Wayne County, Indiana - Chapter 4: Early History of Wayne County, 1912

Chapter 4: Early History of Wayne County

SETTLED BY QUAKERS - DISCOVERY OF WHITE WATER VALLEY - FRIENDS' MEETINGS - EARLY TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS - INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS - ESTABLISH MENT OF SCHOOLS - BUILDING OF CANALS - FIRST RAILROAD - LOCATION OF COUNTY SEAT - EARLY GROWTH OF CENTERVILLE - THE WHITE WATER SETTLEMENT OF FRIENDS.

Wayne county was born in the early dawn of the last century and settled by a people whose love of peace and the principles. of arbitration was only equaled by their aversion to war and human slavery, 7. e., by so-called Quakers - members of the religious Society of Friends. The name of the county, however, was chosen in honor of that fearless and desperate Indian fighter, known in history as General Wayne, but then famous as "Mad Anthony," who had so recently succeeded General St. Clair in command of the United States forces and precipitated the decisive battles which resulted in the Greenville Treaty.

The articles of peace were signed by General Wayne and the Indians of the Northwest Territory, Aug. 3, 1795. Indiana Territory was created pursuant, to the act of Congress of May 7, 1800, dividing the Northwest Territory, and Wayne county was formed in 1810 from part of Dearborn, the county seat of which was at Lawrenceburg. It, with Clark and Knox, then constituted the single trio of counties in the Territory.

The discovery of the White Water valley has been credited to Judge Peter Fleming, and Joseph Wasson - a Revolutionary soldier who accompanied the former from Kentucky - in 1804, and the first settlement in the valley was made in 1805 by George Holman, Richard Rue, and Thomas McCoy. The "John the Baptist" of the Quakers - the leader of the van of North Carolinians who constituted the "Whitewater settlement of Friends" - was the late: Judge David Hoover, who made his advent in the new Canaan in 1806. He had blazed his way through the primeval forest, seeking a home for his father, Andrew Hoover, who was a leader among the Friends of the old North State, with whom the spirit of emigration was already rife, owing to their aversion to the encroachment of slavery; and when he reported the, discovery of the "promised land," detailing its advantages for a prospective agricultural community, the tide of immigration began. Following the Hoovers, came Jeremiah Cox and the ever-present, indispensable John Smith, without whom no community is complete, who, albeit with second choice, selected their lands more luckily than the Hoovers, and of course more. wisely than even they knew, for on their respective farms the principal part of Richmond, the metropolis of the county, was subsequently built. However, to Judge Hoover, who was in a marked degree a leader in the settlement, and, in the capacity of a surveyor, laid out "Richmond as a hamlet," was vouchsafed the happy privilege, if not distinguished honor, of naming the infant metropolis, whereas Cox regarded this good luck as a misfortune. [le was so adverse to seeing the town encroach upon his lands that he declared he "would rather see a buck's tail than a tavern sign," yet he reluctantly gave way to the march of improvement.

From this inception, the White Water settlement began to spread her borders with remarkable strides. That tide of Carolinians, from "Bread's Hatter Shop,' "Dobson's Cross Roads," "Guilford County, near Clemens's store," and the "Deep River Settlement of Friends,' was soon swollen into a regular flood of immigrants, and they were exclusively of that sturdy, industrious class of frugal people that was necessarily required to make the wilderness "blossom as the rose." It was seemingly an insurmountable task to clear the lands of their dense forests, but that done, they were possessed of a virgin soil that needed only to be tickled with a hoe to be made to laugh with a harvest. Hence, prosperity was their sure reward for well doing, and most of them lived to enjoy the fruits of their early labors in the winter of their lives, with a posterity that honored them. They planted good seed for future generations, as is made manifest by the thorough, superior development of the county and the character of its people. Probably without the remotest thought of a manufacturing city ever growing in their midst, they selected the site for its promise of healthfulness and its many advantages for an agricultural community.

They found the productive soil consisting principally of a rich loam, bedded in clay, of a gently rolling, undulating surface, watered by three forks of the White Water river and its numerous. branches, while underlying it was a geological formation of lime- stone and gravel, the advantage of which was to be considered as much for good roads as building purposes. And another advantage of paramount consideration, in lieu of. wells, was the superabundance of elegant spring water that gushed cool and sparkling from the gravelly deposits on both sides of the valley at innumerable places. To-day the importance of a good spring to the pioneer is very liable to be underestimated, but in their day, their rude dwellings were located in what would now be considered the most inaccessible places, because of the proximity of a never-failing spring. Thus, the necessities as well as the customs of a people and the people themselves, not alone as individuals, but as classes, serve their purpose and are beneficial.

