Perry County, Indiana - |xiv, 1916

From Plank Road To Railway

A FACTOR of verily inestimable value was the Ohio River in Perry County's development for more than half a century, as no definite system of improved highways within the borders of the commonwealth was even planned until four years after Indiana's admission to statehood.

The "National Road," first projected in 1802 from Washington to Wheeling, was designed to stretch clear across Ohio, when admitted as a state, in order that emigrants might readily reach the government lands farther west, and from the proceeds of all public lands sold in Ohio, five per cent, was set aside as a building fund for this great thoroughfare. As a piece of early American engineering its magnitude is scarcely realized in this Twentieth Century, but it compares not unfavourably with the famous Roman roads of antiquity, and in the center of its eighty-foot "right of way" ten inches of crushed stone macadamized a fortyfoot track on which two six-horse coaches could safely pass, or race abreast, as frequently occurred. Congress, however, was dilatory in completing the road beyond Ohio and in 1839, only a few years after it was built to Indianapolis, abandoned it to the state of Indiana.

By an act of Legislature in 1820 no less than twenty-six "State roads" were planned; and the importance of making connection with the river was plainly felt, as many of these routes lay in Southern Indiana, though Perry County's recognition did not come until 1829, when an act was passed to locate a state road from Troy to Washington.

James Carnahan, of Daviess County, Thomas Pride, of Pike County, and Jared Bowling, of Dubois County, were named commissioners to view, locate and mark the route chosen, being instructed to meet the first Monday in May (3d) , 1830, at Troy, to be sworn in and begin their labours. Thirty feet was fixed as the width for the road, ordered to cross White River at Casee's Ferry, and the new highway was considered no less important to the pioneers than a railroad at the present time. Even yet a certain Daviess County thoroughfare leading southeastward from the city of Washington is sometimes designated as "the old Troy road."

Besides the three per cent, fund, which was a donation from the general government out of the sale of public lands, and amounted in some years (1821) to an appropriation of $100,000, there was a road tax on real estate in general, amounting to one-half the amount of state tax. Town lots were assessed an amount equal to one-half the county tax, while non-resident owners were charged with an amount equalling one-half the state tax plus one-half the county tax. This was to offset their escape from having to work the roads in person, as all other able-bodied male inhabitants between the ages of twenty-one and fifty with the exception of clergymen and some few others, were formally warned out for manual labour on the public roads two days in each year.

Under this state law the first roads were cut through the forests of Perry County, and with the normal human tendency toward progression along the line of least resistance, the public highways ambled hither and yon wherever some previous beginning had been made by a pioneer anxious to reach a spring, a mill, a store, a smithy, a school, a church or a burying ground. It was a physical impossibility among the hills and valleys of rock-ribbed Perry to follow the rectangular section lines, as was done in more level counties such as Spencer, and in many instances mere

Streams had to be forded or crossed by crude ferries such as that over Anderson River, where Lincoln worked as a hired hand. Travel was infrequent, and as days sometimes went by without a passenger to cross, the ferryman's duties were neither arduous nor confining and he could work at his other tasks until summoned by the solitary horseman or weary pedestrian. In some instances a bell, as now, gave the signal, but oftener it was the old primitive call as kept up in England :

Bridge building was long retarded by the ludicrous action of the Fourth General Assembly at Corydon, January 17, 1820, which passed a combination bill under which almost every creek large enough to float a shallow pirogue or canoe was gravely declared "a navigable waterway," and its obstruction by mill-dams or bridges specifically prohibited.

Absurdly though it now reads, on page 59 of the Laws of Indiana for 1820, to find Anderson River from its mouth (at Troy), to the Hurricane fork (near St. Meinrad) ; Poison Creek, to Cummings' mill; and Oil Creek, to Aaron Cunningham's mill; lawfully declared "Navigable streams," along with waterways both greater and less, it must be remembered, out of respect for the practical common sense of our early lawmakers, that such legislation was based upon the Ordinance of 1787. This declared the navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence and the carrying places between the same to be "common highways, and forever^ free, as well to the inhabitants of said (Northwest) territory as to the citizens of the United States and those of any other State that may be admitted into the Confederacy, without any tax, impost or duty therefor." In such case "navigable" can only be interpreted as referring to the bateaux then alone used for navigation, so the legislators of

