Jefferson County Indiana

Jefferson County's Battles

2011-08-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

In terms of what is generally accepted about history, this title makes no sense. There weren't any battles in Jefferson County, unless you want to count the Pigeon Roost Massacre. And although that took place in Jefferson County as it existed at the time, its locale is modern Scott County. And while Morgan's raiders liberated a lot of hams at Dupont, there were no battles in the Jefferson County segment of that incursion.

But there are indications that there were at least two battles in the county, perhaps three. So given the lack of records for the area before 1810, why not more?

The first battle was Creek versus Shawnee, a confrontation that took place George Ash, always recounted as Indian George, returned to European civilization in Kentucky about 1796 and before he relocated to the area between Lamb, Ind., in Switzerland County, and the border with Milton Township, Jefferson County.

There are several versions of the story of Ash, captured as a boy in Nelson County, Ky., in 1780, and raised among the Shawnee in Ohio. Most dismiss his active involvement with the Indians in ambushing settlers or fighting against them. The least sanitized version was published in the Madison Progress [which I have not found] and reprinted in the Vevay Reveille of March 24 and 31, 1874. In it, Ash recounts two seasons of his dressing in European garb and standing on the northern Ohio shore pretending to be in distress in order to lure passing boats to their occupants' doom. They were successful in at least one of these in which Ash specifies that the Indians hid their canoes on the Indian-Kentucky near "Uncle Dick Bundren's [a spelling pronunciation of Bondurant] farm, which is probably around the location of modern Brooksburg Cemetery.

The exact location of the confrontation is not clear nor its example time. It was in September and it occurred the year after the camp out near the Bondurant farm. Ash said that the Shawnee had returned from a raid in Nelson County, his former home, near where Bethlehem, Ind., is located. They "built a temporary craft in the low grounds,north of where the city of Madisonnow stands ... " camped there for some time with no luck in their attempts to prey on boats and then moved upstream to a location opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River. This all occurred sometime before the signing of the Greenville Treaty in 1795 since most Indian fighting ceased at that point.

Whenever this occurred, the Shawnee had been fighting with the Creek sometime the year before. During their stay in this episode, they received word of a Creek troop advancing. They moved upriver and decided to form a line between the hill and the river bank. Unfortunately, the exact location of the original camp or the amount distance they moved upriver is not given. However, it would seem that if they moved up river into Switzerland County, the bottoms grow wide enough that covering the ground from hill to river would have taken many more men.

The battle lasted about three hours into the afternoon when the Shawnee attacked and drove the Creeks in a running fight for two or three miles. Unfortunately, Ash did not state the direction. He did report the Creek lost 20 braves and the Shawnee about 10 men out of 110 with 32 more wounded and six of those died later. Ambushes involving the Creeks continue through the next winter and the Shawnee stayed on the north side of the Ohio to avoid a fight.

There is less clear evidence for a battle by George Rogers Clark's troops that may have occurred in Milton Township. The possibility is implicit in the original name of Locust Creek - Battle Creek - which is just downstream from the mouth of the Little Kentucky River. Gen. Charles Scott's 791 mounted troops crossed at the mouth of the Kentucky River or at Battle Creek in 1791, depending on which contemporary account you believe.

There's no indication his troops fought anyone in southeastern Indiana as did they in the north. What we do know is the name Battle Creek is on a 1793 map that covers the area. What is not certain is why the creek bears that name but it is clearly labeled on Barker's 1793 map, along with the equally clearly labeled Indian-Kentuck.

One report has Clark fighting a battle on the Indiana side opposite Battle Creek about 1793, but I have not been able to substantiate that. It is also not clear if it were the same or a different battle from one that occurred in 1779 or 1780 that was described by Henry Wilson, who served in one of Clark's units.

Wilson said that McGary and Ellison's companies cross the Ohio at the mouth of the Kentucky River and about for or five miles, came upon a large Indian Camp on the bank of the river. Nine men in McGary's company were killed or wounded in the ensuing skirmish. He noted that "this little check put a stop to hunting on the shore."

Unfortunately, nothing in Wilson's account suggests whether troops had gone upriver, deeper into Switzerland County, or down river into Jefferson, before the fighting broke out.

Disciples Vs. Baptists in Jefferson County

2010-05-13T17:36:00.000-07:00

When the Disciples of Christ burst upon the scene in the Midwest in the early 1800s, churches divide and old friends turned against each other. In fact, this seems hardly an overstatement giving some of the evidence that emerges about this doctrinal battle.

The friction was shown in the attitudes of the Coffee Creek Baptist church in Jennings County, not far from the Jefferson County border. On the First day of Saturday December 1835, the church minutes show: “On motion is it decided by this church that John B. New and all that hold with him shall not be permitted to preach in our meetinghouse.” And the next action it took was to approve purchase of a lock for the meetinghouse.

New had been a Baptist minister. But he was one of the many who turned to the Christians, who were variously known as Campbellites, after their founder Alexander Campbell, Christian Baptist and Reformers, related to the Reformed Church, which is how the denomination thought of itself as reforming a religion that had strayed from the rules of the Bible.

New arrived in Madison in 1815 and over the next two to three years, he was clerk for the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church on the Madison Hilltop, the first church (counting it as a successor of the Crooked Creek Baptist Church), founded in Jefferson County.

After attending some of the meetings in Kentucky, he returned to Mt. Pleasant filled with the message and decided to become a minister in 1818. That same year he married and was also on a committee to rewrite Mt. Pleasant’s rules. In the words of an author committed to the truth of the Christian message, New convinced the committee that the only rules it needed were those of the New Testament. The biographical sketch in the book Biographical Sketches of the Pioneer Preaches of Indiana also makes it clear that the Christians saw themselves as in revolt against the Calvinist doctrine of predestination.

The lock at Coffee Creek was just one evidence of conflict. Among the members of the Church of Christ, organized by New and Carey Smith in Madison in 1832, was another elder, Jesse Mavity, who had taught school in the basement of the Masonic Hall along with his brother Henry. “Prior to the organization of the church, who had preached with great acceptance for the several denominations of the city, all of whom were liberal patrons of his school,” But because of Mavity affiliated with the Christians, when he changed his school to a high school, the subscribers withdrew. This account makes it sounds as if the Mavitys were set up for failure by those who urged the change in schools; another that the school was simply abandoned by opponents the new denomination.

Churches changed affiliations. The first Baptist Church in Indiana, the Silver Creek Baptist Church in Clark County, joined the Christians. Two New Light Churches (a dissident form of Presbyterianism), a church named Liberty near Kent and another another Liberty Church at Mud Lick (later called Bellview) became Christian bodies in the 1830s.

But one of the bitterest fights took place in Milton Township, where the newly founded Milton Church found itself subject to the divisive forces. It may not have been more bitter than elsewhere; but three accounts show that it must have been a heated discussion.

All of the accounts have some errors and they gloss over some of the pertinent points, partly because two were written from the viewpoint of the Christians and the other because it was a local history, whose main purpose wasn’t defining religious movements.

The Milton Baptist Church was founded in 1829 in Milton Township about two miles east of modern Manville. It was the first church that organized in and met in Milton Township.
It must have been subject to tension from the beginning for a History of Milton Township written sometime before 1908, probably by William Ryker, then president of the Jefferson County Historical Society, refers to the Manville Christian as growing out of a Manville Baptist Church. No such body every existed—it clearly grew out of Milton.

This account says the church had two ministers, Benjamin Levitt and Joseph Hankins, who were divided on practice, one for open communion, one for closed communion. Then Jacob Short, who had been one of the founders of the Indian-Kentuck Baptist Church, included Beverly Vawter to speak. Son of Baptist minister Philemon Vawter and nephew of Baptist minister Jesse Vawter, Beverly had gone over to the reformers and was a major force in Jefferson and Switzerland County. Hankins, who was the minister at Milton Baptist Church in the early 1830s gets no more mention in his role in the events. But Levitt was an important player.

A biographical sketch of Beverly Vawter, in the same volume that profiled New, said that in the summer of 1830 “he was invited to attend the monthly meeting of a Separate Baptist church near the forks of Indian Kentucky. Their preacher and elder was a man by the name of Levitt, who was bitterly opposed to what he was pleased to denominate Campbellism.”

After Vawter preached and four members confessed and were to be baptized, Levitt was requested to attend their immersion and refused with "No, sir, they are your converts—I will have nothing to do with them." At the next church meeting, it was clear Vawter had won. (The formality of the quotes attributed to Levitt sound like they were constructed in later years, fairly typical for writings of the era.)

The story concludes with “This was the origin of the Church of Christ, now* known as Milton
Church, which still yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness under the pastoral care of Charles Lanham.” This time, the error in church names goes the other way. Because Lanham was known to be a minister at Manville Christian Church, and given the location at the forks of the Indian-Kentuck, the new body was clearly Manville.

Important points are lost here. Levitt, a native of Rhode Island, represented a more liberal Baptist view in which the ministers were sometimes affiliated with the Free Will Baptists, sometimes with the Separate Baptists. The Free Wills formed several congregations in Ripley and Switzerland County, but none in Jefferson County (unless the Milton Church was temporarily a free will). The Separate Baptists had only the church at Center Grove in Shelby Township, which became the regular Hicks Baptist Church in 1894, while there were more in Switzerland and Ripley Counties. Both bodies were non-Calvinist and most congregations were decidedly anti-slavery. There may have been a regional split—a more educated Northeasterner against the home grown ministers. It’s likely there was a whole mix of issues.

In any event, important members of the Milton Church show up in records of the Manville church from its founding. John Lanham and William Yates, who were messengers from the Milton Church to the Coffee Creek Baptist Association in 1829, were members No 2. And No. 4 respectively on the Manville membership list and Jacob Short was No. 21. There are no dates on this list before member No. 36, but it’s possible these were all charter members. And they brought their families within them. The final word on the Hankins role was that they stayed with Milton. Joseph Hankins died in 1836 and the church disbanded, but it reformed with his children playing a major role.

The third account, again from the Christian side, was a letter written on April 7, 1834 and printed in the Christian Evangelist. Its language is pious, bordering on haughtiness.

Not naming the church, but noting its location on the Indian-Kentuck Creek, the writer reported, “We esteem the word of God as living and effective and since we got rid of the Babylonians, thirteen of fourteen have been added to our number. Seven of the old folks remain obdurate, two of them were elders and one a Rabbi.”

A Mississippi Fight Over Free Jefferson County Blacks

2010-03-30T10:18:00.000-07:00

At the first glance, it's easy to miss that there was anything unusual about James Brown, a 64-year old man who was born in South Carolina and whose household was shown in Lancaster Township, Jefferson County, in the 1850 census as enumerated on October 25 that year. But a closer look hints that there was something very different.

The census shows Brown, indicated as white since no race was listed, with five other individuals in the household, all mulattoes. They were Harriet Brown, age 34, Francis Brown, age 18, Louisa Brown, age 11, Jerome B. Brown, age 7, and Theresa V. Brown, age 2, all born in Mississippi. The 1850 census did not record relationships so it could not show that Harriet was Brown's slave and mother of the four younger Browns who were also James' children, and under the laws of Mississippi were his slaves when they were born.

These details emerge via a court case, Shaw vs. Brown, decided by the Mississippi High Court of Errors and Appeals in April 1858, which shows that this family became the subject of a court fight pitting James' brother John and some nieces and nephews against their mulatto cousins as the former tried to claim the children who remained slaves when James died. For reasons not stated, the case revolved around Francis and Jerome only, with the two daughters not mentioned—perhaps they lacked the market value of healthy young male slaves, or they were not listed by name in the will.

The court's decision spanned about 34,000 words, but taking out the legal arguments, the facts were that James took the children to Indiana to receive an education and that he also intended to set them free, which he did via a will dated Oct. 9, 1853, and then died in 1856. Their status was also the subject of freedom papers filed for Francis and Jerome in Jefferson County and recorded in a mortgage book, unfortunately part of the records awaiting possible restoration following the 2009 courthouse fire.

The family's stay in Jefferson County was brief. Brown moved to Greene County, Indiana, in 1855, and died there. Harriett and the three youngest children were shown in Fairplay in Greene County, in the 1860 census. Francis, apparently married, headed his own household there. However, the reasons for their presence in Lancaster was very important.

Although it's not spelled out in the court papers concerning where Brown intended to obtain the education for his children, it seems obvious he came to Lancaster Township so they could attend the Eleutherian College. I do not know if college recorded their enrollment, but the 1850 census shows Brown and his family two households before John Craven, that institution's founder.

A variety of legal arguments went into the effort by Brown's relatives to re-enslave his children. They argued he couldn't legally take them out of state to free them and also cited some visits in which the older children visited Mississippi as a return to residency in the state. And the plaintiffs cited the 1850 constitution of Indiana, which barred the entry of free blacks into Indiana after 1852, another issue in their claim that the will should have been voided. They wanted Brown declared intestate, in which case the children could be sold and proceeds distributed to the other heirs.

They disputed facts that James claimed paternity of the children, some witnesses claiming he never said he intended to free them, while the plaintiff claimed he took Francis and Jerome to Cincinnati in 1849, intending to free them, and executing an emancipation deed, but then returning with them to Amite County, Miss. to live and that they spoke of that state as their legal residence. The plaintiff also claimed James Brown said he was going to sell the children, while at the same time alleging he fraudulently took them North to free them with the intention of returning to the South.

Richard Shaw, one of the executors, said Brown didn't make it to Cincinnati because of low water in 1849, but did reach that city and freed them and their mother on May 11, 1850 and that they settled in Indiana and lived in the state from that time on.

