History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 8

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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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

uous a stage centre as it is now a railroad centre. For many years the J. & P. Vorhees Company had large stables and coach-making and repairing shops here on the southwest corner of Maryland and Penn- sylvania Streets. They were abandoned about 1852, when the advancing railroad lines began to absorb mails and passengers ; but the music of the " stage- horn" was long a pleasant sound in the cars of the old settler, for it brought him the principal variation of the monotony of a village life, except the regular winter sessions of the Legislature. For a short time during the administration of Van Buren a mail-route or two was run here on horseback in extra quick time, and called "express mails." The riders came gal- loping along Washington Street, blowing little tin horns with a din that delighted the school-boys, and for many a week they made night hideous with their horns.

The winter of 1821-22, in spite of the prostration . and starvation of the preceding summer and fall, was pleasantly passed in the main. The settlers becoming better acquainted, and frequently rendering each in- dispensable neighborly offices in sickness and destitu- tion, were naturally well disposed to relieve the lone- liness of an unusually severe winter in an impassable forest with such social entertainments as were within reach, so they kept up an almost unbroken round of quilting and dancing parties and other modes of killing time when there was nothing to do to enable them to make a better use of it. " A mania for marrying took possession of the young people," says the early sketch, " and there was hardly a single bachelor left in the place." The snow was very deep, and the river frozen so hard that large logs were hauled across it on heavy " ox-sleds." On the 25th of February the Gazette said that a good deal of improvement had been going on. Forty residences and several work-shops had been built, a grist-mill and two saw-mills were in operation, and more were in progress near the place. There were thirteen car- penters, four cabinet-makers, eight blacksmiths, four shoemakers, two tailors, one hatter, two tanners, one saddler, one cooper, four bricklayers, two merchants, three grocers, four doctors, three lawyers, one preacher, one teacher, seven tavern-keepers. These alone would

indicate a population of about three hundred. But these were not alone: there were probably enough more adult males to complete a roll of one hundred, and show a population of five hundred.

The first election was coming close as the pro- tracted winter began to loosen its grip on the iron ground and let the spring blossoms out to the sun- light. Candidates were pretty nearly as numerous as voters. There were two parties, but not separated by national party divisions. This was the " era of good feeling" in national politics. The old "Federal" and "Republican" differences were growing dim and the names unfamiliar. The division in the first election in Indianapolis was geographical. " White Water" and "Kentucky" were the names of might, and the voters took sides according to the direction they had traveled to get here. Just what sort of a compromise was made by the settlers who came in the first place from Kentucky, and resided for a while in the White Water before moving to the New Purchase, there is no indication to direct. The " White Water" leader was James M. Ray, the "Kentucky" chief Morris Morris, father of Gen. Thomas A. Morris, the real general and victor in the first campaign in West Vir- ginia. The candidates for associate judges-there were two-were Robert Patterson, James McIlvaine, James Page, Eliakim Ilarding, Jolın Smock, and Rev. John McClung. The candidates for clerk were James M. Ray, Milo R. Davis, Morris Morris, Thomas Anderson, and John W. Redding. For recorder there were Alexander Ralston, James Linton, Joseph C. Reed, Aaron Drake, John Givan, John Hawkins, William Vandegrift, and William Townsend. No record is left of the candidates for the three county commissionerships, but it is said there were about fifteen of them. There were no caucuscs or conven- tions or primaries, and no obstruction to the ambition of any man that wanted to be a candidate. The poll in the town showed two hundred and twenty-four votes, a little more than one hundred probably being residents on the donation. In the county three hun- dred and thirty-six votes were cast, including a good part of all the counties around it. James McIlvaine and Eliakim Harding were elected associate judges ; James M. Ray, clerk ; Joseph C. Reed, recorder ;

ORGANIZATION OF COUNTY AND ERECTION OF TOWNSHIPS.

. and John McCormick, John T. Osborn, and William MeCartney, county .commissioners. James M. Ray received two hundred and seventeen votes, which was the highest vote for any candidate.

