USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > Evansville > History of the city of Evansville and Vanderburg County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 19
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stop for any kind of weather. I was supposed to make my trip every day, rain, shine or snow, and I have gone to out-of-the-way places like Harris- burg, Illinois, from the bottoms, with my horse breaking the ice at every step and crossing the bridges where I could not see them at all, but only got over through knowing their exact location. At one time while in a sulky which I used in summer, I was overtaken by a flood in what are known as Skillet Fork bottoms and had to swim the horse and sulky across the deep slough, trusting to luck that the horse would stop, while I crossed myself on a fallen tree some distance beyond. At another time I was caught by the freezing of Little and Big Wabash rivers and left my horse at New Haven, Illinois, crossed both rivers on very thin ice and walked into Mount Vernon, Indiana, and came up on the Mount Vernon stage. Thus I had to hustle to get home. At that time there were no express offices. The country was full of soldiers' pay checks and these passed current every- where. These could be sent with almost perfect safety by mail, but bills and the gold and silver had to be carried by the drummers. In my case I used a very heavy buckskin belt and at one time had in as much as $10.000 on my person, part of it being in gold. I could only say that when I got home it was very easy to see where the belt went around my body. It had almost worn through. But the house did not accept any excuses from drummers in those days. We got good salaries but we earned them and we got probably profits one hundred percent greater than they are today. In these days all traveling men are honest. In those days, I am sorry to say, that there were some black sheep. The allurement of the poker table was too much for the morals of a great many and many looked on the wine when it was red and people thought no less of a drummer when he played poker and took an extra drink. This is an actual fact, and I am not exag- gerating. In fact, any of the old merchants who are still living and will tell the truth about the wholesale days of Evansville, will tell you that when a country merchant came here to buy goods, there was always some drummer who traveled in his section whose duty it was to take him out and give him a good time. Sometimes a firm would send out a traveling man and suddenly all letters from him would cease and, owing to the un- settled conditions of the country, it would be very hard to locate him. In such a case it was necessary for the house to send out another man to fol- low him up right over his route, check up his collections, find how much he was indebted to the house and then find him. I remember being sent on one of these chases. In those days when we had a hard debt we took any- thing rather than go to law and get nothing, and my firm became the pos- sessor of a little fox-eared mule about fifty years old for a bad debt. We lost track of a drummer who disappeared on the Tennessee river route. I took this mule, shaved his mane and tail, got on a Tennessee river boat, got off at Satillo, traded off the mule for a horse, and went to East Port, Mis- sissippi, sold the horse and saddle, got a man to drive me to Iuka and there I found the relatives of the missing man. By this time I knew exactly how
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much he was indebted to the firm, and also found that he had been drink- ing and, thoroughly disgusted with himself and the world in general, had gone to Texas. His old father and brothers were as nice men as I ever met. They at once made the claim good and I took the next boat and came home.
These are merely little drummer experiences to which all have their bearing on the wholesale trade of which I have been speaking.
COUNTY FAIRS AND HORSES.
Who dosn't love to see a beautiful horse? Even in these days when the automobile seems fair to be the vehicle of the future, the horse is still loved by those who owned him, drove him and knew all his good qualities before the automobile was invented. But this work is the history of the past and not supposed to be a prediction as to the future of the horse. But as he has existed in Evansville and at the old county fairs, he certainly de- serves a place. It is unfortunate that at the present day it has been fully demonstrated that neither Evansville nor Vanderburg county will support a first-class fair. The history of the tri-state fair company which has so bravely tried to surmount so many difficulties, is conclusive proof of this fact. In the early days Henderson had its fairs even before Evansville, and the writer remembers when in the riding ring, which was a great feature in those days, when so many rode horse-back, Mr. Jacob Hunnel, who long ago passed away, rode a magnificent black horse belonging to Mr. Smith Gavitt at the Henderson fair and carried away a lovely silver cup from some of the best riders in the world. It is a fact that the Hen- derson fair company have met perhaps with greater success than any fair company ever attempted in Evansville. The same may be said of the New Harmony fair which for years has been a fixture. Even in the old days when the fairs at Evansville were yearly experiments, so to speak, New Harmony always had her fairs and the young people of Evansville always looked forward to the New Harmony fair dances with a great deal of ex- citement. And in fact at these same dances, almost half of the dancers were from the city of Evansville. The New Harmony fair has kept up to this day and seems to be a fixture.
