USA > Indiana > The Indiana gazetteer, or topographical dictionary of the State of Indiana, 1849 > Part 3
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GENERAL VIEW OF THE STATE.
to the great coal beds of the Wabash valley, both north and south of Terre Haute. Some of the veins of coal, on a level with the road and easy of access, are of a superior quality and ten or eleven feet in thickness.
As the whole country near this route from Ohio to Illinois is without exception fertile, the advantages for manufacturing and other way business are such as to secure the early completion of the road at least so far as Indianapolis, and there it will connect with the Madison and Indianapolis road, with the Bellefontaine road, and the time is not distant when there will also be roads on nearly direct lines to Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.
The LAFAYETTE AND INDIANAPOLIS RAILROAD Was originally embraced in the system of internal improve- ments, and was intended to be a part of the railroad from the Ohio to the Wabash, Madison being one of the termini and Lafayette the other. When the State sys- tem broke down, the Madison and Indianapolis road became a separate work, and has been completed by a company. In January 7, 1846, the Legislature passed an act to provide for the continuation of the Madison and Indianapolis road to Lafayette, incorporating a company for that purpose.
The surveys were commenced at Lafayette in January, 1848. At this time the grading is under contract to Lebanon, thirty-five miles, and it is expected that the remaining twenty-eight will soon be placed in the same condition ; the entire length being sixty-three miles, not one mile over a straight line.
It has been estimated that the whole cost of com- pleting the road with a heavy flat bar rail and equipping it for use, will be about $550,000, but with an edge rail of sixty pounds to the yard, it would be about $800,000. The earth work is generally light, the best of oak timber is abundant, and there are only three bridges on the route of any moment, viz: those at Sugar Creek, Eagle Creek, and White River, and most probably the latter might be built in conjunction with the Terre Haute Road. The grubbing, grading and bridging of the whole
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route will not exceed $2,500 a mile. The country through which the road will run is not surpassed in fer- tility of soil by any part of the State. The amount already subscribed for stock is believed to be sufficient to guaranty the ultimate completion of the road.
The PERU AND INDIANAPOLIS RAILROAD is seventy-one miles in length, and is thought. to be on still more favor- able ground for construction, and the country along the route is very fertile. It will pass through the county seats of all the counties on the route. The grading has been nearly completed from Indianapolis to Noblesville, twenty-two miles of the distance. The estimate of the cost of the whole road with a flat bar rail, is $469,600, and the contracts thus far are twenty-two per cent. be- low the estimates. "
The INDIANAPOLIS AND BELLEFONTAINE RAILROAD, run- ning eighty-three miles in the State, up the valleys of Fall Creek and White River, from Indianapolis, is in- tended to be one of the links of the great central lines of railways from the eastern Atlantic cities to St. Louis, on the Mississippi River. This link will connect at the Ohio line, about ten miles north-east of Winchester, with the principal lines that communicate with the great east- ern routes, and unite at Indianapolis with the continuous line through Terre Haute to St. Louis, while it will be intersected by most if not all the northern and southern lines of railway in the State. This central line, when completed, will not only be of great importance to Indi- ana but the whole country, for then at the usual rates of running on good roads the traveller, in less than two days and a half, may pass from St. Louis to Boston.
The Indianapolis and Bellefontaine Railroad Company was chartered in January, 1848, and organized in July by the election of Oliver H. Smith, President, Austin W. Morris, Treasurer, and John H. Cook, Secretary. The whole line has been run and found to pass over a route well adapted to a cheap construction of the work on a low grade, and with few curves. The first section of twenty-six miles is under contract, and the remainder
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GENERAL VIEW OF THE STATE.
will soon be. The estimated cost with the flat bar is $6,000 per mile, or $10,000 with a heavy edge rail.
The NEW ALBANY AND SALEM RAILROAD, thirty-five miles in length, was put under contract in April, 1848, the grading is nearly completed, and the superstructure is now being placed on it. Locomotives have been pur- chased, the necessary shops erected, and the road will be completed and in operation this season. This road will, from present appearances, be extended to Bedford at an early day, and probably hereafter to Bloomington, and not unlikely will meet the railroad from the north-west which is about being commenced at Lafayette, in the direction of Crawfordsville.