The list of witnesses included James' Brown, John Brown, and John's son, William, and E.A. Haygood, a son of a deceased sister of James, along with Joseph Richardson, one of James' Brown's plantation overseers, whose testimony was designed to show James didn't intend to free his children and that they had maintained their Mississippi residence. Statements were made on both sides by what appear to have friends and neighbors, including some that said the children called Brown "father" and he treated them as such.

Strong testimony in favor of the Browns' having become Hoosiers came from nine Jefferson County residents, including James Nelson, who was active in the Underground Railroad. All lived in the Lancaster area. While another executor, Lemuel Hanks had resigned his position, Richard Shaw took an active and sympathetic role and had warned Francis Brown not to return to Mississippi. Unfortunately, the group didn’t spell out the educational plans. However, Nelson had served as an officer of the Eleutherian College.

The court held it didn't matter in Mississippi what the Indiana law said--the Browns had been allowed to live there and it was Indiana’s business if it didn’t enforce its own laws. It also found there was nothing illegal in Brown's taking the children to Indiana for an education, which, as slaves, they could not get in Mississippi.

The Mississippi court, however, appears to have made a major legal blunder. It said that the Brown children's residence in the Hoosier state because during that time, "the relation of master and slave was of necessity dissolved." However, my reading of the Dred Scott decision, issued in 1857 by the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that moving to a free state did not remove slaves from their position, which made the decision highly unpopular in the north. While the court's statement was in error, the fact that Brown executed deeds to free his children, made it a moot point. (As a non-lawyer, I believe Dred Scott meant Brown had to utilize a legal document to free the children, not simply move them north).

Since a slaveowner could not utilize a will to devise property to a slave, the court's pivotal question was whether Francis and Jerome were free blacks when the will was made, largely proved by the testimony of an Ohio notary who witnessed the emancipation deeds. Whatever the judge's personal opinions, they rejected a lower court ruling which they said was partly based on prejudice against Negroes, not only the law.

After all the arguments, the court ruled the Browns were free, reversing the lower court.

Six Feet Under: A Brief Review of Cemetery Histories

2010-02-14T21:28:00.001-08:00

Cemeteries have histories. And as a meeting place of East, Mid-Atlantic and South, Jefferson County was a mixed of the different kinds of cemeteries, which developed in different ways.

The rural South tended heavily to family cemeteries in the early years, as did much of Jefferson County with its strong southern contingent. The more urbanized East had more town cemeteries, and perhaps because early Madison's leadership included a number of New Yorkers, the town had a cemetery at the site of John Paul Park, which was removed to Fairmount late in the 1800s. Meanwhile, Madison founded Springdale Cemetery, a municipal cemetery, the only one of its kind if Jefferson County, but by far the largest.

Church cemeteries were often connected to the family cemeteries, particularly in the Indian-Kentuck basin that drains must the eastern section where several family burying grounds became the official church graveyards. Why is not known, but perhaps there were simply fewer good locations because of the hilly landscape.

The Milton Baptist Church, which existed from 1829 through 1836, and then from 1840 through 1883, was deeded its church cemetery in 1871 by Aaron and Sarah Hankins and it had previously been the Hankins family cemetery.

The origins of other church cemeteries are not so clear. But those with burials before the churches' founding include the cemetery of the former St. Anthony's Catholic Church at China, where the earliest burial, that of James Hamilton in 1847, preceded the church's founding. The Hamiltons were likely not Catholic and local families had an oral traditional about non-Catholic burials there.

Similarly, although the former Olive Branch Methodist Church in Madison Township was founded in its first burial was for Susan Hamilton, wife of James (the same James?), who died in 1820.

At Canaan, the burial of a Littlejohn came before the organization of the defunct Canaan Methodist church in 1834. The same is true for the Brooksburg Cemetery where are marked graves for 15 Bondurants who died before the founding of the Methodist Church there in 1891. Likewise, at Manville, where the church's founding preceded the establishment of the cemetery, several members of the Manville family were buried whose names appear nowhere on the church membership record.

The cemetery of Ryker's Ridge Baptist Church presents a more confusing case. There were at least three burials there (one Hillis, one Van Cleave, one Ryker), before a non-denominational church reportedly was founded in 1818, although there is no proof the cemetery was associated with that body. And while the Baptist Church was founded in 1840, there are other marked graves, 13 Hillis stones and 4 Ryker stones (not including the unmarked grave of John Ryker), which have dates for those who died before 1840. Complicating this is the fact there was a Presbyterian Church at Ryker's Ridge, possibly from the early 1820s through the mid 1830s. Both Ryker and Hillis families were largely Presbyterian at this point.

In the western part of the county what is now called the Wiggam Cemetery in Graham Township was originally known as Deputy's graveyard. That was the name it had when John and Elizabeth Wiggam deeded it to the trustees of the United Methodist Church on May 4, 1881. It's the only such transfer of a private graveyard to a church I have yet found in the western part of the county.

Community cemeteries also started early in the county's history. The cemetery now associated with the Hebron Baptist Church was founded as a private burying ground with the earliest burial in 1814 or 1815. It had its own trustees as late as 1830 and the land was later deed to the church, which was founded in 1828.

Also in Monroe Township was the Craig Cemetery, whose first known burial was in 1819. Then on Feb. 26, 1831, William, and his wife Mary Richie, and William Wallace, and his wife Sarah, deed land to the trustees of the burying ground. It was moved to Madison Township with the formation the former Jefferson Proving Ground in 1941.

The only community cemetery in Milton Township, the Joyce Cemetery, has obscure origins. Its first burials are from two families, the McKays and Brooks, and it may have taken shape because the nearby Home Methodist Church (ca. 1830-ca. 1970), had a location that regularly flooded. Certainly, the Brooks were largely Methodist. The earliest known burial was of Ann, wife of Humphrey Brooks, who died in 1832 and the second was for Nancy Brooks Neal, their daughter. The cemetery reportedly took its name from Pliny Joyce who had owned the land.

There are several cemeteries in the county that belong to vanished churches, and whose prior associations are not widely recognized. The Carmel and Old Bethel Cemeteries in Hanover Township are fairly well known as having been burying grounds for two extinct Presbyterian Churches.

Lesser known affiliations include the Valley Cemetery in Graham Township had been the graveyard for the Valley Methodist Church, but was transferred to a cemetery association. The McKay-Stites Cemetery in Smyrna Township may have been associated with the Upper Big Creek Presbyterian Church, later called the Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church and which faded into history after it moved to Dupont.

Interestingly, one trend in cemetery formation passed by Jefferson County, and that was the founding of burial grounds by fraternal groups. In Kentuckiana area, this meant primarily the Masons and the International Order of Odd Fellows.

Vevay's Cemetery was founded by the IOOF as were the Bedford and Carrollton, Ky., burying grounds and cemeteries in New Liberty and Owenton in Owen County. Ghent in Carroll County and Dallasburg and Monterey, Ky., in Owen County, have Masonic cemeteries.

There are probably two factors here. The fraternal cemeteries functioned essentially as town cemeteries and that role was already occupied by Springdale in Madison. Also, the other areas lacked Madison's Catholic population, which utilized St. Joseph's and St. Patrick's.

Jefferson County's Many Presbyterian Churches

2009-11-13T18:47:00.001-08:00

Jefferson County was no different in the rest of the country in being affected by differences that arose in denominations. And in the case of the Presbyterians, it followed the same paths that saw the denomination split into the Old Schools and New School congregations during the 1830s.

But because of its high proportion of Scottish immigrants and Scotch-Irish and Dutch families that moved into the county before 1830, it ended up with an unusually large number of Presbyterians congregations that were divided four ways from the 1830s through the end of the Civil War.

The Scots themselves had two synods that reflected the mixture of Scottish politics and religion and were distinct from the Presbyterian Church USA before and often its split into the New School and Old School factions. And while these churches shared resources in the early days of settlement in the county that became less of a habit later.

The first Presbyterian congregation in the county, the former Carmel Church, was founded in what is now Hanover Township in 1812 by Scottish immigrants who left Kentucky because of their distaste for slavery. But in 1820, a group withdrew and formed the Bethel Presbyterian Church just west of Hanover.

While this split has been pictured as stemming from different opinions about a Scottish minister, it really reflected the division between groups more commonly known as Seceders and Covenanters, terms that arose in Scotland in the 1700s. Seceders gave up on reforming the established Presbyterian Church in Scotland and withdrew from the denomination. The term Covenanter was more politically loaded since they essentially became viewed as traitors in the eyes of the English, although that denotation had worn off before reaching America.. The divisions of the two were crystallized with the formation of the Associate Presbyterian Church (Seceders) and the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (Covenanters)

This made a world of difference for Carmel was an Associate church and Bethel, an Associate Reformed. And it became increasingly clear the divisions drained the Presbyterian movement. The Associate bodies in Jefferson County included Madison and Big Creek. The Associate Reformed churches were Bethel and Caledonia, on the Jefferson-Switzerland County border, whose heavily Scottish membership put the word “Covenanters” of the title page of the church record book in 1854 after the old records were destroyed by fire. The affiliation of the short-lived Ryker’s Ridge Church (ca. 1822-ca. 1836) is not known as there was preaching by both Carmel’s ministers and those from Madison’s “regular” Presbyterian body.

The Old School/New School divisions are equally obscure to most today. There were some political divisions, with the New School a little more anti-slavery and the Old School a bit less. Some authorities place more weight on differences over control of the regular Presbyterian Church between the Scottish element, Old School, and those who followed New England leaders, the New School.

Madison’s Presbyterian Church, the earliest in town, split into the Old School First Presbyterian and New School Second in 1833, with the second often bigger. The Lancaster Presbyterian Church in what was to become Monroe Township, split when Old School members pulled out in 1838. The New Schoolers took up the name Monroe Presbyterian Church and the Old School took the name Lancaster. The Smyrna Church split in the 1830s with the New Church becoming the short-lived Mizpah Presbyterian Church.

Among other Presbyterian bodies, Jefferson Church in Shelby Township was Old School as was one Dupont Presbyterian Church, the Popular Ridge church in Graham Township, Hanover Presbyterian, the Pleasant Township church just inside Switzerland County. Among the new school churches were Sharon Hill, North Madison, Bryantsburg and Central (and China). Most of these were reabsorbed with only Sharon Hill lasting into the second half of the 1900s.

And with the loss of population in that century, and successful missionary work by the Baptists, most of the county Presbyterian churches disappeared or dwindled.

Speaking Southern Hoosier: Names

2009-08-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

When Edward Eggleston wrote "The Hoosier Schoolmaster," he had one character use the word "juberous". Eggleston footnoted the sentence stating that he wasn't certain, but he though the word meant "dubious." I remember when I was 14 and my father was driving us to church he blurted out "I was might juberous about that" in exactly the sense of dubious. Years later, my mother commented "Of course, I've heard it used that way."

And while much of the country terminology, some of it leftover from the Hoosier accent before the Kentucky accent crept north, is gone or dying, it's useful for genealogists, historians and the just curious as to how things were or are pronounced differently.

Other pronunciations that lingered in my family involved names. It took years before I found out that the "Old Doc Mathis place" near China had belonged to a Dr. Mathews. It's just that the name was pronounced Mathis into the late 1900s and it's a pronunciation that bedeviled census takers and later family historians who might not have realized that Mathis and Mathews were the originally the same name.

Then there is the name Banta, a name from the Frisian area of Holland and one of the families that was part of what was called the Low Dutch, such as the Rykers and Demarees. In my father's hands, it was "Bahn-tee" with the "a" pronounced like the "o" in the word bond and the second "a" converted to a "y" or "i" sound. And that Banty or Bonty spelling pops up in census records in the 1800s.

Likewise, the Stewart family name was rendered Steward by my parents. It took me years to realize the Steward bridge over the East Prong of the Indian Kentuck (where U.S. 62 crosses the creek) was spelled Stewart. In fact, that "d" ending harkens back to the original family occupation, when they were Sty-wards (pigkeepers) for Scottish royalty. And locally, Buchanan is not Byoo-kanan, but Buh kanan, a pronunciation that caused the name to be spelled Buckhanan or the like in many records.

Demaree got a different treatment. Instead of Dem-a-ree, my father pronounced it Dumb-a-ree. (No offense please) And that was probably a longstanding pronunciation as the 1840 census spells the name as Dumaree. While the Buchanan pronunciation is still common, the Dumb-a-ree is not. Also disappearing is Sibben-tal for Siebenthal, which is closer to the original German, but more often now, the last syllable has "thal" like the sound in think.

Among other names whose spelling reflected spoken spounds included Bondurant, rendered Bundren or Bundrent, Vernon, often written as Varnon (or worse) and Lewellyn, which often turned out as Lewallen. I can't say that I heard my family use these, but clearly they were not rare versions.

Church Non History

2009-07-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

When I commented that a newspaper supplement in the Madison Courier about the bicentennial was very accurate and one clunker I have found was a statement that the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church on Madison's hilltop was the parent to Madison's First Baptist Church.

"That's what the church says," was the response I got from a friend. It was that same week that I realized how often in writing church histories, writers neglect to read the church's own minutes.

For example, in the late 1900s, the claim began being made that the Indian-Kentuck Baptist Church was founded in 1812. The difference isn't terribly important, except that a statement written in the minutes said it was founded in 1814 (the minutes up to 1817 are missing). This was probably the same church history published by the Madison Association in 1860 and written by the church's long-time minister, Robert Stevenson.

Of course, written history can lead people astray. A History of Milton Township that was published around 1910 for the Jefferson County Historical Society and probably written by the group's president, William E. Ryker, said the Manville Christian Church grew out of the Manville Baptist Church.

