History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 81

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 81

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).

lumber, besides several establishments of later date or lighter business.

FURNITURE .- The first cabinet-maker of the set- tlement was Caleb Scudder, a pioneer of 1821. But very close after him, not later than 1823, came Sam- uel Duke, with whom James Grier, still living, learned his trade. Among those who followed were Fleming T. Luse, who in 1835 had a shop on Pennsylvania Street, about where the Bank of Commerce now is. Later Mr. Donnelan worked there, or in that neigh- borhood. The late John F. Ramsey and James Grier, about 1845, carried on the same business, but mixed up with their own work an extensive trade in articles bought of wholesale manufacturers, in a large house on South Illinois Street, about half-way between Washington and Maryland. Mordecai Cropper made furniture a little earlier than Mr. Ramsey's arrival, leaving here for the far West in 1838, and, returning two or three years ago, after an absence of more than forty years, finding a city of 90,000 people where he left a village of 3000. Joseph I. Stretcher, about the time Mr. Cropper left, established the largest cabinet manufactory of the time on West Washing- ton Street, about where the Iron Block stands. A fire came near destroying the whole establishment bere about the time of the Polk and Clay campaign. Contemporary with Mr. Stretcher, and working upon a scale of equal magnitude and enterprise, was the establishment of Espy & Sloan, on West Washington Street, and later Sloan & Ingersoll.

About the time that old-fashioned cabinet-work and cabinet-makers, with their old-fashioned cherry lum- ber for everything that was needed in household fur- niture, from a cradle to a sideboard, were passing away, and new fashions of more variety, beauty, and expense were coming in, about the year 1855, Messrs. Spiegel & Thoms began the first manufacture of fur- niturc on a different line, and with a closer regard to the improved taste of the time. Their beginning was humble enough, in a little shop on East Wash- ington Strect, but by 1863 they were doing so well that they had to seek better accommodations, and moved to East Street, near the creek, and in three years built there the first five-story house in the town to make room for their work and workmen. Ten

456

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

years or so ago they again doubled their capacity by erecting a fine five-story block on West Washington Street, a little east of Masonic Hall, with an equal front on Kentucky Avenue. This is the oldest ex- tensive furniture-factory in the city, and if not the largest, is certainly unsurpassed by any.

AUGUSTUS SPIEGEL .- Mr. Spiegel, who is of German ancestry, is the son of Jacob and Elizabeth Brown Spiegel, who resided in the town of Michel- stadt, in Hesse-Darmstadt. They had among their children Augustus, the subject of this biographical sketch, whose birth occurred on the 1st of May, 1825, in the above town. Here his childhood was passed until seven years of age, when his parents, with their children, in 1832 emigrated to America and settled in Baltimore, Md., where the father died three years after. The family, two years later, re- moved to Cincinnati, where Augustus became a pupil at a German and English school, and there acquired the rudiments of an education. At the age of four- teen he entered the office of the Christian Advocate, published in Cincinnati, as press-boy, and acted in that capacity for two years. At the age of seven- teen he decided upon the trade of cabinet-maker as that most fitted to his peculiar abilities, and served an apprenticeship of four years, after which his craft was followed for the same length of time in Cincin- nati. He was in 1848 united in marriage to Miss Anne Eliza, daughter of Thomas and Hester Lackey, of Philadelphia. Their children are Louisa (married to William C. Nichols), William C., Henry L., Mollie M. (married to Edward Noland), and two who are deceased. The sons are associated with their father in the business of furniture manufacturing. Mr. Spiegel, after his marriage, removed .to Lawrence- burg, Ind., and continued his trade. In 1858 he repaired to Indianapolis, then a rapidly-growing city, and became a member of the firm of Spiegel, Thoms & Co., manufacturers of furniture. He has since that time continued his connection with the busi- ness, which has greatly increased in proportions, and now ranks among the leading industries of the city. Mr. Spiegel devotes his attention exclusively to the business in which he is engaged, and has little leisure for matters of a public character. He ! on the Bee Line road, near the city. Emerich, Pau-

participates but rarely in the excitement of political life, and casts his vote for the most deserving candi- date irrespective of party ties. He is a member of Centre Lodge of Independent Order of Odd-Fellows of Indianapolis.

