USA > Indiana > Tippecanoe County > Past and present of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 38
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FAMOUS CAMPAIGN SONGS.
Battle Ground has been the scene of many great political meetings-in several famous campaigns this was the "storm center." In 1840 when Gen. William Henry Harrison was a candidate against Martin Van Buren, the campaign was styled the "Hard Cider Campaign." It was the fashion in the early political campaigns to add much comic and sentimental music to the logical arguments brought forward by the opposing parties. In the 1840 campaign the Whig party adopted General Harrison as their standard bearer and many appropriate songs were heard throughout the entire land. At Tip- pecanoe Battle Ground, this county, among others were heard the songs of which the following are stanzas :
TIPPECANOE AND TYLER TOO.
Let them talk about hard cider, cider, cider, And log cabins, too, 'Twill only help to speed the ball For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too- Tippecanoe and Tyler, too. And with them we'll beat little Van, Van, Van, is a used up man, And with them we'll beat little Van.
OLD TIPPECANOE.
Hurrah for the log cabin chief of our joys; For the old Indian fighter, hurrah! Hurrah; and from mountain to valley the voice Of the people re-echo hurrah !
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Then come to the ballot-box. boys. come along, He who never lost battle for you Let us down with oppression and tyranny's throng, And up with old Tippecanoe.
In other years great campaign speeches have been made at Battle Ground. Stephen A. Douglas spoke there, and in later years, Roscoe Conklin, James G. Blaine and many of the nation's noted men.
It was a Lafayette man who took the pains to collect the songs above quoted from and reproduced the music by means of a modern phonograph record, and then it was re-written and published in the "Indiana Quarterly Magazine of History." This gentleman was Hon. Alva O. Reser.
WEATHER TABLE-LAFAYETTE.
The following meteorological summary for the year 1908 is from the ob- servations by W. J. Jones, Jr., Indiana Agricultural Experiment Station, Pur- due University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
Mean Temperature for the year 1908
Departure from normal Degrees F. I.2
. Degrees F. 52.I
Highest temperature for year 1908, July 11, 12, and Aug. 3.Degrees F. 96
Highest temperature on record, July 13. 1887. Degrees F. 105
Lowest temperature for the year 1908, Feb. 2
Degrees F. - 2
Lowest temperature on record, Jan. 1885 Degrees F .- 33
Highest atmospheric pressure 1908. Dec .- Actual Reading-Inches 30.23 Total precipitation. 1908 Inches 32.41 Greatest yearly precipitation on record, 1882. Inches 47.21 Least yearly precipitation on record. 1887. Inches 26.79
Greatest monthly precipitation in 1908, February Inches 7.23 Greatest monthly precipitation on record. 1902, June Inches 11.37 Least monthly precipitation in 1908, October. Inches 0.29
Least monthly precipitation on record, 1897. September Inches 0.05
Greatest precipitation in 24 hours, 1908, February 15. Inches 2.24
Greatest precipitation in 24 hours on record. 1907. June I
Inches 3.30
Total snowfall for the year 1908 .. Inches 19.14
Greatest yearly snowfall on record, 1904 Inches 42.00
Least yearly snowfall on record, 1888. Inches 6.00
Greatest monthly snowfall in 1908. February Inches 14.05
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TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
Greatest monthly snowfall on record, 1904, January Inches 24.50 Greatest monthly snowfall in February previous to 1908. Feb. 05. . . . 19.05 Years since 1886 with no snow in March. 1887. 1908 Number of clear days in 1908. 159
Number of part cloudy days in 1908. 80
Number of cloudy days in 1908. 127
Number of days on which rain fell in 1908 I27
Number of days on which snow fell in 1908 24
Prevailing direction of wind in 1908. S. W.
POPULATION OF TIPPECANOE COUNTY.
According to the United States census reports, the population by ten-year periods has been as follows :
Year.
Population. Year.
Population.
1830
7,137
1870
35,515
1840
13.724 1880
.35,966
1850
19.377 1 890 35,078
1860 25.726 1900 38,659
The following was the population in 1900. by townships and city wards : Lafayette city-
Ward No. I . 3. III
Ward No. 2.
1,355
Ward No. 3.
2.507
WVard No. 4. 2,358
Ward No. 5. 2,166
Ward No. 6.
3,187
Ward No. 7.
