History Center Notes & Queries

Imogene's Last Stand

2012-01-28T06:21:00.000-08:00

Imogene Tripp is no ordinary little girl.

Imogene Tripp loves history and isn’t afraid to tell the world.

Imogene Tripp sets out to save her town’s historical society and save it she does in the wonderful children’s book “Imogene’s Last Stand”.

Lettie Haver of the Paul Clarke Non-Profit Resource Center, located in the main branch of the Allen County Public Library, showed me this book on Friday while we were visiting about the History Center, this blog and ways to tell our story to those who have yet to discover all of the wonderful facets of our museum’s work.

Lettie’s slightly younger than me--actually, I’m old enough to be her mother—and we had a good discussion about how we tend to view history. For me, the Vietnam War was a part of growing up and had a major impact on how I view government, politics and civic involvement. For her, it’s history.

Why do we teach history in our schools? My home state of Nebraska is looking at a re-evaluation of social studies curriculums. See http://www.omaha.com/article/20120108/NEWS01/701089897

Here’s a good question to get a conversation rolling: What’s the purpose of teaching social studies in our schools?

As a mother of young children and a library employee, Lettie knows the value of parents using the library to teach children about their world. Imogene’s story was a recent hit at her house and so we walked down to the children’s section to pull the volume from the shelves. (And if you’re an adult with adult children…or no children…and have not been into the children’s department at ACPL, do yourself a favor and make a side trip. The place is amazing.)

Winter is a good time to curl up with a book. Why not make it a book about history?

One of the facets of motherhood I enjoyed the most was learning new things with my son. It’s good for kids to have parents who spark an interest in learning and intellectual growth and a public library is a good place to start. Check out (figuratively and literally) the ACPL’s children’s section to see what books you discover on history and do a little reading.

The History Center’s got a great selection of books for all ages about history in our gift shop too.

Imogene Tripp will introduce you to Abraham Lincoln, The Oregon Trail, Davy Crockett, William Morris (who was new to me, so see…you’re never too old to learn something new), John Paul Jones, Paul Revere, Teddy Roosevelt, Chief Joseph, Vietnam War Protestors, Martin Van Buren (I learned something about him I didn’t know before), Eleanor Roosevelt and Dr. Martin Luther King.

Although I don’t agree with King 100% on this…here’s a quote by King that appears in Imogene’s book that you can ponder:

“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”

Imogene’s Last Stand was written by Candace Fleming and illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. Copyright 2009. Schwartz and Wade Books, a division of Random House Children’s Books. www.randomhouse.com/kids

Fort Wayne Cycling

2012-01-23T11:27:00.000-08:00

By Carmen Doyle

Carmen Doyle works in the gift shop at the History Center so she has a good knowledge of what's available for purchase here. A 2004 Ball State grad with a bachelor's degree in Public History, she's not only worked here but at the Lincoln Museum. PLUS...she also enjoys cycling! And she assures us she doesn't have a bell on her bicycle so "it isn't constantly ringing". (If you want to know what that means, you'll have to read Carmen's post.)

Fort Wayne has a rich history of biking dating to a time long before the River Greenway became popular or was even an idea. Biking was not only considered good fitness, it was also entertainment. The corner of Hanna and Lewis streets was the site of a Cycling Carnival in June 1887. A Cycling Carnival seems to have been a sort of Halloween parade on bicycles. The descriptions in the pamphlet “Ordinaries, Safeties and Fun” (on sale in our gift shop)get your imagination running. (See the photo of some of the pamphlets on display and stop in to browse.)

There were 70 riders in various costumes, carrying “transparencies” lit with lanterns. Two riders dressed as a racing yacht, one dressed as George Washington, another as a “water mill”, another as Oscar Wilde, another as a jester. The entire parade took place at night. There was elaborate preparation for the event with the anticipated “use of fireworks and lighted flares”. People were asked to keep horses away from the pageant route so as not to frighten the animals. Residents were asked not to water that evening so roads would be dry.

Despite detailed planning, the event was not successful. An immediate delay occurred when the horse leading the ammunition for flares became sick. A replacement had to be found. Most likely the biggest reason the procession was unsuccessful was due to “mischievous boys and hoodlums” who deliberately threw sticks and rocks at the all male riders, causing the riders to fall and lanterns to go out. The parade was never completed, a disappointment to the watchers further along the route. The majority of the men would likely have been riding ordinary bicycles.

By the next year bicycle processions were generally done. There was more emphasis on “practical every day cycling”. The “ordinary” bicycles- the ones with the large front wheel- were being replaced by “safeties”- the bikes we see today with two wheels of equal size. The safety bicycles helped to lead to another change in cycling- the rise of women cyclists.

In 1888, the Fort Wayne Bicycle Club decided to extend honorary membership to women. By that time, there were “some half-dozen lady riders” in Fort Wayne. Female riders led to changes in social mores. There was proper etiquette to be followed when riding- no racing, no continual ringing of the bell. (Only the “vulgar herd...who delighted in noise” did those sort of things.) The “well informed wheelwoman” used the bell rarely.

There was considerable controversy over the “correct” position of a woman when sharing a tandem with a man. If she was in front, she had a better view, but she would also be in charge of steering. In back, a woman would be better protected from danger, the steering would be in the “capable hands” of the gentleman and she would appear to be driving him “which should gratify her vanity.”

There were also changes in cycling costumes. In 1884 Fort Wayne Bicycle Club had worn uniforms of navy blue trimmed with red cord and nickel buttons. When women became avid cyclers, the “ideal costume” was bloomers. The large number of women riding bicycles in bloomers was sometimes frightening.

