USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > Evansville > History of the city of Evansville and Vanderburg County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 5
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Among the old time stage drivers the only one now living is "Uncle Billy Green" of Vincennes, who celebrated his ninety-eight birthday on the seventeenth of April, 1910. As was his regular custom he had a birth- day cake, with a candle on it for every year of his life. He has splendid health and there is every indication that he will live to pass the century mark. He not only walks regularly five blocks once a week alone and un- assisted, but reads his daily paper without glasses and attends to chores about the house. It is nothing uncommon to see him in the horse lot at the rear of his home hitching up a horse to a mail wagon, he having had the contract for transferring the mails to and from the union station aud post office for years, or throwing down hay out of the hay mow. He likes to work and insists that he be allowed to do so, and does not let a day go by in which he does not see that his horses are well cared for. He claims
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to be as yet a young man and his one ambition is to live to be 100 years of age. His only ailment seems to be a slight deafness in one ear. He was dangerously ill when a man of thirty years of age, and since then has had but few doctor bills to pay.
In February, 1831, Mr. Green emigrated to Vincennes purchasing his ticket at Liverpool, England, he being a native of England, paying fifty dol- lars for his transportation. Five weeks after starting he landed in New York. He remained in New York city but a short time, going from there by water and stage to Evansville. With William Bates, who had accom- panied him to this country, he walked from Evansville to a point about ten miles distant to visit a friend of his family who had come to this country several years before. After a short visit with his friend he returned to Evansville where he accepted a position as stage driver with an Evans- ville liveryman, Joseph Setchell.
In the fall of 1831 he made his first visit to Vincennes, in company with the late Samuel Emison and Captain Fellows, who had been to New Orleans on a trading expedition. For three years following he drove a stage between Vincennes and Evansville and has many thrilling stories which he sometimes is induced to tell to his friends. At the end of three years' residence in Vincennes he entered into partnership with others doing a stage business in that section of the country. Some of his stages went to Evansville, some to Louisville, some to Terre Haute and some to Danville. Vincennes being one of the oldest cities was a post office center and mail was opened there and distributed over the different routes. It is told that he was the most successful in the carrying of mail and that the government always had a safe contract with his firm.
In the early years of his residence there Vincennes was a great trading point. He states that previous to the time to the building of the railroads it was an every day occurrence in the summer and fall to see twenty- five flat boats loaded with grain, lumber and other articles for Memphis, New Orleans and other ports on the Mississippi. The stage route between Lafayette and Evansville passed through Vincennes and brought him much business. Vincennes at the time was larger than either Evansville or Terre Haute.
Mr. Green has really been in the service of the Government, over sixty- five years, as he still has a mail contract. In a recent interview as to his early life in Vincennes he said: "I carried mail between Vincennes and Danville at one time and the year contract was $4,500. This route was established by me. Evansville when I first went there had but five brick houses. In those days the Wabash was extensively used. I have seen as many a fifty boats pass down on the way from Lafayette. I have bought thousands of bushels of corn at ten cents a bushel."
Mr. Green is only a little older than Mr. Thos. Scantlin of this city, but Mr. Scantlin came here in 1820, while Uncle Billy Green did not leave England until 1831. There are many living here who will remember Mar-
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tin Cash as one of the oldest and most steady drivers for Mr. Joe Setchell. Of the Setchell family there is, I think, only one descendent living, a granddaughter in Cincinnati.
FLATBOATING.
The carrying of passengers and mail, and the traffic of goods by ped- dling wagons was as naught compared to the great business done by flat- boating on the Ohio in the early days. As the country kept improving it was an easy matter for the traders and store keepers to acquire great quan- tities of corn, pork, lard, venison and even eggs and poultry and there was always a ready market for all these things in the south and the old-time flat- boat offered the cheapest and most easy way of transportation. Most of the boats were built above here or up the smaller rivers and this city can- not be said to have been a building point. Even the boats that floated salt from the Kanawha river to Cincinnati, which were simply open boats were made over and roofed. Many of the best men we had, such as Gen. Joseph Lane, Barney Cody, Wm. Elliott, Tom Stinson, Wm. Onyett and others were experienced fiatboatmen. And they were the pioneer pilots and knew the river as well as the men made famous by the late Mark Twain. It was said of Jake Walliver, with whom I made a trip, that he could sleep twenty-four hours or "stay below" for that length of time and come on deck and take a look around on the darkest of nights and tell ex- actly where we were and how soon we would have to work the ."gonger."