3.432
Battle Ground town
150
West Lafayette
2,302
Clark's Hill
539
Total
19.738
Exclusive of township 18,130.
Jackson township 924
Lauramie township
2,546
Perry township 1.307
Randolph township 842
.
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Sheffield township
1,206
Shelby township 1,662
Tippecanoe township 2,017
Union township
657
Wabash township
4,202
Wayne township
1,238
Wea township
1,012
Fairfield township
1,608
Washington township
1,248
38,659
MARKET PRICES.
In 1847, the market prices, as shown by files of the Lafayette newspaper ("Journal-Free Press"), were as follows :
Green apples, twenty cents per bushel; bacon, three and a half cents per pound ; coffee, twelve cents; flour, three dollars and seventy-five cents per barrel; corn, in ear, twenty cents; oats, thirteen cents; barley, thirty-one cents ; honey, eight cents a pound ; nails, eight cents; beans, fifty-five cents per bushel ; potatoes, twenty cents ; cheese, nine cents per pound ; butter, nine cents; lard, five cents; gunpowder tea, seventy cents; candles, ten cents ; wool, twenty cents ; saleratus, five cents; whisky, seventeen cents per gallon.
MILITIA "TRAINING DAY" ON WEA PRAIRIE.
Before the great Civil war it was customary for the militia to meet in general training, at least once each year. The men were usually drilled by a man who knew but little more than the private did about the regular military tactics and manual of arms. It is related of one captain who wished to form a line and march around a huge rock which chanced to be in the line of march. The officer, a farmer, was at the time unable to think of the military term "right or left oblique," so he halted his men, who were march- ing four abreast. He then deliberately rubbed his head and then exclaimed, "Gee, the rock!" and they all being used to driving ox teams, readily under- stood and turned to the right, which, in military tactics, would have been made by the command of "right oblique," but all was well that ended well.
Another instance is cited in this county where, under command of Capt. Patrick Henry Weaver, son of the first settler of the county, seventy
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND. . 393
members of the militia were out for their annual drill on the south side of Wea Prairie. The Captain was a stalwart man, who stood six feet and four inches in his stockings, and weighed over two hundred pounds. When dressed in his uniform-a blue hunting shirt, fastened with a wide red sash, with epaulets on each shoulder, his large sword fastened to his thigh, and tall plumes waving in the wind-he looked like another William Wallace, or Roderick Vick Alpine Dhu unsheathing his claymore in defense of his country. Ilis com- pany had reluctantly turned out for "training day." to avoid paying a fine ; some had guns, some armed with sticks, and others carrying a cornstalk. The Captain, who had only been recently elected, understood his business better than his men believed he did. He intended to give them a thorough training, and show them that he understood the manenvers of the military art as well as he did farming and fox hunting-the latter of which was one of his favorite pastimes. After forming a hollow square, marching and coun- termarching, and putting them through several evolutions of Scott's tactics. he commanded his men to "form a line." They partially complied, but the line was crooked. He then took his sword and passed along in front of his men, straightening the line. But by the time he had passed from one end of the line to the other. on casting his eye back he discovered the line presented a zig-zag and unmilitary appearance-some of the men were leaning on their guns, some on their sticks, a yard in advance of the line, and others as far in the rear. The Captain's dander rose-he threw his cocked hat, feather and all, on the ground, took off his red sash and hunting shirt and threw them with his sword and hat. He then rolled up his sleeves and shouted with the voice of a stentor : "Gentlemen, form a line, and keep it, or I will thrash the whole company." Instantly the whole line was as straight as an arrow. The Captain was then satisfied, put his clothes on again, and never had any more trouble in drilling his men.
CIVIL WAR PRICES IN LAFAYETTE.
