USA > Indiana > Perry County > Perry County: A History > Part 14
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Twenty-four sidewheelers forming the Louisville and New Orleans "Lightning" Line during the fifties should be named: The A. L. Shotwell, Antelope, At- lantic, Autocrat, Baltic, B. J. Adams, Chancellor, Di- ana, Eclipse, E. H. Fairchild, Empress, Fanny Bullitt, Fashion, H. D. Newcomb, James Montgomery, John Raine, Louisville, Magenta, Peytona, Robert J. Ward, T. C. Twitchell, Uncle Sam, Virginia and Woodford. Not one of these cost less than $200,000, yet all were marvellous money makers. The Fanny Bullitt, built at a cost of $210,000, nevertheless paid for herself during the first four months and before her career was ended by dismantling had earned her price fourteen and one-half times.
Greatest and grandest of all craft ever afloat on western waters was the Eclipse, whose name accurately indicated her character. Built in 1851-52 in New Al- bany, at a cost of $375,000, she passed Cannelton March 24, 1852, on her maiden trip to New Orleans, and her like had never been seen, nor will it be again beheld.
In mere dimensions she excelled all records, a hull P
(12)
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363 feet long, waterwheels 42 feet in diameter, with 14 foot buckets, sustained by shafts of 22-inch diame- ter, weighing 13 tons each. Two large engines, of 36- inch cylinders with 11 foot stroke, generated the mo- tive power, besides four smaller engines, for hoisting freight and pumping water. Eight large boilers were 321/2 feet in length by 42 inches diameter, besides seven cylinder boilers 35 feet by 12 inches. Her smokestacks measured a diameter of 85 inches and towered 86 feet above the hurricane deck.
The first passengers' cabin extended a length of 300 feet, and it was here that money had been squandered with lavishness unparalleled. Five thousand dollars was spent on the carpet alone, woven in Brussels from original designs and specifications sent from New Al- bany while the boat was being built. This carpet con- sisted of two immense rugs the full width of the cabin, extending fore and aft from the central gangway and woven with eyelets by which they could be buttoned down at the edges and readily lifted for cleaning.
Every piece of chinaware was made from special patterns by the Haviland potteries at Limoges, the smaller plates, cups and saucers bearing the initial "E" in gold near the edge, while the larger dishes were marked "Eclipse" in gilded letters. A flying golden eagle surmounted this as a crest upon the tall ware such as tureens, comport dishes and pitchers. The sil- ver was all sterling, made to special order and en- graved with name in ornate script, while all the cut- lery and service was of the same costly description. Added to all this, the mere goldleaf used in decoration when building the boat amounted to $4,875, a single detail of the extravagance displayed throughout.
One hundred and twenty people made up the full crew in every capacity, under command of Captain E. T. Sturgeon, so the passengers were literally on a floating hotel, with servants trained to anticipate every wish. Among the officers for several seasons was a Perry County man, Martin Frank, then in his early
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twenties, who had spent six years in flatboating be- tween his birthplace (Harrison County) and New Or- leans, thus acquiring an intimate knowledge of both the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. This experience, added to three years (1857-60) on board the Eclipse, made him a valuable auxiliary in the Federal gunboat serv- ice which he entered in 1861, after one year of farm life in Perry County, following his marriage with Amanda E. Hoyne, of Tobin Township. He was pres- ent at the taking of Fort Donelson, at the surrender of Vicksburg, and his boat was near when Arkansas Post fell, having carried despatches to General Grant. The close of the war also terminated his career as pilot and he returned to farming, which he followed with financial success for many years until ready to retire from active life, then living in Cannelton until his death, in March, 1913.
Besides the all-surpassing splendour of her equipment, the Eclipse was the swiftest long-distance boat ever in the Mississippi Valley, and as such her record remains unbroken, disregarding numerous spurt records where fast steamers made extraordinary time over short courses. In 1853 occurred the memorable speed con- test between the Eclipse and the A. L. Shotwell, the former running from the foot of Canal Street, New Orleans, to the Portland wharf, Louisville, in four days, nine hours and twenty minutes, the latter's time being exactly one hour longer. This race was even more thrilling than the famous contest of 1870 between the Robert E. Lee and Natchez, from New Orleans to Saint Louis, as the Eclipse and Shotwell were fre- quently in plain sight of each other for miles at a time, and thousands of dollars changed hands on the result.
