USA > Indiana > Madison County > History of Madison County, Indiana ; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 41
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The water began falling on the 27th and the danger was past, but the relief work was kept up until all were made at least comparatively comfortable. It was some time before many of the submerged homes were habitable. Furniture and carpets were practically ruined and the floors and walls were so damp that it was a menace to health to try to live in the houses. It will be a long time before the great flood of 1913 will be forgotten by those who were driven from home by its ravages.
CHAPTER XIX MISCELLANEOUS HISTORY
SKETCHES OF A FEW TYPICAL PIONEERS-LEVI BREWER-MENTION OF PROMINENT CITIZENS-JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY-SAMUEL RICHARDS -THE FENIAN RAID-EXPRESS ROBBERY AND THE FALLIBILITY OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE-MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF A PED- DLER RECALLED-RECEPTION TO COMPANY L-CHRONOLOGY OF THE COUNTY-CENSUS-LIST OF COUNTY OFFICERS.
It is a common occurrence when an old resident dies, for the news- papers to publish an obituary under the headline "Another Pioneer Gone." As a matter of fact there are very few left who can claim the distinction of being pioneers. There are, and doubtless always will be, pioneers in industry, scientific or mechanical development and other lines of human endeavor. Likewise there are and always will be many old settlers, by reason of their having lived for a long period in a given community, but the real pioneers-those who conquered the primeval wilderness and dwelt in the "cabin in the clearing"-have about passed into ancient history. Parton describes the pioneers as a "little band, clad in leathern aprons and armed with broadaxes, which marches boldly in advance of the main body and blazes out the route that civili- zation is to follow." The pioneers who came to central Indiana in the early part of the last century are now exceedingly rare. Here and there is one who has approached near to the century mark that can really be classed as a pioneer, but the men who wore the "leathern aprons and swung the broadaxes" in Madison county, to blaze out the route for the present generation, have nearly all passed to their long home.
A true type of the pioneer, who lived, labored, loved and enjoyed the simple pastimes of early days, is Mrs. Emma Shinkle, a resident of North Anderson, who has passed the age of four score years and ten, and who has been a resident of Madison county all her life. She is a daughter of William Curtis, who was appointed agent for Madison county when Anderson was made the county seat in 1827, and was a little girl of some seven or eight years when that appointment was made, having been born in 1820, and she has lived to see Madison county develop from a wild unbroken tract of forest and swamp land into one of the most populous and prosperous counties of Indiana. In her youth the opportunities to acquire the accomplishments of the young
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MIT
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PHILIP AND EMMA SHINKLE, PIONEERS
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ladies of the present day were wanting, but she mastered the art of making and caring for a home. As a young woman she could spin her "six cuts" a day and she still has in her possession the old loom upon which she has woven rag carpets enough to cover many of the parlor floors of Madison county. In 1836 she was married on Killbuck creek to Philip Shinkle and they began housekeeping in the customary log cabin of that period, but by their thrift and industry the young couple pros- pered and the log house soon gave way to a residence of a better char- acter. Although she has lived far beyond the average period allotted to members of the human family, Mrs. Shinkle is in full possession of her mental faculties, and physically is as spry as many a woman thirty years her junior. From the storehouse of her memory she can relate many an interesting inci ont that occurred in Madison county before many of its present inhabitants were born. She is indeed a pioneer, and is now in the ninety-fourth year of her age.
In Van Buren township, near Summitville, lives another pioneer in the person of Mary E. Beck, widow of the late John Beck and grand- daughter of General Daniel Morgan of Revolutionary fame. Her illus- trious grandfather was born in New Jersey in 1736. Going to Virginia at the age of seventeen, he worked at various occupations until he became the owner of a team and wagon and in 1755 joined General Braddock's expedition as a teamster. The following spring, while engaged in hauling supplies to troops along the Virginia frontier, a British officer became so arrogant and abusive that Morgan struck him with the flat of his sword. For this offense it was ordered that he receive five hun- dred lashes on the bare back. This so incensed Morgan against the British that when the battle of Lexington was fought in April, 1775, he raised a company of Virginia riflemen and was the first officer to report with his command at Boston. At Washington's request he was commissioned colonel of the Eleventh Virginia Regiment and afterward rose to the rank of major-general. Every school boy is familiar with the story of Morgan's victory at the battle of Cowpens and his masterly retreat before the superior forces of Cornwallis. General Morgan died at Winchester, Virginia, July 6, 1802, but before his death received a large tract of land in North Carolina for his services in the Revolution. About 1759 he married Abigail Bailey, a woman of great force of char- acter, and their only daughter, Elizabeth Morgan, became the wife Henry R. Shelton. Mrs. Mary E. Beck is the third daughter of this union. She was born in 1823, the year Madison county was organized, and is the only living granddaughter of a Revolutionary general. She has been a resident of the county for many years.
