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: The Republican never shied from identifying or advertising what was vital across the county, and that included miraculous cures. “Electricity and the Vital Force” most certainly caught men’s attention in October 1889. Everyone knew what that meant. Dr. Henry Du Mont had the fix for languor, weakness, nervous debility, diseases “dependent upon” excesses, folly, vice, ignorance and vital exhaustion. For one dollar, the gilt-page, leather-bound volume entitled “The Errors of Youth and Manhood” would arrive at the Danville Post Office and no one would know what was inside a nondescript confidential paper wrapper. County men with a vital problem surely could spare that dollar for “The Elixir of Life and the True Essence of Manhood.” It was the only “Electro-Medico Physiology ever published.” It was “absolutely correct and perfect.” Assuming a prophet’s mantle, Du Mont proclaimed, “I Heard a Voice and it said, ‘Come and See.’” A Paris doctor supposedly discovered a year earlier that “certain vital processes of the body develop putrefying substances in the tissues.” That must have absolutely terrified every man, and woman. Ayer’s Sarsaparilla rid the body of this plague. The Reverend Collyer (possibly Unitarian Robert Collyer), reprinted from Prairie Farmer in 1883, discoursed on “How to be Young at Eighty.” He said young men arriving in the city from the countryside had much the same hearty constitution as he claimed to possess at 60. Yet, rather than wisely use their years, they would “overdraw the account.” Some were “so ambitious to get on” that they “use two days up in one and waste their vital powers.” Were those profligates aware of Du Mont’s book of errors? Surely, the quack advertised widely. Collyer said they rode when they should walk and swallowed “a little something” such as clove or coffeeberry to renew themselves. Eventually “nature and the grace of God will shut down on them.” On the other hand, those who “do differently keep a good digestion, stay young and buoyant, love good, sweet company, and are not ashamed to look their mothers and sisters in the eye or to kiss them.” Personal industry was essential to success, readers learned in 1884. The “aimless, thriftless” worker ended up remorseful with “nothing to show for a life’s labor, but errors, distress and poverty; health and manhood gone.” The loss of manhood threat likely scared more a few. I’ve seen the tactic more than once in the old newspapers. “A sound body is essential for a sound mind,” Central Normal teacher Kate Huron declared in December 1881. “Mind rubbing against mind” was essential for teachers, according to Enoch George Hogate at the March 1885 Hendricks County Sunday School Union meeting in Cartersburg. I don’t know how many doctors practiced medicine in Hendricks County in July 1865 (there were about 57 in 1886), but there were enough to warrant the Union using nearly a page publishing Dr. William F. Harvey’s loquacious inaugural address before the Hendricks County Medical Society. The society was “a deliberative assembly of men of Science.” Harvey was a founding member of that august body when it organized with 14 members in April 1854. There was “no deliberative body of men on earth on whom devolves the consideration of matters of so great importance, as a body of Physicians.” Lincoln, dead but three months, was mentioned. Harvey strode into religious territory, as was wont in those times; then science and disease. And then epidemic. “The vital statistics of the world show us that no class of persons is exempt from epidemic influence; that the rich and the poor are all alike stricken down by the destroyer, when he comes clothed with epidemic power.” (Incidentally, the Chinese Consul in New York claimed in April 1885 that contagious disease was “seldom found” in that country.) Harvey cautioned against frauds. “Wide wide is the gate (Ignorance) and broad is the way (Superstition), which leads down to the abyss of Charlatanry.” The doctor bemoaned newspapers carrying “some obscene advertisement of some quack nostrum vender. This should not be the case in this country of boasted light, knowledge, and civilization.” Alas, quackery continues to this day. I do think some could benefit from Dr. Dye’s Celebrated Electro-Voltaic Belt and Electric Appliances for restoring “manly vigor.” I see guys every day who appear afflicted by possible “nervous debility, lost vitality and kindred troubles.” Besides, some of those fellows could use a belt to keep their pants up. Paul Miner Lizton ______________________________________________________________________
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Thursday, August 5, 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 August 6, 1896 Will Bennett left Monday for Bloomington where he will enter the State University. His leisure time will be engaged in a barber shop. Many shade trees are being ruined by allowing horses to be hitched to them, the animals making a fair meal off the bark. There is urgent need of hitching posts in town. The light company is furnishing allnight service on the incandescent line Sam Lee will open a laundry in the basement of the Watts block next Monday. He will call for washing and deliver it. Prices: Shirts, ten cents; collars, two cents; cuffs, four cents per pair; Shirtwaists, fifteen cents; underwear, ten cents per suit. Miss Bessie Lee left for Georgetown, Ky., as her school commenced Monday. Cyrus Masten is building a large cattle barn on his farm south of the National road. Master Guthrie McArthur entertained the other little masters of Avon at his Grandpa Guthrie’s, August 3rd, in honor of his sixth birthday. Clayton: Ira Martin and Arthur Edmondson took prizes at the bicycle races at the Bainbridge Fair. Mr. Martin won a third and Mr. Edmondson, a first and fourth. Uncle Charley Stewart has received a letter from his son, John, who is aboard the U.S. vessel, Amphritrite. Mr. and Mrs. O.E. Gulley are in Martinsville for some days. Mr. Gulley’s health is not good and he hopes to be benefited by the waters there. J.S. Marshall’s caladium, or elephant’s ear, has another golden bloom on it. C.F. Hall has a similar plant that has also produced a bloom. Both gentlemen are very proud of their plants. _____ ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO Issue of August 4, 1921 Whether there is oil underlying the land in the territory north and west of Amo toward the Big Four Road is soon to be learned if present plans work out. Saturday, at 2 p.m., under the auspices of the Masonic fraternity, the corner stone of the Union township school building will be laid. There will an address and music. Rollis Weesner, of Clayton, was chosen attendance officer or truant officer, by the County Board of Education. The compensation fixed was $3.50 per day for time employment and 7 cents per mile for an automobile which Mr. Weesner provides. The Gold Star Record, a handsomely printed, leather-bound book of 700 pages, with sketches of the sons of Indiana who made the supreme sacrifice in the war has been issued from the press. Each gold-star family is entitled to a copy and also each public library. Samuel McPheeters was before the Danville board with a petition signed by a majority of the citizens of the town asking the board to provide one corner of the public park for automobile travelers to camp. North Salem: Sunday, the last services were held in the old M.E. church. Monday morning the workmen began tearing it down. All the material will be used in the erection of the new church, which is progressing nicely. Mark Short says that Camp Short is not “Short” on anything except cabins and tents to entertain the numerous parties that desire to camp at his resort and he is arranging to overcome that deficiency. Arrangements for the Hendricks County Guernsey calf club show to be held at Plainfield, August 20th, are practically completed. _____ SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO Issue of August 8, 1946 Kenneth Hamilton has been elected commander of the George Patton Jr. Post of the American Legion, activated at Pittsboro last week. County Commissioners laid the groundwork for the hiring of a county nurse at their monthly meeting be entertaining a request for a budget for the position. A lot on North Wayne street was recently purchased by Sam Kirk from Charles Williams. The Kirk brother plan to move a house at the corner of Main and Indiana streets to the lot, prior to erecting a modern service station and garage at the Main street location. The L.E. Myers Construction Co. has moved from South Indiana street to a new building, recently completed, west of Bosstick street, at the west edge of Danville. Baskets of white gladiolas, double candelabras and greenery framed the setting
for the wedding of Miss Gwendolyn Grace Goodwin and Frank Edgar Guthrie, Jr., at 4:30 o’clock in the Danville Christian Church, Sunday afternoon. Robert Shank, Danville, has been appointed coach at the Pittsboro high school for the 1946-47 school year. He is a graduate of Central Normal College and attended Purdue university before he entered the Marine corps in 1943. Four hundred and nineteen boys and girls enrolled in the 4-H home economics projects and 196 in livestock, gardening, and crop projects will display their exhibits at the county 4-H Show Saturday, in the Danville high school gymnasium and in tents on the school grounds. _____ FIFTY YEARS AGO Issue of August 5, 1971 The total income, Friday, from the Hendricks County 4-H Steer, Barrow and Wether Sale was $48,141.49, an $11,221.18 increase on the 1970 livestock sale. Clyde will be going to the State Fair, according to Miss Julie English, owner of the Grand Champion Hereford steer at the Hendricks County 4-H Fair. The Golden Manor Nursing Home of Brownsburg, located on the west side of Hornaday Road, south of East Main St., hopefully will be opened November 1. Charles G. Miles of Danville is proud of his horse, “Hi Yah Hat,” which won both heats of the 2-year-old Indiana Colt Pace Stake at the Lions Decatur County Fair last week. Sam Himsel’s Duroc was judged the grand champion barrow at the Hendricks County 4-H Fair. Complaints of beer drinking, vulgar language and littering has brought the closing of the gates at the Danville Park at 11 p.m. daily. Brenda Truax, of Middle Township, is Hendricks County’s champion babysitter, according to her selection at the Hendricks County 4-H Fair. The Grand Champion ribbon in the Rabbit Show last week at the 4-H Fair was awarded to Jill Hufford, Grade 8 at Brownsburg high school with her Satin breed rabbit. Mike Whicker, Clay Township, received his champion breed trophy for his Jersey in the Dairy Show at the Hendricks County 4-H Fair. For the second straight year, the Plainfield varsity cheerleaders took top honors in the Yell Leading Contest at the 4-H Fair. _____ TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO Issue of August 1, 1996 The 1996 Hendricks County 4-H Livestock Sale, Friday night, set a new record grand total of $109,850 paid for 198 animals. The Lizton Community Association and the Lizton Lions Club would like to invite everyone to the Lizton Lions Festival set for August 9 & 10, at the Lizton Lions Club Park. Hendricks Civic Theater will be presenting the popular musical, “Annie,” on August 2-4 & 9-10 at the Performing Arts Center at Cascade High School at Clayton. The Hendricks County Commissioners are asking for a County Manager at a salary of $25,000 in their 1997 budget. Karen Russell became the bride of Rick Hardman in a lovely outdoor wedding, Saturday afternoon, at their home, south of North Salem. Jack Willard of Danville retires as of today, August 1, after 37 years of driving for PSI-Energy. Work has begun on the renovation and addition to the East Elementary School at Clayton. The building, which is 25 years old, will be thoroughly renovated and some 30,000 sq. ft. of additional space will be added. ______ TEN YEARS AGO Issue of August 4, 2011 Despite a week of sweltering temperatures, the 2011 Hendricks County 4-H Fair concluded with the annual livestock sale with a new record of $206,700.00. 2011 4-H Queen and 10-year Dairy exhibitor Kelsey Covey received a record $3,600 for her Cheese Basket at the sale. Forty-seven of Marian Worrell’s descendants braved high heat indices to spend several days last week at her farm. The occasion was an early celebration of Marian’s 102nd birthday, which will occur on August 21. The Hendricks County Clerk’s office is now accepting applications for a marriage license online. Work on the former Kiger lot is underway. Looks like a new building on Main street is coming soon.
