F- 521 - 148- VOL5- NOl INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1�0.\Rll 01 TRL '>rFES Jamcsj. Barnes, Crawfordsville Dianne J. C'��nmcl, Seymour MISSION STATEMENT William E. Ervin, Hanford CiLy Ralph D. Gray, Indianapolis II. Roll i\lcLaughlin, Indianapolis Ronald Morris, Greenwood N A SATURDAY NIGHT IN DECE MBER 1830 A GROUP OF TilE MOST Mary M. Iullin, Brookville Kmhlecn SLiso Mullins, Solllh Bend DISTINGUISIIED FIGURES IN INDIANA'S EARLY HISTORY-INCLUDING Alan T. Nolan, Indianapolis, Chairman l..�tT)'K. PiLts, Indianapolis 0 V\'illiam C. Prime, Madison JOH FARNHAM. CALVIN FLETCHER, WIL I.IAM CONNER, .JOliN TIPTON, AND Evaline II. Rhode hamel, Indianapolis, Vice President Richard S. Simons, �larion, President MORE THA HALF OF THE INDIANA GENERAL ASSntBI.Y-!\IE T AT TilE John Manin SmiLh, Auburn Theodore L. SLecle, Indianapolis MARION COU, TY COURTHOUSE IN INDIA APOLIS TO FORM WIIAT BECA�n: P. R. Swt•eney, Vincennes Stanley \t\'arren, Greencasllc TilE INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY. THAT GROUP COMPOSED TilE ORCA:\TIZATION'S Herman B V\'clls, Bloomington
CONSTITUTION AND DE CLARED: AD\IINISI RAno-.: PcLCr T. Harslad, Executive Director Raymond l.. Shoemaker, AssistanL ExccuLive Director and Business Manager The objects of the Sociely shall be the rolfection of all Annabelle.J.Jackson, Conu·oller materials calculated to shed Light on the natuml, civil and Susan P. Brown. Director Human Resourct•s Carolyn S. SmiLh, Membership SecreLary politiml history of Indiana, the jJ/'ornotion of usefu l knowledge Dl\ ISIO' DIRHTOKS and the fr iend!)' and profitable intercourse of such citizens of Bruce L.Johmon, Library Thomas K. Krascan, Cornmunity Relations the state as are disposed to promote the afm·esaid objects. Thomas i\. Mason, Publications Roben M. Taylor,Jr., EducaLion
TR.\CE-'>(Jio \NAho1 "''o Mmii'ESTFR.' IIJsroR\ Thomas A. Mason, Executivt' Edito'· J. Kem Calder. Managing EdiLOr K::nhlccn M. Breen, Editorial Assistallt Megan L. McKee, Ediwrial Assistalll
COI'o:TRIIlllllNG EDITORS ODAY, WITH MORE THAN 9,000 MEMBERS IN AND BEYOND INDIANA, Rav E. Boomhower Douglas E. Clanin filE SOCIETY BU ILDS 0:\T TillS FOUNDATION. AS THE NEXT CENTURY Paulaj. Corput Rmh Dorrt'l .\PPROACIIES. IT REAFFIR�IS ITS ORIGINAL "OBJECTS" WITIIIN TilE T P11< > rOGRAI'IIY Stephen J. Fletcher, Curator Visual Collections BR OADER CONTEXTS OF REGIO:'I/AL. NATIONAL, A, 'D WORLD HISTORY AND Kim Charles Ferrill, PhoLographer Susan L. S. Sutton, Coordinator FOCUSES TIIEJ\.1 AS FOLLOWS:
EDII ORL\1. BOARD Edward E. Breen, Marion ChronidP-Tribune To promote public awareness and appreciation of Indiana Andrew R. L. Cayton, Miami University David E. Dawson, Indianapolis history, the Indiana Historical Societ)' collects, prPserves, Ralph D. Gray, Indiana University, Indianapolis Monroe II. Littlc,Jr., Indiana Univer'iit)'• Indianapolis intnprets, and disseminates documentary and visual James II. Madison, Indiana Uni\'ersity, Bloomington Richard S. Simons. Marion evidence and supports scholarly research. The Society fo sters John Martin Smith, Auburn Emma Lou Thornbrough, Butler University excellence and leadership, historiral inquir)', and jJleasurable 01:..'>1('" and informal Pxrhanges, believing that an undentanding of Deanjohmon Dc,ign the past illuminates the presPnt and gives vision fo r the fu ture. LlO\d Brooks, Scou Johnson, De,igncrs TWF�F1Tl:\(; Shepard Poorman Communications Corp.
PRll\'11-.:G Shepard Poorman Communications Corp.
Trrun njlmlmtlfl a1Uit\ltdwtSin71 llt.llor')' (l��'l IO-I()-7HHX) i\ P.••blish('d IJU,II· terh .uHI a_� .. E rr- r-1 n I C D I• 1993 INDIANA HISTORICAL TRACES vOCIETY L!BRMW OF INDIANA AND MIDWESTERN HISTORY VOLUME 5 NUMBER 1 DEPARTMENTS FEATURES Osgood, Smith & Co. in Indianapolis was one of the state's 2 4 largest businesses; Letters Major General Lew Wallace: in 1870 the company Savior of Washington, D.C. reorganized under the name of the Woodburn 3 R A \' B 0 0 \1 II 0 II' E R Editors'Page Sarven Wheel Company. It was while he was 16 working for Osgood 14 The William Conner House, 1823-1993 and Smith that John Destination Indiana 1. Between Two Worlds: William Conner of Indiana Muir, the subject of T I �I 0 T II Y R U �I R I :-l C Catherine E Forrest 34 Weber's article in this Focus II.New Life:Eli Lilly and the FirstRestoration issue, suffered the SrEPIIEN Cox accident that would 48 Ill. Back to the 1820s:The He-restoration change forever his Hoosiers in World War II SIEPIIEN Cox life's work. 36 Front cover: William Conner, "A Genius in the BestSense": painted by Jacob Cox. JohnMuir , Earth, and Indianapolis C:O' '-I R PR.\IIm C .\ T IIE R I '-: E E F 0 R R E S r \\' f B E R l E T T E A S BREWSTER GREEN WITH "LIKRISH" LIGHTS "'{AJ e appreciate the most recent horses, and he and my father made a tains. My father had his own points of V V issue of Tr aces and the many deal. The dealer brought our new car interest, but my mother once bragged provisions of the Indiana Histori up to our home one day, left our of "demountable rims" (for the tires) cal Society. car-with operating instructions-and and the ability of the car to go up the We note the story of Entomology two of his men in another car pulled Mudlavia hill, in high gear! Hall-The Agriculture Build- Our hired fa rmhand ing, now one of the Ten beamed over its color Most Endangered Land Brewster Green-and mar marks of Indiana, and its veled at the "lickrish" ( elec destruction-a local item tric) lights. Our license of much controversy. We number in August 1914 was are mindful of the many, 51,498, which indicates how many hours we spent in few cars there were in the that building. tate of Indiana at that time. We also note the story of prairie chickens, a promi HAROLD C. DIMMICH nent part of our youthful West Lafayette days in Benton County. Probably the most inter esting of all was the Uncle Josh story. It brings from memory the story of the any thanks for the first automobile in our fa m M copy of Tr aces with ily. We definitely remember Susan Neville's fi ne essay. the advertisement for the It was bold of you to run Sears automobile as it ap that essay, since it enlarges peared in the Sears-Roe the boundaries of the buck and Co. enormous magazine, and I congratu catalog that wa a must in late you on that. It is a every early farm horne handsomely designed, intel Benton County and else ligent production. where! We, and many oth ers, were good customers! SCOTT SANDERS Susan B. Anthony. We three children, grow Bloomington ing up near Boswell, in Ben ton County, often asked our away from our farm with one of his father, "When are we going to have an men kneeling in the backseat holding automobile?" And his answer was the reins of five of our black Perche always the same, "We are horse-poor'' ron horses. We had our new car! n page 39 of Summer 92 your and he was right. The twen ty-one Of course it was our pride and O caption fo r photo state , "Susan horses we had on our fa rm were enjoyment, from the start. It was a B. Anthony (third from left, front absolutely too many for the acreage. 1914 Overland touring car, fo ur sepa row) ," whereas she is fourth. Our automobile became a reality in rate cylinders motor, right hand drive, August 1914. A horse trader about 33 x 4 tires (guaranteed for 4,000 ROBERTS E. EHRGOTT twelve miles away traded new cars fo r miles) , a moveable top with side cur- Anderson .. 2 TRACES EDITORS' PA GE THREE EXTRAORDINARY LIVES ·ography is a noble and Ray Boomhower focuses his article adventurous art, as noble on Wallace's Civil War career. as the making of paint Made a scapegoat fo r the carnage B ed portraits, poems, at Shiloh, Wallace fo ught to tatues," begins Pulitzer redeem his reputation at Monoc Prize-winning biographer Leon acy. In the eyes of Lincoln and Edel in hi study of his craft, Writing Grant, he did. Lives. But biography i al o a depart While American naturalist John ment of history, and, though it may Muir is famous for his efforts to require no greater delicacy than establish a national park system other art fo rm , it demands a "par and as a fo under of the Sierra ticular kind of delicacy" to "restore Club, his midwestern years and his a sense of life to the inert materials connection to Indiana are perhaps that survive an individual's passage less well known. Born in Scotland on this earth." A biographer, says and raised in Wisconsin, the preco Edel, is allowed "the imagination of cious inventor came to Indianap fo rm but not offact." olis in 1866 because it offered the Contributors to this issue of best opportuni ties to fulfill his Traces have delicately exercised dual passions: working with their imaginations on the lives of machines and studying nature. three extraordinary men: William as a symbol of the painful transition Though he spent only a year and a Conner, Lew Wallace, and John Muir. that both the man and the state expe hair in the city, an incident during While few similarit ies exist among rienced in the 1820s. that period had a crucial impact upon these three, they were all men of Lew Wallace is one of the most his fu ture. Catherine E Forrest Weber action. Wallace and Muir were also amazing and colorful figures ever to recounts that pivotal time in Muir's writers who left behind a great deal of have emerged from Indiana onto the illustrious life. grist fo r the biographical mill. Ve ry national scene. A politician, writer, According to biographer Edel, the little, however, remains to docu diplomat, and military officer, Wallace more we become dehumanized by our ment the life of frontiersman and played prominent roles in many of technological society, the more we community builder Conner. nineteenth-century America's key seek assurance by reading about past The most significant piece of bio events. He fo ught in both the Mexican lives. Biography allows us to see live graphical material is the two-story War and the Civil War, served on the whole, to weigh the insecurities, faults, brick house, built in 1823, that still military tribunal that j udgecl the failures, and obstacles against the hon stands on the banks of the White River Lincoln conspirator , presided over ors and accomplishments, to under at Conner Prairie, just outh of the first modern war crimes trial, stand that fa ilure and success, fear oblesville. The house has recently helped determine the outcome of the and bravery, are sometimes inexu-ica undergone a painstaking restoration disputed presidential election of 1876, bly connected, to see our own lives as that beautifully reflects its 1820s ori governed the New Mexico Te rritory in part of a much larger "stream of gins and that will preserve it and the the heyday of Billy the Kid, provided souls." As Edel explains, "Every step history it embodies fo r generations to diplomatic service as minister to fo rward or backward in civilization come. Conner Prairie historians Turkey, and wrote one of the most has been a human step." Traces is here Stephen Cox and Timothy Crumrin popular novel of its clay. Biographers to highlight those steps that pass here provide a look at the fascinating of Wallace suffer from an overabun through Indiana. life of William Conner as well as a his dance rather than a dearth of docu J. KE T CALDER tory of the house itself, which survives mentary material. Contributing editor Managing Editor Winter 1993 3 EBEL LT. GEN. JUBAL A. "OLD JUBE" EARLY WAS IN AN ENVIABLE POSITION; HE WAS JUST A FEW DAYS ' MARCH FROM WHAT COULD BE ONE OF THE MOST STUN I G TRIUMPHS OF THE .., CML WA R. I THE EARLY SUMMER OF 1864, WHILE ROBERT E. LEE AND ULYSSES S. GRANT WERE STUCK IN TRENCH WARFARE AROU D PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA, EARLY AND HIS ARMY OF THE VA LLEY HAD SLIPPED AWAY FROM THE SIEGE AND MOVED INTO THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY, SUC CESSFULLY CLEARING IT OF TWO UNION ARMIES, EXACT! G $220,000 I RANSOM FROM NORTHER .., CITIES, D BURN I G THE HOME OF THE FEDERAL POSTMASTER GENERAL. THE WAY WAS NOW TANTALIZ- .., INGLY CLEAR TO THE HEART OF THE YANKEES-WASH! GTON, D.C. THE ONLY THING STANDir G BETWEE EA RLY'S CO FEDERATE VETERANS-WHOSE NUMBERS RANGED IN PANICKY ESTIMATES FROM .., 14,000 ALL THE WAY TO 28,000-AND THE UNION CAPITAL WAS A HANDFUL OF NOVICE TROOPS. COM- MANDING THESE U TRIED SOLDIERS WAS A GENERAL WHO HAD BEE VILIFIED FOR HIS ROLE I THE UNION NEAR-DEFEAT AT THE BLOODY BATTLE OF SHILOH TWO YEARS BEFORE: LEW WALLACE OF INDIANA. ®llaj0/lJ � QA'l-'2/W£UJCI/� carru tULtuli-n, � tf,_ 6 TRACES A view of the Shenandoah Valley, which was threatened by Lt. Gen. Jubal Early's troops late in the Civil War. Winter 1993 7 the enemy, and thus perform an act of heroism that would Stanton. "It is kindness," Wallace quoted Stanton, "saying it redound to the credit of his command, as well as to the [the election] will be your fi rst trial." Stanton also benefit of his country." At the time, however, Wallace was informed Wallace that the president was in favor of aboli heavily criticized fo r his tardiness and eventually stripped tion, but warned against the appearance of using the bayo of his command. He was informed of his removal by net to sway the voters. Governor Morton while on leave back home in Indiana. With the election set for 6 April 1864, Wallace swung Wallace, who regarded Halleck-a West Point graduate into action. Petitioned by voting precincts to send troops who was wary of "political" soldiers like Wallace-as being to police the polls, the new commander met with Maryland responsible for his removal, returned to his Crawfordsville governorAugustus Bradford. The two came up with a plan home to await whatever fa te had in store fo r him. whereby Wallace would send the petitions fo r troops to allace was not completely inactive after Bradford, who would then make a written request for the the horror of Shiloh. ln soldiers to Wa llace. Troops were eventual late summer 1862 he was ly sent to every doubtful precinct in called back into action to Maryland and produced the needed help bolster defenses "I THINK I CAN results. Wallace noted that in many around Cincinnati in order to thwart an SAYWHAT NO instances, "the sight of the 'blue-coated expected Confederate attack. The "turn hirelings' a mile away, so enraged the OTHER ing point," as Wallace termed it, in the re Secessionists they refused to go to the establishment of his military career GENERAL polls. In due time, of course, the conven occurred on 12 March 1864 when he OFFICER IN THE tion was held, and slavery abolished by received orders to take command of the formal amendment of the constitution." ARMY CAN Eighth Army Corps, and of the Middle Wallace's skillful handling of the situa