From the files of the Lafayette newspapers, the historian has gleaned the following concerning the market prices of various commodities in Lafay- ette in war days; the quotations here given were for April 19. 1864:
Coffee, forty-three cents; salt, three dollars and twenty-five cents per barrel : sugar (raw Cuba). twenty and twenty-five cents a pound ; yellow refined sugar. twenty-six : plug tobacco, one dollar and forty cents : smoking tobacco, forty to fifty cents; soap, fifteen cents; butter, forty cents; eggs. twenty-five cents; tea, best, two dollars and forty cents; star candles, forty
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five cents; cheese, thirty cents; crackers, thirteen cents; potatoes, bushel, one dollar and fifty cents; onions, bushel, three dollars; beans, fifteen cents a quart ; turkeys, twenty cents a pound; chickens, forty cents each; oysters, eighty-five cents a half-can; fresh fish, sixteen cents a pound; "coal oil" (kerosene), one dollar and twenty cents a gallon ; sorghum, one dollar and thirty cents a gallon; maple syrup, two dollars and twenty-five cents per gallon : cider, ten dollars per barrel, or fifty cents a gallon ; lard, thirty cents per pound ; dried apples, twenty cents per pound ; whisky (best western), two dollars and twenty-five cents a gallon.
Cotton was quoted in New York city, in the spring of 1864, at eighty cents a pound ; sheetings, forty to fifty cents a yard, and prints (calico) at about the same as sheetings.
Nails sold at nine cents a pound in war times in Lafayette. Other articles of hardware were equally high.
AN ORIGINAL SUICIDE.
What was correctly termed an "original suicide," took place at the Lahr Hotel, in the city of Lafayette, June 10, 1876. It was fraught with so many points of interest that it was made a special subject for an article published in one of the medical journals, by a resident of this city, Dr. W. W. Vinnedge, who, at the time, was the coroner of Tippecanoe county, and who had to do with the singular case. The unfortunate victim was James A. Moon. a farmer, aged thirty-seven years, residing on the Wea Plains, nine miles west of Lafayette. He left his home and went to Lafayette and there made good every preparation to make his name notorious. On his arrival in the city, he went to the Lahr House-the leading hotel of the place -and told the proprietor that he wanted a good room, as far from the noise of the street as possible, as he expected to remain three or four days. Finally, after looking at several rooms, on the third floor, he concluded that No. 41 would suit his purpose, and engaged it. He then locked the room and went out onto the streets, got shaved. and chatted familiarly with two or more old army comrades, and seemed interested in relating his army experiences. He then got his heavy trunk and had it carried to his room, and cautioned the porters to keep it right side up, as it must be handled with great care, owing to its contents. It was about eight or nine o'clock in the evening of the same day when he came in and went to his room, and that was the last time he was ever seen alive. When the boy at the foundry where he had holes punched or drilled in the pole of the broadax used in his destruction, asked what the
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iron was for. he remarked that "It is for a machine to make fruit baskets with." The room selected as his death chamber was about twelve by four- teen feet, with but one window and that on the west side, and two doors, one in the south wall opening into an adjoining room and the other in the east entering the hall.
His trunk contained the instrument of his death and which, on account of its construction and modus operandi, has been termed "Moon's guillotine." The essential parts of this instrument were a broadax and lever, seven feet in length, the lower two-thirds of which was constructed of wood, with up- right pieces of bar iron fastened with bolts and screws. The lever was con- posed of three separate parts, for convenience in transportation, firmly bolted together, the wide end being attached to the floor by means of hinges to prevent any possible lateral motion. At the other end of the lever the iron bars to which the ax was attached were very heavy in order to give the machine great effectiveness when put in motion. The ax being elevated, was sustained at the proper angle for falling the greatest distance possible by means of a double cord attached to the fall end of the lever and to a small hook in a bracket which was securely fastened to the wood work at the side of the window, about five feet from the floor. On the bracket was set a lighted candle, between the cords, which were consumed when the candle burned sufficiently. The ax then being unsupported fell to do its fearful execution.
The suicide had placed an ordinary soap box on its side, with the open end just even with the line where the ax would naturally fall; the ax, con- sequently, in falling just grazed the open end of the box, and as the lever was secured at the fulcrum by hinges, it must fall "true." The soap box contained his head when he lay stretched out on the floor at right angles to the direction of the falling ax. Three pieces of pine boards sustained his neck, and to keep his chin out of the sweep of the falling ax, he had supported it by a little wooden rod a quarter of an inch in diameter, placed across the box. This rod assisted in preventing the head and upper part of his trunk from being displaced.
But Moon was not wholly indifferent to the fear of pain and had about two ounces of chloroform, with which he saturated a quantity of cotton. This cotton was placed in the box so that the chloroform could be inhaled after he had adjusted himself by stretching out on the floor at right angles to the guillotine, his head in the box and feet under the bed; his body was firmly fastened to the floor by straps and buckles. When the candle was burning he occupied this position, inhaling the anaesthetic. The flame reaching the
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cord it was burned off and then the ax fell with fearful force, severing the head completely from the body.
