USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > Evansville > History of the city of Evansville and Vanderburg County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 15
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Away back in the early days of Evansville near the old canal stood a modest little blacksmith's shop. The blacksmith was a veteran of the Revolutionary war, a tall grizzled old man, but who, when occasion re- quired, could make a snare drum almost talk, for he had been a drummer in Washington's army. This was Mr. James Urie, often spoken of as Father Urie. As a child I can remember that no parade of any kind was considered perfect unless Father Urie was the drummer. Those who are used to the snare drum of the present day, a very shallow brass cylinder, the heads of which are quickly tightened by turning a few thumb screws, can hardly imagine the old snare drum such as I played when drummer for the Evansville Rifles and such as Father Urie used. It was made of oak and was about six times as large as the snare drum now used. The cords
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were all hemp rope on which were placed what was called the "ears" which were pieces of leather to be pushed down on the cords to tighten the heads. This leather, as soon as it dried, would slip up, so that very often a drum- mer would have to moisten his drum cords with saliva and then push down the ears hoping that they would stick until he had a chance during a lull in the music to tighten them up again. Even in the early days of the war this drum was used but it soon gave way to the brass or copper drum of the present day. Special note is made of this, because there are so many of the very oldest citizens who can remember Uncle Jim Urie and how he could make that old drum talk. He was the pioneer of the plow industry in Southern Indiana. His first shop was on the road between Boonville and Newburgh where he did general blacksmithing and wagon repairing but he was in Evansville very often and always at any meeting of any con- sequence. But in 1860 he moved his family to this city and brought witlı him his three sons, John, Charles and James. They opened a small shop at the corner of 8th and Division streets and remained there until he changed to the modest shop on Main street. Mr. Urie was a natural mechanic and could turn out such good plows that they soon made a reputation wherever they were used. He found that he had more than he could do. In 1865 he invented a great improvement on the plow that he had been making and had it patented and in 1866 he established a plow factory at the corner of 5th and Vine streets, taking in as a partner, Lewis Ruffner, who was in the commission business on Water street. Mr. Urie and his sons made the plows, while Ruffner sold them, but for some reason the business failed. A few years later Mr. Urie secured shop room with Roelker, Blount & Co.'s factory and they furnished the capital and took up the making of plows. In 1870 when the firm dissolved, Mr. Henry F. Blount took the old Urie plow department as part of his share and built the Blount Plow Works with O. F. Jacobi as his business manager. Two of Urie's sons stayed with Mr. Roelker and continued to make plows until that firm failed about 1893. In the meantime the old gentleman invented still another plow and he was taken into partnership by Mr. Blount and the work still went on at Main street, between 5th and 6th. In 1874 Mr. Blount bought Urie's patent and the latter left the company and Mr. Blount then erected the present plant of the Blount Plow Works, one of the most successful and best-conducted establishments in the city of Evansville. Mr. Urie afterwards patented still another plow and secured shop room with the Heilman Machine Co., at the time when the cotton mill was removed from there to its present site. Mr. Urie manufactured plows on a small scale but lacked capital which was advanced to him by the late William Heilman, who was always ready to help any hard-working man.
The Vulcan Chilled plow which now has such a reputation, is the out- growth of this last invention of Mr. Urie's. It is a pity that this good old man who did so much in the way of making the plows of Evansville known in every section of the country, should have spent the last of his life away
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from home, but he went to Kansas where he died, five years after leaving here.
The number of plows turned out here each year by the different works in Evansville would be almost beyond belief and each one is an advertise- ment in itself. For years the only rivals of Evansville have been Rock Island, Davenport, Moline and South Bend. But Evansville beats them all so much in point of location, that it will be but a short time until she takes her trade away from them. It is said among farmers and it is believed by all manufacturers, that the old wooden handle will soon be a thing of the past and it is thought its place will be taken by light steel. A light steel handle is equally as strong and can soon be made at a cost very little more than wood. Here again is where Evansville will excel her competitors. She can buy steel and have it shipped here much cheaper than any of them. She can also get her plows to the market more cheaply than any of them. To make good plows the very best of steel must naturally be used. Here again is where that greatest of all blessings, the Ohio river, comes in. The best steel known in this country is made in Pittsburg and with the nine or ten-foot stretch of water between Pittsburg and Evansville, all the products of the former city can be landed at our doors at a rate so much cheaper than any railroad transportation that there is hardly any comparison be- tween them.