The problem is that there is no record of a Manville Baptist Church. And all evidence points to Manville's growing out of the Milton Baptist Church which sat on the East Prong of the Indian-Kentuck Creek and operated 1829-1836 and 1840 until about 1880.

Annual minutes of meetings of the Coffee Creek Baptist Association, which covered Jefferson County during the second half of the 1820s, show no Manville Baptist Church. What they do show is that John Lanham and William Yates were messengers from Milton Baptist to the Coffee Creek Association meeting of Sept. 5, 1929, just after that church formed.

However, Manville Christian Church records show John Lanham was member No. 2 and William Yates member No. 4. Although this part of the list is undated, it appears members were listed as they joined and that the list dates to Manville's founding in 1830 and these two had jumped ship within a year of Milton's founding.

Back to the Madison Church. While it didn't directly originate in Mt. Pleasant, the real story is more remarkable.

Mount Pleasant voted to disband in April 1831 in order to promote the formation of a Baptist church in Madison and most members joined the newly formed Madison Baptist Church, which is clear from a biographical sketch of Mt. Pleasant's minister, Jesse Vawter.

But Madison had formed a building committee in June 1829 and on December 18 that year, a committee was organized to form a church. The charter members, and these dates, were in a sketch published in the 1869 minutes of the Madison Baptist Association.

And, oh yes, they are in the minutes of the Madison Baptist Church.

Madison and the International Pork Business

2009-06-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

When Madison packed pork in a big way, it wasn't packing just for the Ohio River Valley or even the Midwest. It was part of an international trade.

From the earliest days, Midwestern farmers had connections overseas because the only viable route for their products was the Ohio River, taking goods to New Orleans and sometimes beyond. In the footnotes of the book issued as the "History of Switzerland County", Perret Dufour reported how James Bolens went to New Orleans about 1822 and couldn't get a price he could accept and so took his pork cargo to Havana. Dufour also noted how Bolens spotted a threatening looking man in New Orleans, who he also spotted in the crowd in Cuba, suggesting there was a good bit of traffic between those cities.

An author named P.L. Simmons spelled out many of the practices of slaughtering and the market for pork products in an article entitled, "The Commercial Products of the Hog," which was published in the Journal of Agriculture in an issue dated July 1855-March 1857. He reported 38,164 barrels of pork were imported at Liverpool during the year ended Oct. 31, 1853, with 10,500 barrels originating in Canada and the United States. He noted that businesses that catered to the New York market did their slaughtering principally from October 1 to December 1 each year to avoid icing of waterways. Madison's season generally fit into this period.

Two court actions show how the shipping business worked. In 1850, there was an shipment that gave rise to a law suit (Josiah Lawrence vs. White and Stevens) in the U.S. Circuit Court regarding "A contract to deliver pork at Madison, in the State of Indiana, well put up, for the English market …" The pork was shipped to New Orleans and then to Baltimore, where it was received spoiled. The contract called for the delivery of 319 boxes of long middles of pork with the Cumberland cut, meaning part of the bone was left in. Each box contained seven or eight middles. The contract had called for 500 boxed, but that was reduced. That meant the original plan involved delivery of middles from more than 3,500 hogs. The defendants (presumably David White and Stephen Stevens) won their case, largely because the defendant found the pork in good order at Madison.

Even after its boom had passed, Madison was still involved in the international trade. Another Madison packer, Fitch & Son, squared off against City of Madison who assessed for pork as personal property in 1860 and 1861. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled against Madison. Noting many residents engaged in businesses shipping goods to New Orleans and to foreign markets it commented that the pork business could not be taxed.

"Filch & Son, during all that time, had no money or other personal property except their pork, all of which was for export, and was then in process of being exported to a foreign market." Those were key words for the court noted the Madison city charter, as amended in 1849, exempted produce held for export or in transit and found that the pork fit that definition.

Jefferson County's Records

2009-05-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

This article is designed to provide an overview to the records in the Jefferson County courthouse, and what can be lost if they cannot be salvaged following this month's fire.

After 40 years of studying them, I believe I know more about their contents than anyone as there are many types of records that I have not seen anyone else use, although I do not profess to be an expert on every record.

Nevertheless, wills, probate records, warranty deeds and marriage returns for the 1800s have been microfilmed and copies are available for viewing at several places, including the Madison-Jefferson County library. Modern deeds are being filmed, instead of being placed into books, as a matter of day-to-day operation by the recorder's office. I cannot testify as to whether all wills, probate records and marriages have been filmed from 1900 on.

There are many records that I do not believe have been microfilmed, including the following.

Auditor's Office: County Commissioners Records from 1817 on. The first book has been partly transcribed by Ruth Hoggatt and is available on www.myindianahome.net and there were two books, typed transcriptions of the first two books. These are indexed, but in a way that does not make them easy for family historians to use.

Auditor's Office: Tax Title Sales. These are the deeds that transfer land when an owner loses the property because of failure to pay taxes. If you lost track of your ancestor's land, it's possible it was for nonpayment of taxes and these are not included in the warranty deed books in the recorder's office.

Auditor's Office: Tax assessment records. There were few existing, 1827, 1828 1831 and 1833 for the whole county and 1829 for Madison Township alone. These have been placed on CD and are available through the Jefferson County Historical Society.

Auditor's Office: Land transfer records. Useful, but not critical. Organized by year and township.

Recorder's Office: Warranty deeds, as mentioned these have been microfilmed as have the deed indexes. They exist to the beginning of Jefferson County.

Recorder's Office: Sheriff's Deed Books. There are perhaps five of these and they cover loss of property via sheriff's sale. They are sometimes indexed in the warranty deed index books, but the deeds themselves are not in the regular books. Not microfilmed to my knowledge.

Recorder's Office: Entry books. These show original owners of tracts. The first set was abstracted by W.G. Ruesink and published by the Jefferson County Historical Society.

Recorder's Office: Mortgage records. Before about 1873, these include a lot of deed descriptions that simply reiterate what's in the deed book, but tie the sale to the loan. However, during this period mortgage books also record election of church and fraternal organization officers. They also include some freedom papers for blacks and some incorporation papers. They are hardly used and I don't they are microfilmed.

Recorder's Office: Miscellaneous Record Books. From about 1873 on, these include the church and fraternal organization elections, powers of attorney (often involve sale of a decedent's property and so valuable for family history research), lease and incorporations. Not microfilmed to my knowledge.

Recorder's Office: Apprenticeship book. There is only one of these to my knowledge. These can be very valuable for genealogist. I started transcribing it but didn't get far. It covers about the 1840s and 1850s--I only have referenced one of these in my family. These are not include in the Apprenticeship records abstracted in the 1900s by the John Paul Chapter DAR and have not been filmed

Recorder's Office: Articles of Incorporation. Record of incorporated companies from the second half of the 1800s. One book, not filmed.

Recorder's Office: Soldier's Discharge Record-Civil War soldiers. Ruth Hoggatt abstracted some of these, but not filmed to my knowledge.

Recorder's Office: Will Books. For whatever reason, perhaps four or five of these exist and are duplicates of what's in the circuit court clerk's office.

Recorder's Office:Gas and Oil leases. Not filmed

Circuit Court Clerk's office. Will, marriage return and marriage application books were in the office on the second floor. Other records were placed in the basement

Naomi Sexton published Book A of the wills in the Hoosier Journal of Ancestry. The DAR abstracted wills and two books were placed in the Madison library. I merged these two together and added probate records and estate settlements from deeds and suits. This is available at www.myindianahome.net.

Circuit Court Clerk's office. Guardianship Book. There was only one of these and I have not seen it in a long time. There was a report, I can't remember from who, that it was taken to Indianapolis, either the state library or archives. I know from records I used it included guardianships in the 1860s and 1870s.

Basement: Probate Order Books. Many of these were filmed. Wills from the 1830s and 1840s were filed in these not in books marked Will Books. This led many to believe wills from this period had not survived.

Basement: Complete Probate Order Books. A wealth of material if your ancestor's estate was recorded in these. Both these and the order books can include names of heirs. Not sure if the complete records were microfilmed.

Basement: Civil Order Books. The first Book, Volume A, is critical because at that time, the court not only handled probate and criminal and civil suits, but administered the county business. I am not sure it has been filmed. I believe Naomi Sexton transcribed at least part of this book and published it in the Hoosier Journal of Ancestry.

Basement: Complete Record Civil Order Book. Not filmed to my knowledge

Basement: Criminal Order Books. I forget how the spines are marked, but the criminal cases from the 1800s were in the basement and I don't think they were filmed.

Basement: Indexes to civil and probate books, after 1860. Early books each contained indexes, although since these were not bound to the main volume, some have disappeared.

Other abstracted records

Apprencticeship records. Abstracted by the John Paul DAR in the 1900s, they were transcribed by me and are available www.myindianahome.net. These appear to come from court books and do not include the volume in the recorder's office.

Naturalization records. Abstracted by the John Paul DAR in the 1900s, they were transcribed by me and are available www.myindianahome.net. These appear to come from court books

Michael Bright Corners Madison's bank stock

2009-03-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

The question is not whether Michael G. Bright, brother of powerful Senator Jesse G. Bright conspired to capture a lion’s share of stock at the branches of the Indiana State Bank. The question is whether financier James F.D. Lanier was in on the deal.

Bright did everything he could to control the sale of stock at Madison, and probably at Lawrenceburg as subscriptions to stock for the newly chartered bank, was supposed to be open to the public at the branches throughout the state. But while branches such as New Albany had shares sold to 40 or more persons, there were only a handful who bought stock at Madison and Lawrenceburg, and some others, where different businessmen grabbed the shares.

Technically, the Madison office was open from 9 a.m. through noon, as required by law. By in reality, the books closed after perhaps 15 minutes..

Bright acquired 1,200 of the 2,000 shares sold at Madison and 1,200 of 2,000 sold at Lawrenceburg. At Madison, the only successful purchasers were Jesse Bright’s son Richard J., Bright, Joseph Chapman, along John Marsh and J.B. Merriweather, the two subcommissioners were in charge of opening and closing the sales with 200 shares each. Chapman had been Michael’s law partner and Merriweather was later Chapman’s law partner.

If in our modern view this procedure smelled rotten, there were many people who thought so then, which resulted in state senate’s appointing an investigating committee, which took testimony in January and February 1857, to see if there was corruption in the process legislature’s approval of the bill granting the bank charter.

During his testimony, Bright was unapologetic for his actions. “I took myself—sixty thousand dollars. I meant to take stock enough to control the branch at Madison, if I could get it; and I know that other gentlemen intended to have the control of other branches; if they could obtain it.”

The committee tried to determine if any legislators had been illegally influenced in their passage of the bill that established the process. David Branham, who represented the area in the general assembly, testified that when he and John R. Cravens (one of Lanier’s sons-in-law), who had voted for the bank bill as a member of the state senate, met with the commissioners who were running the sale, they were informed that the subcommissioners at Madison “must be acceptable to M. G. Bright.” Finally, it was agreed to choose three subcommissioners and then let Bright pick from those. But Bright chose none of those recommended. Branham said Bright offered him the chance to buy stock at the opening, but he did not accept the offer.

Perhaps the most stinging testimony given by Branham came in the following exchange. “Question. Were, or were not the persons appointed sub-commissioners for the Madison branch, men of good character and standing at the time they were appointed. Answer. I decline answering.”

Bright was coy in denying there was undue influence on legislators prior to the passage of the bill as shown in the following testimony.

“Question. What do you know, if anything, about the friends of the bank being engaged in treating the members with oyster suppers, liquors, or otherwise, as a means of enlisting them in favor of the proposed bank charter?

Answer. I saw gentlemen, who, I know, were friendly disposed to the establishment of a bank, frequently eating oysters, and drinking liquors with members of the legislature; nor did I notice anything unusual in their doing so; nor did I regard it as a means of bribing them to vote for the bank.”

But he then said he knew nothing about any influence peddling.

Williamson Dunn, another one of Lanier’s sons-in-law, said he showed up at the office in Madison between 15 and 30 minutes after nine and it was empty. About 11 a.m., he encountered Marsh and Merriweather in the streets, who informed him the stock had all been sold. Dunn said he did not want any, but had friends who did.

The committee clearly was trying to determine the nature of the agreement between Michael Bright and Lanier, who immediately acquired Bright’s Madison shares for $14,000, which was generally described as a premium. Bright also apparently agreed to indemnify Lanier if the bank charter were thrown out and the sale nullified. The committee was clearly curious about the background of the quick sale.

Cravens, who visited the Madison office that day, said he probably would have purchased some stock, but when he demanded to see the books, he was informed they were sealed and on the way to Indianapolis.

“There was dissatisfaction at Madison, at the manner in which the books were opened and closed; though I cannot say that it was general,” he told the committee.

No one was able to point a finger directly Lanier and his company, Winslow & Lanier. But there was testimony the firm ended up with most of the stock of the Vincennes branch. And this was the only Wall Street firm mentioned in testimony.

First Family Non History

2009-02-28T18:06:00.000-08:00

With the Madison Bicentennial having some residents interested in documenting their descent from "First Families", it's always useful to to talk about what's history and what is serious error. And there's a lot of the latter, particularly in the information about Revolutionary War soldiers that was published in the 1930s.

One of the most glaring examples was the DAR's decision to admit Johnston/Johnson Brown of Jefferson and Switzerland County, who, it was claimed died in 1869 at 109 and was supposedly squirrel shooting at age 100. Researchers Al and Margaret Spiry demolished this--suggesting the old man was simply a good story teller. Johnson's father signed to given him permission to marry in 1795 in Nelson County, Ky., meaning he wasn't 21 years old. Do the math.