James A. Moon was a man of fine figure, being six feet and two inches in height and weighed one hundred and ninety pounds. His hair and eyes were brown and his face exhibited great character.
He always enjoyed talking about mechanics. It was a hobby with him. One of his neighbors said he became an excellent blacksmith without being aided by others, working at this at intervals on the farm. His mind had a tendency to "run" on methods of taking life. He was in the Sixteenth Indiana Battery for three years in the Civil war, and spent his spare moments there at making, with his penknife only, from wood, various articles, exhib- iting ingenuity in design and great skill in execution. He presented his com- rades with these articles as war souvenirs.
He had a good education, was temperate in his habits, kind in his family, he being a married man. His intimate friends stated that he was thoroughly familiar with both the Old and New Testaments, though a skeptic as to the inspiration of each.
It was believed by the physicians who examined into this case that he had not fully lost consciousness by the use of the chloroform when the ax fell ( the bottle was standing on the shelf six feet from him). but probably was in a semi-conscious state, being somewhat stupified by the drug, and waited, doubtless, with much anxiety for the slowly burning candle to reach a point low enough to burn the cord.
On the lever were found pencil inscriptions like these: "Kari Kan," "Patent Applied For," "For Sale or To Let."
llis taking off was startling, because of the devilish ingenuity displayed ; the steady hand with which he signed the contract giving his life as a fair exchange for the ephemeral notoriety he could thus obtain.
( This is, in substance, the facts contained in the medical journal article written soon after the occurrence, in 1876, by Dr. W. W. Vinnedge, who took much pains to properly illustrate the scene in the room at the hotel, including the working parts of the guillotine. The instrument of destruction was placed in the museum at Purdue University, and it is doubtless there today.)
THE EXECUTION OF THREE MEN.
It was just before the Civil war, late in the fifties ( in 1856 or 1857), when a German, named Fahrenbourg, living on the Wild Cat creek, this county, was murdered for the money he was supposed to have in his house.
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TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
The dastardly deed was the wicked work of three men, all of whom lived at Lafayette-named Driscoll, Stocking and Rice-who, after being granted bail at one thousand dollars each until the circuit court had time to try them, were finally found guilty of the crime and their death penalty given them. They were hanged on a scaffold prepared-the only one ever erected in Tippecanoe county-just to the west of the second court house that was sit- uated where the present one stands. The prisoners were taken out through a window in the court house, which brought them on a level with their place of execution. Great excitement prevailed on the part of many farmers who had come in from the neighborhood in which the murdered man had lived, and which crowd wished a public execution. so that they might witness it themselves, but the authorities would not permit this and hence a large inside guard was placed inside the high iron fence which used to stand about the courtyard, and the police were stationed on the outside. But so exasperated were the farmers that they fastened one set of trace chains to another, and were about to pull the fence down by applying the king of chains to the top. All pulling together they sought to pull down enough fence to allow them to enter the courtyard. But the guard used some violence on the crowd and in this way the men were not permitted to enter the grounds until the men had been executed.
Stocking had been accused and tried for the burning of the Rose ware- house, near the present Big Four depot, and Rose was burned in the same, it being supposed that he had been killed and the building burned in order to cover the crime. He was acquitted, however, of this crime. but was soon one of the conspirators in the murder of Fahrenbourg on the Wild Cat, and was hung with the other two implicated. On the scaffold he declared that he had never taken the life of "man, woman, child or chick." But he ad- mitted there, that he was an accomplice. There are several old gentlemen here who, as young men, saw this execution. A portion of the old iron fence is now used at the northwest corner of Greenbush cemetery, Lafayette.
TORNADOES, CYCLONES, ETC.
