History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 78

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942

USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana > Part 78

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

2578 3749

5580 2304

832

The Indianapolis Library, to which reference is made by Judge Roache in the historical sketch of the City Library, was formed in March, 1869, by one hundred citizens, each of whom was to contribute one hundred and fifty dollars, to be paid in annual in- stallments of twenty-five dollars, the annual amount

2,864

439

SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES OF INDIANAPOLIS.

to go to the maintenance and increase of a public library for five years to begin with. The officers were John D. Howland, president; William P. Fish- baek, vice-president; D. W. Grubbs, secretary ; William S. Hubbard, treasurer. A sketch of the City Library has related that the books of this associa- tion were given to the city institution and the organiza- tion dissolved.

The County Library .- This library was founded in 1844 on a public fund, of which a share was given to each county for library purposes. The first trus- tees were Demas L. McFarland, George Bruce, Henry P. Coburn, John Wilkins, James Sulgrove, and Liv- ingston Dunlap. The first librarian was Augustus Coburn, elder brother of Gen. John, who removed to Ontanagou in 1846, and was drowned in a wreck on Lake Superior while returning from a visit here in 1862. The next were B. R. Sulgrove, Gen. Coburn, and later Charles Dennis, recently of the Review. The number of volumes is about four thousand; it was about two thousand when started. The first loca- tion was a little room in the southwest corner of the old court-house. It now has ample and superb ac- commodations on the first floor of the new court- house. The income of a fund of two thousand dol- lars is spent in the addition of new books and repairs of old ones. Any citizen of the county can take out two volumes for a week for about a dollar a year, or one a week for half of it. Henry P. Coburn selected the first books, and it was as admirable a selection as was ever made for a small library. It never had more than seventy to one hundred subscribers at once, and these were chiefly in the country.

The Township Library contains one thousand or twelve hundred volumes, under charge of the town- ship trustee. It is founded on the township's share of money due to the State from the general government in some of the early business affairs of the two.

The Catholic Workingmen's Library is kept in the building on the northeast corner of Georgia and Tennessee Streets, where the Sisters of Providence School was first established, and is open every night from six to ten o'clock. It contains some five hun- dred volumes, and is the property of one of the Cath- olie Sodalities of the parish. The Sisters of Provi-

dence have a library of about one thousand volumes connected with their school.

The State Library contains about seventeen thou- sand volumes. It was formed in 1825, and kept by the Secretary of State till 1841, when enough vol- umes, including publie documents and legislative journals, had been got together to make a decent show, and it was thought becoming to constitute the library a positive and visible existence. This was done in that year by appropriating to it two rooms in the southwest corner of the first floor of the State-house, and electing John Cook librarian. His successors in office will be found in the list of State officers. Before the old State-house was torn down the State Library had become a sort of museum of historical relics, and contained daguerreotypes of all the members of the Constitutional Convention of 1850, memorials of the Mexican war, flags of Indiana regiments in the civil war, Indian weapons and utensils of pre-historic times, and other things of like interest, and filled nearly the whole of the west side of the lower floor of the build- ing. When the old house was about to come down, quarters were found for the library in the Gallup or McCray Block, on Market and Tennessee Streets, where it is likely to remain till it goes into the new State-house. The law library of the Supreme Court is kept in the State buildings, but it is not a publie library, though open to the profession.

The State Geological Museum is in the rooms of the building over the State Library. It contains more than one hundred thousand specimens of fossils, many of them the finest ever discovered. Dr. Cox, while State geologist, made considerable progress in the accumulation of this museum ; but it was left to the professional enthusiasm, personal liberality, and scieo- tifie sagacity of Professer Collett, present State geolo- gist, to make it the rare and wonderful collection and the admirably systematized work it is.

The State System .- All the school revenues de- rived either from permanent funds or taxation go into a common fund which is apportioned to the counties according to their population of school agc. This arrangement is cumbered by the very serious defeet of forcing honest counties, which take fair enumerations and pay their taxes fairly, to pay a large share of the

440

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

school expenses of rascally or slothful counties. Marion pays into the State treasury in her school tax one-third more than she gets back. The difference goes to counties that will not help themselves, or make exaggerated enumerations, as some were alleged to have done a few years ago, for the purpose of get- ting an undue allowance of State money. There is no remedy visible, however, and the better counties have to grin and bear it. Indianapolis and the county have not had much to do with the State system, except feed it. The only superintendent born and bred here was Professor Miles J. Fletcher.

