Perry County, Indiana - Chapter 18: County Banks, Newspaper Changes, Etc, 1916

The population of Cannelton, which in August, 1849, numbered 812 souls by actual count of a local census taker, had more than doubled by the spring of 1851, when a second enumeration showed over 1,600 residents, of whom 408 were of school age. Two sawmills, the coal mines and cotton mill were in active operation, and in the autumn of that year the first foundry and machine establishment opened its doors, James Lees, Samuel T. Piatt, George C. Beebe, A. H. Cole and J. F. Abdell forming the company. It continued, through many changes of management, for nearly half a century, its last owners being under the firm title of James Lees' Sons.

James Lees, for many years a valuable citizen, was born July 15, 1824, in Ireland though of purely English parentage, his father, John Lees, being a soldier in the Royal Army and having received a medal of honour (yet in possession of his descendants) for service under Wellington in the battle of Waterloo. Brought with the regiment to British America when four years of age, he returned when twelve years old to England, where he completed his school education. In 1842 he entered on the machinist's trade in Dukinfield, Cheshire, (a few miles from the city of Manchester), where April 18, 1849, he married Mary Sharpies, coming soon afterward to the United States.

A year was spent in the eastern states, and in the autumn of 1850 he was placed in charge of the Cannelton Cotton Mills' repair shops. This position he filled until made engineer-in-chief, August, 1860, remaining such for a quarter of a century. Meanwhile he had made other investments which enabled him to retire from active labour and, while retaining supervision of the extensive works bearing his name, to enjoy in his closing years that quiet ease of a well-ordered home so dear to the English temperament of which he was a typical example.

The growth of the community made it evident that legal control was necessary for maintaining proper order, so in September, 1852, a petition signed by twothirds of the voters, asking that the place be incorporated, was presented to Board of Commissioners by Burwell B. Lea. An election for deciding the question was held on September 18, 1852, when 171 votes were cast, with a result favourable to incorporatiton. Five trustees were chosen from the wards into which the town had been divided ; William Knights, Dwight Newcomb, Frederick Boyd, Hamilton Smith and William P. Beacon.

The Board met for organization September 28, at the Coal Company's ofRce, when Frederick Boyd was appointed Treasurer and John L. Jones, Jr., Clerk. Later in the autumn the usual town ordinances were adopted and published.

A volunteer fire company was organized under the name "Torrent No. I," for whose benefit $150 was appropriated providing that not less than twenty men enlisted and that the Indiana Cotton Mills furnished the engine and apparatus. All conditions were complied with, and the original engine house, built in Washington street on the mill premises, remained in use until the summer of 1915, when the property was removed to other quarters and the alarm bell placed on the City Hall.

In January, 1853, Joshua B. Huckeby was appointed town clerk; Daniel Curry, assessor; and James P. Mc- Gregor, marshal. Hamilton Smith was authorized to erect a corporation lock-up, or calaboose, and in February William A. Wandell was chosen town attorney. Hamilton Smith, Frederick Boyd and William H.

Mason became the first board of school trustees, and an ordinance was passed requiring the treasurer and marshal to receive only specie in payment of obligations due the town.

The degree of growth and material prosperity which the early 'fifties witnessed in Cannelton naturally drew wide attention to its financial possibilities, so that 1854 saw the establishment of the Perry County Bank, the first to carry on actual operations in the county, although among the fourteen branches planned for the Vincennes State Bank, chartered by the Territorial Legislature sitting in 1814 at Corydon and confirmed under the Constitution of 1816, Troy was designated as the seat of one such bank.

This system was well planned and its depositories excellently distributed, each to serve three counties, but there was not enough money in all Indiana to finance the scheme. A subscription equalling some $30 per capita would have been required merely to float the stock which the state reserved for itself, so only three branches - at Corydon, Vevay and Brookville - were ever opened.

Some of the notes issued by the Perry County Bank are yet in existence, preserved as mere curios without monetary value. Nearly if not all the capital stock of $100,000 was owned by W. H. Marston, an Eastern capitalist who was president; with R. R. Hunt, vicepresident, and L. A. Smith, cashier. An office was rented in the large hotel building and for about one year a general banking business was carried on, receiving deposits, discounting notes, buying and selling exchange. It was also a bank of issue, and its printed semi-annual statement showed some $70,000 worth of bills put into circulation, probably an issue made elsewhere before removal of their capital to Cannelton.

Four years later, in the spring of 1858, another attempt was made by James M. Monroe and Levi Scobey, both strangers, who engaged quarters for a business under the style "Orleans Bank of Cannelton," whereof they were respectively president and cashier, with an alleged capital of $20,000. Many banks appear to have been undertaken by these men for the purpose of circulating 'wild-cat' issues. A total of near $14,000 is said to have been put out by these branches and several thousand dollars worth from Cannelton were disposed of in the East, eventually coming back for a redemption which was never contemplated.

Although Monroe and Scobey shrewdly published a pretended official bank-bill detector, wherein their own issues were rated at three per cent discount, their institution gained no confidence from the start, so at the expiration of the month for which quarters had been engaged, the projectors (after selling their safe and office fixtures) decamped for fresh fields and pastures new.

The earliest burying ground in Cannelton was on the rising ground to the eastward of Casselberry Creek's original course, close to the old log schoolhouse, but that it was inadequate for growth soon became apparent and other plans were made. In January, 1854, a new organization was effected under the name Cliff Cemetery Association, with Francis Y. Carlile, Hamilton Smith, Charles H. Mason, John James Key, John Mason, William P. Beacon, Jacob B. Maynard, William McKinley, Sr., George Minto, Sr., Samuel T. Piatt, Ballard Smith, Frederick Boyd, Joseph H. Kolb, Joseph Whittaker, George Crehore, James A. Burkett, George C. Beebe and Dr. Charles L. Soyez as its first members.

