USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > Logan's History of Indianapolis from 1818. Giving a carefully compiled record of events of the city from the organization of the state government > Part 4
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LOGAN'S HISTORY OF
the spring of this year and continued its enza prevailed here as an epidemic, attack- operations for many years. In July and ing nearly every person in the town. Great August meetings were held at the court rains fell for two weeks in March and April, house to organize an agricultural society, four inches of water falling in one night. and it was completed September 3d, Calvin The stream- rose very high, and all mails Fletcher, Henry Bradley, Henry Burton, were stopped.
and others being leaders in it. but no perm-, A canton having been sent here an artil- anent effect resulted from the effort, and it lery company was formed under Captain is notable only as the first attempt in that James Blake, and thereafter at 4th of July direction. and other celebrations, the artillery squad
In September the land office was removed became an important though dangerous ad- from Brookville to this point, and in Sep- junet, for several men were afterward tember and October an unusual number of maimed for life by that gun, On the 20th emigranis passed through the town on their of June the Indianapolis Fire Company was way to the Wabash and the Illinois prairies. formed. John Hawkins, President, J. M.
1826. On the 13th of January the As- Hay, Secretary. The company used buek- sembly directed the agent to contract with'ets and ladders, and turned out at the call Ashael Duaning to build a two-story brick of the church bell. It maintained its or- ferry house 18 x 30 feet, on the river bink. ganization (being incorporated January, It was built the following summer, and 1830,) till February, 1835, when it was though partially burned November 27th, merged in the Marion tire engine company. 1855, was repaired, and is standing in good| The usual military and eivie parade oe- repair near the mill-race on Washington curred on the 4th of July, with exercises at street. Sickness, and lack of trade and mo- the court house. Rev. George Bush was ney, had prevented many lot buyers from chaplain, L. Dunlap, reader, C. Fletcher, meeting deferred payments on their lots orator, and John Hays furnished the din- and they were liable to forfeitare at anyiner. On the 12th of August publie funeral time. The Assembly. January 20th, al- services were held for Adams and Jefferson. lowed further time, and permitted buyers of A military and civie proce-sion marched to several lots to surrender part. and transfer the court house. where B. F. Morris and D. the cash payments on the lots surrendered Maguire delivered eulogies on the illustrious to meet deferred payments on others. This dead.
act was followed by similar ones at subse -! & There was the usual great westward emi- quent dates, greatly relieving embarrassed gration in the fall. The town was unusu- buyers. Western lots were surrendered and ally healthy, although the summer was hot the settlement went still further east. Theland dry. Lorenzo Dow, the noted revival- centre of population and business has shitted;ist, visited the town in June and preached considerably at different periods. At first to the people in a grove near the present the town was on the river. The sickness in Madison depot, and the next evening at the 1821 drove it eastward, and the lot-reliefcourt house steps. He attracted large audi- act carried it still further to the east. Tilliences, more by eccentricities of speech and 1836 the town was on and near Washington dress than by eloquence.
street, between West and New Jersey streets,
A treaty was concluded with the Indians It then tended westward to the canal, underlat Fort Wayne in the fall, by which more the internal improvement excitement. Af-|territory was ceded, and the government ter the abandonment of the public works it agreed to deliver certain cattle, hogs, wag- moved eastward to the square on which the ons, &c., the next spring. In January, Palmer House stands, and for a long time, 1827, John Tipton, Indian agent, advertised was nearly stationary, for there was little for proposals for the delivery of two hund- change in the size and business of the place. red hoge, two hundred cattle, ten wagons, In 1848 it moved southward, tending to the and the building of eight brick houses in Madison depot; the construction of other the Indian country under the treaty. The lines arrested it and it moved north-east, till heavy rains the following spring prevented the war suddenly scattered business and the delivery of the wagons and stock, and population in every direction. At present the savages were somewhat dissatisfied it is probable the centre of population is not thereat.
far from the east market house, and the cen-| tre of business near the north-west corner of January, directed the agent to survey and sell seven acres near the river for a steam
Pennsylvania and Washington streets.
1827. The Assembly, on the 26th of
A census in February showed seven hun- mill site, and on the 28th of January, 1828, dred and sixty inhabitants two hundred;incorporporated the Steam Mill Company and nine of them being children of school with $20,000 capital, in $50 shares. The age, and one hundred and sixty-one of them company-the first one incorporated here- in the Sabbath school. In March the influ- organized shortly after, Nicholas McCarty,
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INDIANAPOLIS FROM 1818.
