USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > Evansville > History of the city of Evansville and Vanderburg County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 6
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The work on the northern portion of the Wabash and Erie canal had been pushed forward as much as possible. It was completed to Lafayette in 1841, in which year a second grant of land was made by the general government. The sagacious and far-seeing men of that day held tenaciously to the idea that Evansville's location was exceptionally favorable for the building of a great city and they set about industriously to work a realiza- tion of their hopes. The state debt was honorably compromised, but there was no possibility of inducing the legislature to undertake anew the scheme of internal improvement, and the national congress was again looked to for aid. Hon. Conrad Baker, Gen. Joseph Lane, Hon. William Brown Butler, Willard Carpenter and other prominent men did their part in effecting an
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honorable settlement of the state debts and in securing favorable legislation by congress. In 1845 the third grant of lands for the construction of the canal was made. It included one-half of all unsold lands in the Vincennes land district. The completion of the canal became, in this way, assured, and the anticipation of the benefits to be derived from its successful work- ings strengthened confidence in future growth, and gave an impetus to busi- ness such as it had never felt before.
Evansville became an El Dorado to which men of all classes flocked to better their conditions. Speculators visited the town, examined its ad- vantages and prospects, pushed on across the prairies to Chicago or went by steamer to St. Louis, investigated those places and returned to Evans- ville as the land of greater promise. Life, hope and energy were infused into every branch of business. The surrounding lands far to the interior had by this time passed from the possession of the government into the hands of individuals, and the agriculturist seeking a new home was forced to induce some earlier settler to part with some of his holdings. Values of real estate in town and country rapidly advanced. New farms were fast brought into cultivation, forests fell before the axe of progress, and be- cause of the productiveness of the soil, which had garnered in its pores, the accumulating richness of ages, vast quantities of farm products found their way into the markets of Evansville. Merchants buying produce and shipping it southward and furnishing supplies of tea, coffee, sugar, spices and manufactured goods to the farmers multiplied and the volume of busi- ness transacted increased so rapidly as to occasion wonder and amazement. Long lines of wagons from points as far inward as Vincennes, Lafayette and Terre Haute, came to Evansville to effect these exchanges. Magnifi- cent steamers daily landed at the wharf and lay for hours discharging and receiving freight. The levee as soon as it was constructed, in 1848, and prior to that time the river bank in front of the city from end to end, was stacked with produce of all kinds. This was the commencement of Evans- ville's career as a great commercial city. Her favorable position for hand- ling the products of a large and productive region, recognized for years and indeed from the first looked forward to as a source of greatness only await- ing development, was now yielding the rich fruits so long anticipated.
Men of large attainments, broad experience and dauntless energy were coming from lands beyond the sea, England, Ireland and especially Ger- many and from distant states, to engage in mercantile or professional pur- suits in this thriving place. Skilled artisans and manufacturing laborers were also seeking here a home. The descendants of the earlier pioneers in various parts of the country, of strong character and sterling worth, in the vigor of youth, left the farms of their fathers and came to the town, to enter upon broader fields of usefulness than the old homesteads promised. In its proportions, its advantages and its importance, Evansville soon be- came a city.
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On the 29th day of January, 1847, the governor of Indiana approved an act of the State legislature, granting to the citizens of the town of Evansville, a city charter. Its mayor, the members of the first council and its officers chosen at an election held on the first Monday in April, 1847, were all men of distinction and recognized ability. Hon. James G. Jones, a distinguished lawyer and citizen, was selected as mayor. In the council, which met for the first time on April 12, 1847, there were L. L. Laycock, first ward; Silas Stephens, second ward; Willard Carpenter, third ward; C. M. Griffith, fourth ward; L. Howes, fifth ward; John Hewson, sixth ward. The first officers of the city were: John J. Chandler, clerk; William Bell, assessor, collector and marshal; Samuel Orr, treasurer; James E. Blythe, attorney and Wm. M. Walker, surveyor. At the time of its charter as a city, the area covered by its corporate authority was about 280 acres. It had 4,000 souls within its limits; the valuation of its real estate, was $901,324; and the amount of taxes assessed on this valuation was $3,319.47, a sum adequate for the needs of the young city, though insignificant when compared with the annual expenses of today.
