Ah, 1879 -- Fairfield, lots going on

 Connersville Examiner, Jan.1, 1879

Fairfield Fragments

--The Universalists give a concert Friday night, Feb. 1.

-- Several parties here are doing a large business buying and shipping walnut logs.

--The Teachers Institiute, called for Jan 11, was postponed. It was a fizzle.

-- Dances were given last week at several places in the immediate vicinity.

-- John VanMeter recently took unto himself wife No. 3. Well done, & John.

-- The schools in this township will close for the winter term about March 20.

-- Miss Lou Ferguson, a stylish young lady of Indianapolis, recently visited here.

-- Frank Seeley is spending the winter with his uncle, near New Castle.

-- T'is rumored that one of Fairfield's toniest young men and an Ireland belle will wed ere the coming of springtime. 

-- That "little charmer" of Glenwood will be sorry to learn that John Conner has been confined to the house for several days with a bad cold.

-- Clinton D. Rose, one of Fairfield's best young men, will leave at an early day for Texas, whither he goes in quest of the fickle goddess, Dame Fortune.

-- Hannibal Hughes of Ripley County, a former Fairfield boy, was recently home on a visit to his parents, who reside near this place.

-- D.F. Ernst, the carriage painter so long connected with the Samuel Rose Carriage manufactory, recently removed to Liberty, where he has opened a paint shop. Fairfield regrets to part with such a good citizen and accomplished workman, but her loss is Liberty's gain.

--While on the way home from Brookville some days since, Charles Filer had a fearful runaway -- his horses becoming frightened at some object along the road, spilled him out of the wagon but luckily, he as well as the team, escaped injury, although the wagon was somewhat badly used up.

-- The Quakertown correspondent for the Liberty Herald says that a drug store saloon is in full blast in Fairfield. How did you get your information, "Zuinglous?"

-- Our merchants are thinking seriously of adopting the cash system. By conducting their business in this way, they will avoid making bad debts and save much care and anxiety. In the long run, it will be much better for the farmer, mechanic and all who have heretofore been customers of the merchant. By the "pay as you go" system, an immense amount of trouble would be prevented. Everybody will be benefitted by the "ready money" plan -- much extravagance would be prevented, more economy practiced, and a safer and better business would be done in Fairfield in the future than for years past.

== Random

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Saloon controls

 Democrat, April 11, 1911

Franklin County Saloons

Under the Proctor Law, regulating the saloon business, counties are allowed to fix the number to which a community is entitled, from 500 population to 1,000.

The Board of County Commissioners of Franklin County held that the action of the Legislature was satisfactory and allowed the limit of one saloon to each 500 of population to stand. The population basis is fixed as five persons for each vote cast at the last preceding general election in the municipality.

Under this construction, when a township contains but one incorporated town, the two are considered as one.

Brookville is entitled to 11, Butler to 2, Highland to 2, Laurel to 2, Ray to 3, Salt Creek to 1, and Whitewater to 2, a total of 22 as against 43 now in business. FORTY-THREE? 

Under the law, the saloons now in business may be re-licensed but whenever any quit for any cause, no new one may be licensed to take its place, until the number has been automatically reduced to the legal limit.

The town boards of Brookville and Laurel fixed the town license fee at $300 per year, the maximum rate, while Cedar Grove and Oldenburg selected the lowest rate for towns, $150.

NOTE:  Fairfield Township was technically always dry.

Proctor law was a state law regulating liquor licenses, replacing a law that let the various counties enforce prohibition with a series of scattered local ordinances. Proctor was enacted in March 1911 and signed into law by Gov. Thomas Marshall. Local options for communities were not impacted by this. Local option referendums closed many saloons in Indiana in 1915, including Laurel, and all of them closed in 1919 when Prohibition was ratified.

None of these laws were better than the people who were paid to enforce them. You could still get a drink if you knew the correct knock.

A saloonkeeper could lose his liquor license for opening his saloon for business on any Sunday, holiday or election day, or for allowing any of the following in or about his saloon:

• slot machines, or any other form of gambling;
• the presence of "lewd women";
• bartending by any woman, even the saloonkeeper's wife;
• the display of "nude or lascivious pictures";
• rooms above or behind the saloon maintained "for immoral purposes"; or
• the operation of any other business directly in the saloon, including real estate or employment offices, pool rooms or barber shops.

