USA > Indiana > Tippecanoe County > Past and present of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 43
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The building, a brick structure, is sufficient in size to accommodate sixty children. It is steam heated and has all modern appliances. "We must keep out of debt." has ever been the motto of the institution.
Colonel Thompson declined to serve as president after 1908, since which time Albert Jamison has served. The present board consists of : The presi- dent. Mr. Jamison ; T. J. Levering, first vice-president ; Mrs. George Hay- wood, second vice-president ; Mrs. J. M. Boggs, secretary ; Mrs. R. D. Moore, treasurer.
This institution is supported by donations in money, clothing, etc., and by a stated sum from the county treasury, amounting to about thirty cents a day per child. They also made an addition and remodeled the buildings in 1908 at a cost of seven thousand, five hundred dollars.
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The present worthy matron, Miss Janeway, has been in charge for five years and has acquitted herself in a truly worthy manner. The children all attend school when old enough and also Sunday school.
At present there are thirty-three children in this institution-twenty-two girls and eleven boys. On January 1, 1908, there were forty children here. At one date a few years ago, there were sixty-two cared for. As soon as suitable homes can be secured, the inmates are provided with such.
The ladies of the city are entitled to much credit for the work they have performed during the years in which this home has been in existence. Also Dr. William Reser should not be forgotten, as he has for the past few years been physician for the institution ; has carried the children through several epidemics, with but two fatalities. And this all free of charge. Among the county homes, but few have a cleaner, more satisfactory record than this one.
MARTIIA HOME.
Another humane institution of the city of Lafayette is the Martha Home, under the Woman's Home Association, with a board of twenty-one men- bers-sixteen women and five men. . These are all residents of the city, and any one may become a member by the payment of a fee of two dollars per year. This institution opened its doors to the needy public in 1898, by Mrs. Helen Gougar. Among the charter members were Mrs. P. C. Vawter and Mrs. J. D. Chamberlain. The purpose of this home is to protect, in a Chris- tian-like manner, women and girls who need a woman's care. They provide homes and places for them to work, free of charge, if unable to pay. They also conduct an employment agency for women. At this date Dr. Ada Mc- Mahon is at the head of the institution, so far as the medical department is concerned. The superintendent and matron is Mrs. L. H. Roche. The home fronts on Alabama street and has eleven good rooms. Good table board is afforded, at reasonable rates. Mrs. Roche was for fifteen years engaged in the same line of work in Chicago and five years of that period was in the work among the people of the slums of that great city.
LAFAYETTE PUBLIC LIBRARY.
(By Mrs. Virginia Stein.)
In the year 1882, Mr. J. J. Perrin, who for a number of years was treas- urer of the Lafayette public school fund, gave to the city ten thousand dollars
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for the purchase of books. This was the beginning of the public library, which was established under the law enacted in Indiana, in 1881, which law provided for a city tax levy not to exceed three cents on a hundred dollars. This tax has since, by acts of the legislature, been increased to ten cents, though the city of Lafayette has never levied over six cents, and for the years 1907-08 it was but five.
The library was originally located in two rooms of the high school building. The first librarian was Mrs. Jeanette B. Hyde, who held the posi- tion from November, 1882, until January, 1887, when she resigned; she was succeeded by Miss Eulara Miller, who remained until January, 1888, when she left the city to take a position as librarian of Pratt Institute, Brook- lyn, New York. She was succeeded by Mrs. Virginia Stein, the present incumbent. Both Mrs. Hyde and Miss Miller gave most efficient service in cramped quarters and with a limited, but well-chosen number of books.
The first eight thousand volumes were selected by various committees, and they did their work exceedingly well, putting on the shelves a good standard collection which has since been very judiciously added to.