A donation of land in extent between seven and eight acres, crowning the lofty cliffs east of town when its appropriate name was derived, was made by the American Cannel Coal Company and suitably laid out by Hamilton Smith, Jr. For some years, however, there was no good road leading up the hill and occasional interments were still made in the old graveyard. After its final disuse as such, the title reverted to the Coal Company, and a portion of the ground near the corner of Fourth and Congress streets was given in 1893 to the Baptists, who erected their church edifice thereon. That it probably covers some of the earliest graves was shown in the summer of 1915, when in excavating for a new water conduit to the baptisterypool a metallic casket of ponderous weight and elaborate design was unearthed. That it must have contained the remains of some well-to-do person was evident, as the body was that of a man clad in expensive garb of old-time fashion, but no means of identification presented themselves, though countless theories were advanced, so the coffin was again buried near the same spot.

Farther south along Fourth street another part of the grounds was given, in 1907, to the African Methodists, in exchange for the site at Fourth and Adams streets originally owned by the Presbyterians, and in the rear of the church and parsonage removed thither, a few crumbling monuments and leaning markers still indicate where once 'the rude forefathers of the hamlet slept.' Many ailanthus ("Heaven") trees, long ago regarded as particularly desirable for ornamental planting, remain in token that the spot was once tended by careful hands, but most of the bodies were removed to the hill during the 'sixties.

The Cliff Cemetery Association was reorganized about 1869-70 by the lot owners, who elected a managing board of trustees, one from each of the Protestant congregations in Cannelton. Additional ground was granted them by the Coal Company, and surveyed to coincide with the first avenues and walks. When the first St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church was built in 1850 in Seventh street at the head of Madison, its churchyard was used as "God's Acre," but soon became insufficient and a new cementery tract, still in use and later enlarged, was given in 1854, to the congregation, situate on the ridge road leading past Cliff Cemetery, a quarter-mile farther from town.

tions in Cannelton and the county at large ; - fire companies, hose, hook-and-ladder companies, etc., temperance and benevolent societies, most of which lasted only a few years.

While itself of brief duration, one to be mentioned should be the Perry County Medical Society, the first of its kind, formed in response to a call published May 27, 1854, in the Cannelton Reporter. On the appointed day. Doctor Clark, of Cannelton, was chosen president ; Doctor Gage, of Troy, secretary; Doctors Gest, Soyez and Sugg, a committee to draft a constitution and bylaws for the society. This, apparently, was the extent of its activity, as nothing further concerning it is anywhere on record, and other similar organizations of later dates were equally temporary.

One known as the General Council of Physicians of Perry County existed during the middle 'sixties, and in November, 1881, the Perry Medical Association was formed. Its officers were J. M. Butler, president; Mathias M. Howard, vice-president ; J. R. Webb, secretary; L. B. Lucas, treasurer; A. J. Smith, Charles M. Brucker and Isaac Lucas, censors. Jesse D. Bacon and J. W. Lucas were also members.

Dr. Harmon Strong Clark was easily Cannelton's first leading physician, an eminently successful practitioner and a man of notable personality whose influence and example were powerfully felt in building up all that made a good community. Born, May 26, 1820, at Huntsburg, Geauga County, Ohio, he was the son of Abner and Olive (Strong) Clark, both of whom sprang from old Colonial families of Massachusetts, running back to the day of the "Mayflower" and the Pilgrim Fathers, and still represented in the original homesteads.

After attaining his twenty-first birthday he came into Hancock County, Kentucky, where he taught three terms of school, meanwhile studying medicine for two years with Doctor Stopp, of Lewisport. The new community in Indiana which was growing up on the site of old Coal Haven offered a promising field for a young medical man, hence he located at Cannelton on Sunday, June 20, 1847. As early as 1849 he had a drug store in connection with his practice and afterward expanded this by adding a large general store which met with handsome financial success, besides another in Troy where he also owned a large porkpacking house.

November 3, 1850, he married Hester Ann Rogers, daughter of Dr. Robert G. and Louisa (Protzman) Cotton, of Troy, and a while later they established their home in the "Willow Cottage" formerly owned by James Boyd on the river front at Cannelton. Three children were born to them, of whom a son and a daughter survive, and in the same house Dr. Clark's lamented death occurred May 5, 1863. His funeral, conducted by the Masonic order of which he was a leading member, was one of the largest ever in Cannelton, a spontaneous tribute of esteem to one of her foremost citizens.

A professional contemporary, some few years Doctor Clark's junior yet whose early career had been more thrillingly picturesque, was Dr. Magnus Brucker who located in 1849 at Troy. Born September 6, 1828, at Haslach, in Kinzigthale, in Baden, he prepared for college at famous "alt Heidelberg' and was graduated from the French University of Strasburg in Alsace- Lorraine. The enthusiasm of youth and patriotism enlisted him in the rebellion of 1848, and when the revolutionists were put down he came by way of Italy as a refugee to America.

From the beginning of his practice in Troy success seemed to wait upon him, and he was serving his adopted county as representative in the Legislature of 1861 when war again broke about him. Immediately enlisting as Regimental Surgeon in the Twentythird Indiana Volunteer Infantry, he served out his full time with patriotic devotion to the cause he had espoused. The appreciative admiration of Perry

County's citizens took form in electing him again in 1866 to the same office he had unselfishly quitted for the battle-field in 1861. He lived in the county until his death October 23, 1874, a man of professional eminence and personal nobility.