Reverting to horses, what is now known as Main street was formerly the Plank road. That is, it was made of heavy planks securely fastened and braced and it offered a good chance for speeding horses to show what they could be. At that time John Smith Gavitt owned the best horses in Evansville. He was sheriff of the county and possibly ought to have been arrested for fast riding as there was little driving in those days, for I have often seen him start his fast horse at First and Main and go up the street as hard as the horse could.go.
The first race track ever known here was to the left of Main street, be- yond 5th. This was especially for running horses and was only a little
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over 200 yards in length. The first track on which there was ever any driving was around the corn field which was in the very center of what is now the Heidlebach and Elsas enlargement. This track was made and kept up by those interested in horse flesh, and as late as the day when Captain Dexter came here with the steamer Quick Step and brought a bob- tailed pony, it was used by every one who had a good horse. John Strat- ton, an old English jokey owned several horses and drove for Captain Billy Brown, who was well-known in the old days for his love of horses.
The first fair, and by this I mean the fair in which the women of Evansville had a chance to show their handiwork, was given in the old American house, which was located on 4th street between Locust and Walnut. Here they brought their preserves and jellys, their home-made quilts, their cakes and the good old pies our mothers made and also crude specimens of fancy work, painting, and shell and bead work and the rivalry was very keen. Here also the farmers of the county showed their enor- mous pumpkins and great ears of corn, together with sweet and Irish po- tatoes and all manner of vegetables. There was no poultry show connected with it, for in those days there was nothing any better than the good dominick hen. There were no pigeons either as a pigeon worth more than 15 to 25c would have been called a rarity. Back of this market house where the Single Center Spring Company have their enormous building was quite a fruit tree grove and in it the farmers hitched their wagons. The first fair was a grand success. Aside from the natural heart-burnings of the ladies who each thought that her specimen was the best, it was de- cided by those interested that the next year a fair on larger scales be at- tempted. So a tract was laid off for a county fair and a small race meet- ing on the Stringtown road just this side of Pigeon creek, and for sev- eral years the fairs were given there and each one was self-supporting. The track was only 1/4 of a mile in circumference, so as each horse had to go around four times to make his mile, and the track records were nothing like those of the present day. Philip Hornbrook, a most respected citizen and one whose descendants are still living here, was the president and A. D. Chute was the secretary. The trouble with this place was that to attend the fair, one had to go either by foot or in a vehicle so the com- pany decided to build a new ground directly on the track of the E. & T. H. road. They therefore purchased a grove on the right side of the track going up, but cut many of the trees and made a figure eight track. They also put up cheap buildings in which to show the various exhibits. It was soon found that the figure eight track, while being just the thing for showing stock, could not well be used for racing horses, so more ground was obtained and a half-mile track made. It was decided to open the new track in a blaze of glory, so they got Goldsmith Maid, the greatest race mare of her day and Judge Fullerton, the next best trotter of that time, to go against each other. This race meeting was extensively advertised and that day lived long in the annals of Evansville. There were people here
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VIEW OF RIVERSIDE AVENUE, EVANSVILLE
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from all over the southern part of the state and from Illinois and Ken- tucky. Many came in their covered wagons and camped outside of the grounds and cooked their own meals, just to see this race. The record was much lower than present records, of course, but our people had a chance to see the two best horses in the United States at that day. Soon after there were a number of good horses owned in Evansville and sur- rounding towns and they competed on this track. There was Logan, owned by Kentucky people, Shakspere owned by Tom Denny of Boonville, Uncle Sam owned by Pete Gordner of Boonville and Tom Roach, owned by Tom Britton and Russell Bement. Also a gray mare, Katie Fish, owned by Geo. H. Fish, Lady Alice, owned by Van Riper. This mare after- wards passed into the possession of William Forth, who at that time was well off, owning a half interest in a splendid stable and also a half interest in the great horse, Tom Adams. Another great horse was bred by Mr. William Akin, who is still a good judge of horse flesh and sold by him at a good long price. About this time Mr. John Henry Morgan owned some high class thorough-bred runners and he had many contests with our Kentucky friends from Henderson and Owensboro. Mr. Morgan has also the credit of introducing what were known as the Morgan Blacks, medium sized well-muscled horses which he obtained somewhere in the east. The old stallion which was the head of his string, lived for a great many years and I am sorry to say passed his last days in a milk wagon. He still retained all the fire and high head action of his youth and I be- lieve that Mr. Morgan, seeing him one day and realizing to what he had fallen, not having known that he was to be driven, bought him back and had him humanely killed.