Department, which was headquartered in THAT A DEFEAT tion pleased Lincoln, who called the gen Baltimore. Wallace's command included DID MORE FOR eral to Washington fo r a meeting. Lincoln the entire state of Delaware and all of told Wallace that he had "managed it [the ME THAN THE Maryland west to the Monocacy River. election] beautifully." Stanton concurred "It was President Lincoln's own sugges VICTORIES I'VE with the president's judgment, telling tion-good enough in itself," Wallace BEEN ENGAGED Wallace: "It was well done. They can't say wrote of his new assignment in his auto now that we used the bayonet in the elec IN. IN TRUTH, biography. "Then, when I heard that tion. If the governordid, that's a diffe rent General Halleck had called upon the THE BATTLE OF thing. Nobody will deny his right to use President, and in person protested against MONOCACY it." Wallace's skills in handling his depart the assignment, there was an added sweet ment, however, would soon be put to a SAVED ness to it so strong that my disappoint sterner test. ment in not being sent to the field was at WASHINGTON, In June 1864, with his forces besieged once and most agreeably allayed." Writing AND THE by Grant outside of Richmond, Lee con Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, cocted a daring plan and entrusted its AUTHORITIES Halleck lamented the decision to appoint performance to the hard-charging, some Wallace, saying it seemed "but little better ACKNOWLEDGE times fo ul-mouthed Early, a veteran of than murder to give important commands THE SERVICE campaigns from First Bull Run through to such men as ... Lew Wallace, yet it The Wilderness. In his memoirs Early AND ARE seems impossible to prevent it." said Lee ordered his fo rces into the Shen Shortly after receiving his orders, GRATEFUL andoah Va lley "to strike [Union Maj. Wallace journeyed to Washington and met FOR IT." Gen. David] Hunter's fo rce in the rear with Lincoln about his new duties. and, if possible, destroy it; then to move LEW WALLACE Lincoln, Wallace recalled later, "laid his down the valley, cross the Potomac near large hand upon my shoulder and said, 'I Leesburg ... or at or above Harper's Ferry, believed it right to give you a chance, as I might fi nd most practicable, and Wallace. "' When the meeting was over, the president called threaten Washington city." the Hoosier general back into the room and noted that he Early and his men set out on their mission on 13 June had almost fo rgotten there was an election approaching in 1864. The Confederate raid would, Lee hoped, accomplish Maryland, "but don't you forget it." two things. One, the raid might alarm officials in Wash The election, which involved a constitutional amend ington enough so that they would order troops northward ment to outlaw slavery, was also the subject of Wallace's to defend the city, weakening Grant's forces enough to give subsequent meeting with Secretary of War Edwin M. Lee's army .-nn opportunity to drive them from the rebel 8 TRACES Wallace as he appeared at age thirty-five, a year after becoming the youngest person to hold the rank of major general in the Union army. Winte1· 1 9 9 3 9 Print of the Eleventh Indiana Regiment attacking Confederate troops near Romney, Virginia, 11 June 1861. The firefight, which resulted in a Union victory, made Wallace a hero early in the war. 111$0203 10 TRACES .. Winlcr l993 11 capital. Or, Lee reasoned, the raid would encourage Grant One thought, in particular, hardened Wallace's resolve into striking first, perhaps another frontal assault like the to hold hi ground. It was, he said, "an apparition of one at Cold Harbor, that would reduce his strength enough President Lincoln, cloaked and hooded, stealing like a fo r the South to strike back. malefactor from the back door of the White House just as There seemed to be no expectation on Lee's part that some gray-garbed Confederate brigadier bur t in the front Early would, in fa ct, enter Washington. "His orders were door." In deciding to stay and meet the foe with his "raw merely to threaten the city, and when I suggested to him and untried" 2,300-man fo rce, Wallace hoped he would be the idea of captur ing it he said it would be impossible," able to make the enemy disclose the size of his fo rce and Early recalled)' after the war. Lee was almost proven wrong. his intended objective. If it was Washington, Wallace wanted the first of July Early's fo rce had chased two to delay him enough to give Grant the time to send Union armies-one under Maj. Gen. David Hun troop north to reinforce the city. ter and the other commanded by Maj. Gen. Franz Early' and Wallace's fo rces fi rst met on 7 July just B Sigel-out of the Shen outside of Frederick. This initial andoah Valley; the road skirmish went to Wallace, as the to Washington seemed clear. The Confederates withdrew near Union's reaction to the raid was nightfall. Wallace's message to confused at best; Grant even tele Halleck in Washington was opti graphed Halleck on 3 July that mistic, noting that the rebels "were Early's corps was still near Rich handsomely repulsed." Things mond. One person who did suspect seemed to be going the Hoosier what was happening was Wallace. A general's way when, that night, day before Grant's message to Hal his troops were bolstered by leck in Washington, Wallace had 5,000 soldiers of the Third Divi met with John W. Garrett, Baltimore sion of the Sixth Corps under & Ohio Railroad president, at the Brig. Gen. James Ricketts, which general's headquarters in Baltimore. had been sent north by Grant. Garrett's railroad agents at Cumber By the night of 8 July, however, land and Harpers Ferry reported Wallace had to pull his men out the appearance of rebel troops. of Frederick and make his stand Without any orders from Wash east of the Monocacy River. ington, and without at urst inform On the morning of 9 July the ing his superiors, Wallace acted. In main body of Early's fo rce, which asking him elf what could be the nearly doubled Wallace's numbers, Confederates' objective, Wallace hurled itself at the federal troops. could come up with only one to The battle lasted for nearly six justifythe risks involved-Washing Col. Lew Wallace and his hours; Union troops withstood five ton. On the night of 4July he and an Eleventh Indiana Regiment attacks before retreating toward aide took a train to Monocacy Junc staff on service for the Baltimore. The federals had lost 98 tion to survey the lay of the land. Union army in western Virginia. killed, 594 wounded, and 1,188 1115(320() In deciding whether to make a missing. Early report ed losing stand at Monocacy, Wallace ran over in his mind all of the anywhere from 600 to 700 men. Wallace report ed to consequences the fa ll of the Union capital would entail.To Halleck that he was overcome by the Confederate numbers him, "they grouped themselves into a kind of horrible and was "retreating with a foot-sore, battered, and half schedule," which included the fo llowing: demoralized column "-not a report to inspire the con At the navy-yard there were ships making and repairing, which, with fidenceof his superiors. the yard itself, would be given over to Oames. Despite the pessimistic tone of Wallace's battle report, he . In the treasury department there were millions of bonds primed, and his men had accomplished their ta k-they had delayed and other millions signed ready for issuance-how many millions I did Early's march on Washington by one full day. Early resumed not know. his march to the city on 10July and reached the outskirts of There were storehouses in the city filled with property of all kinds, the city the next day. He was too late; Grant had sent medical, ordnance, commissary, quartermaster, the accumulation of enough men north to beat back any attack. Even though he years, \\�thout which the war must halt, if not stop for good and all. did attempt an attack on the city on 12 July, Early knew he Then I thought of the city, the library, the beautiful capital, all was too late. He began a retreat, but kept his bravado intact, under menace, ...of Louis Napoleon and Gladstone hastening to telling Maj. Kyd Douglas, "Major, we haven't taken Wash recognize the Confederacy as a nauon. ington,'1mtwe've scared Abe Lincoln like hell!" 12 TRACES espite Early's boast about frightening the saved Washington, and the authorities acknowledge the president, Lincoln remained cool under the service and are grateful fo r it," Wallace wrote his brother rebel attack, even visiting the 12 July battle Bill on 23 September 1864. Dat Fort Stevens. Ignoring the bullets whizzing Even Wallace's baulefield foe praised his actions at a ound him, the president took his life in his Monocacy. During the McKinley administration, Wallace own hands by peering over a parapet to get a better look at happened to meet Confederate Lt. Gen. John B. Gordon, how the battle was progressing. ot recognizing his com who was a nited States enator at the time. During their mander in chief, a young Sixth Corps captain, Oliver Wen conversation at a White House reception, Wallace reported dell Holmes, Jr., a fu LUre upreme Court chief justice, Gordon as saying that he (Wallace) "was the only person yelled at the civilian illlerloper, "get down you damn fo ol, who had whipped him during the war. " before you get shot." Lincoln quickly complied with When Wallace reminded orclon that the rebel man- Holmes's urgent request. aged to wrest control of the In his memoir , Early field at the batt!e 's end, blamed earlier baule losses Wallace quoted Gordon as fo r his decision not to en responding: "In that sense gage in a fu ll-scale attack you are right; but you on the capital. He noted snatched Washington out of that fighting at Harpers our hands-there wa the Ferry, Maryland Heights, defeat. The duty of driving and Monocacy had reduced you off the road fe ll to me; his infantry fo rces to 8,000 and I did it, but not until in number. Those troops left you had repulsed several were "greatly exhau ted by attacks, and crippled us so the last two days' marching, seriou ly we could not begin some having fa llen by pu bing our army fo rward sunst roke, and not more until next morning about than one-third of my fo rce ten o'clock." could have been carried Wallace's gallant stand at into action." Monocacy may have fa ded At first, Wallace received f'rom people 's memories as liule credit fo r his actions in his other subsequent accom delaying Early:s march on Long after his Civil War exploits, plishments-governor of the capital. In fa ct, on ll Wallace strikes a pensive pose the New Mexico Te rritory, July he was relieved of com in his impressive study at his United States minister to home in Crawfordsville. mand of the Middle Depart Turkey, author of the classic ment by M�. Gen. E. 0. C. novel Ben-Hur-took center Ord. That same day, an obviously upset Wallace wired stage. However, no les an authority than General Grant Secretary Stanton: "Does Genl. Ord report to me, or am I fully appreciated Wallace' · role on that critical day. Writing to understand that he relieves me from command of the of the Battle of Monocacy in his memoirs, Grant noted: "If Deparunent. ...If so, what am l to do?" Early had been but one clay earlier he might have entered The tide soon turned on Wallace's behalf as officials the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had realized hi daring stand at Monocacy had saved the capital sent. Whether the delay caused by the baule amoullled to a from disaster. In a 24 July letter to his friend B . .J. Lossing, day or not, General Wa llace conu·ibuted on this occasion, Wallace reponed that Secretary Stanton "complimented by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to me on the battle of Monocacy: he said it was timely, well the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an delivered, well-managed, and saved Washington City. The equal fo rce to render by mean of a victory." stories about my removal are all 'bosh.' On the contrary, Contributing Editor Ray Boomhowa writes regu la rly for Traces. you may et me down as on the rise. '' Wallace was right; just fo ur days later he received orders from the War H>R Fl RII If R Rf I'<.II> Department, under the direction of President Lincoln, to \lorsberger, Robert E. and Katharine i\1.Lew \\'a/lace: i\li/itant Romantic. resume command of the Eighth Army Corps and the New Yo rk: i\lcGraw-l lill, 1980 . Middle Department. Va ndi\'er, Frank.Jubal's Raid. New Yo rk: McGraw-H ill, 1960. Wallace, Lew. An Autobiography. 