USA > Indiana > Perry County > Perry County: A History > Part 15
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Miss Josephine Blum was the first girl born in the village and William Scheitlen the first boy. Frank Herm erected the first house after the town site was platted, a log edifice at the southwest corner of Main (Eighth) and Tell Streets, which remained until the dawn of the Twentieth Century, a small replica of it being displayed in an industrial parade which cele- brated Mardi Gras of the year 1900. J. K. Frick was the pioneer architect, but the temporary nature of most of the buildings debarred him from any profound undertakings in Tell City, though he afterward won more permanent professional success in Evansville.
It is said that the sign "Lager Bier" was displayed upon fully three-fourths of the earliest houses, yet drunkenness was a thing unknown and disorder was wholly absent from the peaceful life of the colonists.
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Their industrial activities were turned in a direction radically opposed to dissipation of any kind, although they brought from the Fatherland the Continental ob- servance of Sunday as a holiday none the less than as a holy day. Harmless Sabbath-day pastime, therefore, was never frowned upon but rather encouraged from the first, and after the lapse of almost sixty years the social atmosphere of Tell City retains much of that en- joyable liberality which was the ideal of its founders, who were communistic in the term's true sense, with- out being Socialists, as the word is spoken today.
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CHAPTER XXI
PIONEER MEN AND INDUSTRIES OF TELL CITY.
BY leaps and bounds the population increased dur- ing the first year of Tell City's existence and the three hundred people who were there in April, 1858, had grown to six hundred and twenty by June 1, and eighty-six houses had been built. At the close of the month 986 persons were enumerated, with 120 houses, and five miles of streets cut through the trees.
On July 5 (the Fourth falling on Sunday) the first celebration of Independence Day was marked by a pic- nic on the hill, at which three or four thousand people were present, according to the account given in the Cannelton Reporter of July 10. The steamer Prairie Rose had brought from Cincinnati a special excursion of 600 Switzers who came down the river to visit their friends and see the new town. The boat lay in port . three days before returning, but many of the tourists had decided to remain, as a fresh census taken within the same week showed 1,230 residents and 154 buildings.
The Swiss Colonization Society held its second gen- eral convention September 19-20-21, 1858, at Tell City and the board of the organization was then officially transferred to Perry County. The first officers of the Tell City branch were Charles Steinauer, President; F. W. Dietz, Vice-President; John Siebert, Secretary; William Leopold, Assistant Secretary; John Wegman, Treasurer; Louis Frey, Agent and Corresponding Sec- retary. All these officers composed the Board of Di- rectors and an act was passed authorizing loans of from $500 to $1,000 of the society's funds to worthy business or manufacturing enterprises.
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To the first shingle mill, started by Jacob Loew, a loan of $300 was extended, and like amounts to Reis and Endebrock who founded the first brewery, and to Peter Schreck by whom the second was established. One hundred dollars was lent in November, 1858, to David Brosi and Henry Meyer who started the first planing mill. Prior to this time the only lumber yard was that of Hausler and Company, who had brought dressed timber, mouldings, doors, windows and shut- ters from Cincinnati. In the following spring a loan of $4,000 was made to the Tell City Furniture Factory. It was organized by twenty-five men, at whose head was John C. Harrer, born June 14, 1822, in Bavaria, the eldest son of George and Christina (Long) Harrer. After learning the cabinet maker's trade and following it through various parts of Germany, he came in 1846 to America, first to Pittsburg, thence to Cincinnati and finally into Perry County. Married twice-in 1847 to Eleanor Rohe and in 1864 to Susan Hanne- krath-his Tell City descendants in this generation are many.
The first store of any consequence was opened as early as April, 1858, by Charles W. Reif, Sr., one of those who had come down the river the previous year to select a town site and who was active among the town's founders. He had come with his wife, Bar- bara Graf, in 1848 to America from Baden, where he was born January 17, 1817. John Jacob Meyer, a native of Canton Zurich, Switzerland, September 24, 1828, one of nine children born to John Jacob and Barbara (Staubli) Meyer, was a pioneer in the hard- ware business and tinner's trade in which he had served a four years' apprenticeship at home before coming in 1854 to the United States. One year earlier as an immigrant had come Herman Stalder, also a Switzer, from Canton Aargau, born November 26, 1833, his parents, Ludwig and Clara (Herzog) Stalder hav- ing brought fourteen children into the world. All three of these men were very early merchants who in
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time became veterans in the commercial circles of Tell City, and others were John Hartman, Frederick Rank, John Siebert, F. W. Dietz, John Graff, Charles Robert, Kimmel and Goettel.
