Marion County, Indiana - City of Indianapolis, 1884

There was not much change, except in name, when the " town" became the " city" of IndianapoliB, but it marked the beginning of a very positive and great change produced by the close approach of the first railroad, so it may fitly indicate the beginning of the " third period" of the city's history, a period of vigorous growth and solid promise. The leading events are: 1st, The changes in the municipal government and its departments ; 2d, The introduction of the free-school system and the taxation to maintain it ; 3d, The development of the railroad system, and the improvement in business and material condition produced by it ; 4th, Associations for business or charity, churches, private schools, lectures, and means of intellectual culture or diversion. As the history of the municipal government will be treated separately and fully, nothing need be said here except as to its general course. The public schools, churches, railroads, and manufactures are in the same category. First. - On the 13th of February, 1847, the Legislature enacted a city charter for Indianapolis, and left it to be accepted or rejected by a popular vote on the 27th of March, the Governor being required to make proclamation of the operation of the charter if it were accepted. The city was divided into seven wards, - four north of Washington Street, the First, Second, Third, and Fourth ; and three south of it, the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh. The First contained all of the city (which covered the whole donation east of the river) east of Alabama Street, north of Washington ; the Second, all westward to Meridian; the Third, all to Mississippi; the Fourth, all west to the river, south of Washington Street ; the Fifth Ward took all west of Illinois Street ; the Sixth, all east to Delaware ; the Seventh, all the donation east of Delaware. The first city election was to be held on the 24th of April, the mayor to serve two years, with a veto on the Council and the jurisdiction of a justice, his pay to be his fees. The wards to elect one councilman each for one year, with a salary of twenty-four dollars, or two dollars for each regular meeting. They had all the usual powers of municipal bodies, and were required to elect secretary, treasurer, assessor, marshal, with a constable's powers, street commissioners, city and such other ofiicers as they deemed necessary. Taxation could not exceed fifteen cents on one hundred dollars, except by special authority from a popular vote. The most important question to be settled at the election of April 24th for city officers was that of which least was said, the levy of a special tax to establish and maintain a free-school system. The State school fund, at that time mainly derived from the sale of the " school section" reserved in each Congressional township for school purposes, and thence called the " Congressional Township Fund," was not sufficient to accomplish anything of consequence, and it was proposed to assist it, and make an efficient system with the addition of a local school tax. The people were to vote " yes" or " no" on that proposition at the first city election. The president of the expiring Town Council, or Board of Trustees at first. Squire Joseph A. Levy, a very respectable blacksmith on Washington Street, issued his proclamation for an election on the 27th of March to decide upon the acceptance of the charter. It was accepted by four hundred and forty-nine votes to nineteen. Governor Whitcomb proclaimed the charter in force on the 30th. Then President Levy issued his second proclamation for an election of city officers and the decision of the school-tax question. The election was held in the new seven wards, and resulted in the choice of Samuel Henderson, the first president of the old Council or Board, as mayor ; Uriah Gates, councilman from the First Ward ; Henry Tatewiler, Second ; Cornelius King, Third ; Samuel S. Rookeri Fourth ; Charles W. Cady, Fifth ; Abram W. Harrison, Sixth ; William L. Wingate, Seventh. The new Council -organized the 1st of May, with Mr. Rooker as president ; James G. Jordan as secretary, at a salary of one hundred dollars ; Nathan Lister, treasurer, fifty dollars ; James Wood, engineer, three hundred dollars ; William Campbell, marshal and collector, with a per cent, pay for the latter and one hundred and fifty dollars and fees for the former ; Andrew M. Carnahan, city attorney, paid by fees ; Jacob B. Filler, street commissioner, one hundred dollars ; David Cox, messenger of the Marion Fire Company,' and Jacob B. Fitler of the Relief, each twenty-five dollars ; Sampson Barbee and Jacob Miller, market clerks or masters, at fifty dollars ; Joshua Black, assessor, paid by the day while engaged ; Benjamin F. Lobaugh, sexton. The total of the tax duplicate for 1846-47 was four thousand two hundred and twenty-six dollars ; the aggregate of taxable property, about one million dollars. The vote of the wards is worth recording here. About five hundred votes were polled altogether. In the First Ward, 108 ; Second, 85 ; Third, 122 ; Fourth, 35 ; Fifth, 37 ; Sixth, 41 ; Seventh, 66. The vote on the school tax was four hundred and six for it, twenty-nine against it.

Second. - The authority given by the popular vote on the 24th of April for the school levy was promptly used. Each ward was made a district with a trustee, houses were rented and teachers engaged, but the fund would only maintain one-quarter of the four free. Donations were asked, lots purchased cheaply in 1848 and 1849, and substantial one-story brick houses built in 1851 and 1852, and so arranged as to allow enlargement by a second story when necessary. This was added in the First, Second, and Fifth Wards in two or three years. All have been greatly enlarged since, except the old house on Pennsylvania Street a little south of South Street. It is a machineshop now. A two-story house was built in the first place in the Seventh Ward, on Virginia Avenue, in 1857, and made a three-story in 1865. Lots were bought in the Fourth Ward and what was afterwards the Ninth in 1857, and at the close of the war in 1865 and 1866 large, handsome, commodious threestory structures, with high basements and all improvements for warmth and ventilation, were built at a cost of thirty-two thousand dollars each. In 1867 the first four-story house was built in what was then the south part of the Sixth Ward at a cost of fortythree thousand dollars. Three times as many schoolhouses as all these have been added to the system since, and will be noticed in the division of the work treating specially of schools and colleges. The first tax levy in 1847 yielded $1981; in 1848, $2385 ; in 1849, $2851. The aggregate of collections up to 1850 was $6160, of which $5938 were spent in the following year for lots and houses. In 1857 the annual proceeds were $20,329. The first expenditures were wholly for lots and buildings, the teachers getting their pay as the teachers of private schools did, from parents. After house-room had been secured, the revenue could go in part for tuition, for longer terms and more teachers. In this halfformed condition the schools were forced by lack of means to continue till the accumulations of the tax and State fund enabled them to make a fair start in a real free-school system. This was done in 1853, when the Council made Henry P. Coburn, Calvin Fletcher, and Henry F. West trustees for all the schools, instead of making each ward a district with a trustee as before. A system of regulations was drafted by Mr. Fletcher, and on the 25th of April, 1853, the schools were opened free for the first time, with two male and twelve female teachers. Up to that time the number of scholars had not exceeded three hundred and forty. In the first week of the new system it was seven hundred, and over one thousand of the two thousand six hundred children ; of school age - from six to twenty-one - were enrolled. The new arrangement soon provided for the use of uniform text-books and unity of method in teaching, and in August a system of grades was adopted, the i divisions being the Primary, Secondary, Intermediate, I Grammar, and High Schools. All the lower grades ' were kept together with the Grammar schools in the same building, the latter under the " principal" teacher. The old County Seminary was repaired i and made the High School building under Mr. E. P. Cole, with an assistant.

