•**- /•^^. ms2£ii kiipm^al / \. mflmj J'S HISTOEY OP INDIANAPOIvIS AND MARION COUNTY, INDIANA. BY B. R. SULGROVE. • ••*«» •• •«*• * • • ••■•^« ••,• •• • •,.•.•• • •• • . ♦*. • ••• • ••• I L XjTJS T I^ J^T E ID. PHILADELPHIA: L. H. EVERTS & CO. 1884. e« • • «« -^ PREFACE. In a history mainly composed of the incidents that indicate the growth of a community, and the direction and character of it, where few are important enough to require an extended narration, and the remainder afford little material, it is not easy to construct a continuous narra- tive, or to so connect the unrelated points as to prevent the work taking on the aspect of a pre- tentious directory. To collect in each year the notable events of it is to make an excellent ware- house of historical material ; but, however authentic, it would hardly be interesting. Like the country boy's objectioii to a dictionary, " the subject would change too often." To combine, as far as practicable, the authenticity of an annuary like that of Mr. Ignatius Brown in 1868, which has been freely used, or the compilation of statistical and historical material made by Mr. Joseph T. Long for Holloway's History in 1870, which has furnished valuable help in this work, with some approach to the interest of a connected narrative, it has been thought best to present, first, a general history of the city and the county up to the outbreak of the civil war, throwing together in it all incidents which have a natural association with each other or with some central incident or locality, so as to make a kind of complete affair of that class of incidents. For instance, the first jail is used to gather a group of the conspicuous crimes in the history of the county, the old court-house to note the various uses to which it was put during the city's progress through the nonage of a country town to the maturity of a municipal government. Since the war the history was thought more likely to be made intelligible and capable of reten- tion and reference by abandoning the form of a continuous narrative interjected with groups of related incidents or events, and divide it into departments, and treat each fully enough to cover all the points related to it that could be found in an annuary, or a separation of the events of each year to itself. Thus it has been the purpose to throw into the chapter on schools all that is worth telling of what is known of the early schools, besides what is related of them in the gen- eral history, with no special reference to the date of any school, while the history of the public schools is traced almost exclusively by official reports and documents. In manufactures it would have been impossible to present a consecutive account if a chronological order had been followed, for the facts are scattered through fifty years, from 1832 to 1882. By taking the whole subject M19G978 iv PREFACE. apart from the events with which its various parts are associated by date, it is possible to group them so as to present a tolerably complete view of the origin and progress of each part and of the whole. The military rosters contain all the names of Marion County soldiers in the civil war who enlisted for three years. The list of civil oflBcers of the county is complete and accu- rate, and was compiled for this work. It is the first ever published, as is that of the township and city. The entries of land from 1821 to 1825 will be found an interesting feature of the work, and will recall the name of many an old settler who is almost forgotten now. Mr, Now- land's interesting reminiscences and those of the late Hon. O. H. Smith have been freely used, as well as the memories of some old settlers, as Mr. Robert B. Duncan, Gen. Coburn, William H. Jones, Daniel Noe, and the writer's own occasionally. The histories of the townships have been compiled substantially from the accounts of the oldest and best-known settlers in each. B. R. S. Indianapolis, Feb. 14, 1884. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Location of Marion County — Topographical and General Description — Geology of the County — The Indian Oc- cupation 1 CHAPTER II. Special Features of the City of Indianapolis — Area and Present Condition — General View and Historical Outline 10 CHAPTER III. First Period — Early Settlements — Organization of Marion County and Erection of Townships — Erection of Public Buildings— Notable Events and Incidents of the Early Settlement and of Later Years — Opening of Roads — Original Entries of Lands in the County 21 CHAPTER IV. Social Condition of the Early Settlers — Amusements — Ee- ligious Worship — Musio — General Description of Pio- neer Life in Marion County — Diseases once Prevalent — Causes of Diminution 68 CHAPTER V. Second Period — The Capital in the Woods 96 CHAPTER VI. CiTT OP Ikdiakapolis 132 CHAPTER VII. Crrr op Indianapolis {Continued). Commercial and Mercantile Interests of the City 151 CHAPTER VIII. City op Indianapolis {Continued). The Bench and Bar 169 CHAPTER IX. CiTT OF Indianapolis {Continued). Banks, Bankers, and Insurance 21S CHAPTER X. PAOX CiTT OF Indianapolis {Continued). The Press 232 CHAPTER XI. CiTT OP Indianapolis {Continued). Public Buildings — Public Halls — Theatres-r-Lecturea — Concerts — Musical and Art Societies — Literary and other Clubs— Hotels 249 CHAPTER XII. City op Indianapolis {Continued). Medical Practice and Practitioners 274 CHAPTER XIII. Military Matters. Military Organizations in Indianapolis — Marion County in the War of the Rebellion 300 CHAPTER XIV. Mabion County in the War of the ResELLiON. Sketches of the Services of Regiments — Roster of Officers and Enlisted Men from Marion County serving in the Several Regiments '. 322 CHAPTER XV. Orders, Societies, and Charitable Institutions op In- dianapolis 366 CHAPTER XVI. Churches of Indianapolis 387 CHAPTER XVII. Schools and Libraries of Indianapolis 417 CHAPTER XVIII. Manufactubing Interests op the City op Indianapolis 440 V CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIX. Civil List of Indianapolis and Mauion County PAOE .... 486 CHAPTER XXIV. Perry Township PAOl 575 CHAPTER XX .... 601 CHAPTER XXV. 696 CHAPTER XXI. Decatur Township .... 506 CHAPTER XXVI. Warren Township 613 CHAPTER XXII. .... 619 CHAPTER XXVII. 623 CHAPTER XXIII. Lawbekcb Township .... 631 CHAPTER XXVIII. Watne Township 647 ILLUSTRATIONS. PAOE Aston, George W facing 603 Atkins.E.C " 470 Atkins, E. C. & Co., Works of. " 469 Ayres, Levi ** 506 Bank of Commerce 218 Bates, Hervey facing 35 Beaty, David Sanford " 154 Bell, W. A 426 Bessonies, J. F. A 410 Bird, Abram facing 155 Blake, James " 86 Bobbs, Jolin S " 281 Brown, Hiram 171 Brown, S. M facing 296 Butler, John M " 204 Butler, Ovid " 176 Canby, Samuel " 502 Carey, Jason S " 461 Carey, Simeon B " 159 Caven, John " 209 Chamber of Commerce 167 Comingor, J. A facing 284 Compton, J. A " 288 Cooper, John J " 218 Dean Brothers, Works of -. " 467 Defrees, John D " 240 Douglass, John 235 Dumont, Ebenezer 308 Duncan, Robert B 174 Edson, H. A facing 398 Emigrant Scene 73 Evans, I. P. & Co., Manufactory of facing 482 Fletcher, Calvin, Sr " 169 Fletcher, M. J " 440 Fletcher, S. A., Jr " 468 Fletcher, S. A., Sr " 219 Fletcher, W. B " 285 Funkhouser, David " 279 Gall, Alois D " 293 Gordon, J. W " 180 Griffith, Humphrey " 161 PAOE Hannah, Samuel facing 216 Hannaman, William " 163 Harvey, T. B " 282 Haughey, Theo. P 227 Haymond, W. S facing 290 Henderson, William " 205 Hendricks, Thomas A " 200 Hetherington, B. F " 466 Holland, J. W 154 Holliday, William A facing 392 Holmes, W. C " 226 Howard, Edward " 291 Howland, E. J " 605 Howland, Morris " 695 Hyde, N. A 414 Indianapolis in 1820 facing 30 Johnson, James " 665 Johnson, Oliver " 646 Johnson, William 158 Jones, Aquilla facing 474 Kingan & Co between 444, 445 Lilly, J. 0. D facing 480 Macy, David " 229 Malott, V. T " 224 Mansur, Isaiah " 225 Marion County Court-House " 250 Marion County Court-House in 1823 251 McCarty, Nicholas facing 99 McDonald, J. E " 202 McGaugliey, Samuel " 297 MoKernan, J. H " 166 McLaughlin, G. H " 400 McOuat, R. L " 160 Merritt, George " 478 Moore, John " 503 Moore, Thomas " 604 Morris, Morris , " 217 Morris, T. A " 30I Morton, Oliver P " 186 Mothershead, John L " 278 National Road Bridge over White River 108 vii VIU ILLUSTKATIONS. PAOK New, George W facing 292 Norwood, George ** 442 Palmer, N. B " 215 Parry, Charles " 276 Patterson, S. J " 441 Pattison, C. B " 157 Peck, E. J " 166 Perkins, S. E " 182 Piel, William F " 452 Porter, A. 6 " 206 Ramsay, John F " 165 Ray, James M " 105 Ritzinger, Frederick " 230 Rockwood, William " 472 Root, Deloss " 465 Sohooley, Thomas " 533 Sharpe, Thomas H " 220 Site of Union Passenger Depot in 1838 137 Sinker, E. T facing 464 Spiegel, Augustus " 456 PAOI Streight, A. D facing 314 Sullivan, Wm " 178 Thomas, John " 471 Talbott, W. H " 162 Todd, R. N " 283 Tomlinson, Geo " 596 Toon, Martin S " 534 United States Arsenal " 305 Vance, L. M " 153 Wagon-Train on National Road 95 Walker, Isaac C facing 286 Walker, Jacob S 184 Walker, John C facing 294 Washington Street, Views of 266 and 267 Wood, John 152 Woodburn "Sarven Wheel" Co facing 460 Woollen, Wm.W " 214 Wright, C. E " 287 Tandes, Daniel.....'. " 100 BIOGRAPHICAL. rAOI! Atkins, E.C 469 Ayres, Levi 506 Barboar, Lncinn 214a Bates, Uerrey 35 Beaty, David Sanford. 153 Bell, W. A 426 Bessonies, J. F. A 409 Bird, Abram 155 Blake, James 86 Bobbs, John S - 281 Bradley, John H 214b Brown. Hiram 171 Brown, John G 505 Brown, S. M 296 Butler, John M 204 Butler, Ovid 175 Canby, Samuel 503 Carey, H. G 228 Carey, Jason S 461 Carey, Simeon B 159 Caven, John 209 Coburn, John ; 214c Comingor, J. A 284 Compton, J. A 288 Cooper, John J 217 Culley, David V 236 Defrees, John D 239 Douglass, John 235 Dumont, Ebenezer 308 Duncan, Robert B 174 Edson, H. A 397 Elliott, B. K 214d Finch, F. M 214d Fletcher, Calvin, Sr 169 Fletcher, M. J 440 Fletcher, S. A., Sr 219 Fletcher, S. A., Jr 468 Fletcher, W. B 285 Funkhouser, David 279 Gall, Alois D 293 Gordon, J. W 180 PAOI Griffith, Humphrey 161 Hannah, Samuel 215 Hannaman, William 162 Harrison, Gen. Benjamin 214d Harvey, T. B 282 Haughey, Theodore P 226 Haymond, W. S 290 Henderson, William 205 Hendricks, A. W 214f Hendricks, Thomas A 199 Hetherington, B. F 466 Hines, Judge 214b Holland, J. W 154 Holman, John A 185 Holmes, W. C 226 HoUiday, William A 392 Hord, Oscar B 214p Howard, Edward 291 Howland, E. J 505 Howland, Morris 595 Hyde, N. A 414 Jameson, Patrick H 280 Johnson, James 665 Johnson, Oliver 646 Johnson, William 158 Jones, Aquilla.... 474 Knefler, Fred 214b Lilly, J. 0. D 480 Macy, David 229 Malott, V. T 223 Mansur, Isaiah 225 McDonald, J. E 201 McCarty, Nicholas 99 MeGaughey, Samuel 297 McKernan, J. H 165 McLaughlin, G. H 399 McOuat, R. L 160 Merritt, George 478 Moore, John , 503 Moore, Thomas 504 Morris, Morris 216 ix BIOGKAPHICAL. FAOa Morton, Oliver P 186 Morris, T. A 301 Mothersbead, John L 278 Xewoomb, Horatio C 214i. New, George W 292 New, John C 214p Norwood, George 442 O'Neal, Hugh 214a Palmer, N. B 215 Parry, Charles 276 Patterson, S. J 441 Pattison, C. B 157 Perkins, S. E 182 Peck, E. J 156 Porter, A. G 206 Piel, William F 463 Qnarles, William 214a Ramsay, John F 163 Bay, James M 105 Ritzinger, Frederick 230 Root, Doloss 465 Rockwood, William 472 Schooley, Thomas 533 PAOI Bharpe, Thomas H 220 Sinker, E. T 464 Spiegel, Augustus 456 Streight, A. D 314 SulliTan, William 178 Talbott, W. H 162 Taylor, N. B 214o Thomas, John 471 Todd, R. N 283 Tomlinson, George 596 Toon, Martin S 533 Vance, L. M 153 Walker, Isaac C 286 Walker, Jacob S 164 Walker, John C 294 Wallace, David 203 Wallace, William 214b Wishard, William W „ 594 Wood, John 152 Wright, O.E 287 Woollen, William W 213 Yandes, Daniel 100 HISTOET 01 INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. CHAPTER I. Location of Marion County — Topographical and General De- scription — Geology of the County— The Indian Occupation, Marion County, in which is the city of Indian- apolis, the capital of Indiana, occupies a central posi- tion in the State (as is mentioned more particularly hereafter), and is bounded on the north by the coun- ties of Boone and Hamilton, on the east by Hancock and Shelby, on the south by Morgan and Johnson, and on the west by Hendricks County. Its shape would be almost an exact square but for an inac- curacy in the government survey, which makes a pro- jection of four miles or sections in length by about three-fourths of a mile in width at the northeast corner into the adjoining county of Hancock, with a recess on the opposite side of equal length, and about one-fourth of the width, occupied by a similar pro- jection from Hendricks County. The civil townships of the county follow the lines of the Congressional townships in direction, except at the division of the townships of Decatur and Perry, which follows the line of White River, taking oflF a considerable area of the former and adding it to the latter township. The area of the county is about two hundred and sixty thousand acres. Topography and General Features. — Indian- apolis, which is the county-.seat of Marion as well as the State capital, Hes in latitude 39° 55', longitude 86° 5', very nearly in the centre of the State and county. Mr. Samuel Merrill makes it two miles northwest of the centre of the State, and one mile 1 southwest of the centre of the county. Professor R. T. Brown's Official Survey, in the " State Geol- ogist's Report,'' regards the entire county as part of a great plain, nowhere, however, actually level over any considerable areas, with an average elevation above low water in the river of about one hundred and sev- enty-five feet, and of eight hundred and sixty above the sea-level. Occasional elevations run to more than tv(p hundred feet above the river-level, and probably to nine hundred above the sea. The West Fork of White River, running for twenty-two miles in a very tortuous course twenty degrees east of north and west of south, divides the county unequally, the western fraction being little more than half as large as the eastern, or one-third of the whole area. The river valley varies from one to four miles in width, presenting a bluff on the west side of fifty to two hundred feet through most of its extent, and on the east side a gentle slope. Where the bluif comes up to the water on one side the " bottom" recedes on i the other, sometimes swampy, and frequently cut up by " bayous" or supplementary outlets for freshets. The current is on the bluff side, usually deep, swift, and clear. Occasionally the low "bottom" land comes up to the water on both banks, but not frequently. There are many gentle slopes and small elevations in and around the city, but nothing that deserves the name of hill, except " Crown Hill," at the cemetery north of the city, and one or two smaller protuber- ances a mile or two south. All the streams that drain this undulating plain flow in a general southwesterly direction on the east side of the river, and south- HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. easterly on the west side, proving, as the first secre- tary of the State Board of Health says, that Indian- apolis lies in a basin, the grade higher on all sides than is the site of the city, except where the river makes its exit from the southwest. Subordinate Valleys. — Dr. Brown says that " the glacial action, which left a heavy deposit of transported material over the whole surface of the county, has at the same time plowed out several broad valleys of erosion, which appear to be tributary to the White River Valley." The most conspicuous of these comes down from the northeast, between Fall Creek and White River, is about a mile wide at the lower end, narrowing to the northeast for six or seven miles, and disappearing near the northern line of the county. The grinding force has cut away the surface clay, and in places filled the holes