A July, 1895 article in the Journal Gazette told of an incident where two ladies in bloomers and on bikes accidentally frightened a horse. The horse “leaped into the air, broke the hitching strap and galloped madly down the street.”

Maybe the young ladies were actually part of the “vulgar herd” that constantly rang their bicycle bells and it wasn’t just the bloomers that frightened the poor horse! Bicycling had certainly changed since the disastrous cycling parade less than ten years before.

Scottish Rite History in Fort Wayne

2012-01-18T06:27:00.000-08:00

The Scottish Rite is moving out of its building at the corner of Ewing and Berry as St. Francis University has purchased the structure and prepares to expand course offerings and create a new program in Media Entrepreneurship in the Arts.

This remarkable downtown building holds a great many memories for Shrine and Scottish Rite members and is a part of the history of our city.

The Scottish Rite is one order of the Masons, an organization created in 1717 in England that claims George Washington and Benjamin Franklin as members from colonial days in America.

The original Scottish Rite Cathedral in Fort Wayne was on the corner of Washington and Clinton Streets. This building, which sat next door to the Masonic Temple, no longer exists. The Scottish Rite bought the Mizpah Shrine building on West Berry in 1953.

Guy Mahurin, who at the time was one of the better-known architects in Fort Wayne and a member of the Shrine, designed the structure on Berry for the Mizpah Shrine with a façade “intended to create an atmosphere of the orient and yet give it a logical setting in the midst of a modern American city,” according to a history of the Scottish Rite provided to this writer.

Max Irmscher & Sons began construction in April of 1924 with 200 workers, mostly local, taking a year and a half to complete the project at a total cost over $1 million. The ballroom’s excavation took two steam shovels and six weeks to complete. More than 350,000 bricks were used in the building’s construction and led to the structure being considered the most “fire-proof” building in the city at the time.

The facility, which had its grand opening on November 18, 1925, was created to provide Northeast Indiana with some much needed community meeting space for speakers and theatrical productions as well as for large banquets. The original configuration of the auditorium allowed for 2,400 patrons and the lower level banquet hall seated 2,000. Because the Shrine needed the auditorium no more than five days a year, the remainder of the time was filled with other events.

The first of these was a performance of “Aida” by the Chicago Grand Opera Company. This was followed by “The Ziegfield Follies” with Fanny Brice, Mae West in her controversial play “Sex” and Ethel Barrymore in “Scarlet Sister Mary”.

In 1937, due in large part to the Depression, the Mizpah Shrine lost the building, which was purchased by Kaplan Realty for a cost of just over $50,000. Continuing as a community center, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic was one of many groups performing there.

Mayor Harry Baals, with the support of local music groups, stopped a move in 1941 to rip out the main floor seats and turn the auditorium into a bowling alley. But in the 1930s and 1940s, the ballroom was used as an indoor golf course.

The Quimby Theater chain leased the auditorium in 1945 and renamed it Quimby Auditorium. Entertainers such as Victor Borge, Duke Ellington, Tallulah Bankhead and Janet Blair performed in stage productions. The Quimby’s also showed popular movies of the era such as Laurence Olivier’s “Hamlet” and “The Mikado”.

The auditorium remained the home of the Shrine Circus until 1952 when the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum was built.

The Scottish Rite purchased the facility in 1953 and in 1958 undertook a major renovation which updated the building. Use of the structure by community groups continued as well as the hosting of performers such as Imogene Coca, Betty Grable, Marcel Marceau, Eileen Brennan, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, and Peter Nero.

The year 1963 saw the addition of the west building, which housed Scottish Rite administrative offices, the Gentleman’s Lounge, Lodge Room and small dining room.

Popular entertainers continued to perform in the auditorium with Glen Campbell, Jack Hanna, The Temptations and Keith Urban featured on stage at various points.

One of the more interesting facets of the Gentleman’s Lounge was a large flag—12 feet by 16 feet--that was the first official flag flown for a vice president of our country. Thomas Riley Marshall, vice president during Woodrow Wilson’s administration, substituted for Wilson at the opening of the Panama-Pacific Exposition on March 15, 1915. When the fleet commander discovered that Marshall was stepping in for Wilson, he had the flag made at the Navy Yard in San Francisco for the USS Colorado, the battleship designated as flagship.

The flag was first displayed in Fort Wayne at the original Scottish Rite Cathedral on Clinton and East Washington Streets. Similar to the Presidential Flag, it has a white background as opposed to the blue of the president’s flag. Mrs. Marshall, upon the death of her husband, gave to the flag to William Geake, one of the founding members of the Fort Wayne Scottish Rite.

For those of you not familiar with Marshall, he was a prominent lawyer in Indiana, and as our state’s 27^th governor, served amid some controversy over his proposal of progressive reforms to the state constitution.

Marshall’s time as vice president was also not without controversy as he and Wilson disagreed on political ideology, leading Wilson to limit Marshall’s influence and move his office away from the White House. Marshall was the first vice president to conduct cabinet meetings, doing so while Wilson was in Europe. He presided over a Senate during anti-war debates that gridlocked legislation, leading Marshall to move forward on a procedural ruling that filibusters could be ended by a two-thirds majority vote.

Wilson’s advisers and wife, none of whom liked Marshall, kept him from assuming control of the presidency when Wilson suffered a stroke in October, 1919. Although he was urged to forcibly assume the presidency, he declined to do so, fearing this would establish a precedent that was not good for the country. But because there was no strong leadership in the executive branch, the ratification of the League of Nations treaty was defeated thanks to the work of the administration’s opponents and the United States returned to an isolationist foreign policy.