Great fleets of these boats went down together, ready for mutual help, but it was found always that one boat with a single crew could be handled better than two boats, lashed together, with a double crew.
There were some few boats made with a regular bow or stern, and carefully built, but these were smaller than the others and lighter as it was expected that they would be poled and "cordelled" back.
Cordelling consisted in sending a long rope ahead and then pulling the boat up. Then going ahead again. It can easily be imagined that this labor when half the time the men were in it the water was most strenuous.
The easy way was to pin the old boats together with pegs, though later some nails and spikes were used in the bottom, and then sell the boats down on the Sugar Coast. There are thousands of bins, stables, gins, etc., in the south today, the foundation timbers of which came out of the old Indiana flatboats.
A boat could always be sold for about what it cost to build it, for Northern wood was always in demand. It was no easy task to build a really good boat, though hundreds made by unskilled hands, clumsily put together and looking very frail annually went down and thanks to good weather and a safe pilot, reached their destination safely. It must be re- membered that the awful snags of those days always pointed down stream and if a flat boat had a good solid bottom it glided over them.
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURG COUNTY
To build boat a good straight poplar was generally selected, from which to make the gunwales or "gunnels" as they were called. These must be say sixty to eighty feet long, and as straight as possible. The sides of the poplar, thus cut down were hewed straight, with a common ax or broad- ax, and then it was split and again hewed, until the two gunwales matched as nearly as possible. A slope up was hewed at each end, in order to do away with a perfectly flat bow or stern. These were then dragged as near the river or creek as possible. Into these two gunwales, great girders were cut in and fastened with wooden pegs, as were also smaller girders to hold the floor. The boats were 15 to 18 feet wide. The bottoms were of very heavy lumber as they had to stand all sorts of wear and tear in their rough voyages. Sometimes in the ice and over sand and gravel bars and old snags. Hemp was used for calking and regular iron chisel made for that purpose being used, though sometimes when the boat was very primitive, chisels of very hard wood were used. After the calking a thin floor was laid to hold it in place and also add to the strength of the bottom. Of course all this time the boat was inverted, and after it was hand spiked and rolled into the river, mud and dirt were put on one edge to sink that side while the other was raised up by a line thrown over a tree and drawn by oxen. After the boat was righted, the sides, also of heavy stuff were built on and then roofed. There were no windows but only one door at each end. There was a little platform at each end, simply for security. The cook room and bunks, which were merely wooden pens, so to speak, were in the bow, so that the crew when called up suddenly, could be near the "gonger" which was the main oar and the most used. A steering oar was of little use when a boat was simply moving with the current or by the slow action of the side sweeps but it was the gonger that called for "three thumps" on deck the most often. These oars were of big limbs with a natural curve in them. They were the gonger in front, the side sweeps, one on each side and the steering oar. On the end of each of these limbs, a heavy broad plank was pegged and so nicely were they adjusted, that, clumsy as they were, a boy could move them.
These boats could hold an enormous lot of produce. The bottom being flat it was hard to get them low down in the water with any ordinary load. The pump was a crude aflair and was worked with a springy sapling which, bent over, would do half the work by springing back into place. This was always carefully watched and it was a crime for any "watch" to go off duty without first pumping out. The watches were four hours on and four off and one can figure that a man's sleep was pretty badly broken, but it was easy when one got used to it.
Flatboating was not without its dangers. The Pittsburg coal flatboat- men were a rough set and there were men at various places along the Ohio who would rob any boat that came along. One gang at Cave-in-Rock just below the mouth of the Wabash, levied toll for quite a time. Of course they got little except produce which they sold again. Their method was
OLD STONE HOUSE, EVANSVILLE
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURG COUNTY
to go up stream and lie in wait for the boats, row out to them and under some pretense get aboard and with guns force the men to row over to the Illinois side where they would tie up the boat and force the crew to help them take the stuff out on the banks. At one time the Indians near Shaw- neetown used to work the same scheme, but after a few ruffians and In- dians were quietly knocked out of their canoes by the unerring rifles of the flatboatmen the thing stopped. As may be understood, a loaded flatboat was a regular fort. It was hard for a bullet to penetrate the sides of those old boats and when it did it became spent in the corn or bacon. Even with good boats, well loaded and past the primary difficulties of the trip the work of these old pioneers was hard.