The death of Edward P. Vernon, who recently died in Fall Creek township, could have been appropriately chronicled under the head- line referred to at the opening of this chapter. He was born on Novem- ber 10. 1816; was a great-grandson of Aaron Vernon, who came over with William Penn in 1682; a grandson of Edward Vernon, and a son of Abram Vernon, who came to Indiana in 1836 and the next year set- tled in Madison county. Abram Vernon was born on March 5, 1774, married Mary Bailey in 1801, and died in the Fall creek settlement on Vol. 1-22
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July 3, 1857, leaving four children. Edward was the only son; Hannah married Silas Hayes; Rebecca became the wife of David Catren, and Esther married Robert Parry, of Richmond, Indiana. Edward P. Vernon was in his twentieth year when he came with his parents to Indiana in 1836. On October 15, 1840, he married Hannah Rogers, who died leaving four children-Elizabeth R., Abner, Mary and Sarah Ann ; and on January 18, 1855, Mr. Vernon married Ruthanna Davis, by whom he had nine children. Shortly after his first marriage Mr. Ver- non became the owner of the farm entered by John Rogers, the first white settler in Madison county. The' old cabin built by Rogers was weatherboarded and used as a workshop for many years by Mr. Vernon. When he came to Madison county there were no gravel roads and but few highways of any kind. During the three-quarters of a century he lived in the county he saw the swamp lands reclaimed by drainage, a splendid system of highways developed, a good public school system built up, the advent of the railroad, the telegraph and the telephone, the introduction of the rural free mail delivery and the electric railroad. He saw the old reaping hook and the cradle give way to the twine binder, the tallow candle to the electric light, and the lumbering ox-wagon to the automobile. Edward P. Vernon was a pioneer. Born and brought up as a Friend or Quaker, all his life he adhered to the tenets of that faith. In 1911 there was a reunion of the Vernon family at his place in Fall Creek township. At that time he was the oldest living repre- sentative of his family and his death occurred a few months later.
In the little town of Chesterfield lives another old-timer in the per- son of Henry Bronnenberg, a son of one of the first settlers of Union township. Although past ninety years of age, Mr. Bronnenberg thinks nothing of making the long trip to Florida every fall and returning to his home at Chesterfield in the spring. In his younger days he was a great lover of horses and has owned some of the fastest running horses ever brought to Madison county. Like Mr. Vernon, he has seen Madison county expand from a wilderness to a community possessing all the comforts and luxuries of modern civilization.
Levi Brewer, for many years a resident of Lafayette township, was a native of Madison county, where he was born on January 6, 1825, when the county was but two years old. In 1846 he enlisted as a private in Captain Wallace's company for service in the war with Mexico and was in the battle of Chapultepec and the capture of the City of Mexico. He was also in the Civil war as a member of Company H, Ninety-ninth Indiana Infantry, and was therefore a veteran of two wars. Levi Brewer was a fine specimen of the hardy, unlettered frontiersman ; brought up in the wilderness, amid wild beasts and without an opportu- nity to acquire an education, it is not surprising that he was compara- tively illiterate. Yet he never hesitated to "speak his sentiments," no matter if he did display his ignorance. He knew the word minister as a synonym for clergyman, but was not aware that it had any other significance. When he heard that President Andrew Johnson had appointed Colonel T. N. Stilwell as minister to Venezuela he remarked that "South America must be devilish hard up for preachin'."
