USA > Indiana > Vigo County > History of Vigo county, Indiana, with biographical selections > Part 40
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Salmon Wright was a hatter by trade, and worked for Mr. Mc-
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Cabe, but being of a studious turn took to the law, which he prac- tised successfully for many years. I never heard him make but one speech in court, and that was in a murder trial at Marshall, Ill. I took dinner with him that day and we rode home in the night through the almost unbroken forest.
Robert S. McCabe was a hatter and carried on the business on First street. He was a short thick-set man, "Jack-of-clubs" built, or as a sailor would describe him, a "regular-stump-top-gallant-mast." He was a driving sort of a man, with many irons in the fire, and had a store, but it was seldom open. His wife was small, but very good and kind-hearted and her name was Patty.
Of William C. Linton I can remember very little in the long ago. I know that he kept store on the east side of the public square. He was a small, spare yellow complexioned man. He would walk back and forth behind his counter, when not busy, very rapidly with his arms swinging or gesticulating as if in fierce debate with some un- seen person. He was a very nervous man, but not without courage. I saw him exhibit this quality once in a very remarkable manner. He held a paper in his hand which he proposed to read to the people on election day, 1828. Jehu Gosnell, a burly ruffian, stood near him, with his clenched fist, and told him if he dared to read a word he would knock him down, but Mr. Linton read the paper and Gosnell did nothing but threaten. I do not remember what it was about. All that I remember is that Mr. L. read this: "Jehu Gos- nell says that he will swear upon a stack of Bibles"-and here Gos- nell interrupted him with," A lie, read right or I'll knock you down," at the same time drawing back his fist to strike. Mr. Linton merely said to him, " We have a jail for such fellows as you." "What did you say ?" "A stack of Bibles as high as this court-house," was the reply. No man ever did more for Terre Haute than William C. Linton in his day.
John H. Cruft, for many years a merchant in Terre Haute, looms up as conspicuously as any of the "old settlers." At my earliest remembrance, I think his store was at the northeast corner of Water and Ohio streets. Subsequently his store and residence was on the north side of the public square. I do not think there were any of the first settlers who possessed a more varied fund of information than Mr. Cruft. In conversation with him at two dif- ferent periods (1853 and 1861) I was much surprised by the extent and accuracy of his knowledge in regard to the branch of nautical life I had chosen as my profession, and his correct ideas relative to the many out-of-the-way parts of the world I had, from time to time, visited in the course of my voyages; the manners and customs of the different peoples; the different kinds of government, laws, etc,; their geographical positions, productions, exports, imports and the
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like. He seemed to me like a man who had traveled the world over. The last time I saw him was in 1861. On a warm, clear September day we took a stroll along the river bank and through the town, establishing the old land-marks and talking over olden times. Mr. Cruft was always kind to me and gave me great encouragement and aid when I was a boy.
I remember nothing of the Colletts ( Josephus and Stephen S. ), except they had a store on the north side of the public square, and that Samuel Groenendyke was their clerk. I know he was a very kind-hearted young man.
William Marrs was a blacksmith, and there is no person I remember so far back in the past as I do him, and no house further, in the long gone-by, than his shop. When I was a little fellow, very little, for I wore petticoats, "Uncle Billy," as he was called, found me anchored in a snow-drift, opposite his shop, which stood on the corner of First and Poplar streets. He took me into his shop to warm me up, although he did not know whose boy I was, for he was a new comer. I remember nothing about his taking me out of the snow and carrying me into his house, but I do remember sitting on the forge, while he, with one hand stirred the fire with a poker, and worked the bellows with the other, the ruddy flame, the while, lighting up his swarthy features and the unsteady light causing his shadow to perform strange antics on the wall. "Uncle Billy" was a queer stick, very fond of telling stories, especially about his having seen Washington in Philadelphia. He said he never saw a picture of Washington but that looked like him. " Uncle Billy" was the butcher of the town, at least he had the cattle killed and sold the beef. John Eveline, a Dutchman, was the professional butcher.