James Blake and J. M. Ray being the lead- the summer, and stood there till 1855. ers in it. Subscriptions were slowly oh- tained during 1820-30, materials were col- lected in 1830-1, the building raised in Sep- tember and finished in December, 1-31. The saw mill had been finished before. The grist mill began work in January, 1832, and was the first in this section that had
k.
(Old Steam Mill.)
(Clerk's Office.)
Four thousand dollars were also appropri- ated for a two-story brick house on the Cirele for the Governor, and the Circle was to be enclosed by a rail fence by the first of May. The house contract was signed March 17th, and it was built at a cost of six thous- and five hundred dollars during the sum- mer by Smith, Culbertson, Bishop and Speaks. It was a solidly-built, square, two- story, lipped-roofed brick house, with look- ont, large windows, doors and chimneys, two cross halls, and four large rooms on each floor, and dark, damp basement under the whole structure. These vaults were a
bolting cloths or made fine flour. The wool-carding apparatus was put in motion in June, 1832. The mill ran irregularly, for there was difficulty in getting good wood at seventy-five cents per cord; the de- mand for flour was not equal to the supply, and shipments were out of the question. The mill stood north-east of the present bridge, and was the largest building in the place, being a heavily framed structure of three full stories with a high gambrel roof, allowing two additional stories. The boil- ers and engines-the first ones ever used here-were to have been brought up on a steamboat, but were wagoned ont from Cin- cinnati with great ditheulty in 1831. The mill was unprofitable, and was abandoned (Governor's House.) and the machinery offered for sale in 1835 .. source of terror to all small boys, for they It remained vacant till 1847, when it was fully credited the legend that they were refitted and used till 1852 by Geisendorffs as tenanted by a headless ghost whose appetite a woolen mill. It again became vacant. for youngsters was insatiable. The house
and was fired and totally destroyed with was totally unfit for a residence and was never occupied as such. At the session of the neighboring toll house, on the night of' November 16, 1853, endangering the White 1829 it was proposed to add wings to the river bridge, which was only saved by east and west ends and use it as a State house, but the proposition failed. rooms were successively occupied by the State officers, State library, State Bank, The great exertions on the part of the firemen. One hundred men worked two days in rais- ing its heavy frame, and no liquor was used, a fact which excited much comment at the State engineers, Supreme Judges, old bach- . time, for serious doubts had been enter- elors, debating societies, and Supreme Court tained whether so large a building could be'clerk. At the session of 1856-7 it was or- raised without the aid of whisky.
dered to be sold. and was disposed of by The Assembly appropriated five hundred auction April 16th, 1857, for six hundred dollars January 26th, to build a Supreme and sixty-five dollars, and torn down April Court clerk's office, eighteen by thirty-six 25-30. "Its material was partly used in the feet, on the west side of court square. It Macy house and the dwelling adjoining it. was built by S. and J. Patterson during The Circle has since been used for political (2)
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LOGAN'S HISTORY OF
and other open air meetings. In the fall of school system was adopted the building was 1867 the city council ordered it graded, used from Sept., 1853, to 1859, as a high planted, fenced. and surrounded with a de- school, but was torn down in August and cent sidewalk, for the first time in its his- September, 1860. After the lease to the torv. seminary trustees, the Assembly directed The Assembly, January 26th, directed the agent, February 6th, 1837, to lease the the agent to offer at publie sale, with eer- north-west corner for twenty years to the tain exceptions, all reserved, forfeited and Lutheran church. the lease to be given up unsold lots. Several alleys and squares if the square was needed for a University. were vacated. Square 22 was reserved for The church, however, was built elsewhere. a State Hospital and square 25 for a State On the 17th of February, 1838. the agent University. This square has since been was directed to lease the north-west corner claimed by the Bloomington College, which for twenty years to the trustees of the Indi- was then a "State Seminary," so designated anapolis Female Institute, first getting a re- in the act creating it, and with funds