The newly-elected county commissioners qualified and held their first session on the 15th of April, in the house at the corner of Ohio and Meridian Streets. On the next day they divided the county, em- bracing the very large area already described, into Fall Creek, Anderson, White River, Delaware, Law- rence, Washington, Pike, Warren, Centre, Wayne, Franklin, Perry, and Decatur townships. The first four were in the territory afterwards formed into other counties. The following are the formally de- clared boundaries of the townships as first consti- tuted, which have composed the county ever since, with a very few slight changes. Only the "corners" are given, as they will enable any one to follow the lines readily :

" Lawrence" township, in the northeast corner of the county, was given the following corners: The northeast corner of Section 15, Town 17 north of. Range 5 east, is the northeast corner of the town- ship; the southeast corner of Section 15, Town 16 north of Range 5 east, is the southeast corner ; the southwest corner of Section 15, Town 16 north of Range 4 east, is the southwest corner; and the northwest corner of Section 16, Town 17 north of Range 4 east, the northwest corner. The township contains forty-nine seetions, seven each way.

" Washington" township, immediately north of Centre, has the following corners : On the northeast, northeast corner of Section 17, Town 17 north of Range 4 east ; on the southeast, the southeast corner of Section 16, Town 16 north of Range 4 east; on the southwest, the southwest corner of Section 15, Town 16 north of Range 3 east; and the northwest, the northwest corner of Section 16, Town 17 north of Range 3 east. This township contains forty-nine sections, seven each way, like Lawrence. Three see- tions were subsequently taken from Pike, in Town 16 north of Range 3 east, so that the southwest corner of Section 16, Town 17 north of Range 3 east, is the southwest corner of the township.

" Pike" township, in the northwest corner of the

county, is now somewhat different from the bounds set by the commissioners at this session. The four corners as set by them at this time are as follows : The northeast is the northeast corner of Section 17, Town 17 north of Range 3 east; the southcast is the southeast corner of Section 16, Town 16 north of Range 3 east; the southwest is the southwest corner of Section 16, Town 16 north of Range 2 east; the northwest is the northwest corner of the county. The east and west boundaries were both changed after this, so that the southeast corner is the southeast corner of Section 17, Town 16 north of Range 3 east, giving to Washington three sec- tions; and on the west the bounds of the county were changed, giving the four east halves of sections to Pike, thus making the area forty-four sections, seven miles north and south, six miles on the south side and six and a half on the north side.

" Warren" township, on the east of Centre, was deseribed with the following corners : The northeast, the northeast corner of Section 22, Town 16 north of Range 5 east ; the southeast, the southeast corner of Section 22, Town 15 north of Range 5 east ; the south west, the southwest corner of Section 22, Town 15 north of Range 4 east ; the northwest, the north- west corner of Section 22, Town 16 north of Range 4 east. The township contains forty-nine scetions, seven seetions each way, being almost exactly square, and has never been changed.

" Centre township shall consist of the territory included within the following bounds, to wit: Be- ginning at the northeast corner of Section 21, Town 16, Range 4; thence south on the seetion line to the southeast corner of Section 21, Town 15, Range 4; thence west to the southwest corner of Section 22, Town 15, Range 3; thence north on the section line to the northwest corner of Section 22, Town 16, Range 3; thence east on the section line to the place of beginning." The township contains forty- two sections, seven miles north and south, six east and west, and has never been altered.

" Wayne" township had and still has the follow- ing corners, having remained unchanged : The north -. east, the northeast corner of Section 21, Town 16 north of Range 3 east; the southeast, the southeast

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

corner of Section 21, Town 15 north of Range 3 east ; the southwest, the southwest corner of Section 21, Town 15 north of Range 2 east; the northwest, the northwest corner of Section 21, Town 16 north of Range 2 east. The township contains forty-nine sections, being of the same shape and size as Warren.

"Franklin" township is of the same size and shape as Centre, but has its greatest extension east and west. The corners are as follows: The north- east, the northeast corner of Section 27, Town 15 north of Range 5 east; the southeast, the southeast corner of the county ; the southwest, the southwest corner of Section 22, Town 14 north of Range 4 east; the northwest, the northwest corner of Sec- tion 27, Town 15 north of Range 4 east. This township also has never been changed.

" Decatur" and " Perry" townships were at first given bounds which made them parallelograms, but they have since been so changed that the river forms a boundary line between them. The four corners of " Perry" township were as follows : The northeast, the northeast corner of Section 28, Town 15 north of Range 4 east ; the southeast, the southeast corner of Section 21, Town 14 north of Range 4 east ; the southwest, the southwest corner of Section 22, Town 14 north of Range 3 east; the northwest, the north- west corner of Section 27, Town 15 north of Range 3 east. This made an area of forty-two sections, the same shape and size as Franklin, seven miles east and west, six north and south. The township now, how- ever, has about forty-five sections, making the river the west boundary line.