Going still further, we can get a rate to Evansville on steel shipments from the Lake Superior district, exactly the same as the rate to South Bend. Now add to this the fact that we have quoted several times that Evansville lies almost in the exact center of the United States and it cer- tainly will be very easy to show that no competitor now or ever, can hope to compete with Evansville with her beautiful modern well-built plows, the outgrowth of the poor little home-made plows of the early pioneer mentioned. To hear Major Rozencranz tell of th ealmost inexhaustible demand for the Vulcan Plow is like a fairy tale, and to me to whom good old Father Urie first taught the mysteries of the "long roll" and the "double drag," it is highly interesting.
While on the subject of plows, I would like to give a beautiful example of how any industry can be carried along and the best of feeling main- tained between employer and employees during a long period of years. Mr. Henry F. Blount, who, while a citizen of Washington, D. C., and liv- ing in a magnificent home there, is still in one respect a citizen of Evans- ville, having great interests here, is an example of what kindness and thoughtfulness will do when directed towards the welfare of his men. As is well known, he is the head of the great Blount Plow Works situated on Main street, where the street cars turn west around the building. As noted before, he was at one time in partnership with Mr. Urie but afterwards started the Blount Plow Works on a grand scale at its present location. At the end of his first year's business, which had proved very satisfactory, he decided to give an informal dinner to all employees and every man from
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the first bookkeeper down to the most humble driver was invited. The affair went off so pleasantly, enlivened by speeches by Mr. Blount and his associates in the offices and by the workers, that before the dinner broke up, it was decided to give another one at the same date on the next year. This pleasant custom has been kept up during all these long years and no matter what pressure of business Mr. Blount has in the East, he gives up, everything to always be here to meet his men.
So great and well known have these functions become, that they are eagerly looked forward to each year and the speeches that are made at these gatherings are often reproduced in full in the daily papers. Mr. Blount remembers each man with some little present and they in turn al- ways remember him. It is to this feeling of mutual good-fellowship be- tween employer and employees that no strike has ever occurred at these works. The men are happy and well-paid and the most perfect machinery to protect them is always introduced by Mr. Blount and they look on him as a friend and not as an employer, while he claims on his part, that he has the best set of working men in the city of Evansville.
It is a great pity that the city has not more employers like Mr. Blount. He has always been ready to see and commend good workmanship on the part of his men, has always been ready to greet them with a pleasant word and this is far from being the case in many large institutions. In some of them the employer seems to grudge every cent that is paid out to his men no matter how small their wages may be. He often attempts to drive them as an overseer would drive his slaves and this is not the way to get the best work out of men, no matter in what line they may be employed. Any man will work harder and better and will put in odd hours, if nec- essary, to help along an employer who appreciates him, while on the other hand, when a man feels that he is paid for exactly so many hours of work, that he is never given credit for trying to save anything for the institution, that he is simply, in fact, a part of the machinery, he is apt to give just as much to his employer as is exactly necessary and not one minute more. In fact, he is the kind of a man who would naturally throw down an un- finished piece of work when the whistle blew. Again his feelings towards his employer are never kindly. He knows in his heart that if his employer dared cut down his daily wage he would gladly do it, no matter if he knew how close the wolf was to his door and how hard it was with his salary to make both ends meet. This is human nature and no one can blame these poor fellows for feeling as they do.
While the average scale of wages in Evansville is equal to that of other cities of the same size, it is safe to say that none of the ordinary workmen are being overpaid.
Reverting to Mr. Blount's case, I do not think that there has ever been any question as to wages at his plant. He knows what his men are worth to him and they know their own worth and there has never been any con-
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flict of opinion. They go on hand in hand. As Mr. Blount makes money, so do his men.
As stated before, it would be a good thing if all the heads of great manu- facturing institutions in Evansville would work on the same plan as does Mr. Blount. There is no desire on my part to place his plant above any other, but I only speak of things as I know them, having been present at several of these yearly gatherings and having seen every evidence of good feelings that exists.