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LEVI BREWER
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On one occasion Levi attended camp meeting at the Holston camp grounds, in Richland township. A preacher named McKeg was "Shak- ing his brimstone wallet over the heads of his congregation," as Eggles- ton expresses it. Picturing an imaginary sinner, steeped in vice and crime, the preacher started in to consign him to everlasting punishment. Brewer came in soon after the beginning of the sermon, and being unable to find a seat, stood with his arms folded listening to the excoriation by the minister. When Brother MeKeg had finished and sat down, Levi, forgetting his surroundings, drew a long breath and exclaimed to nobody in particular : "Well, I-God, I guess they'll hang him." While some of the good church members were monentarily shocked at this expres- sion, most of them knew Brewer and joined in the laugh that followed.
Levi Brewer stood over six feet in his shoes and was in his younger days a man of almost herculean strength. He never seemed to care for the accumulation of wealth, but always managed to secure enough to eat and wear. After the government granted him a pension of eight dollars a month for his services in the Mexican war, he had at least four "good times" a year, for among other frailties he liked a toddy and every quarter-day, upon receiving his pension, he would remain in Anderson until his money was about all gone, when he would go back to work. Yet he never knowingly wronged a human being, unless it was himself. He died a few years ago, poor but respected by many who had known him for many years as cne of Madison county's eccentric characters.
Among those who have left their impress upon the history of the county, perhaps the names of Milton S. Robinson, Thomas N. Stilwell, Charles T. Doxey, William R. Myers, Charles L. Henry and Winfield T. Durbin stand out with greatest prominence.
Milton S. Robinson was born at Versailles, Ripley county, Indiana, April 20, 1832. He received a common-school education, after which he read law in the office of his father, and was admitted to the bar before he had reached his twenty-first birthday. In November, 1851, he located at Anderson, where he built up a good practice. In 1856 he was one of the presidential electors on the Republican ticket and made a thorough canvass of the Eleventh district. In 1861 the legislature elected him one of the directors of the penitentiary at Michigan City, but this position he resigned in September, 1861, to enter the army as lieutenant-colonel of the Forty-seventh Indiana Infantry. When the Seventy-fifth Regiment was organized he was made colonel and in March, 1865, was made brevet brigadier-general. In 1866 he was elected state senator for the counties of Madison and Grant; was elected to Congress in 1874 and again in 1876, and was recognized as one of the foremost members of the Madison county bar.
Charles T. Doxey was born in Tippecanoe county, Indiana, July 13, 1841. A few years later his father died and when fourteen years old the boy persuaded his mother to go to Minnesota. There he worked on a farm for about a year, giving most of his earnings to his mother, and later went to Fairbury, Illinois, where he worked for his board while attending school. In 1861 he was employed in a warehouse in Anderson and in July of that year entered the volunteer service as first
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sergeant of Company A, Nineteenth Indiana Infantry. Later he was made second lieutenant, but resigned and became captain of Company K, Sixteenth Indiana Infantry. At the close of the war he had saved about $3,000, with which he embarked in the manufacture of staves and heading. In 1876 he was elected to the state senate. He built the opera house in Meridian street, Anderson, and after it was destroyed by fire rebuilt it, and he was one of the directors of the first natural gas com- pany at Anderson. In many other ways Major Doxey was intimately associated with the industrial and financial affairs of his adopted city. He died on April 30, 1898.
Thomas N. Stilwell was for many years a prominent figure in Anderson. At the time of the Civil war he was active in raising and qnipping troops, especially the Thirty-fourth and the One Hundred and Thirtieth Indiana Infantry Regiments, and a camp at Anderson was named in his honor. In June, 1864, the officers of the One Hundred and Thirtieth and One Hundred and Thirty-first regiments, while in camp at Kokomo, Indiana, presented Colonel Stilwell with a fine gold watch as a token of their appreciation of what he had done for the soldiers. In 1856 Mr. Stilwell was elected to the lower house of the legislature and in 1864 was elected to Congress. Before the expiration of his term in Congress he was appointed minister to Venezuela by President Johnson. Colonel Stilwell built the well known hotel, now the Doxey House, on the corner of Main and Ninth streets, in Anderson, and he was one of the chief promoters of the Anderson, Lebanon & St. Louis Railroad, now the Central Indiana.
