Historic Towns of the Western States Part 12

At the time this city was located and t.i.tled there was so much of Indian lore in the minds of the legislators, and in fact so much of the red man in the wilderness around, a constant source of apprehension, that great difficulty was found in securing a name for the new metropolis. Tec.u.mseh, Suwarrow, Whetzel, Wayne, Delaware, and other names familiar to the paleface hunted by or hunting the red man, were suggested. Finally Mr.

Samuel Merrill, a name significant in the modern history of Indiana and Indianapolis, and prominent in the upbuilding and development of the best inst.i.tutions of the State and city, proposed Indianapolis as the name for the city which is now the pride of all Hoosier hearts.

The original city was platted with streets just one mile in length from end to end. The avenues, or "diagonals," as they were termed on the original plat, radiated from the Circle (the hub) in the centre and const.i.tuted that beautiful design which makes the capital of France and the capital of the United States so attractive in appearance, and yet in some respects "a labyrinth or mesh to the unfamiliar." Near the radiating point or Circle was early established a market, which is to-day one of the great conveniences to the residents of the city and to those who market their products and an attraction at most seasons of the year to visitors.

[Ill.u.s.tration BENJAMIN HARRISON.]

It was not until the removal in November, 1824, of the archives of Indiana from Corydon to Indianapolis, that the latter became the actual capital. In 1827 the Legislature appropriated four thousand dollars for a Governor's residence to be located in the Circle. Its construction was commenced, but never completed. The unfurnished portion was occupied at one time as a schoolhouse, until finally the officers of the Supreme Court made it their headquarters. After some years the crude building was demolished and the ground was converted into a park, the present location of the Soldiers'

Monument.

[Ill.u.s.tration STATE HOUSE, INDIANAPOLIS. EAST FRONT.]

It was not until a third of the nineteenth century had pa.s.sed, not until near 1840, that Indianapolis became more pretentious than any other country town. The public squares were feeding-grounds for the ox and horse teams of countrymen who came to market. There were practically no industries, and the buildings were primitive and simple. As late as 1875 the wags of the stage and the humorists of the press amused themselves with jeers at the Hoosier capital. The Hoosier was a joke in the East. He was represented as the typical raw character, greatly in need of common advantages and ordinary enlightenment. And the impression persisted until some time after three quarters of the nineteenth century had pa.s.sed that Indianapolis was simply a congregating-point for him and his kind. About 1880 the city began to take on the appearance of a modern ambitious metropolis. As wealth increased the people resorted in ever increasing numbers to the capital, to enjoy the schools for their children and the best civilization for themselves. Gradually there have gathered there not only the prosperous citizens of the State, but many who have at home or abroad achieved renown in letters, diplomacy, official life, the army and navy. Here have lived two Vice-Presidents of our country. One of our Presidents, the late General Benjamin Harrison, lived and died here. Dialect poets, local historians, and novelists have spent their days here and been the pride of their fellow-citizens.

In 1831 the Legislature made an appropriation of fifty thousand dollars for the construction of a State House. The investment, when completed, however, aggregated about sixty thousand dollars. And the State viewed the result with satisfaction and believed she had one of the most attractive and majestic State Houses in the entire country, as indeed she had after the subst.i.tution in 1887, at an expense of $1,936,000, of the present magnificent structure.

Indianapolis has more than one hundred church buildings. The City Hall, with a seating capacity of over five thousand, the gift of Mr. Daniel Tomlinson, was constructed at an expense of $150,000, and is princ.i.p.ally used for conventions and musical festivals.

In 1836 the State began an elaborate system of internal improvements.

Railroads, ca.n.a.ls, and turnpikes were subsidized and encouraged in every manner possible. The first railroad to reach Indianapolis came up in 1847 from Madison, on the Ohio River, creating the usual sensation of the new railroad in those days. As long ago as 1860 Indianapolis became the railroad centre of the Central West. The diversified and almost limitless products of the State, of the farm and the mine, and the fact that Indianapolis is in the direct pathway between the East and the West, afforded great attraction to railroad builders. The Union Railroad Station, until recently the largest and best in the United States, is still one of the most commodious, comfortable, and beautiful in the country.

During the Civil War Indianapolis was a storm-centre. The State was not surpa.s.sed by any other in the percentage of soldiers sent out to defend the Union. Here they rendezvoused, and Camp Morton and other points about the city for many years after the war bore signs of the long presence of the "Boys in Blue." Indiana possessed a great war Governor in Oliver P. Morton, the steadfast friend of Lincoln and a loyal anti-slavist. For five years in Indianapolis the shrill sound of the fife and the roll of the drum scarcely ever ceased, day or night. Those living to-day who recall the activities of the days of the Civil War view the Soldiers' Monument, in the heart of the city, and the many evidences of reverence for the memory of our Union soldiers in the beautiful cemeteries without surprise. These to them are but simple sequences, natural results.