Isaac Keen had a beautiful bay mare that he bought in Baltimore which won many prizes here. Tom Britton afterwards owned Red Hoosier and Mr. H. D. Allis, a beautiful black mare. Smith Gavitt, who was one of the greatest lovers of horses ever known here and a most intrepid rider, for he feared no living horse, lost his life in the Union army and with him died a noble horseman. After the days of Red Hoosier, Shakspere and Lady Alice, I fear the company lost heart, for several years it did not at- tempt to get up any more fairs. William Forth, however, turned out a great pacer, Rowdy Boy and the gray mare, Belle Lee, one of the most beautiful specimens of horse flesh ever seen anywhere. About this time the Diamond Club composed of young men, most of whom are now old merchants and professional men, owned several good horses and drove four-in-hands and tandem teams. Years afterwards the desire to get up a fair that would do credit to the growing city of Evansville again became prevalent and out of this idea grew the tri-state fair association. It started off most auspiciously. There were good entries for the track, stalls for live stock were well filled, and also the stalls for the merchants to display their stocks, and the stock in the company was easily worth par or more,
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for it seemed that this was to become one of the great fixtures of Evansville.
The track was admitted by all who saw it, to be one of the best ever made in the United States. In fact many old horsemen claimed that it was the fastest track in America. This grew out of the fact that most eastern tracks were of sand or gravel, while this track was made out of hard clay which was gotten from the pond in the center of the fair ground and which was rolled until it became very hard and was still springy enough for good speed. The first few fairs were attended by great numbers of people, but by degrees the interest seemed to wane, until holders of stock began to place less and less value upon it. The buildings went to decay and nothing was kept up except the enormous grand stand to which an addition had been made during the palmy days of the administration. It is to be regretted that this great institution should have been allowed to go down but a similar fate has met most of the fair grounds all over the country. At this writing the ground is said to be for sale and so rapidly has the city built up in the direction of the fair grounds, that it is safe to assume that none of those who have kept their stock will lose any- thing. If, as projected, a magnificent building will be put up on the lower market space, it is safe to assume that the horse show, always a fascinat- ing event, will take the place of the old fair. So much pressure is being brought to bear to effect the building of this auditorium, as it will prob- ably be called, that there seems to be little doubt but that it will soon be built.
Although the automobile seems to be the vehicle of the future, it may be for years so high in price as to be beyond the pocket book of the men who can afford to keep a good horse and as our brethren across the river retain their love for horses, it is safe to say that Evansville, for some time, will contain many fine horses. It is many a long year since Mother Shipton prophesied "carriages without horses shall go" and it will probably be many years before the horse will go.
