SERVING HENDRICKS COUNTY SINCE 1847
Page A-2
The Republican
Delving Into Yester~Year
Local historian and writer Paul Miner takes items from
The Republican’s Yester-Year column to develop an interesting, informative and often humorous article.
To the Editor: North Salem, like every Hendricks County town, has endured calamity and sensation in its history. In one of the town’s saddest tragedies, three 16-year-old girls made a fatal mistake on a cold January 1856 night and suffocated in bed after bringing a pot of burning charcoal to warm their sleeping chamber. Come the morning they were discovered dead from asphyxiation. Christena Fleece of North Salem and Nancy Hunt were buried together at Fleece Cemetery. Catharine Ashby was buried in Montgomery County. Their deaths, widely reported, “cast a gloom over the entire neighborhood.” Among those mortally injured by the Sinker portable sawmill explosion at the 1869 State Fair was North Salem sawmill engineer William Pierson, who was “dangerously” scalded. He underwent treatment at the National Surgical Institute in Indianapolis and was sent to the home of friends, but took a sudden turn and died. The explosion killed at least 30 – some never identified – and injured 50. The papers spared readers nothing in describing the carnage and mutilation at Morton Place, site of the fair back then. “Heads, arms and legs were found . . . several hundred feet away.” William Lockhart of North Salem, 26, was House Doorkeeper at the Capitol when he contracted smallpox in February 1873 following a visit to the state’s Southern Penitentiary. He was immediately “removed to the Pest House” and soon died. A senior at Northwestern Christian University (eventually Butler University), Lockhart planned a career in the ministry. A spire marks his final site at North Salem’s Fairview. An inscription says he’d served three years in Company H, 7th Indiana Infantry. “A verdant youth,” North Salem’s Bufe Slusher thought he’d earn money driving folks at 10 cents a ride back and forth during the 1873 Indiana State Fair & Exposition. The innocent, waiting for his first fare, blocked the street, causing quite a stir. Finally, a policeman hopped in Bufe’s hack and told him to drive to the station house on Alabama Street. Arriving, Bufe learned his fare had arrested him. He paid his bail, then demanded 10 cents, which was declined. Bufe resolved to secure payment in advance from “all fellows with brass buttons on their coats.” A North Salem-area farmer named Sheets was shot and seriously wounded while working in his fields in September 1880, most likely for his role in “ferreting out a band of thieves who have been the terror of that neighborhood for more than a year past.” A man sought for larceny in July 1884 at North Salem fled and a deputy accidentally shot him in the leg, intending just to scare him. Jailed, the man suffered “intense agony” from lockjaw, and a doctor gave him only a slight chance to recover. The Saturday night “North Salem Riot” in October 1899 was started by “members of a Tennessee colony” who had only recently arrived in town. In a “desperate street fight,” Tennessean William “Shade” Mackey, who had “tried to run the town to suit himself,” was “quieted with a bullet through the head.” Druggist’s clerk William Ragan was expected to expire (but he didn’t), and many were injured. Mackey, a farmhand, had claimed two murders back home. Trouble had been “brewing” for some time, and the melee began when some of the Tennesseans, heavily armed, went looking for mischief in the store. Attempting to “quell the disturbance,” Ragan found himself being trampled and beaten, perhaps to death. He managed to pull two revolvers and started shooting. Another account holds that Ragan, “noted for his fighting proclivities,” was called out and waved two large revolvers over his head. Days earlier, the local Murphy boys had challenged the Southerners to a duel. Everyone drew their weapons and the battle began. “Women fainted” and men without guns looked for cover. More than 25 shots were fired. In the aftermath, “the town is quiet, but the Tennesseans are vowing vengeance and the citizens are arming and organizing for an attack.” Ragan, “a gambler and well known to the talent in Crawfordsville,” was charged with murder. It was the first murder trial since the notorious 1895 Hinshaw case in Belleville. In April 1901, Ragan was “released from further annoyance by the State,” after two hung jury trials in Danville. Paul Miner Lizton ______________________________________________________________________
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It’s News To Us
Birthday parties, new babies, anniversaries, visits from long-lost cousins -these items that make up the kind of news you only find in the pages of The Republican. If you have a local news item you’d like to contribute, you can call us at 317-745-2777, send by fax to 317-647-4341, e-mail to therepublican@ sbcglobal.net or drop by the office at 6 East Main in Danville. Our deadline for submitting news items is noon on Monday for Thursday’s edition.