Up to this period, notwithstanding Evansville had become the most important shipping point between Louisville and the mouth of the Ohio, a distance of 400 miles, very little wharf improvements had been made, other than the cutting of roads through the high and almost perpendicular banks to the landing places. But the constantly growing commerce and increased shipping interests made it necessary to construct a wharf commensurate, with the extensive business which was being established; and in March, 1848, the city entered into a contract with John Mitchell, Marcus Sher- wood and Moses Ross, to grade the river bank and complete a wharf hav- ing a frontage on five squares, a length of nearly 2,000 feet. This was considered a great and important step forward, in the commercial history of a place now dignified with municipal proportions and recognized by the important appellation of a city.
About the first real step taken in the way of progress by the little city, was the building of a canal, the Wabash & Erie. Many assumed that this canal was first talked of by Evansville along about the early '40s, but as a matter of fact, Congress first took up the idea in 1824, when it made a donation of public lands to the state of Indiana, for the purpose of build- ing a canal from the Wabash river to the Maumee. As with many other matters of that kind, Congress, as it does in these days, allowed the mat- ter to drag on until the year 1827, when it made another grant consisting of each alternate section of the public lands within five miles of the pro- posed line of the canal. This grant was accepted by the state.
The idea was to begin on the Wabash near Lafayette and continue up the bank of that river to the mouth of Little river. Thence across that stream to its source. Thence to the junction of the St. Joseph's and St. Mary's at Ft. Wayne. From Ft. Wayne it descended to the town of Mau- mee. It was estimated that this would cost $9,000 per mile, but the esti-
CRESCENT
EVANS, LE1
A MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL BUILDING
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mate was too low. There was more legislation until the year 1831, when another plan was proposed to the north by way of Terre Haute. Finally still another proposition was put forward, the construction of the Central canal, to strike this and come thence along the Wabash to Evansville. Dur- ing all these years a great deal of time was wasted and so much money had been spent in making roads, clearing streams, etc., that the state became heavily in debt. In order to settle with its creditors who held its bonds, and to complete the Wabash & Evansville canal, the acts of 1846 and 1847 were passed. The people of Evansville had almost given up all hope of ever being assisted by the canal system, which seemed to provide for the upper part of the state alone, but at this time they took fresh heart and realizing that with the canal Evansville would be the great outlet for the immense quantities of grain and produce of all kinds that came from the rich country above it, and feeling that it was the only natural outlet to the South, they can be excused for feeling that their first great step in the way of progression had begun.
To make the great terminal at Evansville it was necessary to have a wide and deep basin and this part of the canal was always, during its exist- ence, called the basin, from which loaded boats, as they came, could discharge their cargo. To do this the old graveyard between 3rd and 5th below Syc- amore street, of which I have already spoken, was cleared away and a large basin was excavated. On the west side of this basin was a large dock which, by the way, was a favorite fishing place for many of our old citi- zens. A stock company, composed of enterprising business men of Evans- ville, was formed for the purpose of building canal boats and the best of workmen were brought here from the East. The first boat built by the company was called the Rowley and the second boat, the Evansville. All this time the canal was nothing but a huge ditch and one can imagine with what anxiety the people waited for the arrival of the water to fill it. When the news came that the water was actually coming, all the people of the city rushed to the banks and there was a day of great rejoicing. The first run of the boats was made as far as White river. There was much rivalry . as to who would gain the honor of taking out the first boat. It was finally decided that Mason Newman, a very popular citizen, should lead off, so mounted on a mule, he had the honor of being the first one to start canal transportation from Evansville. A friend of the writer who says Mr. Newman on that occasion declared that he would not have swapped his place on the deck of that mule for a seat in the presidential chair. The canal-boat stock company was made up of the best and most substantial citizens of the little town. The first trip up the canal was quite eventful. The boats took no freight of course, as all freight came from above. But they kept open house and all the people were invited. Many took their guns and fishing tackle and indulged in a regular picnic and so plentiful was the game in the new country, through which this canal ran, that they brought back quite a lot of deer and bear, to say nothing of smaller game.
