USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > Evansville > History of the city of Evansville and Vanderburg County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 22
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He was born and raised in Posey County and was a cowardly brute by instinct. He was the kind of a man who continually posed as a bad man who wanted to kill somebody, though I have always believed that he was a most arrant coward, and if he had not so completely hypnotized the people of Mount Vernon most any man might have knocked him down and he would have never offered to fight. I make this assertion because I have always found that brutes who abuse women always show the white feather when they meet a real man. This Redmon had been a drinking, carousing loafer around Mount Vernon but had moved to a little farm a few miles from town. He never attempted to till it, because he was too lazy to work. How he lived no one ever knew, unless he terrorized his neighbors into giving him food. By frightening the father and brothers of an unsophis- ticated young girl, a daughter of a neighbor, he forced her to marry him and he immediately began a series of fiendish abuses. He would pinch her, burn her flesh and tortured her in every way and then when he wanted to go to town to go on one of his regular drunks, during which some one else always paid for his whisky, he would place her hands under a window sash, force the sash down and nail it tightly at the top, thus compelling this poor young thing to sit there, no matter what the weather might be, until he got good and ready to come back. He terrorized her, it seems, by telling her that if she ever complained he would kill her first and then all of her relatives. Finally, after a drunk of greater proportions than usual, he went home and, unfastening the window, began to abuse her. It seems that the poor young thing must have thought that she would be better off dead than alive and must have said something that angered him, for he pulled the nails from her fingers, choked her to death, left her there and went back to Mount Vernon. Some one found her and at last the Posey County people got a little courage into their hearts and arrested the fiend and he was put into a Mount Vernon jail.
Safely jailed where he could not intimidate, a mob soon formed and the cry, "Take him to the cabin and burn him," was taken up all over Mount Vernon. The sheriff spirted him away to this city but it soon became known that he was in the Evansville jail. Word was sent to the police here that a mob was coming from Mount Vernon to take him out, and the entire force was called out to repel them. At that time Geo. W. Newman was the chief of police. About midnight the mob came, in buggies and on horse- back and began to form around the public square. At this time some fool turned in a fire alarm which sent the engines rushing in every direction. Men with sledge hammers broke in the jail door and though the sheriff tried to do his duty, I question very much whether he did not breathe a sigh of relief when the door broke in and they hurried to Redmon's cell, for he was too good a man to have a wretch of that kind even in a cell near his own family. Redmon was quickly hurried to a waiting buggy. The buggy started down Third and turned the corner of Sycamore. In it were two men and between them this cowardly murderer. An engine came tearing
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down Sycamore, frightened the horse and turned the buggy over, and the wretch at once tried to escape but one of the sledge hammers was quickly brought down on his skull and he dropped a corpse. He was then dragged by the heels to the court house and left in a position which I described at first. Unfortunately, during the excitement and while the mob had turned away from the court house, shots were fired by the police and one young man the only son of a widow, who had done nothing save come with the others, was killed. No one has ever known who fired that shot, but it was un- called for. If the police had stood at the door to keep the mob back and face them, man to man, it would have been different, but to fire at the back of a fleeing man, one who has not broken the law, is something not recog- nized in the presene police code. I believe that one or two others were hit but not killed. At any rate, this one boy was worth ten thousand wretches like the brute who met his deah at Sycamore and Third.
The building was again completed in 1857 and as the business kept in- creasing, it soon became thoroughly understood by the people that something must be done in the way of building a better court house and there were many who had the business discernment to see that if we attempted one at all, it would be well to erect a building which would last for all time to come and our present court house is the result. There have been many who have criticised the amount of money spent for this court house and also the choice of location, but it should be remembered that the old court house only occupied a quarter of a block and that it was almost impossible to buy more ground near it, and that also the building must be utilized until the new one was completed. The chief criticism regarding the location of the new court house was regarding the fact that it was built on what is known as "made ground," a portion of its structure being directly over the canal basin, but those who remember the old basin and its exact location, will testify that very little of the actual weight of the new building rests on what was the basin and also that the deep part of the excavation of the basin was on the west side. As is generally known, there has been slight set- tling in this building at times and there are those who predict that at some time there will be a gradual sinking of the entire structure, but they should remember that almost every building of any size in Evansville has settled.