2 \'Ois. New Yo rk: llarpcr & Brothers, l "I think can say what no other general officer in the 1906. army can-that a defeat did more for me than the victories Leuers and other materials relating to Wallace's life are in the Indiana I've been engaged in. In truth, the battle of Monocacy Historical Society Library's Lew Wallace CollccLion. Winter 1993 13 DESTINATION INDIANA THE GEN. LEW WA LLACE STUDY AND BEN-HUR MUSEUM 11111111... he United States of its builder's own career. At various he had lived on and off with his wife minister to Turkey times in his life Wallace was a lawyer; since 1853. The study's construction in 1885 was in a Indiana state senator; a major general began in l 896 and was finished three quandary. He had during the Civil War; vice president of years later at a total cost of $35,000- just prepared a tele the court-martial that tried the con not an insignificant sum in nine gram offering his spirators behind the assassination of teenth-century Indiana. Working resignation to Dem President Abraham Lincoln; New under specifications drawn up by ocratic President Mexico Territory governor; American Wallace himself, architect John G. Grover Cleveland, whose party affilia tion he did not share. Writing to his wife back in Crawfordsville about his plans fo r the future, he told her that he was sure he would not be going back to his old law practice, terming it "the most detestable of human occu pations." Instead, he dreamed of build ing a study where he could "write, and ... think of nothing else. I want to bury myself in a den of books. I want to sat urate myself with the elements of which they are made and breathe their atmo phere until I am of it. ot a book worm ... but a man in the world of writing-one with a pen which shall stop men to listen to it, Wallace in a favorite position The Lew Wallace study in Crawfordsville. whether they wish to or not." writing under the shade of trees. Lew Wallace got his wish. More than a decade after sharing his dream of a minister to Turkey from 1881 to 1885; Thurt le produced what one news study with his wife, Susan, Wallace and, the role fo r which he is best paper called "the most beautiful began building in Crawfordsville what remembered today, author of the clas author's study in the world ...a The Chariot magazine called "a hanno sic historical novel, Ben-Hur: A Ta le of dream of oriental beauty and luxury." nious mingling of Romanesque, the Christ (1880) . One of Wallace's The study fe atured a dizzying array Greek and Byzantine architecture." biographers, Irving McKee, noted in of architectural styles, including an The study, which contributed greatly his book "Ben-Hur " Wa llace that the entrance gate modeled on the abbey to Crawfordsville's designation as "the Hoosier Renaissance man was "never of the church of St. Pierre in France; a Athens of Indiana," is maintained content with the ordinary business of fo rty-foot-high tower with arched win today by the city as the Gen. Lew existence-working fo r dollars, rear dows designed from the Cathedral of Wallace Study and Ben-Hur Museum. ing a family, snatching at comforts and Pisa; and a copper dome and stained The study and grounds, once part of petty advantages. He dreamed grandly glass skylight that reflected the the Major Isaac Compton El ton of adventure and sought it, adventure mosques Wallace had come to know estate, were declared a National fit fo r the American hero as well as the while United States minister to Tur Historic Landmark by the federal gov foreign knight." key. Also, a limestone fr ieze, which ernmentin 1977. Wallace's grand dream of what he included likenesses of characters from The Study's eclectic architectural called "a pleasure-house fo r my soul" Wallace's novels, ran around the tower mix matched the remarkable diversity came to life in Crawfordsvjlle, where and study. Although the building 14 TRACES would elicit a mixed critical reaction, the study was perfect fo r Wallace. According to McKee, "its eclecticism is American yet foreign, as Wallace wa American yet fo reign; he loved passion ately his country and his Stale, yet lust ed for distant, unattainable realms." Wa llace would have only a short time to enjoy the stately structure he created, dying at his Crawfordsville home on 15 February 1905. Before his fi nal illness, Wallace had noted the passing of a fe llow oldier by com menting: "He is but a day's march ahead of u ; we will overtake him soon." Following his death, Wallace's beloved study was under the care of his family. In 1941, however, the Community House, an organization established by the women of Craw fo rdsville, purchased the study and grounds fro m Lewis Wallace, the general's grandson, and presented the property to the city for use as a memorial to Wallace's life. Today, the study fe atures an impres sive array of Wallace memorabilia, which is maintained by the city's Park & Recreation Department. The three and a half acres of grounds surround ing the study include a bronze statue of Wallace, whid1 is a duplicate of the one in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The tatue i west of the study and stands in place of a beech tree under which Wa llace wrote much of Ben-Hur. The grounds also feature a monument to Wallace's fa ther, David Wallace, who was Indiana's sixth governor. The inside of the study features such relics from Wallace's career as the arms, shield, and charm taken from an Apache chief who was killed battlefield; and a complete outfit fo r a and 1 P. M. to 4:30 P. M. Wallace by Wallace's bodyguards when the Roman soldier, including cape, hel on Sunday and Tues- admires the general was on an inspection tour met, armor, and sandals, used in the day in June, July, and gardens at his palatial study. while governor of the New Mexico 1959 movie Ben-Hur. August. Although the Te rritory; a sword presented to The Gen. Lew Wallace Study and museum is closed from 1 November to Wallace by his fe llow Montgomery Ben-Hur Museum is located on Pike 1 April, tours are still available by County citizens in honor of his gal Street and Wallace Avenue in Craw appointment. Admission is $2 for lantry at the Battle of Fort Donel fordsville, Indiana. The museum is adults and $.50 fo r children six son; a horseshoe from "Old John," open from l P. M. to 4:30 P. M. Tuesday through twelve. For more informa Wa llace's war horse; a Confederate through Sunday in April, May, tion, call (3 17) 362-5769, or 364-5 173. cavalry flag captured during the Battle September, and October; 10 A.M. to RAY BOOMHOWER of Monocacy and solid shot from that 4:30 P. M. Wednesday through Saturday ContributingEditor Winter 1993 15 he two-story !nick house Tstands serenely on a bluffoverl ooking the ltVhite River. Built on the east bank one hundred and seventy years ago, the housefa ces Th e west, and from the frontdoor one gets a sense of what the view was like in WiUiam Conner's day. As the sun sets in a red sky beyond a vast cornfield, history book William descriptions of Conner's life and times come alive. The house is a tangible link to the past, symbolizinga dramatic CONNER turning point in WiUiam Conner's life and a crucial Ho ude period in the state's history. Eli Lilly saved it from destruc tion in 1934, and a new restoration at Conner Prairie provides a painstaking and beautiful reflectionof its 1820s origins. At the site and in thestructur e where so much history was made, the William Conner. fa scinating stories of early CON!'JER PRAIRIE Indiana 's clash of cultures wiU continue to be told to future generations. Traces finds the life of the house no ]823-]993 less interesting than the life of the man who built it. 16 TRACES / -' / / .. / I. BETWEEN Tw o Wi LLiamWor Connerld of InJdia na hen ethnographer and linguist C. C. Trowbridge entered Indiana during the late autumn of 1823 he was a man on a mission. Trowbridge had been charged by Lewis Cass, governor of the Michigan Te rritory, with making scholarly enquiries into the lifeways and language of the Delaware Indians. On 5 December, "after a tedious and trance into white society. It represented rather unpleasant journey" through at once the completion of one journey the state, he finally reached the White and the firststep upon another. River home of a man who could help William Conner was born on the him with his study. frontier's jagged edge that was Lich- Trowbridge found William Conner tenau, Ohio, in 1777. His father, Rich "a good deal employed in necessary ard, a sometime trader, sometime attention to his business" but anxious taverner, had spent most of his life to help the earnest young scholar in moving from one wilderness to anoth his quest. Wide experience among the er. Born in 1718, Richard Conner had Delaware and other Native Americans left his native Maryland to roam the made Conner an ideal resource. For fo rests of western Pennsylvania and most of his fo rty-six years he had per- eastern Ohio in search of furs. At some fo rmed a precarious balancing act point he encountered Margaret Boyer, between two worlds: red and white. a white woman raised in Indian villages Though Conner lived in and spoke after her capture by the Shawnee. the words of both, he had never been Ransoming her fo r $200 and a promise wholly a part of either. But that would to turn over their firstborn son, the soon change. fifty-something Richard married Mar- Among the business matters that garet and lived among the Shawnee. demanded the attention of Conner at Their son James, born in 1771, was this time, none was more symbolic than dutifully given to the Shawnee. the completion of his new home. The The family was well suited for its two-story brick house signaled Con- rugged life, especially Richard, whom ner's full en- T I M 0 T H Y C R U M R I N a missionary 18 .. TRACES The Power of the Gospel by Christian Schussele, 1862. The scene depicts the Reverend David Zeisberger, a Moravian missionary, preaching to the Delaware Indians in the spring of 1767. Zeisberger baptized William Conner's brother John in August 1775. Winte1· I 9 9 3 19 . I I �roJ;}(I IW/.JI l". _.,• I / s I INDIAN TOW'NS NEAR MORAVIAN MISSION ANDCON ER TRAIL Longitttde West once described as fe aring neither man the daughter of Chief Anderson, but An old pattern in which newcomers nor God. [n 1775 the fa mily was no concrete evidence supports this first carne looking fo r the bounty of uprooted from the Shawnee village claim. Traders often married into the the land and then cast covetous eyes where Conner kept a tavern by the tribes with wh ich they dealt in order toward the land itself was being ongoing conflicts that characterized to ease their way into the communities retraced in Indiana. The dependence the frontier. After ransoming James, and assure fe elings of loyalty. As in the engendered by the trade allowed the the Conners threw in their lot with the case of William Conner, such mar government to manipulate and coerce Moravian missionaries and their riages allowed traders to have some tribes into ceding their homelands. Delaware converts who fo unded influence on the actions of a tribe. The Conners were to have small but Schoenbrunn, Ohio. The Moravians, a Traders often became unoffi cial liai vital roles in the process. Protestant sect that proselytized son offi cers between "their Indians" John Conner was the fi rst of the among Native Americans, gathered and the white world. brothers to add another layer to the their converts into mission towns nor mally closed to outsiders, but, fo r rea sons that remain unclear, they made an exception fo r the Conners, who were to fo llow them to Lichtenau. Wi llia m Conner dOOIZ attached himde/j This world on the fr inge presaged the one William Conner would inhabit fo r to the !a nd that IZOII' hear._!i? i...J name. much of his life . aught in the cross fi re of the Revolutionary War, the The two-hundred-acre prairie, Conners joined the Dela ware and the missionaries on hard by I he Wh ite RiPer, waJ an idea!loca tion their British-forced removal to CMichigan, exchanging one unsettled fo r both agriculture and trade. He built area fo r another. The arrival of peace brought the departure of the Mo ad I ravians and their fo llowers, who a fog home that doubled a radingpoJL and returned to Ohio. Richard Conner, now in his sixties, decided to remain. with Me kinge.t began rai...lin,q a fa mily . Eventually purchasing more than fo ur thousand acres of land in what became Macomb County, he estab lished a trading post and became a facilitator of settlement. William Conner soon attached him liaison role by officially performing Although he acquired land from his self to the land that now bears his duties fo r the government. Ve nturing father, William also inherited his sense name. The two-hundred-acre prairie, fo rth from his "civilized" area once of wanderlust and trader's inst. incts. By hard by the Wh ite River, was an ideal more into the wilds, he served in sev 1795 William was trading with the location fo r both agriculture and trade. eral capacities under William Henry Native Americans around Saginaw Bay. He built a log home that doubled as a Harrison and others begi nning in William and his older brother John trading post and with Mekinges began 1808. William appears to have avoided arrived in Indiana during the winter raising a family. John Conner moved any official role prior to 1811, but of 1800-1801 as agents fo r a Canadian closer to settlernent by relocating to increasing conf1ict and the War of fur trader named Angus Mackintosh. the Whitewater Valley area (where later 1812 drew him into government ser The brothers setlled among th e Dela he was to plat Connersville) in 1803. vice. The man who had lived and ware, who lived in villages strung From there he acted as a middleman, worked with Native Americans most of along the White River from north of marketing the peltry sent by William his life , who had married a Delaware Map of early present-day India- and returning trade goods and liquor woman, whose children were certainly Indiana showing napolis to modern fo r his brother's Indian customers. n1 ore "Indian " than "American," Conner Trading Muncie. Both mar- Officially licensed traders since became a soldier, scout, interpreter, Post. Inset: ried Delaware wom- 1801, the brothers became a part of a and spy fo r those who were arguably Delaware towns complex economic network that was his fa mily's enemies. Among the ser along the White en; accord ing to River, circa 1800. legend, William's well on its way to eroding many aspects vices rendered by William Conner (;O'lNI'R J'AAIRII· wife, Mekinges, was of Native American life and culture. were maintaining Delaware loyalty Winter 1993 21 during the war and identifying the to a drastic altering of his life. Changes 1s uncertain. As Above: Two views body of Te cumseh fo llowing the Battle wrought in the Delaware world were early as 1818 he of the Conner house prior to its purchase of the Thames, the defeat that essen changes wrought in his own . petitioned to se by Eli Lilly in 1934. tially sealed the fa te of alive Ameri Conner worked in the background cure legal right cans east of the Mississippi. as something of a fi xer. He helped to his land, but Left: The William Conner house as it he while Conner continued assess what it would take to get the whether this was appeared in 1915. i s trading and fa rming activi tribes to accept the inevitable treaty. with an eye to- Ajties. His home on the Wh ite He helped "sell" the treaty to An ward remaining or simply securing River became a gathering derson and the other chiefs by point payment is unknown . Mekinges place fo r ative Americans and a stop ing out its benefits and arranging assumed he, as his partner Marshall over fo r white travelers. His fa mily bribes and under-the-table payments did, would go with his fa mily, but she continued to grow. He and a partner, to Delaware leaders. Conner earned became "very anxious and much wor William Marshall, accrued profits not profits fro m the removal by arranging ried" when William made no prepara only from their regular trading, but to provide supplies fo r the trek. With tions to leave. When the wife of fa med from the extra income provided by the signing of the treaty the days of Indian Agent John Johnston confront land cession treaties-Conner had the Delaware-and Conner's fa mily ed Conner, he denied any intention of been a part of eight such negotia in Indiana were numbered. stayi ng beh ind. Conner may have also tions-and their aftermath. The Delaware gathered at the Con considered keeping his fa mily in Indi William Conner served as inter ner trading post during the summer of ana, as he filed a petition in 1820 say preter and liaison at the Treaty of St. 1820 in preparation fo r their journey. ing he wished to have the land to raise Marys in 