Both branches of Friends - the so-termed "Orthodox" and "Hicksites" - have had their weekly, monthly and yearly meetings here since their establishment in the White Water valley, and the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Orthodox Friends has grown to be the largest body of Quakers in the world, exceeding in numbers the mother meeting, the London Yearly Meeting, many years ago. The Friends do not predominate here as of yore. To-day, the Quaker in full regulation attire - the head of the home in broadbrimmed beaver hat and shad-bellied coat, or his life's companion in hard-sell-silk bonnet and prim, plain drab garb - is seldom seen save among the very oldest people. Yet, the enterprise that developed the resources of the county and made Richmond her metropolis and envied city, gave "Old Wayne" the undisputed title of the banner county of the State and built the most substantial, prosperous, wealthy and healthy city of over 20,000 population in all the West, has been a conservative kind of enterprise, tempered with the cautious, honest and frugal ideas of those early day Friends, who planted broad and deep the foundation upon which we find the substantial superstructure of to-day. Indeed, a detailed history of the rise of the Society of Friends in the White Water valley, of the uninterrupted growth of Richmond, and of the thrice located county seat, would embody the germane points in the history of the county.

Early Trials And Triumphs

Of course, the first object of the "newcomer" was to get a "patch" cleared large enough to admit of a log cabin, and in the meanwhile, if they could not "stop" with friends who had preceded them, they were domiciled in the great four-horse wagons and

Carolina carts, with which they had immigrated. Then came the herculean task of enlarging the patch to the proportions of a "clearing" and having "put in" enough seed to raise enough food for man and beast for the first year; the next object was to swell the clearing to the dignified proportions of a farm, with roads opened to it. All this meant almost superhuman hardship, but with the "raisings" of cabin and barn, the "log rollings" and the "huskings" when the corn was gathered in the fall, came also the mirth of reciprocal good fellowship, the good cheer of hospitality and the reward within for helping one another. Fully compensated was he who was selected at the raising as expert enough to "carry up a corner," and proud as he was, his rival for distinction at the logging, who excelled all the others in physical strength, was he who stood the test of superior manhood. The corners properly saddled and notched, the experts again displayed their skill in carrying up the gables, between which saplings spanned the space, and on these the clapboards were placed to be held down by weight poles, spaced with knees to hold them in place. Then came the big outside stick and clay chimney - built cobhouse fashion - the puncheon floor, greased paper window, the split board door with wooden hinges and latchspring fastening, and all was done to the furnishing, save chinking and daubing with mud the interstices between the logs. For daylight, they supplemented the limited supply from the greased paper window by leaving the door open, and at night they relied upon the glare from the broad open fire place, and a single room served for all purposes. It was more room outside for crops they were thinking most about, and they did not wait to cut down all the timber to get it, as in many settlements. They grubbed out what they could of the small growth, felled the smaller trees and deadened the large ones by girding about them the burning brush of the smaller ones, at the same time insuring an immense yield of whatever was planted in the scorched soil thus claimed. Next in turn came the matter of fencing, and here again, in splitting the most rails in a day, was another opportunity for a standing in general estimation only to be compared with that won at the "raising" or the "logging." The "crack shot" was not in it for comparison, for wild game was so plentiful and money+««: scarce they would not waste ammunition on anything they could trap. Meat, like raiment, was a secondary consideration; the question was to get breadstuffs.