Thursday, April 8, 2021
Yester~Year
The Republican has published local news weekly since 1847. We offer this column as a look back at events from our archives and to help connect today’s readers to the people and events in our past. ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO Issue of April 9, 1896 Mont Clair: Masters Otis Day, Ansel and Cecil Griggs are the most industrious boys in our town. They deliver messengers, sell soap and papers and do any work they can do. They save their money and will surely meet success always. It would be well for some of our large boys to pattern after them instead of loafing. Avon: Last Saturday morning the thermometer marked 25 above zero, and before ten o’clock, and before all the frost was gone, two enterprising sons of Lon Parson’s started to barefoot to the postoffice. One mile sufficed when they weakened and put on their boots, which were carried under their arms. There will be over one hundred graduates from the common schools of the county this year. Bicycles, bicycles, bicycles, bicycles. Vanguard, Conde, Crescent, $40 to $105. Christie Bros., Danville. The water works whistle blows at 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Parties driving near the power house with wild horses should bear these hours in mind. An indication of the number of students in the city, it can be said that in two days last week, 603 pieces of baggage were received at the station. Belva Lockwood delivered a lecture in the chapel, Tuesday evening, But the audience failed to obtain the benefit of. The lecturer seemed to be suffering from a cold, and a few rows from the stage, very few complete sentences could be heard. The lecture was the greatest failure a Danville audience, expecting so much, ever experienced. ______ ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO Issue of April 14, 1921 To vote by machines or not to vote by machines. That is the question. And the Hendricks County Council is called to meet Saturday, April 23, to assist in solving the problem and incidentally to pass on the question whether the expenditure of probably $20,000 of the tax-payers’ money for the purchase of voting machines will be authorized by them. Base ball for Danville is the program for the summer and well organized and well backed base ball. The St. Louis Cardinals have an open date early in June and they have indicated that they would like to play here. The fame of Danville’s park has gone far and wide as second to no park in the country. Belleville: The Jolly Dozen met Tuesday night with Mrs. Simeon Garriott, each one tring to see who could dress the most ragged. Mrs. Aden Evans won the prize. On Thursday, April 28, the Danville Gun Club will give a great shoot, a registered tournament, under the authority of the American Trapshooting Association. After being out some ten hours, the jury in the case of the State vs. John M. Towles, charged with keeping a gaming house, found him guilty and laid a fine of $10 upon him. Fire of unknown origin destroyed a barn on the Shirley farm yesterday morning and James P. Ison, living there, lost his driving horse, three calves, 100 bushes of corn, ton of hay, buggy and harness and various minor articles. Commissioner Pierson wished it stated that the new shaker grates for the boilers at the water works would cost only $340.00, instead of $3445.00, as the linotype would have it. _____ SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO Issue of April 11, 1946 Finals in the sixteenth annual commercial contest were held at Central Normal College, Saturday, with winners of the six district contests competing. Eleanor Parsons, 16-year-old Clayton high school senior, has been awarded a four-year scholarship to any college of her choice, in a nation-wide Pepsi-Cola Scholarship contest. Dr. L.H. Ellis, who has just returned from forty-five months in the service as a doctor, is opening an office at Lizton. Kenneth Baird was appointed student manager of the Wigwam at Central Normal College at a recent meeting. New drapes have been hung in the Grid room and three ping-pong tables have been installed. William R. Hughes, AM 3/c, received his discharge at Great Lakes, last Tuesday, and arrived home Wednesday. Mr. Hughes was one of a crew that flew surplus planes fro Siapan to Chicago. He was in the Navy thirty-two months, twenty months overseas. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Hughes.