[Ill.u.s.tration SOLDIERS' MONUMENT, INDIANAPOLIS.]

The straggling village of the first days of the war soon became a bustling little city. For the first time business blocks began to appear along the leading streets and avenues. The architecture in the residences evinced a tendency toward the modern as time progressed. The corduroy or cobble streets were improved. The heavy artillery and ponderous wagons carrying munitions of war required something more substantial in heavy weather, and gravel was thrown upon the muddy thoroughfares. Level as a plain, but beautifully drained by the slight inclines to the White River, it was possible to transform those streams of mud in winter-time and heaps of brown dust in the dry summer into the magnificently paved or perfectly asphalted streets of the present day. The city now has 150 miles of improved streets--forty miles of asphalt, costing $2,514,576; twenty-three miles of brick, $902,276; twelve miles of wooden block, $710,646, and seventy-five miles of gravel and boulder, $777,306. There are 107 miles of cement sidewalks, which required an expenditure of $552,489, and ninety-one miles of sewers, at an outlay of $1,575,878.

[Ill.u.s.tration MARION COUNTY COURT HOUSE.]

Many beautiful residences, surrounded by well-kept lawns and parks, may be viewed by a drive through the city or by a tour over any of the lines of the splendidly managed consolidated street-railway system. The city has 1207 acres of parks, more attractive than the parks of Washington.

Riverside Park, containing 953 acres, the ground for which was purchased in 1900, lies along the White River. Garfield Park contains 103 acres; Brookside Park, eighty-one acres; and there are various smaller parks throughout the city. The munic.i.p.ality of Indianapolis has a large park fund, created from the sale of bonds and from a tax levied for park purposes. The financial condition of the munic.i.p.ality is the pride of the citizens. The value of school property is $1,993,620. The city library is a handsome building, erected especially for library purposes, and contains one hundred thousand volumes.

In 1887 the Legislature appropriated $200,000 for the erection in Governor's Circle of the monument to the soldiers and sailors of the State.

The conerstone was laid August 2, 1889. The monument was designed by Bruno Schmidt, of Berlin, and was built of Indiana limestone, at an expense of $600,000, including the images at the base. The monument stands 268 feet in height. Around the approaches are eight magnificent candelabra, valued at $40,000. The two cascades are the largest artificial waterfalls in the world, discharging each minute seven thousand gallons. The water is derived from driven wells beneath the monument, and after flowing over the cascade returns to the reservoir, from which it is again used through power furnished by force pumps. In 1900 the revenue of the city was $1,341,861, and the expenditure $1,245,000. The bonded debt was $2,135,700. The a.s.sessed valuation of property for 1900 was $126,672,652. There are five national banks with a combined capital of $2,400,000, and four trust companies with a combined capital of $3,000,000. The wholesale trade is extensive, confined mostly to drygoods, boots and shoes, and hats, and reaches as far south as Texas and west to Oklahoma.

[Ill.u.s.tration COLUMBIA CLUB, INDIANAPOLIS.]

Manufacturing interests are large, consisting mainly of structural iron, mill machinery, engines and various kinds of bent-wood. It is contended that only Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York surpa.s.s Indianapolis in the amount of many manufactured products. Mill machinery and structural iron is shipped in large quant.i.ties to Europe, South America, and other foreign lands. Indianapolis is one of the greatest horse markets in the country, and is surpa.s.sed by only three cities as a market for hogs and cattle. A belt railroad circles the city, connecting the two immense stockyards with all the steam railroads.

[Ill.u.s.tration THE HENDRICKS MONUMENT.]

In May, 1895, John Herron willed to the Art a.s.sociation $200,000, with which to erect an art gallery. A site has been purchased, and the gallery is this year to be built. The Commercial Club, composed of the leading business men of the city and devoted to advancing the interests of the city, occupies its own building, an elegant eight-story structure. The home for the Columbia Club, a Republican organization of State importance, which has just been completed at an expense of nearly $200,000, is one of the finest club properties in the entire West. The Marion and the University clubs both own their buildings, and the women, too, have a club-house. The Law Building is a handsome and valuable structure of twelve stories, occupied exclusively by attorneys. The corporation has a large law library for the use of the tenants.