The library remained in its first location, which was insufficient for it, and badly needed for the increasing high school, until 1901. At that date the city received from Mrs. W. F. Reynolds, as a gift for library purposes, an old-fashioned dwelling-house situated on a goodly piece of ground, em- bracing a fourth of a city block. This old residence was originally erected by James Spears, a large stockholder in the Big Four Railroad Company, for his private home. The library trustees have since added to this ground by the purchase of a strip of land sixty-six feet by one hundred and thirty- six feet, making in all one hundred and ninety-eight by one hundred and thirty-six feet, quite centrally located, being on the corner of Fifth and South streets, the library facing the north. When this building was originally built in the fifties, it was one of the handsomest buildings in Lafayette. The main building is of a plastered brick with a quaint iron portico over the door, covered with honeysuckle and other vines. For some years before the build- ing was used for a library it had been occupied by the Young Men's Chris- tian Association, and they had built an addition in the rear to serve as a gymnasium. This gymnasium was forty by seventy feet, and was well lighted; it now makes a most desirable stock room. While in many respects the old building is inconvenient and illy adapted for its present uses, it has nevertheless much of charm in a quaint, unpretentious way. There is a certain dignity, a pleasing individuality in its simple straight lines, its lofty rooms, its vine-draped outer walls, with their setting of green lawn and old-
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fashioned flowers; and there are many appreciative souls to whom it would be a keen regret were there any likelihood of replacing the present weather- beaten structure with a modern Carnegie building of stereotyped pattern.
The Lafayette library co-operates in every way possible with the pub- lic schools and does good work for the pupils. It also ministers to the wants of some twenty clubs and literary societies.
The number of volumes catalogued. up to May, 1909, was twenty-one thousand, nine hundred and fourteen. The circulation for the year 1908- 09. was: History, travel and biography, five thousand, five hundred and forty- nine: literature, three thousand, four hundred and sixty; science and arts, two thousand, two hundred and twenty-one; miscellaneous, two thousand, eight hundred and seventy-two; fiction, thirty-three thousand. one hundred and eleven ; juvenile, sixteen thousand, nine hundred and fifty-six.
In glancing over the figures and seeing the preponderance of fiction taken from the library, one is apt to conclude that Lafayette is especially a fiction reading community. But it should be remembered that the city con- tains many excellent private libraries of standard works, and that the own- ers come to the library only for the fiction they do not care to add to their own shelves.
The value of the books of history, literature and science, which find their way to homes without libraries, cannot be estimated.
The Lafayette public library, considering the number of its volumes, is rich in history and literature, and fairly well equipped in art. The sciences have fallen behind for various reasons, the most important being a lack of funds, which makes it necessary to reduce the purchase of books in certain lines. And as the Purdue University library-accessible to many public library patrons-is obliged to keep up with the sciences, it was thought best, if some department must be slighted, to cut here. Moreover, the sciences today grow apace, and new discoveries follow each other with such rapidity that only the weekly issues of magazines can keep up with them.
A library is indeed a wonderful place. Here in Lafayette, through the trifling annual expense of some five thousand dollars by the city, the public has access to the immortal poems, the wisdom of the sages, the newest dis- coveries and the latest clever novel.
Viewed from a commercial standpoint, even the smallest of libraries is a tremendous bargain, much knowledge for the money; while as a cultural asset. it is, of course, beyond price to any community. And, therefore. La- favette should take pride in making her present twenty-one thousand vol- umes but the nucleus of future public possessions.
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ART-FAMOUS PAINTINGS.
The pioneer artist of the Wabash valley, indeed of the entire state. George Winter ( father of Mrs. C. G. Ball, of Lafayette), was beyond ques- tion the most gifted artist in the early history of the state. Hle painted a beautiful oil painting of the "Battle of Tippecanoe," which was presented to the state and for many years hung in the old state house, but another genera- tion which had more greed than appreciation for the finer things of life, al- lowed it to be destroyed for want of ordinary care.
Mr. Winter was to the Miamis and Potawatomie Indian tribes what the great artist and traveler Catlin was to the North American Indian, in general-a famous portrait painter of them. He came from England. a cultured young man of twenty years, in 1830, landing in New York and, seven years later, wended his way to Logansport, Indiana. After thirteen years there he removed to Lafayette, where he died in 1876. In early days he raffled his paintings off for a livelihood. Many of these rare gems of paintings are still carefully preserved in Logansport, Lafayette, Peru and other Indian towns. According to his own statement, he painted at least six creditable paintings of the battle of Tippecanoe. Two of these paintings contained one hundred and fifty-two feet of canvas each. These he painted in 1840. He said, in his writings, that he was alltired to Indiana on account of the removal of the Pottawattomie Indians to the country beyond the Mis- sissippi, desiring to be present at the last great councils of the tribes and sketch their dusky faces, ere they bid a long adieu to the Wabash valley.