The first movement toward improved roads in Perry County was in 1850, when the Cannelton, Troy and Jasper Plank Road Company was incorporated, the three towns subscribing respectively $8,000, $6,000 and $14,000 in stock. Alexander McGregor, a civil engineer, who had come from Newport, Rhode Island, to superintendent the erection of the Indiana Cotton Mills, was the first president ; Charles H. Mason, secretary ; and Frederick Boyd, treasurer. The shares were to be paid in periodical installments of $4, whenever called for by the progress of building, and several assessments appear to have been made. Timber of the finest character then sold at a figure almost nominal, when bought at all, as the wasteful extravagance in forest destruction recklessly cut down trees that would now be reckoned of priceless value. It was, therefore both cheap and easy to cover the road with heavy narrow oak planks which for several years afforded excellent driving surface.

The route from Cannelton was a northwesterly continuation of Front Street, passing the John Mason homestead, one of the first brick dwellings in the town and then still occupied by its owner and builder, although he had just sold forty-five acres of land adjoining to a German nobleman. Baron Bernard Herzeele, what was considered a high price, $400 an acre. Herzeele Street, in the addition surveyed, is the only memorial which the titled foreigner left behind him in Cannelton, and Mason Street, running parallel one block south, was a courtesy shown the original landholder.

The Mason residence was totally destroyed June 22, 1864, by a fire discovered while the funeral services of Mrs. Mason (Sarah Elkins Webb) were taking place, the remains having to be hastily removed from the blazing edifice. Owing to a dry season the flames

Leading on past "Elm Park," the Prancis Y. Carlile home, the road crossed Dozier Creek, then closely skirted Brier Hill through the mining hamlet known under the name of Fulton, and an addition once platted as Lower Cannelton, but left toward the river "Mulberry Park," the residence of Henry P. Brazee, Sr., familiarly known as "Squire" Brazee.

In connection with this handful of miners' cabins by the roadside it is well to explain definitely how the name of so distinguished an individual as Robert Fulton became associated with so humble a settlement. It adds no little interest to the history of Perry County that such a man as he, whose sagacity in matters of national concern was equalled only by his mechanical skill, should have directed his attention to this point.

Under date of Saturday, May 26, 1849, the fifth issue of the Cannelton Economist contains editorial matter worthy of copious quotation, because it may be taken as reliable authority on the question whether Robert Fulton himself was ever actually iin Perry County. The article reads:

"For the facts which we lay before our readers we are chiefly indebted to the Case of Fulton's Heirs vs. Roosevelt, reported in 5 Johnson's Chancery Reports, 174.

"It seems that Robert Fulton on the 15th day of September, 1813, entered into an agreement with Nicholas J. Roosevelt to purchase a certain tract of land lying upon the Ohio. The agreement recited that the latter had discovered a coal mine on the bank of the Ohio, in the Indian Territory, some distance above Anderson's creek, at which mine the steamboat, on her first descent, took in coal for her fuel ; that the coal mine was embraced by certain land particularly described &c., and for which Fulton covenanted to pay the sum of $4,400, and also the sum of $1,000, yearly in quarterly payments, for the term of twenty years.

The payment of this annuity, however, was conditional; for in case Fulton, after faithfully and scientifically working the mine, should find the same incapable of producing twelve thousand chaldrons of coal, equal to 432,000 bushels, then the annuity was to cease.

"February 24, 1815, Fulton died, and soon after, his representatives were sued at law by Roosevelt, upon the covenant for the payment of the annuity. It was alleged, on the part of Fulton's heirs, that the agreement was entered into by Fulton 'solely from the representations of Roosevelt, which were false and deceptive.' The weight of testimony adduced at trial supported this allegation, and Roosevelt was perpetually enjoined from suing or prosecuting any suit pending at law, for the recovery of the annuity, or any part thereof."

From this report it is a clearly natural inference that Robert Fulton had never seen the 1,040 acres which he purchased from Roosevelt, or he would have known for himself what his heirs established in the trial, that the mine had been opened "on or near the line of the river ; or rather, in the bed of the river, and consequently subject to frequent inundation."