and lease from the Lutheran church, but the in- lands specially set apart for it; and though stitute also was afterward built elsewhere. afterward made a college, no act ever recog- On the 21st of January, 1850, the Governor nized it as the " Univer ity " for which and State officers were directed to sell one square 25 was reserved as a site, nor has aere of the square at its appraised value, to the Assembly ever at any time in any man- the Indiana Asbury University for the use ner given it any claim on that square. of its medical department, the Central Med- The Assembly. January 26th. 1832, au-jieal College. The aere was accordingly se- thorized the agent to lease square 25 forfleeted, and appraised at $3,566, but the thirty years to the trustees of the Marion appraisement being thought too high, and County Seminary, who might build on the oppo-ition arising to the sale. it was never south-east or south-west corner thereof, and completed, and the college was discontin- if the square was needed for a university be-jued. In 1865-6 the eity took possession of fore the lease expired, a half-nere where the the square, fenced, graded and planted it at seminary stood was to be sold or deeded to an expense of over $2,000, and in future it the trustees. The trustees took possession will probably be used as a park. Hitherto under the lease, and in 1833-4 built on the, it has been used as a pasture, as a lumber and stone yard, and as a parade and play ground. In June, 1860, a large part of it was covered with a frame structure called a "Coliseum," built by Mr. Perine, and in- tended for shows and monster meetings. The edifice was about three hundred feet square, consisted of a board wall twenty-five feet high, with battlemented towers at the entrances and corners. The interior con- tained a large pit or open space at the south NOT: side, with a tall flag-staff, from which -eats ranging from four teet at the front to twenty feet high near the walls, were arranged on the east, west and north sides, making an amphitheatre capable of seating fifteen or twenty thousand persons. Wide aisles led to the several tiers of seats. By great efforts it was got ready and opened July 4th with -- (Marion County Seminary.) a military parade, band concert, and balloon ascension by J. C. Bellman, closing at night south-west corner and opened the school with the finest display of fireworks ever September 1st, 1834, with E. Dumont as scen here. The enterprise was not pecuni- principal. W. J. Hill succeeded January, arily successful, but deserved to be so, if 1835; Thomas D. Gregg, May, 1836; Wm. only for its magnitude and boldness. No Sullivan, December, 1836; Wm. A. Holli- auditorium as large has ever been built day, August, 1837 ; James S. Kemper, Oe- elsewhere in the West, and perhaps not in tober, 1838; J. P. Satlord, 1843 ; Benjamin the country. After standing some weeks it L. Lang, 1844. The seminary was long was torn away. The vacant square was the leading school in Central Indiana, and subsequently used for military parades, es- under Kemper, Safford and Lang had a pecially during the Morgan raid, when the high reputation. Many of the present bus- City Regiment, twelve hundred stronz, was iness men of the city were wholly or par- daily and nightly mustered there at stroke tially educated in it. Atter the city free;of bell, to go through agonizing partings
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INDIANAPOLIS FROM 1818.
with mothers, wives and sweathearts, while reader. N. Bolton orator. John Hays pro- their twelve hundred martial bosoms vided the dinner, which closed with the throbbed, doubtless, with strong desires tojusnal toasts and speeches. The first public school examination and exhibition took
meet the foe.
The Journal in February, 1827, said the place at the court house October 5th. Dur- town then contained a court house, a Pres-ting the fall squirrels and other animals byterian church with thirty members; a were migrating in great numbers, and sev- Baptist church with thirty-six members, eral bears were killed close to town. worshiping in a small cabin : a Methodist church with ninety-three members, worship- ing in a small cabin, but building a new brick church, the walls of which were com- pleted and enclosed during the fall. A opened by Mrs. Matilda Sharpe, and there-
Hitherto the ladies of the place had been compelled to make their own bonnets and clothes in backwoods fashion, but in Octo- ber the first millinery establishment was Sabbath school had also existed for five after style began to be assumed in the new years, and now contained twenty teachers town.
and one hundred and fifty scholars. There!