1818, in which the Delaware Ironically, they were preceded by the his fa mily. Conner claimed he begged ceded lands in central Indiana for commission charged with selecting a his fa mily to stay, but a fu ture white in those west of the Mississippi. At the site for Indiana's new state capital. law asserted he "sent them away. " back of his mind he must have been Whether Conner gave serio�s consid In the end Conner chose to stay aware that his participation would lead eration to trying yet another frontier upon his land and watch his fa mily go. 22 TRACES Mckinges, distraught at leaving her leader Calvin Fletcher thought the mills, and a distillery. In many ways he hom , plan ted sprigs of live-forever homestead and surrounding lands may be seen as a prototype of the for each of her six children around beautiful, and newspaper owner entrepreneur. His enterprises ranged the homestead. She planted the rapid athaniel Bolton was enchanted by from small country stores to one in ly growing shrub, she later recalled, the view of "fifteen or twenty merry Indianapolis for which he assumed because she wanted no one else to live plowmen" spied from the second floor responsibility after the death of John in her home. of the house. The Conner home was in 1826. William Conner divided assets By the 1830s William Conner with Marshall and provided his was well established in his own own fa mily with horses and "new world." He had become a goods. Conner's fa mily and the respected figure. He made occa Delaware began their trek in the sional forays into politics, sup dwindling summer of 1820. porting Whig policies. He served Conner rode a day with his fami three nonconsecutive terms in ly before saying good-bye. thestate legislature from 1829 to With his family's leave-taking 1837. His motives were probably William Conner began to retire more those of a businessman his balancing act. The years than a public servant. He was a from 1820 to 1823 were ones of fo unding member of the In tran ition. Within three months diana Historical Society, but of his fa mily's departure he mar appear to have done little be ried Elizabeth Chapman, possi yond signing the charter. bly the only young, eligible white Conner, however, did not en woman in the area, taking her tirely abandon his old world. In into the home he had shared addition to aiding Trowbridge, with Mekinges and his family. He Conner still dealt with Indian and brother John, who had re affairs. He was an interpreter cently re turned to the area, set for treaties with the Miami in about acquiring land and setting Eugene Darrach 1826 and the Potawatomi in bought the Conner house up business ventures. William 1832. Also in 1832 he served as in 1915. Conner's tentative steps into the a guide fo r a group of Indiana wh ite world soon became deter militia who went off to take part mined strides. in the Black Hawk War. The n 1823 Conner began the conflict being all but over by construction of his brick home, also the de fa cto center of the newly the time the group reached Chicago, locating it on a terrace edge over fo rmed Hamilton County government he led them peaceably back to looking the vVhite River less than when it hosted the county commis Indiana. Anecdotal evidence indicates one-half mile south of his log cabin. sioners, circuit court, and served as a that Conner also occasionally dressed ILittle is known about the building "post office." himself and his children as Indians process. Tradition says it was built by From his new home Conner entered and frolicked about in an allempt to craftsmen from the "East." A deposit fully into the teeming world advanc frighten visitors. of bricks later uncovered east of the ing toward him. Like his fa ther he be Seven of the ten children of William house supports the claim that the came a facilitator of settlement. He and Elizabeth Conner were born in bricks were fired on-site. The result sometimes with partners-acquired their brick home. In 1837, his sixtieth was a Federal-style house that became ever-increasing amounts of land, acre year, Conner moved his fam ily to a fo cus for activity of all sorts in the age that could be profitably sold to Noblesville, his last step into settle rapidly expanding area. new settlers. He and Josiah Polk plat ment. He continued to oversee his Trowbridge-who was fo rced to ted Noblesville in 1823, shrewdly do business interests, but eased into his send to Ohio for a Delaware who could nating land fo r the county seat, and final role as a pioneer patriarch. Life help answer his questions, so success later Alexandria and Strawtown. At one slowed considerably. Many of the trails fu l had been the removal effo rts-was point he owned approximately fo ur Conner helped blaze were now roads; not the only visitor to the home. It thousand acres in Hamilton County. many of the fo rests he roamed had became a stopping point fo r many In addition to farming and stock been cut away to reveal towns when he travelers, businessmen, and poli ti raising he expanded his business inter died in 1855. The Conner house, ris cians. Indianapolis lawyer and civic ests by owning or investing in stores, ing out of the prairie, remained. Winter 1993 23 II. NEW LIFE ELi LiLLy and THE FIRST RESTORATION n the years fo llowing William and Elizabeth Conner's residence, the Conner house was more than likely occupied by some of the couple 's children or by tenant fa rmers. In the 1860s Conner 's Delaware children fa iled in an attempt to gain title to the property. The land passed out of Conner hands in 1871 and went through several owners before Indianapolis business- act quickly because the roof leaked, man Eugene Darrach purchased it in the walls bulged, and the kitchen 1915. Although Darrach attempted beams and floor were thoroughly rot preliminary restoration work on the ted. In addition, much of the exterior house, it continued to deteriorate. brickwork needed replacing, while a In 1934 Eli Lilly, Indianapolis busi- "ramshackle wooden room" attached nessman, president of the Indiana to the southeast corner of the house Historical Society, and longtime friend sometime in the nineteenth century of Indiana history, purchased the seriously detracted from the simple house and property. In so doing, the elegance of the structure. always vigorous Lilly combined his his- Once he obtained possession of the torical pursuits with his interest in Conner house, Lilly began planning farming. The simple yet impressive the restoration as if it were a military house then teetered on destruction, as campaign. And, like a good general, years of neglect had taken their toll. he devoted time to researching, plan Indeed, Lilly a ked to obtain posses- ning, and charting his course before sion of the house sooner than the he began the crucial work. He made it agreed upon date of January 1935 clear to a friend that nothing would because "one of the walls is badly be attempted "until we have done all bulged and we are rather in a hurry to the reading there is to be done" on keep it from fa lling down." Lilly's goals the subject of preservation. Lilly were to save the house from complete immersed himself in the literature of ruin and to restore it to its once digni- restoration methods-in the 1930s fied condition. But to do either he very little existed-and he relied on Scenes from Eli Lilly's knew he had to S T E P H E N C 0 X the advice of 1934 restoration . .. 24 TRACES CONNER PRAIRIE Artist's rendering of Lilly's restored Conner farm from an Eli Lilly and Company publication. Robert F. Daggett, Eli Lilly. Charles Latham, architect. contractor. Winter 1993 25 friends, including E. Y. "Dick" Guern sey, amateur archaeologist and In diana state representative; architect Robert F. Daggett; and contractor Charles Latham. nder the watchful eyes of Daggett and Latham, work men made the necessary improvements to the Con ner house, wh ile Lilly continued to Uresearch, seek advice, and explore possibilities with a number of people. Workers dug a fo ur-foot trench under the original fo undation-which went only eighteen inches into the ground -and fi lled it with concrete. They then reset much of the old founda tion, which was crumbling in parts, and replaced cracked bricks with those taken from "a tumbled down farmhouse" in the vicinity. Workers also replaced the roof and removed the unsightly "ramshackle wooden room." Latham shored up thebulging walls by bracing them from the out side, forcing them into their original positions, and then fastening them with iron tie-rods. The interior of the house, like the exterior, demanded prompt attention. Lilly and his coterie of advisors con cluded-after "peeling off several lay ers of hideous paper"-that the walls originally had been fi nished with a tinted whitewash. Based on what his advisors told him, Lilly concluded that originally one room was blue, the hall green, and the dining room pink, "about the shades Italian houses would be painted on the outside!" Because the walls were eriously clam aged, Lilly had them replastered and eventually repainted to match the original colors. The kitchen, undoubtedly in the worst condition of any of the rooms, was completely redone, including the floor, which quite literally was rotting away. At one point, the fi replace had been bricked over. When he removed William Conner house as it the bricks, Lilly discovered a "nest" of was interpreted by Conner three fireplaces, one inside the other. Prairie in the 1970s. Mter some study, he concluded that the "nest" was a later addition and had all but the largest eliminated. 26 TRACES Even though historic preservation ryle prominent and popular in the Ultimately, Lilly may have "re was in its infancy during the 1930s, grim atmosphere of the 1930s depres stored" the Conner hou e, but re Lill)' did all he could to fa miliarize sion decade. One of the kitchen show stored it to what? He salvaged it and himself with the aims, objectives, and pieces included a clockjack that, while saved it from ruin-a significant feat techniques of these early ventures. For intriguing, was clearly of an eigh for the 1930s-and he understood instance, he traveled to Williamsburg teenth-century design and, in all likeli that he was transforming a crumbling, where he witnessed the fruits of john hood, was not used by Conner. Other decaying farmhouse in Hamilton D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s resto ration of eighteenth-century colonial revival County into a historical showpiece fo r Virginia's colonial capital. This and affectations were added, including an the entire state. Through his efforts, similar projects reinforced Lilly's own enormous well cover that evoked he managed to take the house and developing "pre ervation ethic," and Williamsburg more than it did early the grounds back to "the past," but to throughout the restoration he did his Indiana. The most notable alteration an undefined, pioneer past that best to supply the house with lacked coherence or texture. what he thought were impor- That Lilly was inconsistent tant connections with the past. with the Conner house res Given Lilly's background and toration is obvious. But it broad interest in the study of Lilly be.t;an pLanning the may be unfair from the van history-especially Indiana tage point of the late twenti history-he undoubtedly was eth century to criticize him more sophisticated than most or to hold him accountable when it came to understand- for what he fa iled to do or ing the geographical and m.iLitary campaign. fo r making innocent as social complexities that exist- sumptions that were no dif eel in the culture. Tiis advisors And1 Like a gooJ generaL1 fe rent from notions most shared discriminating histori- others held. Historic restora cal and cultural sensibilities. tion was only then getting Guernsey, for instance, advised off the ground, and what Lilly not to purcha e inappro- Lilly did in the mid-1930s priate items; all fu rniture for pLanning1 anJ chartin_c; was quite acceptable, even the Conner house "should be laudable and pathbreaking. typically pioneerish-of cher- bL�J cowue befo re he f, e._c;an To recognize a historically ry, or maple, or both in combi sign ificant structure an d nation ." Lilly himself turned the cruciaL work. then to save it from destruc clown a Qu een An ne mirror tion were major achieve and a "Chippendale type ments. Only a few lonely table" offered by a Williams- trailblazers existed on the burg antique dealer because preservation frontier in the the pieces were "a little too 'Eastern' to the hou e was Lilly's addition of a 1930s, and Indiana was fo rtunate fo r our more or less backwoods place, massive six-columned porch that over that one man' dedicated efforts and we feel we have to confine our looked the "prairie" and White River. were directed toward preserving an selve to cherry and maple." His friend and advisor Dick Guernsey important piece of the state's history, his hi torical sensitivity appar encouraged Lilly to proceed with the even if the final results deviated from ently did not extend to all addition: "Like you," Guernsey wrote, a complete and accurate representa aspects of the restoration. "I should say a front porch would be tion of the 1820s. Although nawed, Clearly, Lilly was inconsistent quite desira ble, more especially the 1930s "restored" Conner house in his approach to refurbish ing the because of the charming view from it. served in the decades to fo llow as a ConnerT house. While he shunned If I wanted it, I'd add it-whether the shining example of what historic Queen Anne mirrors, he did purchase original structure had one or not." preservation might offe r a society "crinkled" colonial window glass, an Ye ars later Lilly acknowledged that the that for years fo und it expedient to inappropriate item fo r an 1823 central porch was not historically accurate, tear down old, dilapidated structures Indiana house. Much of the hardware but the western view of the fa rmland that upposcdly had outlived their fo r the house and some of the fu rnish was enhanced from the porch, and he usefulness. It would also serve as a ings were vintage Williamsburg. In "could not resist the temptation of chief component in what would fa ct, the entire kitchen was done over enjoying to the fu llest the Fields of the become Conner Prairie, an outdoor, in a clearly "colonial revival" style, a Merry Plowmen." living history museum. WinLcr 1993 27 , number of fo rays into areas that, on first glance, appeared unrelated. An III. archaeological dig might shed light on room usage, and once room usage was determined, a furnishings plan could BACK TO be developed. Close on its heels, a pur chasing su·ategy for