The Mississippi with its treacherous currents, its shifting bars, caving banks and fallen trees was full of dangers. Sometimes in the great bends, the three thumps, which meant "all on deck" were given, and the crew would work for hours, pulling away from the "point" which invariably marked the end of the bend and it was only by the greatest work that the boat was kept from being dashed on it. It would seem to an outsider that it was an easy job to get out on the "broad bosom of the Ohio" in the center, and float idly down. Those who have noted the ice pile up on the city wharf and the work of some big tow-boat trying to swing its barges around the bend in front of the city, can understand how it is in the rapid Mississippi river.
Sometimes great storms would come up and then it was that the pilot showed that he was also a weather prophet. Long ere it burst he would be peering ahead at both shores trying to find a good lee point, or a big drift pile behind which he could swing in his boat. When near the shore a head line was rapidly sent out and made fast to some big tree and the boat eased down by letting the rope slip gradually till there was no danger of a break. Then the stern line would be put out and all made safe.
The way of buying and selling the corn if a boat took a full corn load was rather funny. The corn was bought by the owner of the boat or his agent before the boat reached the sellers landing. It was always in rail cribs, as near the water as possible, in order to make a short "carry."
To take it aboard a barrel was arranged with a handle on each side, and with two men to a barrel, both filling it was fast work. The owner and the man in charge of the loading simply kept tally of the barrels until it was decided to weigh a few. Remember this was when it was being bought. It may have been mental telepathy, but somehow all the men knew about what time a pair would be stopped with the curt order "weigh that barrel." It was then that the lower part of the barrel was filled with corn all stuck in so as to leave as many spaces as possible but the top would be piled up so high that the corn would almost topple off. It was just such a barrel as this that the owner would select to be weighed, as of course this barrel and two others would make the "estimated" weight by which all the others were guaged. Then it was, that probably the next twenty-five or fifty bar-
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rels would go out "fixed." If there were any very green hands they would be told to go and do something else, leaving at least two or three of the old experts to fix the barrels, till the two others were weighed. I once saw one of these "experts" when told to stop with his barrel, turn so suddenly that he twisted one of his partners' hands loose (by accident [?]) and the barrel dropped into the river. He knew the barrel was not fixed well enough to be weighed and would also show by its difference in weight from the former barrel, that something was wrong.
Naturally when the boat sold out, down on the sugar coast, the tactics were completely reversed. The barrels to be weighed were deftly filled so as to show the very heaviest weight, and after that the great point was to make the load show as many barrels as possible, but they were all based on the weight of the heavy barrels. So it will be seen there are tricks in all trades, even in flatboating.
The fare on the boats was the very simplest. Bacon, corn bread, po- tatoes and onions, sometimes we had molasses or sorghum. The cook had the easiest job, as he was not supposed to come on deck, except in times of grave danger.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST BOOM-ITS FAILURE-THE CRISIS OF 1837-MR. CLARK'S LETTERS -CENSUS OF 1838-INFLUX OF NEW BLOOD-INCREASED TO 4,000 POPULA- TION-BECAME A GREAT SHIPPING POINT-THE FIRST WHARF-THE CANAL AND ITS FAILURE.
Evansville has been a city of booms, but most of those of the past have been spasmodic. The present one seems to be a fixture and the uni- versal feeling seems to be that it will never stop until this becomes one of the great cities of the West.
In the year 1836 there were about fifteen buildings of all kinds on Water street. On First street there were some twenty-six, Main street was poorly built up. The Mitchell family owned the corner where the Richmond Hotel stands, and across the street was Lewis Bros. store, which had a large warehouse in the rear. In this the first court was held. This warehouse was also utilized for the first balls ever held here.