The JEFFERSONVILLE RAILROAD . COMPANY have put twenty-seven miles of their route, in the direction of Columbus, under contract. From the surveys made, it appears that a railroad can be made to Columbus, only two miles longer than a straight line, on which the maxi- mum grade is only twenty-two feet to the mile, the highest point, at twenty-three miles distance, being only 170 feet above the high water mark of the Ohio. The grading of the road for the first twenty-seven miles is, by actual contract, to cost only $43,000, or $1,600 a mile. This is the only point in the State from which the interior can be reached at such moderate grades, as in general the river hills of the Ohio must be ascended over 400 feet before there is any descent towards the interior. The stock already subscribed on this route amounts to $231,000, and from the assurances of Mr. Armstrong, the efficient President, there is every prospect that this road will progress to completion. Its length will be about sixty-nine miles. To all the citizens of Indiana who pride themselves in the prosperity of the State, it must be very gratifying to witness the public spirit and enterprise that are creating so many important public improvements. They will develop the resources of the State, encourage its industry, and as the population has increased three fold within the last twenty years, the same may also take place in an equal period next to come.
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Many other railroads besides those that have been named are projected, and some of them will no doubt soon be commenced. The country is favorable for con- structing them cheaply, but at this time it is perhaps desi- rable that too much should not be attempted at first. But they are demanded by the spirit of the age, and as one part of the country reaps the benefits they diffuse, other cities and places must become competitors for the facilities which they afford to travel and business of every description.
When coal can be supplied, at low prices, at Indian- apolis, Lafayette, and other towns situated in a country where every acre can be cultivated to advantage, we can imagine no bounds at which the progress of popula- tion and improvement will be arrested. There must soon be a railroad leading west through the State, either at or north of Fort Wayne, another at Indianapolis, and another still south of it. The road from Indianapolis to Lafayette will be extended to Chicago, and also to con- nect with the road running east through Jacksonville and Springfield.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIONS.
The first object of the settlers of a new country is to provide the means of subsistence, and for a considerable time all the surplus produce is limited to a few articles, and usually disposed of to other settlers who come in afterwards. Every one, as soon as he is able, provides himself with a corn-field, garden or truck-patch, as it is generally called, a few swine, which breed rapidly, and one or two horses and cows, which make up the sum of his substance. Many of the citizens of the State, who are now rich, commenced at first in this way, without even being able to purchase land. They frequently en- tered on the public lands, in which case they were gene- rally protected in the improvements they made; or they rented land on improvement leases, by which they were to have the use of from ten to twenty acres from seven to ten years, and often at the end of that time they were
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GENERAL VIEW OF THE STATE.
able to buy land for themselves. The wild grass, nutri- tious roots, and several kinds of nuts and acorns, were so abundant that neither horses, cattle, nor hogs required much more corn than was sufficient to prevent their straying off; and often the flocks and herds of the set- tlers would seem to have been scarcely less numerous than those of the patriarchs of old. The tendency of this state of things was to produce a surplus of corn, beef, pork, &c., and then when any new article was in demand, every farmer turned his attention to it, and a surplus of that also was soon produced. Low prices at length brought regular customers, and now the supply of most kinds of produce has become abundant and uni- form, and the trader can make his arrangements in ad- vance and calculate with much certainty on carrying them out, wherever there is any access to a market. There are still, however, frequent gluts in the market of some kinds of produce; the farmer often doubts as to the proper objects on which to expend his labor, and it has become very desirable that he should have a greater di- versity of crops than he has had hitherto. The soil, even when very rich, requires this; and occasionally the wheat is killed in winter or by the fly, or the corn or grass suf- fers in summer from drought, frost or storms, and to fur- nish employment for those who wish to labor during the year, it is becoming very important that there should be a greater variety of crops on the farms. Hemp was tried for a few years, but in most instances, too much was attempted at first. Flax, tobacco, fruit, and vari- ous seeds from which oil can be manufactured, may be cultivated to any extent, and often with much profit. Some experiments have been made in beet and corn- sugar, the grape, silk, &c., but in general there has been too much carelessness to decide whether they may not yet be attended to with advantage.