furnishings could be drafted. At the same time, a land scape plan might also be developed and then supplemented by traditional historical research. Th e Strategies for interpretation and educational programming could also be derived from general research fo cused on the 1820s and research gathered from the various compo 18208 nents of the restora tion project. THE RE-RESTORATION Clearly, the "restoration" of the Con ner house entailed more than bolster ing stairways and replacing mortar. It was an all-encompassing project that relied heavily on various discipline , s early as 1935 Eli Lilly had decided to ''present this property to the including material culture, social his tory, and scientific analysis. public in some fo rm or other. " Un happy with the stale park system Conner Prairie staff and representa of the 1930s-"now in the hands of politicians "-he retained 1-...IIJ• tives from the Vitetta Group soon real title to the property until 1963 when he conveyed both the ized that the Conner house could not Conner house and the Conner Prairie fa rm to Earlham be perfectly restored to its original College, one of Indiana's premier lib- one bedroom a noticeable crack condition. Because William Conner era! arts colleges. Long an admirer of emerged between the wall and the left very little in the way of primary the Quaker institution, Lilly believed edge of the baseboard. documents or correspondence, noth that Earlham would diligently main- Conner Prairie concluded that this ing survives to tell how the rooms were tain the house and ground . Earlham was an opportune time not only to used, and meager info rmation exists soon incorporated the Conner house make necessary repairs but also to regarding outbuildings, gardens, wild into the wider structure of a living his- restore the house as close to Conner's flowers, trees, or shrubs. Thus, the tory museum, now known as Conner original 1823 structure as possible. original structure cannot be repro Prairie. Both the house and a re-creat- The re-resLoraLion decision meant duced exactly. However, a representa eel 1836 Indiana village provided that the museum would not just cor tive 1820s Indiana house, one in which museum personnel with opportunities reeL structural defects and "spruce up" a man of Conner's status might have to interpret early Indiana history uti- the exterior and interior but that it lived, can be accurately conveyed. lizing two very distinct components. would radically transform both the Though researchers do not know what As the museum grew so did the physical appearance of the house and wallpaper Conner purchased or the number of visitors. Since Eli Lilly's the interpretive framework, allowing Conners' taste in decorating, they do restoration in the 1930s, the Conner for increased educational opportuni know that the Conners had papered house has served host to millions of ties. Embarking on a serious program their walls and what pecific papers visitors. Although structurally sound, of restoration, Conner Prairie hired were available in the 1820s. They then thanks largely to Lilly's work, the the nationally renowned restoration can make assumptions on what the heavy traffi c generated over the architectural firmfrom Philadelphia, Conners might have purchased given decades produced a number of stress- the Vitetta Group, to advise the muse their social and economic status. related problems. By the late 1980s urn during each step of the process. Given the lack of documentary evi the downstairs parlor floor sagged Dr. George Skanneas of that firm has dence, the archaeological dig on the about an inch in the center of the supervised the project. Conner house site assumed even room and the brick hearth was no From the beginning Conner Prairie greater importance. Researchers want longer flush with the floorboard. Both assumed that all aspects of a major ed to know whether the kitchen was upstairs bedrooms sagged about an restoration were intricately connected, an original fe ature of the house or inch, and in S T E P H E N C 0 X requi ring a added later, whetl1er Conner used the 28 TRACES I [ �( 30 TRACES east side or the west side of the house early nineteenth-century wallpaper pat as the formal front entrance, and what terns that produced a number of op outbuildings and walkways were pres tions. The re earchers elected several ent during Conner's day. For these diffe rent pattern dating from the and other questions the dig yielded 1820s for the re-re tored Conner house. mixed results. While evidence was Purchasing decisions regarding fur clear that Conner used the west side of niture have also been fueled by recent the house, the side facing the prairie research findings relating to room use and White River, as the fo rmal en and fu rnishing choices during the trance, no date could be affixed to the 1820s. The fi rst-Ooor parlor, a room kitchen . A cobblestone walkway had long interpreted as fu nctioning simi been present at one time, but archae larly to our modern-day living room or ologists determined that it was a late study, will now be interpreted as both a nineteenth-century addition. parlor and a "best bedroom," a usage In time, other experts helped look not uncommon in this period and in for important clues to the Conners' this section of the country. Other life-style and to the early history of the rooms will likewise accommodate house. Frank We lsh, a paint analyst more than one usage. For instance, from the Philadelphia area, discov the entryway often was used as an ered through the technique of micro informal sitting room/work room, scopic analysis-something unavai ] with the possibility that meals were able to Lilly in the 1930s-that the eaten there, especially during hot walls originally had been wallpapered, summer evenings. One of the upstairs not whitewashed as Lilly's experts con rooms served not just as a bedroom, cluded. Also, the original woodwork in but as a guest room/ torage room. the downstairs mantels and cabinets In order to insure historical accura had been grained, a popular decora cy, the porch that Lilly installed was tive painting technique that allowed removed, as was the colonial-style well common , mundane-looking wood to cover. Because they played a sign ifi be magically transformed into a fancy, cant role in the history of the house, even exotic, ornamental pattern. both item were thoroughly docu Conner Prairie determined that the mented and photographed. Portions same areas would be grained once of the porch have been cataloged as again. John Kraus, an expert grainer artifacts and placed in Conner Prai from North Carolina, was engaged to rie's permanent collection. The effect reproduce as closely as possible the of the porch removal wa dramatic same pattern that existed on the man and stunning, adding an unanticipat telpiece. The exquisite result com ed dimension and texture to the pletely transformed the room. house. A simple 1820s hand pump will nlike the original graining pattern be installed in the backyard well, and that was uncovered, no scraps of origi more appropriate window shutters nal wallpaper remained. Lilly is known have been attached to the house itself. to have thrown away layer upon layer of A number of "invisible" measures "hideous wallpaper," some of which reinforce the structure of the house. may, in fact, have been original to "Sistered" beams, that is, beams brack Conner's time. vVh ile Lilly and others eted by newer ones, bolster the floors deplored the bold styles and wild col in the upstair bedrooms. Workers ors-as most would during the 1930s, reinforced the tairway, repla tered the heyday of colonial revivalism walls, and installed a new back porch these paper patterns were standard in and a new roof. A modern HVAC sys many homes during the early republic tem will protect the grain-painted and antebellum periods. Nevertheless, woodwork, fu rnishings, and artifacts historic interiors specialist Gail Winkler that will be housed in the building. of Philadelphia and Conner Prairie's The landscape presented a number curatorial staff conducted research into of challenge . Research indicated Winter 1993 31 CONNER PRAIRIE. -._ Kli\1CI IARI.ES FERRil.L 11\IOTOS Conner had a "still house," an out lion, a privy will be constructed-and staff created an archive of the work building u ed to transform his corn interpreted-on the property. done to date. Countle s photographs, into hard liquor. He also owned a As physical restoration progressed, slides, and videotapes will be pan of an horse mill, a tructure that ground interpretive dimensions gathered official record that someday will be cornor rye by utilizing massive grind steam. Museum staff developed fo ur available to fu ture historic preserva ing stones and horsepower. Research "first person" characters who, supple tionists, scholars, and the interested ers, however, do not know the size or menting traditional tour guides, will public. Combined with the few pho appearance of either structu re, nor interpret Indiana in the 1820s at the tographs Lilly compiled, the record of can they fi nd evidence of a privy Conner estate. These characters con the current Conner house restoration (outhouse), a garden, or any other sist of an Indian agent, an itinerant should serve as an important resource fe ature one might expect on an artist, a woman settler who happens fo r not only Conner Prairie but for 1820s Indiana fa rm. This problem also to be a mid,vife, and an "atypical" other preservation projects a well. is compounded by Timothy Crum.rin and Lilly's moving a Stephen Co:x are histori number of outbuild- ans al Conner Prairie. ings onto the prop A confP-rencemlill ed erty during the late Becawe U'/tlfiam Conner Le ft Pery LittLe in the way £?/ ·Building I louses, 1930s and early Making !lome : Cultural 1940s that have no Transition on lhf'Indi primary documenLd or corredpondence, nothing ,lll/'l'il'e, l bearing or relation ana Frontier" will be held to the Conner house al l he 'IIWSPW/1 011 /he of 30 Aj11 l and or the Conner tory. to telL how the roo11u were udeJ, anJ mea.c;er information e.-..::i.Jt.1 roen ing i all day 1 J\.lay 1993. Furthermore, the The conference, sujJjJorl now abundant trees ed in jJarl b)' ihf indiana and grass planted II wnaniliPS Council, generations ago Th nJ, the on�ginaL Jtructure cannot be rep roduced e.-..::act!y. wilL incorporate the con were probably ab cerns of the preservation sent during Con community with Lhe ner's day. Ho wel'et; a repre. 1entative 1820.1 Indiana hotMe, hisL01iral rommunily by To take the house fo cusing on Wifliam and back to the 1820s, one in which a man of ComzerJ JtaLtl...l Conner; Mekinges, the many buildings Elizabeth Conner and the would have to be history and prPservalion nu�ght ha Pe Lir ,ed, can be accurateLy cotzPeyed. of !he Conner h.ottSf'. moved, including Presenters includeJa mes Lilly's brick "annex," H. Madison (Indiana which was his so- University), Glenda Rilry phisticated effo rt at (Ball Stale University), hiding modern heat- James Hultla (flliddle ing device , a "loom housC:' a "spring woman traveling the west, a Ia Fanny Te nnessee Stale University), R. David 1:d munds house," and a "still house," the latter Wright, author of Views of Society and (Indiana Univr'rsity), and Stephen Cox and wildly out of sync with the period. Manners in America (182 1). The Conner Timothy Crwnrin. Calf !hemusrum al (317) 776- Since the museum utilizes Lilly's families will also be interpreted as will 6000 fo r more infonnalion. annex and the loom house for a vari the larger society from which they H >K I I KI !If K Rf \Ill'\<. ety of programs, these will remain on sprang. Indian removal, New Harmony, llosmcr, Charles B.,Jr. Preservation Comes of Age. the grounds, as will the spring house settlement of the ew Purchase, fron 2 vols. Charloucs1·i llc: Univcrsitl' Press of and still house. But, in the fu ture, the tier medicine (including obstetrics and Virginia, 1981 . Larson,John Lauritz and David C. Va nderstel. latter two buildings may be restored to women's roles), and early statehood are "Agent of Empire: William Conner on the reflect more accurately the 1820s among the possible topics to be treat Indiana Frontier, 1800- 1855. ·· Indiana architecture and eventually may be ed in interpretations of 1820s Indiana. Magazine oJHi:.tory 80 (1984 ): 301-28. incorporated into the interpretive Houses and landscape continually 1\ladison,James II. Ni Lill)'-" ,\ Uje , 1885-197i. cheme. To provide a hint of the 1820s evolve. Regardless of how thoroughly Indianapolis: Indiana llistorical Socieyt , 19 9. Thompson, Charles N. Sons of lhe 1\'ildn"JlPSs: land cape a large vegetable and herb documented any restoration is, many joh n and \Villiam Co nner. 1937. Reprint. garden will be planted, a will wildflow questions about a structure's history Nobles,ille: Conner Prairie Press, 1988. ers and a variety of grasses present in remain unresolved. In an attempt to Weslager, C. A The Delaware lndimu. :'\ew Indiana during the period. In addi- deal with that problem, Conner Prairie Brunswick: Ru tge rs Universit) Press, 1972. Winter 1993 33 F 0 C U S THE AYRES LOOK OF ELEGANCE he moment the customer interest in N. R. Smith & Company, and Ayres claims the fi rst use in sets foot on the doorstep, located in the Trade Palace. As senior Indiana of showcases with glass coun the door is opened fo r partner, however, Ayres remained in ters fo r the display of merchandise. T their ingress and closed ew Yo rk as resident buyer, selecting Similar developments marked the new noiselessly after them. So and sending imported and domestic century: in 1928, the first air condi soon as they make known the article fashions to the Washington Street tioning in an Indianapolis department or style of goods they wish to look at, store. He moved to Indianapolis two store; in 1937, the firstescalators; and, they are conducted to that part of the years later, assumed personal manage that same year, a new and now fa miliar immense and beautiful room where ment of the company, changed its service, the "Charge-Plate." the article they wish is kept, and the name to L. S. Ayres & Company in Frederic M. Ayres became president whole business is transacted in such a 1875, and moved across the street to of the company upon the death of his quiet and pleasant way as to induce 33-37 West Washington Street. fa ther in 1896, when the store was the customer to often purchase for A newspaper article in 1893 notes incorporated. Expansion of the com the pleasure attendant thereby. " J. R. that the store consisted "of three pany necessitated the rental in 1900 of B. Nowland's description of a patron's Doors and a basement, each