Perry County, Indiana - Chapter 20: Swiss Colonization Society at Tell City, 1916

Among all the countries of Europe none can boast a prouder heritage of history than little Switzerland, and none has shared with America a finer strain of national blood than that which the gallant Republic of the Old World sent across the Atlantic to mingle with the growing Republic of the New World.

As early as 1796 Jean Jacques Dufour, a Switzer from the Canton de Vaud, explored the Ohio River all along the boundary line of Indiana, seeking a suitable location for the future homes of himself, his four brothers, three sisters and some few associates. Pleased with the almost mountainous hills coming close to the river which reflected them like his own Alpine lakes, he fixed upon a site fifty-five miles west of Cincinnati, between Plum and Indian Creeks, where by special act of Congress he was permitted to purchase four sections of land at the price of $2 an acre.

In May, 1801, the new settlers landed at Norfolk, Virginia, coming thence to Indiana by way of Lexington, Kentucky, where two years were spent in adjusting themselves to pioneer conditions before taking up actual residence upon their new lands. These were situated in what was then Dearborn County, but the colony increased to such a degree that in the autumn of 1814 a petition was laid before the Territorial Legislature praying for a new county, which was accordingly organized under the appropriate title of Switzerland, further sentiment bestowing upon its county seat the harmonious name of Vevay.

rate word-pictures of these early Switzers and their mingling with the other settlers who came from various American states to form a community yet retaining many quaintly individual characteristics, but no writer has yet done full justice, either in fiction or serious history to the movement which established, half a century later, in Perry County a Swiss colony upon a larger scale with more definite plans, whose accomplishment attained a fuller measure of permanent success.

Geographical conditions cause the Swiss race to feel strongly the influence of the three other nations - France, Italy and Germany - which are immediately adjacent, and just as the family names Dufour, Dumont, Thiebaud, Duprez and others found in Switzerland County plainly show their Vaudois origin, the earliest Switzers of Perry County bore names relatively Teutonic in their suggestiveness and from Canton Schwyz, near storied Lake Lucerne, came Charles Steinauer, a factor of prime importance in the Swiss Colonization Society which was organized November 16, 1856, at Cincinnati.

Although the very first minutes of the society are missing, its purpose appears to have been to furnish mutual aid in founding homes and business enterprises in what was then known as "The West," and under the constitution adopted December 14, 1856, Professor J. C. Christin became the first President; Charles Steinauer, Recording Secretary; Richard Luethy, Corresponding Secretary, and J. Goldenberg, Treasurer.

A time-faded original document, accidentally brought to light in a Cannelton private library during the preparation of this volume, bears date of Cincinnati, January 10, 1857, and is here reproduced verbatim et literatim :

"In pursuance of notice the Swiss Colonisation Society held a meeting this evening for the purpose of effecting organization and obtaining the privilege of a corpored body under the Law of Ohio passed May

"After the Chairman had stated the object of the meeting it was on motion resolved, That we now proceed to elect three Trustees and one Clerk to hold their office for one year and until their Successors shall be duly chosen, whereupon the following persons, members of said Society were duly elected Trustees, namely, J. Schoettly, J. C. Christin, J. C. Appenzeller. H. Pfister was elected Clerk.

"Resolved : That the Clerk elected have a true copy of the proceedings of this meeting recorded in the Recorder's Office, of Hamilton County, Ohio, for the purposes aforesaid.

"Cincinnati, January 14, 1857. "I, H. Pfister, certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the proceedings of a meeting held by the Swiss-Colonisation-Society on the 10th day of January, 1857.

Branches to the number of fifteen were planted at different points in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, as far away as Davenport, Iowa, and the first of the annual general conventions, planned to be held for the interests of the society at the various colonies in turn, met April 19-20-21, 1857, at Cincinnati.

$35,255 with an expenditure of only $180, and a special committee had been sent out to look up land suitable for colonization. But one of the Ohio River's periodical and most disastrous freshets had occurred during that spring, so the homeseekers returned like Noah's weary dove to the Ark, without even the significant olive branch.