Two years later than Spiegel & Thoms, Mr. John Vetter began an extensive furniture business at the Madison depot, and conducted it successfully for eight or nine years, when the establishment was burned, in 1866. Helwig & Roberts began the same ycar with Mr. Vetter (1857) on the canal, in a factory that was burned and rebuilt in 1860. M. S. Huey, on West Washington Street, with a large workshop on the alley south, between Mississippi Street and the canal, began about the time that Spiegel & Thoms did. John Ott, who excelled in carved work, was contemporary with both the last-named houses, and built an extensive shop on West Washington Street, a little east of Mississippi, which was taken for the State arsenal when Governor Morton concluded to make the ammunition for the war instead of waiting for the inferior stuff of the government. Field & Day did cabinet-work on Vermont Street contempo- raneously with Espy & Sloan ; Wilkins & Hall worked on West Washington Street in 1864; Philip Dolin, on South Meridian Street, in 1865 ; burned and re- commenced in 1867 ; C. J. Myer, on East Washing- ton Street, about the outbreak of the war; the Cabi- net-Makers' Union, East Market Street, at the creek, in 1859. This last is one of the largest establish- ments in the city, as also one of the oldest. Its buildings and yards cover the larger part of a block on the east bank of the creek. The Indianapolis Cabinet Company and the Indianapolis Veneer Com- pany occupy the extensive series of buildings at the extremity of Massachusetts Avenue, on Malott Ave- nue, where the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing-Machine Company established a cabinet-making branch as early as 1862. The works employ altogether about 300 hands. The president of the company was Mr. Helwig's partner in the furniture-factory just referred to. The annual business is an excess of $300,000. The Wooten Desk Company, who make a specialty of fine writing and business desks, formerly had a factory

Augustus Spegel

457

MANUFACTURING INTERESTS OF THE CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

lini & Co., on Morris Street, east of the creek, began work in 1881, making a specialty of tables, but are now extending their business and greatly enlarging their capacity. On South Tennessee Street Henry Hermann has a very extensive furniture-factory and lumber-yard on the site of the old Greenleaf Machine- Works, and with it has another on South Pennsyl- vania Street just below South Street.

A. D. Streight & Co. began business with a lum- ber-yard, in 1865, on the ground south of the Van- dalia depot, mostly occupied at that time by the Indianapolis Wagon-Works, since removed to North Indianapolis and out of existence. In 1866 they removed to a site south of the Vandalia road on West Street, and then moved north and to their present site. They dealt in pine somewhat at first, but soon passed entirely into the walnut and hard- wood trade. Some three years ago they added a chair-factory to their. mills, and now turn out about $50,000 worth of that class of work a year. The Indianapolis Chair Manufacturing Company on West New York Street, at the canal, do an extensive business in the same way, the largest, probably, of the kind in the city. The Western Furniture Com- pany have a large establishment on Madison Avenue north of Morris Street. King & Elder, South Meridian Street; Lauter & Frese, Massachusetts Avenue; Ralston & Co., East Washington Street ; Sander & Recker, East Washington ; Miller, Indiana Avenue ; Morton, West Washington ; Smith, West Washington ; H. Frank & Co., East Washington ; Born & Co., and Benson, East Washington, are all engaged in general furniture-making.

Lounges are a specialty largely manufactured by several houses here, and sold wholesale to the large dealers in the cities around us,-St. Louis, Chicago, Louisville, and others. Michael Clurie was engaged in this work and mattress-making in the old Under- hill mill when that relic of old times was recently destroyed by fire. Ott & Madden carried on a very large business, amounting to $150,000 a year, when their establishment on Morris Street was nearly de- stroyed by fire in December, 1883. Since then the firm has dissolved, Mr. Ott continuing at the old place and Capt. Madden opening soon in a large establish- 30

ment on Merrill Street. Otto Stechan also does an extensive business in lounges on Fort Wayne Ave- nue. He began in 1875, employs now sixty work- men, and does a business of about $150,000 a year. Vance & Zehringer, on Massachusetts Avenue, Hoff- man, on North East Street, Ferriter, on East South, and Krause, on East Washington, are engaged in the same specialty.

AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS .- Although largely sold here by the agents of manufacturers at other points in the State and in other States, there is very little manufacture of agricultural implements in Indianapo- lis. Agricultural machinery is made here by several houses, and has been for thirty years and more. The Eagle Machine-Works made threshers or sepa- rators as early as 1851, and competed with the older houses of Richmond and the White Water Valley at the first State Fair, in 1852, and portable engines and other machinery for farm-work are made here as largely as any class of machinery, but agricultural implements, plows, axes, spades, and the like are un- known to the manufacturing skill and enterprise of this city. Eight or ten years ago, or about the time the panic of 1873 fairly closed in on business here, a large establishment was planned and partly built, a few miles up Fall Creek, for the manufacture on a large scale of the Simmons axe, but the hard times killed the project, and the succeeding better times have not revived it. Two years ago the secretary of the Board of Trade, Mr. H. C. Wilson, noticing the deficiency of the city's enterprise in this direction, said that the agricultural area of the State, exclu- sive of surfaces covered by water, was 21,637,760 acres, of which 90 per cent. is capable of cultivation with the plow, and yet nearly one-half is untilled. The sales of agricultural machinery and implements, . he says, in Indianapolis, in 1881, "amounted to $1,250,000, a very small per cent. of which, except engines and threshers, was made here, or within sixty miles of the city, while some of the standard articles of large sale were manufactured a thousand miles away. This should not be."

The very best and most suitable timber is abundant here, and the coal-fields embrace an area of 6500 square miles, offering seven workable seams, at a

458

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

depth ranging from 50 to 220 feet, and averaging four and a half feet in thickness. There are prob- ably 175,000 farms in the State of Indiana, more than 2400 miles of gravel and turnpike road, and 54,000 miles of common road. There are 5000 miles of railroad, traversing every part of the State, bringing it into close communication with this eity, through the medinm of twelve railroads, radiating from here in every direction, to which two new roads will be added within a few months, and a third prob- ably before the close of the year. Upon these roads citizens of eighty-two counties out of the ninety-two that compose the State can® come to Indianapolis and return the same day.

Yet there is manufactured in Indianapolis but an insignificant per cent. of the machinery and imple- ments used upon the roadways or farms of Indiana. There are more plows used on farms abutting this city than are made in the entire county, yet the timber is near and abundant. From the tower of the court-house one may see the forest where men are now cutting timber, which is sent away one hundred and fifty miles, to be made into plow-frames, and the plows brought here and sold by thousands, and used iu fields no farther away than the woods where the timber grew. Every year there are about 2500 two- horse sulky-plows sent here and sold, also 25,000 breaking-plows, 2500 one-horse steel-tooth hay-rakes, 10,000 cultivators, 2000 two-horse wheat-drills, and car-loads of one-horse wood-rakes, corn-shellers, and cutting-boxes, and many other farm implements which are not made here to any appreciable extent. Mowers and reapers are also brought here and sold to the number of 1000 annually, and to the amount of $1,500,000 in the State every year, and there are · none made in Indiana. If these facts do not demon- strate that here is an unoccupied field for profitable industries, then is this statement shorn of a degree of humiliation which seems to attach to it.

The deficiency thus deplored is in a fair way to be filled. The city papers announced very recently that an establishment for the manufacture of one class of agricultural implements was projected by men amply able to accomplish it. The statement is that a partnership has been formed for building a manufac-

tory in this city which will employ several hundred men. The establishment will probably be located on the site of the old rolling-mill, in the southwestern part of the city, and the construction of the buildings, it is said, will begin early in the spring of 1884. The company will manufacture an improved grain- reaper which was recently patented by Dr. Allen, and in the operation of the business a very large number of men will be employed.

CARRIAGES AND WAGONS .- Wagons for road and farm use were made here as in all frontier towns, among the carliest products of mechanical skill, for they were among the earliest necessities of pioneer life. George Norwood, as before noted, was the first wagon-maker. His shop was on the east side of Illinois Street, about where the building of the Young Men's Christian Association stands, and here it re- mained till about 1845, though Mr. Norwood gave up the business before that, and occupied himself with his buildings and property on Illinois and Wash- ington Streets. Thomas Anderson also was a wagon- maker on East Washington Street, and Richard Anderson (no relation) was a wagon-maker by trade, but had no shop of his own for any considerable time.