with gravel and coarse sand. South of the city and east of the river are two other valleys of the same kind. One, about a mile wide, extends from White River, a little north of Glenn's Valley, about five miles to the northeast, with well- defined margins composed of gravel terraces. The other lies chiefly in the county south of Marion, and between it and the first-mentioned is a ridge called Poplar Hill, composed of sand and gravel on a bed of blue clay. West of the river there is but one of these valleys. It begins in Morgan County, and running a little north of east enters Marion County, passing between West Newton and Valley Mills, and connect- ing with White River Valley near the mouth of Dollarhide Creek. A water-shed between the tribu- taries of the West Fork of White River and the East Fork, or Driftwood, enters tlie county two miles from the southeast corner, passing nearly north about twelve miles, makes an eastward bend and passes out of the county. Unlike water-sheds generally, this one is not a ridge or considerable elevation, but a marshy region overflowed in heavy rains, when it is likely enough the overflow runs into either river as chance or the wind directs it. These swampy sections lying high are readily drained, and make excellent farming land. Streams. — Except Eagle Creek and its afiluents, there are no considerable streams entering the river in the county on the west side. There are Crooked Creek north of Eagle, and Dollarhide Creek south, and several still smaller and unnamed, except for neighborhood convenience, but they are little more than wet weather " branches," or drains of swampy sections. Dr. Brown explains this paucity of water- courses by the fact that a large stream called White Lick rises northwest, flows along, partly in Hendricks and partly in Marion Counties, parallel with the course of the river, and enters the latter in Morgan County, thus cutting off the eastward course of minor streams by receiving their waters itself On the east side of the river, which contains nearly two-thirds of the area of the county, a considerable stream called Grass Creek runs almost directly south for a dozen or more miles very near the eastern border of the county, and finally finds its way into the East Fork. It has a half-dozen or more little tributaries, as Buck Creek, Panther Run, Indian Creek, Big Run, Wild Cat and Doe Creek. Of the east side streams tributary to the West Fork of White River — far better known as White River than the short course of the combined East and West Forks to the Wabash — Fall Creek is much the most considerable. Except it, but a single small stream called Dry Run enters the river north of the city. Fall Creek enters the county very near the northeast corner, and flowing almost southwest- erly enters the river now near the northwest corner of the city. It formerly entered west of the centre of the city, but a " cut-off" was made nearly a mile or more farther north for hygienic and economic reasons, and the mouth has thus been shifted con- siderably. The main tributaries of Fall Creek are Mud Creek on the north, and North Fork, Middle Fork, Dry Branch, and Indian Creek east and south. The duplication of names of streams will be observed. There are two Buck Creeks, two Dry, two Lick (one White), two Indian, and two Eagle Creeks in the county. As few of these names are suggested by any special feature of the stream or country, except Fall Creek, which is named from the falls at Pendle- ton, and Mud and Dry Creeks, the duplication may be set down to the whims of the pioneers. South of the city, on the east side of the river, the streams flowing directly into the river are Pogue's Creek, passing directly through the city; Pleasant Run, TOPOGRAPHY AND GENERAL FEATURES. mainly east and south, but cutting into the southeast corner of the city (Bean Creek is tributary to the latter), Lick Creek, and Buck Creek. Bottom Lands. — The valley of White River, says the Official Survey, is divided into alluvium or bottom land proper and the terrace or second bottom. In that portion of the valley that lies north of the mouth of Eagle Creek it consists chiefly of second bottom, while the first bottom largely predominates in the southern portion. Much of this latter is subject to overflow in times of freshets, so that while the soil is exceedingly fertile and easy of cultivation a crop is never safe. Levees have been made for considerable distances below the city, on the river and on some of the larger creeks, to remedy the mischief of overflows, but, the Survey says, with only partial success. The primary difficulty is the tortuous courses of the streams, and of the river particularly, that runs a distance of sixteen miles to the lower county line, which is but nine in a straight line. This not only diminishes the fall per mile, but the water, moving in curves and reversed curves, loses its momentum, the current becomes sluggish, and when freshets come the accumulation overflows the low banks, and covers large districts of cultivable and cultivated land, to the frequent serious injury of crops, and the occasional destruction of crops, fences, and stock. A straightened channel would increase the fall and the strength of the current, and in the sandy forma- tion of the beds of most of the streams would soon cut a way deep enough to secure the larger part of the land against overflow. This would be cheaper than making levees along a crooked course that re- quired two miles of work to protect one of direct length, but it would have to be carried out by a con- cert of action on the part of riparian proprietors, which would be hard to effect, and it would also di- vide a good many farms that are now bounded by original lines of survey terminating at the river, which was made a navigable stream by law but not by nature. Changing the bed would confuse the numbers of sections, and possibly disturb some land titles. This objection is presented to this policy in Professor Brown's Survey, but an act of the Legisla- ture might open a way for concerted action, and pro- vide against the confusion of lines and disturbance of rights. Flora. — The central region of Indiana was a favor- ite hunting-ground of the Indian tribes that sold it in 1818. Its woods and waters were unusually full of game. There were no prairies of any extent and not many swamps. The entire surface was densely covered with trees. On the uplands, which were dry and rolling, the sugar, white and blue ash, black walnut, white walnut or butternut, white oak, red beech, poplar, wild cherry prevailed ; on the more level uplands were bur-oak, white elm, hickory, white beech, water ash, soft maple, and others ; on the first and second bottoms, sycamore, buckeye, black wal- nut, blue ash, hackberry, and mulberry. Grape- vines, bearing abundantly the small, pulpless acid fruit called " coon" grapes, grew profusely in the bottoms, covering the largest trees, and furnishing more than ample stores for the preserves and pies of the pioneer women. Under all these larger growths, especially in the bottoms, there were dense crops of weeds, among which grew equally dense thickets of spice-brush, — the backwoods substitute for tea, — papaw, wahoo, wild plum, hazel, sassafras, red and black haw, leatherwood, prickly ash, red-bud, dog- wood, and others. The chief weed growths, says Professor Brown, were nettles and pea-vines matted together, but with these were Indian turnip, — the most acrid vegetable on earth probably, — ginseng, cohosh, lobelia, and, in later days, perfect forests of iron-weeds. There are a good many small remains of these primeval forests scattered through the county, with here and there patches of the undergrowth, and not a few nut-trees, walnut, hickory, and butternut, but the hazel, the spicewood, the sassafras, the plum and black haw and papaw are never seen anywhere near the city, and not frequently anywhere in the county. The Indian turnip is occasionally found, but ginseng has disappeared as completely as the mound-builders, though in the last generation it was an article of considerable commercial importance. Fauna. — The principal animals in these primeval woods were the common black bear, the black and gray wolf, the buffalo, deer, raccoon, opossum, fox, gray and red squirrels, rabbits, mink, weasel, of land HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. quadrupeds ; of the water, otter, beaver, muskrat ; of birds, the wild turkey, wild goose, wild duck, wild pigeon, pheasant, quail, dove, and all the train of wood birds which the English sparrow has so largely driven oiF, — the robin, bluebird, jaybird, woodpecker, tomtit, sap-sucker, snowbird, thrush. For twenty years or more laws have protected the game birds, and there is said to be a marked increase of quail in the last decade, but there is hardly any other kind of game bird, unless it be an occasional wild pigeon, snipe, or wild duck. Buzzards, hawks, crows, owls, blackbirds are not frequently seen now near the city, though they were all abundant once. Flocks of black- birds and wild pigeons occasionally pass along, but not numerously enough to attract the hunter. In fact, there is very little worth hunting in the county, except rabbits, quail, and remote squirrels. For fish the game varieties are almost wholly confined to the bass and red-eye. Water scavengers like the " cat" and " sucker" are thick and big in the ofi-flow of the city pork-houses, and in the season form no inconsider- able portion of the flesh-food of the class that will fish for them, but game fish must be sought for from five to ten miles from the city. In early days, and for the first twenty-five years of the existence' of the city, the river and its larger afiluents supplied ample provision of excellent fish, — bass, pike, bufialo, red- eye, salmon rarely, and the cleaner class of inferior fish, as "red-horse," suckers, cats, eels; but the im- providence of pioneers, who never believed that any natural supply of food could fail, and the habits ac- quired from them, particularly the destructiveness of seining, has reduced the food population of streams till it needs stringent laws, and the vigilance of asso- ciations formed to enforce the laws, to prevent total extirpation. Even with these supports it will take careful and prolonged efforts at restocking to repro- duce anything like the former abundance. Mineral Springs. — Although they form no con- spicuous feature of the topography of the county, and have never been used medicinally, except by the i neighbors, it may be well to note that there are a few springs of a mineral and hygienic character in the county, where the underground currents of water rise through crevices in the overlying bed of clay. One of these, called the Minnewa Springs, in Lawrence township, a mile and a half northeast of the little town of Lawrence, was talked of at one time as ca- pable of being made a favorite resort, and some steps were taken in that direction, but nothing came of them. Another very like it is within a half-mile of the same town. Southwest of the city is one on the farm of an old settler that has been famous in the neighborhood as a " sulphur spring" for fifty years. A couple of miles nearer the city is another on the farm of Fielding Beeler, which Professor Brown says is the largest in the county. " It forms a wet prairie or marsh of several acres, from which by ditching a large stream of water is made to flow." The water of all these springs contains iron enough to be readily tasted, and to stain the vessels that are used in it, and this peculiarity gives it the misname of sulphur water. Swamps. — There were once considerable areas of marshy land, or land kept wet by the overflow of ad- jacent streams, but many of these have been entirely drained, and considerable portions of others larger and less convenient for drainage. With them have measurably disappeared the malarial diseases that in the first settlement of the city, and for a good many years after, came back as regularly as the seasons. There is not, probably, a single acre of land in the county that is not cultivable or capable of being made so. Between three and four miles southwest of city lay a swampy tract, nearly a mile long by a quarter or more wide, entirely destitute of trees, which was long known in the vicinity as " the prairie," the only approach to a prairie in the county. Geology of the County.' — Marion County rests on three distinct geological members, two of them be- longing to the Devonian formation and one to the Carboniferous. Neither, however, shows itself con- spicuously on the surface. Upon these lies a deposit of drift, or transported material, from fifty to one hundred and fifty feet thick. This forms the surface of the country, and moulds its general configuration. But the rock foundation, in spite of the depth of the ^ Condensed from Professor R. L. Brown's Official Survey, in the Report of Professor John Collett, State Geologist. GEOLOGY OF THE COUNTY. drift upon it, affects the face of the country some- what, most obviously along the line where the Knob sandstone overlaps the Genesee shale. The line of strike dividing the geological members traverses the county on a line from the south thirty degrees north- west. This line, as it divides the Corniferous lime- stone from the Genesee shale or black slate, passes between the city and the Hospital for the Insane, two miles west. Borings in the city reach the lime- stone at a depth of sixty to one hundred feet. .It is the first rock encountered in place. At the hospital forty feet of shale was passed through before reach- ing the limestone. This shows the eastern part of i the county as resting on the Corniferous limestone, | and the western on the Delphi black slate or Gen- j esee shale. Under a small area of the southwestern [ corner of the county the Knob or Carboniferous sandstone will be found covering the slate. On a sand-bar in the river, a short distance north of the Johnson County line. Professor Brown noticed after a freshet large pieces of slate that had been thrown out, indicating that the river had laid bare that rock at some near point. This gives the level of the bed of the river in the lower half of its course through the county. But a short distance west of the west line of the county some of the small tributaries of White Lick lay bare the lower members of the Knob sandstone. There are indications both on Pogue's Run and Pleasant Run that the limestone lies very near their beds, but it is not likely that stone can ever be profitably quarried in the county. Geo- logical interest attaches to the deep deposits of drift that cover the stratified rocks. Drift. — The drift that covers our great Western plains, continues Dr. Brown's Survey, is foreign in character and general in deposition. It is not a pro- miscuous deposit of clay, sand, water-worn pebbles, and bowlders, like the Eastern glacial drift. These are all found in it, but with nearly as much regu- larity and order as is usually found in stratified rocks. At the base of this formation is almost invariably found a very compact lead-colored clay, with but few bowlders, and those invariably compo.sed of quartzite, highly metamorphosed or trap rocks. Occasionally may be found thin deposits of very fine gray or yel- low sand, but they are not uniform. Between the clay and the rocks on which it rests is generally in- terposed a layer of coarse gravel or small silicious bowlders, from three to six feet thick. Sometimes, but rarely, this is wanting, and the clay lies directly upon the rock. In Marion County this clay-bed ranges from twenty to more than a hundred feet thick, and is very uniform in character throughout, except where the light strata or fine sand occur. Chemically it is an alumina silicate in a very fine state of division, and mechanically