HON. MILES J. FLETCHER .- The subject of this biographical sketch, who was the son of Calvin Fletcher, a distinguished citizen of Indianapolis, a sketch of whose life is elsewhere found in this vol- ume, was born June 15, 1828, in Indianapolis. He was the fourth in a family of eight adult sons, who in the various walks of life have made themselves honorable places. He received the rudiments of edu- cation at the old seminary of the city of his birth, under the guidance of Rev. James S. Kemper, and subsequently entered Brown University, from which he graduated in 1852. Almost immediately on his graduation he was elected professor of English litera- ture in Asbury University, Indiana. This position, which he held but a few months, was resigned to at- tend the law school at Harvard University. Gradu- ating at the law school, he returned to the professor- ship at Asbury, discharging its duties with great sue- cess until he received the nomination for superinten- dent of public instruction in 1860, to which office he was elected in October of the same year. He was at the time of his death filling its onerous and respon- sible requirements. It was an office which suited his tastes and satisfied his ambition, bis labor being a " labor of love." Though frequently interrupted by circumstances incident to the war, and absent for weeks in efforts to learn the fate of and rescue his brother, Dr. Wm. B. Fletcher, then a prisoner, he yet worked so energetically as to fulfill every requirement of the law and to visit the schools extensively, giving a decided impetus to the cause of education. He possessed the untiring energy peculiar to his family, with a full share of enterprise, qualities which, com-

bined with an intellect of more than usual vigor, indicated great promise and usefulness. Professor Fletcher was, in 1852, married to Miss Jane M. Hoar, of Providence, R. I., to whom were born two children, William T. and Mary B. The incident of Professor Fletcher's death was peculiarly sad. He was requested on the night of the 10th of May, 1862, to join Governor Morton and a small party of gentlemen en route by special train for Pittsburgh Landing, their mission being provision for the im- mediate transportation of such siek and wounded soldiers from Indiana as could be safely brought to their homes, and the completion of suitable hospital arrangements for those whose condition would not admit of removal. The train had made but little progress when a detention occurred which alarmed Professor. Fletcher, who on investigating its' cause was instantly killed. This sad termination of a noble Christian career lost to the soldier an inestimable friend while fulfilling a mission of mercy and love, to the State a model officer of irreproachable char- aeter, and to the people an example of integrity and uprightness worthy of lasting remembrance. The expressions of sorrow over the death of Professor Fletcher were not confined to his home but extended over the entire State, and were no less a tribute to the exemplary citizen than to the efficient public officer.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MANUFACTURING INTERESTS OF THE CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

Origin and Early History .- For the purpose of tracing succinctly and clearly the origin and growth of the manufactures of the city, they may be divided into three leading classes, with several minor ones too slightly connected with others to be accurately classified. 1st. Food products, meat, meal, flour, and minor products of grain, including starch, beer, and whiskey. 2d. Wood products, lumber, hard and soft, house finishings, furniture, staves, wooden ware, boxes, picture-frames, wagons, agricultural

M. J. FLETCHER.

I & Patterson

441

MANUFACTURING INTERESTS OF THE CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

implements, and freight cars. 3d. Iron products, rails, machinery, stoves and hollow-ware, saws, files, railing and building work, and railroad repair-work. Agricultural implements belong about equally to wood and iron manufactures, but the bulkier por- tions being wood they are put in that class. Of minor industries, there are oils and varnish ; fertil- izers, an offshoot and adjunct of meat products ; printing, paper, and paper products ; textile fabrics of cotton and wool; tobacco in different forms; clothing; marble and stone work; saddles and barness ; tin, copper, and galvanized iron. There are many of less extent and importance than these, but a reference to them is not necessary to exhibit the early condition and progress of the productive industries.

The germs of most of the manufactures that con- stitute the permanent prosperity and means of de- velopr ont of the city can be found in little mills and shops almost coeval with its first settlement. Not a little coarse meal was grated for a long time from half-hardened ears of corn for "mush" and " Johnny-cake," but there was a grist-mill in opera- tion in the fall of 1821 on Fall Creek race, after- wards known as " Patterson's mill," but its flour had to be sifted, as bolting cloths were unknown for ten years more.