Across Main street was another warehouse belonging to Mitchell and in the rear on the corner was the Kazar House. On the west side was an old frame in which Wm. and Crawford Bell kept a drug store. Then came the old two story brick on the corner of Main and First, which was first used as a store by Sherwood & Reilly, then by John Shanklin and then by Shanklin & Reilly. This building stood many years and was torn down when the Merchants National Bank was built. Across the street where the up town office of the L. & N. now stands, was a log cabin and on the alley, where the Tribune formerly existed, (now the B. & B. Laun- dry) was another cabin.
Above Second on the east side of Main were some small frames and in one of them that pioneer James Scantlin had a tin shop. The old court house stood at Main and Third, when the Hartz cigar store stands, but court was held up stairs. It was on a sort of public square and where the second court house (on the Eichel Block property) stood was an old pond, where people watered their cattle. Above Fourth was a frame on one side and Henson's brick on the other. The ground was all cut up with sloughs and gullies in every direction. I have seen wild ducks in a pond which lay in front of the old Willard Carpenter home. No one tried to keep back the water and at every rise, both the river and Pigeon creek backed up as they chose. The first graveyard was between Third and Fourth streets, two blocks below Main. It was uncared for and the deaths were so few,
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURG COUNTY
that each time there was a funeral a way had to be cut in through the thicket. The second graveyard will be remembered by many. It laid just a block above the Canal street school on Mulberry street.
At this time the entire real and personal property owned in Evansville was $863,675 and the total assessment was $3,266.661/2. At this time the Board of Trustees. etc., was as follows: President, Robert M. Evans; Trustees, James Lockhard, Wm. Walker, Edward Hopkins, Abraham B. Coleman, John Douglass, Thomas F. Stockwell and Francis Amory. Joseph Bowles, Clerk. James Cawson, Treasurer. John S. Hopkins, Collector and Amos Clark, City Attorney.
At this time just when the little town seemed to be ready to grow, came the awful panic of 1837, and from that time until 1844, Evansville, instead of increasing, gradually went back. The store keepers had to mortgage to secure Eastern creditors and land that had been bought on time, or par- tial payments was allowed to lapse to the original owners. Many who prior to that time had had faith in the future of the city moved away. Among them was Amos Clark, who seems to have been a splendid lawyer.
As to his ability there is no doubt and it is to be regretted that he was forced to leave here through financial stress. But there were others who soon came and their names and deeds are graven in the history of Evansville.
The town lessened in population and wealth and also in its commercial importance. Some struggled against the calamity for a time and either went into bankruptcy or turned their possessions over to their creditors and went elsewhere to start anew. Col. Dobyns of Tennessee, married Cla- rissa, a daughter of Hugh McGary and thus became possessed of certain property interests in and about Evansville, which were entrusted to the management of Mr. Clark. The condition of the times preceding and fol- lowing the financial panic of 1837 is shown by the personal letters which passed between the gentlemen at that time, from which some extracts are here made.
Mr. Clark wrote to Col. Dobyns January 20th, 1837, as follows :
"Dear Sir :- I have been applied to repeatedly for leases upon land ad- joining town, but have not yet given any, and think it best not to offer the land for sale. The favorable termination of the canal renders the land ex- tremely valuable. I have no doubt but if it were laid out in lots it might, a considerable portion of it, sell from one to two thousand dollars per acre. The canal terminates in a large basin at the end of the street which leads out from the public square, and by opening a street to the Princeton road following the course of the street which divides the Lower enlargement from the original plat, will render this land of incalculable value. Laughlin has done nothing concerning the six acres on which the old steam mill stood. That piece is now worth not less than $20,000-our railroad, I have no doubt, will be commenced this year. The canal on this end of the line is under contract and the work is progressing."
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURG COUNTY
The conditions changed soon afterward. On February 21st, 1838, Mr. Clark wrote: "As to the money, there is none in my hands or anybody's else in this part of the country. It is an article now more difficult to obtain than I ever knew it." He proceeded to tell of the failures, assignments, taking of mortgages and judgments to secure claims and pictured the great- est financial distress. Again June 6th, 1838, he said: "As to the getting money out of Walker, it is out of the question at present. It is impossible now to collect money except by sueing, and under existing circumstances, I would hardly advise that course." More than two years after, on July 2nd, he wrote, "I tried every means in my power to raise some money for you, but it was out of the question. In fact, there is no cash here. Town is dead and his estate is not settled. Goodsell is doing all he can and will get through. Walker is worth money, but has got none, and says this week he expects to be protested in bank. As for myself, I shall recover judg- mens next term against some of the best men in the place sufficient to pay all I owe, and am determined to close my business as soon as the law will let me, so there is no use suing me." With an account of foreclosures, ejectments, etc., he portrayed greater distress than prevailed two and a half years earlier. The following letter is presented in full :
EVANSVILLE, 4th, March, 1840.