Until 1855 the trustees themselves did all the work appertaining to the system outside of the school-houses, and did it without compensation. In February, 1855, they made Silas T. Bowen - now head of the oldest book house in the State, Bowen, Stewart & Co. - superintendent, with a salary of four hundred dollars a year. He improved the schools greatly, but could not spare the time that they : needed, and gave place to George B. Stone, at one thousand dollars a year. He had previously had charge of the High School, succeeding Mr. Cole. His salary was one thousand dollars, and he gave his whole time and mind to the work. Under him the system was fully developed, and worked as well as it ever has since with costlier officers and greater pretensions. His success overcame all prejudices and objections, and no tax was paid so cheerfully as the school tax. The income increased as the city grew, and more teachers were employed, new houses built, old ones enlarged, and the average attendance increased from three hundred and forty in April, 1853, when the system went into operation, to fourteen hundred in 1856 and eighteen hundred in 1857. Ten houses had been built, forty-four per cent, of the children of " school age" enrolled, and seventy-three per cent, of the enrollment was in average daily attendance. Just in this most promising condition the Supreme Court struck the system a blow that prostrated it at once and paralyzed it for five years. At the suit of Fowler, of Lafayette, the court held that local taxation in aid of schools was not the " uniform taxation" required by the Constitution, and could not be enforced. The opinion was very general at the time, and has only grown stronger since, that there was nothing but the thinnest of distinctions to sustain this disastrous ruling. It was made in January, 1858. The Council at once met to see what could be done, and called upon the citizens of each ward to hold meetings with the same object. This was done on the 29th of January. Subscriptions were taken to maintain the schools anyhow, and three thousand dollars were contributed. This would not go far, and at the end of the current quarter, seeing that without a revenue backed by law nothing of value could be done, the effort was abandoned, the schools closed, the teachers left the city many of them, and the houses were rented for private schools sometimes, and when they were not they were occupied by thieves and strumpets. The houses were kept in indifferent repair by a small tax, and the State fund allowed a free term of a few months, amounting to four months and a half in 1860 and 1861. No attempt at free schools was made in 1859. In 1862 the Supreme Court reviewed its decision, the system was reorganized, the tax re-established, and the flourishing condition of 1857 fully restored and improved. The further history of the public schools will be treated in its department, as above intimated.

Third. - The Madison Railroad, in its progress towards the capital, after the State had sold it to a company in 1843, was slow, halting for several months at temporary stations, as North Vernon, Sand Creek, Clifty Creek, Columbus, Edinburg, Franklin, and

Greenwood. It reached the last station in the latter part of the summer of 1847, and that left but ten miles of staging from the city. The influence of the great public improvement, as already intimated, had gone ahead of it, and inspired the most active and promising enterprise and permanent progress that had yet appeared. Thousands of the old .settlers had never seen a railroad, not even this one, which for a halfdozen years had been within fifty miles of them. The curiosity about it was universal, and there was plenty of time for it to grow full-size and spread as far as convenient access could reach. The citizens held a meeting a few days before the 1st of October, | the day track-laying would be completed to the depot already in progress on South Street, and made arrange- j meots to celebrate the occasion in a suitable manner. The last spike was driven about nine o'clock in the morning of Oct. 1, 1847, and the rail was barely in place and ready when two big excursion trains came ; up froni the lower part of the road, and were received | with much shouting, shooting, and spouting. Spalding's Circus, with the band, led by Ned Kendall, the ' famous bugler, was in the city, and the whole available portion of it turned out to decorate the occasion. Governor Whitcomb made a speech from the roof of [ a car at the depot, and an illumination and display ', of fire-works at night closed a demonstration that events proved was not the glittering illusion of the popular rejoicing ten years and more before when the project of the road was adopted by the Legislature. The good effect of a means of transportation that could be depended on, and would not consume the full value of the article in the cost of getting it where somebody would buy it, was speedily felt. The pork packed here and at Broad Ripple by the Mansurs since 1841, and sent down the river in flat-boats on the spring floods, could go anywhere now, choose a market, and run no risk. Corn and wheat doubled in price before Christmas, while goods brought from abroad were cheapened by the same process that enhanced home products. Further notice will be taken of the changes produced by this first admission of the city to the commercial connections of the country and by its successors a little later.

Road became a certainty railroad enterprise moved more energetically, and finally with long bounds that have not ceased yet and hardly slackened, except as financial straits have forced it. The Peru and Indianapolis line was chartered in 1845-46, completed to Noblesville, twenty-one miles, in the spring of

1851, and to Peru, seventy-three miles, in April, 1854. The Bellefontaine (Bee Line) was chartered two years later, but was completed to Pendleton, twenty-eight miles, three months sooner, and to the State line at Union City in December, 1852, over a year sooner. The Terre Haute Road (Vandalia), chartered in 1846, was finished to Terre Haute, seventy-three miles, in May, 1852. The Jefi'ersonville Road, begun in 1848, was finished to Edinburg, seventy-eight miles, and connected with the Madison in

1852. The Lafayette (now Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Chicago, or Big Four) was begun in 1849, and finished to Lafayette, sixty-five miles, in 1852. The Central (Pan Handle) was begun in 1851, and finished to the State line near Richmond, seventy-two miles, December, 1853. The Cincinnati Road (now part of the Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Chicago) was begun in 1850, but not chartered as a through road till 1851, because it would cut off" all the up-river trade of the Madison Road. It was completed to Lawrenceburg, ninety miles, in October, 1853. The Junction Road, to Hamilton, Ohio, was begun in 1850, but delayed by one obstruction or another, so that it was not completed to the city till May, 1868. The Vincennes Road was started in 1851, and the company organized under the late John H. Bradley in 1853, but nothing of consequence till a reorganization was made under the late Gen. Ambrose K. Burnside, in 1865. It was then pushed vigorously, and completed to the city in 1868. The city gave it a subsidy of sixty thousand dollars. An " Air Line" road to Evansville was projected in 1840, and taken up in 1853 by Oliver H. Smith, the founder of the Bellefontaine Road, to connect with the latter and make a through line from the lower Ohio to Lake Erie, and under this organization surveys were made and work advanced vigorously till the financial crash of 1857 stopped it, and before the effects of that had passed away Mr. Smith died, and the " Air Line" is still a project instead of a fact. A " Short Line" road to Cincinnati was projected in 1853, surveys and contracts naade, but stopped in 1855 by financial stress, and has remained dead ever since. The Toledo and Indianapolis Road, a direct line of one hundred and eighty-five miles, was organized in 1854 for a short lake connection, but hard times killed it. The Indiana and Illinois Central, one hundred and sixty miles, to Decatur, 111., was projected in 1852, and organized in 1853, began work and advanced hopefully till the " hard times" came upon it. Later it was reorganized as the Indianapolis, Decatur and Springfield Road, and was completed in 1881. In 1866 the Cincinnati Road wanted a connection to reach Chicago business, and its management projected a rival line to the Lafayette through Crawfordsville, to which the city voted a subsidy of forty-five thousand dollars. Work was begun and progressing favorably, when the Lafayette was bought and absorbed and the Crawfordsville abandoned. This did not please the people of the rich corn and pork section traversed by the proposed line, and then another company was formed, contracts re-let, and the road completed to the city as the Indianapolis, Bloomington and Western in 1869. The Indianapolis and St. Louis Road was begun in 1867 to make a Western connection for one of the great Eastern trunk lines, and was finished in 1869. Within the last two years the Indianapolis, Bloomington and Western has made an eastern extension, entering the city beside the Bee Line tracks, and about a year ago consolidated the Indianapolis, Decatur and Springfield Company with itself, running both lines. The " Chicago Air Line" road, after a long period of embarrassment and obstruction, was completed into the city last spring, 1883. The Union Railway Company, wholly confined to the city, was organized in 1849, mainly by Gen. Thomas A. Morris, Oliver H. Smith, Chauncey Rose, and Edwin J. Peck. The Union tracks were laid in 1850, and the depot, upon Gen. Morris' plans, in 1853. Previously the Bellefontaine trains had started from the Terre Haute (now Vandalia) Depot, on Tennessee and Louisiana Streets, one square west of the Union Depot. A Belt Road, to connect outside of the city all the roads entering it, by which they could tran.sfer cars and trains from one to the other without passing through the city, was projected and partly graded by a company, mainly composed of other railroad companies, eight or ten years ago, but abandoned in the stress of finances. In 1876 it was taken up by a company, mainly of capitalists in the city or connected with the railroads centring here, and on popular approval by a vote the city indorsed the company's bonds to the amount of five hundred thousand dollars, taking a mortgage on the road and stock to secure itself, and the road was rapidly built in connection with the stock-yard, and opened for business in November, 1877. Within a year it has been leased by the Union Company, and both are now under one management.