The town improved but slowly from this were twenty-five briek, sixty frame. and date to 1834. The settlement was mainly eighty hewed and rough log houses in the on Washington street and one or two town. In the fall it stated that rents were squares north and south, with detached high and houses in demand. The Govern- dwellings on other parts of the plat. The or's Circle was being built. Six two-story timber had been cut from the greater por- and five one-story brick houses, with a large tion of the plat, but the outlots were still number of frame houses, had been built. It in the woods. Large trees stood in places called for the introduction of steam engines within two squares of Washington street, and home manufacturing, and said nearly and the greater part of the ninth ward was $10,000 worth of goods and provisions had a forest till 1846. All the territory south of been brought to the town and sold during Maryland and east of Meridian streets was the past year. Among the articles were unimproved except as farms till 1845, and seventy-six kegs tobacco, two hundred bar- most of it till 1855. A fine walnut grove rels flour, one hundred kegs powder, four existed in the first and second wards north thousand five hundred pounds spun yarn, of North street, and Drake's addition was a and two hundred and thirteen barrels of good hunting ground till 1848. Squirrels, whisky. Seventy-one additional barrels of rabbits and turkeys were killed in sections whisky had also been made here and sold. now thickly peopled. No grading what- A Sunday school census taken November ever had been done, and few sidewalks ex- 25th showed five hundred and twenty-nine isted, even on Washington street. Ponds white, and thirty-four colored males ; four along the bayous afforded skating in winter, hundred and seventy-nine white, and twenty and in summer were covered by green seum four colored females; total, one thousand and tenanted by countless frogs. The streets and sixty-six inhabitants in the town. Two were semi-fluid in thawing weather, but the hundred and eighty-four barrels of whisky drainage in many places was better than seems a large allowance for this number of since the engineers changed it. The town people, but the water then was doubtless was a dull country village, with no excite- very impure, from the vast quantity of de- ment beyond the annual sessions, when a caying vegetable matter.
little animation was given to society and to A tornado passed a few miles south of trade. It seemed to have attained its town on the 5th of April, destroying the growth. Few expected a brighter future, timber but injuring no person.
nor was there any prospect of it till the in-
The sale of lots ordered by the Assembly ternal improvement scheme was originated. took place May 7th and 8th. One hundred 1828. The spring was very wet with and fifty-three lots (twenty-four of them on'heavy rains, and in May a flood occurred Washington street,) and thirty or fortyjin White river, rivaling that of 1824, and squares of four aeres each, were offered. those of 1847 and 1858. Less damage was One hundred and six lots sold at $180 per done then than since, there being fewer set- acre, and thirty-eight outlots and squares at tlements along the bottoms. There is no $23 per acre. Mr. Knight, commissioner doubt that White river then had a greater in charge of the National road survey, lo- average depth of water than now, and was cated the line to this point July Sth, and better fitted for navigation. Repeated at- went on westward next day. The Fourth of tempts were made to navigate it, and boats July was ushered in with twenty-four of good size used. In May, 1822, the keel- rounds by the new artillery company. The boat Eagle, fifteen tons, with salt and whis- procession included citizens and the rifle ky, arrived from the Kanawha, and the and artillery companies, and marched to, Boxer, thirty-three tons, with merchandise, the court house. Ebenezer Sharpe was from Zanesville; and the Dandy, twenty-
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LOGAN'S HISTORY OF
eight tons, in May, 1824, with salt and river falling rapidly they returned. In whisky, and many other boats arrived from 1829-30 General Hanna and others took the lower river, and departed loaded with contracts on the National road, and resolved produce. Large flatboats also were built to bring up a boat to haut stone and timber and ran to the southern market, and the from the bind's for the abutments and trade was kept up till the dams on the river bridges. A medium-sized boat, the "Rob- interfered with its navigation. The Assemi- ert Hanna," was bought, and after some bly and the people regarded White river as trouble arrived here loaded and towing a a very important channel for heavy freights. loaded barge, on the 11th of April, 1-31. Alexander Ralston was appointed commis- She was greeted by the entire community, sioner February 12th, 1825, to survey and and by Captain Blythe's artillery squad fir- report the expense of removing obstructions ing a National salute. A meeting was in it from drift, snags and leaning trees, called on the 12th, Isaac Blackford, presi- He made the survey during the summer. dent, and James Morrison, secretary, which and reported that from Sample's Mills in passed resolutions of welcome, asked for the Randolph county to Indianapolis was one improvement of the river, and extended an hundred and thirty miles, from here to the invitation to the boat owners and officers forks two hundred and eighty-five miles, for a publie dinner. Two