Demas Deming was the best friend I had in all the young part of my life, and I always think of him with a sense of the deepest gratitude. He was willing to do almost anything for me, and time and again he offered me assistance in whatever I might undertake. He did many acts of kindness for me, and would have done more had I permitted, but my mind yearned to see the world, and my desires have, in part, been gratified, without being a burden to my friends. I have traveled far and wide, and have made many warm, true friends, in different parts of the globe, but none whom I value so highly as I did Judge Deming. If I had met only him as a friend, in all my wayward wanderings, I should still think this world worth living in.
To mention all the old settlers would take too much room. There are a number more who have as strong claims on my memory as many of those whom I have mentioned. There are not many towns in the great North west that can boast of having had so large a
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number of respectable citizens in their early existence as Terre Haute. Besides those I have mentioned, there were others who have left their imprint upon the place. Chauncey Rose, the Messrs. Warren, Early, Curtis, Elisha M. Huntingdon, Nat Huntingdon ( who died when a young man ), Elijah Tillotson, Lester Tillotson, James B. McCall, Gen, John Scott, Israel Harris, Samuel McQuilkin, the Messrs. Eversol, Joseph Bradt, Enoch Dole, the Messrs. Redford, James Riddle, Sr., Thomas Houghton, the Messrs. Ross, the Messrs. Collett and Barnetts, Dr. Shuler, Dr. Clark, Dr. Ball, Dr. Septer Pat- rick, the Messrs. Markle, B. M. Harrison, Matthew Stewart, Theodore C. Cone, Ralph Wilson, Daniel H. Johnson and others were among the earliest settlers, or at least came during the first decade. This is a goodly array of goodly names for a town of only 200 inhabitants, which was fully as many people as there were there in 1826. In the country around many of the farmers were equally respectable: Mr. Coleman, Gen. Peter Allen, Capt. John Hamilton, Messrs Aspinwall, Bennett, Dickson, Elisha U. Brown, the Rectors, the Brocks and many more. Certainly here was salt enough to preserve the good name the place always bore.
The first two families I remember settling in Terre Haute were those of Judge Elijah Tillotson and Mr. Gosnell, but which came first I can not say. Mr. Tillotson occupied a little shop on the west side of First street, between Poplar and Ohio streets, which had a bow window, in which he hung his watches. The Gosnells, for a short time, lived in the old store on the southeast corner of Water and Poplar streets. In 1826 and 1827 a great many new families came in, but I can not shake off the idea that they can not be classed among the early settlers.
Although Terre Haute had such a large portion of respectability, it was often disturbed by street fighting. On election days and muster days, whisky was drunk freely, and then came the fighting. Election day seemed to me to be set apart for some of the older Haynes boys and the Hiners to bring up their old fued and fight over it. When they inaugurated the fighting it was a signal for half a dozen other battles, in which striking, kicking, biting, or anything was legitimate warfare. Everybody was urging on the strife and none were peacemakers. I do not think any fighting would have been allowed on election day, unless it was either in the interest of the Hayneses or Hiners, I do not know how many years this fued lasted, but this I do know, if they fought it out on that line it took more than one summer.
On muster day the fighting was miscellaneous and desultory, and not so bitter, but more like fighting for the sake of making friends again, and drinking whisky over the make-up. Most of these fights would occur near the drummer, Davis, who would be rattling away at his drum, regard-
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less of the disturbance around him. This Davis was a very short- legged, long-bodied, red-faced, big-nosed little man, if you can imagine such a being. He had a loud voice, awfully profane, and while beating the drum he would throw one of his sticks in the air, toss off a glass of whisky, catch the stick in its descent and never lose a note, so some of the boys'said. Davis was in the war of 1812, and came very near being killed several times.
The first fire I remember of seeing in Terre Haute was the store of Stephen P. Cammack on the northwest corner of First and Wal- nut streets. The house belonged to Thomas Parsons, "own free- man," as he loved to style himself, a carpenter and afterward a physician. Yet I can remember something of a fire on Cherry street, between Third and Fourth, a cooper shop owned by Mont- gomery & Francis. I merely remember that the shop was burned, I did not see the fire; this must have been prior to the burning of Cammack's store. The first person I remember being sent to the State prison, from Terre Haute, was a young man by the name of Felix Cunningham. He was lame in one knee and awfully profane. He was sent for two years and never returned again. This was in 1828. Stealing money was his crime. I have now used all my paper, and more than that, perhaps, of the patience of your readers. If I have in any way pleased them, or recalled to their minds any incidents of the long past, I am amply repaid. My forte is not writing, I am better with a marlin-spike, splicing the rope; I am bet- ter acquainted with Bowditch's Epitome of Navigation than any grammar, and have more logarithms in my head than words.