Oil, it's for roads

 Brookville Democrat April 13, 1011

ROADS WITH OIL

Methods Which Will Give Fair Results

PREPARATION OF SUBGRADE

Same care should be taken with this as with a Macadam Road -- the greater part of work can be done with a traction machine in preparing the road for treatment.

The oiled earth road is still in its experimental stage, and it will have to be given considerably more study before it can be expected to give uniformly good results under all the varied conditions of soil and the available oils.

Different methods of construction have been followed in different states, but there seems to be only one practical method of construction which is giving fairly uniform results. This method is as follows:

A shoulder furrow is plowed on each side of the center of the roadway, making the width to be treated from sixteen to eighteen feet, and the loose earth graded outside of tis width unless the crown of the road is too steep, in which case it should be plowed and this material thrown out to the sides.

Plowing only the shoulders renders it easy to shape the subgrade with a crown of about one inch to the foot.

The grade of oil to be used is much more important than the kind of soil. Light oils and those having a paraffin base are a little better than so much water. The oil should be one having an asphalt base of at least 85 per cent. 

It should be free from paraffin and all lighter oil. The oil should be applied to the road at a temperature of not less than 250 degrees F. and an oil containing 85 per cent of asphalt will have to be heated before it cn be taken from the car.

After applying the first course of oil sufficient earth should be grade on to absorb the oil. On a 2-1/2 gallon treatment to the square yard, four inches of loose earth should be graded in and then be thoroughly soaked with water and the tamping process begun.

The greater part of the work can be done with a traction engine and a road machine. The earth can be drawn back either by a road machine or road leveler. 

There is very little danger of using too much water. The wetter the materials, the more thoroughly the oil and earth can be mixed.

NOTE: Macadam roads were the Taj Mahal of roads in an era when people had to ask the township if they could get "free" gravel.

Macadam is an angular aggregate of stone used for paving without any binding medium to hold the stones together. The macadamized road consisted of multiple layers of crushed stone: the largest stones at the bottom, then another layer of fist-sized stones, with a top layer of small stones. Asphalt was just tar that held it all together. That came later. 

Fun: A requirement

 Brookville Democrat

Social Calendar for May 1927

WOMEN'S MISSIONARY SOCIETY

The Women's Foreign Missionary Society of Fairfield met on Friday afternoon with Mrs. Horace Ward, east of town, the president in charge.

After singing "I Love to Tell the Story," prayers were offered by Mrs. Snider and Mrs. Barbour. The hostess read the devotional lesson from "The Rose Jar." After the business, Mrs. Geo. Jinks read a paper on the last chapter of "Moslem Women," with Mrs. Herbert Ward and Mrs. Herbert Jinks each taking a part.

Mrs. Herbert Ward read a leaflet "Lydia" and Mrs. H. Jinks read a letter from a missionary. 

Several are planning to attend the group meeting at Liberty, and Mrs. Alma Himelick will go as delegates. Mrs. Mary Pinkerton read the benediction.

The hostess served fruit salad, little cakes and coffee.

14 members were present. Mrs. Herbert Sherwood and Mrs. Dimmitt Butcher and daughter Marjorie were guests. 

The meeting was much enjoyed by all.

NOTE: As of April 1, 2025, I am still living and I actually KNEW many of these women. Of course, in 1927, they weren't quite as old as they were when I knew them. -- John

You must have been a beautiful baby

Brookville Democrat, April 28, 1927

Baby Show and Health Contest

Through the efforts of the (Franklin) County Nurse, Mrs. Bertha Doubt in conjunction with National Child Health Day, a baby show and health contest will be held at the Franklin Furniture Store, Tuesday May 3. 

Elizabeth Waters, Child Hygiene Statistician of Indianapolis, will have charge of the judging. Miss Waters has been in charge of the Healthy Baby's contest at the State Fair for the past four years. Local physicians have consented to assist in the examination.