An old ledger shows that on one trip during the spring of 1858 the bar receipts of the Eclipse were $2,302.20, so it is probable the poker games must have been for fabulous stakes, as twelve coal-boat pilots were on their way back to Pittsburg as passengers. A net profit of $6,621.10 on freight carried the same trip
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is also shown by the same record-book, the profit for passengers amounting to $414.60.
Reading the menu of an ordinary day's dinner shows where the money went, since Lucullus himself could only with difficulty have designed a more elaborate banquet than one beginning with ox-tail soup, going through barbecued bass and sheepshead to six varie- ties of boiled and three of cold spiced meats, with choice of ten side dishes, before the actual meat course was reached.
Eight kinds of roast were then offered, and under the head of "Green" appears the modest statement, "All Vegetables of the Season." The dessert is yet more bewildering with seven different pies, four pud- dings, four creams, blanc-mange, custard, charlotte russe, sherbets, two "frozettes," and a delicacy not known today called "charlexaice"; to say nothing of five cakes, six kinds of fruit, three of nuts, claret and white wines and coffee.
Charles Dickens unfortunately visited America some years too early to enjoy a voyage aboard the Eclipse, else he would scarcely have described a steamboat din- ner on the Ohio River as "a collation of funeral baked meats."
In the Saint Louis trade also were several very fine, fast boats, such as the Reindeer, Alvin Adams; Fash- ion, Fawn and two well-known sister steamers, the Northerner and the Southerner, both low-pressure and thus notable in their class, comparatively few of the kind proving successful, although the Indiana and Richmond were two other and later examples.
In the regular Memphis trade the Commercial was for years a particular local favourite because com- manded by a Cannelton man, Captain Samuel Archer. His boat was noted during the War Between the States as the first one ever flying the Confederate flag clear from Memphis into the port of Louisville. Needless to say, this act of daring was not often repeated, nor
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copied by others, yet Captain Archer and his wife (Burnetta Mason) remained ardent Southern sympa- thizers.
Quinine, worth its weight in gold and contraband besides, was smuggled through the lines in a rag doll, as belonging to their daughter, Mollie Archer (Mrs. Charles Schmuck, later Mrs. Hofmeister), who accom- panied her parents on several trips to Memphis, and the hem of her dress skirt was likewise laden with the priceless drug.
Nothing else recalls to the present generation the early glory of river days so vividly as the floating the- atres which are still an important summer amusement feature to all small towns along the Ohio. Dan Rice, the famous clown and circus manager, claimed to have been the pioneer in the floating show business, a Thes- pian Daniel Boone blazing the trail for a line of fol- lowers whose end is not yet in sight sixty years aft- erward.
Before many river points were accessible by rail the circus traveled from town to town by boat, pitch- ing its tents at some convenient spot near the river bank. An idea occurred to Rice that much time and needless labour was daily wasted setting tents and striking canvas, so he evolved and executed a plan of lashing together several flat-bottomed coal-barges, erecting his tent thereon with ring and tiers of seats just as on land, so that the same performance could be given. Instant success attended the first cruise of the odd craft.
"Excelsior," the blind white horse, displayed his marvellous education by answering questions, count- ing numbers, doing "sums" in addition or subtraction ; "Nellie," the jumping mare; "Bravo" and "Bonita," the chariot pair, all careened about the forty-foot arena as if its tanbark were spread upon Mother Earth. Annual trips were long continued, or until Rice's ad- vancing years and failing health compelled abandon-
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ment of his business, which he could no longer man- age in person.
Another aggregation, the "Floating Palace," won even greater notoriety from the circumstance that it was the first to use illuminating gas on the river. Spaulding and Rogers were its owners and the thea- tre was towed by the steamer James Raymond, on board which the gas was generated. Pipes connected the two crafts, carrying the gas to great chandeliers suspended over the circus ring, in the menagerie de- partment, dressing rooms and box office, as well as lighting the steamboat's cabin.