SAMUEL J. PATTERSON .- The Patterson family are of Scotch-Irish lineage. Robert, the father of the subject of this biographical sketch, a native of Maryland, carly removed to Kentucky, from whence, in the fall of 1821, he came to Indianapolis. He was well versed in the law, and for many years judge of the Probate Court of the county. He also for a period engaged in contracting. He married Miss Annie Elliott, of Virginia, and had children,-Sam- uel J., Elliott M., Robert M., Mary Ann (Mrs. David Macy), Eliza J. (Mrs. I. Drake), Margaret M. (Mrs. James Hill), Annie (Mrs. James South- ard), James M., Almira C., Marion M., William J. D., and Henry C. Their son Samuel J. was born Oct. 18, 1804, in Cynthiana, Ky., and accompanied his parents in 1821 to Indianapolis. His early ad- vantages of education were limited, though superior opportunities were offered at a later day under the

instruction of Ebenezer Sharpe. He early embarked with his father in the manufacture of bricks, and for several years conducted the business successfully. After bis marriage Mr. Patterson engaged in the milling business on the farm which is the present home of his widow, and continued it until 1840, when the site was removed to the corner of Wash- ington and Blake Streets, where a spacious mill was erected, suitable to the wants of the increasing trade. Meanwhile he embarked in mercantile pursuits, and after an interval of some years again resumed milling and farming. He felt a deep interest in all schemes for the benefit of Indianapolis, and was at various times awarded contracts for the improvement of the city.

In his political sympathies he was an ardent Whig, and found the principles of the Republican party on its organization in harmony with his convictions. His energies being devoted wholly to business, left little time for participation in the political measures of the day. He was, though not a member of any church, a supporter of the Meridian Street Meth- odist Church, with which Mrs. Patterson was con- nected, and at the time of his death a devout Chris- tian.

Mr. Patterson was on the 17th of March, 1831, married to Miss Patsy, daughter of Isaac Wilson, oue of the earliest settlers, who came to Indianapolis in 1821, when it contained but two houses. The dwelling in which they were married fifty-three years ago is still occupied by Mrs. Patterson. Here their golden wedding was celebrated in 1881. They have children,-Samuel W. (a contractor), Elizabeth J. (Mrs. B. F. Riley), Robert H., Charles W. (a con- tractor), aod Fannie A. (Mrs. Cortland Van Camp). The grandchildren are Harriet G., Walter G., and Bessie G., children of Samuel W. and Agnes Green- field Patterson ; Elizabeth J., Charles A., Robert M., and Sadie S., children of B. F. and Elizabeth J. Riley ; and Raymond P., Ella P., Samuel G., Fanny May, and Cortland M., children of Cortland and Fannie A. Van Camp. Mr. Patterson's death oc- curred May 25, 1883, in the house he had occupied for more than half a century.

A saw-mill was erected about the same time as

442

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

Patterson's grist-mill on Fall Creek a little north of the line of Indiana Avenue. Within a year Caleb Scudder made cabinet work, and in two years the late George Norwood made wagons. John B. Hall, the first ear- penter ; Matthias Nowland, the first bricklayer ; Andrew Byrne, the first tailor; Amos Hanway, the first cooper ; Daniel Yandes, the first tanner ; George Smith, the first bookbinder ; Nathaniel Bolton, the first printer, were all here in or before 1821, and at work at their trades then or within a year or two; and Samuel S. Rooker, the first house and sign painter ; William Holmes, first turner ; Conrad Brus- sel, first baker, came elose along with these.