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It was a sad thing for the little city that its first step along the lines of cheap transportation should prove such a failure. In those days the build- ing of a railroad, even of the cheap kind which they had in those days, was looked on as an affair of great enormitude. Little did they think, those good old citizens, that in a few brief years this entire section of the country would be traversed by a perfect network of railroads. It was the old ques- tion of "getting there first." The average owner of produce was in a hurry to get his stuff to market and those of us who remember the speed of the old canal boats, with their mule power, can readily imagine that as soon as the railroads began operating, the canal was compelled to take a back seat. Those who were far-seeing, readily made up their minds that the canal could only be of short existence and even in those days it was said that some day a railroad would run along its bed. This is the case, as the present Straight Line runs along it. This canal property neither in this section or in the north, ever paid one penny to the projectors. Of course all of them had bonds, but they had no real value. About the only thing that interested any one was to get hold of the lands that had been deeded by the state and in many cases these were bought for a mere song and to- day they are some of the finest farming lands in the world. Many of these sales were spurious and the titles were very vague and this led to endless litigations. As late as the year 1871 Mr. John Shanklin, one of our best citizens, brought suit to recover a tract that he had donated to the canal under certain provisions. This suit was lost, as was also the suit of Mr. Collett of Terre Haute, who for many years thought to gain a large body of this land. In order to locate this canal thoroughly, it might be stated that it came in a straight line from the north past what was known as Hulls hill and turned abruptly just above the Mulberry street schoolhouse. From thence it went down fifth street to the basin upon which a part of the new court house now stands, then making another turn and ending at the bank of Pigeon Creek, for it was here that the holders proposed to get rid of all overflow if necessary. One by one the old canal boats ceased being used and were left at various points along the canal or broken up and their timbers used in the construction of flat boats and other boats to be used in the Ohio river, until finally nothing remained except a few old wrecks. Water in the canal remained from 1838 to 1859 when, as per legal report, "the same ceased to be used as a canal and was wholly abandoned for that purpose." As there was no more water feed from the sources of the canal, it soon began to dry up and became a series of mud holes. Be- low Main street especially was this the case, and it was finally decided by the citizens to fill it up and turn it into a street. Really, the old canal was of no use to any one. At the corner of Locust and the canal, the first mill stood, and was built by Igleheart, and the water to run their mill was taken from the canal. At the corner of Main a livery stable used the water for washing buggies and for their stock. In the lower part of the city a brewery used the water and all along the line the people watered
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their stock, so that really these few were the only ones who suffered in the least from the filling up of the canal. While the canal story is a sad one, there were many pleasant features about it. It seems that in the old days the winters were more severe and during the winter season there was hardly a time that there was not skating along the canal. I have seen it lined with people almost everywhere within the city limits while those of the boys who lived in the lower part of the city and went to what was then the Canal street schoolhouse, always skated up and back instead of walk- ing. Again, the fishing was always good. There were many skiffs in it. It was so shallow that there was no danger, so that the young people of that day who are now in the sere and yellow leaf, will always have a warm spot in their memories for the old canal.
CHAPTER V.
AS SEEN BY A WOMAN-THE WAY CHILDREN WERE BROUGHT UP-EARLY SO- CIETY-PURSUED BY WOLVES-HOW THEY RODE-NO SOCIAL DISTINC- TIONS-HOW THEY COURTED-THE SIMPLE COSTUMES-THE OLD SHAWLS.
