Gallio type, but they have certainly grown more charitable, not so much in the ready bestowal of money as the willing ex- ercise of generous opinion and appreciation,-a far more commendable trait and harder to come by.

In the general history is given a brief sketch of the origin of each of the early churches, their loca- tion, and the character of their buildings. It will be unnecessary to repeat these points here, but it may be well to note that but a single church established in the first twenty years of the city's history remains in its original situation. Rev. Mr. Hyde, in his address at the opening of the new Plymouth Church, said the congregation first worshiped in the Senate chamber of the State-House, then in a hall on South Illinois Street, then in the State-House again, then in the front hall of the first Plymouth Church, now a part of the English " Quadrant," and added, "I believe this has been the history of all the larger congregations in the city. Of the churches that were here when I came that then thought they were occupying permanent homes, nearly all have moved and enlarged."

It is true that the first congregations of the larger denominations have moved once, at least, and some oftener. The Baptists, who had the first local habitation here in 1823, in a school-house on the north side of Maryland Street, between Tennessee and Mississippi, nearly opposite the residence of Henry Bradley, one of the leading members, first organized in the school-house on the point of Kentucky Ave- nne and Illinois Street io 1822. They moved to the southwest corner of Maryland and Meridian Streets in 1829, but not till they had petitioned the Legis- lature for the donation of a lot for a building site, and failed. The house here was a broad, squatty one-story brick, with a wooden bell-tower against a little frame school-house a hundred feet west. This was replaced a dozen years later by a finer structure

on the same site, and it burned one Sunday morning early in January, 1861, and then the church moved to its present site. This made the second removal for the Baptists. The Presbyterians built first, io 1824, on the site of the Exchange Block ; moved to the Times office site in 1842, and to its present place in 1866,-two removals for them. The Methodists first had a log house, in 1825, on Maryland Street, a little west of Meridian, on the south side, and kept it till 1829. Then they built their first regular church edifice, and used it till 1846. Then they tore that down and built Wesley Chapel. They sold that in 1869 and built Meridian Church, making the fourth house and second removal. The Christians built their first church in 1835-36, on Kentucky Avenuc. They moved to the present site of Central Chapel in 1852, one removal for them. The Catholics first built in a hackberry-grove on the military ground, near the corner of West and Wash- ington Streets, in 1840. In 1850 St. John's Church was built, on Georgia Street, and in 1867 the Cathe- dral replaced it, making two removals for them. The Episcopalians alone of all the leading denomina- tions have never changed. Their first church was on the spot where the present Christ Church stands. Few remains of any of the old churches are visible now. The first Episcopal Church was moved to Georgia Street near the canal, for a colored church, and burned the second or third year. The first Baptist Church on the old site, corner of Maryland and Meridian Streets, was torn down and the second burned down. The first Presbyterian Church-the old frame-was torn down, and so was the brick where the Journal building is. The first Christian Church, a frame, was preserved and is now a tenement-house. The first Methodist (log) Church was torn down. So was the first brick, but Wesley Chapel was changed to the late Sentinel building. Roberts' Chapel was incorporated in one of Martin- dale's blocks. The Fourth Presbyterian Church was put into Baldwin's Block, and Beecher's church is the body of Circle Hall. St. John's Catholic Church was torn away entirely when the Cathedral was built. The first Lutheran Church, 1838, near the southeast corner of Meridian and Ohio Streets, was torn away

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entirely. It removed to the southwest corner of Alabama and New York Streets, where it remained for many years, and then moved up-town to the cor- ner of Pennsylvania and Walnut Streets.

There are now eighty-eight churches in the city, each, with one or two exceptions, with a building of its own and erected for it. Of these the Methodists, including the German and Colored Conferences, and the Methodist Protestant, have twenty-four; the Presbyterians have fourteen ; the Baptist, thirteen ; the Catholics, seven; the Christians (formerly better known as " Disciples," or " Campbellites"), six ; the Episcopalians, with the Episcopal Reformed, six ; the Lutherans, six ; the Congregationalists, two ; the Hebrews, two; the German Reformed, three; the Evangelical Association, one; the Friends, one ; United Presbyterian, one ; United Brethren, one ; Swedenborgian, one. In 1868, and for some time following, the Unitarians formed an organization here with the Rev. Henry Blanchard as pastor, and used the Academy of Music as a place of worship. But it has been dissolved for ten or twelve years. The Uni- versalists had two churches here for a number of years, but now have none. The first was organized about forty years ago, but soon failed, and was re- organized in 1853, or replaced by an organization of the same views, of which Rev. B. F. Foster, Grand Secretary of the Odd-Fellows, and still the most emi- nent elergyman of that faith in the State, was the first pastor. In 1860 he was succeeded by Rev. W. C. Brooks for a year ; resumed his pastorate for five years more, and was again succeeded, in 1866, by Rev. J. M. Austin, of New York. He resigned in about six months, and Mr. Foster, then State Librarian, re- sumed his pastoral charge and kept it till his civil office expired in 1869. Since then the church has had no pastor, no settled worship, and never had a building of its own. It used at one time or another the old court-house, the old seminary lecture-room (Mr. Beecher's first church), College Ilall, Temper- auce Hall (where the News Block is), Masonic Hall, and the hall on the southwest corner of Delaware and Maryland Streets. In 1860 a personal difference in the original Universalist Church caused a secession under the lead of the eminent manufacturer, Mr.

