Logan's Indianapolis directory, 1868, Part 43

Author:
Publication date: 1868
Publisher: Logan
Number of Pages: 416

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of his money.

During this summer Thomas Carter built a frame tavern on Washington street oppo- 1824. The first military sehool here was opened January 13, by Major Sullinger, for site the court house, and opened it Oetober the instruction of militia offieers and sol- 6th, and on the 26th the first sermon by a diers. Baptist preacher was delivered there. This The first real estate agency was opened early in the same month by Wm. C. house was burned January 17, 1825, during McDougal.

the first session of the Assembly ; and be-

The Assembly had hitherto deelined to tween the fire and the efforts of exeited eit- move to the new Capital, and the southern izens to save property, Carter lost nearly all counties delayed aetion as long as possible, he had. Several persons desirous of saving but the new purchase members having taken the new sign on a tall post in front of the their seats the subject was pressed, and on house ehopped it down, and were much as- the 25th of January an act passed making Indianapolis the permanent seat of govern- ment, directing the State offiees and arch- ives to be moved here by January 10, 1825, tonished when the fall crushed it into splin- ters. James Blake and Samuel Henderson had also built a tavern during the summer and fall, the Washington Hall, a two-story and the Assembly to meet in our eourt frame, where Glenn's block now is, and house on that day. Samuel Merrill, State opened it with a ball January 12, 1824. Henderson had kept there before in a log

Treasurer, was charged with the removal, and effeeted it in the following November, house. Blake & Henderson dissolved in being ten days in making one hundred and Mareh, 1826, and for a few months after twenty-five miles over the rough roads then November, 1832, Town & Pullian succeeded existing. After the Assembly adjourned, Henderson, but he resumed in Mareh, 1833, and kept it till June, 1836, when the house was removed to the lot east of its former Messrs. Gregory and Paxton returned from Corydon, and rceeived a complimentary supper February 21st, at Washington Hall, site, and the new Washington Hall built in in approval of their serviees. The toasts its stead. A part of the old frame house and speeches evinced great joy at the re- was standing, oceupied as a elothing store, moval of the government to this point. till February, 1866, when it was torn down Many Indians still lingered in this eoun- and Gramling's bloek afterward built on its try, and an event oeeurred Mareh 22d

LOGAN'S HISTORY OF

which caused much fear of a border war. were being erected, the trees on the streets Two men, three women, two girls and two felled and the plat gradually cleared. A boys of the Shawnee tribe were murdered at series of great storms in April and May. their camp, eight miles above Pendleton, deluged the country with water, bayous, by four white men and two boys. The ponds and creeks everywhere overflowed, whites were Bridges and his son, Sawyer and White river attained a height never and his son, Hudson and Harper. The In- equaled, unless by the floods of 1828 and dians had liunted and trapped on Fall 1847. The boats took advantage of the Creek during the winter, obtaining so many high water, and the keel-boat "Dandy," furs that Harper determined to secure them. twenty-eight tons, arrived May 22d with the new purchase staples, salt and whisky. He got his party drunk, told them the Shawnees were horse-thicves, and proposed The Methodist quarterly meeting began May 15th in the Presbyterian church, then nearly finished. James Scott was the first minister here, sent by the St. Louis confer- ence, and arriving October, 1821, after much difficulty in finding the town. Ser- vices had been held at private houses, and camp meetings held, the first September 12th, 1822, on James Givens' farm east of town, and the second began there May 23d of this year, lasting one week. These meet- ings were held in or near the town for ten or fifteen years, not only by the Methodists, to kill them. They went to the camp, asked the three men, Logan, Stephen Lud- low and another to help hunt cattle, and after going a short distance fired on them, killing the first two, but the third escaped. Returning to camp the women and children were killed, the children's brains knocked out against trees, and the bodies mutilated as if Indians had killed them, and the bod- ies thrown in a pond where they were found next day, one of the women still breathing. The wretches divided the property between them, and its possession betrayed them. but other denominations ; but as church ac-

They were arrested, confessed the crime, commodations increased they were aban- doned, and none have been held in the im- but being assisted by friends soon after es- caped. All were retaken but Harper, the mediate vicinity for nearly twenty years.

leader, who traveled on foot to Ohio, eighty

The Methodists had no church edifice till miles through the woods, in twenty-four the summer of 1825, when they bought a lot and hewed log house for $300, on the