GEORGE NORWOOD, one of the oldest citizens of Indianapolis, was born Jan. 21, 1789, in the city of Baltimore, and in 1793 removed to Washington County, East Tenn. In 1819 he became a resident of Wayne County, Ind., and on the 22d of March, 1822, Indianapolis, which at that early day embraced but a few straggling cabins, became his home. Mr. Norwood was by trade a wagon-maker, and for a number of years conducted his business on the pres- ent site of the office occupied by his grandson, Frank Bird. He some years previous to his death divided a considerable estate between his children, retaining for himself only a house and lot on Illinois Street. He was married in 1812 to Miss Mary Ann Rooker, who died Feb. 28, 1877, in her eighty-fourth year, having enjoyed sixty-five years of married life. Their surviving children are Washington Norwood, Ann Maria (Mrs. Abram Bird), and E. F. Norwood. Mr. Norwood was in his religious predilections a Methodist, and the first trustee of the first Methodist Episcopal Church of Indianapolis. He on successive occasions filled the office of Councilman, and in 1846 was elected city treasurer. He enjoyed a reputation for striet integrity and scrupulous honesty, and was firm in his convictions, especially in discussions in- volving a question of right and wrong. Having acquired a competency, Mr. Norwood retired from business in 1850, and during the remainder of his life enjoyed excellent health until a short period before his death, which occurred March 8, 1880, in his ninety-second year.

The women did most of the weaving and sewing,

but machines for carding wool (or makiog "rolls") were among the earliest attempts at substituting ma- chinery for hand labor. A carding-machine was attached in 1823 by William Townsend and Earl Pierce to one of the first mills, probably the grist- mill of the late Andrew Wilson and Daniel Yandes, on the "bayou," a little west of the present location of the Nordyke & Marmon Machinc-Works. Not far from the same site, and about the same time, a distillery was at work making a liquor popularly known as " Bayou Blue." Co-operating with the carding machinery moved by water were several smaller, and a little later, establishments worked by horse-power, applied on a large inclined wheel, fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, on the lower section of which a horse was kept in motion, as in other tread- mills. One of these, as late as 1833 or 1834, stood on the northwest corner of Illinois and Maryland Streets, and another on Kentucky Avenue a little below Maryland, and was converted into the first tobacco factory. Here in the first two years of the town's existence-for it was laid out in 1821, and previous to that was a mere settlement-were the beginnings of the flour and lumber trade, the woolen-mills and whiskey business, the latter never considerable and very intermittent even in the matter of existence, often dying out altogether. The products were wholly for home consumption, and in the ordinary sense of manufactures had no fair claim to be of the class.

The first manufacture proper, the first produet of skill and labor intended for sale and not for consump- tion at home, was that of ginseng, started by the late James Blake, in 1826, or thereabouts, on what was then the bluff of Pogue's Creek, half-way between South Street and the creek, between Delaware and Alabama Streets. It was sent to Philadelphia for the Chinese market. Ginseng was then a cominon growth of the dense woods about the village. It is all gone now, and has been for a generation. About the same time that the "Sang Factory," as it was generally called, began its work, the first great enterprise of skill and capital was put in operation. It was the mother of Indianapolis industries, though it died long before its family was big enough to be worth counting. That was the old "Steam-Mill

George Norwood

443

MANUFACTURING INTERESTS OF THE CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

Company," composed chiefly, and managed wholly, by the late James M. Ray, Daniel Yandes, Governor Noble, James Blake, and Nicholas McCarty. A full account of it will be found in the general history. It was incorporated Jan. 28, 1828, bought at a nom- inal price, by special act of the Legislature, seven acres of public land on the river along the line of Blake Street back to Fall Creck, starting at the head of the old bridge, and by December, 1831, had a large four-story frame building with an attic fin- ished, and early the succeeding year had machinery for a grist-mill, with bolting apparatus-the first of the kind here-in operation, with a saw-mill that was kept quite busy usually, and a carding-machine that worked fitfully. The entire machinery, from boilers to bolting-cloths, was hauled here on wagons from Cincinnati, it is said, but it is probable that a part of it came on the first and only steamer that ever reached Indianapolis. In a year or two the failure of the disproportionate enterprise was assured. It was too big for the place and the times. The ma- chinery was sold for old iron, and the building made a haunt for idle boys, till the Messrs. Geisendorff attempted to revive the woolen manufacture there in 1847, with little success. They left it in 1852, and on the night of the 16th of November, 1853, it was burned down. The fate of the first Indianapolis manufacturing establishment could hardly be consid- ered auspicious.

