Google Maps does not forget

 Anybody asks you where the town of Fairfield was located, tell 'em Google Maps has not forgotten. 

Locating Loper

Updates are always fun. 

Famous Fairfield buggymaker George Loper ran a business for most of a decade in the late 1870s and 1880s, and whether he competed with other carriage operations depends on the definition.

There were dozens of companies making wagons, carriages, carts, Phaetons and anything that needed to be pulled. The most notable ones were the Studebakers in South Bend and the McFarlane empire in Connersville.

It is Connersville where Loper's world gets interesting. Our 2015 essay on that is

HERE

We have learned where Loper set up his display room in Connersville in 1883 and where it was located 5 years later. The Huston Hotel at 4th and Central in Connersville was one of several such emporiums in the day, thriving as it would and entertaining a world of at least local substantive self-prominence.

No idea why Loper moved his business to a different spot, but he did. Marked on the map in yellow are the two major locations taken from a 1887 Sanborn map (Indiana University). 

The rest of this is more interesting for different reasons. The Connersville Times, in publishing news of Loper's death in March 1904, spared no sap.

"George Loper, of Fairfield, was called away from Earth last week, his funeral took place on Thursday. Verily the Shadowy Reaper has been busy in in the past year reaping the golden grain."

Theo. Dickerson penned these classic paragraphs. 

We're as mad as hell, and we ain't gonna take this

 

In the infamous year of 1914, there was apparently outrage in Fairfield and along the way, in Bath.

According to published reports, the fair citizenry of those two townships were fed up with being mistreated by Franklin County government and were determined to secede and become part of Union County. This was quite prosperous news in Liberty and Connersville, although the Brookville 'media' ignored it as fake news.

In April of that year, the Liberty and Connersville papers reported:

“It is known that quite a sentiment exists throughout these fair bailiwicks to become a part of Union County, because it is alleged the sections in question have been discriminated against continually, led by the Commissioners and other officers of the county who play politics by catering to the other townships where the bulk of the voters reside, who are a part of the machine or oligarchy in control.  The facts are well known to all discerning persons and have existed for many years.”

The areas the identified were “filled for the most part with foreign-born citizens and their families that make up the bulk of that big Democratic vote that helps put the judicial candidates over. A religious question is involved too.”

To summarize, the area was southern Franklin County, populated by a large number of German-heritage Catholics or Lutherans, none of whom were found in any significant number in the northern part of the county.

Springfield Township also had a beef in the fight but they fell short of advocating for secession.

Fairfield and Bath townships had an affinity to southern Union County, both papers concluded.

What tripped the trigger?

“Recently the people in Fairfield Township were turned down cold on a petition for an improved pike. The bulk of county money goes into the “Dutch” settlements.”

A degree of bigotry? For sure. A shining moment to illustrate disdain for politics? Clearly, yes.

It never went beyond that and it's not clear who agitated for it in the first place. Most likely a couple of prominent farmers.

The Liberty position on this:

“Union County would welcome them with open arms and give them the 'square deal.' They belong to us by right anyway. They're our kind and besides, we need them.”

Union County was carved out of northern Franklin County in 1820 and much of that area's early history is joined in heritage in Harmony and Liberty townships south of Roseburg and Billingsville.

The boundaries never changed and the roads probably never got any better.

First fire in New Fairfield

  Dated July 31, 1969, this piece in the Palladium-Item, Richmond:

FAIRFIELD -- A house, recently moved to Fairfield from a location two miles north of Brookville, was destroyed by fire Wednesday night. It had belonged to the Elby Davidson family, who had not yet taken occupancy. 

The house had been moved from Indiana 101 near old Fairfield to New Fairfield. Old Fairfield and the former site of the house are in the path of the Brookville Reservoir, under construction.

A fireman said Davidson had been working on an addition to the house and left about 5 p.m. A neighbor noticed smoke and called the fire department about 8 p.m. 

Firemen had almost extinguished the fire when they ran out of water. By the time another truck arrived, the home was destroyed. No damage estimate was given.

*

No damage estimate = the place was destroyed. 

It was the guy's home. That's what damage was estimated. There was a cruel reality to how the process unfolded. Fairfield was not given any soul. It was a series of moving parts.

Most likely, the neighbor was my mother. Our house was essentially across the street from the Davidsons, who lived a lot closer to Fairfield than the "two miles" the story reports.

Houses brought up the valley into New Fairfield were taken up a carved path from a creek just south of the hill toward the Klein-Huber farms. The gravel road up the hill was too steep for a low-boy.

How did we get Richmond?

As the treaties with native tribes began to take hold and warp out of shape in the early 1800s, settlers moved farther from the Ohio Valley into areas closer to the flatlands.

One area in what would be Wayne County in 1802, David Hoover and four others traveled from Ohio to inspect the Whitewater in search of a suitable place in which to live. By spring, they had found it.

Most of the early settlers in Wayne County were Quakers who had migrated from North Carolina, ostensibly to escape the social pain of dealing with slave owners. The Quakers took root in Indiana.