STEAMBOATS.
The steamboat is at best a transitory thing. One year it may be owned by a company on a certain river and employed as a packet between cities, while the next year it may be hundreds of miles away in an entirely differ- ent part and owned by other men. Therefore an absolutely correct ac- count of Evansville's steamboats would be hard to give. The first steam- boats known to the Ohio Valley were introduced in 1811. They were built at Pittsburg but were for the southern trade from New Orleans up the sugar coast and as high as Natchez and Memphis. One of the first boats was the New Orleans, owned by Nich. J. Roosevelt, a grandfather of ex-president Roosevelt. She passed here after being detained at "the Falls," as Louisville was called long before the memory of the first citizen. In 1814 the Comet and Vesuvius also went down but remained in the southern trade. The Enterprise was about the first boat to pass here reg- ularly. But she only made two trips from New Orleans to Louisville. These boats were all double-decked and with side wheels. The prosperous times in steamboating were between 1835 and 1876, before railroads be- came so plentiful. They offered then about the only means of travel be- tween the north and the south. During this time, boats were operated from Pittsburg, Cincinnati and Louisville, to Memphis, New Orleans and St. Louis. The passenger traffic was very great and many of these boats were perfect palaces. The Princess was 365 feet in length, and cost $365,000. The fastest boat of those times was the Shotwell, which ran between New Orleans and Louisville. During the very early days of the wholesale business in Evansville, a number of little boats ran up Green river. One was the Lou Eaves, named for a sister of Mrs. W. B. Hinkle Another was the Molly Funk, and ran by a grizzly old man named Funk, who called the boat in honor of his wife. Another was the Southern Queen, a non-describable craft, which I think was a ferry, made over into a steamboat. These little boats did quite a business along Green river and were only superseded when the tobacco traffic of the Green river country grew so great that larger steamers were needed. During the war steam- boats received a severe blow. The very finest boats were pressed into serv- ice by either the federal or confederate governments. Some were sheathed on the side and boiler plate was riveted thereon and they were thus trans- formed into gunboats. Many old soldiers will remember them as the Mos-
JUDGE WILLIAM OLMSTEAD
One of the early judges. ITis double log cabin on Pigeon Creek was a hospitable home.
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quito fleet. Most of the boats that were used were stern wheelers, as it was impossible to make good gunboats out of the big side wheel palaces. It became perilous to pilot boats anywhere along the lower Ohio or Mis- sissippi river. The pilot had no means of knowing what forces were near him and so was liable to be shot at his post at any moment by soldiers from one side or the other and for quite a time not a boat came into this port in which the pilot house was not protected. To do this, sections of the old tubular boilers were used, one side of a boiler being on each side of the pilot, giving him barely room to manage his wheel. But these model shields were absolutely impervious to bullets and the only danger was from a shot in front. But at best, piloting was hazardous and most of the boats gave up their trade and were tied up along the river and at the end of the war were only unsightly wrecks of what were once beautiful vessels. There was a line of packets at one time from Evansville up the Wabash river and they went as far up as Lefayette but as the Wabash became al- most impassable, this line was given up. The Tennessee River Packet Company sprung up after the war and opened up an entirely new territory. Captain Allen J. Duncan was the pioneer in this trade. His first boat was the Sam. Orr, afterwards the Rapidan, Florence Lee, Silver Cloud, Red Cloud, Fawn, Clyde and John Gilbert. This line had a magnificent busi- ness for years, and was virtually ruined by St. Louis merchants who put in boats and made freight rates so low as to drive the Evansville boats out of the field. One of the best lines was known as the Evansville, Paducah and Cairo. The first boat in this line was the Charlie Bowen, brought here by Captain Dexter from Pittsburg, who later brought the Quickstep, a beautiful little boat, and then the city of Evansville. Afterwards we had the Arkansas Belle, Pat Clebourne, and Idlewild, which latter boat was man- aged by Captain Grammer, who afterwards, before his death, became a great railroad traffic man. These boats in this line, while not as large as some others, were superb. Their cabins were models of taste and neatness and the table of the finest and many a weary drummer was only too glad to vary his trip with a short ride on one of these boats in order to get at least one good meal, after the bacon and corn bread on which he had been living. There was also a Cumberland river line which was built up by Captain Tom Ryman. This began in 1870 and met with the same fate as the others. The Nashville and Paducah merchants combined against the Evansville merchants, put in boats, and there was the same old reduc- tion in prices which soon drove out the Evansville boats.