to Bruce's Mill, over in Ohio, when they had any considerable grist to grind. Some few had iron handmills, a la coffee grinders, while others improvised huge grates by perforating an old tin bucket with a nail, on which they would rasp the corn before it got hard; but partial relief came in the fall of 1807, when three tub mills were built in various parts of the valley, at a combined cost of about $500. Then corn-dodgers, pones, hoe-cake and Johnny-cake became less a luxury, as compared to boiled or roasted corn and lye hominy; nor did mush much longer reign as hasty pudding. In lieu of imported coffee at fifty cents a pound - the price of a calf - the bread crust, corn meal, wheat and potato coffee was used; and in lieu of tea, they made use of sycamore chips and beech leaves when sassafras and spicewood were not in season. The hogs they raised for domestic meat proved as wild as the game from running in the woods, and more dangerous than any save the. bear and wolves. In the annual hog hunts, some would escape for several years, and with tusks several inches long they would rip open a dog with a single flirt of their snout and compel men without guns to climb trees for safety. The deer not only furnished the most desirable wild meat, but also raiment, for dressed deer skins supplied the belted blanket coat, breeches and moccasins for the majority. Some had homemade blue cloth trousers and linsey hunting shirts, but most women, before their children grew up to help them, had enough spinning and weaving to do to keep up a quantity sufficient of "stuff" for themselves and daughters. Gingham and calico was as rich raiment for them as shoes and Kentucky jeans were for the men.

The wife of that epoch was a helpmate in fact, under most adverse circumstances. To cook as they did would drive a chef of to-day to suicide. With kettles suspended on hooked-end "trammels" from strong poles embedded back in the wide fireplace; with long handled frying pans and three-legged "spiders" a la skillets, they had to do all manner of cooking, at the cost of singed hair, blistered hands, if not faces, and scorched clothing, until "cranes" and "reflectors" came to modify their troubles, in advance of cooking stoves. But the good wife did not complain, so long as her husband had to trudge through sod and roots with his barshare plow with wooden moldboard, then "drag" his field with an improvised harrow, put his seed in with a bushy topped sapling, using husk collars and rawhide traces for harness, and later on harvested his wheat with a little sickle or reaphook, before cradles came; then thresh it with a flail - the "swingle" of which was liable to brain him - and "winnow" it with a tow-linen sheet.

Amid such tribulations, privations and poverty, they began their internal improvements, including the erection of churches and conducting "subscription" schools in them, thoroughly grounded in the belief that "whenever there is true religion, there are schools." The churches or school-houses were built like their primitive dwellings, heretofore described, with a long slab for a writing desk, under the greased paper window, supplied with goose quill pens, on which the ink would often freeze, and the course of instruction was confined to "readin', writin', spellin' and 'rithmetic" for many years. But that was only the beginning. Before there was any legislation in the interest of education, and crude as it was, this community was far in advance of other pioneer settlements, an advance subsequently maintained and at length giving to the county a reputation among educators that has proved most gratifying to all public-spirited citizens. The first school was taught "the first year the Quakers came" (1807), and in 1811 their meeting had a standing committee on schools. They, or their fathers, had had advantages "in Pennsylvania" before going to North Carolina or coming here, and their "concern for the education of our youth" was doubtless the most potent influence in the upbuilding of schools for the first two decades in the county's history.

The records on school law show an act of the State legislature as early as 1824 and another in 1828, but the record of our schools show no results until after the act of 1831. Then elementary schools were established, and after the State school fund of $573,502.96 was created by the distribution of the surplus revenue of the General Government in 1837, common schools received material aid, but it was not until after the act of 1849, increasing the school revenue by direct taxation, that district schools became common here as well as elsewhere in the State. But a comparison, to invite favorable comment for Wayne county, is found in the last census prior to the above date, i. e., 1840, which shows that in Indiana at large one adult person in seven was illiterate, whereas there was only one in 222 in Wayne county; that is, of 9,349 only forty-two could not read or write. Meanwhile, in addition to her many district schools, the County Seminary was built, in 1828, at Centerville, the county seat, another in 1839 at Cambridge City, which flourished under the instruction of Rev. Samuel K. Hoshour, whose name will never fade from the honor roll of Indiana's educators ; an academy at Dublin in 1837, and divers secular schools at Richmond, besides what is now Earlham College, the chief edu- cational institution in the county, one of the leading colleges of the State and one of the four principal colleges in the United States conducted by Friends. It was in 1832 that the Indiana Yearly Meeting purchased the farm, 120 acres, for the purpose of establishing an industrial school, to which a number of academies in various parts of the State were to be made contributory. But ere this project could become active, the proposed State system of public schools began engrossing public sentiment. It was not until 1847 that the "Friends Boarding School" was opened, and it was not until 1852-4 that it was completed at a cost of $46,000, not including about $3,000 expended for apparatus and library, with which it continued as an academic institution until 1859. Then it got its college charter and was christened Earlham College, in grateful acknowledgment of a substantial donation from an affluent English Friend, whose estate was known as "Earlham."