There are some other great tales. The DAR has Ralph Griffin as having died in July 1838 and buried at Springdale Cemetery. However, the Jefferson County Probate records show he died on Sept. 13, 1838 at the hosue of John Rogers (his grandson-in-law and executor) in Switzerland County. Since Rogers lived near Pleasant, and since Rogers and Ralph's wife Catherine and son David Griffin are buried at Brushy Fork Baptist Church, it's more likely his unmarked grave is there. By the way, the newspaper article about the burial said simply that a Mr. Griffin was buried in July 1838 (and Springdale was established in 1839.)

Then there was George Buchanan, whose family established Buchanan's Station, the blockhouse on the Jefferson County-Ripley County line, in 1813 according to the DAR, in 1812, according to a contemporary account.

George lived 1721-1818 according to the DAR's records; lived to be more than 100, according a newspaper article of the reminiscences of his grandson George W. in 1910, or died in 1815, according to a stone that now stands in the Buchanan family cemetery opposite the replica of the blockhouse. (It was probably moved there about 1985 from the McLaughlin Cemetery)

Many individuals have been admitted to the DAR and SAR based on the Pennsylvania Archives that show George Buchanan served from 1777 through 1781 in the Fourth Pennsylvania Continental line. The problem is, the record does not say which George Buchanan, and there are plenty to choose from in that place and time.

Now, U.S. records show that in 1786 Ezekiel and Elizabeth Buchanan, no relationship given, were paid for services of George Buchanan in the Fourth in Pennsylvania. They were paid with interest accruing from Jan. 1, 1781, which suggests the service ended on that date. The only conceivable reason someone other than the solider would be paid is that the solider, George Buchanan, had died by 1786.

Then there is Gerardus Ryker, who the DAR was Gerardus was an ensign in Col. Theunis Day's Bergen Co. Regiment, New Jersey Militia and was also an ensign in the Battalion of Major Mauritious Goetschius, New Jersey State Troops, serving extending from 1776 to 1781.
Ryker, however, moved to modern West Virginia in 1778, then to Kentucky in 1779 and was killed by Indians in that state in 1781. Based on my suggestion this didn't make since, Lynn Rogers of Dayton, Ohio, pursued this conflict and believes the Gerardus in New Jersey was a relative of the same name.

Our final problem is Samuel Welch. The DAR put a stone at his family plot on Scott's Ridge, Shelby Township, commemorating his Revolutionary service in Springer's Legion. Unfortuantely, Springer's unit served in the Indian Wars after the Revolution was over. In fact, the DAR started rejecting applicants because Samuel's initial pension application was rejected because of this fact. However, when he resubmitted his claim, it was approved. Either Samuel served as a teenager, or he was a complete liar--take your pick

Samuel's Revolutionary War pension application says that enlisted in Cumberland County, Pa., in September 1776 at age fourteen for two months as a drummer in Capt. John Campbell's company for two months. Unfortunately, his tombstone inscription said he died on Dec. 30, 1842 at the age of 75. His family Bible, published in 1811, also appears to say he was born in 1811. However, there is a tear and a smudge at the date (I own the Bible). Since this entry was clearly made decades after his birth, it suggests the date was entered incorrectly and someone tried to erase, tearing the paper. I buy the idea he was born in 1763 or so, regardless of what the Bible and tombstone say.

Then, there's the question of his wife's maiden name. The book, "Welch and Allied Families," which was printed in 1932, carried a transcribed letter from Knox Jamison, that had been written in 1924. Jamison wrote that he checked Samuel's Bible (the one I own and that was passed down along with his farm in my family), and gave Samuel's marriage to Jane Cunningham in 1797. The Welch Book author created a nice family tree for Jane that many descendants have elaborated on, listing her parents as a John Cunningam and Ann Sinclair, who lived in Massachusetts.

There are two probems with this. The first is that some Cunningham researchers show this couple's daughter Jane, who married a Samuel Welch, died in Massachusetts. The second problem is that's not what the Bible says, and the author who transcribed Jamison's letter simply got it wrong.

The Bible shows her name as Jane Cumming (it actually looks more like Cunning, but I think that's an issue of handwriting.) There's another family Bible, one that Samuel reportedly carried with him as a soldier, that shows her name as Cummins or Cummings (the last letters are blurry.)

And this are merely lines I have investigated well. Imagine the possibilities!

China, Indiana, as a Center of Missionary Activity

2009-02-02T10:13:00.000-08:00

It never was a big place, even in the old days. And in the early 1830s, the newly named China, Ind., (calling it a town is a bit of a stretch), was the base of missionary activity for two Presbyterian ministers.

In the 1820s, there was a bit more to China, if defined as extending from where Dry Fork meets the West Fork of the Indian-Kentuck, upstream to the site of the former St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church. There was a fulling mill that opened in 1817 (lifespan unknown), and the China Paper Mill that started by 1830 and which lasted until 1860. When James Hill sold his property at China to James Siddell in 1836, the deed listed a gristmill, sawmill, tanning shop, storehouse, dwelling house, barn, stables, and water rights as part of the sale.

And starting in 1831, there was a church, alternately called Center and Central Presbyterian. Land for a church site, on the northeast side of the Dry Fork-Indian-Kentuck confluence was sold to church trustees in 1833. Since the congregation lasted until about 1850, there probably was a church building, although no direct references to a building have been found. This was probably what drew two ministers, the Rev. John Parsons, who spent more of his time with the shorter-lived Ryker's Ridge Presbyterian Church, and the Rev. Moses Wilder, who preached at China at least one year.

Wilder, the corresponding secretary for the local chapter of the American Tract Society, reached Madison in 1831, and was at China in 1833, where he became postmaster on Jan. 30 that year. A series of short letters by Wilder, published in the American Home Missionary and Pastor's Journal in 1833, bear the China address. He both bemoaned the state of education and religion in Indiana while bragging about his own work. That year he toured much of Indiana and detailed what he saw as tremendous distances between existing churches. And while still living at China, he was serving as minister at the Bethlehem, Ind., Presbyterian Church.

Parsons despaired the general condition of the area and wrote in February 1833 to the magazine's editor Absolom Peters that "Aside from Br. Wilder and myself, there is not a literary man of an sort in the bounds. There is not a scholar or grammar or geography or teacher capable of instructing in them, to my knowledge"

But Wilder went on to other duties. He moved to Franklin County, Ind., by October 17, 1837, when he sold his land at China to James Morgan. And in a few years, German Catholic families would arrive to give the area a much different flavor.

A History of Jefferson County's Townships.

2009-01-11T20:34:00.000-08:00

For most of its history, ten townships comprised Jefferson County. But during the first two decades of its existence, the county looked much different, not only because it covered more territory, but because townships were created and destroyed.

The original Madison Township was part of Clark County, from which Jefferson was created and when the Jefferson County Common Pleas Court, which handled virtually all county governmental functions, began its work on Feb. 11, 1811, it kept the name of Madison for one of the three townships it created.

The other two were Washington Township and Jefferson Township. Jefferson, with some alterations in its boundaries, became part of Switzerland County when that entity was created in 1814. It initially extended west to the Indian (Greenville) Treat line that runs diagonally to the Northeast from roughly Lamb on the Ohio River.

Washington Township was more extensive. Court records describe it as including all of the residents of the township below the west line of Madison Township., which was a line from the River starting at on the west line of Section 6 Twp. 3N Range 10E. That included all of modern Graham, Hanover, Lancaster, Saluda, Smyrna, and Republican Townships. It also included the western tiers of sections in what is now Monroe Township. (The sections bordering Lancaster); modern Smyrna Township, and the three sections of Madison Township that border the northern boundary of Hanover Township. (a panhandle.) Since Jefferson County included all of the Grouseland purchase, it meant Washington also included Scott County and parts of Jennings and Jackson Counties.

Sandwiched between Washington and Jefferson Township, Madison Township extended east to the treaty line. Since it extended north to the Grouseland purchase boundary, it also encompassed most of Ripley and Jennings counties. Within modern Jefferson County, it was comprised by modern Shelby and Milton Townships, and most of Madison and Monroe Townships, and initially the part of modern Switzerland County between the Treaty line and the modern county border.

The creation of Jennings County in 1816, probably triggered the actions that the Jefferson County Court took next. It created Graham Township on Feb. 10, 1817, which encompassed the west part of the modern county, except for areas that became Lexington and Saluda Townships on February 13; Lancaster Township, laid off on March 5, also included modern Monroe Township.

On March 12, the court created Pittsburgh Township, which took in a roughly triangular piece of modern Milton Township that was bordered on the southwest by the Indian-Kentuck, starting about the site of Manville. The southern part of Milton Township remained in Madison Township. Republican Township was created the same day. Washington Township disappeared as a result of these actions.

Milton Township, taken from Madison and Pittsburgh Townships on May 12, 1818, included modern Shelby Township running from an east-west line between sections 33 and 33 Twp. 4N Range 11E to the Switzerland County border, leaving a remnant of Pittsburgh that was wiped by 1822 by the creation of Shelby Township.

Another vanished township, Edinburgh, is a mystery. There is no reference to its creation or dissolution in county records. The first reference to Edinburgh came on May 6, 1817 when David Talbott was paid for services as an election inspector; Robert Mitchell as an election judge for both Edinburgh and Pittsburgh Townships, Peter Ryker as an election clerk, Samuel Caplinger as judge, John Littlejohn, James Wooley and James Christie as clerks. These men all lived in the Canaan and Barbersville areas. It may have taken in northern Shelby Township, along with Ripley County. It's possible it was destroyed with the creation of Ripley County in 1819, but Jefferson County records simply stopped mentioning it.

There was some tinkering. On June 10, 1811 Jefferson Township's boundary was pushed west to the line dividing Ranges 11 and 12, taking in parts of modern Shelby and Milton Townships. That didn't last as it was pushed back to the current Jefferson/Switzerland County line, but another change did. The court moved Madison Township's boundary about one mile west. Instead of running along the section lines for the corner of the southeast corner of Section 31 Twp. 4N Range 10E, it then ran along the boundary between Ranges 9 and 10E.

The only other boundary chanrges included one that took Paris from Graham Township and made it part of Jennings County, legendarily because it was trouble and was closer to the sheriff at Vernon than at Madison. And the border between Graham Township and Scott County was pushed slightly east. Both measures were approved by the Indiana General Assembly in January 18330.

The youngest townships were created over an 11 year period--Hanover in September 1836, Monroe on March 11, 1842 and Smyrna on June 16, 1847.

Jefferson County’s Mormon Pioneers

2008-12-25T12:55:00.000-08:00

No congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints was successfully established in Jefferson County until the 1960s. But it wasn’t for lack of trying.

It might be better to say no long-lasting congregation was established because there were efforts from very early in the history of the Mormon Church and these continued throughout the 1800s.The earliest record the church reports is the trip by two ministers, Reynolds Cahoon and Samuel Smith, brother of Joseph Smith, who set out for Missouri in June 1831. Along the way, they stopped in Kentucky and preached in Madison, Vienna and Unionville, although no details were given about these appearances.

Next, in the winter of 1832/33, Simeon Carter organized an L.D.S. branch in Hanover, which had 27 members, according to the April 1833 edition of the Evening and Morning Star, a Mormon publication. But no further record of that effort has been found. After that, there is a gap of 20 years of reported church activity in Jefferson County. At a conference in Nauvoo, Ill., held on April 6, 1843, Joshua Holman and John Pierce were appointed as missionaries of Madison. Holman died in 1849, having returned to Nauvoo, and Pierce was not listed in the 18500 Jefferson County census.

What happened next is unclear with only hints given about Mormon activity from records of the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints. (They did not call themselves Mormon and the denomination changed its name to Community of Christ in 2000.) At some point a Swiss immigrant, Louis Van Buren of Manville had become an L.D.S. member. This is known because by 1861, he had joined the reorganized church whose Saints Herald said Van Buren had visited the denomination’s headquarters in Lamoni, Iowa. It reported that “Elder Louis Van Buren, of Manville, Jefferson county, Ind., tarried in this city several days. He is a believer in the New Organization, and I am informed that he was an elder in the Old Organization. He is on his way to Switzerland, his native land, and expects to return next summer.”

The presence of Mormons probably drew the Reorganized Church into Jefferson County for organizing efforts that began in the 1870s with much greater success than the Mormons had achieved.

An 1878 letter by the Rev. James Scott, who spearheaded this activity along with his brother the Rev. John Scott, mentioned that, “There are a great many more of the old saints throughout the county,” but gave no other details. Few of these are known, including, the Rev. William Marshall is known, as a Madison newspaper account said he had been a Mormon, and had been excommunicated by the R.L.D.S. because he believe in polygamy. (In the twentieth century, he was a Baptist and preached at the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church in Shelby Township.)

The Scotts began their evangelizing by Dec. 7, 1872 when James wrote he had procured a house of preaching. This was probably at Wirt where on June 27, 1873, following 20 days of meetings held by the Scotts, four Madisonians joined the Union Branch which met at the Union School House two and a half miles from Wirt. These included “Brother Woodburn and his wife” who were described as members of the old church. On July 2, 1873, the Daily Courier reported Union Branch had 26 members. James Scott’s 1878 account said the branch began with 10 members under elder Samuel Rector and minister (called a priest) William Blair. By March, 10, 1876, Union had 33 members. By 1883, it was reportedly considering purchase of the Christian Church building in Lancaster. Whatever it did, Union Branch moved into its old building by Nov. 9, 1884, when the Saints Herald reported its church building had been dedicated. This was probably the one building reported for the denomination in Jefferson County by the 1890 census.