There were great contests in speed in the old days. The race between the Robert E. Lee and the Natchez will go down through history. It was from New Orleans to St. Louis, 1240 miles. The Lee made it in three days, eighteen hours and twenty-six minutes, several hours in advance of the Natchez. Afterwards the beautiful steamer, J. M. White, was built, and it was said by old river men, that she could have beaten either one, but her owners never cared to speed her. Considering the number of boats
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that plied around Evansville and passed her, the disasters were few. About the greatest one was the blowing up of the great steamer Missouri which blew up at the mouth of Green river and floated down to the sand bar across from the present water works. She took afire and hardly a passen- ger was saved, over 100 lives being lost. Great numbers of people went up there from this city to see her, and in fact, there was an excursion boat which made many trips to allow people to witness this wreck. This oc- curred in September, 1861. Those who look at the wharfboats and the steamboats of the present day, can have no conception of what constituted steamboating in those great days before the advent of so many railroads. I have seen the wharf from Locust street to clear past Division absolutely blocked with all kinds of freight. There would be hundreds of bales of cotton from the southern boats to go north, hundreds of hogsheads of to- bacco brought in from various points in Kentucky and from some of the counties above Evansville, hundreds of coops of live poultry waiting to be shipped south, and flour, furniture and thousands of parcels of groceries and dry goods, and in fact hundreds of packages of every description of goods. I have seen as many as six boats side by side lying at the wharf, having to cross five of them to interview the officials of the sixth or out- side boat. The Guiding Star, the Charles Morgan, and boats of that class and the enormous freight boats like the U. P. Schenk, which were almost like enormous barges, fitted out with machinery, with the steamboat proper built on top of them. So heavy was the traffic that many of these boats were unable, even with their carrying capacity, to handle the freight and took with them model barges one on each side, which were filled with freight before they got out of the Ohio river. I have seen wharf boatmen begging empty steamboats and barges to take on freight here, yet they were refused because the entire room had all been wired for by Mt. Ver- non, Shawneetown and Cairo. The lamented Mark Twain, who himself was a pilot in the old days, in his book, "Life on the Mississippi," gives a faithful description of many of these boats and they are not at all ex- aggerated. To many it seems sad to think that the era of successful steam- boating has almost passed away, but who can tell what the future may be, when the Panama Canal is finished. It may be that there will be no more luxurious passenger steamers, because it is speedier to travel in Pullmans, but no railroads, no matter how great their systems, will ever properly handle the traffic, so we may look for enormous bages built with the ut- most skill, capable of carrying enormous loads, propelled by steamboats with a great volume of horse power which can make New Orleans the great distributing point that it was during the early day. And before dismissing steamboats, for the present, some chronicle should be made of the delightful times that were had when the Evansville and Cairo Packet line was in existence. The great object of the officers of these boats seemed to be to make their passengers feel perfectly at home. No sooner had the bell rang to loose the cable than card tables were brought out in the main
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cabin, while in the ladies' cabin the strains of music from beautiful pianos filled the air. Nobody objected to card playing in those days, and in fact, the blue, white and red chips were considered almost a part of the cabin outfit. These games, of course, were generally among the traveling men and passengers and were for small amounts and simply to kill time, but to the welfare and happiness of the lady passengers, the efforts of the cap- tain and his always good-looking clerks were attracted and it is a fact that those clerks of the early day were selected because of their ability to en- tertain. A gruff impolite clerk had no business on any steamboat and soon found himself out of a job. But a good-looking young fellow, who knew how to talk and sing a song, dance anything and do his clerical work be- sides, was always certain of a big salary. On these boats, the dancing be- gan almost as soon as the supper tables were cleared away. The waiters employed were always musicians and while they could not be called culti- vated artists, the music they made was of the most exhilarating kind and was plenty good for those days. But it was at the little towns down the river that the most fun was had. Let it be known, that the packet would be compelled to stay for