Marshall coined a quote many of us remember: “What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar.” This was in response to Senator Joseph Bristow’s list of the nation’s needs during Senate debate.

Marshall opened an Indianapolis law practice after serving as vice president, traveled, wrote several legal books and his memoir, “Recollections”. He died on a trip in 1925 after suffering a heart attack.

Even though the Scottish Rite has sold their building, they will continue to be a part of the Fort Wayne community. New office space will soon be announced and if there is room to display Marshall’s flag, it will again be on display. If that is not possible, the flag will be sent to the American Heritage Museum in Massachusetts, also home of the Supreme Council of the fraternity.

The Power of Indiana's Early Colored Women's Clubs (Part I)

2012-01-04T08:20:00.000-08:00

The following article is the first in a series excerpted from a longer article by board member Marsha Smiley entitled "Extolling Indiana's Early Colored Women's Clubs: Initiating Socio-Economic Projects, Instilling Self-Reliance and Imparting Ethnic Pride".

Part 1: The Historical Context

In recent times, more African American history is being ‘recovered’, restored and becoming known. Historical research by scholars have found significant first hand accounts once disregarded or overlooked—causing analysts to reexamine the accepted nineteenth century history of the United States. For example, Eric Foner, a noted historian, who has done extensive research on America’s Reconstruction period, in 1978, discovered in South Carolina’s State Archives, “121 thickly packed boxes of correspondence received by the state’s Reconstruction governors.” These documents which “had been untapped by scholars”, according to Foner, “contained an incredibly rich record…..of black and white Carolinians attempting to rebuild their lives after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, of struggles for human dignity and ignoble violence by the Ku Klux Klan.”1

United States history bearing on race and its related politics, is being more even-handedly recounted, overturning the commonly held traditional Dunning School diktat, which portrayed blacks as ‘childlike’ and ‘incapable of properly exercising the political rights Northerners had thrust upon them.”2 As early as 1935, W.E.B. Dubois in his Black Reconstruction in America had called into question the accepted historical record, indicting historians for ignoring the accounts of “the principal actor[s] in the drama of Reconstruction—the [newly freed]…”3

Historical accounts published in recent times are telling untold stories and shedding a much deserved ‘light’ on those who struggled, sacrificed, and worked so diligently to make possible the progress of a populace long held captive within the vise of oppression. We are learning more about these lesser-knowns who stood on the precipice of justice, demanding human and civil rights for blacks, oftentimes in the face of great peril.4 One constructive result has been the more balanced and accurate coverage of America’s past as it relates to its citizens of color in our nation’s school history textbooks.

In their own right, the history of African-American women, for the most part, has been largely unnoticed by historians, often being allowed to lapse into obscurity.5 The stories of those who were instrumental in helping to build and safeguard the needs of the African-American community include united astute, knowledgeable, powerful black women. One such segment of historical note, within that milieu, is the generally unsung achievements of colored women’s clubs which formed during the post-Reconstruction era for the purposes of self-improvement, to provide a safety net for those oppressed amongst them, and to advance the status of the African-American community.

Following the Civil War, finding itself in the thrall of great social / economic change and political upheaval, America neglected to enforce the newly enacted laws passed to insure and protect the rights of its newly freed. One of the black institutions that formed at fast clips during that harrowing period was colored women’s clubs that stepped into the chasm to aid their downtrodden brethren. Their stories, their critical community leadership role, their accomplishments, historically, have been overlooked, disregarded or treated inconsequentially.

However, the evolution and history of these women’s clubs have begun to receive the scholarly research and relevancy that should be accorded them. These institutions included in their work integral socioeconomic projects, implementing elemental programs in all spheres of communal development that proved so invaluable. Across the length and breath of this state, Hoosier women’s clubs, part of this movement, have a noteworthy history that attest to the crucial contributions they made in their communities in the areas of vital services and philanthropy.

Historically oppressed in U.S. society, African Americans have claimed and sought to safeguard their human dignity and attain their own self-affirmation by establishing their own institutions. As early as the 1770’s, freedmen demonstrated efforts at self-help and sharing by establishing mutual aid societies, and other private organizations.6 A black Masonic order has existed and flourished within the black community since the Revolutionary War.7 Upon gaining freedom, those formerly held in bondage sought to establish autonomy by forming their own Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal churches, reconstructing their families, and legalizing their marriages.

For them, however, the glow of freedom with its according of U.S. citizenship, enfranchisement, its promise of economic independence and educational opportunities proved short-lived; the problems that arose for them in the aftermath of the Civil War were complex and many. One discordant issue at odds was the very meaning of America, which left the needs of the recently freed unmet and caught between competing theories in ‘mainstream’ America, especially in the North, in regard to how a free labor system should function. In general, whites believed that blacks wanted the role of government enlarged to meet their basic needs so they would not have to work; while the newly freed, lacking resources and being penniless, believed governmental assistance was critical for their survival. Those who had been enslaved felt help was due them in order to have a start and survive the transition to independence after centuries of involuntary servitude, lacking any pecuniary compensation.

