Indiana

“ General Remarks.—The importance of Indiana, as a desirable State for the attention of the emigrant to the West, has been too much overlooked. Though not possessing quite equal advantages with Illinois, especially in the quality and amount of prairie soil, it is far superior to Ohio, and fully equal,—nay, in our estimation, rather superior to Michigan. Almost every part is easy of access, and in a very few years the liberal system of internal improvements, adopted and in progress, will make almost every county accessible to public conveyances, and furnish abundant facilities to market. ”

“ One reason assigned for the passing of emigrants through Indiana to Illinois was that the latter was a prairie country, more easily subdued than the more wooded region of Indiana. But it is also true that the sluggish, illiterate character of its early occupants turned aside the stream of Western emigration from its borders. There has been a great deal of philosophic speculation upon the acknowledged backwardness of civilization in Indiana, its slow development in institutions of education, and its slow change in rural life, compared with its sister States. ”

“ Should any one come up from Indiana, pivotal State as it has been long called in national elections, saying that he represented the wish of one hundred and forty thousand Indiana men, gentlemen, would you scorn his appeal? ”

“ Think of a long, smooth red brick road stretching out before you mile after mile, the blue waters of Lake Erie to your right, with its waves, ships and gulls; a flat, Holland-like farming land to your left, with occasional small white towns, factory centers, and then field upon field of hay, corn, cabbages, wheat, potatoes—mile after mile and mile after mile.
Ohio is too flat. It hasn’t the rural innocence and unsophistication which Indiana seems still to retain, nor yet the characteristics of a thoroughgoing manufacturing world. ”

“ Indiana, a typical American State, owes nothing worth mentioning to the original French population. In early days it must be considered little more than an extension of Kentucky. Virginia had set aside a large tract for rewarding the men of George Rogers Clark's expedition and these were the original land agents, so to speak, for the territory. But all along the border a frontier population drifted there across the Ohio River. As late as 1850 there were twice as many Southern people in Indiana as there were from the Middle States and New England put together. ”

“ Here, in the country, and up in the Adirondacks you are the real Indiana."
"That's nonsense! We can't be girl and boy forever. There's something else in life—I suppose."
"What?" said Glen.
"I don't know," answered Indiana impatiently, "but it's individual. People must discover it for themselves—"
"Have you?" asked Glen.
"No," answered Indiana.
"I have," said Glen. ”

“ Well, to me Indiana is noteworthy in having done and in still doing just that sort of thing. It stands unique in having produced a great many celebrated men and women in all departments of work, not only those who have departed from the state but those who have remained and gained a publicity for their achievements far outside its boundaries. ”

“ Indiana is famous as a literary center, and that gives tone to the advertisement, to say nothing of the fact that we're honoring with our presence almost the only state in the Union where we've never been indicted. ”

“ I come to the State of Indiana; and what I have said as between Kentucky and Ohio, I repeat as between Indiana and Kentucky: it is equally applicable. One additional argument is applicable also to Indiana. In her Territorial condition she more than once petitioned Congress to abrogate the Ordinance entirely, or at least so far as to suspend its operation for a time, in order that they should exercise the "popular sovereignty" of having slaves if they wanted them. The men then controlling the General Government, imitating the men of the Revolution, refused Indiana that privilege. ”

“ Since then, the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and the long strip of country known as the Territory of Wisconsin, have been carved out of it. Indiana, which numbers but twenty years since the commencement of her political existence, contains a population of six hundred thousand, equal to the population of Massachusetts, a State of two hundred years’ duration. In age she is an infant; in strength and resources a giant. Her appearance indicates the 402 full vigor of maturity, while, measured by her years, she is yet in the cradle. ”

“ What a possession for a state like Indiana, I thought—a small, quaint, wonderful Alpine region within its very center. As time went on and population increased, I thought, this would afford pleasure and recreation to thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, who knows, who could not afford to go farther. Plainly it had already evinced its charm to the world, for were we not on the very outskirts of two of the most remarkable curative spring resorts in America, if not in the world? Who had not heard of French Lick—West Baden? ”

“ Indiana resembles Illinois in its physical features. Lying within the prairie region, it has a gently undulating surface which slopes by imperceptible stages toward the southwest, The northeastern part has an elevation of 1000 to 1200 feet, the northwestern 500 to 700 feet; along the Ohio River the elevations are about 500 feet in the southeast and 300 feet in the southwest. There are sandy hills near Lake Michigan, and a series of low elevations of glacial origin occurs in the southern part, extending from the Ohio, in Clark County, northwestward to Parke County on the Wabash. ”

“ The rise of Indiana as an enlightened commonwealth has been accompanied by phenomena of unusual interest and variety, and whatever contributions the State may make to the total of national achievement in any department of endeavor are to be appraised in the light of her history and development. ”

“ INDIANA TERRITORY.—After Wayne's treaty with the Indians, five years brought so many people into the Northwest Territory that in 1800 the western part was cut off and made the separate territory of Indiana. [7] Not 6,000 white people then lived in all its vast area.
The census of 1800 showed that more than 5,000,000 people then dwelt in our country; of these, nearly 400,000 were in the five Western states and territories—Kentucky, Tennessee, Northwest, Indiana, Mississippi. ”

“ The Indiana husbandmen, even in the pioneer period, differed little or not at all from the settlers in other territorial divisions of the West and Southwest; and the early Indiana townfolk were the peers of any of their fellows of the urban class in the Ohio Valley.
The Indianians came primarily of American stock, and they have been influenced much less than the majority of their neighbors in other states by the currents of alien migration that have flowed around and beyond them. ”