With the growth of education came about as many churches as school-houses, and that other requisite to modern civilization, the newspaper press, each supporting the other and all conspiring to stimulate culture, morality, good government and progress in internal improvements of every kind. There is hardly a hamlet in the county that has not one or more churches; the leading denominations are represented in all the larger towns and Richmond is called a City of Spires; the first newspaper appeared in 1820, since which time their number has been legion and scores have expired after labors well performed, leaving many survivors to continue the good work, in which they are doing valiant service, the Richmond press being especially superior for a city of its size to support as many.

Internal improvements were comparatively early enjoyed in Wayne county, yet in the light of the present age, the wonder is that the opened highways, mud and corduroy roads were not sooner superseded by better ones, with such a superabundance of excellent gravel so near the surface. The act of Congress authorizing the construction of a turnpike from Cumberland, Md., to Ohio, at the expense of the Government, which was passed the year the Quakers made their first settlement in this valley, in 1806, was destined, at a rather remote period, to give the first real impetus to the building of the unsurpassed system of turnpikes that was in store for Wayne county. The Cumberland Road, or National Road, as it subsequently became known, was extended as settlements grew to the West, but it was by measured strides, appropriations being fought as unconstitutional or inexpedient, and the project was finally relinquished to the States through which the road passed after it had been opened to Vandalia, Ill, and bridged as well as graded, a greater part of the way, and then, in Indiana at least, it was relinquished by the State to the counties, and in turn to private companies. The Wayne County Turnpike Company was chartered during the legislative session of 1849-50, and during the latter year the twenty-two miles of road that threaded the county was completed. Then followed the rapid building of other pikes to intersect it, affording communication to distant townships, and next, tributary roads to the latter, so that the first authentic reward of the turnpikes in the county, fifteen years later, shows twenty-one in number, averaging 148 miles in length; many of which extended into adjoining counties; and from this latter period the enterprise in building free gravel roads rapidly resulted in sapping the pecuniary value of the tollroads, until their stockholders have surrendered the less profitable ones and gladly disposed of the others to the respective townships, until there is not a tollroad in Wayne county.

The building of canals was begun under the Internal Improvement bill passed by the legislature during the session of 1835-36, but in 1839 the State had to abandon all public works and square itself to face an accumulated debt of $14,000,000. Thereupon, the White Water Valley Canal Company was chartered, 1841-42, with $400,000 capital stock, to complete the canal (then built from the Ohio river to Brookville) to Cambridge City, at which place operations were begun July 28, 1842. The day was made the occasion for a big barbacue, attended by about 10,000 people, and boats began running in 1846; but 'midst a prosperous freight and passenger business, the company sustained about $100,000 damage from a great freshet, in January, 1847, from which they had only began to recover when another nearly as great came in November, 1848. But still they struggled on. Meanwhile, in 1847, the Hagerstown Canal Company had completed its canal, to be operated in connection with the White Water canal, between Hagerstown and Cambridge City, and hope was still entertained by the Richmond & Brookville Canal Company, on which project $45,000 of the $8o-, ooo contracted had been expended, when the freshet of 1847 destroyed about all of it. However, the Richmond & Brookville Company had had no assistance from the State, and the stockholders were too fearful of the grade of their canal - a fall of 273. feet in thirty-four miles - after what they saw of that freshet and also of the prospects of a railroad that was already coming on to

Richmond to proceed with the project at an estimated cost of $508,000, and the Hagerstown canal, with but a few small boats, was not proving a very material auxiliary; so the White Water canal was abandoned a few years later. It was in fact "run over by the locomotive," the present White Water Valley branch of the Big Four railroad being built on its towpath and bed most of the way from Hagerstown to Harrison, Ohio.