The first telegraph line was constructed in the spring of 1848, from here to Dayton, by a company organized by Henry O'Reilly, under a general law passed the preceding February. The first dispatch was sent from here to Richmond on the 12th of May ; the first published dispatch appeared in the Sentinel of May 24th. The first operator was Mr. Isaac H. Kiersted, and his ofiice was in the second story of the building where the Hubbard block now stands. Two years later a second line was built by Wade & Co., but consolidated with the other in April, 1853. Other lines have been built and absorbed here, and all over the country. The operators here have been Isaac H. Kiersted, J. W. Chapin, Anton Schneider, Sidney B. Morris, J. F. Wilson, and John F. Wallack. The last was made superintendent here when an officer of that kind was first found necessary, and he has filled the place ever since, nearly twenty years. For the first eight or ten years dispatches were taken by impressions of the Morse alphabet on long ribbons of heavy paper ; and newspaper men had to copy these, fill out the abbreviations, and arrange them in some sort of coherent order each for himself. A very few years before the war operators here "began to read by sound, Coleman Wilson being the first resident sound reader. From that time forward the operators made manifold copies for the press, and saved editors a good deal of work. The most notable event, next to the first appearance of the electric telegraph, was the successful laying, so soon ruined, of the first Atlantic cable, in August, 1858. There was an illumination and bonfires, and a general congratulatory time that night. Governor Wallace made a speech, and Governor Willard had a pleasant reception at the executive residence. It is not generally known that the appropriation which enabled Professor Morse to build his experimental line to Baltimore was carried in committee by the vote of Governor Wallace, and but for that vote the appropriation and pregnant experiment would have both failed for another year at least. The committee on .commerce, in which the appropriation of forty thousand dollars was considered, was evenly divided, as it happened, and Governor Wallace's name coming last on the roll his vote decided the question for the appropriation. At the ensuing congressional election his antagonist used this vote against him with such eifect that it helped to defeat him. Faith in electricity forty years ago was hardly as wide and solid as it has' grown to be since.

In February, 1851, the Indianapolis Gaslight and Coke Company was given a special charter by the last Legislature under the old constitution to run fifteen years, and on the 6th of March stock-books were opened, stock subscribed readily to the amount of twenty thousand dollars, the capital limited by the charter, and on the 26th an organization made by the choice of David V. CuUey as president, Willis W. Wright as secretary, and H. V. Barringer as superintendent. The projector of the affair was Mr. John J. Lockwood. The city gave the company the sole right to make and supply gas here for public or private use, requiring street gas at the price of that in Cincinnati. In July the company bought a small tract of half swampy creek bottom on the east side of Pennsylvania Street, on the south bank of the creek, and erected, in a small, cheap way, the buildings needed. Mains were laid in Pennsylvania and Washington Streets at the same time. On the 10th of January, 1852, the first gas was furnished for regular consumption. In the following April, 1853, a few weeks over a year after the organization of the company, seven thousand seven hundred feet of pipe had been laid, six hundred and seventy-five burners were supplied for one hundred and sixteen consumers, and thirty bushels of coal were used per day. Previously

Masonic Hall, and the two street lamps in front of it, had been lighted with gas made by a little apparatus of its own. The enterprise ran heavily at the start till a superintendent who knew his business was obtained, and the works were enlarged and improved. A special tax to pay for lighting the streets with gas was defeated at the city election of 1852, and the lighting of Washington Street from Pennsylvania Street to Meridian was paid for by the property owners. In December, 1854, a contract was made with the company to light the central portions of Washington and the adjacent streets, and it was done in 1855. From that time a steady annual addition was made, the property holders paying for the posts and lamps, till in 1868 the total length of mains was twentythree miles, and of service-pipe seventy-five miles, with fifteen hundred and fifty consumers of gas, and an average daily production of one hundred and seventy-five thousand feet. The largest gas-holder is on Delaware Street, and has a capacity of three hundred thousand cubic feet. In February, 1859, the Council decided to put four lamps to a square, the opposite corners to be lighted, and the two intermediate lamps to be allowed equal intervals from the other two and each other, one on each side of the street. The original charter expired March 4, 1866. The City Council, thinking to get better terms than before, ordered, in May, 1865, an advertisement for proposals to light the city for twenty years. No bid was made but by the old company, and its demand not being satisfactory, a committee was appointed to investigate the matter, and made a report of terms and conditions that the company would not accept. In. this emergency, R. B. Catherwood & Co. made a proposition on the 5th of March, 1866, to take a charter for thirty years, with the exclusive right of the city, and furnish gas for three dollars per one thousand feet, the city to contest a claim for longer continuance made by the old company. The gas committee made a counter-proposition to charter the " Citizens' Gaslight and Coke Company," with an exclusive city right for twenty years instead of thirty, reserving the right to buy the works after ten years, and dividing equally the profits above fifteen per cent. The new company was to attend to the litigation with the old one, the capital was to be appraised every five years, the company was to fix the gas rate annually, in March, at not more than three dollars per one thousand feet, were to extend mains wherever fifteen burners to a square were promised, insure their works, and forfeit their charter if they made default in the conditions. This move started the confident old company to a serious consideration of the case, and while the counter-proposition and ordinance of the Council were pendin<r, it advanced a proposal to take a twenty years' charter, supply gas at three dollars per one thousand feet, extend mains and fill all other conditions required of the new company, and lower the price of gas if improved processes of manufacture would allow it. The city would light and clean the lamps, and have the amount and quality of gas tested. The bargain was closed and is still binding. In a little while, howe.ver, it was found that the gas bills were getting to be bigger under the new arrangement at three dollars per one thousand feet than the old one at twenty-eight dollars and forty-four cents a lamp, for gas, lighting, and cleaning. A committee investigated the matter, and found that more lamps were charged for than had been used and more gas charged for than had been needed, and a gas inspector was recommended. George H. Fleming, excellently qualified, was appointed, rules for testing the quality and pressure of gas were made, the number of hours of lighting fixed, and all the lamps but those on the corners were shut off at midnight, thus saving twenty thousand dollars a year. Since that time there have been some considerable changes.

In 1877 a new gas company was organized here in competition with the old one, called the " Citizens' Company." Works were built at the west end of St. Clair Street, and a considerable extent of mains laid, private consumers supplied, and a fair prospect of good business opened. The gasometer exploded soon after operations began, and in a short time the old company bought the new one. It operates the new works, however, in connection with the old ones, now so greatly enlarged as to cover more than half of the square between the creek and South Street. Some t«n years ago a branch establishment, for the convenience of the northeastern part of the city, was opened

The first suggestion of a street railway was made in November, 1860, and renewed in 1863, when a company was formed with Gen. Thomas A. Morris as president, Wm. Y. Wiley as secretary, and W. 0. Rockwood as treasurer. They applied to the Council, and while the application was pending, a rival company was formed by R. B. Catherwood, of New York, and some citizens here, with Col. John A. Bridgland as president. They proposed better terms than the earlier company, and offered security to fill their contract; but the " Citizens' Company," as it was called, finally lo.st the charter, and it was given to the Indianapolis company and refused ; whereupon it was accepted by the other, and the conditions settled. These facts are familiar to most readers, from the frequent controversies of the press with the company. Owing to unavoidable delays, the Council granted an extension of time for sixty days in 1864, in the latter part of August, in fulfilling all the conditions, but portions of the work had been done, and the Illinois Street Line to the Union Depot had been opened with due ceremony by the city authorities in June of that year. The company, consisting of Catherwood and his associates, sold to Wm. H. English and E. S. Alvord in 1865, and these a few years later sold to the Messrs. Johnson, the present proprietors. The present extent and condition of the business of the company is stated in the summary in the last chapter. It only needs to be noticed further here, that within the past year the stables and shops have been enlarged and cover an acre on the northeast corner of Louisiana and Tennessee Streets, with a half-acre more on the oppo.site side of Tennessee Street which is laid down with tracks and shelter for curs not in use. A stable and car-house have been built in Indianola within a little more than a year, for the service of the line running to Mount Jackson and the Insane Asylum. The Tennessee Street establishment was seriously damaged by fire a few years ago, but it was not allowed to interfere with the operations of the company at all. Within a few months past attempts have been made to charter a second street railway company, under the name of the " Metropolitan," but so far they have not succeeded, though backed by some of the best men in the city. On the morning of the 6th of January, 1884, the stables of the " Citizens' " company were again seriously damaged by fire.