Elephants, giraffes, ostriches, polar bears, all min- gled in the display ; a collection of wax figures rivalled Madame Tussaud's exhibit in London; a panoramic view of the world was unrolled and over a hundred other oil paintings were on view, with relics of Egypt, Herculaneum and Pompeii; a calliope with several oc- taves' range discoursed melodies then popular, with an accompaniment of sweet bells-happily, not "out of tune"; an alleged "Polish Refugee," Madame Olinza, performed "graceful, thrilling and terrific feats upon a tight-rope stretched at dizzy height in mid-air," meanwhile "playing exquisitely the Cornet-à-piston;" an "incomparable genius," Mr. S. K. G. Nellis, who had "appeared with great éclat before the crowned heads and nobility of Europe," now wrote letters, shot bows and arrows, loaded and discharged pistols, played on the accordeon and violincello, cut out valentines and silhouettes, all
"WITH HIS TOES ALONE."
Specimens of his last named dexterity are yet to be seen, and a portrait cut from life of Anthony Crockett, a nephew to "Davy" Crockett, which Nellis had cut out July 12, 1856, was shown at a Woman's Club loan ex- hibit at Hawesville in the spring of 1915.
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But even more wonderful than animals, acrobats, or horseback riders jumping through tissue-paper cov- ered hoops was the novel illuminant whereby these sights were beheld, and it is an established fact that many thousands of people down the Ohio Valley gazed on a burning gas-jet for the first time in their lives on board Spaulding and Rogers' Floating Palace.
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CHAPTER XX
SWISS COLONIZATION SOCIETY AT TELL CITY
AMONG all the countries of Europe none can boast a prouder heritage of history than little Switzerland, and none has shared with America a finer strain of na- tional blood than that which the gallant Republic of the Old World sent across the Atlantic to mingle with the growing Republic of the New World.
As early as 1796 Jean Jacques Dufour, a Switzer from the Canton de Vaud, explored the Ohio River all along the boundary line of Indiana, seeking a suitable location for the future homes of himself, his four brothers, three sisters and some few associates. Pleased with the almost mountainous hills coming close to the river which reflected them like his own Alpine lakes, he fixed upon a site fifty-five miles west. of Cincinnati, between Plum and Indian Creeks, where by special act of Congress he was permitted to pur- chase four sections of land at the price of $2 an acre.
In May, 1801, the new settlers landed at Norfolk, Virginia, coming thence to Indiana by way of Lexing- ton, Kentucky, where two years were spent in adjust- ing themselves to pioneer conditions before taking up actual residence upon their new lands. These were situated in what was then Dearborn County, but the colony increased to such a degree that in the autumn of 1814 a petition was laid before the Territorial Leg- islature praying for a new county, which was accord- ingly organized under the appropriate title of Switzer- land, further sentiment bestowing upon its county seat the harmonious name of Vevay.
Two natives of Vevay, the Eggleston brothers-Ed- ward and George Cary-have given to literature accu-
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rate word-pictures of these early Switzers and their mingling with the other settlers who came from vari- ous American states to form a community yet retaining many quaintly individual characteristics, but no writer has yet done full justice, either in fiction or serious history to the movement which established, half a cen- tury later, in Perry County a Swiss colony upon a larger scale with more definite plans, whose accom- plishment attained a fuller measure of permanent success.
Geographical conditions cause the Swiss race to feel strongly the influence of the three other nations- France, Italy and Germany-which are immediately adjacent, and just as the family names Dufour, Du- mont, Thiébaud, Duprez and others found in Switzer- land County plainly show their Vaudois origin, the earliest Switzers of Perry County bore names rela- tively Teutonic in their suggestiveness and from Can- ton Schwyz, near storied Lake Lucerne, came Charles Steinauer, a factor of prime importance in the Swiss Colonization Society which was organized November 16, 1856, at Cincinnati.
Although the very first minutes of the society are missing, its purpose appears to have been to furnish mutual aid in founding homes and business enterprises in what was then known as "The West," and under the constitution adopted December 14, 1856, Professor J. C. Christin became the first President; Charles Stein- auer, Recording Secretary; Richard Luethy, Corre- sponding Secretary, and J. Goldenberg, Treasurer.
A time-faded original document, accidentally brought to light in a Cannelton private library during the preparation of this volume, bears date of Cincinnati, January 10, 1857, and is here reproduced verbatim et literatim :
"In pursuance of notice the Swiss Colonisation So- ciety held a meeting this evening for the purpose of effecting organization and obtaining the privilege of a corpored body under the Law of Ohio passed May
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1st, 1852. J. C. Christin was acting as Chairman and C. Steinauer as Secretary.