The first railroad incorporated in Wayne county was the Richmond & Miami, Jan. 19, 1846. Its charter was amended Jan. 24, 1851, to include the Dayton & Western, with which it was connected by a branch from the Ohio and Indiana State line. Another branch to the State line, only about four miles from Richmond, was built in conjunction with the Eaton & Hamilton, which subsequently passed into the hands of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, from which it-was acquired by the Panhandle (Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis) people only a few years ago, when they continued it from Hamilton to intersect their Little Miami division near Cincinnati. The next was the Terre Haute & Richmond, chartered Jan. 26, 1847, but an act of Jan. 20, 1851, limited that road between Terre Haute and Indianapolis, while creating a new company, the Indiana Central, to build that part between Indianapolis and Richmond, or the Ohio line. On this, regular trains began running Sept. 19, 1853, and the same year witnessed the completion of the New Castle & Richmond, chartered Feb. 16, 1848, on which train service began early in 1854, in conjunction with the Eaton & Hamilton. In time its construction was continued to Chicago, and theh as now afforded a through line between that city and Cincinnati. What is now the Cincinnati, Richmond & Ft. Wayne road, operated as a part of the Grand Rapids & Indiana, was chartered Feb. 24, 1853, but, after spending much time and money, its projectors had to let it remain statu quo, until liberal subscriptions were obtained by changing its northern route, April 7, 1869, from Camden and Bluffton to Portland and Decatur, and additional appropriations were voted it, whereupon it was speedily completed and put in operation, Jan. 1, 1872. What was originally known as "Junction" road and now forms a part of the Ft. Wayne, Cincinnati & Louisville branch of the Lake Erie & Western, was completed in July, 1865, and a continuance of it was made from Cambridge City to New Castle in 1867, while the "Cambridge City Extension" (of the Jeffersonville, Madison & Indianapolis), now operated by the Panhandle, to connect with the Louisville division at Columbus, Ind., was made the same year, thus completing 85.95 miles of main track and about fifteen miles of sidetrack, or a total of 100 miles of trackage in Wayne county.

By the same act of the Territorial legislature forming the county of Wayne, in 1810, John Cox, John Addington and George Holman were commissioned to locate a county seat, on or before the first Monday in May, 1811. Meanwhile, however, court was held at the rude residence of Richard Rue, as indeed it was subsequent to locating the county seat, pending the building of a log court house. The first court was held Feb. 25, 1811, but it was not a judicial session, the purpose being to divide the county into two districts, or townships, and appoint such officers as Overseers of the poor and fence viewers, the county business being done by judges - Peter Fleming, Aaron Martin and Jeremiah Meek; the clerk was George Hunt, the sheriff, John Turner, and the prosecutor, James Noble. At the next session, in March, the first grand jury was impaneled, and at the June term it was declared that the commissioners appointed by the legislature had failed to discharge their duty in selecting a county seat, and a new commission, consisting of Samuel Walker, Richard Maxwell and Benjamin Harris, was appointed for the purpose. The original commission had not been derelict in its duty, however; they had failed to agree. Two of them, sticking to the text of the legislation to select a site near the geographical center, had done so, about a mile north of the present town of Centerville, but the third had dissented on the ground that the quarter-section named had not yet been sold by the Government, and the latter's minority report was sustained by the court, which instructed the new commission to select a site between Richmond and Centerville. To hit the bull's eye in the center, they selected a sixty-five-acre tract, belonging to Samuel Woods, just midway between the two towns, and the embryo seat of justice was named Salisbury. Thereupon Smith Hunt, Samuel Woods and James Brown were appointed trustees to plat the town, while Andrew Woods and John Meek superintended the building of a jail and estray pen. A log court house also came in turn, the records showing the first court to be held in it Oct. 28, 1811, and the logs it contained are today hidden in a modernized Richmond residence, while the bricks that were in the secorid jail built at Salisbury are also in the inside walls of a Main street business house and an old Richmond residence.

destined to be followed by two others ere the scales of justice were to be permanently poised in Richmond. The central faction denounced the court in unmeasured terms and the census of the community was taken, resulting in 330 subscribing to the majority report of the legislative commission and only 150 to that of the commission appointed by the court. Despite the feeling, however, Salisbury "held the fort" and, in 1816, boasted of thirty-five houses, two stores and two taverns, one of which latter is supposed to still stand, as the only landmark on the site of the otherwise totally obliterated first county seat. That year, 1816, Indiana Territory was admitted to the sisterhood of States and the factional fight was carried into the legislature, where an act was passed, authorizing the removal of the county seat to Centerville, providing the advocates of the removal supply good buildings, i. e., a court house, jail and estray pen, free of cost to the county, and pending their erection, to equal in point of convenience and value those at Salisbury. The Centerville trustees were to provide and furnish a suitable place for holding ¢ourt and transacting public business generally.