In 1830 the word Hoosiers became known as meaning Indiana people. In 1883 the New Year's address, published by the Indianapolis Journal, contained a poem written by John Findley of Richmond, Indiana. The poem was entitled "The Hoosier's Nest." The word Hoosier evidently was intended to convey the meaning of uncouth, crude and uncultivated people who lived in Indiana and the "smart set" who lived in the other parts of the United States wanted to construe the word to express odium of our people. When you take into consideration the advanced steps taken by the people of Indiana in educational matters, it only reflects on the ignorance of the people who tried to cast odium. Every Indianian today accepts the word "Hoosier" and feels proud of it. When a man from Indiana would go to California and was asked where he was from, he would reply, "I am a hoosier from Posey county, Hooppole township."
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Much of this slang was started by the Pittsburg coal boatmen. Hooppole township came to be used in this way :
In the early boating days of this country, Mt. Vernon was a head center for the gathering of flatboat crews. At one time a large coat fleet had landed at that point from Pittsburg and a number of boatmen had gone up into the town and filled up on fighting whisky. They soon raised a disturbance and started in to clean out the town. At that time there were some large cooper shops along the river edge which employed some 25 or 30 coopers. As the boatmen and citizens were having a battle, these coop- ers, with a stout hooppole each went to the aid of the citizens and whipped these boatmen with the hooppoles and they remembered this for many a long day afterwards. Hence the name Hooppole township, Posey county.
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CHAPTER XIV.
SLAVERY DAYS-THE UNDERGROUND-CONDITION OF SLAVES-THE TRICKS OF THE SLAVE THIEVES-SEVERAL STOLEN NEAR HERE-THE NEGRO QUESTION HANDLED WITHOUT GLOVES-HE BELONGS ON THE FARM AND NOT IN TOWN-A LITTLE EDUCATION OFTEN MAKES HIM A FOOL.
SLAVERY DAYS.
Now that the war has been over so long that nearly everyone has for- gotten it except the few unforgiving ones who imagine that true bravery consists in hitting a man after he is down, and during the period of his actual lifetime, a little information regarding Indiana in the early day will come as a sort of a surprise. It will be news to many who imagine that Indiana, which lay north of Mason's and Dixon's line, which was supposed to divide the poor down-trodden slave of the south from the paradise of the north, was virtually at one time, a slave state. By that is meant that slaves could be owned here in Indiana and nobody attach any particular importance to them. Just across the river slavery existed of course, and it was no unusual thing to see slaves come across, transact business here and go back to Kentucky, perfectly contented, for at that time there had never been any agitation nor had the negro been educated by fool politicians to believe that his real place was in the halls of congress or in the presiden- tial chair or at the head of some large manufacturing industry in the north. In fact, they were well contented with their lot. The writer in his youth mixed with many of them over in Kentucky. They were a careless happy race, with plenty to eat, good houses, and with no longing for any lot other than the one they then held. For many years before Gen. Clark captured
what was known as the Northwest territory of which Indiana was a part, the French inhabitants of Vincennes and stations as far north as Detroit held slaves and dealt in them. Many of these traders made annual trips to New Orleans and brought back male and female slaves. At the time Vin- cennes was captured in 1779 there were at least 200 slaves there. When William Henry Harrison was made governor there were supposed to be some 500 in the territory, and is it not strange that William Henry Harri- son, the pioneer father of the other Harrisons that are known throughout this country as republicans of the purest type, was from Virginia and fa- vored slavery? The first judges appointed were owners of slaves. Judge Vanderburg was a slave owner at the time he was probate judge of Knox county.