About the year 1832 a Mr. Johnson, who had a contract for carrying the mail by stage on some of the routes into the town, established a carriage-factory on the present site of the post-office, or a little south of it, but his main object was the making and repairing of his own coaches. His successor, Lashley, com- mitted here the second murder in the history of the place, in 1836. About the year 1840, Hiram and his surviving brother, Edward,-the latter had worked for Johnson in the Pennsylvania Street shop,-began' carriage-work on an alley south of Maryland Street, at the Illinois Street corner. A little later, abont 1842, they built a large establishment where the Bates House stands, and carried on an extensive business there till 1850, or near that time. Then Edward opened a shop on Kentucky Avenue,-pos- sibly he did so before the time suggested,-and not long afterwards Hiram died. This was the earliest large carriage-factory in the city. It has been suc- cceded at one time or another since by Drew, George

459

MANUFACTURING INTERESTS OF THE CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

Lowe, Helfer & Co., the Indianapolis Wagon-Works, before alluded to, Shaw & Lippincott, Helfrich, Hart- man, Guedelhoeffer, Bernd Brothers, on Morris Street, Robbins & Garrad, O'Brien & Lewis, Miller & Co., Furst & Bradley Manufacturing Company, Burnworth & Kohnle, Kramer, La Rue & Hill, Kayser, Schweikel & Prange, James Nunn Kierolf, Job Alzire, V. M. Backus, Circle Street, G. H. Shover, C. R. Albright, Indiana Avenue. The Shaw & Lippincott firm was changed to a company, and built a very large and admirably-arranged factory on the east bank of Pleasaut Run, where the Belt road sub- sequently crossed it, and did some work there, but the times would not support so extensive an enter- prise, and there has been little done there, or by that company anywhere, since 1876 or '77. A few months ago Mr. Lowe sold his establishment on West Market Street, and it has been converted into the Sentinel office.

For a period of eight or ten years prior to the general use of railroads by passengers and mails, the Vorhees Stage Company, or firm, had a large repairing estab- lishment and stables for their own business exclusively on the quarter of a square at the southwest corner of Maryland and Pennsylvania Streets. Somewhere about 1855 or '56, the stage lines having been discon- tinued, these shops were abandoned, and replaced by Alvord's block of tenement-houses. This corner has had a strange experience. It was a swamp at first. Then the second tan-yard of the town was put there. The stage repair-shops displaced that, and a row of tenement-honses removed the shops, and a business block displaced the tenement-houses a dozen years ago.

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS .- Though not relevant to the subject of carriage-making, it is proper to note here that Edward Gaston, since his retirement from the active pursuit of his trade of carriage- maker, has given much of his time to making musical instruments, especially violins, and has made some thirty or more, all of a superior tone, and readily salable, when he chooses to sell them, at good priccs. His latest effort was a bass viol of remarkably fine quality. Piano-makers we had here as early as 1843, when Mr. Robert Parmlee worked on West Wash-

ington Street, about where the Hubbard block stands, but did not hold ont long. Twenty years ago Mr. Trayser made pianos opposite the court-house, and J. H. Kappcs & Co. and Messrs. Garred & Co. tried it, but with no success; and last the Indianapolis Piano Manufacturing Company tried it on a very large scale, with an extensive building on Merrill Street, but that failed too. So the only successful manufacture of musical instruments we have ever had here is the modest little business of Mr. Gaston's.

THE WOODBURN SARVEN WHEEL MANUFAC- TORY .- This is the largest establishment of the kind in the United States or the world, probably. Its buildings and lumber-sheds, dry-houses and storage- rooms, cover seven acres on both sides of Illinois Street, between South and the creek, extending back to Tennessee Street on the west, and eastward to the creek north of the "elbow." It employs some 500 workmen, pays out over $200,000 a year in wages, and turns out for sale in all parts of the world wheels of all kinds to the amount of $700,000 a year or more. It was started in 1847 by C. H. Crawford and J. R. Osgood for making lasts and other shoe- makers' implements, and was then located near the site of the Union depot. Six years later Mr. Craw- ford retired from the establishment, leaving Mr. Os- good as the only proprietor. The latter shortly afterwards added the manufacture of staves and flour- barrels to his other business. Finding his building too small, he erected on the present site of his estab- lishment a three-story brick building, twenty-five by one hundred fect. This location, now in the heart of the city, was then in the open country, and it was deemed a hazardous investment in that day to locate so considerable an establishment so far from the busi- ness portion of the city. The manufacture of wooden hubs was added in 1866, when Mr. L. M. Bugby was admitted into the firm. Mr. S. H. Smith was admitted as an equal partner in 1866, aud the manu- facture of wagon and carriage materials was added. Thus began what has grown to be a very extensive business, not only in this city but in the State at large, employing more than $1,000,000 capital. In February, 1864, their establishment was destroyed by fire, involving a loss of $20,000. Within ninety days