The act bears date of Dec. 21, 1816, and 'further provides that its provisions should be complied with on or before Aug. I, 1817, yet it was not to be in force until June 1. However, the Centerville faction was only too willing to accept the terms thereof and, as a guarantee of good faith, gave a $10,000 bond, with ten of their best men as sureties. The commissioners held their last session at Salisbury, in August, 1817, and the county seat was removed to Centerville during 1817-18, but the buildings were not completed until 1821-22, and the removal was not accomplished without much bitterness of feeling and stubborn opposition.. David Hoover, who had led the van of North Carolina Quakers here, was with the Salisbury faction and had a most formidable following. At the organization of the county, in 1810, he had been made justice of the peace; next, in 1815, associate judge of the Circuit Court, and, in 1817, clerk of the court. So hostile was he to Centerville that he refused to remove his office fixtures there, and among the archives is an order from the commissioners, addressed to the clerk and authorizing a deputized third party to remove the "publick stove from Salisbury to Centerville on the 26th day of December, 1820." One of the commissioners, Isaac Julian, married Judge Hoover's sister, but he was a Centerville man with all the determination that characterized his French-Huguenotic ancestor, Rene St. Julien, under the Prince of Orange, and the stand he took against the former resulted in a mutual semi-estrangement ever after. For Judge Hoover was also fixed in his way of thinking, as is indicated by the fact that though he was so popular as to be reelected again and again for nearly fourteen years, he steadfastly refused to remove to Centerville from the homestead he originally chose, in 1807, immediately north of Richmond. A biographical sketch referring to him as clerk of the court from 1817 to 1834 says "he might have continued in the office had it not been that, owing to his domestic tastes, he could not be prevailed on to remove to the county seat, which the people required him to do." But it was not alone "domestic tastes" that actuated him, as the reader may infer.

With the completion of the court house and jail, in 1821-22, simultaneously began the growth of Centerville and the decadence of Salisbury, which latter now has only a place in memory, where it may be worthy of note to add, it is associated with the fact that at just this time, Aug. 4, 1823, there was born there the most distinguished personage in the history of the State. This was the Hon. Oliver P. Morton, whose name will forever be associated with the leaders of the United States Senate, but whose chief glory was attained as Indiana's War Governor. Yet, Centerville claims him as her son, as that was the theatre of his life from boyhood to the hour of his fame - as the boy apprentice in a hatter shop, student, lawyer, judge, and politician. Indeed, Centerville was the theatre in which divers men of future renown made their debut, but from 1850 the development of Richmond, every year, emphasized the probability of the county seat being again removed, and two decades later the third and certainly final "court house war" was come. Rumors of the war had preceded it, and to fortify against such an issue the Centerville people essayed to anchor the county seat there by building an elegant new jail and designating much needed fireproof vaults for the accumulated records. But the recognized necessity for better court house facilities, coupled with the evident purpose of the Centerville faction, only sufficed to precipitate the war they had hoped to avert. In 1867 the jail was built at a cost of about $70,000, but Richmond had now become too formidable a rival for the county seat to be thwarted. She had increased in population from 320, when Centerville was made the county seat, to nearly 10,000, which was more than six times her population when she got her first railroad, and an increase of fifty per cent. since the war began, while she had in all other respects developed in like ratio. Hence, in point of legal business and the diversified relations of the seat of justice to the rest of the county, she was pre-eminent and there was no staying the tide in her favor. On June 3, 1872, there was presented to the Board of County Commissioners a petition signed by 4,948 legal voters of the county, praying for the removal of the county seat to Richmond, and in September following, having taken ample time to consider the petition, the merits of the claim made by its subscribers, and the facts as they found them, the commissioners