In May, 1858, the original wharfboat was floated down the river from Cincinnati and rented to Fred- erick Steiner, a native of Canton St. Gall, August 10, 1830, who remained in control for many years, be- coming a notable river man, familiar in steamboat cir- cles everywhere and personally conspicuous from his immense size, which made him a striking figure up to his death, October 30, 1882. Facing the wharf he erected the three-story brick hotel which has long been a landmark to river travelers and attained a wide repu- tation, first as the Steiner House and afterward the Hotel Moraweck.
Anton Moraweck, for many years its manager and later its owner, was born August 15, 1828, in Bohemia, the youngest child of Joseph and Josepha (Philipp) Moraweck, and had been only two years in America when the impetus of the Swiss Colonization Society brought him in 1858 from Davenport, Iowa, to Perry County. By his marriage, May 13, 1856, to Claudine Kroboth, three children were born of whom the eldest became a physician of international reputation. Dr. Ernest Moraweck was a specialist whose authority carried weight in the clinics of Vienna and Berlin no less than the United States, and it was while returning from one of his frequent voyages across the Atlantic that he lost his life in the tragic sinking of the Titanic, April 15, 1912. His wife, Amelia Basler of Tell City, had died several years earlier, no offspring resulting from the marriage.
Paul Schuster was Tell City's pioneer real estate agent and lawyer, but remained only a short time be- fore going to Cannelton where he was the founder and principal of Franklin Institute.
Educational standards having been always most as- siduously cultivated among the Switzers, it was less
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than four months after the earliest settlers of Tell City arrived that the first school was commenced, in July, 1858, with Albert Ostreicher as its teacher. His in- struction was given entirely in German, and the small building available could accommodate only a limited number of those wishing to attend. A two-story frame school house was erected in early autumn by the Colo- nization Society, and about November it is said that regular sessions were begun, employing two teachers and both the English and German languages. The two tongues continued to be used side by side through- out the grades for some forty years, more or less, but German was finally relegated to the high school course, as an alternative with Latin for graduation, according to the Indiana scheme of study.
"Tell City is a marvel," declared the Cannelton Re- porter of October 2, 1858. "There is nothing like its history and progress, and it has no precedent. It has now over eleven miles of streets, cut seventy and eighty feet wide through the forests; has 1,500 people and 300 houses. All this has been done since the middle of last April. The shareholders are coming in daily and as soon as they can find their lots, begin their im- provements. Everyone seems confident that the own- ers of the adjacent lots will come and do likewise. By this time next year, we expect to see 5,000 people here and the establishment of sufficient branches of indus- try to give all full employment. This union of Ger- man and Swiss, of industry and economy, of thrift and industry, will accomplish wonders."
March 19, 1859, appeared the first issue of a Tell City newspaper, the Helvetia, whose outfit was re- moved from Cincinnati where it had been founded three years before by the Colonization Society, who owned it, a committee having charge of its publica- tion. Its first local proprietors and editors were Wal- ser and Schellenbaum, who printed it in German as a six-column folio, at a subscription price of $2. Orig- inally independent in politics, it came out strongly
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Republican during the national campaign of 1860 and remained such for its whole existence, under several changes of name and ownership.
John Weber, Louis Frey, J. N. Sorg, Albert Ost- reicher and Ferdinand Mengis were all in turn con- nected with the office, until publication ceased in 1865. Henry Meyer then attempted its revival as the Volks- blatt, but without success, and for a short time later it was printed as the Beobachter.