Old Document .- Time is a great factor in adding value to docu- ments, or to what, at the time of the occurrence, were looked upon ' as trivial things. It is the links of the long past to the present that makes really insignificant things interesting, and, often, very important. The cracked and yellowed scrap of paper on which is written or printed anything of the long past is valuable. The liv- ing never realize that there can ever be any importance attached to anything concerning themselves. They can feel this strong im- pulse toward the old, but it is only what is old to them, and, seldom, reflect that the now will some day be the old and silent past to others. We see men come and go. In their brief time they con- tribute their share in the busy, noisy world, and then silently drop out, and the noise goes on unabated. The individual life to the great whole seems so utterly insignificant that it is nearly impossi- ble to connect any idea of now and the long dumb future which will come to the ever living.
A gentleman handed me an old soiled paper that he had picked up, and, noticing its appearance, put it in his pocket. It is dated Terre Haute, July 31, 1824. It was a circular address printed and
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published by Samuel Eversol, and is addressed to: " Fellow citi- zens .- The voters of Vigo county." Reading the document, we find that Eversol had got into a dispute with Thomas H. Clarke, sheriff, about a bill of costs the latter had charged as an officer on an execu- tion. In the publication Mr. James Farrington is mentioned as having been called upon to settle some legal points in the controversy, and Eversol also mentions " the Tools with which I earn my subsist- ence," etc. (With his brother, they had a cooper shop.) There seems to have been only a matter of $9.15 between the parties, and yet Eversol felt that he was justified in paying the printer to inform the world of his wrongs.
It is a peep at what and how neighbors were having their little troubles here sixty-six years ago. This is all the value there is to it. Evidently Samuel Eversol little dreamed, when he wrote and published in hot indignation that, in long future years, the histo- rian was to be born who would read his circular and make a note of it.
Nathaniel J. Cunningham died in this city at the Terre Haute House, Thursday, July 7, 1881, aged seventy-one years. He was born in Warren County, Ohio, in the town of Waynesville, Decem- ber 7, in the year 1810. In 1820 he moved with his father to this city from Vincennes, having lived in the latter city but a short time before he moved here. Mr. Cunningham received his early education in this city, where afterward he became one of its most prominent citizens. In the year 1834 he moved to Lafayette, Ind., and married Eliza Brown. Afterward he moved back to this city. In the meantime he had become one of the prominent democratic politicians, not only of this county, but of the western part of Indiana. In 1840 he was nominated and elected by the democratic party to the office of county treasurer for a term of four years. At the closing of his term of office he was re-elected to the same office for four years more. At the close of his second term he was renominated by his party for the same office, but was defeated after a very close contest by Henry Fairbanks, formerly mayor of this city. At the close of Mr. Fairbank's term of office, Mr. Cun- ningham was re-elected to that office and served another term of four years. At the close of his last term as county treasurer he engaged in the stock business and was quite successful, and accu- mulated a fortune. In the year 1857 he was elected to the office of treasurer of the State of Indiana and filled the office with great honor to himself and the party that elected him. In 1859 he was re-elected on the democratic ticket, and served two more years as treasurer of State, after which he retired from active political work and resumed his private business. About seven years before death Mr. Cunningham received a paralytic stroke in his right side and
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continued an invalid the remainder of life. Mr. Cunningham left a family of nine persons, most of whom were grown men and women. They are all known to the citizens of this city, being Charles Cunningham, Frank Cunningham, Mary Cunningham, Nathaniel Cunningham, Welton Cunningham, Mrs. Sarah Ringer, Mrs. Capt. Carliss, James Cunningham and Ella Cunningham. He left also his two sisters, Mrs. Margaret, of this city, and Mrs. Dr. Schuler, of Indianapolis. He has besides these, five other re- lations in the city, among whom are Mrs. Frank Crawford, Mrs. W. R. McKeen and Crawford Scott. Mr. Cunningham had always been one of Terre Haute's most prominent citizens from its earliest history, and has always been known everywhere as an honest and fair man. In politics he was a man of firm convictions, and was known throughout the entire State as such. As a politician he belonged to the Jacksonian school, and was always true to its prin- ciples. And whatever may be said of him, it can be truly said that a more honest man never lived in our city.