William R. Myers, familiarly known to the people of Madison county as "Cap." Myers, was born in Clinton county, Ohio, June 12, 1836, of Huguenot ancestry. In 1848 his parents settled in Madison county, where he received a common school education. In 1856 he started for California, but owing to the filibustering expedition of Gen- eral Walker passengers from the states were not permitted to cross the Isthmus of Panama. Young Myers then went to Newton, Iowa, where he clerked in the postoffice for a while, and then returned to his home in Madison county. In 1858 he was elected county surveyor, which marked the beginning of his political career. He enlisted as a private in the Forty-seventh Indiana Infantry and by successive promotions came to be captain of his company. After the war he studied law and in 1870 was admitted to the bar. In 1878 he was elected to Congress as a Demo- crat. In 1882 and 1884 he was elected to the office of secretary of state of Indiana, and in 1892 was again elected to this office, having been the only man in the history of the state to serve three terms in this important position. Captain Myers was a prominent Odd Fellow, and as a campaign orator was considered one of the best vote-getters in the state. His death occurred on April 18, 1907.
Winfield T. Durbin, capitalist and ex-governor, was born at Law- renceburg. Indiana, May 4, 1847. He served as a private in the Union army during the closing years of the Civil war, then taught school for a few terms, and in 1869 wont to Indianapolis to become a traveling salesman for a wholesale dry-goods house. In 1875 he married Bertha
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Mccullough, of Anderson, and in 1879 he became a resident of that city, where he engaged in the banking business. He was one of the mem- bers of the first natural gas company of Anderson and at the begin- ning of the Spanish-American war was commissioned colonel of the One Hundred and Sixty-first Indiana Regiment. In 1900 he was elected governor of Indiana and served the full term of four years. He was again the Republican candidate for governor in 1912, when the entire Democratic ticket was elected. Colonel Durbin is now practically retired from active business affairs, though he still holds an interest in several large manufacturing concerns.
Charles L. Henry was born in Hancock county, Indiana, July 1, 1849, a son of George and Leah (Lewis) Henry, the former a native of Ireland and the latter of Virginia. In 1852 the family removed to Pen- dleton, where Charles attended school until he was fifteen years old, when he entered Asbury (now DePauw) University, at Greencastle, Indiana, but did not complete the course. In 1870 he began the study of law with Harvey Craven, of Pendleton, and in 1872 was graduated in the law department of the Indiana State University. He immediately formed a partnership with, his old preceptor, which was dissolved by the election of the senior member of the firm to the circuit bench in October, 1873. Mr. Henry was then in partnership with Joseph T. Smith until the latter removed to Kansas in 1877, when the law firm of Henry & Diven was organized. He was elected state senator in 1880 for the counties of Grant and Madison. In 1894 and again in 1896 he was elected to Congress. He was one of the incorporators of the Indiana Union Traction Company in September, 1897, and in recent years has given most of his attention to his railway interests and other invest- ments.
John Q. Van Winkle, one of the best known railroad men in the Middle West, is a Madison county boy. He was born on January 16, 1851, and during his boyhood attended the Anderson public schools. At the age of ten years he began his railroad career as an employee of the old Indianapolis, Pittsburg & Cleveland Railroad Company, with which he held various positions. In 1888 he became superintendent of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railroad, which position he held until 1892. He was then for about a year the superin- tendent of the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, and from 1893 to 1906 was general superintendent of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railroad. Since 1906 he has held the position of general manager of the same railway system, commonly called the Big Four.
Two young men, who afterward became famous, one as a poet and the other as a painter, were residents of Anderson for a time in the lat- ter '70s. One was James Whitcomb Riley and the other was Samuel Richards.
James Whitcomb Riley was born in Greenfield, Indiana, in 1853. His father was a lawyer who journeyed from one court to another and on these trips was frequently accompanied by his son. In this way the boy acquired a taste for roving and as a sign painter he went from
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town to town. Next he joined a theatrical troupe and played in the smaller cities of the country for a spell. In the summer of 1877 he became a reporter on the Anderson Democrat and each week contrib- uted a poem to its columns. At that time Samuel Richards was running a photograph gallery in Anderson and illustrated Riley's poems with engravings carved upon blocks of wood with an ordinary pocket knife. These poems and illustrations were afterward collected and produced in book form by Dory Biddle, under the title of "Riley's First Poems." When the "Made in Anderson" exhibit was held in that city in June, 1913, Mr. Riley was a guest of honor and was given a rousing reception by many of his old friends who remembered his work as a reporter thirty-six years before.