"After the Chairman had stated the object of the meeting it was on motion resolved, That we now pro- ceed to elect three Trustees and one Clerk to hold their office for one year and until their Successors shall be duly chosen, whereupon the following persons, mem- bers of said Society were duly elected Trustees, namely, J. Schoettly, J. C. Christin, J. C. Appenzeller. H. Pfis- ter was elected Clerk.
"Resolved: That this Association be known as the Swiss Colonisation Society.
"Resolved: That the Clerk elected have a true copy of the proceedings of this meeting recorded in the Re- corder's Office, of Hamilton County, Ohio, for the pur- poses aforesaid.
J. C. Christin, Chairman, C. Steinauer, Secretair.
"Cincinnati, January 14, 1857.
"I, H. Pfister, certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the proceedings of a meeting held by the Swiss-Colonisation-Society on the 10th day of January, 1857.
H. Pfister."
On its reverse side appears further :
"Swiss Colonisation Society.
"Rec'd 15 January 1857. Recorded in Book of Church Records Page 176. J. W. Carlton, Recorder Hamilton County, Ohio. Paid."
Branches to the number of fifteen were planted at different points in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, as far away as Davenport, Iowa, and the first of the annual general conventions, planned to be held for the interests of the society at the various colonies in turn, met April 19-20-21, 1857, at Cincinnati.
Up to this time the total receipts amounted to
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$35,255 with an expenditure of only $180, and a spe- cial committee had been sent out to look up land suit- able for colonization. But one of the Ohio River's periodical and most disastrous freshets had occurred during that spring, so the homeseekers returned like Noah's weary dove to the Ark, without even the sig- nificant olive branch.
In July of the same year Charles Rebstock, M. Oehl- man and C. Tueffli came down the river on a similar quest, stopping at numerous places for inspection of the country. Efforts were made to engage large tracts of land at Rome and at Cannelton, but as the prices asked were too high or the available acreage insuffi- cient, no purchases were made. It is told that an ex- tensive tract below Hawesville was offered upon good terms, but that the Commissioners held that it would appear inconsistent with their ideals of liberty to plant their community in a slaveholding state.
Be this as it may, some now unknown consideration dictated their choice of land lying directly opposite, whose natural facilities-other than the circumstance of its location upon the Indiana shore-were far in- ferior to those on the Kentucky side for the upbuilding of a town. "Mistletoe Lodge," Judge Huntington's seven hundred acre estate, formerly owned by Nicho- las J. Roosevelt and for many years later by the heirs of Robert Fulton, was the first and largest purchase, July 29, 1857, for $28,000. Others selling tracts of different sizes at varying prices were Judge Ballard Smith, Joshua B. Huckeby, Henry P. Brazee, John James, Eli Thrasher, Samuel Webb, Charles Scull, John Turner, Benjamin Persinger, Edwin Morris Abel, G. W. and William Butler, besides others whose names imply non-resident ownership.
Four thousand one hundred and fifty-four acres was the aggregate bought, at a total price of $85,364, to meet which sum an assessment of $15 was made upon each of 8,192 shares held, followed a little later by an additional tax of $5 per capita. This fund amounted
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to $163,840 (although something like $20,000 was never fully paid), and each share entitled its owner to two plots of land in the new settlement. The allot- ment was made by drawing lots, thus giving every member an absolutely equal chance as to desirability of location.
Much of the site was irregular hill-land covered with dense forest growth, other portions cut up by gullies, depressions and the spreading forks of Windy Creek, so laying out a regular city plat upon such broken ground was an undertaking whose success bespeaks high engineering skill on the part of the chief sur- veyor, August Pfaefflin, who was assisted by Christo- pher R. Huntington. The plat was laid off into 392 town blocks, containing 7,328 lots and 294 garden blocks, having 794 lots. Based on a conservative esti- mate of six persons to a lot this provided for a possible city of 90,000 inhabitants, an optimistic outlook whose realization yet remains in the future, notwithstanding the creditable development which three-score years have brought about.
The river's course being here west of north, the site was laid out into streets exactly rectangular with the points of the compass, leaving some irregularly shaped blocks in the angles next the river, but all the remain- der being parallelograms. Beginning at First Street the streets running north and south were eighty feet in width, running up to Thirty-second Street, al- though topographical conditions have practically lim- ited the growth of settlement between Sixth and Four- teenth Streets.