Corn is the great staple of the State. It is easily cul- tivated, and almost every farmer has from 20 to 100 acres. A single hand can prepare the ground, plant and attend to and gather from 20 to 25 acres, according to
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INDIANA GAZETTEER.
the state of the ground and character of the season. The product is usually from 35 to 75 bushels an acre, averaging about 45, though most of the land in the State, if properly farmed, would produce one-third more than is generally raised. Corn usually sells at from ten to thirty cents a bushel, millions of bushels being annu- ally sold in the interior to fatten hogs and cattle, at not exceeding the former price. It is the main article of food for man and stock, and can be cooked in a great variety of ways, so as to be equally acceptable at the tables of the poor and rich. The cultivation of corn is admirably adapted to the climate and soil of the State, and to the habits of the farmers. It has a larger portion of rich, loamy soil than any other of the Western States. With proper cultivation, the corn does not often suffer either from cold, deluge, or drought, and our laborers prefer to work hard in spring and early summer, when the corn most needs it, and then relax exertions in the latter part of the season, when they are not required, and the heat is more oppressive. The corn raised in Indiana in 1845 was estimated by the Commissioner of the Patent Office at 30,625,000 bushels. As last year the corn crops were very large, they cannot have fallen short of 45,000,000 bushels.
The cultivation of wheat is much more important than that of corn in the north part of the State, but not in the others. The amount of wheat estimated by the Commissioner of the Patent Office to have been raised in the State in 1847, was 7,500,000 bushels. The wheat crops do not often average over fifteen bushels an acre, though most generally good cultivation would increase the amount from 25 to 50 per cent. In Morgan county about the year 1831, 244 bushels were produced from six bushels of seed sown on rather less than six acres. When sown on new prairies, wheat was seldom winter killed ; but this has been more frequent of late years on the old prairies. If the wheat were sown earlier, and in drills, instead of broad-cast, the crop would be more certain. The climate of the State is very favorable to
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GENERAL VIEW OF THE STATE.
domestic animals, especially hogs, cattle, horses and sheep. Their food is abundant, the population sparse in many places, and land cheap, the most of it being yet uninclosed, and affording an immense amount of wild pasturage. Hogs are now driven or pork exported from every part of the State; but as some of the principal markets, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Chicago, are not within its limits, it is not possible to make accurate cal- culations of the number and value of hogs raised for exportation. Mr. Cist, of Cincinnati, estimated the pork packing of Indiana for 1847-8, as follows: Wabash points, 162,641; White river, 29,000; Madison, 75,000; Aurora, 10,000. This does not include any of the hogs driven out of the State to market, nor any of the pork packed on the White Water Canal, or the Madison and In- dianapolis Railroad, all which, with those before enumer- ated, must have amounted to at least 550,000. In 1848, the number raised for exportation must have been over 600,000, and the value at least $3,500,000. The hogs in in the State, returned by the Census of 1840, were 1,623,- 608. The number has probably doubled since that time.
The best farmers usually procure or provide for having a good number of stock hogs and pigs in the spring. The course of feeding is sometimes on early rye or in a clover field, from the first to the twentieth of June; then a late rye field, which requires no other sowing to be used, as the early one, the next year, then oats, and first early and then late corn fields; so that in this way the hog gathers his food, fattens himself, and then walks to the market with but little trouble to the farmer. By proper attention, they may be made to weigh from 250 to 300 pounds when they are from eighteen months to two years old ; and others, still better attended to, weigh from 175 to 250 pounds, net, when they are no more than twelve or thirteen months old.