mixed with an exceedingly fine sand, which shows under the micro- scope as fragments of almost transparent quartz. It is colored by a proto-sulphide of iron. A small por- tion of lime and potassa and a trace of phosphoric acid can be discovered by analysis. Above this is generally found a few feet of coarse sand or fine gravel, and on this is twenty or thirty teet of a true glacial drift, of the promiscuous character of the glacial drift described by Eastern geologists. In and upon this drift are large bowlders of granite, gneiss, and trap, which are not found in their proper place nearer than the shore of Lake Superior, whence they have been carried, as is attested by the grooves and scratches in the exposed rock surfaces over which they have passed. In this upper drift are the gravel terraces, from which is obtained our best available material for road-making. The mass of it is a yellow or orange-colored clay, with a considerable quantity of sand, and lime enough to make the water passing through it hard. There is an astonishing number and size of bowlders in and upon this clay-bed. Two were measured by Dr. Brown which were nearly ten feet long by five wide, with four feet exposed above ground, and nobody knows how much below. In a few places bowlders are so thickly scattered as to ob- struct cultivation. In the central and northern por- tions of the county they are almost invariably of granite, in the south generally of gneiss or trap. Gravel Terraces. — The gravel terraces are gen- erally found in a succession of mound-like elevations, ten to fifty feet above the level of the surrounding plain, and usually rest on a compact clay. They are frequently arranged in lines running north, a little northeast and southwest. North of these mounds is 6 HISTOKY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. generally found a considerable space of level and often swampy lands, indicating the position of a mass of ice, under which a torrent has rushed with great force, excavating the clay below, piling up the heavier gravel and sand, and carrying the lighter clay and finer sand to be distributed over the country. When the ice disappeared the excavation would be a little lake, finally filled up with the lighter material borne from other terraces farther north. These ter- race formations, or " second bottoms," bordering the river on one side or the other nearly everywhere, have almost the same character and history as the gravel-beds of the uplands. They consist of deposits of gravel and coarse sand, resting on the lower blue clay, into which the river has cut its present channel. Formerly these plains, frequently three or four miles wide, were regarded as lake-like expansions of the river which had been silted up by its sediment, but an inspection of the material shows that the water from which the deposit was made was no quiet lake, but a current strong enough to bear onward all lighter material, leaving only the heavier gravel and sand behind. Lower Blue Clay. — The OfiBcial Survey concludes that the lower blue clay was deposited before the strata of clay, sand, and gravel that rest upon it, and are clearly traceable to glacial action, and that the conditions of its deposit were very different from the rush and tumult of water pouring from a melting glacier, though evidently deposited from water. The greater part of the material is very fine, and could have come only from very quiet waters, and from very deep waters too, as its compactness and solidity prove the existence of great pressure necessary to the pro- duction of those qualities. Besides the superposition of the glacial strata, the precedent deposition of the lower blue clay is indicated by the fact that the glacial action, exhibited over the whole surface of the country, made excavations in it by undermining cur- rents from dissolving glaciers which now form the small lakes so numerous in the northern part of the State. The southern end of Lake Michigan rests on this clay, and is excavated into it to an unknown depth. Another fact attesting the deposit of the lower clay anterior to the grinding and crushing era of moving mountains of ice, is the discovery at the bottom of it of the unbroken remains of coniferous trees, probably cypress or hemlock. In digging wells in the county logs ten to fifteen inches in diameter, well preserved, have been found. Glacial action ac- companying or following the deposit of these trees would have crushed them. Dr. Brown suggests a theory of the deposition of this clay-bed. If the glacial era was preceded by an upheaval that raised the region of the Arctic Circle above the line of per- petual congelation, there would necessarily have been a corresponding depression south of the elevation, which would be an inland sea of fresh water. During the whole period of the progress of this upheaval north and sinking south (in our region) torrents of water loaded with sediment would have rushed down and filled the huge hollow. As the waters became quiet the sediment would be slowly deposited. The color of the clay, caused by the combination of sul- phur and iron, proves that these waters were originally charged with sulphurous gases produced by volcanic agencies. The presence of these gases explains the absence of life in this fresh-water sea till the sulphur- tainted sediment was entirely deposited, when the in- creasing cold would cover it with an impervious crust of ice, cutting off all access of air and the possibility of life. There are no fossil remains in the clay. With the end of the Ifie Age came a reversal of conditions, the northern regions sinking, those about here rising and pouring their waters southward into the Gulf of Mexico in furious torrents strengthened by the melt- ing of great masses of ice, thus furnishing much of the material of the Mississippi delta, and leaving marks of denudation on the hills of Kentucky, Ten- nessee, and Alabama. Economical Service of the Clay -Bed. — This lower clay stratum when exposed to the air for a few years undergoes chemical changes which make it the basis of a very fertile soil. Frost breaks down its adhe- siveness and makes it a mass of crumbling, porous earth. The oxygen of the air converts the sulphur into an acid which unites with the potash and lime accessible to it and makes slowly-soluble salts of them, which supply valuable elements of fertility for years of cultivation, needing only organic matter to be GEOLOGY OF THE COUNTY. available at once for use. It is an excellent absorbent owing to the fineness of its material, and might be advantageously used in composting manures, as it would retain ammonia as sulphate. Of greater value, at least to the city, than its fertilizing quality is its action as a filter, securing an inexhaustible supply of pure water in the bowlders and gravel beneath it. In a region as level as Marion County, and as prolific of vegetation, the surface water must become charged with organic matter, which the porous upper strata of soil, sand and clay, but imperfectly retain, so that the water of springs and shallow wells is rarely so pure as to be suitable for domestic use. These im- purities are, of course, increased in the vicinity of residences, barns, and stables, and still more in cities, where there are large quantities of excrement itious matter. Surface water more or less tainted in this way is readily absorbed by the porous soil, and may reach the bottom of wells of twenty feet in depth. Against the inevitable and incalculable evil of a cor- rupted water supply, as that of Indianapolis would be if there were no other resource than the surface water of shallow wells, this blue clay stratum is an ample and admirable provision. It acts as a filter to the \ reservoir in the gravel and bowlder bed beneath it. i The water there is free from organic matter, though always sufficiently tainted with iron to be easily tasted and to color vessels used in it. This iron taint is an invariable characteristic of the water filtered through this blue clay, and gives the popular reputation of mineral water to springs of it that rise through fis- sures in the clay to the surface. The best known of these springs have been already referred to. In the city and several places outside of it wells have been sunk to the sub-clay water through sixty -seven to one hundred and eight feet, the water rising to various distances from the surface from eight to forty feet. The blue clay stratum runs from eight to sixty feet in thickness. The reservoir of water under this clay has no outlet except through openings in the clay and in consequence can never be exhausted by natural drainage. To a large manufacturing centre like In- dianapolis the power derived from water in stream or steam is indispensable, and that, says the Survey, " we have under every acre of land in Marion County." Character of Soil. — The glacial drift furnishes the material for a soil that meets every demand of agriculture. Says the Survey, " Being formed by the decomposition of almost every variety of rock, it holds the elements of all in such a state of fine divis- ion as to give it excellent absorbent properties, and enables it to retain whatever artificial fertilizers may be added. In its natural state the soil of the county generally has but one prominent defect, — the very fine material of which it is made lying so nearly level is easily saturated with water, and having no drainage below, except by slow filtration through the clay, is kept wet longer than usual. This necessitates the escape of a great part of it by surface evaporation, and this, especially in spring, delays the warming of the soil and its early preparation for summer crops. The condition of saturation has an unfavorable efiect on the vegetable matter in the soil, excluding it from free contact with the air, and arresting its rapid de- composition, often changing it into humic acid, a chemical product injurious to crops. In the first and second bottom lands this defect is remedied by a stratum of gravel or coarse sand a few feet below the surface, which rapidly passes the water downwards and relieves the saturated surface. The same effect is produced on the clay uplands by a system of tile drainage. Ideal Section of the County. — The following measurements of the different strata of an ideal sec- tion of the county are given by Dr. Brown from natu- ral sections, borings, and excavations made in different parts of the county. Beginning with the most recent formations, we have : Transported Material. 1. Alluvium, or bottom land.... from 10 to 20 feet. 2. Terrace formations, gravel and sand from 50 to 100 feet. 3. True bowlder clay (glacial), from 40 to 110 feet. 4. Blue sedimentary clay and sand from 20 to 120 feet. 5. Bowlders and gravel from 5 to 15 feet. Roch in Place. 6. Knob sandstone (Carboniferous) 25 feet. 7. Genesee slate (Devonian) 80 feet. 8. Corniferous limestone (Devonian) 50 feet. 8 HISTOEY OP INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. The corniferous limestone has been penetrated fifty feet, but its entire thickness at this point is undetermined, as its eastern outcrop is concealed by the heavy drift deposit. Nos. 1, 2, 6, and 7 underlie only portions of the county ; the other members are general in their distribution. The Indian Occupation. — The State of Indiana formed the central . and largest portion of the terri- tory " held by the Miami Confederacy from time im- memorial," as Little Turtle, who led the Indians in St. Clair's defeat, told Gen. Wayne. There were but four tribes in this Confederacy, the leading one being the Miamis, or, in early times, the Twightwees ; but divisions of four others quite as well known by his- tory and tradition were allowed entrance and resi- dence, — the Shawanese, Delawares, Kickapoos, and Pottawatomies. The Delawares occupied the region in and around Marion County, but the abundance of fish and game made it a favorite hunting-ground of all the tribes from the valley of the White Water, or Wah-he-ne-pay, to the valley of the White River, the Wah-me-ca-me-ca. On this account it was ob- stinately held by the Confederacy, and only surren- dered by the treaty of St. Mary's, 1818.^ One of the principal Delaware towns stood on the bluff of White River, at the Johnson County line, where, says Pro- fessor Brown, was the residence of Big Fire, a lead- ing Delaware chief and friend of the whites. A blunder of ignorance or brutality came near making an enemy of him in 1812, as Cresap or Greathouse ■ did of Logan in 1774. A band of Shawanese, an ' affiliated tribe of the Confederacy, but residing far- ; ther south, between the East Pork of White River (the Gun-da-quah) and the Ohio, acting doubtless on the hostile impulse imparted by the great chief of the tribe, Tecumseh, massacred a white settlement at the Pigeon Roost, in Scott County, in 1812. The Madison Rangers in revenge penetrated to Big Fire's town, on the southern line of the county, and de- stroyed it. It would seem that there should have been little difficulty, to men as familiar with the loca- tions and modes of warfare of the Indians as these rangers, in ascertaining whether the war party of 1 With a reservation of occupancy till 1821. the Pigeon Roost massacre came from the north or not; but whether there was or not no discrimination was made, and it required all Governor Harrison's diplomacy to keep Big Fire and his tribe from joining the forces against the government. " But few remains mark the site of this ruined town," says the professor. In Washington township, on the east side of the river, tradition places the site of another village older, — how much it is impossible to say or guess, further than the vague direction of conjecture by the fact that the place is overrun by a wood of sixty years' growth. Near the river is an old cemetery of the tribe, and near it are some unique remains of Indian residence, both uncovered occasionally by floods. These remains are " pits or ovens excavated in a very compact clay," as Professor Brown describes them, about two feet and a half in diameter and the same in depth, and burned on the inner surfaces like brick. In them have been found coals and ashes, and around them fragments of pottery. Their condition and con- tents would indicate that they were a sort of earthen- ware kettle, constructed by the ready process of dig- ging out the inside clay and burning the surface of the outside, instead of taking the clay for each in a separate mass, and moulding it and burning it and putting back in its new shape in the hole it came from in its old one. The Indians of this fertile region all cultivated corn and beans and pumpkins, and made sugar of " sugar water" in the early spring, by freezing it during the night and throwing away the ice, which contained no sugar, afterwards boiling it down and graining it. Flint arrow-heads, stone hatchets, chisels, and other implements of the " Stone Age" are found occasionally in the soil and gravel, especially in the southern part of the county, near Glenn's Valley, and these are said by Professor Brown's Report to be made in many cases of talcose slate, a rook found no nearer this region than the Cumberland Mountains or the vicinity of Lake Superior. The curious forms of some of them make it impossible to determine their use. The Official Survey reports no mounds or earthworks of the mound-builders or other prehistoric race in the county except these relics of the " Stone Age." There may be none now, but forty-five years ago THE INDIAN OCCUPATION. 