460

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

the manufactory had been rebuilt on a larger scale than before. In the year 1865, Messrs. Woodburn & Scott, of St. Louis, who had been doing a large business in the manufacture of. wheels of various kinds, and who, in connection : with a New Haven. firm, had the exclusive right to manufacture the cele- brated "Sarven patent wheel," and had expended large sums in its introduction, disposed of all their patents and business to Messrs. Osgood & Smith.

In order to obtain the requisite capital to conduct this extension of their business Messrs. Osgood & Smith disposed of a one-third interest to Messrs. Nelson & Haynes, a wealthy house in Alton, Ill., who opened an establishment in St. Louis for the manufacture of wagon materials. The St. Louis house was known as Haynes, Smith & Co., the In- dianapolis firm as Osgood, Smith & Co. Subse- quently Mr. Woodburn . purchased the interest of Messrs. Nelson & Haynes, and the St. Louis house then took the firm-name of Woodburn, Smith & Co. In 1869 the establishment obtained a controlling in- terest in the manufactory at Massac, Ill., for making carriage materials, a step that was taken for the pur- pose of supplying the St. Louis house with materials. In the same year they bought a large tract of timbered land in Orange County, Ind., and erected a saw-mill there to supply the Indianapolis manufactory with lumber. In 1870 the concern was changed into a joint-stock company, under the name of the Woodburn Sarven Wheel Company, with a capital of $250,000, making no change in the proprietorship except as before stated. Mr. Osgood died in June, 1871. A few years later Mr. Smith died, shortly after return- ing from a European tour. A very destructive fire occurred in the works in June, 1873, in which the chief fire engineer of the city was killed by the falling of a wall. In a few months the damage was repaired, though the amount of it was said at the time to be nearly $100,000 ..

BOXES .- The manufacture of boxes on a large scale was partly, if not mainly, the effect of the Eu- ropean pork trade of Kingan & Co., which was largely carried on in boxes instead of barrels, and required the active work of a considerable. establish- ment, both in men and machinery, to keep it sup-

plied. This house, however, does a good deal of its own box-making and cooperage now. Mr. Frederick Balweg was the first manufacturer of boxes exclu- sively in a factory on the southwest corner of the block of Coburn & Jones' lumber-yard. He subse- quently removed to a much larger house on Madison Avenue, a little north of Morris Street, which has since passed into the hands of Mr. Frederick Dictz. Mr. Jason S. Carey also makes boxcs in connection with his extensive stave-factory on West Street. Brunson & McKee on the canal and St. Clair Street, and Murray & Co. on Alvord Street, in the northeast part. of the city, are engaged more or less in the same work.

BUTTER-DISHES, made of thin slices of poplar, sweet gum, or linnwood, cut out by machinery and lopped and fissured at the ends by a machine, have become the favorite deposit of the family purchase of butter at the grocery or creamery, and the demand for them has started three establishments in and near the city, two of which, in the city, were burned within a year, and have not been replaced. The other, at North Indianapolis, is still in operation.

STAVE-MAKING .- This has become a very impor- tant industry of the city, and is one of the earliest of the second stage of industrial growth. The first machinery for making and dressing staves and barrel- heads was brought here and put in a shed structure near the river, south of Maryland Street and west of West Street, by the late John D. Defrees and his brother Anthony, in 1856 or '57. The enterprise was premature, however, and failed. Some years afterward it was resumed aud pushed more success- fully, and one or two other establishments began the manufacture of staves and barrel-heads by machinery in other parts of the city. Mr. Jason S. Carey suc- ceeded the Defrees' management in the original estab- lishment, and has made a very large and lucrative business there, covering nearly all the space north of the St. Louis Railway, along Georgia Street north to the alley and back to California Street. A neighbor to him is Mr. Minter, at the foot of California Street, in the same business, while Mr. Coleman makes barrel- heads extensively on the Belt road east of the Jeffer- -sonville crossing ; George W. Hill is at the corner of

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 81

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