'notified the Governor that all preliminary conditions for such removal had been complied with and received their approval. Accordingly, the Governor appointed appraisers to value the county property at Centerville and, at their December meeting, the commissioners authorized the auditor to advertise for bids for the construction of new buildings at Richmond, whereupon the attorneys for the opposition applied to the Circuit Court for an injunction against letting the contract, but the court held that the order of the commissioners was supreme. From this decision an appeal was taken, and when the order was made to remove the records, upon completion of the Richmond court house, in August, 1873, another judge granted a temporary restraining order, but it was soon revoked. Thereupon, during the latter part of September, the sheriff deputized a posse to tear down the jail at Centerville, which effort was opposed with a determination that was not short of mob violence and for the time prevented the execution of the commission. To prevent absolute bloodshed the matter was again taken into court and an injunction was granted, restraining the sheriff from "razing" the jail pending an investigation and the decision of the Supreme Court relative to the removal of records and archives. But for the latter they had to wait only till Oct. 10, and as the supreme tribunal affirmed the decision of the lower court, the second restraining order was promptly annulled. Yet so hostile was the feeling that the opposing faction was not ready to abide by the decision, but per contra filed a petition for a rehearing the day the decision was made known, and when a contractor appeared to again attempt "razing" the jail a mob again interfered and prevented it, until it was ascertained, the following week, that the prayer for a rehearing was hopeless. Then hostilities ceased, the work of demolition began Oct. 23, to proceed without further molestation, and the materials in the prison part were most advantageously utilized in erecting our present jail in a most complete and substantial manner. But the court house erected during the hurry of this exciting period was only intended to serve temporarily, albeit there were hosts to say it was good enough when the time came to erect the present magnificent one, which doubtless surpasses any in the State in originality and newness of design, if not in architectural beauty and elegance of construction, its style or plan being a wide departure from the stereotyped one that appears in the great majority of court houses of both high and low degree. Its erection was decided upon by the commissioners at their June term, 1891, and at their September term a formidable remonstrance was filed, but this they rejected as they also did the first plans submitted by several architects, at their November term.

Thereupon McLaughlin, the Cincinnati architect, was employed to prepare plans and specifications, incorporating ideas advanced by the commissioners, who had traveled and viewed court houses until they thought they knew what they wanted. The following April, 1892, proposals were received and the contract let to A. G. Campfield & Company, for $274,000, but divers changes and additions were made which swelled the final cost to about $425,000.

The White Water Settlement Of Friends

The Society of Friends has never taken kindly to the appellation of "Quaker," as it was given them in derision, but it antedates their history in America, back to that early epoch when they were known as the "Children of Light." It was when George Fox, the founder of the sect, was arraigned before Justice Bennett, of Derby, England, in 1650, for promulgating their doctrine, and told him to "quake before the Lord,' whereupon the court following styled them Quakers. As previously stated, the Nestor of the Society made his advent here in 1806, to be followed by the vanguard in 1807, and by August of the latter year their number was so augmented (to eighty-four, children and all) that West Branch (Ohio) Monthly Meeting "indulged" a subordinate meeting here. At its first session, in one of the rude homes, there were only thirty-four present, but when it was learned that a meeting had been indulged the colony began increasing more rapidly and by the next year they built a meeting house. It was a log house, twenty-four feet square, and in it the present White Water Monthly Meeting was established by Miami (Ohio) Quarterly Meeting, 9th Month, 3oth, 1889, with 265 members - the first in Indiana Territory.