Contemporaneously, or nearly, with the ginseng factory and the old steam-mill, a man by the name of Bagwell made cigars in a shanty on the southwest corner of Maryland and Illinois Streets, just south of one of the horsc-power carding-machines of that day. His operations were too slight to be worth attention except as the first appearance of an industry of very considerable importance now, and forty-five years ago of a good deal more proportionately than now. About the time he disappeared, which was about the time the steam-mill gave up finally, the manufacture of tobacco was begun on a scale of production and general distribution that made it of State value and interest. This was in 1835, by the late William Hannaman and Caleb Scudder (the pioneer cabinet- maker of the city), at that time partners in the drug

business. Their factory was on the west side of Kentucky Avenue, on the site of, and occupying as one of its buildings, the old horse-power earding- machine house of liewed logs. Here they made both plug and " fine-cut"-but little of the latter- and cigars. A fire destroyed the whole cstablish- ment in 1838, causing an uninsured loss-nobody insured in those days-of ten thousand dollars. John Cain, a long time postmaster, afterwards, and later Robert L. Walpole, owned the establishment, with Charles Cooper as manager. About a year before the establishment of the first tobacco-factory, in 1834, a Mr. John S. Barnes and Williamson Maxwell began making linseed oil in an old frame stable on the alley south of Maryland Street, within a half-square of the line of the canal which was dug some four years later. Scudder and Hannaman bought them out in 1835, and in 1839 moved the mill into their new woolen-mill building, near where the water-works building is now. Their machinery could not compete with Cincinnati hydraulic presses, and they quit. About 1842, Edwin Hedderly and the late Edwin J. Peck manufactured lard-oil here quite extensively, but it was a mushroom growth and never amounted to much. This is all there is of the early manufacture of oils and tobacco herc. Daniel Yandes, with John Wilkins, had a tannery on South Alabama Street as early as 1823. About the year 1833 they formed a partnership with Mr. William M. Black, now of this city, to carry on the tanning business in Mooresville, in this State.

Up to 1835 wc have the seed planted and more or less production, in a small way, of grist- and lumber- mills, woolen-mills, distilleries, tanneries, oil- and to- bacco-factories. Ginseng was an accident. The first attempt at iron manufacture was made in 1832, con- temporaneously with the active existence of the old steam-mill, by R. A. McPherson & Co., on the west side of the river, near the end of the National road bridge, which was completed the year following. It was a losing affair, working for local service, and continued but a few years. About 1835 it went out.

The year 1835 marks a sort of era in the history of Indianapolis industries. Then, or but a few months earlier, started the pioneer factories and mills which

444

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

have continued by active succession till now. Then was established the first tobacco-factory ; the first linseed-oil factory a little earlier ; the first stone-yard and stone-cutting machinery, by William Spears, west corner of Washington Street and Kentucky Avenue ; the first brewery, by John L. Young, on the south side of Maryland Street, half-way between the canal (1838 or 1839) and West Strect ; the first mattress- factory, by Frank Devinney, near the canal crossing of Maryland Street ; the first plane-factory, by Young & Pottage, site of Hubbard's Block ; the first perma- nent and profitable iron-foundry, maintained for nearly twenty years, by Robert Underhill, for a time joined · by John Wood, the first private banker here; and last, but greatest in results, the first pork-packing was done, in 1835.

1st. Food Products .- PORK PACKING. In this year James Bradley, now of Johnson County, asso- ciated with one or two partners, bought hogs ready killed and cleaned of farmers, cut and cured them in a log house on the site of the Chamber of Commerce (first used as a pottery by a man named Myers), and lost money at it. The ill result of the speculation checked the embryotic industry for several years, but in 1840, John H. Wright, son-in-law of the late Jeremiah Mansur, father of Frank and Dr. Mansur Wright, came here from Richmond, and in 1841 began, in connection with his father-in-law and his brother-in-law, William Mansur, to buy slaughtered logs of farmers for goods from his store, and packed them in an old frame building, once a blacksmith- shop, on the northeast corner of Maryland and Me- ridian Streets. They also bought and packed a large amount of pork at Broad Ripple, and both from that point and this, shipped their produce south during the winter and spring freshets in the river. This mode of operation they kept up till the completion of the Madison Railroad, in September, 1847, gave them a spcedier and handicr mode of reaching a market, and from that time the flat-boat has been as wholly unknown here as the trireme of the old Ro- mans. The late Isaiah Mansur joined his brother, and the Mansurs and Mr. Wright killed their hogs in a building on the river-bank, at the west end of the old bridge, and cut and packed them in a building

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 78

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