several hours at Mt. Vernon, Shawneetown and almost any of these points, and the minute the boat landed to take on freight people would be waiting for it and when the boat landed in at the big wharf boats, they would be found filled with bevies of lovely young girls and their attending cavaliers. In those days, we all knew each other along the river and belles from any one of the little towns along the Ohio were always known in Evansville, just as were our belles known in these smaller places, as little visits then were not the affairs of state that they are nowdays. In fact, it was not unusual for a young lady to take only a small satchel and get on a boat to make a little trip of a day or two to visit some girl friend on the river. When the crowd already on the boat received the addition of those who had waited at the wharf boats, the long cabins would be completely filled with dancers. In some cases it has been found that the boats' cabins were not long enough and es- pecially at Shawneetown, where all were transferred to the big Millspaugh wharf-boat where there was room for all. Those were rare days for the young people. Most of the boats were side wheelers, and the deck back of the wheel house was always supposed to be the exclusive property of spooning couples and no young man without some gushing belle on his arm ever dared venture back, for if he did, a sudden pushing of chairs and the dead silence which would ensue would soon make him realize that he was entirely out of place. Thinking back I can safely say that many a staid business man and stately matron of today will read these lines and think of the joyousness of those old times as I have described them and perhaps remember the night on which they were pushing their chairs as closely together as possible and were rudely interrupted. Even the pilots did their part toward entertaining and while most of them have now gone to meet Mark Twain, there are still a few left. Their duty was to enter-
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tain the crowds who always visited the pilot house and hundreds of ladies along the river who have now reached mature years, will remember how they used to be allowed to steer the boat under the guidance of these same good old pilots. A trip on the railroad seated in a Pullman car, with every comfort close at hand, may be all right, but it does not have the witchery of those old nights on the river where the moonbeams shone on the waters and the soft and gentle river breeze fanned the brow, and eyes looked love to eyes that looked love again.
CHAPTER XII.
BEGINS TO GROW-THE PASSING OF LAMASCO-HARD TIMES- THE BIG ROLL- ING MILL-THE CUSTOM HOUSE-THE ST. GEORGE HOTEL AND THE BIG DANCE-THE FIRST BOOMERS, HEIDELBACH AND ELSAS-A BUILDING BOOM -THE 1880 CENSUS-BORING FOR GAS-THE WONDERFUL LUMBER MAR- KET, THE GREATEST IN THE WORLD-WHAT WE PRODUCE- THE BIG RAFTS -THE PIONEER LUMBER KING-PLANTING FOR THE FUTURE-THE WON- DERFUL FURNITURE TRADE-THE BIG CONSOLIDATION.
In the early history of the city of Evansville, the name Lamasco ap- pears in many places. For years no one residing in the upper part of the city ever spoke of going to the west end. Nor did they use any term indi- cating the geographical location of that part of the city which lay below Division street. Speaking of going to that locality the common expression was, "I am going down to Lamasco." Many who have come in recent years will wonder from what source this locality derived this strange name, which sounds so much like the Indian name, Chicago, for instance. But the name was from a combination of the names of four of the early found- ers of the lower part of the city. A tract was laid out by four men, John and William Law, Mr. Macall and Mr. Scott, and the name was made by taking the first letters of Law and Macall and the first three of Scott, thus making a name which certainly was out of the ordinary. Their tract took in all that part of the city lying between Division street and Pigeon creek. It was on Second avenue at the corner of Pennsylvania that the two story frame house of Judge John Law stood for many years. The place is now torn down and in its stead is a factory. But for long years it was the great gathering place for all the democratic politicians of this part of the state and in fact the judge received visitors who stood high in democratic circles from almost all parts of the country. He had on the corner a small law office which he called his den. His home was presided over by his most estimable wife, the lady loved and honored by every one who knew her. Her hospitality was boundless and in dispensing it she was assisted by her two bright daughters, Anna and Carrie. The former married a man in Terre Haute, while the younger became the wife of David J. Mackey. Messrs. Macall and Scott moved away from here but the judge remained here until his death. The beautiful annex in the rear of Grace Presbyterian church, is a monument given by Mrs. Mackey to commemorate the memory of her parents. Mr. Edward E. Law of upper First street is
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