“ In the Northwest, where interstate migration has been so continuous and widespread, the lack of typical State peculiarities is obvious, and the student of society, like the traveler, is tempted, in his effort to distinguish the community from its neighbors, to exaggerate the odd and exceptional elements which give a particular flavor to the State. Indiana has suffered somewhat from this tendency ”

“ From Chicago, or Colorado, or San Francisco one may expect a giant labor war or social upheaval of any kind; from Boston or Pennsylvania or New Mexico new religious movements may come—and have; New York, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Nebraska and Illinois can and have contributed vast political upheavals. This is even true of Ohio, its next door neighbor.
But Indiana lies in between all this—simple, unpretentious, not indifferent but quiescent,—a happy land of farms and simple industries which can scarcely be said to have worked any harm to any man. ”

“ The charitable and correctional institutions of Indiana are well administered in accordance with the most improved modern methods, and form one of the most complete and adequate systems possessed by any state in the Union. ”

“ Any gradual accretion of land, then, on the Indiana side of the Ohio, would belong to Indiana, and it is not very easy to distinguish between land thus formed, and land formed by the receding of the water. ”

“ It is clear, we think, from the whole testimony, that, at an early day after Kentucky became a state, the channel between the island and the main-land of Indiana was often filled with water the whole year, and sometimes to the width of 200 yards, and that water passed through it, of more or less depth, the greater part of the year, until down to a period subsequent to the admission of Indiana into the Union. ”

“ I believe you can do nothing that will more greatly enhance the estimation in which the State of Indiana is held by her sister States than to see to it that a suitable, well-regulated, and strict civil service is provided for the administration of the benevolent and penal institutions of the State of Indiana. ”

“ Indianapolis (169) , capital of Indiana, on the White Ford River, in the centre of the State; a fine city, with wide, tree-lined streets, large iron, brass, and textile manufactures, and canned-meat industry; is a great railroad centre.
Indians, American, the aborigines of America, and now gradually dying out; these aborigines were called Indians by Columbus, because when he discovered America he thought it was India. See American Indians. ”

“ In 1810 the people had increased in numbers to 24,500, and in the newly-erected Territory of Illinois there was an aggregate of 12,300 persons." In 1816 "it was ascertained that the Indiana Territory possessed a population which entitled it to an independent state government. Congress authorized the election of a convention to form a state Constitution," and "the new 'State of Indiana' was formally admitted into the Union on the 19th of April, 1816." Two years later, on the 3d of December, 1818, the Territory of Illinois was similarly transformed and became one of the states of the Union. ”

“ From 1820, the date of the founding of Indianap [Pg 170] olis, to 1860, Indiana had twice quadrupled her population and from almost purely American stock. During these forty years, it is calculated that a million people came to the Northwest from the slave States of the South. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Indiana had a population of 1,350,000 of which only about one in eleven was foreign-born. More than half of the aliens were from Germany, and Indiana seems to have attracted particularly the Nordic element, since Prussia contributed the largest quota. ”

“ Numbers of Germans, French, and Irish, are scattered in the towns, and over the country, carrying on the business of bakers, grocers, store, grog shops, and tavern keepers. In time, these people will become steady from necessity, and consequently prosperous. The number of the inhabitants of Indiana amounts to 215,000. Its admission into the Union as a sovereign state, dates from the year 1815 to 1816; its constitution differs in some points from that of Ohio, and its governor is elected for the term of three years. ”

“ Indiana, being mainly agricultural, is divided into sixteen districts, each of which has organized an agricultural society. Besides these there are also county societies. These organizations are composed of men and women, the latter having nominally the same powers and privileges as the former. Annually the State Agricultural Association holds a meeting at Indianapolis. ”

“ Population.—The population of Indiana, according to the Federal Census of 1910, was 2,700,876, and the rank of the state in the Union as regards population was ninth. In 1810, the year following the erection of the western part of Indiana into Illinois Territory, the population was 24,520, in 1820 it had increased to 147,178, in 1850 to 988,416, in 1870 to 1,680,637, in 1890 to 2,192,404, and in 1900 to 2,516,462. ”

“ I was born in Breckenridge County, Kentucky, February 7, 1804. We came to Indiana in 1814, when Allen was one year old. No man has lived longer in the State than I have, for I have lived in it ever since it became a State, and before. The Lincoln family came to Indiana two years later, and we lived one-half mile apart. ”

“ The injunction mind out, which is used in Kentucky in such admonitions as “mind out what you are doing,” becomes watch out in Indiana. Wrench for rinse, used in the States contiguous to the Ohio, is rense in New England. Critter for horse is still heard in parts of rural Indiana, which derived population through Kentucky, where the same usage is noted. Fruit, as applied to stewed apples (apple sauce) only, is a curious limitation of the noun, heard among old-fashioned people of Southern origin in Indiana. ”

“ Arrived at Lewis' at 6 o'clock, a distance of twenty-five miles. Passed a little village called Peola. The fact that this part of Indiana is a late purchase by the United States, accounts for its towns being so inconsiderable and being made up of log houses. The lands here are very fertile, the country mountainous and broken. Traveled twenty-five miles through woods and passed but four houses. ”

“ Indiana (2,192) , one of the smaller but most populous States of the American Union, lies between Lake Michigan and the Ohio River, with Ohio on the E. and Illinois on the W.; the climate is marked by extremes of heat and cold; the country is somewhat hilly in the S., is mostly level, well watered, and very fertile; agriculture is the chief industry, cereals, potatoes, and tobacco forming the chief crops; there is great mineral wealth, with extensive and varied industries, embracing iron, glass, and textile manufactures, waggon-building, and furniture-making ”