James Piety came to the county in 1818, and settled in Praire- ton township. He was one of the prominent men of the county and a leading and successful farmer. He died on his farm about 1887. Two of his grandsons, James E. Piety (prosecuting attor- ney) and John O. Piety (brothers), are attorneys in Terre Haute.
CHAPTER XXV.
POLITICAL.
TNDIANA politics have always been of first quality. It started in life with two actual (afterward) Presidents, and both of the same party and both might it seems date their great political careers as commencing in Vigo county. This of itself is a remark- able incident, and has been always one of the strong appeals to the home pride of Indianians that has decided many of our State and National elections. Prior to 1840 it is very difficult to arrive at any definite idea of the party divisions in Vigo county. It is indeed doubtful if there were, strictly speaking, any such thing as national politics here prior to that time. There were parties, as earnest and sometimes fierce as anything of modern times, but it was simply divisions on certain men, Jackson and Clay, with such national questions as banks, etc., were all there was then. Men
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talked about the "removal of the deposits," "the veto of the bank," etc., but with most men all this simply ment Clay and Jackson.
These two remarkable men in the course of nature passed away, and practically with the death of Clay came the end of the whig party as an active, living organization. In old times names and men were the true substances in parties and party strifes. In history, Harrison is classed as a whig, yet up to the time of his election in 1840, he claimed to be a pro-slavery democrat. He denounced, and so did his friends, all attempts to fix upon him the character of a free-soiler. And as the first territorial governor of Indiana he boasted that he was in favor of making it slave territory. Nearly all western Indiana territory was settled by Kentuckians and Virginians, and they mostly favored making this slave territory. They believed if declared for slavery, it would soon be settled up with others from the southern States who would not come unless they could bring their slaves in the same security as in Virginia or Kentucky. At that time there were many and plausible reasons for their favoring this course. Probably the original "free-soiler" here (not an avowed abolitionist) was the Canadian, J. W. Osborn.
From the ruins of the old whig party arose the "know-noth- ing " and the Republican parties, the former chiefly in the south and the latter in the north. The American (K .- N.) party swept over the country like a quick-coming tornado, and had spent its force just before the presidential election of 1856, and this practically ended it. The division of parties in this latitude down to 1856 was between the whigs and democrats, then the American party and Democrats, and the Republicans and Democrats came really to be the two parties, only in 1860, when voters well knew they were voting on the question of civil war.
In April, 1824, the grand jury of the county nominated a candi- date for the legislature and a candidate for congress. They explained that certain "prominent men were called in to consult." This was innocent politics surely compared to our present system of secret caucus and conventions and instructions to "vote as a unit," etc. But the Register of that day deprecated such action " because it might lead to practices injurious to the interests and liberties of the people." It was "usurpation " on the part of the jury.
In 1843 the tickets of Col. R. W. Thompson, candidate for congress in the Bedford district bore the heading "Democratic Ticket."
When the war came in April, 1861, then all political questions were for the time forgotten in those troublous days. The war over, the political parties were confronted with such great questions as reconstruction, negro suffrage, etc., and rapid exchanges of places in
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the ranks of the two parties began. Many who had been intense pro- slavery democrats went over to the republicans, and some who had been original abolitionists to the democrats. When Greeley could become a democratic candidate for President, there was no fixed political law that would have prevented such rebel generals as Mosby or Longstreet from being full-fledged candidates on the op- position ticket. In Illinois, and this was no exception, Trumbull, one of the fathers of the republican party, simply swapped places with John A. Logan, the author of the Illinois "Black Laws." Virginia sent two republican rebel brigadiers to the United States, while Ohio, if Vallandingham had lived, would no doubt have sent that once " banished-to-the-South " man to meet these "recon- structed " Virginians with a friendly hand-shake across the bloody chasm, and attack them politically as fiercely as he ever did Garrison.