July, but were recaptured. Hudson was south side of Maryland street.east.of Merid-

hours, and escaped. They again escaped in tried at Anderson in November before Judge Wick, was convicted, and hung in the winter. The rest were tried in May, 1825. Young Sawyer was convicted of manslaughter, the rest of murder. Old Bridges and old Sawyer were hung June 3d. Young Bridges was brought under the rope where his father had just died, his coffin by his side, when Governor Ray mounted the platform and announced his pardon in a speech to the people. These executions quieted the Indians and no retaliatory measures were taken ; but at first the settlers in the vicinity were much alarmed and fled to the Pendleton mills for protection, and there was a general uneasi- ness here.

ian, which was used till 1829, when a Brick church, built in 1828-9, at'a cost (with lot) of $3000, was opened off Circle and Merid- lis

anap

(First Methodist Church.)

A census taken by Sunday school visitors in April showed one hundred families on ian streets. This was used till 1846, when the donation, comprising one hundred and the walls becoming cracked and unsafe, it seventy-two voters, forty-five single women was torn down and Wesley Chapel built on its site at a cost of $10,000. This chapel

between fifteen and forty-five; number of children not stated. There had been but has been used till the present time, but pre- little increase since November, 1821, but parations are now on foot for its sale, and many persons then here had moved to the the erection elsewhere of a new and more country. For a number of years the town increased very slowly. The want of roads, and of a market for surplus products cut offfes, but in 1843-4 Roberts Chapel was built travel or trade, and prevented any rapid progress. Improvements, however, were

expensive edifice. In 1842 the church was. divided into the eastern and western charg-

at a cost of $10,000, on Market and Penn- sylvania streets, by the eastern charge. This made. The court house, school house, church also will soon be sold and a new Presbytyterian church, and State offices and more expensive edifice erected for the

INDIANAPOLIS FROM 1818.

congregation. By the division of confer-

mileage over the terrible roads. They ar- ences and charges, Strange, Asbury and rived on horseback, singly or in groups, Trinity, with several Mission, German and

muddy and weary, at the different taverns, African Methodist churches have since been for several days before the session. The built, and the denomination is perliaps the influx of strangers, with new topics of strongest in the city unless the Catholics thought and conversation, excited the quiet outnumber it. Further mention of the villagers ; and after the session opened church or of the many talented ministers who have been stationed liere is prevented by limited space.

crowds of gaping natives witnessed the pro- ceedings with unsated curiosity. For years afterward the annual session was anxiously

The 4th of July being Sunday, the cele- awaited. The money then disbursed was bration took place at Wilkes Reagan's on an important item ; trade then revived, and the 3d. Gabriel J. Johnson addressed the business of all kinds improved. . Property citizens and Major J. W. Reding the mili- which had formerly declined was held more tia. Obed Foote was reader, and Reagan firmly, though no marked advance took furnished the barbecue, the affair ending place in it till 1835, when it suddenly with the usual toasts and speeches. The reached extravagant figures, only to fall August election was hotly contested, the back and leave the people poorer than be- contest being on sheriff, Morris Morris and fore. A. W .. Russell being candidates. Four

On the 23d of January, 1824, the Assem- hundred and thirty votes were cast, one bly ordered the agent to lay off twenty out- hundred and sixty more than in 1823, Rus- lots of four acres each on the north and sell having two hundred and sixty-five and south sides of the old plat, and sell them by Morris one hundred and forty-eight votes. auction January 24th, 1825. The lots had At the November election Clay received been laid off during the following summer, two hundred and thirteen, Jackson ninety-

and were sold as directed, the highest bring- nine, Adams sixteen. Clay always received $155, the lowest $63, the average being a heavy vote here afterward, and his sup- porters had held the first meeting and or-

about $100 for each four-acre block. After this sale, the Assembly on the 12th of Feb- ganized July 17th, James Paxton, Presi- ruary ordered the agent to lay off and sell, dent, and Hiram Brown, Secretary.

on the 2d of May, twenty additional lots on

A large number of emigrants passed the north and south of those already sold ; through the town during the fall on their also the reserved lots on Washington street way to the Wabash country.