house says, "I remember its leaking roof, letting the rain through upon the slab benches, with three pairs of legs and no backs; its charcoal fires, kept in sugar kettles, for as yet stoves were not procured, and the toes pinched with cold of the young, who sat remote from the kettles"; and under such circumstances, their attendance sufficiently attested the sincerity of their devotion; but harder trials, "for opinion's sake," were in store for them. Their pursuits of peace were hardly inaugurated in their new home until the' War of 1812 came, and during its continuance it was more of the oppression of the whites than of the Indians that the Friends had to complain. Based on the testimony of Jesus, to love the Lord with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves, the Friends have a testimony against all wars, in spirit or in fact, wherefore they declined to participate in any of the busy preparation for war. They not alone refrained from "mustering" but steadfastly refused to drill or serve any way whatsoever when drafted. Therefore, they were repeatedly arrested, fined and imprisoned; but while they did not resist arrest nor imprisonment, they refused to pay fines and allowed their hard. earned effects to be seized and sold at nominal valuations to liquidate the penalties imposed. True to their principles, they were non-resisting, but fixed in purpose. Four young Friends, however, who had no effects to be sold and suffered long imprisonment, without fire and other necessities, subsequently recovered damages off the county. One old Friend named Elliott so stubbornly defied the authorities that he was ordered shot, but was purposely allowed to escape the guard to avoid executing the order. But amid their tribulations a blessing came that same year, for 6th Month, 1812, Baltimore Yearly Meeting had established West Branch (Ohio) Quarterly Meeting "only forty miles distant," to which their White Water Monthly Meeting then became attached. This forty miles was through the dense, primeval forest, and the hostilities of the Indians were kindled to a war heat by the animosities of the whites, but the Friends had already inculcated in the barbaric minds of the red men that they 'were especially friendly to them, and right while the spirit to kill was rife within their savage breasts they manifested, in a degree, toward the Friends much of that reciprocal feeling that in years after prompted those of their race to fall in reverence at the base of William Penn's statue in Philadelphia. A contributor to a local paper told only a few years ago how the Quaker's garb was a signal of friendliness, in which the red men had abiding faith even in those hostile times. Even his mother felt safe to ride to mill alone, only taking the precaution to array herself in her First-day (Sunday) bonnet and shawl. But all this time the Indians were committing all sorts of depredations, in a vindictive spirit, against those pioneers who were fortifying with block houses, in which they constantly took refuge from the time General Harrison began the expedition that made him the "hero of Tippecanoe" until the Harrison-Cass treaty was effected in July, 1814, about thirty miles from this city, at which there were several thousand Indians of various tribes. Peace restored, the administration of White Water Monthly Meeting augmented, in 1815, to six subordinate meetings, aggregating 800 members, and the strength of the Society was recognized the following year by the civil authorities of the Territory by selecting one of their representative members, Jeremiah Cox, as a delegate to the Corydon Convention, which, in June, 1816, adopted the State Constitution. Next, Jan. 4, 1817, White Water Monthly Meeting became a Quarterly Meeting and continued to strengthen each year until Oct. 8, 1821, when Indiana Yearly Meeting was established, which rendered necessary the building of a new and more commodious meeting house, as the old log one had meanwhile proved inadequate for even the Quarterly Meeting; and it was not alone a larger one that was immediately proposed, but a brick one, which, in view of the fact that brick houses were as yet very few in Wayne county, was considered very enterprising by all and somewhat to be deplored by some of the plainer factors in the meeting, who were fearful lest it be a little ostentatious. In 1823, the walls were built, and in 1824 it was occupied, but it was not until 1829 that it was completed. It was a "big thing" for that period and moved slowly, but it was substantially built, as is evidenced by the fact that after it had served its original purpose it was converted into an oil mill and still stands, as an adjunct to a large lumber yard, in a good repairable state of preservation. That it was economically builded before "rings" and "jobs" were known as requisite to a large undertaking is also evidenced by the very complete reports made by the "overseers." They report, "May 1, 1824: Stone in foundation, loads, 225; brick, 266,000; hewed timber, feet, 8,473; sawed scantling, feet, 12,501; shingles, 43,200; glass, panes 1,029; walls, 100x60x30 feet, in lower story 22 inches and upper 18 inches thick. Money expended, $3,489.91%." But as the building was not completed until five years later, and so much in work and materials was gratuitously contributed, the above

Pending the completion of the big brick meeting house, came a dissention in the Society that split them asunder. That was the "split" of 1827-28 that resulted in the two "branches" of to-day With no creed nor ritual, no church form that binds one meeting to the other save their "correspondence," as they term an annual exchange of epistles, they rely upon their faith in God as the Father, and his revelations through Christ the Son, first, and then their own love for one another, for unity. But when Elias Hicks came here, at this time, on his pilgrimage from one meeting to another, preaching his new "views," the major part of the meeting arose in opposition to their promulgation. They were branded as the doctrine of the Universalists and would not be tolerated by the main body of the Meeting, whereupon he went to Charles W. Starr's barnyard, not far distant, to preach his views, which were especially pronounced on the divinity of Christ, the miraculous conception and the atonement. A memorable declaration was that there was no more virtue in the blood Christ shed than in the blood of an ox; that the crucifixion of God's chosen Son was the work of man; that it was by His examples and not his sacrifice that he fulfilled his mission. The result was that about 140 members "split off" and established another Meeting, which has ever since held its yearly meetings alternately here and at Waynesville, Ohio, but has never assumed numerical strength in the West comparing to the Orthodox Meeting, albeit the Hicksites are in the majority in Philadelphia. There are now less than 2,000 members of the Hicksite Yearly Meeting, about two-thirds of whom belong to the Quarterly Meeting here; whereas, there are about 20,000 members of the Indiana (Orthodox) Yearly Meeting, which, as before stated, is the largest body of Friends in this country or any other; and it has this distinction despite that in three-scoreand-ten years of its existence there has been "set off" from it lowa Yearly Meeting, Western (Indiana) Yearly Meeting, and Kansas Yearly Meeting.