" Decatur" township had the following corners : The northeast, the northeast corner of Section 28, Town 15 north of Range 3 east ; the southeast, the southeast corner of Section 21, Town 14 north of Range 3 east; the southwest, the southwest corner of the county ; the northwest, the northwest corner of Section 27, Town 15 north of Range 2 east. This gave the township thirty-six sections, while it contains now but about thirty-three sections.

"On account of lack of population" certain of the townships were, until other regulations were made, to be united and to be considered as one

township. They were Centre and Warren, to be called " Centre-Warren" ; Pike and Wayne, “ Pike- Wayne"; Washington and Lawrence, “ Washington- Lawrence"; Decatur, Perry, and Franklin, all three to be known as " Decatur-Perry-Franklin" township. Each combination was assigned two justices except Centre-Warren, which was given three.

Some of them were soon separated, the first being Decatur township, which was disunited on the 12th of August, 1823. The next separation was of Pike township from Wayne, on the 10th of May, 1824, a petition to that end having been presented by some of the citizens of the township ; and the commission- ers considering the population sufficient to warrant the order, Warren and Centre townships were separated by an order of the Board, May 1, 1826.

Washington and Lawrence were separated Oct. 6, 1826. Franklin and Perry were separated Sept. 3, 1827, on a petition presented by the people of that township.

On March 3, 1828, three sections in Pike town- ship, 3, 9, and 16, were attached to Washington.

On the next day after the townships were formed the County Board ordered the election of " magis- trates" in all the townships, assigning two to the joint townships of Washington and Lawrence, two to Pike and Wayne, two to Decatur, Perry, and Franklin, and three to "Centre-Warren," as it is always written in the records. The 11th of May was set for the election. In Centre-Warren, Obed Foote, Wilkes Reagan, and Lismund Basye were elected, and their election contested by Moses Cox. The case was heard by the Board at a special session on the 16th of May, on a summons by the sheriff, with whom notice of contest had been filed. Some preliminary argument and ruling were made, and the next day the Board decided that the election should " be set aside and held as null and void." A second election was ordered on the 25th of May, eight days later, which was duly held, and the same men re- elected. That election was not disturbed.

At the same May session of 1822 the first consta- bles were appointed : for Washington and Law- rence, William Cris and John Small; for Pike and Wayne, Joel A. Crane and Charles Eckard ; for

ERECTION OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

Centre-Warren, Israel Harding, Joseph Duval, Francis Davis, George Harlan, William Phillips, Caleb Reynolds, Daniel Lakin, Lewis Ogle, Samuel Roberts, Joseph Catterlin, Henry Cline, Joshua Glover, and Patrick Kerr,-a larger force than the two townships have ever had since.

At the April session, on the evening of the 17th, a county seal was adopted, thus described : " A star in the centre, with the letters 'M. C. C.' around the same, with inverted carved stripes tending to the centre of the star, and ' Marion County Seal' written thereon." On the 14th of May this seal was changed for the present one, thus officially described : " The words ' Marion County Seal, Indiana,' around the outside, with a pair of scales in the centre em- blematical of justice, under which is a plow and sheaf of wheat in representation of agriculture." The first roads opened or ordered in the county were considered upon the petition of William Townsend and others, and " viewed" by Joel Wright, John Smock, and Zadoc Smith for the one running "to the Mills at the Falls of Fall Creek,"-the old Pen- dleton road; and by William D. Rooker, Robert Brenton, and George Norwood for the other, running from "the north end of Pennsylvania Street to Strawtown,"-the old Noblesville road. The next road was along the line of the present National road, upon petition of Eliakim Harding ; the fourth, a road to McCormick's Mills, on White River, upon peti- tion of John McCormick ; the fifth, the old Moores- ville road, upon petition of Demas L. McFarland. These were all in May, 1822.