having a two buildings to the west and south of shopping experience at the Trade depth of 195 feet and breadth of 50 33-37 West Washington Street, and, Palace, 26-28 West Washington Street, fe et. The immense space ...is every on 2 October 1905, a newly construct "that most elegant mart of fashionable inch utilized to the best advantage, ed building at 1 West Washington was merchandise," which soon became this being recognized as the easiest opened. It had eight stories, six mod L. S. Ayres & Company, scarcely fi ts place in town to shop in. [Ayres's] ern elevators, 250 feet of show win the reality of most modern depart enormous stock contains all the new dows, a soda fountain, the Tea Room, ment stores. A shopping excursion in lines of silk, both black and colored, where complete meals were served on the late nineteenth century was in satins and velvets, dress fabric in all a specially designed china service tended to be an elegant experience, shades and textures, cloaks and suits, monogrammed "LSA," and, a local not a u·ial by fire,and, in Indianapolis, cotton and white goods, linens and shopping innovation, an Economy L. S. Ayres & Company was as elegant heetings, all kinds of hosiery and Basement, which was not intended as as they came. underwear, laces, ribbons, embroider "a dumping place for the more ambi The name "Ayres" first appeared ies, gloves, umbrellas, handkerchiefs, tious floors above, but rather to show near the Trade Palace entrance in bUouterie Uewels] and bric-a-brac." In to equal advantage the low-priced Indianapolis in 1872 when an old sign the mid-1 890s Ayres employed a staff stuffs which are frequently relegated board reading "N. R. Smith & Com of 175 people. to the rear in departments catering to pany" was removed, and one reading As related in its centennial history, a high class clientele." "N. R. Smith and Ayres" was substitut We Te ll Our Story, Ayres was known fo r In 1928 and 1929 a new twelve-story ed in its place. The Trade Palace, pur its innovations in merchandizing, building was erected south of the One veyor of "dry goods, both American equipment, and service. Shortly after We st Washington building, which was and European," held a high place in moving to 33-37 West Washington completely connected with the first the shopping life of the city and had a Street, the company installed the lat structure on all floors above the street fashion center for ladies and children est innovation in lighting-gas floor and the renamed Downstairs on its first floor, where cu tom dress which gave way to electric lights later Store. Ayres now had a North and a makers became famous for their in the century, not arc lights or car South Building. re-creations of "Paris styles" for the bon lights but incandescent electric Perhaps one of the most visible fea Indianapolis scene. lamps. Te lephones were installed in tures of the Ayres flagship store Earl ier that year, Lyman Ayres, a the building when it was clea.\ the new appeared in 1936, when a bronze, merchant in Geneva, ew Yo rk, was contrivance was not ju t a passing eight-foot wide, five-ton automatic offe red and accepted a controlling fa ncy. Elevators were installed in 1890, electric timepiece was installed above 34 TRACES passersby on Washington and Meri sonnel departments of Ayres's down matic conveying is a method of trans dian streets. The Ayres clock became a town store from its inception in 1872 porting material through pipeline sys landmark, was illuminated at night, until 1991. Included are copies of sev tems by the use of negative or positive and could be read from a distance of eral regular store publications, such as compressed air, the negative pressure five hundred fe et. Sidelights (1922-26) , Ayrograms (1920- creating a partial vacuum whereby Ayres acquired Charles Mayer and 76) , Ayrespeople (1977-91), and This material is sucked into and through Company in 1954, known fo r its fi ne We ek 's Information (1949-81), which the system. True to its tradition of jewelry, silver, and innovation, the down china, which is the town Ayres store faci li same year the firm tated communications opened Murray Show within by the installa rooms, Inc., catering to tion in 1897 of a pneu the professional deco matic tube system, which rator. When Ayres cele was used to transport brated its centennial in small items such as mes 1972, it had already sages, currency, or other opened branch stores paperwork related to in both Indianapolis sales, in containers that and elsewhere in the were made to fit closely state, had opened Ayr within the tube. A simi Way discount stores, lar system was installed and had acquired Syca in the One Washington more/Cygnet shops, as Street store. The photo well as the Stouffe r graph here reproduced Inn's Boulevard Shop. is Ayres's "tube room," The May Company of the heart and finaldesti St. Louis, Missouri, ac nation or the labyrin quired L. S. Ayres in thine commun ications 1986, and in subsequent system in L. S. Ayres's years it was clear that flagship store. May preferred to be L.S. Ayres "tube room." L. S. Ayres, of course, out of the down town continues in business in store business. Loss of profits and a contain a wealth of information about numerous locations around the state. dispute with the City of Indianapolis special promotions, seasonal fashions Pending final approval by the Metro over delays in a proposed downtown and sales, changes in personnel and politan Developmen t Commission, mall resulted in the company's deci management, and a wide variety of however, the downtown Indianapolis sion to close the store at One Wash special subjects of general and season store, now vacant, was purchased from ington Street in January 1992. al interest. Visual material constitutes the May Department Store Company The Indiana Historical Society was a major part of the archive, with by the City ofindianapolis in late 1992, fo rtunate to be designated the reposi images of building construction, win thereby saving this edifice of Hoosier tory fo r the L. S. Ayres archive upon dow and interior displays, and many history from demolition and allowing closure of the downtown Indianapolis employee activities. it to be incorporated into the Circle store. The collection contains the his From among the many photograph Centre Mall development project. torical files, publications, and records ic images in the archive, one has been BRUCE L.jOHNSON of the public relations, sales, and per- selected to represent the whole. Pneu- Directm· of I he IHS f�ibrary Winter 1993 35 I \ I -. -,_ / " / . ·-...... _ / ., / J ·- I \- --- ...... / .,.._ ...._ H N - M / �-- ' " ...._ -, ' """ ' i . R\ I ,! T I , , ' < . , I I //;:.··� :· .. I N / / I C AT H E R I N -E - f, F 0 R R E S T WEBER I J t .. -- 36 TRACES • I WA NDERED AFOOT AND ALONE, FROM INDIANA TO THE GULF OF MEXICO, WITH A PLANT-PRESS ON MY BACK, HOLDING A GENERALLY John Muir as a young man, SOUTHWARD ca. 1866. Photograph by COURSE, UKE Watkins. THE BIRDS Copy of drawing of "Student WHEN THEY ARE Desk, scale 3 inches per foot," GOING FROM by John Muir. SUMMER TO WINTER. -J OHN MUIR, Th e Yo semite beautiful spring eve 0Nning in IndianapEo lis, in the year 1866, a young man paced nervously out ide the Merrill fa mily residence on the southwest corner or Alabama and Mer " rill streets. In his hand, he clutched a '· .letter or introduc tion to Miss Catha rine Merrill from · Dr. James D. Butler, professor at the ni ve_rsity of Wisconsin. Miss Catharine's .. ·nephew, ten-year Jold Merrill Moores, ' opened the door to Winter 1993 37 the curiously hesitant knock. When Merrill was grown, an After the Muir fa mily emigrated to America in 1849 eminent lawyer and congressman from Indiana, he when John was eleven, the inventions became the spring recalled that first time he, his aunt, and his mother meL board for his escape from the drudgery of tl1e Wisconsin John Muir: "A tall, sturdy man with blue eyes and a clear farm, where his self-righteous father worked him like a ruddy complexion as well as handsome hair and beard .... horse from four in the morning until nine at night. He had a marked Scotch accent and was obviously a work Winters, of course, were the worst time of t11e year. John ing man, but was plainly and neatly dressed; and he at once pleaded to stay up after me family went to bed in order to impre sed me as the handsomest man r had ever met." have time fo r himself, but his fa ther forbade any activity Muir's characteristic shyness dropped away before Miss that did not directly profit fa rm labor. Eventually, impor Merrill, as his old professor had assured him it would. tuned to exasperation, fa ther Muir told John he could get According to Muir, Butler "took pains to tell me how rare up as early as he liked, provided he did not fall asleep on and good she was in heart and mind, and to assure me that the job next day. at first sight all bashful misery would vanish, for none That winter evening, John went to bed at nine. He woke better than she knew that 'a man's a man fo r a' that.' And suddenly at one o'clock in the morning. "In ' the glad, so it proved." In the parlor of the gracious Indianapolis tumultuous excitement of so much suddenly acquired home a strong, loving friendship that would last tl1eir life time-wealth," tl1e teenage boy ran clown to the frosty cellar. times took root between the Moores, the Merrills, and He wanted to make a self- John Muir. setting sawmill. Needing tools, he made uir, who had written hi sister Sarah that in In the parlor a social situation "a mud turtle upside bradawls, punches, and com down on a velvet ofa was as much at passes out of wire and old of the gracious M home," fo und confidence to tell his story files, and a fine-tooth saw Indianapolis home to tl1ese eager listeners. For starters, why from a strip of corset steel. a strong, loving had he come to Indianapolis at twenty-eight years of age When the sawmill wa ready, when he could have gone anywhere? The experienced he dammed up a small creek friendship that sawyer and inventor had chosen fnclianapolis sight unseen, and "proved" his machine. would last their Next the boy invented a reasoning that this important railroad center was sure to lifetimes took root have machine shops. He also wanted Indianapolis fo r its wooden clock "that looked oak, ash, and walnut trees, "being in the heart of one of more like a sawmill." The new between the Moores, the very richest forests of deciduous hard wood trees on gadget told the hours, min the Merrills, and utes, seconds, and days; it lit the continent." Here, using his mechanical skills to earn ohn Muir. his daily bread, he would have time left over to botanize in fi res at dawn and a lamp at J field and fo rest, giving substance to his secret dream of sunset. The timepiece "like becoming another Alexander von Humboldt, explorer of tl1e nest of Burns's wee mous- the Cosmos. ie," he wrote, "cost me mony a weary whittling nibble."John In Indianapolis, Muir was a quick success. Hired by the kept playing with his invention until he turned it into an prestigious firm of Osgood, Smith & Co., one of the largest amusing alarm clock, which would tip a bed on end at the man ufacturers of carriage parts in America, he advanced set hour and dump the sleeper out onto the floor. When he in a single week from his job in charge of a circular saw to went to the University of Wisconsin, he earned a few dollars supervisor of all the circular saw . His salary advanced too by selling student sleepyheads his "early-rising machine." during those six days, from ten to eighteen dollars a week. Another clock shaped like "the scythe of Father Time," He designed a device to produce automatically wooden the pendulum "a bunch of arrows symbolizing the flight of hubs, spokes, and fe lloes (exterior rims) fo r the Sarven time," was the one that his fa ther reluctantly admired. wheel, the firm's most distinctive product, so that only the Carved on the handle was a memento mori that fitted the metal tire had to be attached by hand. J uclson Osgood and rigid Calvinist's bleak view of earthly concerns, the admoni Samuel Smith gave their new sawyer a free hand in the tion: "All Flesh Is Grass." shop and a raise to twenty-five dollars. His good fo rtune "These inventions ...op ened all doors for me," Muir betrayed no hint of tl1e "time of trouble" that would soon wrote fifty years later in Story of My Boyhood and Yo uth. be upon him, a dreadful time that would lead directly to Assuredly, they did. Scottish neighbors, fellow pioneers, the turning point in his life. persuaded John that his inventions were like nothing else In his belief that inventions should be the property of tl1e on earth. If he would take them to the State Fair in human race, Muir did not take out a patent. His novel ideas Madison, these machines would attract attention and get were, he said, "inspired by the Almighty. " He had been him the job he coveted in a machine shop. inventing ever since as a child in Scotland he had basked in John left home, "adrift on tl1is big sinny world," with the his grandfather's praise of his "improved" wheelbarrow. treasured gold sovereign his grandfather had given him in 38 TRACES John Muir in Yo semite. In the background are Royal Arches and Washington Column. This photograph is thought to have been taken by one of the Carr family, Wisconsin friends of John Muir, ca. 1908. Winter 1993 39 Scotland, ten dollars from the Jeanne Carr, youthful wife of the University of Wisconsin sale of a few bushels of grain he professor Ezra S. Carr, was the judge who uggested the raised in a back field, and from special prize. Attractive, with haunting dark eyes and abun his fa ther not a penny, nothing dant tawny hair, a person of wisdom and understanding, but the dour advice, "Depend she wa pas ionately devoted to the study of plants and entirely on yourself." Later, Muir wild nature. Jeanne Carr arrived in Muir' life at the wrote, "I was naturally extremely beginning of his venture into the world, when he most shy and had been taught to have needed a trusted confidante and mentor. a poor opinion of myself," but "Happy indeed they who have a friend to whom they can that day he carried with him unmask the workings of their real life," he told her. The proof of his genius: two extraor dinary clocks and a small ther mometer made from a piece of Ezra S. Carr, ca. 1880. wa hboard that was sensitive JOI" \IL IR 1'\PI- H.'t I IOI.T..\II HRTO\ enough to register on a dial the �I'U;J.\J_ COLLI::'.(.! IC)i\.,, L"\ 1\1 RSJTYOF 'IIII-" 1'\( IFIC body heat of a person approach lii\R.