and elsewhere; to have Pogue's run valley The Indianapolis Legislature was organ- cleared if the expense did not exceed $50; ized during the fall by the lawyers and and to lease the ferry for five years. Mr. leading citizens, and sessions were held dur- Blythe complied with these directions, ex- ing the winter for ten or fifteen successive cept clearing the valley, part of which was years. Its rules, and the pending measures heavily timbered till 1845. Two of the old and subjects for debate, were similar to trees are still standing south of the Central those in the body it copied. Talented men depot; others south of the old Bellefontaine were assigned as members from the several depot were cut down in April of this counties, and the mock representative often year,. He held the sale of reserved and lad far more ability than the real one. The other lots on the 2d of May; $360 was the Governor's messages were often witty and highest price obtained for reserved lots on able documents, and sometimes published. Washington street, and $134 the lowest. The Governor was elected whenever the Seventeen lots on Washington street, equiv- members wanted a new message or inaugu- alent to a frontage of nearly three squares, ral. After the General Assembly met here, sold for $3,328. The twenty additional out- its leading members joined the Indianapolis lots sold for $1,467, averaging a little over organization, and the debates and proceed- $18 per acre.

ings in the last frequently guided and con- trolled legislation in the first-named body.

This year was distinguished for the form- ation of various societies. The Indianapo-

1825. The State officers having arrived lis Bible Society was formed on the 18th of with the archives in November, 1824, the April, and has continued in active operation State government was formally and perma- ever since. Mrs. George Bush was among nently located here January 10th, 1825. the most earnest supporters of the society, The Assembly met in the court house (still and for many years past Mrs. Margaret unfinished)-the Senate in the upper, the Givan has been the President of the society. House in the lower room-and the sessions The Marion County Bible Society, an aux- continued there till December, 1835, when iliary of the American Bible Society, was the State house was finished, and the Legis- organized November 13th, 1825, B. F. Mor- lature met there for the first time. The ris, President, J. M. Ray, Secretary. The members at that time fully earned their Indianapolis Tract Society was formed in

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. The streams rose very high, and all mails were stopped. and it was completed September 3d, Calvin Fletcher, Henry Bradley, Henry Burton, and others being leaders in it, but no perm- is notable only as the first attempt in that direction.

A cannon having been sent here an artil- anent effect resulted from the effort, and it lery company was formed under Captain James Blake, and thereafter at 4th of July 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 Scp- junct, for several men were afterward tember and October an unusual number of maimed for life by that gun, On the 20th emigrants 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. Ray, Secretary. The company used buck- ets and ladders, and turned out at the call

1826. On the 13th of January the As- sembly directed the agent to contract with Ashacl Duaning to build a two-story brick of the church bell. It maintained its or- ferry house 18 x 30 feet, on the river bank. ganization (being incorporated January, It was built the following summer, and 1830,) till February, 1835, when it was merged in the Marion fire engine company. though partially burned November 27th, 1855, was repaired, and is standing in good repair near the mill-race on Washington street. Sickness, and lack of trade and mo-

The usual military and civic parade oc- curred on the 4th of July, with exercises at 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, and they were liable to forfeiture at any time. The Assembly, January 20th, al- lowed further time, and permitted buyers of orator, and John Hays furnished the din- ner. On the 12th of August public funeral services were held for Adams and Jefferson. A military and civic procession 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 dead.

to meet deferred payments on others. This 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. The and dry. Lorenzo Dow, the noted revival- centre of population and business has shifted 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-relief court house steps. He attracted large audi- enees, more by eccentricities of speech and dress than by eloquence.

act carried it still further to the east. Till 1836 the town was on and near Washington street, between West and New Jersey streets. It then tended westward to the canal, under

A treaty was concluded with the Indians at Fort Wayne in the fall, by which more the internal improvement excitement. Af- territory was ccded, 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 change in the size and business of the place. In 1848 it moved southward, tending to the

for proposals for the delivery of two hund- red hogs, two hundred cattle, ten wagons, and the building of cight 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-

1827. The Assembly, on the 26th of tre of business near the north-west corner of January, directed the agent to survey and Pennsylvania and Washington streets.

sell seven acres near the river for a steam mill site, and on the 28th of January, 1828,

A census in February showed seven hun- dred and sixty inhabitants, two hundred incorporporated the Steam Mill Company and nine of them being children of school age, and one hundred and sixty-one of them

with $20,000 capital, in $50 shares. The company-the first one incorporated here- in the Sabbath school. In March the influ- organized shortly after, Nicholas McCarty,

INDIANAPOLIS FROM 1818.