9 there were two considerable mounds in the city near the present line of Morris Street, one near the inter- section of the now nearly eifaoed canal and Morris Street, and the other a little farther east. The exca- vation of the canal opened one of them, and some complete skeletons and scattered bones and fragments of earthenware were found and taken possession of by Dr. John Richmond, then pastor of the only Bap- tist Church, as well as a practicing physician. The other was gradually plowed down, probably after being opened at the same time the first was, but no record or definite memory settles the question. For a number of years the agency of the Indians of Central Indiana was held at Conner's Station, some sixteen miles north of the city and about four beyond the present county line. William Conner, the first settler of the White River Valley, established himself there about 180G, after spending most of his youth and early manhood among the Indians, a num- ber of whose dialects he spoke fluently, and whose names and customs and modes of life he understood as well as if he had been one of the race. He was well acquainted with all the chiefs of the Shawanese, Miamis, Delawares, and other tribes, and was fre- quently employed as an interpreter and guide by Gen. Harrison. He was the guide of the army in the campaign that ended with the battle of Tippe- canoe, and in that made memorable by the "massacre of the Raisin River." He accompanied Gen. Har- rison in the march into Canada that was triumphantly concluded by the battle of the Thames and the death of Tecumseh, the greatest of all the Western Indian leaders, except possibly Pontiac. This particularity of reference to him is not im- pertinent, for his settlement was closely connected with that of the county, and he was long in active business as a merchant in the city. It may, there- fore, be apt as well as not uninteresting, to present the reader a fact almost wholly unknown in connec- tion with the death of Tecumseh. Vice-President Col. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was long credited with the honor, such as it was, of killing the Shawanese hero, but it was later claimed for one or two others, and the famous question " Who struck Billy Patterson ?" was hardly a burlesque on the idle babble, oral and printed, that worried the world as to who killed Tecumseh. Mr. Conner could have set- tled the question if he had been disposed to thrust himself in the face of the public. But he was not, and the information comes now from Robert B. Dun- can, a leading lawyer of the city, who was clerk of the county for over twenty years, and when a lad lived with Mr. Conner as early as 1820. To him Mr. Con- ner told what he knew of the death of Tecumseh. He, as usual, was Gen. Harrison's guide and inter- preter. After the battle of the Thames was over the body of a chief, evidently of great distinction from his dress and decorations, was found, and Mr. Conner was sent for to identify it. He said it was Tecum- seh's, and he knew the chief well. The situation, as he described it to Mr. Duncan, showed that the chief had been killed with a very small rifle-ball, which fitted a small rifle in the hands of a dead youth, who apparently had been an aid or orderly of a major who lay dead near him, killed by a large ball, appar- ently from Tecumseh 's gun. The solution of the case was, probably, that Tecumseh had killed the officer, the boy had killed the chief, and one of the chief's braves had killed the boy. The payments made to the Indians of this county and the adjacent territory by Mr. Conner at his agency were made in the spring, always in silver and always with strict honesty, but not always with ade- quate security, or any at all, against the payments getting back to the agent's hands in four prices for buttons and beads and calico, and more for whiskey. The process of payment was peculiar and curious. The Indians sat in a circle, each family in a .separate group. The money came in due proportions of amount and denomination to pay the man in dollars, the wife in half-dollars, and the children in quarters, each getting the same number. Each recipient was given in advance a number of little sticks equal to the number of coins he was to get, and as he received a coin he was to give back a stick, and when his sticks were all gone he knew he had got all his money. By the treaty of cession of 1818 the Indians re- served the occupancy of the ceded territory, or " New Purchase," till 1821 ; but a few lingered about the streams, trapping and fishing, till the spring of 1824, 10 HISTOKY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. when a company of freebooting whites, remnants of the old days of incessant Indian warfare, consist- ing of a leader named Harper, Hudson, Sawyer and son, and Bridge and son, killed two families of Shawanese, consisting of nine persons, — two men, three women, two boys, and two girls, — to rob them of their winter's collection of skins. The mas- sacre was on Fall Creek, where the Indians had been trapping through the winter, a few miles above the present county line. It alarmed the early settlers of the county greatly, for such murders had made local Indian wars, and brought bloody reprisals often, just as they do to-day. All but Harper were caught, the older murderers hung, young Sawyer convicted of manslaughter, and young Bridge of murder, but par- doned by Governor Ray on the scaiFold under the rope that had killed his father. These are said to have been the first men executed in the United States by due process of law for killing Indians. The paci- fication of the irritated tribes was complete, and this is about the last ever seen or known of Indians in or about Marion County, except the passage of the migrating tribes through the town in 1832. For many years there was visible a trace of Indian occu- pancy in a deep " cut" made in the bluff bank of the old " Graveyard Pond," near where Merrill Street abuts upon the Vincennes Railroad. It was believed to have been made by a military expedition from Kentucky, on its way to the Wabash or the Wea settlements, for the convenience of getting baggage- or ammunition-wagons up the precipitous blufi', but nobody appears to have been sure of either its pur- pose or its constructors. Though not particularly relevant to the matter of this history, it will not be uninteresting to its readers to know, as very few do know, that the celebrated speech of Logan, the Cayuga (sometimes called the Mingo) chief, which has been admired in all lands for its manly and pathetic eloquence, beginning, " I ap- peal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logan's cabin and he gave him not meat, etc.," was made to John Gibson, the Secretary of State of In- diana Territory with Governor Harrison, and the second Governor. In his deposition on the subject, quoted in Dillon's " History of Indiana," he says that when Lord Dunmore, of Virginia, was approach- ing the Shawanese towns on the Scioto in 1774, the chief sent out a message, requesting some one to be sent to them who understood their language. He went, and on his arrival Logan sought him out, where he was " talking with Cornstalk and other chiefs of the Shawanese, and asked him to walk out with him. They went into a copse of wood, where they sat down, and Logan, after shedding abundance of tears, delivered to him the speech nearly as re- lated by Mr. JeflFerson in his ' Notes on Virginia.' " It may be remarked, in conclusion of this episode, that Logan, in consequence of the cruelty practiced upon him, joined Cornstalk and Red Hawk in lead- ing the warriors in the battle at the mouth of the Big Kanawha, in September, 1774, which was a bloodier battle to the whites, though a less decisive victory, than the much more celebrated battle of Tippecanoe. CHAPTER IL Special Features of the City of Indianapolis — Area and Present Condition — General View and Historical Outline. Special Features of the City. — The general contour of the surface of the city site and vicinity in Centre township is in no way difierent from that of the other parts of the county. It is level or gently undulating, except where the bluff's bordering the " bottoms" of streams make more abrupt eleva- tions, and none of these are considerable. Following the eastern border of the valley of Pogue's Run, which divides the city from northeast to southwest, is a ridge, or range of swells rather than hills, from the extreme southwest corner to near the northeast corner, where it leaves the present city limits, and these are the only " high grounds" in the city. In improving the streets these little elevations have been cut down and the hollows filled, till in hardly any street can be discerned any change from a level, except a slight slope or depression. For the past thirty years or so, before any considerable improvements had been made on the natural condition of the site, several SPECIAL FEATURES OP INDIANAPOLIS. 11 bayous, or "ravines," as they were generally called, traversed it through a greater or less extent, two being especially noticeable for volume and occasional mischief. They drained into the river the overflow of Fall Creek into a large tract of swampy ground northeast of the city, from which, at a very early period, a ditch was made by the State into Fall Creek at a point a mile or two farther down. The smaller or shorter of these ran through the eastern side, in a slightly southwesterly direction, crossing Washington Street at New Jersey, where the former, a part of the National road, crossed on a brick cul- vert, and terminating at Pogue's Creek. The other passed nearer the centre of the city, turning west a little above the State-House Square, and passing along the line of Missouri Street, afterwards the line of the Central Canal, from near Market to Mary- land, and thence curving southward and again west- ward and northward, entei-ed the river at the site of the water-works, where some indications of its exist- ence can still be seen, and about the only place where there is a relic of this once prominent and very troublesome feature of the city's topography. In several low places, mainly north and east of the centre, there were considerable ponds, the drainage of heavy rainfalls, and in the south was one or two, but these have all been improved out of existence many a year. The only one of these that was perennial and distinguished by a name was the Graveyard Pond, near the old cemetery, formed by the retention of overflows of the river in a bayou following the bluff of the river bottom. The whole site of the city, both the original mile square and all the outlying " donations" and all the " additions," were at first densely covered with woods and weeds and underbrush, of which there remain only one or two trees in Pogue's Creek Valley in the east, and a few sycamores and elms near the creek mouth at the southwest corner. Fall Creek and Pleasant Run may be regarded as the northern and southern limits of the city now. Divisions. — Pogue's Creek divides the city, leaving one-third or more on the southeast side, the remainder on the northwest side. The latter contains the bulk of the business and population. A small tract west of the river was added to the site selected on the east to compensate for a part of one of the four sec- tions cut off by a bend of the river. This, called Indianola, forms part of one of the city wards. A still smaller area south of this, on the west side, has been added to the city, but the greater part of the tract west of the river and south of Oliver Avenue has been organized into an independent town gov- ernment by the name of West Indianapolis. North- west is another suburb, but not attached to the city, called Haughsville. Farther to the north is North Indianapolis, also independent, while northeast is Brightwood, unattached ; and east, nearly five miles, is the handsome little town of Irvington, mainly oc- cupied by residents whose business is in the city, and by the faculty and students of Butler University. Southeast is the little suburb of Stratford. A num- ber of city additions have separate names, as Oak Hill, Brookside, Woodlawn, Woodruff Place, but none, except the last, is in any way distinguishable from the city adjacent to it. The Greek. — More pertinently here than elsewhere may be noticed the connection of the two streams that enter the city, Pogue's Creek and the river, with its history. The former was named for the traditional but disputed first settler on the city site, George Pogue. It rises about a mile east of the northeast corner of Centre township, flows south- westerly through almost the whole diagonal length of the city, and enters the river at the angle formed by the southern city boundary and the river. Until street improvements turned a large part of the town drainage'into it the water was clear, well stocked with the same sort of fish as other streams, and a favorite swimming resort for school-boys. The bottom was heavily wooded, subject to frequent overflows, and often swampy. Gradually, as the town grew, and manufactures and general business followed railroad enterprises, the vicinity of the creek became the site of foundries, machine-shops, mills, and other indus- trial establishments, and a little later of the gas- works, and these, with the flow of street gutters, turned the clear little woods stream into an open sewer. Worse still, the rapid inflow of street drain- age, with other less artificial influences, made it sub- 12 HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. jeot to violent and sudden overflows, which in the last twenty years have done so much mischief that suits have been repeatedly brought against the city for indemnity. Very recently a judgment for ten thousand dollars was obtained on one of these suits by a large wholesale house. The current has been obstructed and diverted by the piers and abutments of street and railway bridges, by culverts and the arches of the foundations of large buildings, and in some places " washes'" have cut away the banks so as to seriously impair the value of adjacent lots, and even to imperil houses, and the result of all these co-operating evils has been the recent appointment of a committee of the City Council and Board of Alder- men, in conjunction with several prominent private citizens, to devise a complete and uniform system of protection from overflows, washes, and all forms of damage. As it follows the line of lowest level in the city, draining the site from both sides, it has sometimes been proposed to deepen its bed, wall and arch it in, and make a main sewer of it. A very large portion of it on both banks has been wailed in, and many hundreds of feet arched in by street cul- verts and other works, and it is not improbable that it will sooner or later be covered throughout, and made to carry ofi" the whole natural flow as well as the street drainage not diverted to other sewers. But very little of it is left in its old bed, its crooks having been straightened into angles and right lines. Occa- sionally it runs dry in long droughts. TTie Canal. — Although no natural feature of the city's topography, and a considerable portion of it is efiaced, the canal is still conspicuous enougR both in its topographical and economical relations to require notice. The section from the feeder-dam in the river at Broad Ripple, some eight or nine miles north, to the city is all that was ever completed of the " Cen- tral Canal," which was one of the system of public improvements begun by the State in 1836. In places it was almost completed for twenty-five or thirty miles south of the city, and nearly as far north, but nothing was ever done with it but to leave it to be overgrown with weeds and underbrush, except a short stretch three miles south, where its bed was very level, and the country people used it for a race- course. Until within ten years or so the completed section from Broad Ripple passed clear through the city, mainly along the line of Missouri Street to Merrill Street, and in early times was used for fishing, swimming, skating, ice-packing, occasional baptisms by churches, and semi-occasional cargoes of wood in flat-boats. The State sold it a few years after its completion to the " Central Canal Hydraulic and Water-Works Company," and that sold to others till it came into the hands of the company which established the water-works, and used it as a motive- power, some dozen years ago. Then the portion south of Market Street was deepened, and a sewer built in it, connecting with the Kentucky Avenue trunk sewer, and it was filled up, graded, and partially improved, and is now a street. Above Market Street it continues in its former condition, used for boating and ice-packing by permission of the proprietary company, and for bathing without it. Below the line of Merrill Street to the city limits the canal passed through private property, which has reverted to the original owners or their assigns, who have left hardly a visible trace of it. When first completed, an enlargement or basin was made on the site of the present steel-rail mill, and a culvert was made over the creek that occasionally broke and made trouble. The culvert is almost the only relic of the lower end of the city section. On each side of Washington Street, on the east bank of the canal, a square basin opening into it was made, each about two hundred feet square. These have long disap- peared, and with them a ditch along the south side of Washington Street, extending east to within a short distance of Mississippi, then turning directly south to Maryland Street, and there turning west entered the canal at the Maryland Street bridge. The bridges were all made with " tow-paths" beneath them on the west side. These disappeared with the basins and ditches. A couple of wooden locks were built at the south line of the " donation," but never finished. They became a favorite fishing-place, as did the place where the water, while it lasted, emptied into Pleasant Run, near the river. Water never pa.ssed farther south. A stone lock was built at Market Street, and used a few times. From this GENEEAL FEATURES OF INDIANAPOLIS. 