Lafayette and vicinity has been visited by three terrific wind storms since 1857. The first was in 1858 when what was called a "whirlwind" came, doing but little damage but greatly unsettling the minds of those who witnessed it. The second storm was a few years later and by that time the sentiment favored calling it a tornado, while the third storm was in 1898 and dignified by the modern word "cyclone." All of these wind, hail and rain
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storms came from the southwest up the Wabash river and switched over to- wards the northeast along the line of the old canal. The Wild Cat valley seemed to be their objective point. They all took the same course. In the storm of 1858 the tin roof of the Salemi street depot was blown off, rolled up like a scroll, carried two hundred feet away and deposited in the commons. The roof was also taken off the Wild Cat bridge. In the second storm named, the east span of the Main street bridge was blown away and the ice house of George W. Burroughs was totally demolished. At the same time the Wild Cat bridge was broken from the west shore and strung along the east bank of the stream. In the 1897 "cyclone" the chimney of the kitchen of W. F. Daggett, on North Sixth street, was blown down and crashed through the building. Mrs. Daggett barely escaping alive. Young John Carter was picked up bodily from the earth, carried twenty feet and stretched out flat in the gutter on Fourth street. The storm did the greatest damage in the country, where houses and barns were overturned and crops badly damaged. No lives were lost, however, in the path of the terrific windstorm, which was followed by hail and torrents of rain. In the strict sense of the term, Lafayette lias never had a genuine electric cyclone, such as the Louisville, St. Louis and other great western storms have been.
THE LAFAYETTE BOX-BOARD AND PAPER COMPANY.
This is one of the great enterprises of Lafayette and its product creates the circulation of large sums of money, both from raw materials purchased and from the weekly pay roll of the large number of workmen constantly em- ployed in the factory, which is located almost in the heart of the city, just south of the Big Four railway station, overlooking the Wabash river. The buildings and adjoining yards cover about fifteen acres of land.
To acquaint the reader with the origin of this plant, it should at first be stated that this company was organized in 1902, with Thomas Batter (whose personal sketch appears in the biographical volume of this work) as its presi- dent. A large proportion of the goods of this corporation is sold within two or three hundred miles from here, some of it is shipped as far east as the state of Maine, south to Mexico, Cuba and South America, and north to Canada.
This is the largest single-machine factory in the world for the production of strawboard, and also has the largest annual output. It even exceeds some of the four-machine mills that make a like product. There are three points which make the product of this mill sought for in all parts of the world, viz. :
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TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
First, the equipment of the plant for service; second, the equipment of the plant for quality ; third, the equipment of the plant for price.
The wonderful feature of this factory is the great single machine-the one intricate piece of mechanism-that is almost three hundred feet long, the greater part of which consists of huge rollers, eighty-seven in number, each weighing three thousand pounds, around which the pulp is run to shape into "board" to dry. This machine makes a sheet of strawboard one hundred and twenty inches wide.
Another interesting sight is the series of ten large hollow spheres or globes, known as the rotaries. These are each fourteen feet in diameter and hold fourteen thousand pounds of pulp that is being cooked in steam and lime water, while the spheres revolve slowly on their axles.
In every part of the plant. where possible, automatic machinery is installed. The great motive power is found in the huge boilers which propel the three giant engines. The size of the boiler room is forty by eighty feet and contains a battery of four boilers, each containing steam capable of producing three hun- dred horse-power, or equivalent to twelve hundred in total. The fires beneath these monster steaming boilers are fed by automatie coal conveyors, which dump coal into a large supply drum, having a capacity of three hundred and fifty tons of coal. Pipes are run to the fire-boxes, and by this automatic stoker system, made especially for this plant, the furnaces are evenly fed with fuel, thus insuring an even pressure of steam, a thing so much to be desired in the manufacture of strawboard and paper.
By the automatic appliances, found in operation here, the maximum re- sult at a minimum cost is obtained. The men employed are all specially trained for the work they are to perform, and are usually men who have, like the head of the concern. grown up in the business and have become adepts at their special line. These men obey and honor the management of the business. which management is ever loyal to the best interests of the men. hence a mutual understanding exists and harmony usually prevails.
In this connection it may be stated that the president and manager of this plant. in building the machinery with which this factory is equipped. had years of actual experience back of his work here. The idea was to pro- duee wide board in large amounts daily and speed it away to markets which are easily found for the grade of goods here made. The daily capacity, really the daily output. is sixty tons per day of a one-hundred-and-twelve-inch machine-trim produet, the heaviest sheet being No. 20-twenty-six by thirty- eight inches. Here is daily produced marketable plain strawboards in all weights and sizes: mill-lined strawboards, in all colors; sheet-lined straw-
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