The first proposal for a water supply was made in 1860 by a Mr. Bell, of Rochester, N. Y., but idly. The company that had come into possession of the canal renewed it in 1864 as idly as Mr. Bell. Mayor Caven recommended to the Council the initiation of a water system, with Crown Hill as the site for a reservoir, but the Council decided that while a supply system was desirable, it was not desirable that the city should make it. Nothing further was done till 1866, when the mayor again brought the matter before the Council, and in November of that year the inevitable Catherwood came forward and accepted a charter requiring the water to come from the river far enough up to avoid contamination, with other conditions needless to specify, as nothing came of the affair. In 1869 the Central Canal Company, then mainly a resident of Rochester, N. Y., tried to get the Council into a joint-stock company to introduce the Holly scheme, which acts by direct force without a reservoir, and put in their canal as the source of supply, at a price that would make that theretofore useless property remunerative ; but that would not work. In the fall of 1869, Mr. Woodrufi' organized a company for a water supply on the Holly plan independently of the city, and he was given a charter under strict limitations, and introduced the supply slowly and not very successfully at first. The company has changed a good deal, and is now under the presidency of Gen. Thomas A. Morris, with Mr. John L. Ketcham as secretary, and supplies a large part of the domestic and manufacturing service of the city and all its fire service. Two or three years ago, the sources of its supply being suspected of impurity, it was decided to bring the whole of it from a point so far above the city as to make contamination impossible, and a point was selected near the river above the Fall Creek " cut off." This has been reached by a costly conduit which brings water from a " gallery," or elongated well, about twelve hundred feet long by fifty wide and fifteen deep, which cannot be damaged by river infiltration, or by any cause that does not equally damage all springs. Below its bed, about forty feet, is a second current which has been reached by boring, and rises above the surface of the " gallery" water. This can be depended on to maintain a pure supply if needed. Several analyses have proved the " gallery" to be as nearly pure as anything drawn from the ground and undistilled can be.

For some years Governor Wright had made a specialty of agriculture and its requirements, and in 1853 the Legislature chartered the State Board of Agriculture, with the Governor as president, the late John B. Dillon as secretary, and State Treasurer Mayhew as treasurer. The first fair was held in Military Park in October, 1852, from the 19th to the 25th, with thirteen hundred and sixty-five entries. The next was held in Lafayette, October 11th to 13th. Horace Greeley delivered the address. Then it went to Madison, where its success was so indifferent that it returned to Indianapolis for four years. In 1859 it was taken to New Albany, and returned to Indianapolis for five years, till 1864, none being held in 1861 on account of the war. In 1865 it went to Fort Wayne, then came again to Indianapolis. Since then it has remained here. Up to 1860 it was held in Military Park ; then the State Board bought a tract of some thirty acres north of the city, with the assistance of the railroads, and held the fair there that year. During the war it was used both as a camp for national troops, and as a prison camp for prisoners of war. Some years ago an association of citizens and railroads joined the State Board in erecting the "Exposition" building, with the purpose of maintaining an annual exhibition of such products of skill as could not be advantageously shown in ordinary fair buildings. The success of the enterprise was not such to encourage its continuance long, and the State Board took the building with the assurance of protecting the obligations incurred in its erection.

Belonging to this same period is the origin of the City Hospital. As already related, the city, during an epidemic alarm in early days, was going to use done. In 1848 another serious fright was caused by an outbreak of smallpox, in which a prominent Indiana politician died at the Palmer House, now the Occidental. A general vaccination was ordered, and a lot bought and contract made for a hospital. The fright passed away, the citizens protested against a tax for a hospital, and the material was given to the contractor, with a bonus of two hundred and twentyfive dollars in consideration of his surrender of the contract. He built a three-story frame Iiotel with the means thus wasted by the city, and it is still in use on Market Street, near the Sentinel office. Again, in 1855, a smallpox scare occurred, and it was again determined to erect a city hospital. A large tract of ground on the bank of Fall Creek, at the end of Indiana Avenue, was purchased, a house begun in the usual fashion of failure, and failed when the alarm subsided. But the aflFair was not allowed to die quietly or lie easily in its grave this time. Dr. Livingston Dunlap, alluded to heretofore as a pioneer of the city, was a member of the Council, and kept the subject in a chronic state of resurrection till the house was finished, at a cost of thirty thousand dollars, in 1859. No use occurring for it, nothing was done with it, but as a resort for strumpets and thieves, and it was proposed to sell it. The Council decided that it was better to rent it, though it was not rented. Then there was a suggestion to make it a city prison or home for friendless women, or to let the Sisters of Charity make a hospital of it ; but these projects were defeated. It was at last granted to an association of ladies for a " Home for Friendless Women," but not being used, it was given rent free to somebody to take care of it. Few charitable schemes or means have lived through harder trials, and the hospital, now so important a feature of the city government, would probably have gone the way of other sugh efforts if the outbreak of the war had not compelled the national government to use it for its original purpose. The government made some considerable additions, besides improving the grounds, and these came to the city, with the uses of the structure settled by four years of occupancy, in place of the rent of it. A short time after the government returned it to the city, Rev. Augustus Bessonies, the pastor of St. John's Catholic Church, asked its donation to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd as a prison for females. At the same time he asked the completion of the city house of refuge on the BluflF road, south of the city, of which a very substantial and costly foundation had been laid for a year or two and left unfinished for want of means, on ground donated by the late S. A. Fletcher; but the opposition of other denominations defeated these applications, and the hospital was left vacant for a few months, when furniture and supplies were obtained at the sale of government stores in Jeficrsonville, a superintendent and consulting physician appointed, and the hospital opened July 1, 1866. The old government additions becoming dilapidated, the city decided, about a year ago, to build two substantial and commodious additions of brick, three stories high, and one was recently completed and opened for the admission of patients. It may be noted in this connection that the house of refuge desired by the Catholic association was soon afterwards finished and put in charge of one of the Catholic charitable associations.

The hospital, during its occupancy by the general government, was under the charge of Dr. John M. Kiletun and Dr. P. H. Jameson, who, with their assistants, treated thirteen thousand patients there in four years. During the few months that intervened after the government ceased to use it as a hospital - from July, 1865, to April, 1866 - it was occupied as a "Soldiers' Home," under Dr. M. M. Wishard. The first superintendent of the institution, after it had been completely organized and provided, and made ready for service as a city hospital, in fulfillment of its original purpose, was Dr. G. V. Woollen. The present superintendent is Dr. W. N. Wishard.

The Chamber of Commerce traces its origin to this period. A Merchants' Exchange was formed in June, 1848, but died in early infancy, and was succeeded by one formed in August, 1853, by a citizens' meeting, which appointed Nicholas McCarty, Ignatius Brown, John D. Defrees, A. H. Brown, R. J. Gatling, and John T. Cox a committee to make a constitution, prepare a circular and map, and obtain money. Douglas Maguire was made president, John L. Ketcham secretary, and R. B, Duncan treasurer.

Mr. Ignatius Brown prepared the map and circular I setting forth the situation and condition of the city, and they were sent all over the country, for the first time giving the outside world some knowledge of the city's advantages as a manufacturing and commercial centre. After a beneficial existence of two years it died of inanition, and was revived in 1856, and continued for two years more, dying, as before, for want of means. It was succeeded or revived in 1864 as the Chamber of Commerce, which, after a feeble life of a few years, began to develop under the great impulse given to business at the close of the war, and is now a powerful and permanent body of a thousand members, representing forty-five to fifty classes of business, of which eighteen are railroad and transpor- [ tation companies. Operating with it for a time was the " Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association," in 1868, and in 1873, for a year or two, a " Real Estate Exchange" was formed, with an especial eye to the development of real estate business. It died, however, when the panic of 1873 culminated here in 1875.