13 lock an arm of the canal ran west two blocks or so, a few feet north of Market Street, where it entered a basin some four or five hundred feet long, extend- ing north into the " Military Ground." From the north end of this basin a " tumble" let the water down a dozen feet into a race-way that turned south, crossed Washington Street, and entered a sort of natural basin, formerly one of the old " ravines," whence the water fell by another tumble into the river at the site of the present water-works. The water was let into the canal at the feeder-dam in the spring or early summer of 1839, and the State im- mediately leased water-power to one woolen- and one oil-mill, and to two each of grist-, saw-, cotton-, and paper-mills. These were located at the Market Street lock, on the river bank, where the race-way fell into the river, and at the south end of the basin in the Military Ground. Some years later a grist- mill south of the donation obtained its power from the canal. The water-works company now owning it have recently replaced the decayed aqueduct over Fall Creek with one of the most substantial charac- ter, and have at one time or another greatly im- proved the feeder-dam. Its present use is mainly to supply power to the pumping-engines of the water- works. The River (the Wa-me-ca-me-ca). — From the upper to the lower bridge of the Belt Railroad the river may be considered a part of the city site, though but a small portion bounds the site on the west, and a smaller portion divides it from the In- dianola suburb. This section is pretty nearly three miles long in a straight line, and nearly four following the banks. Originally it was a stream of considera- ble volume, averaging probably four hundred feet in width, and, except upon a few shoal spots, too deep to be fordable. There was a ford a little way below the " Old Graveyard," near the present site of the Vincennes Railroad bridge, and in use till some dozen or fifteen years ago, when an iron bridge was built a few hundred feet above it. Another ford on the Lafayette wagon-road was a good deal used later, and known as " Crowder's" and " Garner's Ford." Another iron bridge has superseded it. In the town communication was kept up with the west side by a ferry a little below the National road bridge. Di- rectly west of the " Old Graveyard," and throe or four hundred feet above the site of the present iron bridge, was a low sandy island, containing a couple or three acres, and covered with large sycamores and elms, called " Governor's Island." At the head of it, where a narrow " chute" separated it from the high and heavily-wooded ground of the cemetery, was a huge drift that was for many years a favorite fishing-place of the towns-people. A little above this, on the west side, a considerable " bayou" ran out, circling irregularly around an extensive tract, a perfect wilderness of woods and weeds, spice-bush and papaw, and re-entered the river a half-mile or so lower. A wing-dam at the upper mouth con- verted it into a race-way for a grist-mill erected on the south bank, near the present line of the Belt Railroad, in the year 1823. This was one of the first mills built in the county. A little way east of it, nearer the river, the first distillery in the county was established near the same time, turning out for several years a small quantity of " forty-rod" whiskey that was known as " Bayou Blue." Some remains of the mill were discernible a dozen years ago, but all are gone now, and the bayou itself is measura- bly efiaced by plowing and naturally drying out. " Governor's Island" has entirely disappeared too. The river, during the freshets that have almost an- nually occurred ever since the first settlement was made, has cut away the eastern bank along the " Old Graveyard" line until its entire volume is now east of the site of the island, and that once con- spicuous feature is merged in the broad low sand-bar that fills the old bed. The channel has shifted at this point, as may be seen by the west bank, four hundred feet or more. A like change, and even greater, has taken place below, where the current has cut the west bank, and filled in on the east side a wide swampy tract of several acres below and along the Graveyard Pond site, and at the foot of what used to be called the High Banks. Within a few years freshets have cut through a sharp elbow on the west side at this same place, and instead of whittling away the point piecemeal as before, the future action of the water seems likely to take the main volume 14 HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. bodily some hundreds of feet inland. The same agencies have cut a number of small channels through the " bottom" a little lower, and threaten to make a tolerably straight course from near the old ford down to a point a little below the lower mouth of the old bayou. These arc the most notable changes in the river-bed in or near the city. There has come, with the clearing of the country, the drainage of swamps, and disappearance of little springs and rivulets, the same change that has come upon all the streams of the country and of the world under the same conditions. The volume of water is smaller, low- water mark is lower, the freshets more sudden and evanescent. It happens frequently now that in protracted droughts the volume of water is reduced to that of a very moderate creek, not ex- ceeding fifty or sixty feet in width in very shoal places, and the tributary streams. Eagle and Pleasant Run, go dry altogether near their mouths. Pall Creek, however, is not known to have ever been so greatly reduced. Before settlement and cultivation had changed the face of the country so greatly the an- nual freshets, — sometimes semi-annual, — usually in the latter part of winter or spring, were used to carry some of the country's products to market down on the lower Ohio and Mississippi. This was done in flat-boats, measuring fifty or sixty feet long by twelve to fifteen wide, covered in with a sort of house, the roof of which was the deck, where long, heavy side-oars and still longer and heavier steering oars were managed. The current, however, was the motive-power. In this floating house was stored, ac- cording to the business or fancy of the shipper, baled hay, corn, wheat, or oats, whiskey, pork, poultry, these chiefly. They were run out at the height of a freshet, so as to pass over a few dams that stood in the way, and were the source of the greatest peril to these self-insured shippers. This sort of commerce was maintained at intervals for probably twenty years, but most largely from about 1835 till the Madison Railroad offered a better way out, in the fall of 1847. During the first few years of the city's existence occasional cargoes of corn and game were brought down the river by the Indians, and up the river in keel-boats by poling and " cordelling," or hauling along with ropes, in canal-boat fashion. Not much of either was ever done, however, the new settlement depending mainly on land transportation from the White Water and on its own products. The prominent event in the history of the city's connection with the river is the attempt to make it or prove it what Congress had declared it to be, a navi- gable stream. A full account will be given in another place, but it may be noted here that a survey was made in 1825 which maintained the practicability of navigation three months in the year for a distance of four hundred and fifteen miles at an annual expense of fifteen hundred dollars. A reward of two hundred dollars was offered to the first steamer's captain who should bring his boat to the town, and in 1830 one came as far as Spencer, Owen Co., and another came up about the same distance or a little nearer, but in the spring of 1831 the " Robert Hanna," bought for the purpose, it was said, of carrying stone from the Bluffs of the river for the piers and abut- ments of the National road bridge, came clear up to the town, raising a great excitement and high antici- pations of river commerce. She remained a couple of days, ran upon a bar going back, and stuck a month or two, and finally got into safe water some time during the fall. This was the last of the navi- gation of White River, except by the flat-boats re- ferred to and a little pleasure steamer in 1865, that made a few trips during the year and was wrecked the next summer. Within the present year a little picnic steamer has been built at Broad Ripple, but it can hardly be deemed an exception to the universal failure of White River navigation. There have been a few freshets in the river so high and disastrous that they deserve special notice. The first was in 1828, following an unusually wet spring. During that rise an old hunter paddled his canoe through the fork of a large tree on Governor's Island, a height of overflow that has probably never been equaled since. The " bottom" lands for many miles were seriously damaged, fences washed away, stock drowned, crops in store injured, though, as suggested by Mr. Ignatius Brown, less damage was done than by smaller floods following when the country was better settled. The Legislature made some relief GENERAL FEATURES OF INDIANAPOLIS. 15 provision for the sufferers by remitting taxes. The next great flood was early in January, 1847. The water then for a time threatened the National road bridge. It broke through the little suburb of In- dianola, or " Stringtown" as it was then called, from ita being strung out along the National road, and cut two deep gullies through the solidly-graded and heavily-macadamized pike, churning out on the south side in the soft, loose soil of the river bottom huge holes nearly a hundred feet in diameter and twenty or more deep. Several houses were washed away, and one was left on the slope of one of the big holes, where it remained tilted over and apparently ready to fall for several months. The third big flood was in 1858. In 1875 came two nearly equal to that of 1847, the first in May, the next in August, both reaching about the same height. But for the levees then built along the west bank for a mile and more the whole of the country west of the river to the bluff of the " bottom" would have been drowned. In the early part of February of this year (1883) the highest flood ever known, except possibly that of 1847 and that of 1828, occurred, filled a large num- ber of houses in Indianola, driving out the occupants and damaging walls and furniture, and sweeping clear over the National road for the first time since 1847. It was more than a foot higher than either flood of 1875. Levees now protect the west side — the only one endangered by floods to any extent within the limits of costly improvements — for nearly three miles south of the Vandalia Railroad to a point opposite the mouth of Pleasant Run. These will be extended in time parallel with the levees on the east side below Pleasant Run. These are the chief levees on the river. Some small ones have been made along the south bank of Fall Creek at the northern limit of the city site. Until 1852 the only bridge over White River in or near the town was that built by the national govern- ment for the great national highway, the " Cumber- land road." This was finished in 1833, and is still in constant use, considerably dilapidated through cul- pable neglect, but still solid in its arches and service- able. In 1852 the Vandalia Railroad Company put up a bridge for their line a quarter of a mile south of the old one. Since then there have been built for railroad or ordinary service no less than nine bridges, all of iron or mixed iron and timber. They are, be- ginning at the north, the Lafayette or Crawfordsville road wagon-bridge, the Upper Belt road bridge, the Michigan Street and Washington Street wagon- bridges, the old National road bridge, the St. Louis Railroad bridge, the Vandalia Railroad bridge, the Old Cemetery wagon-bridge, the Vincennes Railroad bridge, the Morris Street wagon-bridge, the Lower Belt road bridge, — eleven in all. The bridges on the smaller streams and the remainder of the canal are too numerous to be worth special notice. Turnpikes. — All the wagon-roads out of the city are now graveled, and little inferior to macadamized roads. For a few years, some thirty years or so ago, a sort of mania for plank-roads ran over the State, and the western division of the National road was planked. It had then been given to the State by the general government (as had all the remainder of the road to the States through which it passed), and by the State had been assigned to a plank-road company, which made this improvement. It was a failure after the first few months. The planks warped, the ends turned up, and the covering soon became a nuisance, and was abandoned for coarse gravel, which packs solidly and makes a fairly smooth, durable, and dry road. Many of the county and neighborhood roads have been improved in the same way. Most of these improved roads are held by companies and are main- tained by tolls, which in the case of the city roads prove to be a handsome return upon the investment. Some of them have been sold to the county and made free, but several are still held by the companies. The principal roads leading out of the city are the east and west divisions of the National road ; northeast, the Pendleton road ; southeast, the south division of the Michigan road and the Old Shelbyville road ; south, the Madison road, the "Three Notch" road, the Bluff road ; southwest, the Mooresville road ; northwest, the Crawfordsville and Lafayette road and the north division of the Michigan road ; north, the Westfield and the Old Noblesville road. Area and Present Condition. — The original city plat was a square mile, laid off in the centre of four square miles donated by Congress in 1816 for a site 16 HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. for the State capital. The half-mile border around this square was made " out-lots," and used as farm lands for years, but after 1847 was rapidly absorbed into the city, until at the commencement of the civil war the entire " donation" was included in the city, and was more or less compactly built over. The town government was extended over the whole four sections in 1838, but it was ten years later, following the completion of the first railway, before any consider- able occupancy of this tract was attempted, and then it was mainly in the vicinity of the new railway depot. Many additions of greater or less extent have been made, more than doubling the area of the original four sections of the " donation." It is estimated now (1883) that an area of about eleven square miles (or seven thousand acres) is included in the limits of the city. It occupies a little more than one-fourth of the area of Centre township, which is a little larger than a Congressional township of six miles square. Population. — The first estimate of population rests upon an enumeration made by visitors of the Union Sunday-school in the spring of 1824, when 100 families were counted upon the " donation," making a probable population of 500 or more, represented by 100 votei-s, or 120 possibly, with 50 voters repre- senting nobody but themselves, or a total population of near 600. In 1827 a careful census was taken, and the population found to count up 1066. In 1830 it was about 1500 ; in 1840, 4000 ; in 1850, 8034 ; in 1860, 18,611 ; in 1870, 48,244; in 1880, 75,056. It is now estimated at about 95,000, of which one-sixth is foreign-born, mainly Irish and Germans, the former counting a little more than half of the latter, or, with all other foreign-born population, making a little more than half of all of that class. In 1880 the whole of German birth was 6070 ; of Irish birth, 3660 ; and of all other foreign nationalities, 2880. The proportions are now about 8000, 4000, and 3000. The basis of the estimate of population that gives the closest as well as the most trustworthy result is that of the enu- meration of school children under the law. This is made every year to determine the ratio of distribu- tion of the State's school fund, and is probably as accurate as the national census. It shows the pro- portion of children of " school age" (from six to twenty-one) in 1880 to have been to the whole popu- lation as one to two and four-fifths. The school enumeration for 1883 makes the total 33,079, which gives at the ascertained ratio a population a little less than 93,000. The estimate of the secretary of the Board of Trade is 100,000, but no safe basis of calculation will give that result. A fair estimate on the 1st of January, 1884, makes the population 95,000. Government. — The city government is composed of a mayor, Board of Aldermen, Common Council, clerk, treasurer, and assessor, elected by popular vote ; marshal, chief of the fire department, attorney, elected by the Council ; and a Board of Police Com- missioners, appointed by the State oflBcers and paid by the city, who have entire control of the police force, also paid by the city. The officers elected by the people serve two years, the others one. The police commissioners go out and are replaced in suc- cessive years, one in one, one in two, and one in three. Police. — The police force consists of a chief, two captains, and sixty-five men. Besides the regular force there are three or four specially in charge of the Union Depot, authorized by the city but paid by the Union Railway Company. The merchants' police, a small force of men, is appointed by the city, but paid by the citizens whose property is specially in their care. The Fire Department consists of a chief and his assistants, and a working force, held in this service exclusively, of seventy-seven men, including the officers named. It has six steam-engines, four hose-reels, two hook-and-ladder wagons, uses six hundred and twenty-two hydrants, one hundred and forty-nine cisterns, ranging in capacity from one thousand to two thousand five hundred barrels, and one hundred and thirty electric signal-boxes or alarm stations. Streets. — There are four hundred and fifty streets, and larger alleys used as streets, all more or less improved by grading and graveling or bowldering. A very few are paved with wooden blocks, and one of these has within a year been torn up and AREA AND PRESENT CONDITION OF INDIANAPOLIS. 17 replaced by bowlders. A large number of streets are bowldered, but much the larger portion are graded and covered heavily with coarse gravel, which is found to make a good durable street, given to grind into dust and mud, but always available and was «2,326,185 ; in 1860, $10,700,000 ; in 1866, the first valuation after the close of the war, $24,835,750 ; in 1870, $24,656,460. A decline in real estate came in 1868, the valuation dropping from $25,500,000 in 1867 to $24,000,000' in 1868, and to $22,000,000 cheap. The aggregate length of streets is not accu- j in 1869, recovering partially in 1870, and rising to rately known, but as a few are four miles long or more, and a great many from one to two miles, the aggregate length is conjectured to be probably be- tween seven hundred and eight hundred miles. On them is a total length of water-main of fifty-one miles, with twenty-five large iron drinking-fountains " for man and beast." With these are ninety miles of gas-mains and two thousand four hundred and seventy-nine lamps. There are thirteen lines of street railways, owning five hundred mules and em- ploying one hundred drivers. All belong to one company. Parks. — A very pleasing feature of the city is its parks, of which there are four: 1st, Circle Park, in- tended to have been put in the centre of the " dona- tion," as the site of the Governor's official residence, but never used for that purpose, and, on account of the propinquity of Pogue's Run bottom, put a little aside from the central point, which is a half-square south of the southeast corner of Washington and Illinois Streets ; 2d, Military Park, the remains of a military reservation ; 3d, University Park, held by the city on consent of the Legislature, but given originally to help endow a State University at the capital ; 4th, Garfield Park, originally Southern Park, a large tract at the extreme south of the city, pur- chased some years ago to give the population of that part of the city a place of recreation, but so far in- adequately improved. Taxes. — The levy for general purposes last year was 90 cents on $100, for school purposes 22 cents, making a total of $1.12, the legal limit of taxation for city purposes. This rate is levied on a total valuation of $52,633,510, divided into "realty," $22,863,525 ; " improvements," $16,363,200 ; " per- sonal," $13,406,755. There are some slight discrep- ancies in these statements, as the assessors' returns had not been corrected when this report was given. The total valuation of property for taxation in 1850 $30,000,000 in 1871. The rise continued till 1874, then the financial crash of 1873 began to operate, and a second decline began, which is now about overcome. The city revenue for the last year was $591,312. Business. — The secretary of the Board of Trade reports for the year ending with the end of 1882 that there were 772 manufacturing establishments in the city, with $12,270,000 of capital, employing an average of 12,000 hands at an average rate of $2.20 a day, using $18,730,000 of material, and producing $30,100,000 of merchantable goods. The wholesale trade in sixteen lines of business amounted to $25,- 440,000. The total clearances of the clearing-house was $101,577,523. There are 12 banks in the city, 6 national and 6 private, with a total capital of $2,880,000. The average of monthly deposits was $11,435,000. Total receipts of grain for 1882, 21,- 242,897 bushels; of coal, about 400,000 tons, or 202,711 for the last six months. Of live-stock, 5,319,611 hogs, 640,363 cattle, 849,936 sheep, 50,- 795 horses, of which there was disposed of in the city 3,020,913 hogs, 106,178 cattle, 70,543 sheep, 2533 horses. Of lumber, 125,000 M's, or 125,- 000,000 feet. The Board of Trade has 1000 mem- bers. Railroads. — Counting the two divisions of the Jeffersonville Railroad separately, as they were built and operated at first, there are fourteen railroads com- pleted and in operation centring in Indianapolis, running altogether 114 passenger trains both ways daily, and handling here an average of 2500 freight cars daily, each car having a capacity of twelve tons at least, and making a total daily tonnage of 30,000 tons, equal to the trade of a seaport receiving and sending out thirty vessels daily of 1000 tons each. Besides the fourteen lines of railroad centring in the city, there is the Union Railway Company with a length of track enough to connect them all at 18 HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. the Union Passenger Depot, and now by lease in control of the Belt Railway, which very nearly en- circles the city, and connects all the roads for freight purposes by a line that enables transfers of cars and trains to be made outside of the city, avoiding the obstruction of many streets. Two new roads are in progress. Every county in the State but three can be reached by rail, and nearly every county-seat can be visited and a return made the same day. Newspapers and Periodicak. — There are six daily newspapers in the city, all morning issues ex- cept one. There is one semi-weekly, twenty-five weeklies (including the weekly editions of dailies), one serai-monthly, and seventeen monthlies. Amusements. — There are four theatres, one hun- dred and sixty public halls, four military companies, four musical societies, and three brass bands ; ten libraries, including the State and City and County, and the Stat« Geological Museum, containing over 100,000 specimens, and valued at over $100,000. Business Associations. — Insurance fifteen ; for man- ufactures and other purposes incorporated, sixty-one, with a capital of $8,300,000 ; building and loan socie- ties nineteen, with an aggregate capital of $1,755,000 ; miscellaneous associations, fifty-five ; hotels, forty. Professions. — Lawyers, two hundred ; physicians, two hundred and thirty-two. (School-teachers and preachers, see Schools and Churches.) Secret Societies. — The secret societies number 23, with 143 lodges or separate organizations. The Ma- sons have 21 lodges of whites and 6 of colored mem- bers ; the Odd- Fellows have 23 in all ; the Knights of Pythias have 13 ; the Hibernians have 3. Be- sides these the Red Men, and Elks, and Druids, and several other orders have each one or more lodges. Churches. — Baptist, 13 ; Catholic, 7 ; Christian, 6 ; Congregational, 2 ; Episcopal, 5 ; Reformed Epis- copal, 1 ; Evangelical Alliance, 1 ; United Brethren, 1 ; Friends, 1 ; German Reformed, 3 ; Hebrews, 2 ; Lutheran, 6 ; Methodist, 23 ; Protestant Methodist, 1 ; Presbyterian, 14 ; Swedenborgian, 1 ; United Presbyterian, 1. In all there are 88 churches in the city. Two denominations that at one time were quite prominent, the Universalist and Unitarian, have disap- peared altogether in the last few years as distinct sects. Health and Sanitary Conditions. — The station at Indianapolis of the United States Signal Service reports for the last year an annual mean of tempera- ture of 53.8 ; an annual mean of humidity of 71.1 ; 107 clear days, 141 fair days, and 117 cloudy days; a mean fall of rain and snow of 53.68 inches ; the highest temperature 94°, the lowest 10° below zero. Drainage is eflFected by an incomplete but steadily advancing system of sewage, with two trunk lines at present on Washington and South Streets, and a number of small tributary sewers. The health of the city is surpassed by no city and not many rural regions in the world. The last report of the Board of Health covers seven months from January to July, inclusive, 1883, and shows, with the months of the preceding year back to July, an average of less than 140 a month. This gives a death-rate of 18f in 1000 ; that of London is 21* per 1000, of Paris 26}, of Vienna 29, of New York 29f. Very few rural communities in Europe or this country show a death- rate lower than 19 in 1000. Schools. — The free school system went into opera- tion in 1853, when the accumulation of public funds had allowed the previous purchase of grounds and the erection of houses sufficient for the town's needs, a popular vote six years before having authorized a special city tax for school purposes. The average at- tendance at the outset in April, 1853, was 340. In three years it was 1400. It is now (1883) 9938, while 13,685 children are enrolled on the school rec- ords, and the city contains a juvenile population of school age (from six to twenty-one) of 33,079. The enrollment is considerably less than half of the popu- lation, while the attendance is about one-third. This is a reduction of three per cent, in two years. There are now belonging to the public school system 29 brick houses and 2 frame. Of these 2 are one story, 25 are two stories, 3 of three stories ; 8 have four rooms or less, 11 have eight rooms, 12 have nine rooms. In all there are 245 rooms, with a seating capacity of 12,746, nearly equal to the entire enrollment. Value of grounds and buildings, $938,419.30. There are 19 male teachers, 234 female teachers ; 21 are col- ored, 232 white. Salaries iu the High School, maximum $2000, minimum $700, average $1037 ; GENERAL VIEW AND HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 19 in Primary schools, maximuin $1100, minimum $650, average $900.92 ; grade teachers, maximum $650, minimum $300, average $500. Private schools are nearly as numerous as public schools, but, of course, less largely attended. There are twenty-six of these, some of them of a denominational character, some wholly secular, but most of a higher grade than the primaries of the public system. A few will rank with the preparatory schools of the best colleges. Besides there are five kindergartens. Of the collegiate class of educational institutions, there are four medical schools authorized to give diplomas and degrees, one law school of the same grade, and, more considerable than these, Butler Uni- versity, now at Irvington, formerly the Northwestern Christian University, and located in the northeastern part of the city. Under the same management as the public schools is the Public Library, supported by a tax of two cents on one hundred dollars, and containing about forty thousand volumes. General View and Historical Outline. — A sum- mary of the history of the city and of its difiFerent stages of growth, with a glance at its present condi- tion, will give the reader a more definite and durable impression of such points as he may desire to retain for his own purposes or for the information of others, than he could obtain from the best methodized and most complete system of details unaccompanied by such an outline. This " general view" will, there- fore, present the epochs in the progress of Indianap- olis, and leave the details of development iu each to the chapters treating the diiFerent departments which make up the body of its history. The first settlement of Marion County may be safely dated in the spring of 1820, though there is a probability of the arrival of one settler a year earlier, and contemporaneously with the Whetzel (relatives of the noted Indian-fighter of West Virginia, Lewis Whetzel) settlement at the blufis of White River, or, as the Indians called it, Wah-me-ca-me-ca. In the fall of 1818 the Delaware tribes by treaty ceded to the United States the region now known as Cen- tral Indiana, with a reservation of possession till 1821. Little more regard was paid to Indian rights then than