"Dear Sir :- I have not heard from you this winter, except Mr. Good- sell told me on my return from Harrisburgh, where I attended as a dele- gate to the National convention, that he had received a letter from you. It will be advisable for you to be here at our court, by all means. The New Yorkers have brought their suit now for the land in an action of ejectment, of which I am this moment apprised, and it renders it still more necessary for you to be here. I have another reason why I want you to come. I have a good little steamboat exactly calculated for your trade which I want to sell you. She sold last summer at $3,500, and an additional $500.00 was laid out on her. I will let you take her at a fair price and take claims here and property for her. By this means you will get your pay and have it under your control. She is a sound good boat and will carry, I suppose, sixty or seventy tons. As to any money being now collected, or for years to come, it is out of the question. Our legislature has passed a most ex- traordinary law with a view to relieve the people, by which it will be next to impossible to collect debts, and have taken away one term of our court. Our public works are stopped, the state is bankrupt and half of the people in it. Produce is low and falling, and what is to be done God only knows. I returned last night from a trip far up the Wabash and found times harder there than here, if possible. Property here can not be sold at any price, and I am well satisfied I can make you a trade in this steam- boat that will be much better to you than to have your concerns lying as they now do. You will, of course, be here as soon as a letter could reach me, if not, write immediately. Yours truly,
"AMOS CLARK."
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURG COUNTY
In 1838 the census showed a population in Evansville of 1,228 repre- sented as follows: White males, 567; white females, 621; colored males, 24; colored females, 16. In 1840 the population of the county was 6,250 and the town 2,121. In the last year, the mercantile interests of Evansville were represented by the following individuals and firms:
Shanklin & Johnson, Rowley & Sherwood, Henry D. Allis, John Mit- chell, John M. Stockwell & Co., Burbank & Co., Jones & Royston, Jerome B. Lawphear, John R. Wilcox, F. C. Gwathney, Alexander Price, S. W. Townsend, Edward Hopkins, John H. Maghee, William Caldwell, Fred Wetsell, Martin Schovel, A. B. Carpenter & Co., Charles L. Rhomann, C. M. Griffith, Robert Barnes, Thomas Gedney, Charles Folmen, Bittrolff & Geissler, Joseph Raim, P. Wise & Co., G. A. Meyers, G. Venneman & Co., J. E. Wood, B. Jacobs & Co., Daniel Wolsey, John Greek, Edward Jewell, W. & C. Bell, Decker & Kramer, L. & P. Hornbrook, A. M. Klein, C. New- burgher & Co., T. G. Thurston, Peter Vaughn, John S. Hopkins, A. Laugh- lin, J. Farquher, G. W. Miller, Harrison & Walker, C. D. Bourne, C. Levy & Co., and J. W. Tileston & Son.
While these hard times were going on, the brilliant and spirited cam- paign of 1840 was fought and William Henry Harrison was triumphantly elected. The stirring scenes of that campaign can never be forgotten by those who witnessed them, and they form an interesting chapter in our na- tional history.
About 1842 wise legislation and private thrift and economy brought back a fair degree of prosperity and the country began to recover from the results of the panic. Evansville shared in the improved conditions of af- fairs, but her revival was more largely due to favorable causes of a local nature. Faith in the future of the town, however, was not firmly fixed until about 1845. In the time of the distress attending the business stagna- tion, in November, 1842, the town was swept by the most destructive fire that thus far had ever occurred in its limits. All the houses fronting on the east side of Main street, between First and Second, were destroyed. There were no fire engines in those days and the citizens were compelled to carry water in buckets from a cistern located in the yard of the old State Bank, and had great difficulty in controlling the flames.
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