On the 17th, continuing the same session, the County Board established the following tolls " on the ferry on White River opposite Indianapolis," which was established by an act of the preceding Legislature :

" For each wagon and four horses or oxen .. $0.62}

wagon and two horses or oxen. .37}

wagon (small) and one horse or ox. .31}

extra horse or ox. .12}

man or woman and horse .. .12}

head of neat cattle .03

head of swine. .02

hend of sheep .. .02

footman .06}."

At the same session of the Board the following " tavern rates" were established :

" Each half-pint of whiskey. $0.12}

Each half-pint of imported rum, brandy, gin, or wine ... .25

Each quart of cider or beer. .124

Each quart of porter, cider wine, or cider oil .. .25

Each half-pint of peach brandy, cordial, country gin, or apple brandy . .18₺

Each meal .25

Each night's lodging .12%

Each gallon of corn or oats. .124

Each horse to hay, per night.

.25.">

The tax-payers of to-day will be interested in the modes and rates of taxation fixed by the County Board in the first year of the county's organization.

At a session of the Board held on the 14th of May, 1822, the following rates were established for taxation :

"For every horse, mare, gelding, mnle, or ass over three years old. $0.37} For stallions, once (their rate for the season). ......

For taverns, cach 10.00

For every ferry. 6.00 For every $100 of the appraised valuation of town lots. ,50

For each and every pleasure carriage of two wheels ... 1.00

For each pleasure carriage of four wheels .. 1.25

For every silver watch. .25 For every gold watch .50

For every head of work-oxen over three years old and upwards, per head .. .25

On each male person over the age of twenty-one years .. .50

" Provided, That persons over the age of fifty years and not freeholders, and such as are not ahle from bodily disability to follow any useful occupation, . . . and all idiots and paupers shall be exempt from said last-named tax."

At the same session in which the tax rates were settled an order was made for the erection of the first jail. The sheriff, Hervey Bates, was appointed county agent to receive bids. The specifications required as follows :

"It is to be built fourteen feet in the inside, two stories high, of six and a half feet between floors, to be of hewed logs twelve inches thick and at least twelve inches wide, with two rounds of oak or walnut logs to be under ground;" and " the second floor and the side logs to be of the same size of walnut, oak, ash, beech, or sugar-tree;" and " the third or upper floor to be of logs six inches thick and at least one foot wide." The roof was to be of jointed shingles. There was to be a window in the lower story or dungeon twelve inches square. The grate-bars for it were to be

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

one inch and a quarter in thickness; and there was a window two feet by six inches in the second story, opposite the door by which the jail was en- tered. This door was four feet by two, of two thicknesscs of two-inch oak plank, with a heavy . stock-lock between, and also heavy strap hinges. There was to be a ladder leading up on the out- side to the door in the second story, and another door, a trap two feet square, in the floor of the second story, leading down into the lower story, which was to be fastened with a hasp and pad- lock."

The contract was awarded to Noah Leaverton, some time in May or June, 1822, by Hervey Bates, and was submitted to the commissioners for in- spection, and accepted on August 12th.

"The Board approve, adopt, and permanently establish the building erected of hewed logs . . . on the Court-House Square, near the corner of Market and Delaware Strects, in Indianapolis, as the county jail." It cost three hundred and twelve dollars. (Pages 27, 28, 29, Commissioners' Record.)

The jail looked a good deal like a small, re- spectable residence, bating the suggestive quality of the heavy iron gratings. In the summer of 1833 a negro came to the town wearing a black cap with a red leather band around it, and leading sometimes, sometimes riding, a buffalo. He made a show of it on the streets occasionally, and was followed by the usual crowd of curious boys, who gave him a name that another man has lately made famous, " Buffalo Bill." He was arrested for some offense, larceny probably, and put in jail. That night he set it on fire to make his escape, and came near being burned in it. The hole in the ground where the two lower courses of logs had lain was visible for twenty years. Jeremiah Johnson was the first jailer. It was succeeded by a brick jail on the east side of the Court-House Square, one end abut- ting directly upon Alabama Strect. In this the jailer was provided with rooms for residence. In 1845 a hewed-log addition was made on the north and used for the confinement of the worst pris- oners. It was built of logs hewed to one foot square, and laid in three courses, the first horizontal, the

one outside of it and bolted to it perpendienlar or oblique, and the third, exterior to that, horizontal. An exterior casing of the same kind, consisting of one vertical and one horizontal course of hewed logs, was put round the first jail some time after it was built.