In the Louisville Journal of March 13, 1850, an article appeared suggesting that a monument should be erected to Fulton's memory, somewhere upon the tract of land which he had owned. Its tone indicated that some preliminary steps were already under way, and on March 14, in Troy, a meeting was held, with Major Taylor Basye in the chair and John P. Dunn, secretary, which resulted in organizing "The Fulton Monumental Association of Troy, Indiana," with constitution and by-laws.

A called meeting of Indiana and Kentucky citizens was held May 18th in Louisville, and the "Fulton Monument Association" was formed, with a truly impressive board of officers and directors: President, Elisha M. Huntington, of Cannelton ; vice-presidents, the Gov- ernors of Indiana and Kentucky ex officio; the presidents of the Mechanics' Association, Boston, and the Frankhn Institute, Philadelphia, ex officio; and Jacob Burnet, of Cincinnati; secretary. Dr. T. S. Bell, of Louisville; directors, Robert Dale Owen, John Law, James Boyd, Henry L. Ellsworth, of Indiana ; James C. Hall, Paul Anderson, Jacob Strader, Joseph Pierce, of Ohio ; George D. Prentice, Henry A. Griswold, Stephen H. Long, John B. Semple, Jacob Beckwith, of Kentucky.

With the publication of some circulars sohciting subscriptions to a monument fund, the activity of both associations apparently spent itself, without permanent or material results, and the matter was forgotten except for intermittent references long afterward. At no time then, however, was any claim put forth that Robert Fulton had been more than merely a non-resident owner of the land termed the "Fulton Tract," and the stories of his personal presence at Troy had their birth in subsequent years.

That portion of Fulton's lands which became "Mistletoe Lodge," the estate of Judge Huntington, lay between the river and the Cannelton and Jasper plank road, whose general direction through what is now Tell City followed the north and south alley between Eighth (Main) and Ninth Streets. Such location is still indicated by the quaint old stone residence of Miss Katherine Holschuh, and the home occupied until recently by Miss Katherine Eith, both of which have their front toward what was once the leading thoroughfare of Troy Township. The plank road led due north into the frame market house which formerly stood in the center of Tell City's present beautifully shaded City Park, on the spot where the City Hall was built about 1896.

From there, or a little farther north, it appears to have turned toward the west, probably near what is now Tell Street, as it passed between the river and the home residence of Amaziah P. Hubbs, Sr., and his wife,

Great results were anticipated when some sections of this road were opened with a smooth surface of firm planking, but the grade established seriously miscalculated the high water mark of the Ohio, ana a series of freshets wrought such havoc with the incomplete portions laid down that the subscribers refused to advance further capital and such property as the company owned passed into the hands of Henry P. Brazee, Sr., and William P. Beacon at a forced sale.

Railroad building was agitated in the early 'fifties through the Economist, but the geographical situation of Perry County was unfortunately such as to leave it outside the range of any of the important trunk lines planned to cross Indiana in either direction, a condition similarly and equally affecting the opposite tier of Kentucky counties between Louisville and Henderson. Prior to the construction of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad about 1851, meetings were held in Hawesvnle, in which Perry County citizens actively participated, seeking to induce a location of its route by way of Hancock County, touching the river, but not all the eloquence of Indiana and Kentucky combined could persuade surveyors that the shortest line between the Falls of the Ohio and the capital of Tennessee lay through Hawesville. Nothing substantial, therefore, came of the effort and Hancock County was just one year behind Perry in finally procuring a railway outlet four decades later.

In the flush years following the war between the States several nev/ routes were projected in the general vicinity of Perry County, none, however, actually penetrating the county itself. The nearest was the Rockport and Northern Central Railroad, planned to run from Rockport to Loogootee, on the Ohio and Mississippi (Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern). This line approximately followed a route proposed as early as 1849 under the title of Rockport and Washington

Railway. It is said (Goodspeed's "Spencer County," page 297) that $50,000 was voted in August, 1849, in Spencer County toward building this pioneer railroad, but the scheme never materialized.