Many of our leading educational and benevolent institutions date from the same period, from the adoption of a city form of government, in 1847, to the war. The Masonic Grand Lodge Hall, begun by the purchase in 1847 of the site it still retains, was , completed far enough for occupancy by the Constitutional Convention of 1850, and dedicated the following spring. The Widows' and Orphans' Society organized in December, 1849; the Northwestern Christian University (now Butler), removed a few years ago to Irvington, chartered in 1852 ; an Adams Express office was opened first on September 15, 1851 ; tlie grand hall of the Odd-Fellows was begun in 1853, and completed in 1855, at a cost of thirty thousand dollars ; the Young Men's Christian Association was organized on March 21, 1854; in 1853 the free schools were first put in effective operation. These all remain in vigorous existence. Besides these a number sprang up, flourished for a while, and disappeared. Among these, those deserving notice now are the Central Medical College, organized in the summer of 1849, with a faculty composed of Drs. John S. Bobbs, Richard Curran, J. S. Harrison, G.

W. Mears, C. G. Downey, L. Dunlap, A. H. Baker, and David Funkhouser. Its location was the southeast corner of East and Washington Streets, its existence protracted for about three years. The Indiana Female College is another, opened by Rev. T. L. Lynch, on the southeast corner of Ohio and Meridian Streets. It was continued there by his successors till 1859, and suspended. In 1852, Dr. Mc- Lean opened a female seminary on the southwest corner of Meridian and New York Streets, and continued it successfully till his death, in 1860, when Professor Todd and others maintained it till 1865. In 1865 the Indiana Female College was re-established in the McLean building, and maintained for two or three years, when the premises were sold to the Wesley Chapel congregation for the site of the present Bleridian Church. A commercial college and reading-room were begun in 1851 by Wm. M. Scott, but they lived only a few years, the readingroom but a year.

Most of the existing considerable manufactures had their commencement in the same period. Porkpacking, previously a restricted and uncertain business, became enlarged by additional establishments and by the increased product and trade of all. Iron had been rather an occasional infusion of trade than a permanent element. Grain- and lumber-mills multiplied ; planing-mills made their first appearance, so did furniture-factories and coopering establishments, and agricultural machinery and carriage-factories that kept carriages in stock. The opening up of means of transportation that were not dependent on freshets in the river or the condition of " crosslayed" roads gave a positive and speedy boom to all classes of business that was only increased by the war. Naturally this dozen years was to be expected to prove encouraging, though no one did expect such results so speedily.

The first course of lectures held here was in the early months of 1847. The " Union Literary Society," composed at first mainly of pupils of the " Old Seminary," but in its later years enlarged by the addition of young men unconnected with the school, and finally absorbed by them, secured by the contributions of citizens means enough to obtain the use of suitable places for free lectures by Dr. Johnson, rector of Christ Church, Rev. S. T. Gillet, Hon. Godlove S. Orth, and others. The same association had previously obtained a lecture from Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, in his church, but it was a single address without a succession. In 1847 or 1848 the society, with the assistance of citizens as before, procured a short course of lectures from a Cincinnati clergyman, and occasional lectures were obtained from citizens. In May, 1851, John B. Gough delivered three or four of his noted temperance lectures in Masonic Hall. In 1853 the Union Literary Society, then in the act of expiration, obtained a lecture from Horace Greeley in the fall. The Young Men's Christian Association succeeded the following year, and had annual courses of lectures regularly for a number of years thereafter. A further reference will be made to these in a chapter on "Lectures and Entertainments."

In 1855 came a financial disturbance that amounted to nearly a panic. It grew out of the condition of the currency and the banks. The Legislature, in 1852, had passed a " Free Banking" law, authorizing the issue of bills by private banks on the security of our State bonds, or those of any State approved by the State oflGcers. Under a lax construction of this act, or the laxity of its provisions which no construction could tighten, a large number of banks had grown up all over the State, some well fortified with securities of circulation, some indifferently, and some hardly protected at all. For a while their issues all went off freely at home, though a good deal distrusted outside of the State. The State officers had exercised less than due care in distinguishing between the securities offered, and some of a doubtful character had been accepted, and issues upon them thrown into the current of business. Governor Wright, who had come to doubt the operation of the act, determined to test the strength of some of the banks by sending them their bills to redeem in gold. One in Vermillion County, in the slang of the day, " squatted." This began an impulse of distrust and discrimination which culminated in 1855, and continued after the Governor had been succeeded by Governor Willard. Free bank paper became the plaything of brokers.

One would refuse it, another would take it ; one would accept it to-day and refuse it to-morrow. Banks that redeemed on demand, or in any way maintained fair credit, as some did, were called " gilt-edged," and were good with all brokers and business men. Others of a less assured character were discounted at any rate that a broker pleased. The brokers, in fact, fixed the value of the currency of the free banks, and the daily papers of the city made their first essays at " Money Articles" in noting the fluctuations. They made three classes, - the absolutely good, the uncertain, and i the bad, - and these changed, the lower once and a while rising into the upper, but the general tendency was downwards. Gradually the weaker banks were closed up, the stronger became better established, and the disturbances disappeared till in 1863. When national banks were first organized, their notes

' were not considered any better than the others, but they possessed the vast advantage of being equally good everywhere. That was not the case with free bank paper, which sometimes failed in a man's pocket when he was out of the State, though posi sibly still current at home, and left him in as unpleasant a situation as that of " Titmarsh in Lille." The free banks of Indianapolis were the Bank of the Capital, Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank, the Central Bank, the Traders' Bank, and the Metropolitan Bank.

] In ibis connection may be noticed the appearance of the first permanent theatre in a building erected for it, the Metropolitan, now the Park. There had frequently been temporary theatrical establishments in improvised buildings, but in 1857-58, Mr. Val- i of Washincton and Tennessee Streets, a favorite location for circuses in earlier times, and opened it in the fall of the latter year. It did not prove remunerative till the outbreak of the war collected large bodies of

I idle men here, either as soldiers organizing in camp or as hangers-on of the army. Then it improved so greatly that ten years later the same enterprising gentleman purchased an incomplete building on the

I southeast corner of Illinois and Ohio Streets, and converted and completed it into the Academy of Music, which was burned some half-dozen years later. Of the earlier dramatic enterprises hero, those of an occasional character in temporary quarters, and those later than this period of the city's history, an account will be given in a chapter assigned to such entertainments.

Municipal Government. - The history of the city and county during tlie war will be treated in its own division, and since the war so much of it is a matter of recent occurrence, within thousands of memories, that no attempt will be made to present it except in the details of the different special topics to follow. These, except as to their early history, have not been sought to be presented, as any intelligible account must bring remote periods together in a body that would break up entirely the course of the general history. A sketch of our manufactures, to illustrate, would have to mass together all material facts between the steam-mill in 1832 and the car-works in 1882, a period of fifty years, and to thrust such a mass into the course of the general history would make an irrecoverable disconnection. It would be the same with our schools, churches, press, banks, entertainments, and other special subjects vitally connected with the city's history, but readily separable from the general narrative.

The first special subject is naturally that of the city government, of which something has already been said. The first municipal organization was in 1832. From that time the history of the county and that of the city are measurably separated. The changes up to the time of the adoption of the city form of government have been already noted ; those since, till the addition of a Board of Aldermen, may be very briefly stated. In 1 853 the general charter law was adopted, by which the elections were changed from April to May, the terms of all officers to a single year, each ward given two councilmen, all elections given to the people, and the mayor made president of the Council, as he has continued to be ever since. In 1857 the Legislature amended the general charter act, which made the terms of all officers two years, and vacated half the seats in the Council each year. In 1859 an amendment made the Council terms four years instead of two. In 1861 the First Ward was divided and the Ninth made of the eastern half, and a similar division of the Seventh made the

Eighth of the eastern half. In 1865 a new charter was put in operation, which made all terms of office two years, created the office of auditor, and made the auditor, assessor, attorney, and engineer elective by the Council. In 1867 this was changed so as to create the office of city judge and give to the people only the choice of mayor, clerk, marshal, treasurer, assessor, and judge. The offices of auditor and judge were abolished in 1869, the duties of auditor going to the clerk and those of judge to the mayor. The charter remained unchanged till 1877, when the Board of Aldermen was created ; then the terms of councilmen were made one year and of aldermen two years. In 1881 a change was made, giving a term of two years to both and changing the time of the city election from May to October. The nine wards of 1861 remained unchanged till 1876, when they were increased to thirteen. When the Board of Aldermen was created they were increased to twentyfive and a councilman assigned to each one, while the whole were divided into five districts with two aldermen to each.