John Thomas, and the colony bought a lot and built a house on Michigan Street near Tennessee. Of this Mr. Thomas became the sole owner, and when the church ceased to use it, as it did after the first year, while Rev. C. E. Woodbury and Rev. W. W. Curry (afterwards Secretary of State) were pastors, it was occupied by the Wesley Chapel ( Methodist) Church during the time their own Meridian Church was in progress, and later by a division of Strange Chapel (Methodist), under the noted and eloquent J. W. T. McMullen, first colonel of the Fifty-first Indiana Volunteers. It is now occupied by the North Presby- terian (colored) Church. There are ten colored churches in the city,-four Methodist, four Baptist, one Presbyterian, and one Christian.

WHITE BAPTISTS.

First Baptist Church .- Although religious ser- vices were held in the new settlement as early as the spring of 1821, and continued occasionally, some- times in the woods and sometimes in private houses, no church organization was made till the 10th of October, 1822. Then tho First Baptist Church was formed. The history of this earliest of Indianapolis churches is told briefly in the old records which may be introdneed here as of more interest than any second- hand account could be. The first entry says, " The Baptists at and near Indianapolis, having removed from various parts of the world, met at the school-house in Indianapolis (this was the first school-honse near the point of junetion of Illinois Street and Kentucky Avenue in August, 1822), and after some consultation, adopted the following resolution : Resolved, That we send for help, and meet at Indianapolis on the 20th day of September next for the purpose of establishing a regular Baptist Church at said place. That John W. Reding write letters to Little Flat Rock and Little Cedar Grove Churches for help. That Samuel Mcormack (McCormick) write letters to Liek Creek and Franklin Churches for helps. Then adjourned."

The next entry reads thus: " Met according to ad- journment ; Elder Tyner, from Little Cedar Grove, attended as a help from that church, and after divine service went into business. Letters were received and read from Brothers Benjamin Barns, Jeremiah Johnson, Thomas Carter (the tavern-keeper), Otis

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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

Hobart, John Hobart, Theodore V. Denny, John as above noted, or another on Maryland Street, north side, west of Tennessee Street, does not appear from the record, but it was probably the latter, and must have stood on or very near the site of Alexander Ralston's residence. A little single-room hewed log Mcormack (McCormick), Samuel Mcormack, John Thompson, and William Dodd, and sisters Jane Johnson, Nancy Carter, Nancy Thompson, Elizabeth Mcormack, and Polly Carter. Then adjourned until Saturday morning, 10th October." That day the house did stand near that rather pretentious structure organization was completed, and the old record tells for several years after his death. On the third Satur- day of June, 1823, a meeting was held at which Mr. Barnes, who had been the leading member of the organization from the start, "requested and was granted a letter of dismission." Following this is the statement, " Agreed, that Brother B. Barns be called to preach to this church once a month until the end of this year, to which Brother Barns agreed." Thus the First Baptist Church had a complete or- ganization, a place of worship, and a regular, though not frequent preacher in two years after the town was laid out. the event thus : " Met according to adjournment, and after divine service letters were read from John W. Reding and Hannah Skinner. Brother B. Barns was appointed to speak, and answer for the members ; and Brother Tyner went into an examination, and finding the members sound in the faith, pronounced them a regular Baptist Church, and directed them to go into business. Brother Tyner was then chosen moderator, and John W. Reding, clerk. Agreed to be called and known by the name of the First Baptist Church at Indianapolis. Then adjourned till the third Saturday in October, 1822. J. W. Reding, As noted above, the church petitioned the Legisla- ture in November, 1824, for a lot to build a house of worship upon, but failed. The order says, " On motion, agreed that the church petition the present General Assembly for a site to build a meeting-house upon, and that the southeast half of the shaded block 90 be selected, and that Brothers J. Hobart, H. Bradley, and the clerk be appointed a committee to bear the petition Saturday in February." What is meant by a "shaded block" can only be conjectured, but it probably referred to a grove that made a pleas- ant shelter. In the spring of 1825, Major Thomas Chinn, who lived on the north side of Maryland clerk." There was not much form or ceremony ob- served in constituting this old church, and a later meeting, in which financial matters were the main subject of consideration, shows that there was as little pretension to worldly wealth among the members. "At a church meeting held at Indianapolis on the third Saturday of January, 1823, after divine ser- vice, Brother B. Barns, moderator, on motion, Brother J. Thompson was unanimously called to serve this church as a deacon, having previously been ordained. The reference taken up respecting a church fund, the brethren whose names here follows paid Brother J.