In the autumn of 1869 Spencer County voted $97,874.24, for the R. and N. C. R. R., two levies being made, in June of 1870 and 1871, and in 1872 its construction began, under the name of Cincinnati, Rockport and Southwestern Railway, as it was designed eventually to touch Owensboro and Kentucky territory. The financial panic of 1873 came near giving the company a death-blow in its infancy, but the track was laid across Spencer County, as far as Ferdinand Station (Johnsburg) in Dubois County, where it languished for a few years.

February 14, 1879, however, saw the first train run through Huntingburg into Jasper, beyond which point the road was never built along the original survey. Through successive changes of ownership and name this line became in turn part of the Louisville, New Albany and St. Louis Air Line; the Louisville, Evansville and St. Louis; and finally the Southern Railway, under whose last management the French Lick Springs extension was opened December 1, 1907, giving the first through northern connection to the river counties lying between Floyd and Vanderburg.

The earliest definite project for a railroad leading directly into Perry County came in 1871 from a company organized as the Indiana Mineral Railroad, magnificently planned to run from Lake Michigan (at or near Chicago), through the block and cannel coal fields of Clay and Daviess Counties clear to the Ohio River, where a new manufacturing community was to be created under the name of Iron City.

No exact spot for this terminal was ever definitely fixed, as the preliminary survey led thrcngh Anderson Valley as far as Troy and whether the road should thence lead east or west appeared an open question, to be settled by the amount which Perry or Spencer

County should contribute to aid in building the road. Spencer County was already engaged on another line practically parallel, so viewed the new scheme with an equanimity bordering upon indifference, and the most strenuous efforts of the promoters were put forth to obtain a donation of $100,000 from Perry County.

A two per cent, tax was asked from Troy Township, but as the company only offered to build their road to Gutenberg Street at the southern extremity of Tell City, the proposition was not considered favourably by either Cannelton or Troy, each town wishing to become the terminus. At an election held Monday, October 9, 1871, the tax was voted down by a vote of 593 to 551, 472 of the ballots for the road being cast in Tell City, so the question was permanently settleci and no portion of the road was ever built.

Immediately following this defeat a new project was launched from Evansville, the Ohio River Railroad. It was proposed to run through Newburg in Warrick County, Rockport and Grandview in Spencer County, Troy, Tell City, Cannelton and Leopold in Perry County, following the valley of Deer Creek between these last named points and ultimately reaching the St. Louis Air Line at some point near Hartford (English), Crawford County, or an independent line into New Albany. Forty miles of roadbed would thus have crossed Perry County, and $60,000 stock was voted toward its and January 13, 1872, by a vote of 1,311 to 826, but the tax was never levied.

Other elections were held later with results showing county sentiment as favourable to a railroad, but the plans invariably failed of fulfilment, so the tax levies voted were rendered void in each case and were never collected. In April, 1878, Troy Township voted $30,000 for the Southern Indiana Railway, and in July, 1879, $29,500 to the Evansville Local Trade Railway, a narrow-gauge project whose outcome was the Newburg dummy line, later transformed into an electric

Clark Township in April, 1881, voted against a tax to aid the Evansville, Dayton and Eastern, an extension of the road built from Evansville to Boonville in 1876, and connecting in 1880 with the Rockport line at Lincoln City. This road, if built, would have barely crossed the northwest corner of Perry County, and its benefit to the citizens was felt to be negHgible. Troy, Anderson, Clark and Oil Townships in April, 1884, by a vote of 1,312 to 529, voted $35,178 toward the New Albany, Leavenworth and Cannelton Railway, designed to run over the same general route as the former Ohio River line, but work never progressed further than a preliminary survey.

It was reserved for the shortest and most practical route ever suggested to be the first (and, up to 1915, the only one) built into the county, twenty-three miles filling up the gap between Cannelton and Lincoln City. The company was organized in 1886 as the Huntingburg, Tell City and Cannelton Railway, but was from its inception practically a part of the Air Line system.