Samuel Richards was born at Spencer, Indiana, April 22, 1853, and was educated in the academy of his native town. He began his busi- ness career as clerk in a general store, but, having a liking for art, soon abandoned that calling to study under Theodore Lietz, of Indianapolis, under whose instruction he became a fairly good portrait painter. He next went to Franklin, Indiana, where he married Louise Parks, daugh- ter of a Baptist minister, and while there formed the acquaintance of Mr. Riley, the Hoosier poet. In 1877 he went to Anderson and opened a photograph gallery, but it is said he paid more attention to the brush than to the camera. In 1880 he went to Europe and spent seven years in the art schools of Munich. The story of Evangeline, by Longfellow, possessed a peculiar attraction for the artist, and in 1887 he began work on the painting of "Evangeline," upon which he worked for the greater part of two years, when his health failed. He completed the picture, however, and it was exhibited in various American and Euro- pean cities. In 1891 the painting was bought by Bela Hubbard for $6,000 and presented to the Detroit Art Museum. Mr. Richards then went to Denver, in the hope of recovering his health, and died there on November 30, 1893. His widow now resides in Anderson.
It may not be generally known that Madison county contributed a number of soldiers to what was known as the "Fenian Raid," in 1866, but such is the case. Several men from Anderson and the immediate vicinity, most of whom had served in the Civil war and acquired a taste for adventure, enlisted in the Fenian cause and participated in the raid into Canada. They were captured soon after crossing the line and were held as prisoners until President Johnson interfered in their behalf. He issued a proclamation against holding American citizens and the men were brought across to Buffalo, New York, where they were released. They returned to their homes somewhat crestfallen at the failure of their expedition. Jeremiah O'Sullivan is the only Ander- son survivor of that famous "army" and may yet be seen daily upon the streets of that city.
In the spring of 1899 George Osborne, agent for the United States Express Company at Elwood, was arrested for the robbery of the office safe, some $700 having been taken, and the company officials declared that Osborne was the only man who could have done the work. He was indicted by the grand jury and thrown into jail, but was afterward
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admitted to bail pending his trial. About this time Joseph Hollis and William Murphy were arrested in Henry county for robbing a store at Middletown on the night of April 4, 1899, and after their conviction confessed to the robbery of the express office at Elwood. Murphy even offered to go to Anderson to testify in Osborne's behalf, provided he was guaranteed immunity from arrest. Most people who knew Osborne were confident of his innocence and were rejoiced at the turn of affairs that showed their judgment of his character was correct.
In September, 1899, Barney Maynard and others, while working in a gravel pit on the farm of Jacob Maynard, a short distance east of the Wesley Chapel, in Richland township, unearthed a human skeleton. Old settlers recalled the fact that some forty years before that time a peddler named Smith had mysteriously disappeared in that neighbor- hood. It was Smith's custom to ship his goods to the nearest point on the railroad and then hire some farmer to haul him around to the homes of the settlers. It was also recalled that a family living near the gravel pit left the country soon after the peddler's disappearance. Naturally the theory was formed that some of the members of this family had murdered Smith for his money and buried the body in the gravel bank, where bones were found forty years afterward.
An incident in Madison county history that deserves more than passing mention was the reception given by the people of Anderson to Company L, One Hundred and Sixtieth Indiana Infantry, at the close of the Spanish-American war. When it was learned that the company would soon be discharged from service, a meeting was called at the court-house on the evening of April 5, 1899, by Mayor Dunlap, to make arrangements for welcoming the "boys" home. Charles L. Henry, Mayor Dunlap, James Wellington and George Lilly were appointed a finance committee to solicit funds and arrangements were made for decorating the buildings. At the meeting it was learned that Major May Post, Grand Army of the Republic, was taking steps to give the company a reception, and the members of the post and the citizens worked together. At a subsequent meeting the following chairmen of committees were appointed: Arrangements, Dale J. Crittenberger ; reception, M. M. Dunlap; decoration, Alexander P. McKee; music, Mrs. Lee Newsom; banquet, George E. Springer; invitation, B. B. Campbell. The ladies who took an active part in the preparation of the reception were Mesdames Louis Loeb, J. L. Forkner, Lafe J. Burr, Lee Newsom, H. E. Jones, Volney Hunt, John B. Collins, M. A. Chipman, Henry Bolinger, L. M. Schwinn, H. J. Stein, and Misses Myrtle Ellis and Jennie Ross.
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