The Indiana Magazine of History:

Hoover's party came north across the Kanawha River HERE to the Ohio and set up at Cincinnati. Naturally it took time for the settlement to move into Indiana, and it was not until 1806 when structures were erected. Originally, the Hoover party had planned to settle in Ohio, which was a state. Indiana would not be a state until 1816.

Others who settled in that area were Richard Rue, George Holman and Thomas McCoy. It's difficult to fine-tune their connections or where they came from. In 1806, Andrew Hoover entered several sections of land into the federal register and later that year, John Smith built a cabin that most likely was the first permanent house in present-day Richmond, south of what is now U.S. 40.

Jeremiah Cox claimed to be the first permanent Quaker in Richmond.

After a fashion, immigration and settlement was rapid. By 1812, Richmond was a thriving post.

The two principal reasons for the migration of the Friends appears to have been a desire for economic betterment and opposition to slavery. Stephen Grellet, a famous Quaker preacher, visited North Carolina in 1800 and described conditions there. Many were living on “poor, sandy, and unhealthy soil.” 

Some had migrated to Ohio to try to find suitable places in which to live. Of slavery he said: “Another great inducement to Friends to wish for a change of their residence, was the great sufferings of the poor slaves around them.” 

The slavery issue is a story of manifold proportions and connects strongly to another Richmond feature -- its track as part of the Underground Railroad that focused on the Coffin home in Fountain City. BLOG ITEM HERE

This is a blunt blog item and barely skims the surface of what's available on the settlement of Indiana. The Richmond area is loaded with interesting historical factoids, trivia and fascinating research.

A GRELLET LINK

Canal stuff, generally interesting

 There are several blog items on this site that deal with the canals that ribboned across Indiana in the early 1800s. Generally, the claim is that the canals were bankrupt by 1840 and out of business 20 years later.

This photo from a state government canal history site, was probably taken around 1855, and shows how wide the trench was at the time. 

It's not a third that wide now. The photo appears to be somewhat near the aqueduct, which can be seen in the distance. That would put it just downstream from Metamora.

This clip from the Brookville American from January 1857 suggests that the people who did commerce on the canal weren't giving up without a fight. It's generally conceded that not much was being hauled by canal boat by then. The railroad was just next to it.

Most likely, shipping was quite local, perhaps from Brookville to Laurel. Not much farther because the canal wasn't useful by then.

As of this writing 2022, the village of Metamora and the state DNR have not replaced the boat that has fascinated tourists for a couple of decades. The Ben Franklin III was doomed to time.

The canal and the area around it in Metamora have been a rather constant drain on resources over the last 40 years. The place was old when the state made it into a memorial. 

A Whitewater Canal friends Facebook group exists. 

Skeeter Sleet

George Wayne Sleet played basketball at Connersville High School in the early 1930s, leading them to Regional championships in 1932 and 1933 and earning all-tournament honors at the Indianapolis state finals at Butler Fieldhouse.

George Wayne Sleet was, as they described him at the time, "a flashy Negro." He was colored. Less desirable names applied if you want to go there. 

Sleet is not particularly important to the history of Fairfield or Franklin County. His teams played against all the teams from around there, usually in the Sectionals at the cramped gym in Connersville or Rushville. They would have gone to Brookville or Liberty every year or so. Sleet played against Springfield in the Sectional finals (my dad's last high school game).

Sleet's credentials are marginally important. He averaged around 15 points a game in the contests that mattered, maybe more on some nights. His ability to move quickly gave him the right to be called "Skeeter."

He did not attend college but played industrial league ball after school, worked in a factory in Connersville and ... had his own orchestra.  

I came across Skeeter's band when I found an old ad from 1941 that said the Skeeter Sleet's Colored Orchestra was playing a venue north of Brookville. He showed up in other ads, other places, often known as Baron Sleet.

He was called Wayne in some other sports columns about his game. A writer from the Indy Star said Sleet was one of the 10 best players in Connersville history, and that took some doing for a team with two state titles and dozens of college-able players.

Connersville was among the few teams that embraced integration in its sports teams, as far back as 1910. Had Sleet lived in Indianapolis or Gary, he'd have been required to attend one of the segregated high schools -- which were not permitted to play in the state tournament by Arthur Trester, the IHSAA commissioner who was a known racist and member of the Ku Klux Klan. That ban ended in 1942.

I can't find anything that evaluates Skeeter's music, or which instrument he played. He would have been in his 20s when he formed the orchestra. What would they have played? Where did he learn music? Most likely, the band was told to eat dinner in the kitchen but to look good on the bandstand.

His basketball antics are more in evidence: 

The Rushville Republican, in describing Skeeter's game: "Displaying a perfect definition of the word 'elusive,' little Skeeter Sleet was the thorn which punctured Rushville's dream of a regional championship. Connersville's dusky shadow flitted here, there and everywhere to roll up 17 points for the Spartan cause. In breaking up Rushville plays and in sneaking up from nowhere to get a held ball out of an unwary Lion, Sleet also excelled."

Sleet died in 1997 at age 83.