The U. S. Congress, after the Civil War, passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery, the 14th Amendment conferring citizenship and the 15th Amendment securing the right to vote for recently freed bondsmen. After the War, foregoing a lasting redistribution of land to freedmen, as required by the Civil Rights Bill of 1866 and the shut-out of gainful employment in the North assured a failed transition.8 The Civil Rights Law of 1875 gave blacks the right to public accommodations, such as transportation, hotels, etc. Declaring some portions of the 1875 Civil Rights unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1883, ruled that Congress lacked the power to protect civil rights against private citizens.9 With their citizenship rights abridged, eventually the system completely segregated blacks. The doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ that evolved out of the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision of the Plessy v. Ferguson case, temporarily ended any “black chances of full participation in and unfettered access to American educational and social institutions”.10

Reconstruction ended summarily after President Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South in 1877. The end result was the economic and political plight of blacks regressing at every level. The South began an oppressive economic system, a form of quasi-slavery, which forced black workers to accept tenant farming, sharecropping, and/or unskilled low paying jobs, in order to earn a livelihood. Having been left to fend for themselves without any independent viable means of earning a living, the freedmen found themselves entrapped. The withdrawal of federal troops sealed their fate, and without protection, “whites set about reestablishing white control through violence, fraud and intimidation, with [an] end result of regaining total power—politically, socially, and economically— in the late 1870’s’’.11

Changes in labor, following the Civil War, came upon the heels of another momentous development—industrialization. As widespread industrialization transformed the nation, the accepted model of labor and capital as conflict free came into question. In The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North 1865-1901, Heather Cox Richardson declares,“…fear of a perceived black rejection of the free labor ideal, coupled with anxiety over labor unrest, made the self-styled “ better classes” abandon the mid-century vision of an egalitarian free labor society that included blacks as well as whites.”12

The unyielding, further entrenchment of racism, with its tentacles sunk deep into U.S. institutions, gained an unfettered, accepted permanence in American society. By the turn of the 20th century, blacks were relegated to second class citizenship, black codes, Jim Crow laws, and segregation. In the face of these ominous developments, blacks collectively organized associations and clubs to help meet the needs of their fellow brethren, set adrift in a social order which devalued their worth as human beings and deprived them of their civil rights. So important and vital were the black institutions that took root during Reconstruction, asserts noted historian Eric Foner in Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, that “…the institutions created or consolidated after the Civil War—the black family, school, and church—provided the base from which the modern civil rights revolution sprang.”13

Realizing the futility of their situation, where their humanity was constantly queried, their civil and voting rights withheld, their labor fleeced, their equal protection under the law as citizens not enforced, and the opportunity for advancement in Southern society nil, led to thousands of blacks, in mass, to migrating to the West, to such states as Kansas and Nebraska where hope for a better life beckoned. 10 Large numbers of these people, who became known to history as ‘exodusters’ decided to settle in the Hoosier state. Reportedly, between November 1878 and February 1879, more than 1, 100 blacks arrived in Indianapolis alone. “A second wave of mass migration swept into the state in 1890 as blacks fled the final triumph of southern white supremacy, mob violence and lynchings.”14

NOTES

1. Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution (1863-1877), Harper/Collins Publishers, New York, 1988, pp. xix-xxiv.
2. Ibid, p. xx.
3. Ibid., p. xxi.
4. Benjamin Russman, American Uprising, The Untold Story….Harper, 2011. Suzanne Lebsock, A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial, W.W. Norton & Company, 2003. Elizabeth D. Leonard, Men of Color to Arms! Black Soldiers, Indian Wars, & the Quest for Equality, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, N. Y. / London. Carrie Allen McCray, Freedom’s Child: The Life of a Confederate General‘s Black Daughter, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Workman Publishing, N.Y., N.Y., 1998. Cameron McWhirter, Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 & the Awakening of Black America, A John Macrae Book, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 2011. W.E.B. Dubois, Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880 / 1935, Atheneum Publishing, New York, 1970. Florette Henri, Black Migration Movement North, 1900-1920, Anchor Press / Doubleday, 1975, pp. 81-173. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African American Achievement, William Morrow & Co., Inc, N.Y., 1996. pp. 146-154, pp.86-90, pp.89, 153-4. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. /edited, The Bondman’s Narrative, Warner Books, Time Warner, 2002, the Introduction. John Edgar Wideman, My Soul Has Grown Deep, Running Press, Philadelphia/London , 2001. Virginia Ingraham Burr, edited, Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, The Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848-1889, the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 1990, p-10-11, 20, 48-51. Juanita Patience Moss, Created To Be Free, Willow Bend Books, Westminster, Maryland, 2001. Manning Marable, Malcom X: A Life of Reinvention, Viking Co., N.Y., N.Y. , p. 15-18.
5. Kathleen Thompson and Hilary Mae Austin, The Face of Our Past—Images of Black Women from Colonial America to the Present, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN., 1999. Wilma Gibbs, The History of Black Women, Emma Lou Thornbrough / Indiana’s African American History: Essays from Black History & Notes, Indiana Hisorical Sociey, Indianapolis, 1993, p.68.
6. Indianapolis Freeman, June 20, 1896 and June 29, 1896. Wilma L. Gibbs, Indiana’s African-American Heritage: Essays….,William H. Grimshaw, Official History of Freemasonry among the Colored People in North America, 1903, reprint Negro Universities, 1969. Southern Sociological Congress, 1918, p. 342-343.
7. Emma Lou Thornbrough, The History of Black Women in Indiana, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, 1993., p. 74. Earline Rae Ferguson, Blacks in Antebellum Indianapolis, 1820-1860. pp. 130-135.
8. Heather Cox Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865--1901, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.2011.
9. Darlene Clark Hine, When the Truth is Told: A History of Black Women’s Culture & Community in Indiana, 1875-1950, Indianapolis 1981, p.11.William S. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, W.W. Norton & Com-pany, New York, 1991, p. 285, 314-318, 380.
10. Annette Gordan Reed, Andrew Johnson: The American Presidents, Times Books, Henry Holt & Company, New York, 2011. David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. DUBOIS, The Fight for Equality and The American Century (1919-1963), Henry Holt & Co., New York, 2000. Kenneth Stamp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1956, p. 144-191.
11. Nell Irvin Painter, The Exodusters: Black Migrations to Kansas After Reconstruction, New York, 1977, p. 251-253. Heather Cox Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics…., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001. Eric Foner, Reconstruction…, p. 150, 187-189, 198, 207. William S. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1991, p. 317, p. 379-380.
12. Heather Cox Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction…, Harvard University Press 2011, p.31-32, 122-125. Jeffrey Stewart, 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About African American History, Doubleday, New York, 1996, p.113.
13. Eric Foner, Reconstruction…, Harper/Collins Publishers, p. 612.
14. Emma Lou Thornbrough, The Negro in Indiana Before 1900, Indianapolis, 1957, p. 224. Darlene Clark Hine, When the Truth is Told: A History of Black Women’s Culture & Community in Indiana, 1875-1950, Indianapolis 1981, p. 12. 10. Ira Berlin, The Making of African Americans: The Four Great Migrations, Viking, Penquin Books, 2010, p. 132-135.Darlene Clark Hine, When the Truth is Told: A History….p. 13.