In July of the same year Charles Rebstock, M. Oehlman and C. Tueffli came down the river on a similar quest, stopping at numerous places for inspection of the country. Efforts were made to engage large tracts of land at Rome and at Cannelton, but as the prices asked were too high or the available acreage insufl^icient, no purchases were made. It is told that an extensive tract below Hawesville was offered upon good terms, but that the Commissioners held that it would appear inconsistent with their ideals of liberty to plant their community in a slaveholding state.

Be this as it may, some now unknown consideration dictated their choice of land lying directly opposite, whose natural facilities - other than the circumstance of its location upon the Indiana shore - were far inferior to those on the Kentucky side for the upbuilding of a town, "Mistletoe Lodge," Judge Huntington's seven hundred acre estate, formerly owned by Nicholas J. Roosevelt and for many years later by the heirs of Robert Fulton, was the first and largest purchase, July 29, 1857, for $28,000. Others selling tracts of different sizes at varying prices were Judge Ballard Smith, Joshua B. Huckeby, Henry P. Brazee, John James, Eli Thrasher, Samuel Webb, Charles Scull, John Turner, Benjamin Persinger, Edwin Morris Abel, G. W. and William Butler, besides others whose names imply non-resident ownership.

Four thousand one hundred and fifty-four acres was the aggregate bought, at a total price of $85,364, to meet which sum an assessment of $15 was made upon each of 8,192 shares held, followed a little later by an additional tax of $5 per capita. This fund amounted to $163,840 (although something like $20,000 was never fully paid), and each share entitled its owner to two plots of land in the new settlement. The allotment was made by drawing lots, thus giving every member an absolutely equal chance as to desirability of location.

Much of the site was irregular hill-land covered with dense forest growth, other portions cut up by gullies, depressions and the spreading forks of Windy Creek, so laying out a regular city plat upon such broken ground was an undertaking whose success bespeaks high engineering skill on the part of the chief surveyor, August Pfaefflin, who was assisted by Christopher R. Huntington. The plat was laid off into 392 town blocks, containing 7,328 lots and 294 garden blocks, having 794 lots. Based on a conservative estimate of six persons to a lot this provided for a possible city of 90,000 inhabitants, an optimistic outlook whose realization yet remains in the future, notwithstanding the creditable development which three-score years have brought about.

The river's course being here west of north, the site was laid out into streets exactly rectangular with the points of the compass, leaving some irregularly shaped blocks in the angles next the river, but all the remainder being parallelograms. Beginning at First Street the streets running north and south were eighty feet in width, running up to Thirty-second Street, although topographical conditions have practically limited the growth of settlement between Sixth and Fourteenth Streets.

A peculiarly interesting example of street nomenclature, one of striking originality for its time, is to be noticed in the seventy-foot intersecting streets which run from east to west. The first roadway cut through the forest was in the exact centre of the plat and received the appropriate name of Tell Street, though local circumstances have kept it from becoming the important thoroughfare anticipated, commer-

Such names as Winkelried, Payne, Blum and Herrmann served to recall their home land to the sturdy pioneers; while to perpetuate the spirit of liberty, which had sent other and earlier lovers of freedom from Europe to America, the names of Lafayette, De- Kalb and Steuben, were bestowed on other streets. From these it was a natural transition to America's own heroes of the Revolutionary period, so the names of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin were utilized.

Since the new settlement was designed to become a manufacturing community, the power of steam found recognition under the names of Watt and Fulton. Education was commemorated through Pestalozzi; Humboldt received the choice as a representative of natural science; Schiller recalled the wealth of literature possessed by the German language; Rubens paid tribute to the art of painting, while Mozart bespoke a love for the best in music. The first printing office was established near Gutenberg Street, a site yet occupied by a newspaper office, but whether this location was accidental or intentional cannot now be determined.