There were also attempts to found a congregation in Madison. The May 15, 1873 Saints Herald, noted that Elders were wanted at Madison. On July 25, Elder Scott and Elder B.V. Springer conducted a service at the hall of the Washington Fire Co. in Madison that drew 50 people. But no congregation formed. Meanwhile, Springer had luck elsewhere. The Madison Courier of Feb. 4, 1874 mentioned that Elder Springer of Kansas had become the settled pastor of the Mormons of Smyrna Township. The congregation gave him ten acres of land and was building a house for him.

While no other records of the Smyrna congregation have been found, more is known about the Mt. Pleasant Branch, which met on the Milton Township of Hall’s Ridge. It was organized on Oct. 13, 1879 with 22 members and conferences of the Reorganized church’s Southern Indiana District were held on Nov. 20, 1879 and March 5, 1881. Since the R.L.D.S. had only one structure in the county in 1890, Mt. Pleasant probably did not have its own building until after the congregation purchased land in 1894. But the church did not last long and in 1904, the property was soon and the new own demolished the building.

By 1900, the L.D.S. itself was ready for one for effort in Jefferson County. Madison’s 1900 census showed Hugh Harvey, Jessie Pay, Isaac Zundel, and Erick Larsen boarding at 204 East Street. All four, born in Utah, had the same occupation “preaching.” They probably returned to their homes after their missionary service and there was no Mormon congregation in Madison until 1967.

The Myth of Madison’s Pork Supremacy

2008-11-25T19:03:00.000-08:00

Madison, a small city on the Ohio River was once the pork packing capital of the world, eclipsing its larger upstream neighbor Cincinnati. In 1850, a Madison newspaper bragged that the city had five times as many hogs as Cincinnati.

Unfortunately, the story wasn't true. Madison was a leading city for slaughtering hogs and packing porjs. But it never came close to matching the volume of business done in the Queen City. It did close the gap in 1852, Madison’s greatest year and the last year of growth in its pork market.

In 1837, the first year that statistics are available for Madison, it handled 13,000 hogs while Milton, Ky., processed 5,000, according to the Western Address Directory. Cincinnati packed 103,000 that year. Madison only topped 100,000 once and that was in that final year of glory. Madison’s three best years were 1850, 1851 and 1852 and the number of hogs was reported at 93,949, 94,984, and 130,730, and had the town been able to maintain its dominance in Indiana railroads, it probably would have kept growing.

But even then, from 1833 through 1851, Cincinnati had only two years in which its volume dropped below 100,000 hogs. There were 85,000 in 1833 and 95,000 in 1840. In the 1840s, there were five years in which the totals were 213,000 or higher. In 1848, 1849 and 1850, Cincinnati houses packed 498,160, 310,000 and 401,755 hogs respectively. There was a reason Cincinnati, not Madison, was nicknamed “Porkopolis” during that era.

The Cincinnati numbers were from the book The Industry Resources of the Southern and Western States, published in 1852 by J.B.D. DeBow, a Louisiana professor who was known for his magazine DeBow’s Review, which covered a wide range of economic issues in these regions. While statistics vary in other sources, none of them put Madison in the lead in any year.

The reasons for Cincinnati’s dominance are likely very simple: it was founded earlier and it was bigger so it had the time to develop the resources that Madison was just beginning to attract. Also, while the area to the north of Madison was just starting to develop in the 1830s, Cincinnati was able to draw on a more mature farm economy from most directions.

Cincinnati packing houses could also offer more money to farmers. The 1850 annual report of the Madison and Indianapolis Railroad noted that in good weather, some farmers drove their hogs to Cincinnati, rather than shipping them to Madison, probably reflecting a combination of higher prices paid there and the high rates the Madison railroad charged.

When the railroads linked, Cincinnati picked up more business. And as is accurately told, Madison’s booms days were over.

A Band of Gypsies

2008-10-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

They didn’t have much, if any impact on Jefferson County, and they may have left no descendants in the area. But a band of gypsies that settled in Hanover by 1860 got more than their share of stories published about their brief sojourn in Jefferson County.

The group showed up in the town of Hanover when 81 persons identified in the 1870 census were shown as gypsies. They carried the surnames: Green, Youngs, Woods, Reynolds, Knobbs, Smythes and Bofo and included some distinct first names, such as Whyte Youngs and Pablo

Youngs. Thirty-seven bore the Young/Youngs surname and 12 were Greens.

The 1860 Jefferson County census doesn’t shown the surname Stanley, even though several sources show that Owen Stanley, reportedly the Gypsy King (there were probably many of them) and died in his wagon near Madison on Feb. 21, 1860 in his sixty-seventh year. There were supposed to be 200 in this group so the rest must have left by 1870.

Stanley was born in Reading, Berkshire, England, and his body was taken back to the Woodland Cemetery near Dayton, to be buried next to his wife, Harriet Warden, who died on Aug. 30, 1857, age 63. That's according to the History of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, published in 1909, whose author found their tombstones. This book claims Woodland was the first gypsy cemetery in the United States, but that’s one of those claims that should be immediately questioned.

The group appeared to have arrived at Dayton in 1856 from Canada (where they can't have stayed long), moved on to Indiana quickly, and most moved on quickly again. The best evidence of their emigration date comes from a transcribed tombstone in the cemetery that showed: “ daughter of Mary,Dangefo and Dovie Stanley; born in England, died December 11th, 1857, aged two years and fourteen days," …

The publications talking about them were kind, compared to some of the comments made about gypsies. Part of this seems to have been racial--the Stanleys were far more European looking than some of their darker brethren.

Owen Stanley was succeeded as king by his son Levi Stanley, whose wife Matilda became queen. There is no indication they came to Indiana with the rest of the tribe and were shown in Troy, Miami County, Ohio, in 1860. There were 25 people shown as wanderers in Troy. The 1880 census shows none of these families remaining In Indiana--they apparently came together and left together.

Madison’s Curious Status

2008-10-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

An earlier column on this blog looked at the odd way in which the founding of Madison has been given as 1809 and which has led to the city’s 200^th anniversary being set for 2009—even though the only thing that happened in 1809 was John Paul’s purchase of the land on which lots were later created.

As pointed out, the first settler within the land that became Old Town Madison, John Henry Wagner, arrived in 1808 and no lots were sold until 1811. But beyond that is the question of the status of Madison as an officially authorized government entity, after its platting by Paul.

Initially, Madison was simply a populated area governed by the Court of Common Pleas, which handled all areas of government for Jefferson County after it began operating on Jan. 11, 1811.

The first act specifically naming Madison was the creation of road districts—for defining the area in which residents could be required to work on public roads. This occurred on June 18, 1811, although for some reason the court then authorized Madison to be formed into a road district on Feb. 19, 1812, perhaps reducing the number of districts to one—the minutes do not spell out the difference.

Madison was the also site of a justice of the peace court with the appointment of William Vawter on May 15, 1808. Justices were appointed by the governor until Indiana became a state in 1816, and there is no indicated that these justice’s territory was limited to Madison. (Even though John Vawter stated he was the first justice, territorial records clearly show William’s appointment and that John was named to the position “vis”—in place of—William, who had resigned on July 16.

Madison definitely got its own justices on March 5, 1817, as the commissioners authorized an election to be held on the first Monday in April for the election of two justices “for the Town of Madison who are to reside there …”

The usual report is that Madison was not incorporated as a town until April 1, 1824. However, the minutes of the county court showed the election of Dawson Blackmore, Nathaniel Hunt, Abraham Clarkson, James Ross and Martin Rowzer as trustees on Sept. 8, 1817. The language of the minutes is clear in referring to these men as trustees for the “corporation of the town of Madison” and this seemed to end the court’s direct governance.

Besides the 1824 action, there were more involving Madison’s status as a town. It was incorporated again on Jan. 2, 1829. Then followed a series of laws, including one of Jan. 25, 1850 in which the state legislature extended the town’s southern boundary from High Street to the Ohio River. However, the lawmakers felt that a series of amendments to the charter had made the situation confusing, and reincorporated the town on Feb. 4, 1831

As a town, Madison had no mayor. The trustees choose one of their own members as president who presided over meetings and signed official documents. In 1824, and perhaps earlier, the board had been expanded to seven from the five-member board of 1817.

Madison achieved its final government form in 1838 when it was incorporated as a city.

The Council Bluffs Land: Politicians for Hire?

2008-09-02T08:42:00.000-07:00

Did three leading Indiana politicians sell their votes in the 1850s?

On the surface, the charge, made in the Council Bluffs (Iowa) Bugle of April 14, 1858, looked ridiculous. The newspaper claimed that Senator Jesse D. Bright, a Madisonian, and Congressmen William H. English and James B. Foley, all Democrats, had accepted land as payoffs for the votes for admitting Kansas as a state under the Lecompton Constitution, which permitted slavery.

The House of Representatives appointed a committee to investigate the charges on April 27, 1858, but the motion was immediately tabled and there is no record of further discussion.

The Bugle article, which was read into the Journal of the House of Representatives, alleged that that the Commissioner of the General Land Office ordered 2,480 acres to be entered in Bright’s name, 2,280 in English’s and 1,440 acres in Foley's.

The men's defenders noted that the charge made no sense since Bright voted for the Lecompton bill and Foley and English against it. The Lecompton Constitution had the support of President James Buchanan and the question of whether to recognize Kansas as a slave or free state was a major issue leading to the success of the Republican Party. And it’s hard to see why Bright, a slave owner who supported the Fugitive Slave Act, needed an incentive.

Foley represented a district including Decatur County from 1857 through 1859. English, a Scott County resident, represented Indiana’s second district from 1853 through 1861. However, English actually authored a compromise and was considered a Buchanan man.

But the three men did secure thousands of acres in Iowa in patents dated May 1, 1860 and entered at the Council Bluffs land office. So did Buchanan, who as president signed the patents, attempt to sway Bright, Foley and English regarding some issue?

Because Bright did in fact patent 2,480 acres at the Council Bluffs land office and English had 15 patents dated May 1, each 120 acres for a total of 2,240—the 2,280 mentioned in the congressional record was likely a transcription or typographical error. And Foley’s nine May 1 patents of 160 acres each add up to 1,440 acres.

All of these patents came via land warrants that were originally awarded to soldiers who had served in the War of 1812 or the Mexican War, and had been signed over to the politicians. Other politicians had followed this practice. For example, Senator William Hendricks, another Madisonian, patented 1,480 acres that had been awarded to soldiers.

Since amounts of land patented by the three men match those reported in the Iowa newspaper, something was up. But what? Did Bright get land for trying to persuade English, who had worked in Bright's law firm, and Foley? Certainly, Madison Courier Editor Michael Garber, Bright’s nemesis, considered the senator to be corrupt and accused him of padding his Senate expenses. And while Garber was shrill, he was often perceptive. But Garber apparently did not know about this issue.

The question remains of just how these men obtained the land.

Hoyt vs. the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad

2008-08-15T18:56:00.001-07:00

The cog system that enabled railroad cars to climb the long inclined plane of the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad was a very good idea.

It was so good that a Dupont resident, William Hoyt, and the railroad company fought for years over who invented the system and had the rights to its patent. Hoyt received the first patent in 1849. But the patent office overturned the grant and awarded it to Andrew Cathcart, a Scottish machinist who was still working for the M&I.

While most histories credit Cathcart with the invention, Hoyt claimed he invented it in 1840 and that Cathcart stole the design after seeing it 1844.

The battle really pitted Hoyt against John Brough, the hardworking and arrogant president of the M&I whose name lives on in Brough’s Folly, the uncompleted tunnel in what is now Clifty Falls State Park.

Hoyt pictured his opposition as using unfair tactics. When witnesses gave depositions, all those testifying for Cathcart were railroad employees who gave their statement in the company offices in front of Brough, along with lawyers Michael Bright and Joseph G. Marshall, who were railroad directors. Hoyt tried to get the lawyers to testify, claiming they were acting for Cathcart. But Bright and Marshall said they represented the company. Hoyt also alleged that all witnesses met beforehand in private in William Jackson, the railroad’s secretary, or with “the Old Fox himself” [Brough] in the company anterooms.

The most serious charge was that in January 1850, Brough advertised in an Indianapolis newspaper that he was “of counsel” to Cathcart.

All of these charges were spelled out in a pamphlet called “Vindication” that Hoyt published in 1850 in support of his version of events.

Money was at stake. Hoyt alleged that the railroad company agreed to pay $1,000 a year, plus a $6,000 payment in 1853, if the experiment were success if Cathcart received the patent, which would then be transferred to the company. The company feared if Hoyt won, he would seek damages, the inventor said

Whoever was right, the Scientific American of June 12, 1858, reported the railroad “compromised the dispute by paying him [Hoyt} a handsome sum.” Handsome or not, other sources reported the amount as $1,000, not bad for the era.

Don't Drink the Water

2008-07-02T08:58:00.000-07:00

The biggest health hazard in Madison, Ind., in the late 1800s and early 1900s was probably not a particular disease. It was the town’s water supply.

Many towns on the Ohio River faced the issue of a water supply that was increasingly polluted. Nor did towns need to be on the river to have problems. The state board of health tested three private supplies in Kent in 1899. None of the water was considered suitable for drinking.

But Madison had special problems that stemmed from the attempt to come up with cleaner water.

A 1901 report by the state board of health noted the town’s sewers, which served a small part of the city, as follows: “All the sewage goes direct to the river, there being eleven outlets along the river front. From one to seven feet of clay cover the gravel strata and many cesspools drain into it.”

The problem was the sewage wasn’t treated, and obviously that applied to the cesspools as well. The same reported said that, “Night soil is collected by licensed men and is dumped into the river opposite the town.”