A City of Immigrants: a brief overview of immigrants in Fort Wayne through 1920

2011-12-19T06:22:00.000-08:00

On December 10, 2011, the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a special program entitled “Examining Immigration through Faith and Politics” was presented in what is hoped will be a series dedicated to how faith and politics intersect in today’s prominent issues. The hosts were the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fort Wayne and Temple Acduth Vesholom with support from the League of Women Voters, Catherine Kasper Place and The Reclamation Project. This particular piece was included in the packet of information given to participants. While by no means a definite work on immigration in Fort Wayne IN, this piece does provide a preliminary look at some of the issues that have faced immigrants to our city, the diversity of nations from which immigrants came, and various opinions about immigrants as voiced by leaders in the community. If you’re interested in local history, the History Center has many back issues of the Old Fort News on sale at this time plus copies of the two-volume Allen County-Fort Wayne History published in 2005.

Part III

Let’s skip ahead to the time of World War I, returning again to a Clifford Scott article in the History Center’s Old Fort News (Volume 40, Number 2, 1977) entitled “Fort Wayne German-Americans in World War I: A Cultural Flu Epidemic”.

From the years 1914-1919, there were an estimated 40,000 Allen County-Fort Wayne residents of German descent. The majority of German immigrants arrived in the 1840’s and 1850’s and then again after the Civil War when the numbers surged in the 1870’s and 1880’s, dropping off to almost zero after the 1890’s. The 1880 census and the 1917 “enemy Alien” registration files as well as B.J. Griswold’s family biographies show, according to Scott, that most German immigrants were from Baden-Wurtemberg and Hanover although all regions of Germany were represented among the immigrant populace. Other but lesser numbers came from Hesse, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Westphalia, Alsace, Switzerland, Silesia, Schleswig-Holstein and the Rhineland. This census shows that many of these immigrants were first generation artisans.

“Ethnic identity, expressed by language and the religious and cultural values it manifested, was of the very fabric of Fort Wayne-Allen County life. And it was that ethnic identity which led to the cultural and civic trauma experienced by local German-Americans in World War I.

“An initial shock for a number of local first generation German-Americans was to discover that despite the length or loyalty of their residence in Allen County, they were considered by the government to be enemy aliens. Within two weeks of the United States entry into the war, local papers announced that the Justice Department required hundreds of German alien males to register at the local federal court if they wished their freedom of movement.”

At that time, becoming a citizen was a two-step process. First was a Declaration of Intent, required of foreign-born males by registration at the county clerk’s office, disavowing allegiance to any previous government and providing some personal information. This was followed by a minimum two-year probationary period when second papers—the Declaration of Naturalization—were filed. The applicant then appeared on one of two days in the year when the circuit court judge held hearings and swearing in of aliens.

“Yet the May, 1917, dusting off of the ancient 1789 Alien Law by the Department of Justice required local aliens—even those who had taken out first papers—who worked in or near, or who need to pass by, the Penn Central tracks, Bowser’s, General Electric, or the Post Office, to register as enemy aliens or face arrest….

“In a separate but related move, all German aliens were required to surrender any weapons of war, aircraft, wireless secret codes, or foreign flags to the local police.”

This proved to be problematic when it was found that the Allen County Sheriff, who immigrated to the US from Scotland in 1882, was reported to have never filed Second Papers. There was much scurrying around that summer of 1917 to have him naturalized.

A local retired blacksmith had failed to register and bragged that he’d like to see anyone arrest him. He got his wish—and spent eighteen months at Fort Oglethorpe, GA. Local antagonism against the 83-year old man put so much pressure on the Justice Department that they bowed to public opinion, even though, the man declared, he had come to the United States in 1859 and had voted for every Republican candidate since Lincoln.

“World War I created an environment for another major, and largely successful, attack on the acceptability of German language usage. Use of German was held to be a hindrance to patriotic sentiment and that it indeed induced anti-American attitudes. The attack centered mainly on those two socially sensitive institutions, church and school.

You can read about the Council of Defense on the History Center’s blog—there’s a recent post about the work of organizing and cataloging these materials as well as some of the observations gleaned by the volunteers doing the work. But if you want a quick “flavor” of how things were going on the Council, listen to these words of a second generation German-American, as quoted in Scott’s article:

“It should be your purpose to use as little German language in your church as possible consistent with the spiritual welfare of such of your members as do not understand sermon English. This is America and not Germany, and the German language does not lend itself well to American teaching.”