AS SEEN BY A WOMAN.
There is living today in Evansville, a woman who is a great-grandmother and who has reached, perhaps, more than the usual years allotted man, but still she retains marks of the beauty which made her one of the most ad- mired belles of Evansville of the early day. It was the great fortune of the writer to call on her during the progress of this work and to find her in a reminiscent mood. She was born very near the city and with due respect for her sex I will not say just when, but it was many years ago and her father was one of the first in every enterprise connected with the early history of Evansville. She said: "When I was a little girl we lived almost in a wilderness and I grew up as did most country girls, for we were all country girls in those days. My mother expected my sisters and myself to do our full share of all the household work and we did so wil- lingly, for we knew no better; for, in those days, children were taught to take up the burdens of the household early in life. The greatest trouble was, as I remember it, that in those days there were two old adages which were always in use. One was, 'Spare the rod and spoil the child' and the other, 'Children should be seen and not heard,' and I remember well that when my mother's friends called on her, we children were not debarred from sitting in the room, but we were not supposed to take any part what- ever in the conversation, so that the questions which are asked by children of the present day and the answering of which causes them such an early insight into so many things were never asked by us. What little informa- tion we got was through listening and there was where another adage comes in, 'Little pitchers have big ears.' My father lived about three miles from Evansville and conducted a mill and we children often played around it. In fact, we sometimes watched the grinding, while he was busy about other duties and sometimes chatted with the bashful neighbor boys who came to the mill and while they were not at all prepossessing, they simply did for the girls to practise on. The average youth who came to mill in those days was a raw-boned youngster, barefooted and with the old-time hickory shirt and blue jeans pants, the remnants of some kind of
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a hat, if he wore any at all and the hair in those days was always cut in about the same way. The mother of the household would fit a bowl on top of the youngsters head and take a pair of big shears, often those that were used in shearing the sheep, and she would cut squarely around the edge of the bowl, carefully clipping close to the skin, all the hair that was beneath it. You can easily imagine what they looked like and to me they were more like what we call top-knot chickens than anything else, for no mother ever thought of cutting the hair on top. Just so that it was cut away from the neck and the back of his head, she considered her duty done. If you are going to write a book, you surely ought to have a picture of one of those lank country boys just as he looked after his hair had been freshly cut.
"It is astonishing how well the girls knew how to take care of themselves. Many of them could shoot a rifle nearly as well as their fathers and broth- ers. Fear of firearms was unknown because in every house, no matter how humble or no matter how good, the first thing that one saw on enter- ing was the trusty rifle hanging from the fireplace with the ammunition sack by its side, and probably hanging on the antlers of a big buck. The men all shot so true that there were no such things as accidents, so that the girls grew up with an absolute freedom from any fear of any kind of a firearm. Many a pioneer mother could protect her house at any time from the few tramps who happened through the country and any of her older girls could do the same. Many of the girls were fine swimmers and often little crowds would come to our house and we would swim in the creek wearing loose wrappers, for we had no bathing suits in those days. I can say this, that such was the inborn politeness of these young country boys, that one of them would have sooner cut off his right hand, than to go any- where near the part of the creek where the girls were bathing. The rules were very strict in those days and very rarely broken. Of couse every girl could ride. That was a part of her education. But cross-saddle riding was unknown, as it was understood by all women that it was a very un- ladylike thing, and the more so because all the Indian squaws rode astride their ponies and no white woman ever allowed herself to imitate any of their ways. We all took our hands at quilting, spinning, and of course the cooking, and the very highest praise that could be given a young girl in those days was that she was a dutiful daughter and one of the best cooks and housekeepers in the neighborhood. Young girls in these days were almost all musical. At the time of which I speak there was not a single piano in the neighborhood and only one that was owned in Evansville proper. A mandolin had never been made. Nobody but negroes played the banjos and to the best of my knowledge there was not a guitar, so the only music was with our voices and the only time that we were assisted was when we sang with the old melodeon at the little church on the hill.