Despite the city’s efforts, the situation actually got worse In1908, six wells were sunk in the bed of the Ohio River and the water was taken from these wells which were six feet below the river bed, under a layer of sand and gravel. The theory was the water would be filtered by the beds of sediment.

However, the system didn’t work. When the river was low, water had to be pumped directly from the river into the water mains. And at some point, water from the river broke through the sand bed and fed directly into the wells. The result is easy to imagine.

A report by the state board of health for 1909 noted, “There are times when this water is of good quality, but at other times it is entirely unsatisfactory. Twenty-one private supplies have been examined, five of which were of good quality, one was doubtful and fifteen were bad.”

A 1911 report repeated the finding:: “The tap water of the Madison city supply is wholly unsuitable for drinking and domestic purposes in its present condition.” In 1914, tests found the water “seriously polluted and unfit for drinking purposes.” It noted Madison had a “splendid supply” of water available through driven wells which could be place in the river bottom or on its banks. And the latter course would be the eventual solution.

Almost High Noon at Madison

2008-06-24T07:11:00.001-07:00

It is more an accident than anything else that Madison did not go down in history for the second most high-profile duel in American history. The first, of course, was the duel in which vice president Aaron Burr killed former secretary of treasury Alexander Hamilton.

The planned faceoff between then-Senator Jesse Bright and prominent Madison lawyer Joseph G. Marshall would have been almost as noteworthy and the antagonists tried hard to make sure it happened. It was only through the intervention of their friends, which included some of the nation's most prominent men, that it was averted at the last minute.

Bright and Marshall had clashed repeatedly. Bright owned slaves while Marshall, who inherited slaves and set them free, was a champion of abolition. Marshall, a Whig and later a Republican, would have become United States senator from Indiana, except that Bright, a Democrat, outmaneuvered the Republicans in the Indiana legislature.

They had one thing in common besides ambitions--both were hotheads. Once, at a trial in Charlestown when a Judge Otto called him a liar, Marshall “knocked him down. Judge Otto arose, and, coming at Mr. Marshall" in a belligerent manner, was knocked down again." Marshall later apologized. And in another episode, he got angry and broke down a door.

On the other side, Bright reportedly knocked down the doorkeeper of the House of Representatives for what was termed "an inconsiderable offense." Bright also used invective freely. On April 27, 1857, he wrote to R.M. T. Hunter, chairman of a House committee, demanding the Hunter fire the committee's clerk named Henrick, for a letter the latter had published in the New York Herald. "He is a liar, slanderer, and within a few days past, has proven himself a coward" and a few words later dismissed him as a "lying slandering coward" Bright said. The charge of cowardice suggests Bright had challenged Henrick, who had declined, although it may have been Bright was simply liberal with his epithets.

The personal animosity led Marshall to plan killing Bright. In what sounded like a Wild West showdown in the streets, Marshall once purchased a bowie knife, which he put in his pocket. He walked Madison’s Second Street between the post office and West Street from 10 a.m. until 10:30 a.m., knowing that Bright customarily picked up his mail at 10 a.m. Bright, however, changed his routine that day. Marshall was quoted as saying: “Had he come I should have attacked him and killed him, if I could. I knew he was always armed, so I would not be taking him at a disadvantage.”

The dispute spiraled into a duel challenge. The two agreed to meet on an island in the Ohio River, placing it in Kentucky, probably because the Indiana constitution prohibited dueling. Their entourage included leading Madison merchants and prominent public officials and future leaders. One of them, Madison’s William McKee Dunn, a Congressman and later Judge Advocate General, provided many of the details.

The weapons of choice were rifles at 50 paces. Bright and his group stayed at the Gault House while Marshall and his contingent at the Louisville Hotel. Marshall was so determined to shoot it out with Bright that when police came to arrest him, Marshall said his brother, the Rev. Samuel Marshall, who came to stop the duel, was Joseph Marshall and the police led the minister away. The attorney was later corralled and their friends negotiated a settlement.

Bright never got that close to a shoot-out again. But Jesse wasn't through. He got into a fight in a courtroom in 1853 and was fined along with others; an incident reported by author Francis Lieber an article entitled “The Character of a Gentleman.” And on Sept. 16, 1853, Bright wrote to his friend and financial backer W.W. Corcoran, apparently preparing for trouble.

"I am unwilling to trouble you about my domestic affairs," Bright wrote "for I have already been the reception of favors of your hands that must necessarily go unrequited through life; yet I will venture to enquire whether you know of a Duelling [pistol] that I can get and suitable for a humble disciple of the immortal 'Franklin Pierce.' I hope you may have one to suit me, but if not, pardon me for asking you to engage one for me. I must have one now."

A Phone Company on Every Corner

2008-06-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

For many people, the breakup of the American Telegraph and Telephone Co. left a confusing array of telephone companies, even if Jefferson County hadn’t been served by the old Bell System.

But anyone who found the state of telephony competition confusing in the after 1984, would have been baffled by the state of the art in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

It was simpler at the beginning when the first telephone was reportedly installed between the starch works and the railroad depot in 1879. It’ likely that private systems were the only ones operating until a public exchange was opened in Madison. The Madison Courier of Feb. 29, 188 listed subscribers to a proposed system, including City Hall, including City Hall, four fire departments, the city water works, and at least three residences. The exchange, erected by the Laporte and Madison Telephone Co., was scheduled to go into operation on May

In February 1882, the Courier reported work had begun to link Madison with exchanges in Carrollton, Milton, Warsaw and Ghent with Hanover connected sometime later that year. Service also reached Brooksburg and Vevay for the Daily Courier of Sept.13, 1883 noted that, “The Brooksburg Band has celebrated Vevay by telephone.”

By the time the 1887/88 Madison city directory was published, the Central Union Telephone Co., apparently part of the Bell system, had the area’s business.

But things got interesting. The Daily Courier of Nov. 27, 1894 reported local businessmen formed the Madison Telephone Co. because of Central’s rates and at this point, the Central company had 150 subscribers while Madison had 165.

While the Bell companies quashed most competition, things were different in Madison and the Courier of Jan. 17, 1896 reported the city had ordered “that the Bell Telephone Company be directed to remove all phones from the City Building, Light Station, the four engine houses, and Springdale Cemetery.” For several years the companies operated side by side. The Vail Funeral Home, for exampled, advertised its number as 88 for both the Madison and Bell systems.

Meanwhile, service moved into the country with a company owned by the Green Brothers installing the first telephone in Canaan in Lochard and Means’s store on Nov. 1, 1899.

In the fall of 1903, the Madison company extended a line from China to Canaan and other rural changes, probably initiated by the same organization, operated in Hanover and Rykers’ Ridge.

The number of independent companies quickly reached the hundreds for Indiana and thousands across the nation. The Independent Telephone Company of Lancaster and Monroe incorporated on May 23, 1905. In 1907, the Green Brothers sold their operation to Canaan residents, who extended the lines in February. 1908. The Farmers Mutual Telephone Central of Belleview incorporated on March 30, 1912; and the Canaan Mutual Telephone Company on Aug. 25, 1915 (Apparently replacing the Farmers company.)^.

At one point, there were two systems operating in Canaan, a town whose Main Street is less than a mile long. The Madison company, which eventually discontinued service, was situated in the Banta home and the Farmer’s system in its own headquarters.

This wasn’t area with double service. The San Jacinto and Dupont Telephone Co. incorporated on Feb. 7, 1907 while the New Marion and Dupont Telephone Co. organized on May 2, 1908. Just outside of Madison, the Jefferson Telephone Co. operated from at least 1907 until its merger with Madison Telephone in 1912 because the two were so interconnected.

State reports in 1914 showed seven systems operating in Jefferson County. Madison Telephone had 688 miles of wire while Central Union had 66.43; Lancaster & Monroe 21, and Farmers Mutual, 2. Ohio River Telephone, with only 2 miles in the county, had 523 in neighboring Switzerland County. On the other side, Scott County Telephone had 4.5 miles of line in Jefferson and 242 in Scott while the Madison company owned 12 miles in Clark County.

Other lines edged into the county. The Paris Crossing company had 8 miles and the New Washington Co., 15 in Jefferson County while the Ohio River and Scott County businesses were no longer listed. There were probably others 1930 records showed the Moorefield Farmers Mutual Telephone Co. was headquartered in Brooksburg.

But by this time, small companies were disappearing. The June 28, 1919 Courier reported the Ryker’s Ridge exchange had just closed. The Madison company operated until Sept. 12, 1923 when it was purchased by Southern Indiana Telephone and Telegraph Co. The latter, a Bell operation, petitioned to close the China and Volga exchanges on July 18, 1928.

Mixed Bloods and Half Breeds

2008-06-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

How “Indian” were Southeastern Indiana’s Indians? Or, on the other side, how often did settler inter-marry with the native inhabitants?

It’s a story that’s difficult to document. But the indications are that the native Americans encountered by settlers were a mixture of tribes, escaped slaves along with a mixture of European blood from white captives and willing marriages.

Some captives, like Heathcoat Pickett and George Ash, lived among the Indians for years. Little has been written about Pickett, before he settled in what became Switzerland County as early as 1790s.

Whether he intermarried with his captors or not, Pickett lived long enough with the tribes to have his ears multilated for adornment . The same is true of the better-known Ash who had the septum of his nose perforated while his left ear was also perforated for the placement of jewlry. Ash also had an Indian wife known as she bear. What is not known is whether the couple had children before Ash returned to white settlements and remarried.

A strong hint of interbreeding was given by James Jackson, who settled in the Kent area Jefferson County, in 1814. In an account published in the Madison Courier in 1874, Jackson gave a description of White Eyes, the best-known area Indian, along with Johnnie Wea, who was traveling with him.

“Old Wea was a black, nasty, mottled color, not a white man, nor a nigger. Old White Eyes was a yeller Indian and so was his son.”

While Jackson didn’t link Johnnie Wea to the Wea tribe, the Weas were Miami Indians who were living apart from the main tribe, while the description of Wea suggests a mixture of Indian, white and black ancestry. The description of White Eyes also doesn’t state explicitly that the man was a mixed breed. But the phrase “Yeller Indian” uses a term that commonly described those who had Indian and black ancestry.

Another account printed in the Courier was from Hiram Prather, who lived in Jennings County. Prather described White Eyes and Big John as Captins under Bill Killbuck. According to this account Bill Kilbuck “was half white, could read and write, and was the son of old Kilbuck, who was killed by Captain Collins near the Pigeon Roost Settlement the evening before the massacre.”

There was a lot of opportunity for commingling.

Two Indians with European names, Wilson and John Guinn, were reported to be living in the house of Gershom Lee in 1812. (Lee lived just downstream from Manville in 1816 and was probably there in 1812) Sometime before the Pigeon Roost Massacre, the two were hunting at the headwaters of Indian-Kentuck Creek when they were shot and killed. Two settlers, William Hall and a Lockridge, heard the gunfire and found them dead on the ground. (These is the account that probably gave rise to the story of the killing of White Eyes. Evidence suggests that White Eyes was not murdered.) This account was given in a letter dated Sept. 9, 1812, which was written by adjutant general Percival Butler.

It is known how long the Indians lived in Lee’s house or why they were there, although stories about White Eyes suggest the natives frequently visited settlers homes for meals.

Some mixing took place before settlers arrived in Indiana. These reports are especially prevalent regarding families who lived in the area of Tennessee inhabited by Cherokees. The Storms family, which moved to Shelby Township, reportedly had Cherokee blood.

There were white-Indian marriages in the Jefferson County. But most are known only through family oral traditions that weren’t put down in writing until well after the event.

George Miller, who wrote a column for the Madison Courier for decades in the late 1900s, often described how his ancestor Jacob Miller was buried next to the wall of the Manville cemetery because Jacob had married an Indian. Not far upstream in Madison Township, Samuel Brown, who was born about 1799 in Pennsylvania, is supposed to have married a woman named Half Moon, although the presume wife shown in the household in the 1850 census was Matilda, aged 45.

The censuses aren’t any help. The 1840 census asks only for a number of free blacks in Hoosier households while the 1850 and 1860 censuses asked only if residents were white, black or mulatto. And it’s easy to think those who were Indian, didn’t spread that information easily or often.

Madison's First Burials--the Springdale Myth

2008-06-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

There’s a large stone at the entrance to Madison’s Springdale Cemetery bearing the date 1810. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the date the cemetery was established.

Because, even if there may have been some burials in the plain before Springdale was established in 1839, the person who was supposedly buried there in 1810 wasn’t even born until 1824.

The claim is that Fanny Sullivan who died in 1810 was the first known burial. However, this Fanny’s identity is well known—she was the teenage daughter of noted Madison lawyer Jeremiah Sullivan. In fact, when the DAR published in Jefferson County Cemetery transcriptions in 1941 it showed the following: “Sullivan, Francis E., May 2, 1824 - Oct 7, 1839, d/o Jer. & C.R. Sullivan”

In a letter published in the Courier of April 21, 1879, Richard C. Meldrum, a former Madison, gave a string of reminiscences in which he mentioned “the first burial in Springdale Cemetery (Fanny Sullivan), a sweet young girl… “ (Meldrum was born about 1821/)

Former Madisonian Ruth Hoggatt put together a solid list of facts about the land’s history. These included a deeded dated Nov. 28, 1848, between Milton Stapp and wife Elizabeth and the city of Madison which noted the city had completed payment under a bond dated 1838 and that the east side of a tract set off to Stapp had been conveyed to the City.

Certainly, the 1839 date was recognized local. In the Madison Courier of June 2, 1859, a paragraph transcribed by Ms. Hoggatt noted: "Springdale Cemetery was purchased and located in 1839, almost twenty years ago. Mr. Grayson, the sexton, informs us that there have been buried in the twenty years in Springdale three thousand three hundred and thirty-two bodies — about one-third of the present number of the inhabitants of the city."