And another example of how the Council worked:

“Going through local registration files makes one seriously question, however, whether a seventy year-old nun, in the United States since the 1880’s, working at St. Joseph Hospital, and weighing in at less than ninety pounds, posed any threat to the security of the republic, or if instead the major effect of the registration dicta was to arouse public opinion and to frighten immigrant ethnics into cultural conformity.”

The Allen County Public Library removed books and pamphlets published in German from its shelves and complied with the rule that no more books written in German be purchased by the library.

As noted above, preaching in German was very much frowned upon.

“The venerable rector of St. Mary’s, a veteran of Fort Wayne’s religious and cultural skirmishes since 1888, kept the German Catholics one jump ahead of the Council of Defense, not without receiving numerous accusations regarding his loyalty,” wrote Scott.

“The crusty old Dutchman, a linguist with seven or eight languages under his belt, even lectured the Council, although quite diplomatically, for becoming anti-intellectual in their purge of languages, cautioning the group that in the years to come America as a world power would need citizens versed in the languages of the world.”

While all of this was going on, antipathy toward Mexico was, as Scott noted, very strong due to earlier Mexican military intervention by Wilson.

In an article by Herb Hernandez in the History Center’s Old Fort News (Volume 69, Number 2, 2006) entitled, “Early Latinos in Allen County: A Brief Historias of the Pioneers until 1950”, it is noted that by virtue of anecdotal evidence, northwest Indiana seems to be the point from which some Latinos migrated to Fort Wayne in the early twentieth century. Gary, Indiana was the sight of heavy steel production and companies there recruited Mexican workers since they “did not complain about the hard work or the low wages”. But feelings about the Mexican laborers were not positive. Father Jim DeVille was quoted as saying, “You can Americanize the man from southeastern and southern Europe, but you can’t Americanize a Mexican”.

The Ku Klux Klan was powerful and active during this time period in Indiana (another topic for another day) and targeted African Americans, Jews, Catholics and anyone deemed a “foreigner”. Mexicans were targeted because of their brown skin, because they spoke little English and because they took “white men’s” jobs.

We have purposely not delved deeply into immigration issues of African-Americans and Latinos in this paper, believing that these two groups deserve more in-depth study as to the history and issues facing these populations.

If you’ve found statements from the past that sound much like today’s rhetoric in what is written here, that is a good thing. History repeats itself and not always in a positive way. There is one more bit of history to know before we end.

“Politically, the effect of World War I,” wrote Scott, “was to drive a wedge into the party affiliation of a major element of German-Americans in Fort Wayne and Allen County. It is not too much to say that the War created a political shift that would alter substantially the political balance in Fort Wayne.

“All through the late-nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Fort Wayne was known as a Democratic town based heavily on the votes of German Catholics and Lutherans who sought to protect not only family traditions and city jobs, but also corner saloons, parochial schools, and the integrity of the German community from the personal-morality drive of Republicans who were often found among native-stock Americans organized through English-descended denominations such as the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists and Methodists.”

In 1914, about 60 to 65% of local German-Americans voted Democratic, about 30% Republican and 10% Independent or Socialist. Over 90% of German Catholics were Democrats and around 60% of Lutherans were Democrats. Approximately 85 to 90% of German-Americans who attended non-Lutheran Protestant Churches were Republicans.

Non-church Germans were usually Democrats.

But Wilson’s foreign policy resulted in a voting shift beginning in 1916 and Republican leaders capitalized on German ethnic unrest. Wilson and Congressional Democrats became increasingly hostile to Germany and pursued an interventionist policy in Mexico, which “harbored ill for the European conflict”.

In 1920, Warren G. Harding, a Republican, received a plurality in every Fort Wayne precinct.

A City of Immigrants: a brief overview of immigrants in Fort Wayne through 1920

2011-12-16T06:16:00.000-08:00

Part II

As you are well aware, immigrants from Germany played a major role in developing Fort Wayne into the city that it is today. There is not time enough in this presentation to go into great detail but you are encouraged to pick up a copy of Mather’s book to read on your own.

German Catholics in Fort Wayne began in the 1840’s to feel a need for a church separate from French, Irish and American parishioners. Three German Protestant congregations had already evolved and a German Jewish congregation was organizing. After the German Catholics moved into their own space, St. Augustine’s was increasingly composed of French and Irish immigrants.

According to Mather, “In 1850, Germans constituted 62 percent of the foreign-born in Allen County, of whom about a third were Catholic. French ‘emigres’ represented 14 percent of the aliens, a majority of whom were Catholic; the Irish were 11 percent of the total, most all of whom were Catholic.”

One of Fort Wayne’s more famous immigrants—Bishop John Henry Luers-- has a school named for him. Luers was born in Westphalia, Germany in 1819 and moved to the United States at age 13 with his family, which settled in Ohio.

Henry Rudisill was an American born Lutheran who came to Fort Wayne to oversee the landholdings of his employer John Barr. He soon learned that local labor was “both scarce and expensive; Rudisill immediately suggested that Barr ‘hire some Germans from Germany and send them out to me. German emigrants are frequently arriving in Baltimore and would be glad of such an opportunity. You can hire them much lower than the Americans and I think they are more to be depended on. … If you can get whole families it would be better….Their women are good in corn fields…They are more industrious and temperate than our Americans.”

In later years, Rudisill was part of a movement to bring the Lutheran Church more into line with American culture. His pastor, upon returning from Germany and wishing to take the congregation back to 16^th century German Lutheranism, forced Rudisill’s hand as did the declaration by two German pastors in the community that membership in a fraternal organization was not to be undertaken by Lutherans. Rudisill was a member of the Wayne Lodge No. 25 of the Free and Accepted Masons and had been since 1830.