The initial number of the Anzeiger, however, ap- pearing September 1, 1866, was the beginning of a permanent periodical, first owned by M. Schmidt and F. J. Widmer, with an editorial committee of twelve citizens. Within a few years the controlling interest was purchased by George F. Bott, and in his family the establishment remains, though the Anzeiger was dis- continued April 27, 1912, an English paper, the Tell City Journal, having been established in the same office February 18, 1891. For some time its editorial chair was filled by the late Francis Anson Evans, one of Perry County's few verse-writers, whose contribu- tions in rime drew special attention to the Journal and were widely copied in Indiana and elsewhere. He was a native Hoosier, and wrote with pleasing and wholly unaffected simplicity of style.
George F. Bott, while not one of the very earliest settlers, came nevertheless to Tell City soon enough (1860) to be classed among the pioneer residents, and lived long enough to see realized many of its promises of substantial development. He was born July 23, 1842, in Ravensburg, Germany, the home of his par- ents, George and Marie (Bauer) Bott. Coming with them to Perry County, he soon afterward entered upon a printer's apprenticeship at Dubuque, Iowa, and in 1861 enlisted in Company D, First Nebraska Infantry (later Cavalry). His regiment was under Grant at Fort Donelson and Corinth, also participating in many other well-known battles, under Lew Wallace, and he was promoted to sergeant's rank in Company B. Com-
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ing back to Tell City after peace was declared, he mar- ried Babette Loeb and to their union seven children were born. From 1869 to 1885 he held the office of postmaster, and continued active in journalism up to his death, July 31, 1896.
The name of Ferdinand Becker is linked with that of the Colonization Society from its beginning, as he was a full-blooded Switzer, born June 22, 1827, in Canton Glarus, the eldest son of Frederick and Eliza- beth (Grubermann) Becker. His collegiate education in both French and German was exceptionally thor- ough, and it was as a cultured young man that he came to America in 1854. Following mercantile pur- suits in Cincinnati and Davenport, he left Iowa in 1858 to identify himself with the new colony of his nation in Indiana, and attained in Perry County a degree of prominence for which his abilities well fitted him. From his marriage in 1861 with Mary Gnau, of Cin- cinnati, sprang a family of descendants who respect his name by honourably maintaining it.
Michael Bettinger came as a "Forty-eighter" to the United States from Wurttemburg, where he was born September 29, 1824, the son of Martin and Juliane (Grisser) Bettinger. For two and a half years after attaining his majority he wore the uniform of mili- tary service, which he was glad to exchange for civilian garb by emigrating to Cincinnati. There he was mar- ried in 1849 to Elizabeth Angst, also of Wurttemburg, and together they came to Tell City ten years later. Like many others among the pioneers, he made several changes of occupation before settling down into the woolen manufacture. Of his five children three re- mained in Tell City, one son making a home in Cin- cinnati, where his activity found wider scope, especially in advancing the natural river interests of the entire Ohio Valley, a truly colossal work with which the name of Albert Bettinger will always be honourably con- nected.
By spring-time of 1859 the desirability of an organ-
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ized municipality was felt, so a petition with 124 sig- natures was presented by Louis Frey to the County Commissioners, asking that 1847 acres of the site be incorporated. June 28 was thereupon set for election, which resulted favourably, and was ratified September by the county. The first Board of Town Trustees, however, had met July 28 for organization, as follows: Henry Brehmer, Joseph Einsiedler, William Leopold, Frederick Rank, J. M. Rauscher, Charles W. Reif, Christian Uebelmesser, trustees ; J. C. Schening, clerk; John Wegman, treasurer; William Leopold, assessor; Frederick Steiner, marshal.
Naturally the records were kept for a number of years in German, the language in which all transac- tions were conducted, and a historian's research work therefore demands the skill of an interpreter, while translation does not always sufficiently repay the ef- fort. The urgent need of additional school facilities was realized, so preparations were set on foot for build- ing another two-story frame school house, 36 by 60 feet, to accommodate increasing demands. Several vacant houses, including one of stone on Lot 129, had been used for school purposes, also a building in the market square (now the City Hall Park) where re- ligious services had been held. All these, as well as some few private schools, were carried on in both lan- guages and made weekly reports of their progress to the Colonization Society.