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It will be remembered that in another place this book speaks of slaves having been brought here from Tennessee by James Oakley, who lived on Riverside Avenue, but it is a matter of record that in his will he made no mention of them as being articles of property, having given them their freedom when he came across the river. But they stayed with him until the household was broken up. In 1806 an important case came up regard- ing the emancipation of a negro and his wife who had been brought from Kentucky and held without the formalities of the indenture laws of which I will speak later on. The judges heard the case and decided that the men who claimed them could hold them in this state provided they could prove that they were slaves. Two negroes who built a cabin on the Wabash river were kidnaped by a Frenchman and carried to New Orleans and sold into slavery. It is probable that they were originally slaves as at that time there were very few free negroes. A convention was called at Vincennes late in 1802 to decide on repealing article six of the ordinance of 1787 which pro- hibited the holding of slaves in all the territory which was then called the Northwest territory. The people agreed that this ordinance should be sus- pended. Mr. Randolph of the great Randolph family of Virginia, who was chairman of the committee, took a broad view of matters and one which an average southerner would not be expected to take. He said in effect. "The rapidly increasing population of this section of country is sufficient evidence to your committee that the labor of slaves is not necessary to evoke the growth of the south. Slave labor is the dearest that can be employed," and by this he meant what has often been a mooted question; that is whether or not it was not cheaper to hire white labor at an honest recom- pense than to own slaves, to be compelled to feed them, house them, clothe them and take care of them in sickness and in health. He stated that slave labor was only advantageous in the southern part of the United States. As against the importation of slave labor into Indiana, "At no distant day the state of Indiana will find ample remuneration for this temporary privation of labor." Meetings were held all over the state in 1802 and a petition was sent to congress to repeal the sixth article of the ordinance of 1787. About this time a great deal of juggling was done, but the general opinion of the citizens of southern Indiana was to the effect that they did not wish In- diana to become a slave state in any such term. The proportion of the anti-slavery people was so much greater than the slavery element that the latter saw that something must be done in order that they might still con- tinue to get the work out of their slaves. So a most obnoxious indenture law was passed in 1807. This gave the people of the Indiana territory a right to bring in negroes or mulattoes over the age of 15 and who owed service as slaves in any of the states or territories of the United States, or for any citizens of the states or territories of the United States who had pur- chased the same, to bring them into Indiana. But they must within 30 days go before the clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of any county and in the presence of said clerk, agree with the slaves upon a certain term of
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years during which the said slave should serve his or her owner or pos- sessor. This was entered in a book or record and was a great deal like bonding. It went on to say that if any negro or mullatto refused to serve, he or she could be removed within 60 days to any place which the former desired. Again, if a person neglected to take advantage of this section and get the article of indenture on the record, they forfeited all claim and right to the service of the negro or mulatto. Each owner was required to register the name of each negro or mulatto and if they wished to remove the same from one county to another they were compelled to register the name of each on the books of record in the county to which they removed them. If they failed to do this they were fined $50. The duty of the clerk of the Court of Common Pleas was to demand and receive the bond of the African, the security being $500, payable to the governor or his successor in office, the condition being that after the term of service men- tioned in the indenture had expired the slave could not become a charge on the county. Another section was that no person could take or carry out of this territory or aid in doing the same any person or persons owing or having owed service for labor. The owner of such person or persons previously obtained before any judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the county, should pay when convicted, $1000, 1-3 to the county and 2-3 to be used by the person taken or carried away. For each register of the above kind, the clerk received 75c.
The children born in this territory to parents of color who owed service or labor by indenture were compelled to serve the master or mistress of such parents, the male until the age of thirty and the female until the age of twenty-eight. The first laws for the indenture of slaves, it will be seen, were made by the Board of Control of Indiana, the governor and free federal judges in 1803. They provided that "Persons coming into the ter- ritory under contract to serve a stated period at any kind of labor, shall serve that term." This contract could be assigned by getting consent of the slaves. In 1805 another attempt was made to establish slavery in In- diana and an act for the importation of negroes and mulattoes was passed. It provided that any slaveholder in the United States could bring in slaves over fifteen years old, and within thirty days after coming enter into an agreement with such slaves before the clerk of the Court of Common Pleas as to the number of years such slaves would serve their master. If the slaves should refuse to agree, the master had sixty days in which to send them to a slave state. The laws of 1807 were the same as those of 1805, but these laws had a valid standing as they were in direct opposi- tion to the laws passed by the Congress of the United States for the gov- ernment of the Northwest Territory. But notwithstanding this, these in- denture negroes were compelled to serve for the time specified and in many cases were taken out of this state and into a slave state where they were sold into slavery for life.
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