A peculiarly interesting example of street nomen- clature, one of striking originality for its time, is to be noticed in the seventy-foot intersecting streets which run from east to west. The first roadway cut through the forest was in the exact centre of the plat and received the appropriate name of Tell Street, though local circumstances have kept it from becom- ing the important thoroughfare anticipated, commer-
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cial interests having followed the line of Eighth Street whose title was officially changed in 1915 to Main Street.
Such names as Winkelried, Payne, Blum and Herr- mann served to recall their home land to the sturdy pioneers; while to perpetuate the spirit of liberty, which had sent other and earlier lovers of freedom from Europe to America, the names of Lafayette, De- Kalb and Steuben, were bestowed on other streets. From these it was a natural transition to America's own heroes of the Revolutionary period, so the names of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin were utilized.
Since the new settlement was designed to become a manufacturing community, the power of steam found recognition under the names of Watt and Fulton. Education was commemorated through Pestalozzi; Humboldt received the choice as a representative of natural science; Schiller recalled the wealth of litera- ture possessed by the German language; Rubens paid tribute to the art of painting, while Mozart bespoke a love for the best in music. The first printing office was established near Gutenberg Street, a site yet occupied by a newspaper office, but whether this location was accidental or intentional cannot now be determined.
With such admirable civic taste as was thus dis- played, it is regrettable that the title "Helvetia" origi- nally suggested for the place itself was exchanged for the "city" suffix so typical of America's new towns, yet "Tell City," by which the village came to be known in the autumn of 1857, has in itself a certain sug- gestiveness of its own period in our national devel- opment.
When the philosopher Themistocles was asked, at a feast in violet-crowned Athens, to play upon a musical instrument, his reply was: "I am ignorant of such an art, but I know how to make a small town a great city," and every promoter of a new village located any- where between the Apalachians and the Rockies, be- tween 1850 and 1860, fancied himself a modern The-
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mistocles. As Tell City, therefore, the infant com- munity made her initial entry upon History's page, nor is the seal yet set upon her record.
The year 1857 was consumed in laying out the town site preparatory for immigration, and the earliest ar- rival of residents was on March 13, 1858, Charles Steinauer being one of the three or four who came then. He was just thirty years of age, having been born March 17, 1828, in Canton Schwyz, Switzerland, one of five sons and two daughters who were the chil- dren of Benedict and Gertrude (Effinger) Steinauer. Receiving a liberal education in his home, he crossed the ocean at the age of twenty-two to seek new fortune in America, locating first in Cincinnati, where he en- gaged in business until coming to Indiana. His native talents had identified him with the colonization move- ment from its inception, and he ably filled many posi- tions of high responsibility in the county which he made his home for the rest of his life, or until Febru- ary 28, 1891.
He was an active and valuable Republican, and while never an office seeker consented to serve as County Commissioner from 1881 to 1884. Spending his life as a bachelor, his only remaining relatives in Tell City are collateral descendants springing from the marriage of his brother, August Steinauer, to Antonia Stein- auer (not a relative). The two brothers' first busi- ness venture in Tell City was the earliest hotel opened there, kept in the "Mistletoe Lodge" residence which had been Judge Huntington's home, situate on the river front between Gutenberg and Washington Streets. This they followed for two years, then en- tered upon the manufacture of flour in which the fam- ily has continued up to the present with marked success.
Probably the earliest industrial undertaking was the saw-mill established April, 1858, by the Herrmann Brothers (John and Peter) who found themselves scarcely able to supply the enormous demand for lum-
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ber, as there were no houses to shelter newcomers and buildings of flimsy nature sprang up like mushrooms everywhere in the woods.
The Herrmanns were of Prussian birth, children of John and Katharina (Altes) Herrmann, and came to the United States in 1852, working at the wagon mak- ers' trade in various cities of Ohio before locating in Cincinnati. From thence they removed to Tell City, of which John Herrman became the first postmaster, when the postoffice was established in 1858 by Post- master-General Aaron V. Brown, of Tennessee, whose official successor as holder of that portfolio in Buch- anan's cabinet was Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, born di- rectly opposite Perry County, at "Holt Place," Breck- inridge County. A year later the Herrmann brothers entered upon the wagon making business, building up what became one of the largest in Southern Indiana. After some years the manufacture of hames was de- veloped, remaining in control of the Herrmann fam- ily, who are still locally prominent, until 1906, when their plant was absorbed by the United States Hame Manufacturing Company, who made Tell City one of their principal depots in the Middle West.
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