The date was again reported later in the 1800s. One of the more interesting accounts in the newspapers attributed to Fanny the statement that she believed she would be the first period buried there.

There certainly is a possibility there were burials on the Springdale side of Crooked Creek before the cemetery was formally organized. Many church cemeteries in Jefferson County, for example, grew out of family cemeteries that preceded the founded of the religious bodies.

The DAR transcription of Springdale burials, published in 1941, shows a Jozebad Lodge (1767-1830), buried there. But the transcription shows no other death date inscriptions from the 1820s and only a handful in the 1830s earlier than 1839.

Where was the first burial in Madison? In an account published in the Madison Courier in 1874, James Lewis said that before the Third Street Cemetery (now the site of John Paul Park) was established in 1817, "the burying ground was up in Fulton, above Greiner's Brewery." Fulton, which was briefly an separate town bordering Madison on the East at Ferry Street, was also cited by an author identified as "The Wanderer" in a series of reminiscences published in 1889. He cited the first burial as a Mrs. Slack who was buried, "in the pioneer graveyard on the bank of the town near the corner of Ferry Street in what is now Madison.”

Paper People: Jefferson County's Pioneering Manufacturers

2008-05-01T21:14:00.000-07:00

Jefferson County never became a major player in the business of making paper. But it had three pioneering paper mills, two of which operated for decades.

The first, the Mooney Paper Mill on Big Creek, remains in the name Paper Mill Road. But it founder, Isaac Mooney, committed suicide about a year after its 1826 founding. It quickly passed through the hands of Alfred McDaniels and was then converted into a grist mill.

The mill erected by John Sheets just below Manville, where the mill race can still be seen on the west bank of the Indian-Kentuck, had a much longer history. Sheets, who purchased a grist mill in the same location in March 1820, was operating a paper mill, probably by the end of 1827, as the Madison Courier of Jan. 12, 1828, described the mill as “recently built by Major John Sheets.”

A fire at one of his Switzerland County properties led to a sheriff’s sale and the property went through the hands of two of Sheets’ investors before being sold to Andrew Everhart, a papermaker from Hamilton County, Ohio, for $3,000 on May 1, 1853.

The 1860 Census of Manufacturers reported Everhart had invested $8,000 in capital. He used 250 tons of straw and 200 cords of wood annually to produce twenty-four tons of paper, valued at $10,000. He employed four people, paying them $60 in an average month ($15 each). He had two engines, the main one steam-powered.

Debt also killed Everhart’s business and the mill was then sold to Harvey Foster via a sheriff’s sale on May 5, 1861 and by 1863, it was owned by Nicholas and Henrietta Manville. Nicholas, showed on the 1863 federal income tax assessment list as a paper manufacturer, sold the mill to Fleming and Andrew Siebenthal on July 19, 1866. But the deed excluded the papermaking machinery from the sale, which may have been transferred to Robert Manville, a partner in papermaking business in Madison.

Upstream from Sheets’ Jefferson Paper Mill was the China Paper Mill, which operated on a site about a mile downstream from China. Demaree historians say it was founded by Samuel Demaree, who died in 1826. However, deeds do not refer to a mill until the 1850s.

But on May 5, 1838, his grandsons William U. and Samuel B. Demaree, his grandsons, sold water and dam rights to Henry Jackman. The History of Papermaking in the United States reported Jackman and James Hamilton started the paper mill between 1835 and 1840. (Hamilton had married the elder Demaree’s daughter and Jackman was Hamilton’s son-on-law).

The property was sold to William U. and Samuel B. Demaree with the 1850 Census of Manufacturers listing W&S Demaree as a paper maker. The two had invested $2,000 in the operation, using 50 tons of straw and 200 cords of wood annually to produce 3,000 reams of paper. They employed four people, paying them $60 a month on the average.

The mill was then sold to Henry James on June 4, 1855, who was shown in adjacent to Samuel Demaree in 1850 as a papermaker, and perhaps was already running the facility. The 1860 Manufacturing census showed Henry James as the owner.

But James' business didn't last much longer. On Dec. 4, 1860, he sold the property to William W. Demaree. Whether Demaree operated it is not known, but five years later he sold the boiler and engine “at the Old Paper mill near the residence of said Demaree” to be used in a sorghum mill in Brooksburg.

Address Unknown—How a former Madisonian Shafted Everyone

2008-03-31T20:42:00.001-07:00

Dr. Israel T. Canby, physician, land speculator and politician, had a lot of connections. When he was a Madison resident, they helped him get a job as receiver of funds for land sales at the Crawfordsville land office

And Canby got those friends to sign two bonds that guaranteed his performance, one for $30,000 in 1829 and another $30,000 the next year. But Canby fleeced the land office in 1831 and 1832—one study concluded Canby financed his purchase of thousands of acres of land using public money--and came up short by $52,531.04 in public money when he left the office.

The sureties were a noteworthy crowd: state legislator Nathan Palmer; future lieutenant governor, David Hillis; noted lawyer Jeremiah Sullivan, Senator William Hendricks; and Michael G. Bright, later the power broker for his brother, Sen. Jesse D. Bright—all Madisonians. Also on the hook were Senator John Tipton and Gen. John Milroy.

It’s not known if Canby’s friends were victims or co-conspirators.

For example, he entered 1,570.95 acres in the name of William Hendricks and 222 acres in Hillis’ name, according to an April 1833 statement. The land wasn’t paid for and the acres were actually entered by Canby. There was no conclusion whether the two politicians knew about this.

The government, through attorney Tilghlman Howard, sought to get its money. The assets of Hendricks and John Tipton were garnished and they paid $4,228.51. Distress warrants were issued and the following assessments were made on their assets: Joseph Canby, $5,400 for land in Madison; Jeremiah Sullivan, $3,000 for two lots in Madison; Nathan Palmer, $1,500 for 116.5 acres near Madison; David Hillis, $3,034 for 472 acres; Michael Bright, $1,000 for a lot with a brick building in Madison.

The only problem was that, given the record keeping involved, the government didn’t know if any of the properties were sold or if it got the money if they were.

There were a series of investigators. Howard turned the records over to John Pettit in Jan. 1840. Pettit collected some money, but there’s no record he transferred it to the treasury and he told the government it owed him a great deal. His successor, named Cushing, who took over in Sept. 1841, was supposed to document a suit against Pettit. But that didn’t happen.

Meanwhile, Canby was busy trying to cushion his friends. He transferred a large amount of assets to John Wilson and Samuel Milroy, two of his sureties. This included “a large amount of real estate, and transferred to them notes, bonds, &c., to indemnify them as well as the other sureties.”

Canby transferred “large amount of debts” to a man named Vance. Another surety, Robert Piatt had land and Negroes in Kentucky that were assessed for $10,400. But Piatt sold these assets to his son in 1833 to avoid seizure.

In fact, Howard concluded on April 3, 1833 that Canby was “trading with an eye to events.” The official conclusion was that at this point “Canby absconded, and the marshal of Indiana sold his personal effects for $250.”

Canby had assets enough to cover the shortages. He purchased 2,376 acres of land sold for the benefit of the Wabash and Erie Canal, and then tried to hide his ownership. At least 1,000 acres of this was not seized to satisfy the debts. Nor were 11,207 acres in Illinois touched, and after he died in April 1846, no effort was made to go after his estate.

This all came out in a Congressional report in 1869 in which the surviving three sureties—Bright, Palmer and Sullivan—asked for legislative relief so they wouldn’t be stuck for the entire amount. The report said that with interest, the debt had grown to $133,000. However, it also noted there if Canby and his sureties’ notes and land actually been sold, there was more than enough to cover the debt.

But assets weren’t sold and if they were, payments weren’t credited. Judgments obtained were worthless because land had been sold to others. And throwing up its hands, a committee concluded the fair thing was not to this all on the three sureties and recommended passage of the bill.

The only people who lost a lot were taxpayers.

Madison's Slave Owners

2008-03-23T13:55:00.000-07:00

Before the Civil War, Madison lived with slavery. With Kentucky owning the river, the land of slavery was just past the water mark. And slave owners routinely brought their chattels into town during the day.

Indiana was sometimes free only in name for blacks who were apprenticed for years. And Jefferson County residents ranging from average farmers to top politicians owned slaves.

Apprenticeship was a particularly insidious tool. On Jan 31, 1838, two black teenage boys were apprenticed to Allen E. Arion by the overseers of the poor for Madison Township. The record noted the two had been Arion’s slaves in Kentucky. They probably remained slaves. Arion returned to Kentucky and the 1850 slave schedules showed he owned two males in Louisville and in 1860 he owed a 15 year-old in Shelby County.

Starting in 1818, three blacks were apprenticed to his brother, newspaperman Copeland J. Arion, while a three-year old boy was apprenticed to Allen in 1846. Their prior status was not mentioned.

Blacks were subject to harsher terms than whites. On Feb. 13, 1813, Lucy, a black woman, was apprenticed to Robert Henderson until Sept. 1, 1826 to learn the art of weaving. The contract stipulated she was be apprenticed one year additional for each child born during that time.

A number of Jefferson County residents, including the noted Williamson Dunn, owned slaves in Kentucky, but freed them when they came to Indiana, or freed them when the wrote wills.

But not all did.

While John Walker of Saluda Township order a Negro woman freed via his will in 1835, his wife Cada still owned a 19-year old Negro boy when she wrote her will on March 9, 1856. She noted the slave was “now hired out by my agent Stephen Tutt of Woodford Co., Ky.” And there were probably many more Hoosiers who derived income from slave labor this way.

Some Madisonians came into slave ownership via inheritance. Such was the case with Elizabeth Stapp, wife of Gen. Milton Stapp, lieutenant governor and later Madison mayor. She inherited Horace Branham, who had been owned by her brother. He remained a slave, renamed himself Horace Stapp, and moved to Madison by 1860.

There are few records of Madisonians purchasing slaves. Caleb Lodge of Madison acquired a single slave when he bought a variety of property in Trimble County from Thomas Godman, a member of one of Madison’s pork packing families. But there’s no evidence Lodge kept the slave—his name does not appear on the slave schedules.

Madison’s most famous slave owner, Democratic Senator Jesse Bright owned no slaves in 1850, but had 21 at his Gallatin County farm in 1860. There’s no record of his purchasing them in Gallatin County, but he likely he got them from the Turpins, his in-laws, who sold him the farm as they were slave owners in 1850.

Then, there were four slaves that Jesse owned in Washington D.C., in 1860. It’s likely that at least two of these were among the three young adult slaves purchased by his brother Michael G. Bright in Trimble County.

Michael, not known as a slave owner, probably acquired them for Jesse, just as he took care of his brother’s career in other ways.

Madison’s Women of Letters

2008-03-09T13:12:00.000-07:00

In 1821, "The Banks of the Ohio,” a poem “by a lady of Madison, Indiana,” won second prize in a competition at Cincinnati.

The brief report by Jacob Piatt Dunn in his “Indiana and Indianans”, said her name was not preserved. But in an era in which little information women had few rights and rarely worked out side the home, this was not unusual.

In the 1800s, Madison had professional women and women of letters, although information available is as thin as a shadow. There was a female minister, Martha Barrett, a Universalist, listed in town in the 1860 census. And the 1890 Indiana Business Directory and Gazetteer had an advertisement from Eudophelia Conklin, a female physician, about whom nothing else has been found.

But in the arts, there were women who gained notice, even if they are forgotten today. Madison can claim them, even though their residences were not long.

Among these was Constance Runcie, not surprisingly, a granddaughter of reformer Robert Dale Owen. Raised in Owen’s New Harmony settlement, Constance founded the Minerva Club, reputed to be the first women’s club in America, and then founded the Bronte Club in Madison and finally the Runcie Club in St. Joseph, Mo., in 1866. She also is credited as the first American women to compose such forms as a symphony, an opera and concertos. Constance lived in Madison from 1861 to 1871 while her husband, James Runcie, was minister and Christ Church.

Better known at the time locally was poet Sarah Barrett Bolton (1814-1893), whose family moved from Vernon to Madison when she was nine, and whose writing career was soon under way. Her first poetry was published in the Madison Banner before she was 14 years old and she was a contributor to newspapers in Madison and Cincinnati. She married newspaper man Nathaniel Bolton in October 1831, and they moved to Indianapolis where she lived until he died in 1858. During this period, she was active politically and worked with Owen to secure property rights for women in the Indiana constitutional convention of 1850. In 1863, she married Judge Addison Reese and lived with him in Canton, Mo, for two years, and then returned to Indianapolis

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She published a volume of poems in 1865, and a collection of writing in 1880. The Dictionary of American Biography compiled these facts from a number of sources noting her writing had n “no great literary merit, but have the melody, sentimentality, and moral and religious flavor relished by the fireside magazine readers of their day.”

Perhaps more successful as a writer, was Mrs. Martha Sears Brooks, who was born in Springfield, Mass., and married at the age of 19. She began writing in Missouri when the Civil War began. She moved to Madison in 1862 and contributed poems, short stories and essays to newspapers and magazines. According to a biography, “In 1888 she published a dainty holiday book which had a large sale” and was elected vice-president of the Western Writers Association in 1889. She was named secretary in 1890, before dying in 1893.

George DeBaptiste: Entrepreneur, Freedom Fighter

2008-03-02T17:19:00.000-08:00

In another day, George DeBaptiste would have become wealthy. But his drive, talent and daring, were instead used to fight slavery and his entrepreneurial skills were thwarted by barriers free blacks faced before the Civil War.