\RII:5.. C01'\'KJ(,Jrl \4kl ing within four fe et. \lliR-11 \V\\ lkl ..,, Riding on the cowcatcher platfo rm of the local train, ex ulting in the wind that tangled his red beard and almost blew the hair off his head, John went to the fair. He set up his machines in the Fine Arts Hall, and soon the chil dren were lining up to try out the trick catapulting bed with its hidden alarm clock. Adults, drawn by the creaking bed, the thumps and giggles of excited children, stayed to listen to John Muir's spiel and to marvel at the invention and the inventor. Inventor John Muir was twenty-two years old, and naive. Of a photo (his first) taken around that age, he would com ment, "I did look kind of innocent." His thick, ill-fitting clothes were all too obviously homemade. He spoke with a broad brogue; his hands were rough and reddened; his gait was that of a fa rmer. His beard was so unkempt that a friend teased him, "Burnit off. " A well-muscled five foot ten, Jeanne C. Carr about he saw himself as short, the runt the time she was of the fa mily of six-footers. Muir's confidante and mentor, 1876. Others saw a strikingly hand JOI" \IL IR I'\1'1R"i some man. Within a few years, ttOt T-AttaRro� '>1'1-( 1\1. (.01 1 1(.110"\�. British writer Therese Ye lverton L\1\'E.RSin'OF'TIII 1'\C ifl( would make Muir the hero of LIHR.\Rli-".... COI'YRIC.II I 1'1�1 \ILI R·IIA'\'\.\ IRL 'I her novel Zanita, A Ta le of Yose mite (1872) , describing him in this way: "Hi open blue eye of honest questioning and glorious likelihood is that Muir wa the great love President auburn hair might have stood as of Jeanne Carr's life and that he loved Theodore a portrait of the angel Raphael." her too, but we will never know fo r sure. Roosevelt's party at the Grizzly The Madison fair judges, hav In letters he called her "my Carr" and "my Giant, Mariposa ing no category fo rjohn' inven ain [own] Jean," and in old age he culled Big Tree Grove, tions, awarded him a prize of the correspondence, striking out sen 1903. Front $15.00, with the comment: "The tence and paragraphs, and left instruc center are Committee regard him as a tions to destroy several of Carr's letters. Roosevelt and John Muir. genius in the best sense, and Thrilled with Madison and the univer Photograph by think the state should fe el a sity on the hill, Muir was determined to Joseph N. pride in encouraging him." stay on, "desperately hungry and thirsty LeConte . .. 40 TRACES fo r knowledge and willing to endure anything to get it." He peare and the Romantic poets, was told that with twenty dollars a semester for tuition and Milton's Paradise Lost, Sir Walter expense , fift)' cents a week fo r his frugal meals of graham Scott's novels, Scottish explorer crackers and an occasional baked potato, he could be a stu Mungo Park, and Humboldt. dent. Ilis fa ther sent him ten dollars. \Nithin a few weeks, John was Since he had only two month of schooling in America, enrolled in the freshman class Muir was put in the preparatory department. Soon it was ob,; of "the gloriou University ous that his intellectual training, if spotty, was wide-ranging. next, it seemed to me, to th His fo rmal chooling began when he was three; he Kingdom of Heaven." recalled, my "mother hanging a little green bag with my uir's dorm room became a labor atory fo r hi scientific exper M The only known iments and in- picture of Daniel Muir, ventions. Students, professor , Sr., a painting done the janitor crowded in to exam after his death ine the desk that automatically by his daughter, pushed up book by a device Mary Muir Hand. 101 1' \lliR 1' \1'� R-.,, like a hand, threw them open, IIOI T \TIII \UO\ and clutched them back clown 0.,1'1 ( 1\1 COlli( 110\\. I \1\�R\11\0I Imi•\( IFI( when the prescribed minutes of l II!R.\RII:.'d OI'YKit�IIT I'IHI study were over. The Loafer's \ll iR II"\\ IIH..,l Chair concealed a spring at- tached to a pistol with a blank cartridge that wem off with a Bang.'when the victim sat clown. An apparaws to register plan t growth stood on a sunny windowsill. A needle thread eel with another student's long hair, attached to the plant, recorded the growth of the stem hour by hour on a paper disk. Jeanne Carr especially was captivated by this magic, delicately enclosed in glass. The Carrs invi ted the stuclen t inventor to their home, where he spent many evenings vis iting and reading in their large library. John Muir was popular. Even the student who shared his laboratory-cum-museum bedroom in 1862, who put up with the jostling, chattering visi- tors, the rasp of the saw, the lit ter of wood shavings, would not Photo of Anne Gilrye Muir taken at Portage, have traded roommates. Ye ars Wisconsin, 1863. later, he praised Muir, the 101 1'\ \ll Ut 1'\l'l:..RS 11011 \lllfRTO\ "most cheerful, happy-hearted "I'I CI\1 fCU IH IIO,.., man I ever knew." I \1\ H. ...II \mIHf l'-\<.11-1< IIHR.\IUF'i (C)I')lUC .I II 111."·1 Since he did not takethe usual \ll iR-11 \\\.\ IRl-..,1 course of studies, Muir was listed in the catalog among the "Irreg first book in it around my neck ...and its blowing back in ular Gents. " He picked a ncl the seawincl like a flag." The small scholar already knew his chose, chemistry, mathematics, leuers, taught by his proud, loving grandfather to read the physics, Greek, Latin, geology, shop signs on their daily strolls. Grammar school included and botany. He thought botany intensive study and memorization of French, Latin, and "the most exciting thing in the English literawre. The boy also had lessons assigned by his fo rm of even amusement, much fa ther, reinforced by applications of the unsparing rod: "By more of study, that I ever knew." the time I was eleven years of age I had about three fo urths Muir spent part of fo ur years at of the Old Testamenl and all of the lew by heart and by the university, but he did not sore flesh." At home on the Wisconsin fa rm in moments graduate. He was nearly fi fty sneaked from the relentle s grind of work, he read Shakes- years old before he got a degree Winter 1993 41 1 ,I If I iP - -:z. John Muir's father reluctantly admired this clock, shaped like ''the scythe of Father Time" with a pendulum of arrows. Diagram of a barometer. STAI F IIISTORIC.t\ I. SOCIETY 01- \\'I�COI'\SJN .. 42 TRACES (honorary) from the University of Wisconsin in 1897 for his nephews and nieces of the Merrill, Moores, Graydon, and labor in the conservation movement. Ketcham familie for a nature walk with Muir as guide. Why did he drop out? He gave excu e such as lack of Soon Muir was roped, willingly, into teaching Miss Merrill's funds, waiting to see whether his name would be drawn in Sunday school cia s fo r the children of workingmen. Out the draft fo r the Civil War (it wasn 't), and an urge to go into the woods the children trooped to learn their lessons back to Scotland. Possibly he had as yet no clear idea of from "God's posies" and noble trees; on stormy Sundays how he could best use his "handful of hasty years." they crowded into ML0:'s rooming house bedroom to learn Perhap , as Muir wrote when he elementary chemistry and play was pa t his three score and ten, with his trick bed. he could scarcely admit to himself To a friend, he wrote that one that he wanted to spend his life night he had a tantalizing dream "on a glorious botanical and geo "about walking by a deep, pellu logical excursion ...alw ays happy cid stream that flowed through a and free, poor and rich, without hayfield. Ringed by extravagant thought of a diploma or of mak wildflowers, the hay waved in the ing a name, urged on and on wind and hifted colors in the through endless, inspiring Godful sunlight." He chafed; he was too beauty. " In any case, when he left much indoors. the university he went traveling, Six days a week he wa at work oddjobbing his way through the in the fa ctory. He said he liked northern United States and up to "the earnest rush and roar and Canada, making botanical notes, whirl." He took satisfaction in collecting plants for an herbari his talent fo r invention, in the um. He fo und employment at a bosses' praise, in the admiration mill-factory in Ontario where he and warm comradeship of his designed a machine that made fellow workers. "I generally wh is rakes and broom handles in half tle when I do my chores. 1 guess the Lime as before. The inventive I am happy. " Ye t he worried, "T mechanic was dissatisfied and was in great danger of becoming fl oundering. When the mill so successful that rny botanical burned to the ground in a howl and geographical studies might ing February blizzard, Muir was be interrupted." jobless and penniless. With a In the fa ll of 1866, 0 good and promissory note fo r his wages in Smith commissioned Muir to do a the pocket of his blue jeans over- time-and-motion study. In Decem alls, Muir headed for Indianapolis. ber the newly designated efficiency uir's motto, "Never be dowy [downheart First portrait of Muir, expert, perhaps the first of hi kind ed] " was sorely tried among strangers in taken at Madison, 1863. in America, handed in his report, the unfamiliar city. "I never before fe lt so �����::\'�,",",";-������l·�-:�.�.��.,�:�>�� ,m co1n plete lviLh charts and graphs. utterly homeless, " he wrote to his sister Sarah r\( IF!< LIBR.\RJF'l. COPWI(,JIT I WinLcr I 9 !) 3 43 Muir drew this clock in his boyhood; the star hand rose and set with the sun throughout the year. Drawing of / a table saw. Loafer's Chair. Timesaving chart for one day's labor in a sawyer's shop presented to Muir's Indianapolis employers. DR.\\\'I�GS COLRH..,\ OF S lA I� JIJS IORIC.\1 <;OCit-'T\ OF \\ I..,LO '\')l'i The ten-hour clay wa inefficient, and he drew a chart to Sunday school boy and her nieces and nephews to read to prove it. Production dropped precipitously after five him. He recognized each child by the sound of the foot o'clock. "Lamp-lighted labor is not worth more than two steps outside his door. As he slowly recovered his sight, the thirds day-light labor," an innovative idea in 1866, and one window blind was raised inch by inch. He beguiled the chil that the factory owners might have thought foolish, consid dren with stories; they watched him whittle wooden toys. ering the need to compete with other firms. In April he wrote to Jeanne Carr that he believed his Osgood and Smith, however, realized their foreman sawyer's sight was improving, he had been "groping" among the out tanding administrative flowers. On 9 June, the talent. They would usc his news was that he was leaving recommendations in the ex Indianapolis for Madison tension of the factory; they the next clay "accompanied might offerhim a partnership. by Merrill Moores, a little Then disaster su·uck. friend of mine." They On 6 March 1867, work would botanize fo r a few ing late, Muir wa unlacing weeks on the way, "thankful a belt, using a file to take that this affliction has out the stitches, when the drawn me to the sweet fields file slipped and pierced his rather than from them." He right eye on the edge of the had resigned from his job: cornea. "After the fi rst "I bade adieu to all my shock," he wrote later, "J mechanical inventions, closed my eye, and when l determined to devote the lifted the lid of the injured rest of my life to the tudy one the aqueous humor of the inventions of God." dripped on my hand-the Jeanne Carr must have sigh l gradually fa iled and in been relieved and happy. a few minutes came perfect God "gave you the eye with darkness. 'My right eye is in the eye," she encour- gone,' I murmured, 'closed aged. "He will surely place forever on all God's beau- you where your work is." ty. ' ...Ve ry soon by sympathy John Muir at his At the end of August, Muir brought Merrill Moores back the other eye became blind." desk. The damage to Indianapoli . He said good-bye to his fr iends, in the cer His landlord's family doctor to his right eye tainty that they would not fo rget each other, that they is apparent. gave him little hope. For a long would meet again. week, he lay ill in bed. "My clays were terrible beyond what This then was the turn- I can tell, and my nights were if possible more terrible. ing point of John Muir's His landlord's Frightful dreams exhausted and terrified me." life. The crisis that threat On a scrap of paper, he wrote Jeanne Carr: "The sun ened his sight enabled family doctor gave shine and the winds are working in all the gardens of God, him to see at last his true him little hope. but. I- I am lost. ... I am shut in darkness." destiny. On Sunday, ] For a long week, And then, amazing grace, "like an angel of light," September 1867, be set Catharine Merrill came to his room with the specialist. Dr. fo rth from Indianapolis he lay ill in bed. Parvin "of large experience both here and in Europe" did on a thousand-mile walk "My days were a careful examination and told his patient that, although to the Gulf of Mexico. terrible beyond the iri was permanently injured, the crystalline lens was "J oyfu l and free," he untouched. John Muir would not be a blind man. would travel "in a general what I can tell, All that month in the darkened room, he thought deeply southward direction by and my nights about what he would do with the rest of his life . The con the wildest, leafiest, and were if possible flict must be resolved. He must now choose between the least trodden way. " lie fa ctory where his genius fo r invention would lead to world took out his journal and more terrible. ly, material success, and the risky alternative, escape into wrote his name and his Frightful dreams the wilderness, to fu lfill his heart's desire. new address: 'john Muir, exhausted and In his affliction, Muir was blessed with friends. Catharine Earth-planet, Universe." Merrill, mindful of his love for children and the comfort Throughout their Jives, terrified me." their presence would bring, arranged fo r relays of his Muir and his Indianap- Winter 1993 45 olis friends kept in touch. In 1871 and 1872 he was asking From his setting fo rth from Indianapolis, almost fifty Catharine Merrill to "Come to Yo emile!" After a year's rest years of abundant life were allotted to John Muir. He car in the mountains, she would return to her students "with ried on as gleefully as he began: "On my first long walk fresh truth gathered & absorbed from pines & waters & from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico I carried a copy of deep singing winds." Burns's poems and ang them all the way. The whole coun The whole summer of 1871, Merrill Moores, now a try and the people, beasts and birds, seemed to like them." teenager, camped in the mountains with Muir. His aunt Eventually, he taugh t his children and grandchildren to wrote often: "Your time sing along with him the in the Yo semite is very old Scotch songs. precious. Live it. Live it. On his walk to the Gulf, Live it." Muir had climbed the In 1880 Katharine Cumberlands in Te nnes Merrill Graydon, Catha see, "the first real moun rine Merrill's niece, re tains my fo ot ever touched newed acquaintance with or eyes beheld." In 1868 her old friend in a letter: he strode across Califor "The three children you nia's San Joaquin Va lley knew best ...who long through golden flowers ago in the dark room toward his fi rst sight of delighted to read to you the Sierra Nevada. "The and bring you flowers, are mighty Sierra, miles in now men and women. height, and so gloriously Merrill is a young lawyer colored and so radiant, it with all sorts of aspira seemed not clothed with tions. Janet is at home, a light, but wholly com young lady of leisure. Yo ur posed of it, like the wall 'little friend Katie' is a of some celestial city. " He teacher in a fashionable would be a skilled moun boarding-school." taineer to the end of his "My Dear Frail, Wee, days, traveling light in his Bashful Lassie and Dear nailed shoes, with a chunk Madam," Muir answered, of dry bread and a note "The sweet blooming un book tied to his be It. In derbrush of boys and his vest he might have girls-Moores, Merrills, pocket lens and pocket Graydons, etc.