The split was amicable but growth of the new English-speaking congregation was not immediate.

Presbyterian minister Charles Beecher, in 1846, was quoted as saying, “The life among the German Evangelicals is a life of miserable toil and disgust to any generous mind. Mostly stingy and stupid, they are excessively bigoted and narrow in their ideas.”

However, with the establishment of a strong German Reformed Church—Fort Wayne’s St. John’s Lutheran was the first in Indiana--Fort Wayne became increasingly attractive to new arrivals from England and France. The French were nurtured by the church, according to Mather, because they were the only congregation in the area where French could be spoken during the services.

Itinerant Jewish peddlers came to this area seeking the freedom to conduct business that was denied to them in Germany or at best made extremely difficult. These Jews did not establish synagogues—this job was left to settled merchants. One of the more well-remembered of these men was Frederick Nirdlinger, born in Hechingen, Germany. He was equally recognized by both German and English speaking residents and was active in the Democratic Party, elected as a township trustee in the mid-1850s, and shared his carriage with Stephen Douglas when he ran against Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.

In the “Reflections” chapter of his book, Mather writes, “In hindsight, the modern reader may feel that there were areas in which the clergy and their congregations were timid. When the Miami Indians were about to be removed from the region, it appears that only a few voices from the local congregations were raised to protest their deportation. Similarly, there is scant record of constructive measures initiated by the religious leaders to bridge the social and political chasm that separated white and black residents. And, despite the fact that Anglo-Protestant church women were the leaders of the emerging women’s rights movement, there is no record of Fort Wayne clergy actively promoting the cause.”

A City of Immigrants: a brief overview of immigrants in Fort Wayne through 1920

2011-12-14T06:08:00.000-08:00

by Nancy McCammon-Hansen

Part I

Fort Wayne is a city of immigrants. This fact is ingrained in our history and such a part of who we are that the recent influx of Burmese and other immigrants to our city seems like something new. But it’s not. Let’s see why.

According to an article by Clifford Scott in the History Center’s “Old Fort News” (Vol. 74, No. 1, 2011), “The Fort Wayne population in the late nineteenth century established a long-lived reputation for being composed of one-third German Lutherans, one-third Roman Catholics (mostly German), and one-third Anglo Protestants of varied persuasions….But that tripartite population stereotype was never strictly true as Fort Wayne contained a remnant of its Native Indians, earlier French, and French-Indian peoples. German Jews dated from the 1840s and beyond, as did a growing—yet still small—number of African Americans. Irish Catholics had been a distinct part of the community since the canal-building days of the 1830s and 1840s. And by the 1890s and the period leading up to the state centennial in 1916, Fort Wayne had become more complex in population, as had most northern American cities, with an influx of Italians, Poles, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Syrians, Rumanians, Russian Jews, and other Eastern European and Mediterranean peoples without clear national labels who all sought a new life in the industrial heartland of North America.”

George R. Mather, in his book “Frontier Faith: the Story of the Pioneer Congregations of Fort Wayne, Indiana 1820-1860” takes us on a walk through the various religious denominations that led to Fort Wayne being christened (if you’ll pardon the pun) “The City of Churches”.

One of the earliest references in this book to “immigrants” mentions December 20, 1789, the earliest date that has been discovered as the first worship service conducted by a Christian clergy person. Worshippers were called by a cow bell: “The French settlers of this place go to prayers of a Sunday morning and evening…”. This account was written by Henry Hay, an English trader and partisan, who journaled about his time in this area and who also played musical accompaniment for dances with his friend, the Scots trader John Kinzie.

Roman Catholicism began to grow in America when word of the critical shortage of clergy was made known in France, where priests were being persecuted by the government of the Revolution. One such priest was Stephen Theodore Badin, who fled Orleans and arrived in Baltimore in 1792. He was the first priest ordained in the US and, although not serving Fort Wayne directly, did spend some time in the city upon occasion serving the sacramental needs of the French Catholic community.

Roman clergy from Europe were not all that impressed with what was then the American West and attracting and retaining clergy was a challenge at best. Travel was on foot, by horse or the infamous canal boats. The canal system had been constructed in large part by Protestant Irish laborers who were divided intro secret societies that fought among themselves.

One early Irishman was The Rev. John Ross, born in Dublin. At the age of 19, he was seized by a press gang in Liverpool, England and put on board a British man of war. In Barbados, he escaped, stowed away on an American vessel and landed in New London, Connecticut. He was a marginal Roman Catholic who became active in the religious life of the community where he lived and eventually became a Presbyterian minister, arriving in Fort Wayne at the age of 40.

Allen Hamilton, one of our city’s early leaders, was also born in Ireland. In 1824 he was appointed sheriff of Allen County, resigning two years later to go into business with Samuel Hanna and James Barnet. All three were Scots-Irish and Presbyterian.

The Rev. James Chute, another early Presbyterian pastor, organized a Bible Society in 1833 and reported that, “the town has been fully supplied with Bibles”. His congregation had doubled due to the development of the canal but he also noted, “Within a year our population has considerably increased, but they add very little toward the support of the gospel. Speculators and those who regard the things of the world…compose the great mass of emigrants to this country…There are, however, a few exceptions.”

French settlers arrived in great numbers in the 1840s, settling north of town in Perry and Washington Township. These folk were mostly from eastern France, Franche Comte, Alsace and Lorraine and did not identify with families who were French-Canadian. In the early 1850’s, an area of south Fort Wayne was known as “French Town”.