Despite this, he succeeded in many ways. He personally served a president. He was a businessman in Madison. In Michigan, he founded the Color Vigilance Committee and the African-American Mysteries the Order of Men of Oppression, a secret society for fighting slavery. He promoted the Colored National Labor Union, raised money to free white abolitionist, Calvin Fairbank from a Kentucky prison, and became one of Michigan’s first black jurors.

He also plotted with famed abolitionist John Brown, also suggesting blowing up southern planters without white help.

Born to free parents in Fredericksburg, Va., DeBaptiste learned the barber’s trade and married in that state. By 1837, he was in Cincinnati, where he first worked on the Underground Railroad. The next year, he moved Madison, opening a barbershop, engaging in trading with Cincinnati and becoming UGRR station manager.

No wonder on March 21, 1839, the Overseers of the Poor for Madison Township tried expel him from Indiana for not posting the bond required of a free black. But pork packer Thomas Paine posted bond and a court found the attempted expulsion illegal.

DeBaptiste next became a steward to William Henry Harrison (a slaveholder), serving him during the 1840 presidential campaign and was White House steward during Harrison’s one-month presidency. DeBaptiste returned to Madison again opening a barbershop that served whites. He rejoined the UGRR and said in 1870, he directly helped 108 fugitives flee north in his years here.

But he did more than that

In 1879, former Madisonian, Richard C. Meldrum recalled how DeBaptiste and other black leaders founded a bank. Unfortunately, the account spent most of its time mocking them, not on details of a remarkable effort.

His anti-slavery efforts were also remarkable. DeBaptiste would wait half the night on the river bank, walk as much as 20 miles with fugitives, and then work during the day. Even after a $1,000 bounty was placed on him, DeBaptiste met with slaves in Kentucky to plan escapes. He reportedly bet one slave owner, “I'll bet you a new hat I'll steal your nigger inside of a month." A few days later, the Kentuckian honored the bet.

With slave owners making like hard on free blacks, he decided to leave Madison and he sold his lot on North Main Street (modern Jefferson) on May 2, 1846.

He moved to Detroit, already home to other members of the Debaptiste family. He prospered there, purchasing a barbershop, employing others to run it, while he worked as chief clerk and salesman at a black-owned wholesale clothing store. He bought and sold a bakery and then a steamboat, hiring a white man as captain since he could not legally be licensed to run the boat. He later traded the boat for real estate and went into catering. And he continued as an UGRR station operator. After he helped plan John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry, Congress subpoenaed DeBaptiste to testify, but dropped that effort upon learning his race.

In the fall of 1863, he raised a black regiment. Appointed its sutler (a authorized independent merchant), he followed the unit through its campaigns.

The censuses gave a measure of wealth while living in Detroit. In 1860 he owned $20,000 in real estate and $1,000 in personal property, while the 1870 count showed $10,000 in real estate and $4,000 in personal property.

He invested in ice cream parlors and a money-losing restaurant and, then opened another. A year before his death on Feb. 22, 1875, he had opened a country house, but failing health forced him to give up the effort.

Fighting in Grey: Jefferson County's Confederates

2008-02-28T07:30:00.000-08:00

Many Jefferson County residents recognize the name of author Edward Eggleston. They may not know he spent 13 months on a family plantation in Virginia around 1854 and developed his opposition to slavery.

Even fewer know that his three brothers, George Cary Eggleston, Joseph W. Eggleston, and Miles Eggleston, born in Vevay, became Confederate soldiers with George writing a famed account called “A Rebel’s Recollection."

George Cary was a Jefferson County resident, before he returned to Virginia to inherit the family plantation, and it was his experiences as a teacher at the Rykers’ Ridge School that formed much of the basis of Edward's novel, "The Hoosier Schoolmaster."

It is surprising there weren't more Hoosier Rebels—the area had a large population that came from the South. Before the Civil War, the South was filled with visions of the lower Midwest seceding. And in 1863, the belief that thousands of Hoosiers would fight for the Confederacy led John Hunt Morgan to cross the Ohio River.

In fact, Morgan's raid was something of a community battle—many in the Fourth Kentucky Infantry lived just across the river. Carroll and Trimble County residents who would fight in major battles that also involved Jefferson County soldiers. Confederate recruiters visited Milton and Carrollton.

There were many divided families. James W. Quinn of Milton Township fought for the Union while his sister Mary wed Willis Little, who lived in Carroll County, and joined the Southern army.

There were a number of "sort of" Jefferson County Confederates.

A Prussian, Peter Charles Kyle, who came to Madison about 1844 and was educated there, helped form a Rebel unit Louisiana in 1861. Another member of the Fourth Kentucky, Minor Horton, left Milton Township in 1853, moved to Kentucky by 1860 and joined the Southern side.

One man, however, stands out as a Confederate who was born in Madison and lived there when he enlisted in Co. H of the Fourth Kentucky Infantry in 1862.

John Woodburn Shrewsbury took his name from his mother's father, John Woodburn, who helped found the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad. The son of Capt. Charles Shrewsbury whose home bears the family name, Wood, as he was called, was dedicated, but sickly, and served in several battles, although consumption (tuberculosis) often sidelined him. A Confederate account said Wood often served hospital duty because of his health.

The Shrewsburys were also a divided family because Charles participated in a rally in Madison in 1862 that declared secession illegal.

There may have been more Rebels, but bragging about Confederate service was not safe in Jefferson County. It is also harder to prove these men existed. Union records often recorded the residences of enlistees; Confederate records rarely did.

In any event, Wood Shrewsbury survived the war, but not by much. A note in a Madison newspaper of Aug. 27, 1866 noted that John W. Shrewsbury, eldest son of Charles and Ellen, had died at his home.

John Brough: More than Folly

2008-02-22T08:53:00.000-08:00

John Brough was a very busy man. It’s not just that he was running the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad, and preparing to make his name a symbol of failure with the construction of Brough’s Folly, the attempt to run the railroad through what is now Clifty Falls Park.

No, Brough (pronounced Brough) was very busy because he was running more than one railroad company while he lived in Madison and headed the M&I.

In 1851, Brough attempted to get a charter for the Atlantic & Mississippi Railroad, which was to run from Terra Haute to Saint Louis via Vandalia. That was denied after $500,000 was subscribed; another charter application was denied in 1853. In fact, the account, published in 1884 in the book, "Counties of Cumberland, Jasper and Richland Illinois" says he tried and tried, but was always denied. One of these efforts was apparently the Terra Haute and Saint Louis Railroad, whose board elected him as president, sometime before an account was published, also in 1851. An Illinois history said he tried to pursue the line, despite the lack of sanction of law. Illinois kept him from building any line.

That determination, and his physical appearance, were well known. After the train engine, the John Brough, arrived in Madison on May 10, 1850, the next day’s Madison Courier commented, “We are told this engine is called the John Brough on account of its great weight and for the great amount of business it is capable of doing.”

The weight made itself known in his life as a politician, in the following verse.

“If all flesh is grass, as people say

Johnnie Brough is a load of hay.”

And there was a joke, when he challenged Madison’s Michael Bright to a dual that Bright would have been at a disadvantage because the bullet would have trouble penetrating Brough.

His energy did not come from clean living. One nineteenth century account said he chewed enormous amounts of tobacco, was never very clean in his personal appearance, and “Did not believe in prohibitory laws and could not be labeled as an exemplar of any particular purity.”

His joint railroad jobs contrasted with the fact that the M&I board hired a superintendent under his predecessor, Samuel Merrill, holding that the two positions were too much for one man. Apparently, Brough was in a different category.

Brough left Madison in 1853 to take over the Bellefontaine & Indianapolis Railroad (which he may have had his hand in before leaving), and was still at work in his other Iron Horse ventures.

Whatever his capability in railroads, give him credit as a politician. As a vigorous pro-Union War governor of Ohio, he ensured that state stayed strong in the fight.

Brough came close to leaving his name on another map. The town of Effingham, Ill., was originally paired with one named Broughton, but that name was abandoned and the towns merged as Effingham since Brough wasn’t terribly popular.

Well, it could have been worse in Indiana. Madison could have been named Broughton

Madison's Richest Man

2008-02-18T11:41:00.000-08:00

Ask anyone familiar with Madison in the 1800s to name the city’s richest man and the answer would probably be James F.D. Lanier.

The Lanier Home symbolizes his wealth and he was possibly the wealthiest person to have lived in Madison and Jefferson County during the Nineteenth Century. But he was probably never the richest person while he lived in the city.

The 1850 census was the first tally reporting financial information about individuals, giving the value of real estate holdings. The census showed Lanier’s real estate had a value of $90,000, but this did not include stock holdings.

Still, the wealthiest Madison residents in 1860 were probably two land-rich widows, Anna Paul Hendricks, daughter of Madison’s found John Paul and widow of the late Sen. William Hendricks, and Eliza McIntyre, widow of Madison developer John McIntyre (or McIntire), which reflects the wealth that their husbands had during their lifetimes.

The Madison Courier of Sept. 9, 1851 listed John McIntire’s heirs at the top with $236,100 in property, followed by Hendricks’ heirs with $136,760. Ranking No. 3 was Michael Bright, followed in order by John Woodburn, Jesse Whitehead and Lanier. However, this didn’t include stock holdings. Lanier would have needed a lot of stock to come out at number No. 1.

Michael Bright, older brother of the well-known Senator Jesse Bright, grew significantly richer, with $90,000 in real estate and $50,000 in personal property in 1860, with diverse holdings. There were shown around 1850 by his appeal of city taxes. A Madison City Council record showed the council agreed that he owned $2,250 of Madison & Indianapolis Railroad stock, not the $4,750 he was originally taxed. This apparently stemmed from Bright’s briefly leaving Madison, and not being a resident. But the council held he was properly taxed on $30,450 in state stocks as he had re-established residency in December 1850.

Whitehead is rarely mentioned in local histories, but he lived in Madison about as long as Lanier. One account said he originated the state’s banking system and it’s possible he and Lanier should share credit. He also reportedly pioneered Madison’s river boat industry. His wealth grew sharply from 1850, when the census showed he had $17,000 in real estate. The 1850 Madison tax assessor’s list showed Whitehead were $20,017 of railroad stock, $19,320 in Madison bank stock and $15,000 in Indianapolis bank stock.

By 1860, Whitehead was clearly No. 1 with $355,000 in real estate and $14,275 in personal property. No one else was close. Michael Bright had $90,000 in real estate and $50,000 in personal property, according to the 1860 Madison census.

Lanier, who was already a part-time resident in 1850, had $250,000 in real estate and $250,000 in personal property, according the 1870 census for New York County (Manhattan.) Whitehead, living in Chicago, had retired and his holdings had fallen to $150,000 in real estate and $4,000 in personal property.

First Visitors: Pushing Back County History

2008-02-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

Who was the first European to visit Jefferson County and when? The answer usually given is George Logan in 1801. But exploration started the middle of the eighteenth century and perhaps earlier.

A crudely drawn map, referred to as the Trader’s Map, usually dated to 1753, shows a stream entering the Ohio at the right place for the Indian-Kentuck Creek. The creek that enters the Ohio River at Brooksburg. In 1778, Thomas Hutchens produced a more carefully drawn map which shows lines of latitude and longitude and shows what is almost certainly the Indian-Kentuck, although no streams were named. Given the map’s accuracy, someone must have gone up the creek to chart it.

The Indian-Kentuck became the first geological feature in Jefferson County to get an English name, when it appeared on John Filson’s first map of Kentucky, Drawn in 1784, and published in 1793, the stream was the only one on the Ohio river’s north shore between Cincinnati and Louisville to have a name.

The name was also used in an ordinance adopted by Congress on May 3, 1786, which establishing the creek as the western boundary of land to be surveyed. As Indian-Kentucky, it appeared again when a retired French General Victor Collot floated down the Ohio on a spying mission, and passed the area sometime after March 21, 1796, when his voyage began in Pittsburgh. Collot referred to three creeks between the Indian-Kentuck, which were not Hutchens’ map, implying that the Indian-Kentuck Creek was.

The name’s origin was explained by two visitors to the area, Fortescue Cummings, who toured the Midwest from 1807 to 1809, and David Thomas, who visited Madison 1816. Pioneers gave names to streams on the northern side of the Ohio by adding the words Indian in front of names of streams on the south side. So Wheeling Creek, Short Creek, and the Kentucky River, which flowed north, had counterparts called Indian Wheeling Creek, Indian Short Creek, and Indian-Kentuck Creek, which flowed south.

Europeans continued to visit the area with Kentucky settlers and Indians exchanging raids that brought them on the Indian side, opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River. One account identifies a settler named McMullen who was captured on the Indiana side on Feb. 13, 1790.

We can put another name to visitors the next year when General Charles Scott led 752 mounted men north to find Indians. Scott crossed the Ohio on May 23 and 24, 1791 at a place that was described as opposite the mouth of Battle Creek, five miles below the mouth of the Kentucky River. While the name is no longer used, a 1795 map shows that Battle Creek was the earlier name for Locust Creek in Trimble County.

Two years later, teenagers John and Peter Smock were captured by Indians in Shelby County, Ky., about 1793. The settlers pursued the Indians, who camped for three days on the site where the Jefferson County courthouse now stands, according to an 1874 account by their nephew John Smock.

A few years later, Indians complained to Gov. William H. Harrison that Europeans crossed the Ohio in search of game from the mouth of the Kentucky to the Mississippi and were depleting the Indians’ food. In a letter written in July 1801, he noted these expeditions occurred every fall.

So by the time George Logan carved his named into a tree near Hanover in 1801, a lot of European feet had set foot in Jefferson County.