State inst.i.tutions are the Insane Hospital, containing fifteen hundred patients; Inst.i.tute for the Education of the Blind, and a similar inst.i.tution for deaf-mutes. The city has a large and handsomely equipped hospital, and there are two others well appointed. A new hotel building will this year take the place of the Bates House, at a cost of more than $2,000,000. The city is adorned with impressive statues of her favorite sons: Morton, Whitcomb, William Henry Harrison, and George Rogers Clark in Monument Place, Vice-President Colfax in University Park, and Vice-President Hendricks in the State House grounds. To these will be added in 1901 one of General Henry W. Lawton, a native Hoosier, who fell in battle in the Philippines, one of General Pleasant A. Hackleman, the only general officer from Indiana killed in the Civil War, and one sometime, of course, of the late ex-President Harrison.

Except Philadelphia, it is doubtful if there is a city in the Union where a greater percentage of the wage-earners possess their own homes. Labor strikes or disturbances are here almost unknown, and the conditions of peace and prosperity are a.s.sured for many years to come.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

VINCENNES

THE KEY TO THE NORTHWEST

BY WILLIAM HENRY SMITH

"On the banks of the Wabash" is one of the greater historic sites of the great Northwest. Of no great importance, at least commercially, to-day, it was once the seat of the empire of France in the Ohio Valley, and long before, possibly when Moses was leading his people out of bondage, the seat of an empire established by a race we now call prehistoric. When the Mound Builders came, whence they came, when they went away, or whither, will, in all probability never be determined; but they were surely here, and from the works they left behind, must have been here for centuries, and must have numbered millions. The site of their capital is not known, but if it was not on the spot where Vincennes now stands, certainly one of the most populous cities of their empire did stand here. In the immediate vicinity are several large mounds, and around them are hundreds of smaller mounds.

There must have been something attractive about this spot on the Wabash, for after the Mound Builders deserted it and the red men came to occupy the land, they, too, selected it for the site of one of their princ.i.p.al towns.

No one knows what tribes have dwelt here, but when it was first visited by white men, the Pi-ank-a-shaws, one of the leading tribes of the great Miami Confederacy, organized to drive back eastward the Six Nations, occupied it as their princ.i.p.al village, and called it Chip-kaw-kay. As the red men depended upon the forests and streams for both food and clothing, this was for them an ideal spot. The finest forests in America were here, filled with buffalo, bear, deer, and other game; while the Wabash furnished them fish and gave them a highway easily traversed by which to visit friends in other sections or to make raids on hostile tribes.

The traditions of the Pi-ank-a-shaws indicate that they occupied the site for more than a century before the coming of the whites. Just when the first white man visited the spot cannot be determined. There is little doubt that La Salle pa.s.sed up the Wabash about 1669, gave it the name of the Ouabache, and marked it on his maps.[8] Finding an Indian town, he probably stopped and, as was his wont, made friends with the tribes. A few years later the town was abandoned for a while, owing to the irruptions of the fierce Iroquois, who were extremely hostile to the French, and La Salle gathered all the other Indian tribes around his fort on the Illinois, where they remained until about 1711. When the Iroquois retired over the mountains the other tribes returned to their old homes; the Pi-ank-a-shaws to their village on the Wabash, the Weas erecting their wigwams near the mouth of the Tippecanoe, and the twightwees locating at the head of the Maumee. Afterward the Delawares took up their home in Central Indiana, the Shawnees in the eastern portion, and the Pottawatomies around the foot of Lake Michigan.

The Indians had hardly gotten back to their old hunting-grounds before the _coureurs des bois_ began to make excursions into the territory in search of peltries and adventures. Some of them penetrated as far as Chip-kaw-kay and dwelt for some time with the Pi-ank-a-shaws. Traditions tell of the visit of a missionary or two, but there is no certainty.

Rumors grew of English traders crossing the mountains, and as all the territory from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi was claimed by France because of the explorations of La Salle, the French authorities in Canada and Louisiana became alarmed, and in 1718 sent out Jean Baptiste Bissot, the Sieur de Vincent, from Canada to establish posts on the Wabash. He reached Ke-ki-on-ga, the town of the Twightwees, at the head of the Maumee, selected it for one of his posts, and for another, Wea town, below the mouth of the Tippecanoe.

At that time not all of the Ohio Valley was under the jurisdiction of Canada, but the lower half of what are now Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois belonged to the province of Louisiana. For this reason Bissot made no effort to establish posts farther down the Wabash than Wea town, afterward known as Ouiatenon. He died at Ke-ki-on-ga, in 1719. The incursions of the English growing bolder and more frequent, M. Broisbriant, Governor of Louisiana, about 1725, ordered Francois Margane, Sieur de Vincent, who had succeeded to the t.i.tle of his uncle, Jean Baptiste Bissot, to prepare to repel the advance of the English and drive them back across the mountains.

For this purpose Margane established a post at Chip-kaw-kay, and about seven years later a number of French-Canadian families settled there. This was the first settlement of whites in Indiana, although trading posts had previously been established at the head of the Maumee and at Ouiatenon.