James Blake and J. M. Ray being the lead- ers in it. Subscriptions were slowly ob- tained during 1829-30, materials were col- lected in 1830-1, the building raised in Sep- tember and finished in December, 1831. The saw mill had been finished before. The grist mill began work in January, 1832, and was the first in this section that had

: y

Indianapolis

and

HAND

(Old Steam Mill.)

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 werc 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 engincs-the first ones ever used here-were to have been brought up on a steamboat, but were wagoned out from Cin- cinnati with great difficulty in 1831. The mill was unprofitable, and was abandoned and the machinery offered for sale in 1835. It remained vacant till 1847, when it was refitted and used till 1852 by Geisendorffs as a woolen mill. It again became vacant, and was fired and totally destroycd with the neighboring toll house, on the night of November 16, 1853, endangering the White river bridge, which was only saved by 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 time, for serious doubts had been enter- tained whether so large a building could be raised without the aid of whisky.

the summer, and stood there till 1855. PUNTO

ibrary Indianapolis

(Clerk's Office.)

Four thousand dollars were also appropri- ated for a two-story brick house on the Circle 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, hipped-roofed brick house, with look- out, large windows, doors and chimneys, two cross halls, and four large rooms on each floor, and dark, damp basement under the whole structure. Thesc vaults were a

(Governor's House.)

source of terror to all small boys, for they fully credited the legend that they were tenanted by a headless ghost whose appetite for youngsters was insatiable. The house was totally unfit for a residence and was never occupied as such. At the session of 1829 it was proposed to add wings to the east and west ends and use it as a State house, but the proposition failed. The rooms were successively occupied by the State officers, State library, State Bank, State engineers, Supreme Judges, old bach- elors, debating societies, and Supreme Court clerk. At the session of 1856-7 it was or- dered to be sold, and was disposed of by The Assembly appropriated five hundred dollars January 26th, to build a Supreme Court clerk's office, eighteen by thirty-six feet, on the west side of court square. It auction April 16th, 1857, for six hundred and sixty-five dollars, and torn down April 25-30. Its material was partly uscd in the Macy house and the dwelling adjoining it. was built by S. and J. Patterson during The Circle has since been used for political (2)

2.Es

LOGAN'S HISTORY OF

cent sidewalk, for the first time in its his- tory.

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 September, 1860. After the lease to the seminary trustees, the Assembly directed

The Assembly, January 26th, directed the agent, February 6th, 1837, to lease the the agent to offer at public sale, with cer- north-west corner for twenty years to the tain exceptions, all reserved, forfeited and Lutheran church, the lease to be given up if the square was needed for a University. The church, however, was built elsewhere. On the 17th of February, 1838, the agent unsold lots. Several alleys and squarcs were vacated. Square 22 was reserved for a State Hospital and square 25 for a State 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 Icase 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 "University " for which and State officers were directed to sell one square 25 was reserved as a site, nor has acre of the square at its appraised value, to the Assembly ever at any time in any man- ner given it any claini on that square. The Assembly, January 26th, 1832, au- thorized the agent to lease square 25 for

the Indiana Asbury University for the use of its medical department, the Central Med- ical College. The acre was accordingly se- lected, and appraised at $3,566, but the thirty years to the trustees of the Marion appraiscment being thought too high, and County Seminary, who might build on the opposition arising to the sale, it was never south-east or south-west corner thereof, and completed, and the college was discontin- ued. In 1865-6 the city took possession of

if the square was needed for a university be- fore the lease expired, a half-acre where the the square, fenced, graded and planted it at seminary stood was to be sold or dceded 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 side, with a tall flag-staff, from which seats ranging from four fcet at the front to twenty feet high near the walls, were arranged on the cast, west and north sides, making an amphitheatre capable of seating fifteen or twenty thousand persons. Wide aisles led to the several tiers of scats. By great efforts it was got ready and opened July 4th with a military parade, band concert, and balloon ascension by J. C. Bellman, closing at night seen here. The enterprise was not pecuni- arily successful, but deserved to be so, if auditorium as large has ever been built elsewhere in the West, and perhaps not in the country. After standing some weeks it. was torn away. The vacant square was

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Logan's Indianapolis directory, 1868, Part 43

Author: Publication date: 1868 Publisher: Logan Number of Pages: 416

Author:
Publication date: 1868
Publisher: Logan
Number of Pages: 416