Leaving the old days for a moment and coming back to the present, there are many who wonder why the foundations of buildings of any size in Evansville are so carefully built. This is because the soil under the main part of this city is of a sandy nature. There are many who will remember that the beautiful four-story 140-foot long queensware building on First street, built just after the war, suddenly sank one Sunday afternoon, the main portion of the building pitching forward into First street. Up to that time there had not been a crack in the building and no one has ever been able to account for this, yet only half a block below this stands the old Carpenter building which was used when the war broke out as a hospital, and though cracked in many places, has stood the test of time
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ever since and is now occupied by Mr. John Hubbard as a seed store. A decision to build a new court house was reached in 1886. In 1887 the Union block, on one corner of which the old Union brewery once stood, bounded by 4th and 5th, and Vine and Division, was bought. In Septem- ber of the same year, a contract for the new court house was let to Charles Pearce for $379,450, The jail and sheriff's residence and the fixtures and furnishing and other things reached in the end $650,000. The new court house was completed and opened for business in February, 1891. It was in 1869 that a criminal court was instituted in this county. This was in an old building that stood next to the Lottie hotel. It was a church when I came here and I remember that when but a boy I sat in one of the old seats and heard one of the old style exhorters preach and he so filled my young mind with the tortures of hell and the burning and the utter damna- tion of the souls of men, women, children and even babies, that to me he seemed like some monster, and I was so frightened that my father took me away before waiting for the final termination of the services. This goes to show that religion as everything else, has changed. One of these old time exhorters whose chief aim in life was to look sour, never smile, claim that it was by fasting and continued sourness and absolute lack of the milk of human kindness, that a man could get to heaven, could not get a salary of Ioc in these days. That kind of religion has been superseded by some thing broader and founded more on the teachings of the Great Master.
After this a superior court was created as an aid to the criminal court. This was in the year 1877. This building was used until the new court house was completed. The postoffice at that time was in the lower part of this same building which was one of the old landmarks. I think that the late A. T. Whittelsey was the last postmaster who occupied this building.
JAILS.
On May 11, 1818, the plans were laid for the first jail in Vanderburg County. It was built on the public square a little back from the street. It was 12 feet in the clear, had double walls of oak, one foot apart, and filled with timber set on end and reaching three feet below the floor in the ground. The logs were notched at the ends so as to interlock, as that was the style of the times. The lower floor was double and the timbers crossed each other and passed through the inner wall abutting against the upright oak timbers. The second floor and ceiling was of heavy oak. The stairs were against the outside of the building and one led to the dungeon 4 by 12 in size, with two small iron-grated windows and this was the place for the vilest law offenders. The other room was for debtors and had 12 by 15 inch windows. This was a little larger than the dungeon. This jail was built by Hugh McGary at the cost of $875. It was sold September, 1829, for $19.371/2. After that they kept their culprits at some tavern and se- cured them with a ball and chain and set some one to watch over them.
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On September 26th, a contract was let for a new jail to be built on the same site. It took two months to finish it and it cost $350. It was two stories high, 18 by 32 feet in size, had a stone foundation, floors of hewn timber covered with plank, double walls with stone between in the lower story. The upper story had a single wall. When James Roquet built the court house, and completed it in 1855, he also built a jail which was used for nearly 40 years, that is, up to the time the present jail was occupied, which was in 1891. This structure was completed in 1855. It was of stone, two stories high, had sixteen cells and a capacity for 40 prisoners. A sheriff's residence was built at the same time on 3rd street. It was built of brick just in front of the jail. The sheriff's residence and jail of the present stand on Fourth street opposite the court house.
