Old stories that tell their own side of history

 The nature of local news was that it was always of more interest to people it didn't affect. The ancient papers are full of tidbits, trivia and say-what blurbs that, a hundred years later make ya go .........

HMMM .........................

This nifty item from back in the day tells of Doctor Turner taking a leave of absence to visit Boston for some purpose that even the reporter thought sounded a bit fishy. This was from the 1850s. Maybe the good doc was indeed going fishing and didn't think it was any-of-yer-beeswax.

This one doesn't speak to any nefarious deeds, but it evokes a chuckle all the same. Doc Linegar, proprietor in potions, notions, salts, salves and whatever else ails you, including castor oil, witch hazel and licorice, five for a penny. And in case you need a loan, he has the lowest interest rates in town. From 1902.

Some able speakers were likely to be available in case you wanted to make a point about the evils of the demon rum. The temperance movement in Fairfield was robust, unless you had a wagon that occasionally visited people in Laurel, who also voted down booze by a narrow margin. Nobody who didn't drink was in favor of this. 1867. 

Baseball, as it was played in 1905 -- a raucous affair without much glory or glamour. You brought your team, they brought their team and the umpire worked for peanuts. Bad umpiring was always the complaint when the favorites lost. Fairfield's baseball team doesn't have much recorded history. Most likely just some guys who were taking up a dare. Final score was 17-16. We lost. Ump sucked.

These clips are from old Brookville papers, snipped from online sources that are generally available to the public without cost through your public library. 

All that traction action without satisfaction

Fairfield was inside a conversation in 1911 about being connected to an interurban railroad line that would have gone north through Richmond and south to Cincinnati. The line was to connect Union City to a lot of places in the Miami Valley.

That conversation was worth the paper it was printed on. Regular dispatches from Richmond fed the beast. Traction news was all the rage.

The grand-and-glorious kingmakers in Richmond, seeing themselves as the literal center of the universe, wanted "traction" to Cincinnati. These folks were constantly devising ways of enriching their world by getting other people to pay for it. 

"Traction" is another word for electric train travel. The concept took hold in the late 1890s in urban areas and by around 1905, had hooked many towns together with useful if unpredictable rail travel. Relatively safe is the optimum description. INTERURBAN LINK 

Inadequate management is another. Poorly financed over bad track that was vulnerable to the weather and shoddy construction, the interurbans were a glittering object like you'd get at the carnival -- and essentially equal in investment value. The lines were surveyed by local people and stock was sold on the promise that the money would come with it through various municipal venues.

The few lines that survived avoided these pitfalls. World War I took care of the rest of it, siphoning off resources to be sent to Europe to fight the conflict there. Twenty years of promise. All in all, probably worth it.

The line was to go from Richmond south through Liberty, Fairfield, Brookville, Cedar Grove, on into Harrison and Cincy. The total cost in 1911 dollars was a little over $1 million, to be paid for one town at a time.

By 1912, nobody in Richmond was interested in it. Instead, Milton wanted a line to Connersville, which might have included Liberty and Oxford. Richmond stopped caring about its line to Union City and decided Portland was better.

Chicago didn't care. They were building what we now use as the South Shore to South Bend, where it could go anyplace the public wanted it to go. Everybody wanted traction and the mere topic spurred incredible frenzy. (The South Shore continues to be a strong and viable commuter line, a modern hat tip to the past.)

If all the problems that could kill traction hadn't happened -- the one monster that could, did.

We know it as the automobile.

Traction was amazing and magical. It helped create Indiana's passion for high school basketball by making tournaments possible for schools that otherwise traveled in the mud. It spurred industry, moved people into a different (not necessarily better) world and conceivably could be a solution to some of our environmental problems today. That is not an absolute. Nothing ever is.

Treaty Line Museum

After the people who did the surveying were done, the folks who were left to rescue the East Fork's history went about it logically. They found all the ancient log cabins built by the original pioneers and moved them all to a field in the tiny hamlet of Dunlapsville, just north of the northern end of the lake.

Union County.

Log cabins built by the Logans, the Hannas, others from the valley were all nestled into what was to be a working pioneer farm. It was a great idea without much support. It shut down in the late 80s for lack of money and inspiration -- and it was left to rot away.

It's doing that. Old buildings rescued from Quakertown and the valley are getting no attention, most likely won't from the Union County Historical Society, which mows the grass and not much else. The village is worse than it looks from the road.