In noting these political indications of the growth of the city it may be noted that the first addition to the territory of the city was made by John Wood, the banker, in June, 1836. In 1854 and 1855 Blake, Drake, Fletcher, Mayhew, Blackford, and others made considerable additions. Mr. Ignatius Brown estimates that between sixty and eighty additions had been made up to 1868. Taking into account the enormous additions and subdivisions of additions made during the real estate speculations after 1868 up to 1875, the whole number can hardly be less than one hundred and fifty. Not a few of these have since relapsed into their original condition to avoid city taxes, but the territory of the city still is very nearly three times as large as the donation and a dozen times as large as the original plat of the town. The city assessments for taxes since the organization of the city government are as follows:

The present assessment of the county is about $75,000,000. That of the city constituting twothirds of it, the fluctuations of the latter have caused equal variations in the other. The tax-rate of the county is 70 cents for all purposes ; that of the city $1.12, which is the limit. Something of the extent of the real estate speculative fever in 1873 may be judged from the fact that the sales in 1872 were reported by the Board of Trade as double those of 1871, and those of 1873 doubled those of 1872, amounting to over $32,500,000. Since that time there has been no such inflation of speculation. In 1864 an ordinance required the issue of a " permit" from the city clerk to authorize the erection of a building. In 1865 it was found that 1621 buildings were erected ; in 1866, 1112 ; in 1867, 747 ; in 1870, 840 ; in 1873, 600. Since then the decline has been heavy and continual until within the last two years. The decrease in the number of buildings, which will be observed, was more than compensated by the increased value till the general financial disturbance broke down building of all kinds almost entirely.

The first street improvement made by the city was in 1836-37. At that time the national government was metaling the National road through the city, and the occasion offered a very obvious motive to the trustees to do something for their sidewalks. The something was not much, but it accomplished some brick pavements and some grading down of inequalities. About that time, too, some shade-trees, principally locusts, were set out on the street then and for a good many years called Main Street, and in various parts of the city. Some of these old locusts were standing on the corner of Meridian Street for twenty years. On the other streets they remained longer, and a few are still standing in scattered localities. A general plan of street improvement and drainage was made by James Wood, in 1841, upon an order of the Council, but nothing was done with it at the time, though later it was partially carried out where practicable at all. The sidewalks of Washington Street were widened from the fifteen feet of the original plat to twenty, and those of the other streets from the original ten to twelve, and later to fifteen. Pavements were occasionally made, but more frequently graveled walks took their place all along the interval from 1836 to 1859, and the grading and graveling of streets went on too ; but the first substantial improvement was bowldering Washington Street from Illinois to Meridian. From that time onward street improvement has gone on with little interruption, - some of it of a costly kind, as the block pavement of Delaware and other streets, which soon wore out and required replacing by bowlders. A recent eflbrt has been made to replace the bowlders of Washington Street and the blocks of Market with Medina stone, but the cost of that material makes it unlikely to displace bowlders on any but streets largely occupied by wealthy residents. In 1855 an attempt was made to number the houses on Washington Street, but it was indifferently done, and nothing further was attempted in that direction till 1858, when A. C. Howard, on a Council order, numbered all the streets; but counting only the houses then erected, the faulty plan was soon disclosed, and in 1864 he renumbered them on the Philadelphia plan of making fifty numbers to a block. The most extensive and costly improvement, however, has been the sewage system, adopted in 1870. It began with a main sewer of eight feet in diameter from Washington Street to the river, down Kentucky Avenue. A branch was carried up the bed of the canal from the avenue to Market Street, which effaced the canal that far. Another branch was carried along South Street to Fletcher Avenue, and down that avenue to its termination. Since then a branch has been constructed on Illinois Street, Pennsylvania Street, and other streets, and the trunk line extended to the creek at Noble Street to connect with a line to the Female Reformatory. In 1868 a fifteen-cent sewage tax was levied, and a sewer on Ray Street, from Delaware to the creek, was made, terminating under Ray Street bridge, at a cost of sixteen thousand five hundred dollars. The later and larger aflFair cost one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. The contractors were Wirth & Co., of Cincinnati. Their competitors were Symonds & Hyland, who were alleged at the time to have ofiiered the city more favorable terms, and their rejection by the Council caused open charges of corruption to be repeatedly urged in some of the city papers. The other street improvements - the street lamps, railway lines, and the water supply - have already been referred to, and do not belong to an account of works prosecuted by the city. In 1871 the perils of crossing the union tracks on busy streets caused the erection of an iron viaduct on Delaware Street, some six hundred feet long and high enough under the upper span for the easy passage of engines and cars. It was but little used, however, and in 1874 was taken down and the iron used in making canal and creek bridges. In 1873 a more effective relief, it was thought, would be given to the crowded business of Illinois Street at the' west end of the Union Depot by a tunnel extending, with its approaches, from near South Street to near the middle of the block north of Louisiana Street. It was built at a cost of forty thousand dollars, - so stated at the time, - with two wagon-tracks, in separate arches, and an elevated foot-passenger track on each side some three feet higher. The latter were soon found to be used for vile purposes, and were closed. The main tunnel was maintained in good order, but surrendered wholly to the street-railway company, which has two tracks in it. In heavy rains the tunnel is so flooded as to be frequently impassable for a time. The amount of street-work done in twelve years - from 1836 to 1848 - may be judged from the fact that it had all made a debt of but six thousand dollars, and that only because the city would not bear a tax heavy enough to pay its way. An election was held in 1849 to determine whether a special tax of ten cents should be Jevied to pay it, and the proposition was carried by only eleven votes. That made the whole tax-rate forty-five cents on one hundred dollars, and made a general growl of discontent. Aside from these necessary improvements, the citizens have made a beautiful and desirable one of their own in the lines of shade-trees - the maples, and catalpas occasionally - that border all the principal streets of residence, making continuous arches of grateful shade for miles. Much pride is taken in this voluntary decoration of the streets, and the Council has supported it by appointing a forester to look after the general interests of shade-trees in streets and parks.

The city has four parks, - the Circle, Military, University, and Garfield. The last is far larger than all the others together, and is the only one the city really owns, and the only one the city has never tried to improve. It lies a little south of the southern boundary, at the junction of Pleasant Run and Bean Creek, contains about one hundred and ten acres, and possesses an agreeable diversity of forest and meadow, level and ascent, and might easily and cheaply be made a popular resort. It cost about one thousand dollars an acre. The other three parks belong to the State, but are given to the city as places of recreation on condition of their proper care and maintenance. They have all been handsomely laid out with walks and turf-plats and patches of trees and shrubbery, with a considerable pond and fountain in Military Park. It is the remains of the old Military Ground, or Reservation, that figures so frequently in the early history of the city. It contains about twenty acres, the others about four acres each.