His daughter. Mrs. Ball, now has ( or not long ago did have ) nine oil paintings and thirty-eight water-color pictures by his brush. Four canvases are filled with the groups of thirty-three Pattawattomie chiefs and women. One is a life-size of Francis Godfroy, the last war chief of the Miamis, and another is of Joseph Barron, the celebrated interpreter for General Harrison for eighteen years. The watercolors are about one foot square. Several rep- resent burial scenes among Indians. Another subject is, "The First Miami Indian that Cultivated Corn with a Plow." There is, along with his collec- tion, a vast amount of valuable manuscripts concerning the habits and cus- toms of Indians.
Mr. Winter, in 1839, visited Dead Man's village, the Indian settlement on the Mississinewa river near Peru, to make a portrait of Frances Slocum. the white girl stolen from her home in Pennsylvania when she was but three years of age. He also made sketches of her several surroundings, from
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different points of view. He painted the beautiful valley landscape. When thought to be dying, she disclosed to Col. G. W. Ewing, of Fort Wayne, her white origin and early history. She survived, however, until 1847. Her people came on and tried to get her to return home, but all to no avail, and then the family sent to Mr. Winter to secure her portrait, which he did.
Mr. Winter also painted a fine oil portrait of Gen. William Henry Har- rison, just before his election as President, and he intended to present it for exhibition at Cincinnati before the General went on to take his seat at Wash- ington, but the plans failed, and the picture, or one like it, was given to the state of Indiana, but through gross neglect, it has long since been destroyed- be it said in shame.
THE LAFAYETTE ART ASSOCIATION.
(By One of its Members.)
To those, many years ago, when the mothers and fathers of the boys and girls of today were the young people of yesterday, art in America was indeed a child in their midst. Every well-educated young lady learned to draw a little, many painted a little. The average drawing teacher was possessed of a portfolio of "copies," prints and paintings to be used as pupils' models. Many such haunt my memory. Also there are few of us who do not remem- ber homes in which were cherished certain nightmares of art (so called) dear to the hearts of doting parents and proudly pointed out by them as the work of Lizzie or Mary or Georgie.
Specialization in art study was the exception and not the rule in America, and the men and women who really became artists and depended upon art for their livelihood were few and far between. To acquire thorough artis- tic training our youth sought the atelier of the old world. Europe was the mecca of their dreams, and when successful the glamour of their surround- ings held them and their foster mother claimed them too often as in the case of Edwin Abbey and others.
But Ruskin had come: he and William Morris and their ilk had writ- ten and sent out a clarion call to all with the love of the true and beautiful in their hearts. The echoes of this call reached many a waiting ear, and each one hastened in his or her own way to respond. One by one every city found herself possessed of an organized group who wished to study art or arts and crafts in some form or other. In 1898 a group of Lafayette women met and discussed the formation of such a club.
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Miss Elizabeth Baird and Miss Sara Shield (both since deceased ) were charter members, and with a number of others met at the home of Mrs. Lutz and organized as the Art Club. Mrs. Lutz was the first president elected, and through all the years of its existence the club has had no more loyal or interested member. The object of the Art Club as set forth in Article 2 of its constitution is "to stimulate an art interest by bringing exhibits of pictures and works of art to our city, by the encouragement of home talent, and by a course of art study." This object we have never lost sight of. Each year all members have carried on a systematic course of art study, and each year have brought to Lafayette some collection of pictures, some exhibit of arts and crafts or some lecturer on kindred subjects.
At these open meetings their friends and the public have been welcome guests.
Miss Laura Fry and Miss Sampson, of the Purdue Art School, have been faithful members of the club, and through their influence and the cour- tesy of President Stone the club has on several occasions been given the use of university assembly rooms for their open meetings.