excursion trips and from thence to the Wabash forty miles; were made up the river on the 12th with a total four hundred and fifteen miles ; and great crowd of passengers. During the sec- that for that distance the river might be ond one she ran into the trees on the bank, made navigable for three months in the knocking down her pilot-house and chim- year by expending $1,500. There were two'ners, ant injuring the wheel-house. The falls, one of eighteen inches, eight miles passengers were terribly frightened, and slid above Martinsville, and one of nine feet in off in great numbers. The boat was too one hundred yards, ten miles above the high and large for so narrow a river with forks. There was also a great drift at the overhanging trees, and unfit for the purpose Daviess and Greene county line. After this for which she was designed. She started report the Assembly repeatedly memorial- down on the 13th, grounded for six weeks ized Congress, asking for the improvement on a bar at Hog Island, where the captain's of the river, and considerable sums were child was drowned, and did not get out of appropriated from the State treasury for the river till the fall. No subsequent effort that object, the county commissioners along at steam navigation was made till 1865, the river governing the expenditure. In; when the Indianapolis and Waverly packet, 1830-35, John Matthews and others pro- Governor Morton, built by a company at a posed slackwater navigation, building lev- cost of $11,000, ran a few trips several miles ees, dams and locks, and using steamboats up and down the river during the summer and tugboats for barges, to carry passengers and fall, and following spring. From want and freight from this point to the lower of water, leakiness, defective construction, river. Mills would be built at the dams, and distrust by the community, she failed to and serve as feeders to the trade, and the realize the hopes of her builders, and was stone, timber, iron ore, coal and produce of wrecked just below the bridge in the sum- the river valley, could be brought more mer of 1866, after a brief but glorious en- cheaply to our town than by any other reer.
mode. Matthews pressed this plan for The first stage line from Indianapolis was years, and the Assembly in February, 1851, started to Madison by Mr. Johnson, in June chartered the White River Navigationfor July, 1828. In July the Indianapolis Company for twenty years, but nothing was Library Society was formed, the members done, not even a survey, to test the practi- donating the books, and continued its ex- cability of the plan. If at all feasible it;istence for six or eight years. The Fourth certainly deserves attention and a survey at of July was celebrated with more display least to test its practicability, for our manu- than usual. The artillery and rifle com- facturers and builders would derive advan- panies, the citizens, and the Sabbath school, tages from it they can never get from any which now participated for the first time, other work. In 1828 or 9, Governor Noble formed in procession and marchel to the becoming convinced that steamboats of a court house. Hiram Brown acted as presi- small size could be used on the river, en- dent, Henry Brenton vice president. Rev. deavored to get some captain to bring a fieo. Bush was chaplain, A. Ingram reader, boat to this point, and offered $200 reward B. F. Morris orator. The Handelian Soci- to the first one who succeeded, and to sell ety (formed in the spring,) furnished the the cargo free of charge. In April, 1830. mu-ic. After the exercises closed the Sab- Captain Saunders with the "Traveller " bath school returned to the school house, reached Spencer, and the " Victory " came and the military and citizens marched to within fifty-five miles of this point, but the Bates' grove, east of town, where a dinner
5
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INDIANAPOLIS FROM 1818.
was eaten, with the usual toasts and speech- it promised a direct route to the East, and es. A military ball at Vigus' tavern. oppo- its early completion was confidently expect- site the court house, elosed the festivities. led. It was begun in 1830, but from defi-
Nine hundred and thirteen votes were cient appropriations, and the fact that work cast at the August election, and nine hund- was carried on simultaneously across the red and sixty-one at the November clection, whole State, it progressed slowly, and was Adams receiving five hundred and eighty- abandoned in 1839 before its completion. two, Jackson three hundred and seventy- The bridge here was contracted for July nine. The first cavalry company, David 26th, 1831, by Wm. H. Wernweg and Wal- Buchanan, captain, was organized in Aug- ter Blake, at $18,000, and finished in the ust. A heavy emigration westward oc- spring of 1834.
curred this fall, and also during several fol-
1830. The winter was very severe, the lowing years, fifty teams per day often pas -- thermometor marking five or >ix deg. be- ing through town. A similar movement low zero, and much snow fell. The Legis- occurred in 1839-40. In December, twen- lature celebrated the 8th of January, A. F. ty-eight blocks and seventy-two lots in the Morrison delivering an address. For eight old plat were yet unsold, and nearly all the or ten years afterward this celebration con- donation land outside the plat. The winter tinued regularly. A theological debate-the was eolder than usual, with much snow in first one here-on the future punishment of February.
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