A different course is pursued in the thinly settled parts of the country. Through the most of the year the farmer pays no other attention to his hogs than to ascer- tain where they range, visit and salt them occasionally,
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INDIANA GAZETTEER.
mark the young ones, and shoot or drive up such as have become fat on the nuts or mast in the fall of the year. If killed at the time, the meat is used for home consump- tion, being too oily for foreign markets; but when they can be fed on corn for six or eight weeks, their former mode of feeding is no objection. Sometimes immense numbers of these hogs are seen far away from any set- tlements, as fierce, and when attacked scarcely less dan- gerous, than the bear or panther. When full grown, wild and unmarked, they are shot as other game with but little scruple; but not unfrequently very serious quarrels arise as to the alteration of marks and other evidences by which an ownership in these animals is claimed. - . In most parts of the State, cattle, horses and sheep are raised in great numbers, and of a quality to be in de- mand in the best markets.
The agriculture of the State will always, no doubt, be the most important consideration, and we can as yet form but very imperfect ideas of the improvements which only a few years will produce. Much of this may now be seen in the quality of domestic animals, and in fact, every species of farming, and every year seems to add to the rapidity of the improvements.
MANUFACTURES AND COMMERCE.
The manufactures and trade of the State will be spe- cially noted in the description of the towns and places where they are carried on. Madison, and some of the other towns on the Ohio, above the Falls, have much the same advantages that are possessed and so successfully employed in Cincinnati, for manufactures. In all the southwest part of the State, and for 300 miles up the Wabash, coal is found in abundance; in the centre and north there is sufficient water power, and in the latter inexhaustible beds of bog-iron ore, so that whenever labor for agriculture ceases to be in demand, it will be employed in manufactures. The wheat raised in the State is mostly manufactured into flour within its limits, though considerable quantities in the south-eastern part
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GENERAL VIEW OF THE STATE.
are sent to Cincinnati, and still more is sent from the north, by the Wabash and Erie Canal and by the lakes, to Canada and western New York. The manufactures of Iron, Cotton, Paper, Lard Oil, &c., are becoming im- portant; but as yet large importations of these articles are still made from abroad. The manufacture of whis- key is not carried on to any extent in the State, except in and near Lawrenceburgh. Though not extensively used, the home consumption is supplied most generally from abroad.
There is no commanding position in the State at which even a tenth of the whole business will ever centre. Madison is at present the most important point; but other places on the Ohio river are not much behind it; while Indianapolis and Richmond in the interior, Fort Wayne, Logansport, Lafayette, and Terre Haute on the Wabash and Erie Canal, and South Bend and Michigan City in the north, expect soon to equal the present busi- ness of Madison. The railroads and other improvements now in progress, and the facilities that shall hereafter be afforded to the business men of the State, leave yet much in doubt as to the points which will, ten years hence, have precedence. It is the public convenience and the gene- ral good, not State pride, which is to build our cities.
Pork and flour are at this time the principal articles of export from the State; the former from the southern, and the latter from the northern part. To these may be added horses, mules, fat cattle, corn, poultry, butter, and most of the agricultural products of the west. The Ohio, Wabash, White and St. Joseph Rivers, the Madi- son and Indianapolis Railroad, Wabash and Erie and White Water Canals, furnish great facilities for trans- portation, and when to these are added the railroads now in progress, there will be but a small portion which will not be easy of access.
One of the most objectionable features in the trade of the State, is the disposition to monopolize, which has prevailed too generally of late years in the pork and wheat business. The prospect of securing a profit on a
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INDIANA GAZETTEER.
large amount of produce is so exciting, that the flour and pork trader finds it almost impossible to be moderate in his calculations, and the result frequently is that he fails altogether, or makes very large profits. In either case, the influence on the community is very unfavorable, for the farmer suffers in pocket when the trader fails to pay, and in feeling when his profits are enormous. It is much to be regretted that those who lend capital to produce dealers should not generally limit their accommodations to the actual responsibility of the borrower, rather than to that of his securities.
CLIMATE AND HEALTH.
There are usually in the course of ten years, as many days when the thermometer stands at over 100 deg., and about as many in which it falls to 15 deg. below zero, and it has been still lower though very rarely ; but several years sometimes pass, in which there is no day warmer than 95 deg. above, or colder than 5 deg. below zero. Except in some of the sandy parts of the State on the lower Wabash, the climate uniformly corresponds to the latitude, as there is no elevation of the surface or other circumstance to make any special exceptions.