Early in 1863 one of the school houses was torn down to check a conflagration threatening serious spread, and immediate preparations were made to erect an- other. The Town Board appropriated $600, $1,100 be- ing subscribed by the Colonization Society and others. The two-story brick edifice which for two-score years crowned the highest point in Ninth Street, was built at a cost which ultimately reached $9,000, furnishing- with other houses-adequate room until 1867 when the "North Building," also a two-story brick, was con- structed for $11,000.
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The first teachers in the new "South Building," dur- ing 1868-64, were Jacob Bollinger, Albert Ostreicher and Mrs. Nagel. Of these, Jacob Bollinger should be mentioned as probably the most profoundly educated man among Tell City's early instructors. Born March 11, 1818, in Canton Aargau, he received scholastic training in Switzerland and taught there before com- ing in 1855 to America, two of his brothers having preceded him. He was first a teacher of instrumental music at Fort Smith, Arkansas, afterward Professor of German in a college at Lebanon, Illinois, before ac- cepting the first principalship of the Tell City schools. Later engaging in real estate, underwriting and the practice of law, besides serving two years as United States Revenue Collector, he stood throughout his life in Tell City as one who upheld to a marked degree the kulturkampf of Continental Europe.
Likewise a native Switzer was John Baumgaertner, born May 1, 1843, in Canton Graubuenden, the second child of Simon and Anna (Fluetsch) Baumgaertner. Educated in the excellent common schools and also at a normal training school in his home town, he taught there until a year after his majority. He came then to America and in December, 1865, settled in Tell City, where he taught German for seven consecutive years. Afterward figuring in politics for two terms as town marshal, he then engaged in the wharfboat business, until his removal in 1879 to Rockport. There he con- ducted the Verandah Hotel until his death, and his children are of social and professional prominence in Spencer County.
Another whose introduction to Tell City was also in the school room, but whose distinction was attained in the realm of finance, was Gustave Huthsteiner, who taught in the new brick shortly after Jacob Bollinger.
He was born April 17, 1844, in Prussia, the eldest child of Edward and Caroline (Aschenbach) Huth- steiner, who came with so many other Germans in 1848 to America, locating in Cincinnati. Here the
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younger children were born and all received an excel- lent education through the liberality of their father, a successful merchant of the Queen City. After teaching there for two years, Gustave Huthsteiner came at the age of twenty to Tell City, first clerking in a drug store for a short time before again becoming a teacher.
This experience, added to three months of military service in Company K, Fifth Ohio Cavalry, taught him to read human nature well and developed those traits of logical self-control which made him in maturer years Tell City's leading financier and a strong figure in Perry County politics, serving two consecutive terms as County Treasurer and being elected in 1878 as Rep- resentative to the Legislature. Twice married-first to Pauline, daughter of John and Pauline (Stadlin) Weber, who died December 25, 1883; and some years later to Louise Ludwig, also of Tell City-he left at his death, February 1, 1902, a considerable family, of whom some still live in their native town and devote themselves to her well-being, as a privilege no less than an hereditary obligation to the name of Huth- steiner.
At the time of the founding of the place and so long as incoming colonies continued to arrive, every branch of business was extremely prosperous. 'The newcomers invariably brought with them goodly sums in gold, laid up to be of use in their new home, and the large amounts of coin paid out of land, labour, farm products, etc., had the effect usual in new com- munities of raising the price of commodities.
But when the last immigrants had come and had sent their gold into the channels of trade, reaction set in, furthered by the immense influence of the War Be- tween the States. Many failed, and returned to their former homes; by rigid economy others pulled through until better times came again; some few, by good judg- ment, skill and energy, prospered even during the most stringent financial distress of the sixties.
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Truly marvellous has been the tenacity of life dis- played by some of Tell City's earliest and still lead- ing manufacturing establishments, and her prosperity reflects brilliantly upon the persistent industry, fru- gality and thrift of her German-Swiss people.
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CHAPTER XXII.
IMMEDIATELY BEFORE THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES.
THE history of Perry County in the earlier half of the 'sixties, like that of the nation at large, is practically the story of the War Between the States, besides which all other occurrences during 1861 to 1865 shrink to in- significance. And, for the sake of clear understanding, let it be recognized that the phrase employed to desig- nate the conflict in question is the only one among all those in use-Civil War, War of Secession, Rebellion, etc.,-which is at once of complete accuracy and abso- lute impartiality.