The following are some of the cases that came up:
At the second term of the circuit court held in May, 1818, the first cause for murder came up. Jesse McGary was a rough backwoodsman living in what is now Scott township. He was charged with killing his wife Catharine. He entered a plea of "not guilty" and they postponed his trial. His bond was fixed at $10,000. At the March term 1819 he was tried before a jury and found "not guilty." The acquittal was secured on a singular plea. McGary and his wife had had some trouble of some sort and one day as Catharine was entering the cabin door, Jesse shot her through the heart with his rifle. On trial he declared that he had shot at the dog not knowing his wife was at that moment about to enter the house and that he had accidentally killed her instead of the dog.
An interesting scene was the suit of chancery or equity, brought by Joseph M. McDowell, et al. vs. John J. Audubon, et al. The subsequent career of the principal respondent in the suit caused greater interest to at- tach to the case than would perhaps otherwise belong to it. This Audubon afterwards became the celebrated ornithologist. He was a Frenchman but had, previous to the suit, established a steam saw mill at Henderson, Ken- tucky, and failed in the enterprise. Later he moved to Louisville. Mc- Dowell charged in his complaint, that Audubon and others had sold some land 569 acres in fractional sections 2 and 3, township 7 south, range II west-to the plaintiffs for $300. Jacob Gall had effected the sale. It was charged that Audubon's interest in the tract was obtained surreptitiously and fraudulently. Audubon answered that Gall had signed portions of the land to him previous to the sale to secure or indemnify him against loss of money loaned Gall. The case was finally determined in the October term 1822. The decision went adverse to the complainants and they were also forced to pay the costs of the suit.
But the first judicial execution was the hanging of John Harvey for the murder of a man named Casey near the old McDowell farm in Union township. The trial was heard before Judges Goodlet, McGary and Olm- stead, by a jury whose names were Joseph Wilson, Joseph McCallister, Samuel Henyon, Elisha Durphey, Lewis Williams, John Fickas, Henry
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James, Elijah Walters, Ben Barker and Robert Gibson. After a brief de- liberation the jury returned the verdict of guilty. The motion for a new trial was denied. A motion to arrest judgment was overruled and on June 7, 1823, he was sentenced to be hung on the 27th of the same month. Near the center of the west quarter the gallows was erected. The militia under Gen. Robert M. Evans and Col. Hugh McGary was on the grounds, four abreast, in the form of a hollow square around the gallows. When Sheriff R. N. Warner shook the hands of the condemned man in eternal goodbye, the officer cried openly. The trap was sprung and after the body was cut down the soldiers marched away. The dead criminal was buried near the foot of the gallows. Years afterward when excavating for a building, the bones were dug up and afterwards wired by Dr. Isaac Hutchinson. Some doubted his intentional guilt, as it was said there was a woman back of it all. In those days the ability to fight was looked on as an evidence of perfect manhood. The average man did not seek to in- fluence any one by soft words, but doubled up his fists and gave him to understand that fists were the most persuasive arguments, so it is not a matter of surprise that many of the very best men in the little town were indicted in that very court house. Hugh McGary was indicted for ob- taining money under false pretenses. A preacher was fined Ic for being mixed up in some shady legal transaction. There were indictments for extortion, taking up horses without leave, practicing medicine without license, disturbing religious meetings, gambling and betting, for in those days it was illegal to bet. In 1836 John Evans and Mr. Goodsell bet $500 on an electoral vote of Indiana, Evans betting that Gen. Harrison would get the vote. Evans was fined Ic and Goodsell $30.52. Just why he was fined so much more than Evans was probably one of the political transactions of the day. Dr. William Trafton, who stood very high as a physician was arrested for claiming two colored women and four children who were set free in Mississippi on the death of their master.