"All around our house were dense woods and while the Indians had all gone except an occasional straggler who was perfectly harmless, there
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were still some wolves left and at times they became very bold. I want to tell you of one incident when I was probably more frightened than ever before in my life.
"My older sister and myself were going to a neighbor's on an errand and we rode, of course, both on the same horse and with no saddle. I think we had a blanket possibly tied with a rope, but I know that in those days there were not three side saddles in this whole section of country. The women simply threw one leg over the horn of a man's saddle after shorten- ing the stirrup to the proper length. With us it was a case of 'have to learn.' We had to ride that way or walk and walking barefooted was not nearly as nice as going horseback. On this particular day we were riding along a country path when we heard a noise behind us and two cows came dashing madly along the road, pursued by two large gray wolves, while in the brush along the side of the path we could see quite a number of others. The cows were perfectly maddened with fright and they swept by us, frightening the horse so that he backed into some brush on the other side of the road. My sister clung to the reins and I clung to her and we succeeded in keeping our seats but the horse was so frightened by the smell of the wolves, that he started as hard as he could go, directly after the gang and in spite of my sister's pulling, she could not stop him until he ran to the farm house to which we were going. Naturally we began to yell as soon as we got near the house and the owner came out with his gun. We quickly told him what had happened and described the cows and he said at once that they were his and quickly saddling his horse, he started in the direction in which they had gone. We found when he came back, for we waited for him, being afraid to go home, that he had found the cows, but they had both been pulled down by the wolves and were half eaten up when he got there. This was right along the bank of Pigeon creek, not very far from where the Oak Hill Cemetery road crosses it. We knew then and I know now, that the presence of the cows was all that saved us, for if the wolves had struck the scent of the horse, they would have got him, or he in his frantic efforts to escape would have thrown my sister and myself and I would not be here today to tell this story. This is an actual occur- rence and it produced such an effect on me that even in years after, when I had grown up and was married, I sometimes woke at night in a perfect fright. I am glad to say that of such troubles, there were very few. . We could often hear the wolves but they were cowardly brutes and never seemed to have the courage to attack a man or woman, except during a very severe winter but woe to the unlucky calf or sheep that strayed ont into the woods.
"The oxen were generally able to take care of themselves. Where a little band of cows, steers and oxen were together, they would form in a circle at the first approach of the wolves and fight them off with their horns and such was their instinct, that while I never saw it myself, my
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father told me that he had often seen the old oxen and the cows push the young steers into the center of the ring, thus keeping them out of danger."
The writer knows that she was correct in this, for the same method was always pursued in the days of the buffalo. The yearlings and the cows always going into the center of a ring while the old bulls fought off the wolves with their horns. No danger ever happened to their heads or necks, and it was only when one of the circle slipped out of position that a strong wolf would dash in and catching it by the hind legs, would "ham-string" it. This means cutting the tendon of the hind leg so that the animal could not stand. Of course an animal hurt in this way would fall a prey later to the wolves, who hung on the verge of the large herds on the lookout for any cripples or young buffalo, who trailed behind the main herd.
Continuing her story the lady said, "You doubtless can tell all about the early days and you know about how the pioneers existed and how the girls used to dress and the country frolics, as they were called, and the balls and dances in town. After I married and my husband was in busi- ness here, of course we removed to the little place. Even in those days it was considered one of the most hospitable places of its size anywhere in the country. There were no distinctions in those days. I have lived here long enough to see Evansville divided into social circles of various kinds and I regret to say that I have lived to see money made the medium by which one's standing in society is judged. In other words, I have seen those who by birth, education and instinct, were fitted to shine in the very best society, if that term may be used, pushed to one side and looked down on by those of far grosser intellect, who by some lucky stroke of fortune or by means which would not be considered highly honorable, have ac- quired great sums of money and seem to have absorbed the idea that they are better than their neighbors.
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