South of the 39th degree, which passes near Aurora, Rockford and Carlisle, ploughing commences early in March; gardens are made, oats sown and planting be- gun. At the 40th degree, which passes near Crawfords- ville and Noblesville, the business of the farmer is com- menced at least two weeks later in the spring, and north of the 41st, which runs near Fort Wayne and Rochester, the opening of spring is still later about ten days, though seasons differ a good deal in these respects. Pro- bably the weather fluctuates at least nine-tenths of the time from the freezing at 32 deg. of Fahrenheit, to 72 deg., forty degrees above.
At Cincinnati in 1819, it never rose above 94 deg., nor fell below 12 degrees above zero, and the mean heat for the year was 56 deg. S min. The number of clear days in the year has been found in some parts of the west to
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GENERAL VIEW OF THE STATE.
vary from 200 to 230, the cloudy from 75 to 100, and those in which rain or snow falls from 70 to 90. There being no mountains in the State either to collect or dis- perse the clouds, it is seldom showery. The rains are frequently very heavy for a few days and then follow perhaps weeks of dry weather. The droughts however, do not often begin until the middle of summer, when the growing crops are so far advanced that they are seldom much injured.
The climate is in general very favorable to health, ex- cept where immigrants from mountainous regions locate themselves in the level and fertile bottoms or prairies. For many years after the first settlement of these parts of the country, there is so much miasma produced by the rotting of vegetable matter and the exposure of the allu- vion to the sun, that for two or three months in the year bilious diseases are common. It is found by experience too, that the ranges of hills or Bluffs, on the margin of the large bottoms and prairies, are perhaps more un- healthy than the situations they overlook. But when such places have been long cultivated, the ponds drained and putrid vegetation no longer abounds, they acquire a general character of healthiness. Such has always been the reputation of a large portion of the State, and there can be no doubt that at least three-fourths of it are as favorable to health as any part of the Union. Long lives, good constitutions, and large families brought up without ever having recourse to a physician, are com- mon; yet by the exposure and imprudence of immi- grants and others, there have been many instances of such severe sickness and suffering that portions of the State are still reckoned unhealthy. Affections of the lungs are however rare where those of the liver prevail and consumptions which are so common in many parts of the Union are here comparatively unknown.
Much has been said about the milk-sickness, which is supposed to prevail occasionally in some parts of the State; as yet there has been no satisfactory explanation of the causes of this disease. Whether it originates from 4
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INDIANA GAZETTEER.
an unknown vegetable, from springs infected by coming in contact with minerals, or from poisonous exhalations from the earth of certain districts, is earnestly disputed ; but no argument or fact alleged by the supporters of one theory, has any weight with those of another. All that is certain is, that if there be such a disease it is local and. more unfrequent as the country is improved. The writer has never seen or heard any trace of it in the central part of the State where he resides. Some of the coun- ties on the eastern and near the western borders are thought to be the most affected by it. As the supposi- tion that this disease prevails in any neighborhood is cal- culated to affect the value of property there, and igno- rance and jealousy incline both to understate and over -. state as to such matters, it is often very difficult to ascer- tain the real truth in relation to them.
There has been a great change in the character of the diseases within the last twenty-five years. Formerly, the robust and hardy settler and his family feared noth- ing but intermitting and bilious fevers, and those only from August to October. That season is now much more healthy ; but the congestive and typhus fevers are sometimes very fatal, in winter, and most of the diseases common in other States are now occasionally found here.
There can be no doubt that by persons after they are acclimated, and by those who are born and brought up in the country, there may be as much health enjoyed, except where local causes prevent, as in any part of the United States.
EDUCATION.
The ninth article of the Constitution of the State of In- diana, makes it the duty of the General Assembly to " pass such laws as shall be calculated to encourage intellectual, scientifical and agricultural improvements," and to "pro- vide by law for a general system of education, ascending, in a regular gradation, from township schools to a State University, wherein tuition shall be gratis and equally
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