There have only been two legal executions in this county. The last one was in 1871, one Ben Sawyer, a big negro who hung for the murder of his wife on the steamer Thomas, as she lay at the wharf just below Vine street. Ben was a black brute and his wife had left him and refused to go back and live with him. She was ironing in the wash room of the Thomas and he slipped up behind her and beat her head almost to a pulp with a flat iron. The trial only lasted two days and on Friday, the 26th of May, he was executed in the jail yard by the sheriff. In this connection as a matter of ancedote it might be well to refer to another hanging that should have taken place in this county, not so many years ago. A poor little German child was killed in a field on the Mt. Vernon road. The circumstances were particularly atrocious.
In the working up of the case, the detective and police found where a negro had been seen near the field, where the brutal murder occurred. He had been traced to a buggy, and had ridden to Mt. Vernon with a man.
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In Mt. Vernon he had changed his bloody clothes and had then crossed the river and gone into hiding somewhere near a small Kentucky town. He was arrested but through the work of a jackleg lawyer was never brought back here. It was generally understood at that time by people who looked below the surface, that it was a matter in which politics cut quite a figure. At any rate, this negro who, without a doubt, was guilty, was saved by this lawyer and if the latter can ever make his peace with his God, let it be hoped that it may come before his death. As it is, it was one of the most outrageous perversions of justice that ever occurred in this neighbor- hood. The negro should have been brought here and hung. Of all those who remember the case, not one out of 100 ever had the least doubt as to who committed this deed, and it was the common comment that at the same time that when the negro suffered his penalty on the gallows the jackleg lawyer should have been given a coat of tar and feathers and run out of the state he had disgraced forever.
THE RAILROADS.
Almost as sad as the history of the canal is a portion of the history of the early railroads of Evansville. By this is meant the various roads that came into the city for a time after the E. & T. H. railroad was built. The history of almost all railroads in the west at that time was the same. They were built not with much idea of helping the country, as the smooth tongued orators stated, but with a view of making easy money for the promoters. In their desire to get these roads through and at the same time make large sums of money for themselves, these men stopped at nothing. No promise was too great for them to make. No assertion of possibility or probability of the railroad was too great. The plan was worked about as follows :
Backed by a small amount of Eastern capital, certain oily tongued indi- viduals would be sent to go over a country through which their backers in the east imagined a railroad could be run. These parties then made quite a display of surveying implements and would first map out a prospective route. Then a member would go to each little town while the others took in the farmers along the line and they all told about the same story. The object was to make the town think and the farmers think that the only way for any absolute progress in the future would be to run that . railroad through. Thus they got the farmers to donate Rights of Way through their lands and by smooth work and possibly by the judicious outlay of a little money, they prevailed on each town on the route to give a certain amount. Then they would go to work, not with any thought of making anything of the great Trunk Line about which they had done so much talking, but with the sole idea of getting down some kind of a road which would be equipped with any sort of locomotives and cars to run for a short time. They knew full well that the road would never pay expenses, not for one single day. Even though they drew into their rings conserv-
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ative business men who were supposed to have some voice in matters, every- thing was manipulated in the East and whenever the East decided that it was time for the road to break up and go into the hands of a receiver, it was quickly done. These receivers, it is needless to say, had full instruc- tions from those higher up. It is probable that many citizens know the story of several receiverships in Evansville and how one receiver who gained his position through political influence, drew $12,000 salary each year, but was never here but once during each twelve months, and prob- ably knew as little about the real condition of the road as any boy who could be picked up on the streets. However, he drew his salary all the same. This matter might be dwelt on more fully but there is no desire on the part of this work to open up old sores. The railroads then built have passed into the hands of other parties as was intended from the be- ginning and Evansville is left with an enormous debt to pay for something she never received. As this matter will be taken up later on, it will be dis- missed for the present.