Babies under 3 years of age are eligible to enter in the contest. Every baby entered will be given a thorough physical and mental examination. Each baby entered will be given a prize. (Mental examination?)

Through the courtesy of Howard Brown of the Franklin Furniture store, a beautiful gift, a baby bed and mattress will be presented to the baby having the highest score in the examination.

So, who won?

Eighty-five babies were entered and 79 cards turned in to be scored, 40 of which were girls. The youngest baby girl was 11 days old. The oldest girl was 32 months, 25 days. The youngest boy was 1 month, 30 days. The oldest boy was 35 months, 24 days. (The limit was 36 months).

Mary Ruth Sammis, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Sammis won first prize -- the coveted baby bed. She was 7 months, 20 days.

Phenis Lawrence, son of Mr. and Mrs. Phenis Lawrence, was second. He was 8 months, 22 days. 

*

Found this photo of Mary Ruth Sammis from her engagement to Stu Merrill in 1947, living in Richmond.

She divorced the guy in 1968.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

  

Rushville Jacksonian, May 1860

Hair dye is vile wash, but the article that will naturally restore the color of the hair, the changing of which to gray, being an indication of a lack of proper secretions, is truly a valuable medicine.

Prof. Wood's Hair Tonic -- if the certificates of the leading minds over the Union do not falsify -- is the only safe remedy for baldness, dryness, premature change of color, and the several evidences of a lack of secretions at the roots of the hair, which can be found.

Quick preparations abound and "hair tonics" fill every "corner grocery" in the country. Avoid all "hair tonics" unless known to be the preparation of a man whose celebrity has become world-wide. Do not let any nostrum vendor experiment upon your hair.

Touch nothing you have not good reason to believe is all that it purports to be.

Prof. Wood has earned by years of severe test of the virtues of his preparation, his present fame. Over 150 certificates are before us of the value of this Hair Restorative, from parties who have tried it. 

Use no other.

Caution: Beware of worthless imitations, as several are already on the market. 

NOTE: Jacksonian was a Democratic Party newspaper that published in Rushville during the years leading up to the Civil War. Many of these papers ceased to exist during the war due to excessive criticism that claimed they were pro-slavery. Most of them were in substance more opposed to the Whigs on general political grounds than they were to freedom for slaves. This Prof. Wood article was a paid ad that appeared in many papers for a few years, and disappeared sometime around 1866.

National Road, heading west

Connersville Fayette Observer, Nov. 3, 1827

reprinting an article that appeared in a Terre Haute paper two weeks earlier

I am much pleased to have it in my power to state that Mr. Knight has again arrived at our town with his party, in good health and fine spirits.

The permanent location of the National road is completed through our town -- it centers Wabash Street at its Eastern extremity and leave it at is Western termination, crossing the Wabash at Mr. Farrington's Ferry.

The width of the Wabash at this point at low water mark is something more than 23 rods -- at high water, provably 31 rods.

The distance from Indianapolis to the Court Hose in this village is 70 1/4 miles -- to the Wabash River, at low water, 70 1/2 miles wanting 3 chains.

The route, Mr. Knight informs me from this point to Indianapolis, possesses favorable advantages for a good road.

This, I am of the opinion, is far better than to have descended the Valley of White River to Vincennes and setting local interest aside, I think the citizens of that vicinity will accord me with an opinion. Mr. Knight and his party will probably in the present week complete the location as far as the line dividing this from the state of Illinois, when their labors, I am informed, are to cease for the present season.

BACKGROUND:

In 1825, an amendment to the 1820 National Road Act, was offered by Ind. Rep. Jonathan Jennings (first governor of Indiana), stating that the road should be changed to connect the capitols of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The new survey of the National Road was completed in 1827, which was where Knight was when the Terre Haute article was published.  

The survey showed that the road was to run due west from the Ohio line to Indianapolis, passing through the towns of Richmond and Centerville in Wayne County. 

Who was Jonathan Knight?

Knight had served as a land surveyor and civil engineer, before entering the Pennsylvania state legislature and the United States Congress. Knight was also the Commissioner on the National Pike in the 1820s. Knightstown, Indiana, was named in his honor.