Paul Minor

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: County relics often are lost or forgotten, replaced, or inadvertently destroyed. Sometimes, people don’t know what they have – or had. We’re occasionally left with early old-timer accounts. Undergoing repairs in 1879, Robert Russel’s house on the Square’s east side reportedly was the first brick building in town. Built around 1829, for 30 years the relic was the post office.

Postmaster William S. Crawford would appear at a small window on the building’s west side and call out names of those receiving mail. Out-of-state mail cost 25 cents, which was more than some could afford. They’d have to wait and save before reading their letters.

The bench that shoemaker C. Guenther used once served as a blackboard which Henry Ward Beecher employed during Sunday School lessons. I think it was at the old Presbyterian Church north of the standpipe.

George Rich then used Beecher’s blackboard to display buckwheat (shape) notes in teaching music.

After that, Lena Miller used the blackboard to teach school in a private home. Afterward Guenther converted it to his bench. Boys abused it as a snow sled.

Speaking of relics, Bishop John Lancaster Spalding, addressing Notre Dame University commencement exercises in 1890, called “the present position of women . . . a relic of barbarism.” He advocated higher education for women and equal pay with men. “He also condemned the saloon as a barbarous relic.” Pittsboro carriage and school wagon manufacturer Charles Olsen in 1896 owned the former family carriage of Governor Oliver P. Morton. “It is a relic that should be preserved.” Olson also built two automobiles. James Hughes and Jasper Swain bought them.

When the former Courthouse was razed in 1912, the relic box within the cornerstone contained an account written on sheepskin parchment by Simon T. Hadley in June 1860. It described histories of the local Masons, Odd Fellows and churches, and included personal notes from residents and Danville Academy students.

The Belleville homecoming in 1921 yielded two relics I doubt anyone could find now. A chair former state senator and representative Leander M. Campbell used when he taught school there – he arrived as a young man in the winter of 1852 – was shown by son-in-law Thad S. Adams.

Townspeople made the chair and presented it to Campbell, who paid 75 cents a week for room and board.

While prosecuting attorney beginning in 1854, Campbell earned no salary; instead, his income was derived entirely from fees yielded from convictions. I see motivation for aggressive prosecution.

During that homecoming, Fred Breedlove of Plainfield displayed a cane fashioned from a log from the Belleville log courthouse, built around 1823 for $147.

In 1920, Thomas Bence gave John W. Tinder’s Civil War musket to the Grand Army of the Republic relic room at the Courthouse. Tinder and his wife took Bence in when he was 14.

The room was set aside in the Courthouse in 1915 “to perpetuate the memory of the heroes of the Civil War.”

The county commissioners had “in grateful recognition of the services and achievements” of Union Army and Navy veterans, declared the rooms were “irrevocably set apart as a Memorial Hall and Relic Room . . . for the sole use of the Grand Army of the Republic . . . and for all organizations which may hereafter be formed for the cultivation and promotion of patriotism.”

The location, at the first floor’s southwest corner, is now occupied by Superior Court 4 offices; they’re shown on the original floor plans.

The “most prized” relic was the group of photographs of Company A, 7th Indiana

Volunteers, with half the 77 men from Danville. Most of those donated relics are now at the county museum at 170 S. Washington St. Joe Hess, who ran the Danville Progress one door east of the Post Office at the Square’s southeast corner, displayed a slew of war relics in 1915. There was John Lewis’ saber, fashioned at his blacksmith forge, and “not much larger than a butcher knife.”

Seen through the show window, there was Jonathan S. Marshall’s saber from his days with the 21st Indiana Heavy Artillery, and his Spencer carbine.

William Selmire contributed the haversack, canteen and cartridge belt he carried for three years. Enoch V. McVay’s powder horn was displayed. He served four years.

Paul Miner Lizton ______________________________________________________________________