With such admirable civic taste as was thus displayed, it is regrettable that the title "Helvetia" originally suggested for the place itself was exchanged for the "city" suffix so typical of America's new towns, yet "Tell City," by which the village came to be known in the autumn of 1857, has in itself a certain suggestiveness of its own period in our national development.

When the philosopher Themistocles was asked, at a feast in violet-crowned Athens, to play upon a musical instrument, his reply was: "I am ignorant of such an art, but I know how to make a small town a great city," and every promoter of a new village located anywhere between the Apalachians and the Rockies, between 1850 and 1860, fancied himself a modern The- mistocles. As Tell City, therefore, the infant community made her initial entry upon History's page, nor is the seal yet set upon her record.

The year 1857 was consumed in laying out the town site preparatory for immigration, and the earliest arrival of residents was on March 13, 1858, Charles Steinauer being one of the three or four who came then. He was just thirty years of age, having been born March 17, 1828, in Canton Schwyz, Switzerland, one of five sons and two daughters who were the children of Benedict and Gertrude (Effinger) Steinauer. Receiving a liberal education in his home, he crossed the ocean at the age of twenty-two to seek new fortune in America, locating first in Cincinnati, where he engaged in business until coming to Indiana. His native talents had identified him with the colonization movement from its inception, and he ably filled many positions of high responsibility in the county which he made his home for the rest of his life, or until February 28, 1891.

He was an active and valuable Republican, and while never an oflSce seeker consented to serve as County Commissioner from 1881 to 1884. Spending his life as a bachelor, his only remaining relatives in Tell City are collateral descendants springing from the marriage of his brother, August Steinauer, to Antonia Steinauer (not a relative). The two brothers' first business venture in Tell City was the earliest hotel opened there, kept in the "Mistletoe Lodge" residence which had been Judge Huntington's home, situate on the river front between Gutenberg and Washington Streets. This they followed for two years, then entered upon the manufacture of flour in which the family has continued up to the present with marked success.

Probably the earliest industrial undertaking was the saw-mill established April, 1858, by the Herrmann Brothers (John and Peter) who found themselves scarcely able to supply the enormous demand for lum-

The Herrmanns were of Prussian birth, children of John and Katharina (Altes) Herrmann, and came to the United States in 1852, working at the wagon makers' trade in various cities of Ohio before locating in Cincinnati. From thence they removed to Tell City, of which John Herrman became the first postmaster, when the postoffice was established in 1858 by Postmaster-General Aaron V, Brown, of Tennessee, whose official successor as holder of that portfolio in Buchanan's cabinet was Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, born directly opposite Perry County, at "Holt Place," Breckinridge County. A year later the Herrmann brothers entered upon the wagon making business, building up what became one of the largest in Southern Indiana. After some years the manufacture of hames was developed, remaining in control of the Herrmann family, who are still locally prominent, until 1906, when their plant was absorbed by the United States Hame Manufacturing Company, who made Tell City one of their principal depots in the Middle West.

Miss Josephine Blum was the first girl born in the village and William Scheitlen the first boy. Frank Herm erected the first house after the town site was platted, a log edifice at the southwest corner of Main (Eighth) and Tell Streets, which remained until the dawn of the Twentieth Century, a small replica of it being displayed in an industrial parade which celebrated Mardi Gras of the year 1900. J. K. Frick was the pioneer architect, but the temporary nature of most of the buildings debarred him from any profound undertakings in Tell City, though he afterward won more permanent professional success in Evansville.

It is said that the sign "Lager Bier" was displayed upon fully three-fourths of the earliest houses, yet drunkenness was a thing unknown and disorder was wholly absent from the peaceful life of the colonists.

Their industrial activities were turned in a direction radically opposed to dissipation of any kind, although they brought from the Fatherland the Continental observance of Sunday as a holiday none the less than as a holy day. Harmless Sabbath-day pastime, therefore, was never frowned upon but rather encouraged from the first, and after the lapse of almost sixty years the social atmosphere of Tell City retains much of that enjoyable liberality which was the ideal of its founders, who were communistic in the term's true sense, without being Socialists, as the word is spoken today.