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. 

1913 -- even more fun than factual

 The origin of this blog was attached quite firmly to flooding on the Whitewater River.

The flooding created a need for a dam and the rest is history.

But some history just defies even logic of the time. In the days immediately after the Great Flood of 1913, any story that could be told was as good as any they hadn't dreamed up yet. If the story was good enough, it made sense.

Nothing made sense in the 1913 flood. The scope of the calamity defies human comprehension.

But an article on March 27, 1913, in the Richmond (IN) Palladium-Item, is frighteningly hysterical in the face of more than a century of knowing what was real and what was not. To be fair, some of this likely was factual.

• Laurel was not wiped out.
• Nobody from Metamora died in the flood.
• The story about the rockets over the river is too funny to imagine.
• There were fatalities in Brookville. One family was washed away.
• People who did not live in the valley did not abandon their homes. They made room for others.
• Getting from Liberty to Brookville on the old winding road WAS impossible for a time. On the best of days, it was a challenge.

The headline:

BROOKVILLE

IS CUT OFF

FROM WORLD

LIBERTY, Ind., March 26 (11 p.m.) – Brookville's inhabitants are quarantined tonight in the court house and the school house and the school building.

Even those residents of the higher section of the city, which has not been touched by the flood waters of the Whitewater River, have abandoned their homes to take up quarters in the two public buildings to conserve the scanty fuel supply.

Four people living in the lower section of the town are known to be dead and a dozen are missing and have been in all probability, drowned. The town is in absolute darkness.

Will Ketner, a farmer, living seven miles north of Brookville, telephoned to Liberty tonight that all today unsuccessful efforts had been made to shoot a line across the river with rockets to send provisions to the river besieged townspeople. Only one bridge is standing in Franklin County and it is impossible to enter Brookville. Every house in the lower section of the town has been washed away.

At Metamora, Franklin County, only three houses are standing. The rest have been washed down the river. The loss of life there cannot be estimated. It is believed the entire town of Laurel has been wiped out.

OUR INITIAL BLOG ENTRY ON 1913.

June 1923