For several years we have, however, felt our limitations. With all the good will in the world, our resources were limited. The time seemed ripe for a step onward. We joined our state federation of clubs. We felt the inspir- ation of the general awakening of art interests all over our country and state. In Indiana, Richmond led the way. Too much cannot be said in praise of Mrs. Johnstone and her work therc.
In September of 1908, the Art Club met with eighteen members on our roll. Mrs. Oscar Johnson was elected president ; Miss Fry, vice-president ; Miss Wurster, secretary and treasurer. The first two named were charter members, also Mrs. Lutz and Mrs. Ross. Mrs. Sackett, formerly of Rich- mond, and full of Richmond enthusiasm, became one of us, and we deter- mined to secure the co-operation of our friends by inviting them to become . associate members. Interest in our project became more and more general. new names poured in and finally, in the spring of 1909. a public meeting was held and the Art Association launched with a membership of over four hundred. Judge Vinton was elected president ; Miss Fry vice-president, and Miss Beeson secretary. Mr. Cecil Fowler was elected treasurer. A board of seventeen directors, the majority of which are members of the Art Club. have charge of the annual exhibit. This year we secured the exhibit of the Society of Western Artists, numbering over two hundred pictures. The men- bers of the Art Association opened the doors of this exhibit to the general public and all the children of the city schools. Any one who witnessed the
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coming and going of these two thousand children and saw their interest and delight in it felt repaid. The association hope that this year's work will be eclipsed in the years to come by many larger and better exhibits.
We hope to co-operate with Richmond and our sister cities in this work. To develop the seeing eye and the skillful hand, our boys and girls must see pictures of real merit. If some day we possess in our city a public collection worthy the name, if we send forth into the world an artist on whom the mantle of Gainsborough or Reynolds has fallen, then indeed the club and all its members, past and present, will feel repaid. Each president who has served, Mrs. Davidson, Mrs. Ross, Mrs. Cole, Miss Fry, Miss Jessie Jones, Mrs. Jaques and others aleady named have all done their part. Each one will rejoice in the outcome.
Some years ago the Art Club purchased one small picture as a nucleus for a future collection, to be owned by our city and by them placed in a gallery connected with our new high school building. This by way of our castle in Spain.
CEMETERIES IN LAFAYETTE.
The care taken of the "silent cities" of any community-the burying places-is but a true index of the character of the people, and when one observes these sacred spots kept in the best of care and when on stated times, like Decoration day, the little mounds are covered with garlands of beautiful flowers and a soft matting of grass, carpeting the enclosure in which rest the earthly remains of parent, and child and lover. it is evident that the peo- ple who make up that section have been educated and are refined in their tastes. The monumental evidences, consisting of plain and more elaborate monuments of marble and granite, all bespeak of a civilized and Christianized country. Where the household treasure is there will be the heart also.
Lafayette early saw the necessity of providing a proper spot for cemetery purposes, and its early settlers and town founders purchased of Gideon Lane and wife the ground now embraced in what is known as Greenbush cemetery, and dedicated the plot for this purpose. This purchase was made in 1847, and February 3d following, the legislature passed a special act incorporating "The Greenbush Cemetery of Lafayette." The incorporators embracing the original purchasers of the grounds were : David Ross. Richard H. Eldridge, Thomas P. Emerson, Othniel L. Clark, Joseph S. Hanna, Matthias S. Scud- der. Lawrence B. Stockton, Zebulon Baird, Godlove S. Orth, Luther Jewett, George Nichol, Jesse Andrew, Nathan H. Stockwell, William F. Reynolds,
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Cyrus Ball, Charles F. Wilstach, Rudolph S. Ford, James F. Clark, Thomas S. Cox, John Purdue, John B. McFarland, Robert Heath and William P. Heath.
One of the trustees, David Ross, was elected and re-elected, serving until his death in 1872; and his son, William Ross, succeeded him. The price fixed at first on the lots was ten dollars. In December, 1865. it was decided to add to these grounds, and a strip was purchased between Twelfth street and the original grounds at one thousand dollars. Again, in 1869, another addition was made and upon this was erected a plain tenement house con- structed of brick. This purchase, with the improvements made, cost the association two thousand, four hundred and eighty-one dollars. By carefully handling the funds of the corporation, the trustees managed from the sale of lots and investments made, to have property in way of a surplus amounting to eleven thousand dollars by 1878. In 1875 an iron fence was built around the grounds, on the north and east, having a beautiful gateway at the main entrance, costing-fence and gateway-three thousand, four hundred dol- lars.