since, and settlers began, with leave or without it, to take up lands in the " New Purchase," as it was called, within six months after the bargain was made. By midsummer, 1820, there was a little village collected along and near the east bank of White River, and on the 7th of June the commis- sioners of the State Legislature selected it as the site of the future capital. Congress had given the State, on its admission into the Union in 1816, four sec- tions, or two miles square, for a capital site, on any of the unsold lands of the government, and at the junction of Fall Creek and White River the location was fixed. The town was laid out in the summer of 1821, one mile square, with the remainder of the four sections divided round it into " out-lots." The first sale of lots was held in the fall of that year, the proceeds to go to the erection of such buildings as the State should require at its capital. _ Here begins the first stage of the city's existence. First Period. — From the first undisputed settle- ment in the spring of 1820 to the removal of the State offices from Corydon in the fall of 1824, and the first meeting of the Legislature the following winter, a period of nearly five years, Indianapolis was a pioneer village, scattered about in the dense woods, grievously troubled with chills and fever, and little more encouraged for the future than any other little county town. The first newspaper was started in 1822, the next in 1823; the first Sunday-school in 1823; the first church was built in 1824; the post- office opened in March, 1822. Second Period. — From the arrival of the capital, in a four-horse wagon and ten days from the Ohio, to the completion of the first railway in October, 1847, an interval of nearly twenty-three years, the town was passing through its second stage. It grew from a village to a respectable town, with several par- tially developed germs of industries, which have since become second to very few in the Union, and with a mayor and Council and the name and airs of a city. For the first eleven years of this period the State Legislature met in the county court-house. In 1832 came the first town government by " trustees," changed to " councilman" in 1838, and to " mayor and Council" in 1847. In 1835 the old State- 20 HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. House was completed, and the first fire-engine bought. In 1834 the first bank (the old State Bank) was chartered. In 1832 the first manufacturing enter- prise was put in operation, and failed in a year or two more. The first brewery, tobacco-factory, linseed- oil mill, paper-mill, merchant flour-mill, woolen-mill, soap-factory, the first pork-packing, all date from about 1835 to 1840. An iron foundry was at- tempted in 1832, but failed very soon. In 1842 the first steps were taken to establish the Asylum for the Insane. In 1843 the first tax was levied to pre- pare for the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb. In 1845 a similar levy was made to establish the Asylum for the Blind. These are all located in or near the city. This was a period of planting father than growth. The failure of the " Internal Improve- ment" system in 1839 left the town with a few miles of useless canal. The river was never naviga- ble except for flat-boats in spring freshets. But one steamer ever reached the town, and it did not get back for six months. There were no means of trans- portation, natural or artificial, but dirt-roads " cross- layed" or " corduroyed," and covered four-horse wagons hauling from Cincinjiati at a dollar a hun- dred. All this restriction of business and inter- course changed a good deal with the completion of the old Madison Railroad, which had formed part of the State's system of improvements, and been sold to a company when the State failed. Within a half- dozen years came a half-dozen more railroads, and the city entered what may be called its " third period," though, except in its greater rate of progress, there is little to distinguish it from that which fol- lowed it and covers the city's history to the present time. Third Period. — From the completion of the first railroad, Oct. 1, 1847, to the breaking out of the civil war in April, 1861, a period of thirteen years and a half, there was a decided quickening of the city's energy and development. To it belongs the establishment of the free school system in 1853, and the permanent establishment of all the present lead- ing industries in iron, lumber, grain, and pork. There were the seeds and some wholesome sprouts of all these before, but with the opening of railroad transportation came an impulse that made almost a new creation. The JefFersonville Railroad, the Belie- fontaine (Bee Line), the Vandalia, and the Lafayette were all completed in 1852, and portions of all were in operation a year or two earlier. The Central (Pan Handle) was completed in 1853, the Peru in 1854, the Cincinnati (now with Lafayette making Cin- cinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Chicago) in 1853, the Union tracks and depot in 1853. With the concentration of the State's troops here dur- ing the war, and the business of all kinds required for their care, equipment, and transportation, came a sudden force of growth which compelled business to betake itself to several convenient streets, when previously it had been confined mainly to Wash- ington Street and the vicinity of the Union Depot. Population more than doubled during this period, from eight thousand in 1850 to eighteen thousand in 1860, but it nearly tripled from 1860 to 1870. The civil war and the changes it forced or aided may, therefore, properly mark an epoch in the city's history and begin the " fourth period." Fourth Period From 1861 to 1883, twenty-two years, population increased from forty-eight thousand to about ninety-five thousand, and the amount of busi- ness increased in a still larger proportion. The Junc- tion, the Vincennes, the Bloomington and Western, the St. Louis, the Springfield and Decatur, the Chi- cago Air Line, and the Belt Railroads have all been built in this period, and two others projected. Other results are better exhibited in a condensed state- ment of the present condition of the city, produced by the changes and advances in the sixty-three years covered by these four periods. One form of these combined results may be stated in the favorite boast of the citizens, that " Indianapolis is the largest wholly inland city in the United States." It has not and never has had any navigable water nearer than the Ohio and the lower Wabash, except; as already remarked, that freshets in the river occasionally let a few flat-boats, loaded with grain, or whiskey, or pork, or poultry, or hay, down into the Mississippi to the towns in the cotton and sugar region. But these opportunities were uncertain, and the voyages were uncertain when opportunities were used, so that flat- EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 21 boating never contributed sensibly to the growth of Indianapolis. CHAPTER II L First Period — Early Settlements — Organization of Marion County and Erection of Townsliips — Erection of Public Buildings — Notable Events and Incidents of the Early Set- tlement and of Later Years — Opening of Roads — Original Entries of Lands in the County. Although the treaty of 1818 expressly conceded the occupancy of the " New Purchase," as it wa.s called by the whites, to the Indians till 1821, its profusion of game, its fertility, its abundance of excellent building timber began to allure settlers from the White Water Valley before a year had passed, and from the Ohio River before the reservation had expired. It will give the reader a suggestion of the natural attractions of the country to suggest that Mr. William H. Jones, a leading dealer in lumber in the city, aided when a boy, in 1824, in catching young fawns in the vicinity of the present site of the Vandalia Railroad depot and of the corner of West and Merrill Streets ; that Robert Harding, one of the earliest settlers, killed a deer on the area called the " donation" for the first Fourth of July celebration and barbecue in 1822 ; that as late as 1845 or later wild turkeys in their migrations made a roost in a large sugar grove that covered the portion of the present city site about Meridian, Illinois, and Tennessee Streets above the crossing of St. Clair or thereabouts. As late as 1845 a turkey scared from this roost by hunters ran into the city and into the basement of what was called the " Governor's House," in Circle Park, and was caught there. Lost quail were frequently heard piping in the back yards of residences. In 1822 saddles of veni- son sold at twenty-five to fifty cents, wild turkeys at ten to twelve and a half, a bushel of wild pigeons for twenty-five cents. An early sketch of the condition of the country says, " A traveler who ascended the river a few years prior to the settlement saw the banks frequently dotted with wigwams and the stream en- livened by Indian canoes. At night parties for ' fire- hunting' or ' fire-fishing' were frequent among the Indians, and occasionally formed by their white suc- cessors." The first settlers drawn to the New Purchase were Jacob Whetzel and his son Cyrus. The former was the brother, the latter the nephew of the noted scout and Indian-fighter, Lewis Whetzel, or Wetzel, dis- tinguished in the bloody annals of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. " The elder Whetzel," says Mr. Now- land, in his " Promment Citizens," " soon after the conclusion of the St. Mary's treaty went to Ander- son, head chief of the Delawares, who lived in the large Delaware town named for the chief and retain- ing the name still, and from him obtained permission to ' blaze a trace' from the White Water in Franklin County to the Blufis of White River." It may be as well to explain for the benefit of later settlers that " blazing" was cutting away a large strip of bark and wood from a tree-trunk on the side next to the pro- posed "trace" or road. Such a mark would remain conspicuous for many months in an interminable forest without a sign of human presence except that, and a series of them close together along the line of a proposed road would be a sure and easy guide to ■backwoodsmen or any traveler with sense enough to be trusted alone. The two Whetzels came to the Blufi's in the spring of 1819, before the government surveys were completed or commenced in some cases. Their settlement was a little below the present south boundary of the county. " The first white residents of the county," Mr. Dun- can (before referred to) says, " were Judge Fabius M. Finch, his father and family, who came to the site of Noblesville or near it in the spring of 1819, ' that region being then a part of the county, but separated in a few years. In the fall of 1818 one Dr. Douglass came up the river from below to the Bluffs, and re- mained there a short time, and in January, 1819, James Paxton came down the river from the upper waters to the site of the city, and came again a year later in 1820. The first settler in the present area of the county will probably remain an unsettled ques- t tion for all time, as it was a disputed point in 1822, has been ever since, and is more peremptorily disputed now than ever. The prevailing tradition Is that George Pogue, a blacksmith from the White Water 22 HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. settlements, came here March 2, 1819, building a double log cabin on the line of Michigan Street a little way east of the creek, on the high ground bordering the creek bottom, and lived there with his family, the solitary occupants of Marion County within its present limits, till the 27th of the following February, when John and James McCormick arrived with their families and built cabins on the river bank near the old National road bridge. The priority of settlement lies between these families and Mr. Pogue's. Within a few months past one William H. White, of Han- cock County, claims that he was born on the city site Oct. 4, 1819, near where Odd-Fellows' Hall now stands, on the corner of Washington and Pennsyl- vania Streets. Old settlers as early as 1820-21 have no recollection of any account of such an occur- rence, and births were too rare in those days to allow the first one in the county or any suggestion of it, however vague or doubtful, to be forgotten. The im- pression seems to be that Mr. White has been misled by some accidental confusion or by the failing memory of his relatives. He may be right, but he is distrusted by settlers who arrived here within a year of the alleged occurrence, and discredited by. the opportunities of knowing the truth of many who arrived within two years and repel his claim. In the summer of 1822, a little more than a year after Pogue's death, Dr. Samuel G. Mitchell, the old- est physician in the place, published in the Gazette, the first paper in the place, a discussion of the pre- tensions of Pogue to the honor of being the first settler, in which he maintained that the McCormicks were the first, and that Pogue came a month later, about the time the Maxwells and Cowan came. No reply was made to this direct attack on the general opinion of the settlers, which certainly suggests a reasonable probability that its statement was indis- putable, and that the tradition of a general concur- rence in awarding Pogue the credit is ill-founded. But there comes in here the countervailing considera- tion that the pioneers of the backwoods were little given to glorifying the pen or looking to the papers for instruction. Nobody may have been disposed to take the trouble to contradict what he knew nobody but Mitchell believed, or he may, very fairly, have concluded that in a little two-year-old village in the woods it would be less trouble to contradict the story " by word of mouth" to every man in the place than to attempt so unusual a feat as writing for the papers. But this early and public contest of Pogue's claim by an intelligent man, at a time when there could hardly have been an adult, male or female, who did not know the truth, creates a strong doubt against the current of tradition. The probability inclines to Mrs. Pogue's statement at an " Old Settlers' " meeting in 1854, as Mr. Robert B. Duncan remembers it. She was more than fourscore years old then, but her memory of early events seemed clear and accurate. She said that her husband and family came here on the 2d of March, 1820, and the McCormicks came on the 7th of the same month. This seems to be final as to the first settlement being made in 1820 instead of 1819, as has generally been believed, whether it settles the question of individual priority or not. Where two or three families arrive at a place in a primeval forest within four or five days of each other, and a mile or two apart, it is easy to see how each set of the sepa- rated settlers may suppose itself the first. Virtually they are simultaneous arrivals, and the truth, or at least the probability, of history compromises this long-mooted question by concluding that the Pogues and McCormicks were all first settlers. Whether Pogue was the first man to live here or not, he was certainly the first to die here. Mr. Now- land's description of the man and account of his death so strikingly exhibit some of the characteristics of the time and country that it is reproduced here. " George Pogue was a large, broad-shouldered, and stout man, with dark hair, eyes, and complexion, about fifty years of age, and a native of North Carolina. His dress was like that of a Pennsylvania Dutchman, a drab overcoat with many capes, and a broad-brimmed felt hat. He was a blacksmith, and the first of that trade to enter the ' New Purcha.se.' To look at the man as we saw him last, one would think he was not afraid to meet a whole camp of