When these temporary questions began to die away, their places happily were taken by real questions of government policy, and on these new lines parties have been ranging themselves the past twenty years. The leading literary monthly periodicals of the country are now publishing many political articles, some of them on all sides of the questions of the day from the pens of the leading statesman of this country and Europe. Here is a wonderful public free school now open to the eager voter.
During the war and immediately thereafter the republican party held undisputed sway in this city. In 1865 the last of the civil war, the candidates for mayor were Albert Lange, republican, or as it was then called on the printed ticket, " union," and Col. Cookerly democrat. These were representatives of something of the political coloring of the city politics in the May election of that year and the division of parties, because these two men were the leaders of their respective parties. At the election the vote stood 900 for Lange, and Cookerly 501. The Third ward was the only one that was dem- ocratic. There were five wards in the city. The democratic First ward contained all that part of the city between Ohio and Mulberry streets from the river to the eastern limits of the city.
Col. Cookerly was the " unterrified " however, and was again a candidate at the next election, 1867, for mayor. The papers then were the Express and Journal, and each was striking blows straight from the shoulder. The late Gen. Charles Cruft was proprietor of the Express, and Perry Westfall was one of the paper's staff. The office was at 65 Main street, east of the St. Clair House. The Journal office was on the second floor in the same block but nearer the cor- ner of Third. Dr. Ezra Reed was then serving as postmaster under Johnson, and James B. Edmund's facile and vigorous pen made the music for the Journal. The township trustee was George W. Naylor.
The result of the mayor's election in 1867 was a veritable sur-
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prise all around. The Express told on the eve of election about the certainty of Maj. D. A. Conover's election on the republican ticket, and placed his majority at 300 at the lowest. The count, however, elected Cookerly by 252 majority-the vote was Cookerly 1,279, Conover 1,027. But it was not a Waterloo for the whole republican ticket. Carl A. Goodwin the union nominee for treas- urer beat Sparks (D.) 444 votes; Warren Harper (union) beat Grover (D.) for city clerk 421 votes; Capt. John A. Bryan (union), for assessor, beat Daily 296 votes. The democrats elected Gotleib Reiss city marshal over Allen Alloway by 42 votes. For councilmen the union party elected W. R. McKeen, First ward; A. L. Chamberlain, in the Second ward, over George McHenry, and Noyes Andrews, in the Fifth, over J. E. Wilkinson. The demo- crats secured two councilmen, Louis Seeburger, who beat A. H. Luken 192 votes in the Third in a total of 513, and Tom Dowling beat C. E. Hosford in the Fourth by 151 in a total of 479; the council then stood seven republicans and three democrats, the members being D. W. Minshall, W. R. McKeen, L. A. Burnett, A. L. Chamberlin, V: A. Sparks, L. Seeburger, S. K. Allen, Thomas Dowling, Thomas E. Laws and Noyes Andrews.
Police Board, Its Origin .- At the May meeting, 1867, of the city council, Mr. Minshall introduced an ordinance with an emerg- ency clause, creating a board of police of three members and the mayor, and providing for the election by the board of a chief of police. This board was abolished by the substitution of the police commissioners in January, 1885. The first police board was com- posed of Councilmen Allen, Andrews, Minshall and Mayor Cookerly. The council elected William Barrock street commissioner, John D. Bell, fire-chief (he was re-elected), and L. F. Muzzy, city attorney. The police board appointed Allen Alloway, who was beaten for city marshal, chief of police, the first in the city's history.
Capt. Alloway died soon after going out of office. The police force at that time was three night and two day policemen, and the marshal guarded the property and persons of the citizens. The chief of the police had charge of the night men, who were A. J. Rob- inson, Thomas Stewart and William Van Brunt; the day men were James O'Mara and Joseph Rowland. June 4 of that year the council allowed the city marshal a deputy, the increasing business of his office being the cause.
It was under Mayor Cookerly's administration that the corner- stone of the Normal Institute was laid. Speeches were made on that occasion by Gov. Conrad Baker and Senator Morton. Sewell Coulson was prosecuting attorney in the circuit court and James T. Johnson was county attorney in the common pleas court.
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