In 1852 the present jail, in the east corner of the Court-House Square, was begun and com- pleted in 1854, when the old jail was torn away. Several additions have been made to the present one, at an aggregate cost of near one hundred thousand dollars, but the increase of crime in a city so con- venient to scoundrels, from its facilities for cscape, and so largely made up at all times of transient resi- dents, has constantly excceded the county's ability to take adequate care of the criminals. Escapes have not been very infrequent, and grand juries, whenever they make an examination, are pretty sure to report insufficient room.

In this connection may be neticed mere appro- priately than in the detached accounts following a chronological order, the crimes which have met the extreme penalty of the law in the present jail, as well as the first offenses in the history of the settlement. Until within the last decade no sentence of death had ever been passed upon any murderer in Marion County. Then William Cluck was convicted of the murder of his wife and sentenced to be hung. The sheriff had the gallows built and in place in the jail- yard, but a day or two before that sct for the execution the murderer got poison and killed himself. In the fall of 1863, Mrs. Nancy E. Clem, William J. Abrams, and Silas W. Hartman, Mrs. Clem's brother, were indicted for the murder of Jacob Young and his wife, -a horrible affair, in which the body of Mrs. Young was partially burned after she had been shot through the head,-known as the " Cold Spring" murder, and the woman was convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to imprisonment for life early in March, 1869. Just one week afterwards her brother cut his throat in his cell to escape an inevita- ble death by the halter. These were the nearest approaches made to the death penalty in this county till its first actual infliction in January, 1879. The frequent escape of murderers whose crimes deserved

ERECTION OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

death had stirred a strong feeling into public expres- sion against the weakness of the law as a protection of the community, and the almost certain escape of every offender, whatever his crime, if he could pay well for a defense, had strengthened this feeling. It appeared in the editorials and communications of the papers, in allusions in public speeches and sermons, in social conversation, and, more emphatic than all, in frequent lynchings all about in the State. Mrs. Clem, though twice convicted, finally worried the law by appeals and change of venue and postponcment till she was discharged, and this more than any other one thing had set the community hard against any lenity to the next murderer.

In November, 1878, John Achey was convicted of the murder, by shooting, of George Leggett, a partner in a gambling operation, and sentenced to death on the 29th of January, 1879. On the 13th of Decem- ber, 1878, William Merrick, a livery-stable kceper on South Street, was convicted of the murder of his wife. She had been a school-teacher, and saved a considerable sum of money. While paying her his addresses he borrowed all her money, seduced her, and only after much solicitation married her. Within a day or two of her confinement he took her out riding after dusk, gave her strychnine in a glass of beer, which caused premature child-birth in the agonies of death, and then drove with the dead bodies to a small wood near the Morris Street bridge over Eagle Creek, where he dug a shallow hole on the creek bank, put the bodies naked in it, and covered them with logs. He burned in his stable the clothing he took from his wife's corpse in the dark- ness of midnight and the woods, and no discovery was made for several days. Then a boy going along the creek found the bodies, the wife was identified by some physical marks still discernible through the de- composition, and very soon after the husband was arrested. The horrible brutality of the crime, the cool, callous, calculating cruelty in every stage of it, the beastliness of the burial, all provoked so hot an exasperation of popular feeling that for the first time there were serious threats of lynching. He was sentenced to be hung at the same time Achey was, January 29th. Some attempts were made to obtain a

commutation for Achey, whose provocation had been great, and would have saved him a death sentence in any other condition of feeling of the community, but nothing was done for Merrick. They were hung on the same gallows at the same instant, Merrick sullen, dogged, and silent to the last, though indicating a desire to speak at the moment the drop fell. Louis Guetig was convicted the same year of the murder of Miss McGlue, a waiter in the hotel kept by his uncle whom he had been courting, but who had discarded him. He shot her in the courtyard of the hotel. while imploring him not to kill her, and imperiled several other girls who were present, and was sen- tenced to be hung with Achey and Merrick ; but his counsel obtained on appeal a reversal of some trivial instruction of the court below, and a second trial fol- lowed, with a second conviction and death sentence, and he was hung on Sept. 19, 1879, the anniversary of the murder. These are the only death sentences ever passed or inflicted in Marion County, except that of a colored man named Greenly for murdering his sweetheart. He was sentenced, but the Governor commuted his punishment to life imprisonment.

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 8

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