Delawares in battle array, which fearlessness, in fact, was most probably the cause of his death. One evening about twilight a straggling Indian, known to the settlers as well as to the In- dians as Wyandotte John, stopped at the cabin of Mr. EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 23 Pogue and asked to stay all night. Mr. Pogue did not like to keep him, but thought it best not to refuse, as the Indian was known to be a bad and very des- perate man, having left his own tribe in Ohio for some oflFense, and was now wandering among the various Indiana tribes. His principal lodging-place the pre- vious winter was a hollow sycamore log that lay under the bluff and just above the east end of the National road bridge over White River. (Above the site of the bridge, Mr. Nowland means, as the bridge was not built for more than ten years after.) On the upper side of the log he had hooks, made by cutting the forks or limbs of bushes, on which he rested his gun. At the open end of the log next to the water he built his fire, which rendered his domicile as comfort- able as most of the cabins. After John was furnished with something to eat, Mr. Pogue, knowing him to be traveling from one Indian camp to another, inquired if he had seen any white man's horses at any of the camps. John said he had left a camp of Delawares that morning, describing the place to be on Buck Creek, about twelve miles east, and near where the Rushville State road crosses that creek ; that he had seen horses there with iron hoofs (they had been shod), and described the horses so minutely as to lead Mr. Pogue to believe they were his. Although the horses were described so accurately, Mr. Pogue was afraid that it was a deception to lure him into the woods, and mentioned his suspicions to his family. When the Indian left the next morning he took a direction towards the river, where nearly all the set- tlement was. Pogue followed him for some distance to see whether he would turn his course towards the Indjan camps, but found that he kept directly on towards the river. Mr. Pogue returned to bis cabin and told his family he was going to the Indian camp for his horses. He took his gun, and with his dog set out on foot for the Delaware camp, and was never afterwards seen or heard of. We remember that there were a great many conflicting stories about his clothes and horses being seen in possession of the Indians, all of which were untrue. There can be no doubt that the Wyandotte told Mr. Pogue the truth in regard to the horses, and in his endeavor to get pos- session of them had a difficulty with the Delawares and was killed, at least that was the prevailing opinion at the time. Nothing has ever been learned of his fate to this day, further than that he was never seen or heard of again, though the settlers formed a com- pany to search all the Indian camps about within fifty miles to find some indication that might lead to a clearing up of the mystery." Pogue's Creek, once the pride and now the pest of the city, takes its name from the proto-martyr, if not proto-settler, of the city and county. Within a week or two after the arrival of the Mc- Cormicks, John Maxwell and John Cowan came and built on the high ground near the present crossing of the Crawfordsville road over Fall Creek, very near the site of the City Hospital. During the following three months a number of new-comers arrived, and settled principally in the vicinity of the river. Those best remembered are the Davis brothers (Henry and Samuel), Isaac Wilson (who built the first cabin on what was afterwards the old town plat in May), Robert Harding, Mr. Barnhill, Mr. Corbaley, Mr. Van Blari- cum. About the time of the arrival of the last of this first group of pioneers the State capital was located here by the commissioners appointed by the Legislature for that purpose. When the State was admitted into the Union, April 19, 1816, a donation of four sections — four square miles — was made by Congress for the site of a capital, to be located wherever the State might choose upon unsold lands of the government. No selection had been made or attempted in the four years since the State's admission. The capital, which bad been kept at Vincennes by Governor Harrison during his administration as Territorial Governor, from 1801 to 1812, was removed to Corydon, Harri- son Co., by the Legislature, May 1, 1813, and re- mained there till its permanent settlement here in the fall of 1824. On the 11th of January, 1820, the Legislature appointed ten commissioners to make selection of a site for a permanent capital. They were John Tipton (an old Indian trader), John Con- ner (brother of William above referred to, and like him reared from childhood among the Indians, the founder of Connersville), George Hunt, John Gilli- land, Stephen Ludlow, Joseph Bartholomew, Jesse 24 HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. B. Durham, Frederick Rapp, William Prince, Thomas Emerson. They were ordered to meet at Conner's place (north of the city) early in the spring. Appar- ently only half of them served, as only five votes were given in determining the selection. But Mr. Nowland says there were nine when the party got to Conner's, Mr. Prince alone being unable to attend. If this is correct there must have been four commis- sioners who did not like any of the sites examined and declined to vote. A part of them met at Vin- cennes about the middle of May, 1820, and were joined there by the father and uncle of Mr. Nowland, who were on their way to Kentucky from Illinois, but were persuaded to accompany the commissioners. The party ascended the river to the BluflFs, where the Whetzels had settled the year before and had been joined by four or five other families. After resting a day at this point and making an examina- tion of it, they came on up to the mouth of Fall Creek, and remained a day, some of them expressing themselves pleased with the country and disposed to put the capital here. Mr. Nowland told the commis- sioners that if the location were made here he would move out in the fall, and do all he could to induce other Kentuckians to join him. The mouth of Fall Creek had been the customary place of crossing the river by the whites ever since the White River Valley had been known to them. Mr. Nowland (the author) says that Lieut, (afterwards General and President) Taylor told him that he had crossed the river here with his force when going from Louisville to the Wa- bash to build Fort Harrison, now Terre Haute, in 1811. While the force was here Col. Abel C. Pep- per, United States Marshal of the State under Taylor, met Tecumseh, who was on a mission to the Dela- wares, doubtless to induce them to join his combina- tion against the whites. The party went on to Conner's, some sixteen miles north, as before stated, and examined the situation there. One or two seemed to favor it, but the whole party returned here, and after re-examining the country, decided on the 7th of June, 1820, by vote of three to two, for the Bluifs, to locate the capital here. On the 6th of January following, 1821, the selection was approved by the Legislature and the location decided irrevocably. ■ The commissioners reported that they bad selected Sections 1 and 12, east and west fractional sections numbered 2, east fractional section numbered 11, and so much of the east part of west fractional sec- tion numbered 3, to be set off by a line north and south, as will complete the donation of two thou- sand five hundred and sixty acres, in Township 15, Range 3 east. The Legislature, after approving the location, named the future city and capital Indianapo- lis, the " city of Indiana." The name was suggested by the late Judge Jeremiah Sullivan, in the com- mittee charged with the preparation of the confirma- tory bill. He gave an interesting account of the affair in a letter to Governor Baker, which may be pertinently introduced here : " I have a very distinct recollection of the great diversity of opinion that prevailed as to the name by which the new town should receive legislative baptism. The bill, if I remember aright, was re- ported by Judge Polk, and was in the main very acceptable. A blank, of course, was left for the name of the town that was to become the seat of government, and during the two or three days we spent in endeavoring to fill the blank there was in the debate some sharpness and much amuse- ment. Gen. Marston G. Clark, of Washington County, proposed ' Tecumseh' as the name, and very earnestly insisted on its adoption. When it failed he suggested other Indian names, which I have forgotten. They all were rejected. A member proposed ' Suwarrow,' which met with no favor. Other names were proposed, discussed, laughed at, and voted down, and the House, without coming to any agreement, adjourned until the next day. There were many amusing things said, but my remem- brance of them is not suflSciently distinct to state them with accuracy. I had gone to Corydon with the intention of proposing Indianapolis as the name of the town, and on the evening of the adjourn- ment above mentioned, or the next morning, I sug- gested to Mr. Samuel Merrill, the representative from Switzerland County, the name I proposed. He at once adopted it, and said he would support it. We together called on Governor Jennings, who had been a witness of the amusing proceedings the EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 25 day previous, and told him what conclusion we had come to, and asked him what he thought of the name. He gave us to understand that he favored it, and that he would not hesitate to so express him- self. When the House met and went into com- mittee on the bill, I moved to fill the blank with Indianapolis. The name created quite a laugh. Mr. Merrill, however, seconded the motion. We dis- cussed the matter fully, gave our reasons in sup- port of the proposition, the members conversed with each other informally in regard to it, and the name gradually commended itself to the committee, and was adopted. The principal reason in favor of adopt- ing the name proposed— to wit, that the Greek ter- mination would indicate to all the world the locality of the town — was, I am sure, the reason that over- came the opposition to the name. The town was finally named Indianapolis with but little if any op- position." One may well feel puzzled to understand the force exerted by the argument that " the Greek termination of the name would indicate the locality of the town." The termination means " city," and that is all. The other half of the name would in- dicate locality though, and the combination would fairly enough suggest a State capital, so that its apt- ness is evident, whether the argument that secured it was sound or not. By the same act of approval and naming the new capital the Legislature appointed Christopher Harri- son (no relative of the general's), James Jones, and Samuel P. Booker commissioners to lay off the town. They were directed to meet on the site on the first Monday of April, 1821, to perform that duty, and make plats or maps of the town, one for the Secretary of State and one for the State agent. They were also to advertise and hold a sale of the lots as soon as practicable, reserving the alternate lots. The pro- ceeds of the sales were to be used in erecting the buildings required by the government. Harrison was the only one of the commissioners who attempted to perform his duties. He was a Mary lander by birth, a very eccentric man, of excellent education and cul- tivated tastes, who came to Southern Indiana early in the century, and some years after the completion of his work as commissioner returned to Maryland, and lived to a ripe old age. It is said on good au- thority that he was engaged to be married to Miss Elizabeth Patterson, a noted belle of Baltimore, but the attentions of Prince Jerome Bonaparte over- powered her scruples and her faith, and she married the brother of the great Corsican, only to find herself repudiated by him and excluded from the ambition that had betrayed her. Mr. Harrison came to Jeffer- son County about 1804, and lived there the life of a hermit with his dogs and books for several years, then removed to Salem, Washington Co., and there his rare attainments — rare in the backwoods at least — and his abilities forced him into public life, and finally into the position of founder of the city of Indianapolis. He came to the little yearling village at the time appointed, and selected as surveyors Alex- ander Ralston and Eliaa P. Fordham, with Benjamin I. Blythe as clerk of the Board of Commis.sioners. Mr. Blythe lived to an advanced age in the city, and was one of the earliest of the enterprising men who laid the foundations of the city's pork-packing prosperity. Of Mr. Fordham little appears to have been known at the time, and nothing can be learned now. Ralston was a Scotchman, a man of marked ability and rare attainments as well as high character. When quite young he had been employed in assist- ing the laying out of Washington City, and may have got then the preference for wide streets and oblique avenues which he exhibited so signally and benefi- cially here. He became associated with Burr's expe- dition, presumably in ignorance of its real character, as most of the conspirator's following were, came West in connection with it, and remained when it failed. He remained in Indianapolis after completing his work, and in 1825 was appointed by the Legislature to survey White River and make an estimate of the expense of removing the drifts and snags and other obstructions to navigation, and reported the following winter. He built a brick residence on West Mary- land Street, a half-square west of Tennessee, and lived there till his death, early in 1827. He was buried in the " Old Cemetery," and his grave was long un- known. A few years ago, however, some old resi- dents made a close examination and found it, or were confident they had. 26 HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY. The Indiana Journal of Jan. 9, 1827, contained an obituary notice of him, which from his prom- inence in the settlement may be reproduced here. He died on the 5th, at the age of fifty-six. " Mr. Ralston was a native of Scotland, but emigrated early in life to America. He lived many years at the city of Washington, then at Louisville, Ky., afterwards near Salem, in this State, and for the last five years in this place. His earliest and latest occu- pation in the United States was surveying, in which he was long employed by the government at Wash- ington, and his removal to this place was occasioned by his appointment to make the original survey of it. During the intervening period merchandise and agri- culture engaged his attention. In the latter part of his life he was our county surveyor, and his leisure time was employed in attending to a neat garden, in which various useful and ornamental plants, fruit, etc., were carefully cultivated. Mr. Ralston was successful in his profession, honest in his dealings, gentlemanly in his deportment, a liberal and hospitable citizen, and a sincere and ardent friend. He had experienced much both of the pleasures and pains incident to human life. The respect and esteem of the generous and good were always awarded to him, and he found constant satisfaction in conferring favors, not only on his own species, but even on the humblest of the brute creation ; he would not willingly set foot upon a worm. But his unsuspecting nature made him liable to imposition ; his sanguine expectations were often disappointed. His independent spirit some- times provoked opposition, and his extreme sensi- bility was frequently put to the severest trials. Though he stood alone among us in respect to family, his loss will be long lamented." Mr. Now- land adds that the old bachelor's house " was kep