By Mike McCormick
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE
May 10, 2008 04:11 pm
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Until after the Civil War, the Wabash, Ohio and Mississippi river valleys were still part of “the western wilderness” to those residing on the eastern seaboard.
New England newspapers, particularly those in Boston and New York City, sometimes entertained readers with dispatches from the western states, including Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
A correspondent for the New York Daily Times, predecessor to the current New York Times, visited southern Indiana during the summer of 1853, 155 years ago. Highlights of his report, dated June 27, 1853 and published several days later, are provided below.
“The location of Evansville struck me as being exceedingly fine. The bend of the river makes a sort of elbow so that standing on the wharf you can look for miles up and down by merely turning the eye… Were the waters of the Ohio only pure, and its shores more picturesque, Evansville might be one of the finest inland cities in the world.
“What is known abroad as Evansville is really two distinct cities, about equal in position and size — Evansville and Lamasco. There they are, side by side, with no division except that described in their charters, and each vigorous and struggling, though in a friendly spirit, for precedence in size and importance. The competitors are too well matched for either to have thus far gained any signal advantage; and the final result will be, of course, consolidation.
“Evansville is much better situated … than was Cincinnati relative to Ohio and Indiana. But Ohio is a greater State than Indiana can be; and the railroads of the present day go to diminish the advantages of a river location. Besides, the Wabash is navigable half the year so as to give a direct water communication between the Ohio and Logansport, Lafayette and Terre Haute, and the Wabash Valley in general, without touching Evansville, which lies above the entrance of the Wabash into the Ohio.
“This partially neutralizes the benefits the latter city will derive from being the terminus of the Wabash and Erie Canal, which is just completed and ready for the admission of water; connecting the waters of Lake Erie with those of the Ohio…
“A railroad is now completed from Evansville nearly fifty miles north. It is part of a projected line to Terre Haute and on to Lake Michigan. It is nearly complete to Vincennes, save the bridge over the White River, which was built of timber with piles driven to a great depth but which a flood, one day, swept completely away before it had ever been used.
“On this railroad, I left Evansville at 3:30 p.m. of Friday and reached the White River at about 6 p.m. Here we had to take a stage to Vincennes. A rude building of boards serves there as a depot for passengers and freight and for the stage office.
“It took about half an hour for us to get underway in the coach and we had not gone over forty rods before we drew up to a withered, shaky-looking old house for supper… .[O]f the six passengers, four left the coach and entered the house. One corner of the room was occupied by an old fashioned bar … whence the landlord was only too well pleased to dispense corn whiskey and Evansville ale. An opposite corner was occupied by an emaciated looking bed while the supper table stood prominently to view, exposing he dirtiest table cloth and dingiest ware that it had been my fortune, for a long time, to behold.
“Presently we sat down to a supper of fried eggs, ‘scrambled’ into sort of a has, the never-failing fried ham, suspicious-looking biscuits reeking from the oven, and what professed to be tea and coffee, without a drop of milk … Having satisfied habit by pretending to eat this primitive meal, we again ensconced ourselves in our coach …
‘We were not long in reaching our ferry … So we crossed, with the least possible labor to the ferrymen and with no loss of time.
“Our ride to Vincennes occupied four hours. We had originally been told that the distance was twelve miles; on arriving at the station, the agent assured us it was fourteen; the driver soon enlightened us further by declaring that it was sixteen, and added that he must, this trip, take a road that would make it seventeen. I rather think that he managed to make it twenty!
“We had at Vincennes a tolerable bed and an intolerable breakfast. This is an old French town, which had it its day a good deal of enterprise, the relics of which are still visible … [T]here are two railroads going through it — that from Evansville to Terre Haute, and the line from Cincinnati to St. Louis.
“Vincennes is very pleasantly located on the Wabash river, which is here the boundary line between Indiana and Illinois. It is celebrated as being an old battle- ground in the Indian wars, and boasts many interesting memorials of that trouble period, among which is the house built by GEN. HARRISON …
“From Vincennes to Terre Haute, by stage coach, took us from 8 o’clock, A.M. (Saturday) till nearly 3 the following morning. The distance was sixty-five miles, the road indifferent and the load almost twice what it should have been.
“In the company were two Indians from the banks of the St. Lawrence in New-York, who were traveling and selling the fancy work of their people. They were Catholics and spoke French; and one of them was a man of considerable natural powers. He grew eloquent and indignant over the wrongs his race had sustained at the hands of the whites, and expressed himself with great plainness on the subject.
“This hill at Terre Haute gave me a view of the finest part of the State, the Valley of the Wabash The fertility of the spoil exceeds anything I have seen in Indiana. The corn is already as high as a tall man’s head. At some points the road ran along ridges from which we could see miles of bottom prairie stretching away to the west, and covered with corn fields, whose magnificence seemed enough to charm one even to desert the bright rivers and sweet valleys of the Empire State.
“Terre Haute is called the “Prairie City” and is a beautiful and enterprising town though too level for my taste. It is destined to a large importance among the cities of the State, and is rapidly gaining it.”
The author of the travel report identified himself only with the letter, “w.”
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