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 Back in 1871, Joel Jessup platted the tiny burg of Friendswood southeast of Plainfield; it was settled by the Society of Friends. The venture grew. By 1878 there was a cheese factory, store, post office, railroad depot, steam-powered sawmill and gristmill, two blacksmiths and a wagon shop.

Doctor Mary Jessup based her practice from her mansion at the town’s west edge. She taught “scientific temperance and narcotics” at the Hadley Industrial Home for girls in 1896.

Friendswood area men founded Indianapolis’ first ice cream firm. More milk reportedly was shipped from the thriving village that is no more than from anywhere else in Indiana.

The Horse Thief Association entertained at the Friendswood school assembly hall in March 1921. There were piano duets, poem readings and light refreshments. The program: “Resolved, That the Red Men Have Received More Abuse at the Hands of the White Men Than the Negro.” Elements of that widespread association were allied with the Ku Klux Klan. Thirteen years earlier, in what might be called domestic terrorism (The Republican termed it “partisan bitterness”), someone dynamited the nearby Fairfield brick schoolhouse to the tune of $25 in damages.

State authorities had condemned the Fairfield and Friendswood schools (about a mile apart), and a plan called for a new school to serve both groups of students, with Friendswood kids attending Fairfield in the meantime. Someone did not fancy the idea. Anyway, Fairfield school reopened within a week.

A Friendswood woman “who years ago kept the Springtown neighborhood in an uproar,” landed in jail in December 1906, “charged with attempting to regulate matters around Friendswood according to her own notions, cleaning out the school, etc.”

Another Friendswood woman, weighing 380 pounds, was the heaviest in the county. She died in September 1896.

A fellow calling both Mooresville and Friendswood home and already jailed in late 1914 on drunk and disturbing the peace complaints in Plainfield, faced even more when two area farmers swore out eight more charges including malicious trespass, pulling a knife, profanity, provoke, and assault and battery.

Released on a Sunday, he was arrested the following day for those latter charges while he was drunk yet again. The Gazette declared he might be one of the first to occupy the new “penal farm” in Putnam County.

By February, he was of “the opinion that jail life is a living death.” He implored Prosecutor James Snodgrass to release him, pledging to leave the state. “He will probably be given the opportunity to make good.” I found nothing further.

I may suggest a similar approach to Prosecutor Delp, subject to a trifling consideration.

Charles L. Mendenhall, during his teaching stint at Friendswood schools, served as state representative from 1915-1920. His ambition at Friendswood was to build “a notable high school . . . with a corresponding neighborhood spirit which will result in Friendswood becoming a community center known far and wide.”

Standard Oil Company in 1901 bought, it was said, “the finest pair of mules seen in Danville” from Friendswood’s Ethan Kendall.

Jessup & Son flouring mill was the scene of a horrific fatal accident early in 1892 when the long-time engineer was caught up in the machinery. By the time the 450 RPM shaft was stopped, what was left of the lifeless dismembered corpse was wrapped around it. I’ll not further describe the scene, dutifully reported in graphic detail -- as was the practice then -- other than to suggest it was a closed coffin funeral. Another paper’s account was far more vivid.

Jessup & Son’s store in 1892 sold some serious quackery, along with at least 17 other “first-class firms” across the county. Clinic Sarsaparilla remedied “all diseases arising from impure blood,” including pimples, boils, carbuncles, pustules, scald head, running sores and ulcers, scrofula and syphilitic affection, cancerous tumors, ringworm, eczema, tumors “and all hereditary blood taint whatsoever.”

From Chicago, that outfit also made the Clinic Kidney Cure, and it fixed Bright’s Disease, diabetes, female weakness, lumbago and incontinence. A “splendid dinner pill” worked marvels combating flatulence. Anyone who mailed two packaging wrappers from that pill was promised a free souvenir album depicting lithographic views of the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

Sufferers were urged not to fall prey to others who sought to “palm off inferior or worthless concoctions in place of these splendid remedies.”

Paul Miner Lizton ______________________________________________________________________