William P. Rigdon, of Danville, who is vacationing in Miami, Fla., has captured a citation award and is in line for a possible first place prize in the eleventh annual Metropolitan Miami fishing tournament. “Doc” caught a 29 ½ pound Jack while fishing in Miami waters recently. _____ FIFTY YEARS AGO Issue of April 8, 1971 Bids are being sought by the Hendricks County 4-H & Agricultural Fair Association on a Community Building to be completed no later than July 15 and also a Horse Barn to be completed no later than July 1. Both are hoped to be used for the 1971 Hendricks County 4-H Fair. Miss Coleen Chandler, 6-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Keith Chandler of Danville, recently won two trophies in the ITI Twirling Contest, March 27, at Monroe, for Beginner Solo. The Benefit Fund for Danville Jaycees Community Building Project will be launched at 11:30 a.m., Saturday, at the Danville State Bank. Sheila Davenport of North Salem has been awarded a $500 scholarship by the Indiana State Sunshine Society to be used at an accredited nursing school. Robert Cooper’s three-year-old pointer, “Dandy,” was the top dog last week, at the Plainfield Conservation Bird Dog Club’s 1970-71 season finale. Opening of the 17th annual exhibit of the Hendricks County Art League is April 20. Previously in the auditorium of the Public Service Company at Plainfield, the exhibit this year will be in the rotunda of the Hendricks County Court House, Danville. “We Got ‘Em – Neck Bands – Chokers (all kinds) – Velvet – Pearl – Gold and Silver – Denim – Lace – Leather. The “In” Thing! – Meazel Jewelry. P.S. – Otho has watches from 10.95. ______ TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO Issue of April 4, 1996 The Danville Town Council learned for the first time, Monday night, that Danville is among three town in Hendricks County which fill the needs of Qualitech Steel Corp. for the steel mini-mill. The other two are Brownsburg and Pittsboro. J. Kenneth Given and Marcille Abbott, former Hendricks County Recorder, received the coveted Hershel A. Gentry, Sr. awards at the Hendricks County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner. Organist Gene Denton entertains seniors at the Hendricks County Senior Center in Danville each Wednesday from 10 to 11:30 a.m. The marriage of Jennifer Jo Williams and Jason Alan Hankins was Saturday, 7:30 p.m., at the North Salem United Methodist Church with Rev. Russell Allanson officiating. Brooke Nicole Chenoweth, daughter of Roy and Susanna (Burkett) Chenoweth, and a graduating senior at Danville Community High School, has been named one of the candidates in the 1996 Presidential Scholars Program. After a long, cold winter and snow galore, the Hendricks County Women’s Lady Bug Golf Club is ready and anxious to return to favors and start swinging their clubs. Phillip Gulley, son of Mr. and Mrs. Norm Gulley of Danville, has had another article published, “The Front Porch Classroom,” about his paperboy days and his favorite front porch customer, Widow Stanley. _____ TEN YEARS AGO Issue of April 7, 2011 Hendricks County Solid Waste Management District, in partnership with the Avon-Washington Township Park and the Hendricks County Soil & Water Conservation District, are hosting an Earth Day Festival, Saturday, April 16. The North Salem State Bank’s North Salem office will host an Open House on Friday, April 8, to mark Tinie Kisner’s retirement. Danville Middle School student Brock Hudkins finished this year’s school wrestling season with a 21-0 record, making his total Middle School record 42-0. Danville Community High School is hosting the 4th annual Mr. Warrior Contest on Friday, April 15, at 7 p.m. The Town of Brownsburg is installing a new electronic message center to help communicate matters of interest to the public. The LED sign located in front of the Town Hall on Green Street, will display messages about municipal services, meetings and projects. __________