This was the beginning of Vincennes, which was called "the Post," "au Poste," and "Old Post," till in 1735 it received the present name.

Margane commanded the Post until 1736, when he joined an expedition against the Indians on the Mississippi, and was captured and burned at the stake.

After his death till the territory was ceded in 1763 to the British, the Post was commanded by Lieutenant Louis St. Ange, who had a.s.sisted in establishing it. The French during this period lived in peace and friendship with the Indians, the Pi-ank-a-shaws giving the settlers a large tract of land around the Post for their use. This land was held in common by all the inhabitants. In the spring a certain portion was allotted to the head of each family, or to any one else willing to cultivate it, but when the harvest was over the fences were taken down and the land again became public property. After the accession of St. Ange to the command, he made to certain of the more important persons in the little settlement individual grants of some of this land, which later caused great confusion.

Lieutenant St. Ange had much influence with the Indians, and as the French made no attempts to claim the lands of the Indians, or to destroy their hunting-grounds by cutting down the forests, the little settlement at Vincennes lived without molestation or fear, until about 1751, when British agents stirred up some of the tribes to attempt the destruction of the French posts in the Ohio Valley. St. Ange put his post in a secure state of defence, and although a few friendly Indians were killed by the hostiles in the immediate neighborhood, the Post itself was not attacked.

[Ill.u.s.tration EARLY FRENCH SETTLERS AT VINCENNES.]

When Canada was ceded to the British it took with it the posts at the head of the Maumee and Wea town. They were garrisoned by small detachments of British troops. Pontiac's conspiracy to drive the British out of the country included the capture and destruction of all the posts then held by the British west of the mountains. The two other posts in Indiana were captured, but Vincennes, being still under the command of St. Ange, was not attacked. Pontiac endeavored to enlist St. Ange in his warfare against the colonists, but that astute officer was proof against all his blandishments.

When the treaty of 1763 was made known, St. Ange was transferred to the command of Fort Chartres, on the Mississippi, and left the affairs of Vincennes under the control of three of the more prominent citizens.

The British reoccupied Fort Miamis, at the head of the Maumee, and garrisoned Fort Chartres, but did not occupy Vincennes or a.s.sume control over its affairs. General Gage, commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, issued a proclamation to the people of Vincennes offering them the privilege of remaining or of removing to the French or Spanish possessions, a.s.suring them that if they remained they should have the same religious privileges as had been granted to the people of Canada. In a later proclamation he informed the inhabitants that he would not recognize any claim they had to the lands in and around the Post.

The priest of the little parish and some of the leading citizens memorialized the General, showing that the lands had been held by them for many years under grants recognized by the French government, and that it would be a hardship now to deprive them of the rights they had so long enjoyed. On the receipt of this memorial General Gage ordered that all evidences of t.i.tle be submitted to him at Boston. This, for various reasons, could not be done. Many of the written grants had, as was the custom in France, been left in charge of a notary, who had disappeared with them. In other cases, the grants had been verbal, t.i.tle pa.s.sing again, after a French fashion, by the giving of possession with certain ceremonies. While this matter was in contest between the citizens of Vincennes and General Gage, the first mutterings of the American Revolution brought the General duties of more pressing interest, and nothing further was done in regard to the land grants at Vincennes.

From 1763, when St. Ange left for Fort Chartres, until 1777, the people of Vincennes had no civil government except such as they exercised themselves.

On May 19, 1777, Lieutenant-Governor Abbott, of Detroit, arrived and formally took possession of the place for the King, establishing a government and building a small stockade fort, which he named "Fort Sackville." He reported the "Wabache" as one of the finest rivers in the world, and spoke highly of the peaceful and correct att.i.tude of the citizens of Vincennes. He also took supervision of the garrisons at Ouiatenon and Fort Miamis, and the work of the British agents in stirring up the Indians to active hostilities against the Americans began.

The arrival of Lieutenant-Governor Abbott, and the hostilities of the Indians he encouraged, gave rise to the most interesting chapter in the history of Vincennes, and one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of the United States. Through the influence of the British agents, the savages made a number of forays against the people of Kentucky, and brought about an event which added an empire to the United States.

In all American history there is no story more remarkable than that of George Rogers Clark, yet it is one of the least known. Some of the encyclopaedias do not even mention him, while others dismiss with a few lines a man who gave an empire to the United States. He lived a remarkable life, performed great services for his country, and was then permitted to die in extreme poverty in his old age. His country neglected even to reimburse him for the expenses incurred while winning for it an empire.

[Ill.u.s.tration FORT SACKVILLE, 1779.]

In 1777 Clark was a citizen of Kentucky. The great question to the people of Kentucky was how best to defend themselves against the Indian forays.