Thompson twenty-five cents each : H. Bradley, J. W. | Street, pretty nearly opposite the site of the east end Reding, S. Mcormack, T. V. Denny, T. Carter, J. , of the Grand Hotel, invited the church to meet at Hobart, D. Wood, J. Thompson. On motion, agreed his residence during the summer, and they did. In

that Brother B. Barns be sent as a help to constitute June, 1825, a lot was purchased for a church build- ing, and measures taken to finish a small frame house upon it for that use, but the matter was put off after an assessment was made on the fifteen adult males of - the congregation of forty-cight dollars to pay for the lot, a little over three dollars each. In 1826, Rev. Cornelius Duvall, of Kentucky, was called to the charge of the church, but he never accepted or never acted, and in December, 1826, Rev. Abraham Smock was called for one year, accepted and set to work. a church at White Lick, near the Bluffs of White River, when called on by the brethren at that place. Ordered, that Brothers T. Carter, H. Bradley, and D. Wood be a committee to make arrangements for a place of worship and report to the next meeting. J. W. Reding, clerk." The next entry says, "The com- mittec chosen for the purpose of making arrange- ments for a place of worship, reported that the school- house may be had without interruption." Whether this school-house was the first one built in the town, [. During his pastorate the lot on the southwest corner

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CHURCHES OF INDIANAPOLIS.

of Meridian and Maryland Streets was purchased, and in 1829 the first Baptist Church building erected, as above related. This was removed fifteen or twenty years afterwards and a handsome church with a fine spire erected, which was burned the first Sunday in 1861, when the present site, on the north- west corner of New York and Pennsylvania Streets, was obtained and built upon.

Rev. Abraham Smock remained pastor till 1830; when he resigned and left the church without a pas- tor for some years, though several ministers preached statedly, and one, Rev. Byron Lawrence, in 1832 was requested to "preach as frequently as he can on Lord's day for six months." Under the stated ar- rangement Revs. Jamison Hawkins (grandfather of Nicholas McCarty), Byron Lawrence, and Ezra Fisher preached till February, 1834, when Mr. Fisher was called to be the stated preacher of the church. He retired in the fall or winter of 1834, and Rev. T. C. Townsend was requested to preach till a regular pas- tor was obtained. Then in July, 1835, came Rev. and Dr. John L. Richmond, who served for six or eight years, and was one of the best known and esteemed clergymen and physicians in the town. He was a good deal of a humorist and one of the most eccentric men both in appearance and conduct who ever lived here, but withal a genuine Christian and a noble man. It was told of him that he onee silenced a braggart who was boasting of the fertility of his farm, particularly in pumpkins, by telling him that " his farm was nothing to one he (the doetor) had seen recently." " Why, what could that farm do ?" " The pumpkins grew so thick all over one of the fields that if a man would kiek one on one side of the field it would shake those against the fence on the other side." The laugh of the company at this sally stopped the boaster from repeating his folly. In 1843, Rev. George C. Chandler succeeded Dr. Richmond, who was himself succeeded by Rev. T. R. Cressy in 1847, and he in 1852 by Rev. Sydney Dyer, who attained considerable distinction as a poet, and published a volume of poems about 1856. Rev. J. B. Simmons followed, and remained till 1861. After the burning of the church in that year the congregation worshiped in Masonie Hall till the new

edifice was completed. It was begun in 1862. Rev. Henry Day succeeded Mr. Simmons in 1861, and re- mained till a few years ago. The present pastor is Rev. Henry C. Mabie. The number of members is five hundred and sixty-nine; Sunday-school pupils, about five hundred; value of property, about sixty- five thousand dollars.

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 69

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