-was very knife, compass, measuring refreshing and pleasant to instruments, spectacles me all my Indiana days, against the glare. "As long and now that you have all as I live," he said, "I'll grown up into trees, strong and thrifty, waving your out President hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll reaching branches in God's Light, 1 am sure I shall love Theodore interpret the rocks, learn the language of you all ....I mean to come to you in a year or two, or any Roosevelt and flood, torm, and the avalanche. I'll John Muir at time soon, to see you in all your new developments." acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild Glacier Point, n 1896 on his way home from receiving an honorary 1903. From a gardens, and get as near the heart of the degree at Harvard, Muir stopped off in Indianapolis stereograph by world as I can." to see his friends. In 1897 Catharine Merrill traveled Underwood and By 1871 he had discovered living glacier to California and visited with John Muir on his Underwood, in the Sierra and fo rmulated his then con I New York. ranch. In July 1900 he wrote a letter of consolation troversial, now generally acknowledged, to Merrill Moores's mother, Julia Merrill Moores, on theory of the glaciation of Yo semite Va lley. Catharine's death, "had she lived a thousand years she In his botanical and geological studies, 'john of the would still have been mourned." In the last year of his life, Mountains" was engaged in his useful life 's work. Muir answered a letter from Mina, Catharine's younger sis His career as a writer (of three hundred articles and ten ter: 'Through all life's wanderings you have held a warm m�or books) was launched in 1874 with his "Studies in the place in my heart, and I have never cea ed to thank God Sierra." In Alaska in 1879 he discovered Glacier Bay and for giving me the blessed Merrill family as life long friends." Muir Gla,ier. In a series of articles in Century magazine 46 TRACES (associate editor, Roben nderwoodjohnson, graduate of are known and esteemed by the people." In May 1903, Earlham College), Muir warned about the destruction of when Roosevelt came to the Yo semite, Muir actually bought mountain meadows and forests by grazing sheep and cat a suit fo r the occasion, a yellow suit, short in arm and leg. tle. In 1890, mainly due to the efforts of Johnson and "I do not want anyone with me but you," Roosevelt Muir, Yo semite ational Park was created by an act of assured Muir, and they had a "bully" time sleeping out on Congress. Muir was involved too in the creation of Sequoia, beds of fir branches and fe rns warmed by a crackling Mount Rainier, Petrified bonfire of a tall dead pine. Forest, and Grand Canyon "God has cared fo r these national parks. trees ...but he cannot save In 1892 Muir, Johnson, them from fools,-on ly and their supporter found ncle Sam can do that," ed the Sierra Club, an a oci Muir told the president. His ation of citizens concerned persuasive campfire talk was about protecting the bound a strong influence upon aries of Yo semite Park, and, Roosevelt's creation of 150 Muir added, " to do some national fo rests. thing fo r wildness and make John Muir never stopped. the mountains glad." Sam He worked, and played, en Merrill of Indianapoli , a thusiastically un ti I pneumo guest at Muir's home, nia claimed hi life at the age recalled that the very night of seven ty-six. "The whole the club was fo unded Muir universe appears as an infi "regaled them all with an nite storm of beauty," he had account of it at the supper written in the unfinished table ...he was hilarious manuscript of his Alaska with joy." Muir was president book that lay beside the bed until his death in 1914. (One in which he died on Christ hundred years later, the mas Eve, 1914. Sierra Club has 625,000 "Longest is the life that members, the Hoosier Chap contains the largest amount ter, 6,000.) of time-effacing enjoyment In 1880John Muir married of work that is a steady Louie Wanda Strentzel. For Photograph of delight," John Muir believed. the next ten years Muir ran John Muir "Such a life may really com his father-in-law's fruit ranch by San Francisco prise an eternity upon earth." in Martinez, California. Suc pictorialist photographer W. Dassonville, Ca therine IE Fo rrest WPbPr wrotf' cessful at ranching, as he had ca. 1g09. about Fa nny Van df' Criji Stevenson been in the factory, he made I)IIOTOGRAPII COl R 11'>' Of in the last issue of Traces. a small fo rtune fo r the fami ("01..8\ \li'\IORI.\1 UBR..\R\, 'tllRR.A CLl l\ ly, but he fe lt penned in, rav- enous fo r the mountains. Louie understood. When he was on a short camping trip, she told him to stay in the H>R H RII II R Rl \Ill:\<. mountains until he was re ted and relaxed. "A ranch that . . . takes the sacrifice of a noble life ...ought to be flung Bade, William Frederic. The Life and Lrtlerf of john Muir. 2 ,·ols. Boston and away beyond all reach and power fo r harm." New Yo rk: Houghton Mifnin Co., 1924. "You need to be your own self," she wrote him again. Muir,John. l\l)' Fir;! Summpr in lhe Si1'rra. 191 1. Reprint. New Yo rk: Viking 'There is nothing that has a right to be considered beside Penguin Inc. 1987. --. 71!e SLOIJ Of,\ly Boyilood and l'outh. l913. Reprint. t.laclison: this except the welfare of our children." The children, the Universit)' of Wisconsin Press, 1965. darlings of their fa ther's heart, were Wanda (born 1881) --.A Thousand-i\lile \Va /11 lo the Gulf Boston and ew Yo rk: Houghton and Helen (1886) . il1 ifnin Co., 1916. Theodore Roosevelt read Muir's Our National PaTks Turner, Frederick. Rrdisrovning Amerim:john Jlluir in His Time and Oun. (190]) and had an aide write: "[The president] wants to San F1·ancisco: Sierra Club Books, 1985. know the facts ...from men like yourself who are not con Wolfe, Linnie Marsh. Son of the ll'itrlm1e.B: TheLife of john tlluil: Madison: nected with the Governmen t service and at the same time Universit)' of Wisconsin Pre s, 1945. Winter 1993 47 HOOSIERS IN WORLD WAR II JOHN HUGHES uringthe confusing days and Oh yes, before the departure of the weehs of the Normandy inva Eighth Corps, our detachment of eight sion and breakout into the men, which included two British offi D Fr·ench countryside, retreat cers and two American officers, was ing German t-roops often left permitted to keep what we thoughtwe behind la-rge caches of supplies and other needed. We thought we had enough to last us fo r years, but within sixty days materials. john Hughes of Rushville, Indi only the vodka was left. Yo u see, anyone ana, a lieutenant in the Sixth A-rmored who had ever heard of me or any of the Division, fo und one of these caches while men in our detachment soon fo und stationed in the French town of Pontivy. their way to Pontivy. His find rnade hirn quite a popula-r rnan One late summer afternoon, the with other troojJs, as he explains in the fo l men of the Reconnaissance Battalion lowing sto-ry. of the Sixth Armored Division were with a bottle of cognac or some other driving through Pontivy and noticed We camped in a forest close to type of liquor. me standing on the corner. They Portsmouth in southern England on 4 One night after they had downed remembered me from Basic Training July 1944. The breakfast conversation what seemed like a lot of cognac, I fo l at Ft. Knox. I told them to bring their was minimal because we didn't know lowed them. They unknowingly led me jeeps and trailers to town that night how to converse with the ranking offi to the stalls of an old cavalry building. I because there was something for cer, a British Lt. Colonel, who had waited outside until they had replen tl1em. That night, we loaded six jeeps seen duty in Wo rld War I. He solved ished their supply and tJ1en entered the and trailers with liquor. They later our problem by saying "Well, this building. Much to my amazement, I told me that the liquor had given seems to be the day that we get rid of found a cache of liquor that could have them the courage they needed to see you chaps." I don't know of anything supplied the Sixth Army. There were at another day of battle. else he could have said that would least 250 cases of champagne, hundreds Three bottles of the cognac were have relieved our tension. of cases of cognac and eau-de-vie, and mailed to my home in Rushvi lle, He was right. That same clay we numerous otl1er bottles of liquor. This Indiana. Later I learned that only two embarked on the Pontetoc, a Victory was the main source of supply for the had arrived, of which I gave one to my Ship, bound fo r the ormandy German army. sister. The single bottle of cognac that l Beachhead. We landed after dark and Not surprisingly, the French hadn't kept remained in an attic chest for advised the men to sleep among the reported that any German supplies fo rty years. During those years, babies hedgerows that night. There were no were left behind. The French mayor were born in my fa mily, college gradua German aircraft. We stayed in those was informed that the liquor was now tions came and went, daughters were hedgerows until 3 August and head the property of the U.S. Army since it married-certainly times fo r celebra ed toward Briuany. Our first assign had been owned by the Germans. He tions-but that bottle of cognac re ment was to be in Pontivy, France. obligingly took me to another ware mained unopened. Whenever my When the Germans occupied the house and showed me the German daughters or wife had occasion to go to area, there was a communication and winery which housed 100,000 gallons the attic, they would always ask, "When supply center in this location, and of red wine stored in casks. are you going to open that bottle?" our mission was to establish a civil Our discovery was reported to the We ll, it was my seventy-eigh th year, affairs unit. Eightl1 Corps. As you may have guessed, at my fo rtieth army reunion that I Our first appraisal of Pontivy indi the Eighth Corps sent trucks to trans must tell you that the bottle was cated that the Germans had departed port the hard liquor, cognac, eau-de opened and passed around. Yo u see, I very quickly and in their haste had left vie, champagne, and other liquors to wanted to catch just a moment of my prisoners, mostly Moroccan soldiers. another location. The red wine and youth in my seventy-eighth year with These soldiers immediately asked us vodka were left. The red wine was given my friends, the other old soldiers, as for food. It wasn 't long until we real to the French mayor who disu·ibuted it we slowly sipped that bottle of cognac ized that they would chase their fo od to retail channels fo r tl1e French people. and remembered those days in Pontivy. 48 TRACES BACK ISSUES OF TRACES DON'T GET OLD , 1 ugmenl yott1· collection while issues last. Order by volume and IWIIlbn: Send 5.00 aud 1.00 postage fo r each issue to Traces Back iss ues, indiana f fisloricaf Soriety, 315 W Ohio St., indianapolis, IX 46202-3299. Winter 19 90, vol. 2, no. 1 ''1\laror Bunch and the porting Life in Middletown," by Dwight \V. Hoover "ThonHL< l lart Bemon's Indiana Murals: A Dream Fulfilled," by Kathleen A. Foster "Luing, Drinking, and Paying for It in the Frontier Tavern," by Mary Kupiec Cayton "The Eagle \'illage llotcl on the �lichigan Road," b) Joan P. Lyon• "Shado"' of the Past: The Photographs of Ouo Ping," b)' W. Douglas Hanley Spring 1990, vol. 2, no. 2 ·:\ppoinunent at the End of the Wo rld: The Journe) of P1ince Maxamilian and Karl Bodmer," by Leigh Darbcc and Thomas Cemry "The Storv of a Western I lome: Eunice Beecher in Indiana," byJeaneue Va nausdall "The Great \Vizard of the North: John B Summer 19 90, vol. 2, no. 3 "Tht· I louse of the Singing Winds," by Selma N. Steele "l lere Today and IIere To morrrow: Preserving a Sense of Place," by Mary Ellen Cadski "Remembering Elwood and the Willkie Notification," by Don W. Carlson "The I lome of the Interpreter: Origins of the Lilly I louse Mural," by J. Kent Calder "Gene Strauon-Poncr: The l lum of Life," by judith Reick Long Fall 19 90, vol. 2, no. 4 'i\ Child at I lean: The Fanciful World ofjohnny Cruellc," by Pauicia !!all "The rriumph of Old Tip: William llcnry Harrison and the Election of 1 840," by Kenneth R. Stevens ':\nna Symmes !Iarrison: First L<1dy of the West," by Carl Sferra7La Anthony "lndianapoli;," text by l loward Caldwell, photographs by DarrylJones ';\malia Ku"ncr: lligh Priestess of the Daimicst of Arts," by Frances E. Hughes Winter 19 91, vol. 3, no. 1 "I J. L. Mencken and the Indiana Genii," by Val Holley ·; \ Longer View: Cirhll Photography in Indiana since 1906," by Stephen J. Fletcher "FioHI D. l lopper: Dean of Indiana \\'atercolorisL<' by J. Kent Calder ", \ Gcmlcman of the Pres" in SkirL�:Janet Flanner and Tlw Nn.u Yo rker." by Brenda Wincapple Spring 19 91, vol. 3, no. 2 "Pops White;,ell: A lloosier in the \'ieux Carre," by Anne E. Peterson "Quilts of Indiana: Crossroads of l\lcm01ies," by Indiana Qu ilt Registry Project "'vlaric Webster: Marion's Master Qu ilter," by Rosalind Webster Perry "Keep on Tracking: A Shon lliston• of the Eel Ri\'er Railroad," Richard S. Simons "l lughcs and Voorhees: Two Western Pettifoggers and the Tempordr)' Insanity Plea," b)' Allen D. Spiegel Summer 19 91, vol. 3, no. 3 "The lloosicr Group: Painters of the Indiana umdscape.'' by Judith V. ewton "Forum<' b1 M Fall 19 91, vol. 3, no. 4 Special hsuc commemorating the fiftieth anni,·ersarv of Indiana's involvement in World War II.