An interesting feature of the management of this cemetery association is the record kept of all interments, embracing a register of the names, age, date of death, disease, nativity, etc. In 1878 there had been recorded the names of more than fifteen hundred persons buried since the first, which was in April, 1848.
The act under which this association was formed, provided, among other things, that "all real estate held by such corporation for burial pur- poses, whether laid out into lots or not, shall be deemed a perpetual dedica- tion of the same. and shall forever be held by said association in trust for such purposes, and none other."
What is sometimes known as the City cemetery is within the same enclosure and was used for burial purposes in the early forties and is still owned, in fact, by the city ; but few burials are made there. William Digby, founder of Lafayette, lies buried on this part of the cemetery, although ofttimes reported as being buried at another point.
This cemetery-Greenbush-is well cared for and is among the most attractive in Indiana.
Springvale cemetery is another grave-yard used by Lafayette. It was in December, 1868, that the Springvale Cemetery Association was organized under the general laws of the state. One hundred and fifty acres was pur- chased; the same is situated on the Linwood gravel road, two miles to the northeast of the city. It is fitted by nature for the use to which it has been
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put. It has been said of its environments: "Hill. vale, forest and lake, com- bined to make the spot attractive ; while beds of gravel and sand furnish abun- dant material for the construction of walks and proper drainage." During the winter of 1808-9. the timber was largely removed. the grounds enclosed, gateways constructed, and also a beautiful bridge on Central avenue, over a natural ravine, called Consecration Dell (because the dedication services were held there). Drives, walks and other improvements were soon added. The consecration services were held there October 17, 1869, when the very elo- quent and highly appropriate address was made by Bishop Bowman.
Within the enclosures of Greenbush and Springvale cemeteries lie bur- ied eight thousand people. all from Lafayette and immediate vicinity. There are over four hundred Union soldiers who had been citizens of the city, who were buried within this enclosure and six hundred, more or less, of persons who died during the terrible cholera scourges of 1849 and 1854. The large per cent. of these victims were buried in the old city cemetery, they being foreigners who were at the time engaged at work on the Wabash and Erie canal. There are also interred here the remains of twenty-two Union soldiers with headstones marked with the simple, but telling inscription, "UNKNOWN UNION SOLDIER." These all lie buried side by side. Near by are the graves of about as many, possibly a few more, of unknown dead, who had served in the Confederate cause, were taken prisoners of war and kept in the old "Pack- ing-house Prison" in the south part of the city of Lafayette, and died while there and their whereabouts could never be ascertained, hence were buried here, finally. The "unknown" Union soldiers, above mentioned, were all killed in a head-end railway collision on the Big Four road, three miles south of Lafayette, in 1864. while coming North. A singular thing about this mat- ter is that not one of the number had a single mark of identification, in way of letters, or anything to tell where they came from or who they were. Thus sleep the long sleep of death-the "Blue and the Gray." But they are not forgotten by the Grand Army men of the city, who with the return of each Memorial day see that their graves are decorated and a flag-the one they fought for and against-is carefully put at their graves.
Another thing has been learned by consulting the sexton of Greenbush cemetery and his perfect modern records, and that is that the book of entries shows that there are more old persons being buried in the last generations than among the oldl pioneers. More persons now reaching the good old age of eighty and eighty-five and older, than for a like period of years away back in the thirties and forties.
St. Mary's Catholic cemetery is located in Elston, two miles to the southwest of the city. proper.
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St. Joseph's German Catholic cemetery is at the northwest corner of Seventeenth and Greenbush streets, two squares east of the Linwood school. This was laid out for burial purposes in 1858, and includes about four acres.
The Jewish cemetery. on Third street hill. contains about four acres as originally platted. This was purchased and dedicated to the Hebrew peo- ple about 1859.
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