As a means toward an end so long desired, and that financial aid might be oflUcially given, the municipal organizations of both Cannelton and Tell City were changed in the spring of 1886 from town to city corporations, the first city election in each place being held on the same day, the first Tuesday in May (4th), 1886. As mayor of Cannelton was chosen Samuel T. Piatt, the councilmen being: first ward. Roan Clark, Alexander Quick; second ward, Jacob Heck, John J. McCarty; third ward, Joseph Whittaker, John Cummiskey. Tell City's full corps of officials was made up of: August Schreiber, mayor; Albert P. Fenn, clerk; John Wichser, treasurer; Charles Grammberg, assessor; William P. Kremer, marshal; John C. Harrer, Anton Moraweck, John Hess, Valentine Ress, Henry Bader and Joseph Adam, councilmen.

in the summer of 1887, and an unusually dry season permitting it to be carried on with few interruptions, the first passenger train into Perry County came on January 1, 1888, bringing a special party of Louisville business men and^railway officials over the Cannelton Branch to the county seat,

Cannelton's first mayor, Samuel T. Piatt, Sr., was a native of England, born about 1822 near the city of Liverpool, and before coming to America was married to Hannah Britton, by whom he was the father of two sons and two daughters. They located in Cannelton about 1851, and his earliest business venture was in association with James Lees and several others in a foundry and machine shop. Later, he became connected with the Indiana Cotton Mills and afterward postmaster for some time. For many years, however, he was mail agent on the old Louisville and Evansville packets, at a period when the trade was at its height, only losing this position in 1885 when the Democracy came back into power, as he had always been a prominent Republican.

His election as mayor was a personal recognition of his efficient citizenship and not a partisan issue, and he gave eminent satisfaction during his brief administration, brought to a premature end by his death, September 24, 1886, when Peter Clemens was selected to fill out the unexpired term.

Peter Clemens was of Prussian birth and parentage, born May 8, 1829, in Recklinghausen, Westphalia, near the River Lippe, a son of Henry and Anna Maria (Ochel) Clemens. The region was rich in iron ore, and his father was engaged in the smelting business until seventy-five years old, living to the advanced age of eighty-seven.

The son, who had learned the same business in his father's factory, came to America when twenty-three years old, landing June 21, 1852, at New York, but went on to Pittsburg as a center of the iron industry, where he worked for six months. As the extreme strain of labour began to tell on his health, he made a change in 1853, to the shoe and leather business. Mastering it by a two years' apprenticeship, he then located in Cannelton, where on May 19, 1856, he married Anna Maria Schneider, a native of Perry County. He died May 17, 1899, and by a singular coincidence his requiem mass was sung in St. Michael's Church on the forty-third anniversary of his marriage. Another coincidence, one without parallel in the county, was the circumstance that out of the nine children born to the marriage, two of the sons - Henry M. and Anthony P. - also held the same oflEice of mayor of the city of Cannelton.

While always a stanch Democrat, Peter Clemens was never a machine politician or office-seeker. Though several times elected a trustee under the old town corporation, he served as such from a sense of actual duty toward his fellow citizens and from a public spirit which the rising generation might profitably emulate.

Besides the fact that his term as mayor saw the first railroad built into Perry County (an enterprise toward which he had given much valuable assistance) , a purely local Cannelton improvement also completed while he held the office was the stone culvert over Casselberry Creek, which replaced the dangerous and unsightly covered wooden bridge at the foot of Congress Street and endured until washed out by the cloud-burst of July 27, 1910.

In the county seat strife of 1891, Peter Clemens took an active part toward building the new sheriff's residence and jail at Cannelton, and was equally concerned in the erection of the present beautiful Court House in 1896, which was the city's free gift to the county. One of his latest public projects, about 1896- 97, was the extension of Seventh Street into a road above high-water mark (now a turnpike) leading over Brier Hill into Tell City at Fourteenth and Washmgton Streets. He had personally staked out a route, months before the county authorized the survey which, when made, followed very closely the line he had suggested. In religious circles he was among the foremost members in organizing St. Michael's Roman Catholic parish, and one of its original trustees. He loved the church "from turret to foundation-stone," and its ornate high altar is a fitting memorial of his uniform liberality, although his singular modesty forbade any inscription being placed thereon in his name. A musician of cultivated taste, possessing a bass voice of unuual volume, it was as a choral director that he peculiarly excelled, and with Peter Clemens as kapellmeister the compositions of Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Lambillotte and other great masters were rendered on festal days by the choir of St. Michael's in a style rarely heard outside the larger cities.