The city had no police force till 1854. In September of that year it appointed fourteen men to that service, with Jefferson Springsteen as captain. The ordinance creating this force was repealed Dec. 17, 1855, partly because the citizens grumbled at the expense, and partly because an attempt to arrest some offending Germans in August - under the prohibitory liquor act which went into force the preceding June and was never regarded by anybody - made a riot on East Washington Street that ended in several of the Germans being wounded by pistol-shots. The citizens and the Council sustained the police, but the Su- preme Court speedily killed the prohibitory law. The expense was serious, the police services not conspicuous then, and the Germans were bitterly exasperated at the force. Early in the following year, however, a second force of ten men, under Capt. Jesse Van Blaricum, was created. This was ended the nest May by hostile party action, which made a substitute of one oflBcer in each ward appointed by the marshal. The next May saw a change of party power, and another police force of seven men, under Capt. A. D. Rose, was created. Two men were added to this force the next year, 1 858, under Capt. Samuel Lefevre. Rose went back in 1859, and the force was increased to two men from each ward in 1861, making fourteen men. Rose held till October, and was succeeded by Thomas Ramsey. Two men were dropped the same year, and John R. Cotton took command the next May, 1862, when the two day-patrolmen were replaced, and the force uniformed at the city's expense. Thomas D. Amos was made captain in 1863, the force increased by a lieutenant and twenty-five men, - eighteen for the night- and seven for the daypatrol. David M. Powell succeeded as chief the same year, and the city obtained material help, in preserving peace, from the military authorities, which were then strong, and the force of rowdies and scoundrels equally strong, and needing the combined repression of both powers. The ordinance of March, 1864, established police districts, and Samuel A. Cramer was made captain in May. During the State Fair of 1864 twenty -six special policemen were added. On the 5th of December an ordinance added sixteen men till the following May, and made the chief's salary fifteen hundred dollars. The pay of the men was also increased in 1863 and 1864, being fixed finally at two dollars and a half and three dollars a day. In 1865, Jesse Van Blaricum was again made chief, with two lieutenants, nine day- and eighteen night-patrolmen, two detectives, and sixteen specials. He was succeeded in April, 1866, by Thomas S. Wilson, and he in 1870 by Henry Paul. Eli Thompson came in 1871 and continued till 1874, when he was succeeded by Frank Wilson, who held two years, and was followed in 1876 by A. C.

Dewey for a year, when Albert Travis succeeded from 1877 to 1880, and Robert C. Williamson followed till 1883, when the Metropolitan Police Act superseded him and the whole city force. The number was varied occasionally during this time, but was never so low as in the days preceding 1870. The present condition of the force under the new system will be found in the preliminary statement of

, the general condition of the city, and need not be repeated here. The Metropolitan force was created by an act of the Legislature of the winter of 1883,

' authorizing the appointment of three commissioners by the State officers, who should hold office three years, one retiring each year, and who should ap- i and was succeeded by John A. Lang, who had previously been a captain. Maj. Robbins had given offense to many by regulations in derogation of the State law touching the conduct of liquor saloons.

j served. The Council gave them police powers. A. D. Rose subsequently commanded it. Capt. Thomas now commands it, in a considerably enlarged force however. Besides these there are a half-dozen at the Union Depot, appointed and paid by the Union Railway Company, who are invested with police powers by the Council, and later by the Metropolitan authority. In this account of the police force of the city the facts are derived from Mr. Ignatius Brown's sketch, so far as its earlier history is concerned.

In 1826, as already related, a fire company was organized under Capt. John Hawkins, to operate with buckets and ladders. It maintained its organization till 1835, when it was absorbed by the Marion Engine Company, organized to operate the " Marion Engine," purchased at the joint expense of the State and city in that year. It was an " end-brake," requiring about twenty-four men to work it fully, and a powerful and very serviceable " machine" it proved. It was made by Merrick, of Philadelphia. A two-story frame house was built for it in 1837 on the north of the Circle, the City Council meeting in the upper rooms. It was burned in 1851, and with it a large portion of the city records. In 1855 a handsome two-story brick was erected for it at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and New York Street. In 1840 a second engine, and second-hand engine, too, called the " Good Intent," was purchased and " ran" with the Marion for a year ; then a portion of the company, under John H. Wright, took her and formed the " Relief Company" to work her. The members of both these companies were among the leading citizens. Caleb Scudder was the first captain of the Marion, and James M. Ray the first secretary. Capt. Scudder was succeeded by James Blake, Dr. John L. Mothershead, and others of the same position. John H. Wright was a leading merchant here, and one of the founders of the porkpacking business. The law at that time exempted firemen from city taxes and jury duty, and though these were slight considerations to the first of our volunteer firemen, they were considerable inducements to their successors, who were of the class that usually make up fire companies in other cities. Ten years of active service entitled a member to retire as an '' honorary," with all his exemptions. This permission was taken advantage of by the early members as fast as it could be used, and the consequence was that by the year 1850 very few of them were lefk in either company in active service. The later companies never boasted of the possession of any of the " pioneers."

For nearly ten years these two companies remained alone, depending on church and hotel bells and personal and general yells to make their alarms, and on private wells and the creek and canal for their supply of water. Private wells were made available sometimes by letting down a "worm" fence or tearing away a panel of picket fence, and sometimes by " lines of buckets," that is, of spectators passing buckets from the well to the engine. At the first organization of a fire company, in 1826, every householder was expected to give all the bucket help he could, but no " fire-buckets" for that especial service were made for some years after, probably not till the Marion Engine Company was organized. Then they came, great awkward leather aflfairs, made by our own harnessmakers in some cases, if not all, and painted blue inside by Samuel S. Hooker, the pioneer painter. They were about a foot and a half high, a foot across the mouth, ten inches at the bottom, with a swell in the middle that gave them the look of a small beer keg, with a leather-covered rope round the mouth, and a broad leather strap for a handle, which made them easy to carry but exceedingly hard to discharge with a throw, such an effort being likely to leave half the contents scattered over the person of the adventurous thrower. A later style of bucket, which was smaller, conical, with a considerable spread at the month, succeeded and did better work.

In 1849 the " Western Liberties Company" was organized in the west of the city and took the old " Good Intent" from the " Relief Company," when the latter got a "row-boat" engine, in which the men were all seated and the brakes worked horizontally. This was housed in a two-story brick on the west side of Meridian Street, in what is now " Hubbard's Block." In 1858, near the end of the volunteer service, with the help of the Council and the subscriptions of citizens, the " Relief" purchased a handsome end-brake engine and used it till disbanded in November, 1859. The " row-boat" they broke up and sold the next spring. The Marion Company exchanged their well-tried engine for a fine side-brake in 1858, but never used it much, and it was sold to a Peru company, in 1860, for two thousand one hundred and thirty dollars. The later companies having short lives and little history, need little notice. The " Western Liberties," formed in 1849, used the " Good Intent" in a house on the point between Washington Street and the National road till 1857, when a brick building was erected for them on West Washington Street, where one of the steamengines is stationed now, and a new engine called the " Indiana" given them. Like most of the other companies, they were disbanded in 1859 and their engine sold. The " Invincibles," derisively called the " Wooden Shoes" by the older companies, organized in May, 1852, and got a little iron-box, end-brake engine called the " Victory," which, light and easily handled, and working well with a strong company, was always early and frequently first at fires.

the great point of competition with volunteer companies. In 1857 they obtained a fine new engine, the" Conquerer," and used it till August, 1859, when they were disbanded. Their house was a brick on the east side of New Jersey Street, a half-square north of Washington. It was afterwards a notorious bagnio during the war. The " Invincibles" went into the "paid" department in 1860, with their engine, but remained only a few months, when they finally disbanded and sold their engine to Fort Wayne. The ; " Union Company" was organized in 1855 ; a handsome , two-story brick house was built for them on the south side of East South Street, now occupied by a steamengine, and a fine large end-brake engine given them, which they called ''The Spirit of 7 and 6" because ; they represented those two wards. They were disbanded in November, 1859.

The "Rovers" organized in 1858 in the northwestern part of the city, and were given a house and one of the old engines. Before anything nTore could be done the volunteer system was so obviously breaking down that the company was disbanded in June, 1859. i The " Hook-and-Ladder Company" was organized in 1843, and did all that their means and opportunities : allowed till they were disbanded with the other com- j panies in 1859. Its house was on the west end of I the East Market space. Besides these regular com- ' panies there were two companies of boys engaged in ' the volunteer service for a time, the " 0. K. Bucket Company" and the " Young America Hook-and- , Ladder Company." The former was organized in ; 1849, used the old city buckets for a time, and were then provided with new and better ones and with a handsome light wagon to carry them. This com- j pany was often of considerable service to the others ' by its ready supply of buckets. They had a frame house on the northeast corner of Maryland and Me- \ ridian Streets. They were disbanded in 1854, reorganized next year, again disbanded and organized as ! an engine company with the little iron-box " Vic- ] tory." The " Young America Company" were given their " hooks" and other apparatus in 1858, but did ' little, and were disbanded in November, 1859. There were no " hose companies" in the volunteer service, though in each engine company there came - to be in the latter days a sort of separate formation of "engine" and "hose" men. The ofiBcers were a captain (who was also president), secretary, treasurer, engine directors, hose directors, and messenger, the latter being paid some fifty dollars a year by the Council to attend to the apparatus and keep it in repair. A " suction hose" man was usually appointed from the most experienced members, his duty being to couple the sections of the "suction" hose and attach it to the engine, a service on which a good deal of the readiness of the engine for action depended.