The late Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, wrote: "The term Civil War signifies nothing. There have been innumerable civil wars, and as a matter of general history it is manifestly absurd for us to appro- priate the term to a single civil war of our own." James Bryce, the English historian of international reputa- tion, British Ambassador to Washington, 1912-1915, in his "American Commonwealths," speaks of the United States as: "A Union of Commonwealths * * * they have over their citizens an authority which is their own and not delegated by the central Government. They- that is, the older ones among them-existed before it. They could exist without it. Seven states seceded and confederated without resorting to arms, regarding secession as their court of last resort, and simply one among what they considered other equal rights under a Constitution whose interpretation, until then, had never been established on those points. Thus, the war was not-exclusively-'of secession.'."
George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe our first five
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Presidents-were 'rebels,' inasmuch as they conducted armed resistance against a power of which they ar- mitted themselves subjects up to the signing of a cer- tain document, July 4, 1776. The Southrons construed their doctrine of State Sovereignty as justifying them in maintaining its claim by force, yet never placed themselves in 'rebellion' to any authority they had pre- viously recognized.
In saying the War Between the States, the noun 'States' is used in a collective sense, exclusively, imply- ing no war between individual commonwealths. The official titles of the two contending parties involved were the United States of America and the Confederate States of America, and the historical perspective gained through fifty years of national peace shows conclusive- ly that
"We banish our anger forever, When we laurel the graves of our dead,"
who were all heroes of principle during the controversy which the future shall call The War Between the States.
It could not be expected that merely moving across Mason and Dixon's Line would work any mysterious sea-change in the temperament of the Virginians, Marylanders or Carolinians who had transplanted their family stock to Hoosier soil, and Perry County contained many sturdy Old Line Whigs, conscientious believers in "States Rights." Nor had departure from their 'stern and rock-bound coast' modified the some- what austere ideals of those New Englanders who had sought homes in the Middle West; and among the resi- dents of Eastern descent were Abolitionists of the most pronounced type. Cavalier and Puritan faced each other, as in centuries before, and it is to the everlast- ing credit of Perry County that local controversy was never more than a battle of opinions, couched in elo- quence of greater or less degree.
When the day dawned bringing actual strife over an
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issue involving the perpetuity of our national existence, Perry County forgot her petty quarrels, sending away her sons, shoulder to shoulder,-her own native-born lads, American through ancestry reaching to Colonial days, alongside her adopted children of other nation- alities, French, Belgian, Irish, Scotch, English and German. In all, 3,558 men are credited by the Adjut- ant-General to Perry County; a total surpassed by no other county in Indiana in proportion to her population.
That the tide of popular opinion in the county had begun to turn toward the Union, and against its pos- sible disintegration, is placed upon record beyond question by the tabulated vote in the presidential elec- tions of 1856 and 1860. For Buchanan and Breckin- ridge, 1,066 votes were cast, opposed by 632 for Fill- more and Donelson, a Democratic plurality of 434. In 1860 the total vote was greater by 441 than that of four years previous, 244 of these ballots being in the two- year-old Swiss colony of Tell City, for the first time a factor in county politics. The double split in the Democratic party, which placed three of their candi- dates in the field, had in that particular a parallel fifty- two years later in the Republican party. Lincoln and Hamlin polled 1,026 votes; Douglas and Johnson, 947; Bell and Everett, 160; Breckinridge and Lane, 6; a plurality of 79 for the Republican candidates.
The campaign was in every respect the most exciting one the county had experienced, owing to the extra- ordinary division of sentiment, even among members of the same families, brothers voting opposite tickets, wives adhering to principles directly contrary to the politics of their husbands. 'Pole-raisings' had fur- nished occasion for large public gatherings during the summer in all sections of the county, the flags being made at home by the women, and in some instances formally presented by some chosen fair one. Con- spicuously located at Cannelton, within full view of passing steamboats, were three of these flaunting standards, only the Breckinridge party being too weak
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