In the year 1835 an improved bill was introduced which provided for the building of a railroad running northward from Evansville, but it was not until 1837 that its success was looked for. The country was in such a bad condition financially that no one hoped that the money could be raised to build a railroad and it was more than ten years before anything more was done. Evansville had been growing in the meantime and had a city charter and was already looked on as one of the coming cities of the state of Indiana. Her citizens saw that a railroad to bring in the rich supplies from the northern country was an absolute necessity and even at that time they hoped for the same great connection with the lakes that had been hoped for at the time the canal was built. Laws had been passed by which local aid might be granted the road through the votes of the people. In March, 1849, the county commissioners ordered an election for April 12th, to decide upon the feeling of the people on the question of subscribing for stocks amounting to $100,000 in the Evansville & Indianapolis Railroad Company. The proposition carried 624 votes for it and 288 against it. In June of the same year the county auditor was ordered to subscribe for 500 shares at once and 1.500 shares more after the Railroad company was fully organized. The county treasury was at that time low, and the treasurer was ordered to negotiate for a four months note for $1,020.50, running four months at the Evansville Branch bank. The proceeds to go to sub- scription payments, the ratio being $2 on each 500 shares. In August, 1849, James T. Walker was authorized to vote the 500 shares of stock. The directors were Samuel Hall, James Bosswell, of Princeton, James Lockheart, John Ingle, Jr., John S. Hopkins, James E. Jones, John Hewson, Samuel Orr, and Michael E. Jones, of this city. At the next election Mr. Walker voted as proxy 2,000 shares, and the only change was that the name of Mr. Boswell was dropped from the roll of Directors and that of Willard Carpenter substituted. To pay the balance due on subscription,
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the county issued $99,000 in 6 per cent bonds in December, 1849, which were delivered to Samuel Hall, president of the railroad, in return for a certificate for 200 shares of stock. The bonds were of small average valu- ation and the interest was payable in Evansville. This interfered with their sale in the East and later these very inartistic bonds were exchanged for beautiful new ones in large dimensions for coupons payable in New York, and while this did not increase their value, they certainly looked more like real bonds. It is a strange fact that even in those days a beautifully ex- ecuted bond, glittering with gold leaf and done in fine type, though of really small intrinsic value, would more easily attract a purchaser than an abso- lutely good bond done in a western printing office. In June, 1854, the county auditor was authorized to issue certificates in payment of taxes levied in 1850-51 and '53 to each tax payer. These were presented at the office and scrip was issued for them. When a sufficient amount of these was accumulated, say $50 worth, that amount of railroad stock was issued to the tax payer who thus became part owner of the road. The railroad company, however, soon found that the people were getting too much stock and transactions of this kind were very suddenly stopped. Vanderburg county held this stock for many years, drawing dividends on the same. In 1875 Philip Decker offered to buy the shares owned by the county and the sale was actually made to Mr. Decker through Arnold Schraeder, $36,000 being the amount of the purchase money. Judge Richardson, however, of the circuit court, secured an injunction and prevented the sale. In June following, Messrs. Decker, Shrader, W. R. McKeen, of Terre Haute, and John E. Martin, returned the stock and received their money back and on June 30, 1881, the stock being offered at public auction by the auditor, it was sold to David J. Mackey for $150,000. The city of Evansville as well as the county of Vanderburg helped in the building of this railroad by subscribing for $100,000 of its stock and this went with the other to D. J. Mackey for $150,000. The road was finally finished and put in operation in 1853. First it was called the Evansville and Indianapolis, after that the Evansville and Crawfordsville, which latter name was then changed to Evansville and Terre Haute. Samuel Hall of course was the first presi- dent. He was an absolutely honest and honorable man and in every way fitted for the position. His successor was John Ingle, Jr., one of the most able men of this city. He was a lawyer by profession, full of energy and a good thinker and a man well capable of conducting the affairs of a rail- road. He was president of the road until shortly before his death at which time Mr. John E. Martin became president and also held that posi- tion for many a year. Mr. Martin introduced many improvements and under his able management the road rapidly increased in value. His con- nection ceased only when D. J. Mackey took control. Mr. Mackey's man- agement of this road was wonderful. In every detail his hand could be seen. He was an incessant worker and is said, knew every foot of the road bed by heart, having walked over it from this city to Terre Haute
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