Until 1852-53 the cost of the volunteer system was a trifle. Occasional repairs of hose, rarer repairs of engines, and an occasional repainting made the sum of it ; but as the character of the service changed by the retirement of the original members, the pioneers both of the city and the service, the expenses increased. The companies were less associations of citizens for mutual protection than unpaid employes of the public, and they became clamorous for larger outlays, not in wages, but in parades and houses and fine apparatus. They were entirely independent, however, and to remedy some of the evils of rivalry and occasional contention it was determined in 1853 to subject them fully to the city authority, and a chief fire engineer was appointed with two assistants. The first chief was Joseph Little, the first assistant B. R. Sulgrove, second, William King. Obedience was made the condition of aid from the Council. As a protection against a power which might be tyrannically used the firemen determined to unite on their part to secure co-operation and unity of purpose, and they formed the Fire Association, with B. R. Sulgrove as president. It was composed of delegates elected from each company, and met monthly in the upper room of the " Relief Company" on Meridian Street. It was recognized by the Council as the representative of the whole body of firemen, and of course became at once a formidable political power. By a sort of tacit agreement the city clerk was assigned to the firemen. Their " legislature" assumed to determine all fire appropriations, and as they felt their power more clearly they made their demands more imperiously. The citizens grumbled at the expense and the Council at the usurpation of its power, and finally the association split into factions, the presidency began to be " log-rolled" and intrigued for, and the end was evidently close at hand. It came with the election of Joseph W. Davis, captain of the " Invincibles," as fire engineer in 1858. He had made warm friends and bitter enemies, and the animosities went into the association when he went into the fire chieftancy. The firemen had held their power by union against the hostility of the citizens, and now their union was broken. In 1859 an attempt was made, by the election of John E. Foudray as chief, to restore harmony and maintain the volunteer system, but it was idle. Steam had made its way to recognition and favor because, as Miles Greenwood, the chief of Cincinnati, said, " it neither drank whiskey nor threw brickbats," and steam made its way here in the fall of 1859. An order for a Lee & Lamed rotary engine was made then, and the engine received the following March. It was put in the house of the " Westerns" and the steam department fairly established, though for some months two hand-engines and the hook-and-ladder wagon were retained. The steam-engine was in charge of Frank Glazier, the hand-engines of Charles Richman and William Sherwood, and the hook-and-ladder of William N. Darnell. The volunteer system died in November, 1859. Joseph W. Davis was chief of the new paid department, with a salary of three hundred dollars. In August, 1860, a small " Latta" was ; bought and put in the Marion house on Massachusetts Avenue. In October a Seneca Falls engine was obtained and put in the Union house on South Street. The first of these was in charge of Charles Curtiss, the second of Daniel Glazier. The handengines were then permanently dismissed and the j last vestiges of the volunteer system lost.

In 1863 an alarm-bell was placed in an open frame- 1 work tower in the rear of the Glenn Block on Washington Street, and was rung by an apparatus from the cupola on the block, where a watch was stationed - day and night. Till 1868 this watch designated the \ locality of a fire by striking the number of the ward ; I then in February a system of automatic telegraph signals was introduced, at an expense of six thousand dollars, and has continued in operation ever since.

The signals are made by a little motion of an apparatus in a locked iron box, which communicates electrically with all the fire-bells in the city, each box automatically ringing a certain number of strokes, designating its locality, and repeating them five times. The keys of the boxes are kept in adjacent houses, and their places and their signals published, so that at any alarm anybody may know almost the exact place of the fire.

The water supply, as already stated, was for a considerable time dependent on private wells, though as early as 1840, or thereabouts, one or two public wells were dug for the engines. These were increased afterwards, but no cisterns were made till 1852, when a cistern tax was levied and sixteen constructed in different parts of the city. Two small three hundred-barrel cisterns were made in 1850, but their inadequacy only proved the necessity of more. There are now one hundred and forty-nine in the city, raafiy of them exceeding two thousand barrels, besides the supply from the water-works by five hundred and thirty-two hydrants. The present steam paid department consists of seventy-six men (thirteen firemen, six engineers, six stokers, twenty-two hosemcn, six laddermen, nineteen drivers, two telegraph-men, one supply-driver, one watchman at headquarters), eight engines (of which six are in service, one in reserve, one used for filling cisterns), ten reels in service, two in reserve, one chemical apparatus or engine, two hook-and-ladder wagons, two supplywagons, thirty-four horses, three watch-tower men, fifteen chemical extinguishers (hand), twelve horses, one hundred and eight fire-alarm boxes. The water supply, as already stated, is furnished by the Holly system of " direct pressure," and the hose can be used effectively directly from the hydrants.

The notable fires in the city are not numerous, and none have been very destructive. In 1826 or 1827 the residence of Nicholas McCarty, on West Maryland Street, was burned, and was the second fire in the place. That of Maj. Carter's tavern, in 1825, already related, was the first. The next was the first tobacco- factory on Kentucky Avenue, which was burned in 1838, causing an uninsured loss of ten thousand dollars. On 4th February, 1843, the

Washington Hall was seriously damaged by fire. In 1852 the row of two-story frames from the Capital House, east to the alley at Tonilinson's Block, was burned, the most extensive fire in area that had then occurred in the place. In 1853 all the stables and out-buildings in the rear of the " Wright House," or Washington Hall, were burned, making a very large and destructive conflagration. In 1852 the Eagle Machine- Works were damaged to the extent of twenty thousand dollars, and the next year by another fire nearly as serious. In 1853 the grist-mill of Morris Brothers, on the corner north of the Eagle Machine- Works, was totally destroyed and never rebuilt. In 1856, Carli-sle's mill, on the canal basin at the end of Market Street, was burned. In 1858 the smoke-house of W. & I. Mansur's pork-house was burned, causing a serious loss of cured meats. In the spring of 1865 the most disastrous fire ever known here took place in Kingan's new pork-house, then but a single year in operation. The loss was two hundred and forty thousand dollars, but largely insured. In 1874, March 22d, both sides of North Pennsylvania Street, including the " Exchange Block" and the unfinished hotel, now the Denison, and the " Martindale Block," were nearly destroyed, causing a loss, mostly insured, of two hundred thousand dollars. In 1876, Tousey & Wiggans' meat storage-house, on South Pennsylvania Street, was damaged by fire to the extent of ten thousand dollars or more, insured. In June, 1 875, Elevator B was totally destroyed, with a loss of thirty thousand dollars. In 1876 the street-car stables were burned. In the winter of 1880, Ferguson's pork-house, south of the Vandalia road, on the east bank of the river, was entirely destroyed, with a loss of two hundred thousand dollars. In the winter of 1878-79 the " Centennial Block," on South Meridian Street, was damaged to the extent of thirty thousand dollars. The most important fires of the past year were the following:

April 20. - Pogue's Run and East Michigan Street, J. R. Pearson et al., butter-dish factory, incendiary ; loss, $4489.36 ; insurance, $6000.

May 9. - Corner Kentucky Avenue and Sharpe Street, Indianapolis Stove Company, stove foundry, cause unknown ; loss, $21,938 ; insurance, $15,980. Corner Kentucky Avenue and Sharpe Street, Eagle Machine- Works, storage-room, communicated ; loss, $5200; insurance, $2000. Corner Kentucky Avenue and Sharpe Street, W. W. Cheezum, .saloon and residence, communicated ; loss, $1239 ; insurance, $1000. No. 21 Sharpe Street, Gus. Wilde, residence, communicated ; loss, $650 ; insurance, $900.