The cabins are from the early 1800s and were built generally by the Carolina Settlement which was the first to buy and enter land in the area west of Mount Carmel and north of old Fairfield. Their lands stretched mostly into present-day Union County not far from the Whitewater River, East Fork. 

The cabins are interesting. 

At one time, the village endeavored to show what life was like in the early days. A grand objective. Dunlapsville is probably the worst place on Earth not under water to put up such a museum.

The log structures appear to be in remarkably good condition but weather has a way of ruining roofs. One assumes that after 200 years, these things have defied nature and will continue to do so. One also hopes that somebody else takes charge of this project.

 

Other towns named Fairfield at one time or other

Oakford

We know, through reading about the history of the pioneer days, that forms of “scrip” were frequently used as currency. When money was scarce, local economies were forced to use a bartering system to create trade.

The effect was almost always a disaster.

Today, we call it a “rebate.”

This from Rick Bales of Kokomo, Indiana, who was curious about it and its value. My interest is in the Thomson store, which doesn’t show up on any “Google” searches of southeastern Indiana. It may have been in Cincinnati. Or it could be Thom(p)son. In any event, there is no Thomson who ran a store in Fairfield.

But there was a community at one time in Howard County by the name of Fairfield that eventually changed its name to Oakford.

 Warren Krise of Loveland, Colorado, fills us in on that bit of trivia.

Hi John,

I’m writing to let you know that your Fairfield, Indiana is not the first Fairfield, Indiana to meet an unfortunate demise.

I grew up in Oakford, Indiana, but my father, who grew up there also, always called it Fairfield.

Oakford is just outside Kokomo.

An old map of Taylor Township, Howard County, Indiana. Fairfield is shown clearly on the map. 

The story I was told is that the original town was named Fairfield and the interurban station was named Fairfield but there was already a Fairfield in Indiana so the post office had to have a different name. Somehow it was named Oakford. 

I don’t know when this change took place. It existed as both Fairfield and Oakford for many years depending upon whether you were riding the train or getting your mail.

OTHER TOWNS CAME AND WENT, OR STAYED 

Dayton

Susan Yost Clawson writes and offers a bit more insight about Fairfield's importance to Indiana. Even when we weren't important, we were still first. But we were happy to share.

Hi, John,

I was fascinated ... because of a story connected to my home town, Dayton, Indiana, in Tippecanoe County.

The story goes that when the town was founded in 1829 the folks tried to get a post office under the name of Fairfield but were told that wasn't possible because there was already a post office by that name in the state.

I never knew where this "other Fairfield" was. So then another guy arrived and platted an addition to the town and offered to donate land for a school if he could name the town.

This was all agreed to and he named the town Dayton, after the largest town in the area of Ohio where he came from. And a post office could be obtained under that name. We are still here and so far, so is the post office.

So, even considering the similar story you report about the town in Howard County, it looks like your town might be the original Fairfield post office. Sorry to hear that the town was flooded in the 1970s, but I am fascinated to find the location of the "original" Fairfield post office.

No idea where "Fairfield" PH 393 connected

Turnpike madness

 A few entries in the blog have dealt with roads, transportation of any sort and the realization that ...

Nonetheless, the year 1867 was hot-and-heavy when it came to turnpike thrills in Franklin County. Left turns only.

Stop at the gate.

Pay toll.

 Are you carrying contraband, illegal firearms, narcotics or wanton hussies?

You would not be lying about that, right?

On to the topic. The idea that 120 acres was worth $9,000 in 1867 -- that was a bunch of money. There may have been land speculation going on as well, since conversations were intense about a possible railroad line that would have affected Oxford and routes north to Richmond. Liberty, however, was the Everyman Dream. Better than Brookville, they opined. 

BROOKVILLE POLITICS, CANALS AND MORE

Certificates and documents of an official nature

These have no special significance. They exist; therefore, they might be interesting.

Belly up, George insisted....

In 1902, the town was being asked to allow George Maharry the right to open a saloon, general store and pool hall on Main Street. 

The town, however, had other ideas. Saying no to booze was easy for two-thirds of the town. And they gathered in Brookville to make that abundantly clear.

George was part of a somewhat prominent family for the time. The guy lived until he was 79, spending his final years in a somewhat simple state in Fairfield. Alt spelling on the name: Meharry, in case you go looking for him. 

The Fairfield blog has several entries that discuss alcohol, Prohibition, its effects and the nature of corn, corn whiskey and other forms of entertainment. Consult the menu on the right for more.

THIS LINK WILL GET YOU STARTED