Council of Defense documents provide insight into Allen County during WW I

2011-11-30T07:57:00.000-08:00

By Nancy McCammon-Hansen

Civic involvement took a unique turn in Allen County during World War I and recent work by two volunteers provides us with organized documentation to showcase this part of our city’s history.

Jeanne S. Miller and Lorraine H. Weier spent the better part of two years going through our collection of documents from the Allen County Council of Defense (COD), indexing the materials and creating 38 categories so that researchers can more easily find the information they need. The ten boxes of files and the resultant inventory list are now under review by our curator, Walter Font.

Both of these women enjoy Allen County history—Jeanne is a life-long Allen County resident and Laurie has lived here 53 years. This is not the first time they’ve worked on a project together—in fact, it’s the third! Going through massive amounts of paper can be “tedious, dull work” (their words, not this author’s) but they will readily share that the work can some days be fascinating, especially when the opportunity to compare “history” to today presents itself.

The Allen County COD was formed at the behest of the state, which had a state-level organization organized by the United States Council of Defense. The COD was formed by decree of President Woodrow Wilson shortly before the United States entered the WW I. Ultimately, there were national, state, county and township councils.

The Allen County Council “did about everything” according to Jeanne and Laurie, with members who “served voluntarily way past the end of the war. They were prominent citizens who had the time, talent and expertise to do the tasks that supported the war effort.”

Propaganda—on both sides of the war effort—was used by the COD to restrict Germans in their support of the homeland and to promote to “everyone to get on board and support the war effort.”

Fund raising was, as today, a part of the job with a surprising amount of money raised in Liberty bonds and for the Red Cross. Prominent male residents would go to movie theaters to promote the buying of bonds.

Also important to the war effort was the promotion of fair pricing of food stuffs and other vital materials. Farmers were encouraged to produce more crops due to famine in Europe and the Boys Working Reserve was formed to “employ” young men not old enough for the armed services but strong enough to be of service to farmers. A farming background helped, but even city dwellers were encouraged to apply and work for “a pittance”. Jeanne and Laurie found folders full of applications, cards and signatures as well as advice to farmers.

However, no African Americans were allowed to participate in the area’s farming. Integration was not yet a part of our culture. Jeanne and Laurie commented during the interview for this article that among the papers they were sorting was a slip of paper that discussed “black” soldiers not being able to attend local movie theaters and a proposal to change this policy. But they could not find any documentation that the policy was ever changed.

All policies were set at the national level. Jeanne and Laurie were surprised at how much money was raised locally for implementation of those policies as well as the number of citizens who were involved in this war-time effort.

A good example of basic needs by our military was a memo from then Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt requesting that Americans contribute telescopes and binoculars to the Navy, which was unprepared to join in the fighting.

Fort Wayne during WW I was a very ethnic community comprised of a number of German immigrants, many of whom had not acquired US citizenship. One of the more interesting facts discovered during the cataloging of the COD materials was the attempt to forbid teaching and preaching in German. Lists of young people in German language congregations were developed and boys in particular were identified by age group.

The Allen County Public Library was given a list of books that were to be removed from the shelves. They complied.

The result of compliance to COD activities most often occurred through social coercion. You didn’t want to be seen as disloyal and pressure came from neighbor to neighbor to be a good American. People seemed more willing to go along with whatever the Federal government decreed, especially when it came to restrictions on rationing of items such as sugar and wheat as well as building materials.

In this election year it’s important to note that a major effort was made to get servicemen to vote absentee.

In an age where technology was not particularly well advanced, telegrams were the most often used method of communication.

Jeanne and Laurie will tell you that handling original documents almost a century old is a “privilege” and that history “comes alive” when you see the actual words of real people living in a particular age. Walter Font, the History Center’s curator, served as advisor for the project.

“He’s a true professional who knows his business,” said Jeanne. Laurie added that “Walter’s insight on how to make the material available and how to label folders so people can easily find what they’re looking for” were critical to the success of putting the collection into a usable form for researchers.

Fort Wayne's First Christmas Tree

2011-11-23T14:55:00.000-08:00

The story of Fort Wayne's first Christmas tree is documented in Bert Griswold's Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, published in 1917, but his source for the story is not known. It may be based more in legend than in fact.

According to the story, Dr. Charles Schmitz, arranged to bringthe first Christmas tree to the city in 1840. A native of Borgloh, Germany in 1809, Schmitz had studied medicine at a medical college in Bohn or Bonn, and then came to America in 1835, settling first in Philadelphia. He arrived in Fort Wayne in 1837 and became a prominent member of the German-American community, serving on the Board of Health, becoming the first president of the Allen County Medical Society, and serving as editor of the German newspaper, Der Deutsche Beobachter von Indiana, under the ownership of Thomas Tigar.

Schmitz was reportedly dismayed to find no tradition of decorating Christmas trees in his new home. The forests of northern Indiana were deciduous, and there were no coniferous evergreen trees native to the area. He had to look outside the area to find a suitable tree. In June of 1840, knowing that it would take time for an evergreen tree to arrive, he made arrangements for a tree to be shipped from Cincinnati on the Wabash & Erie Canal. The tree apparently arrived in December, and Schmitzes placed it in their house on Calhoun Street, next to what was later known as the Noll Building. On Christmas Eve, they decorated it with candles and an assortment of ornaments. Mrs. Schmitz placed their infant daughter in a basket beneath the tree. Then they invited guests to come and view the spectacle, and reportedlty, a number of Indians were among the guests. According to Griswold, "The beautiful tree brought exclamations of delight from the red men, but it is recorded that they found the baby a more lasting object of admiration."

Undoubtedly, the city's growing German population continued to promote the Christmas tree custom throughout the mid-19th century. Virginia (Carnahan) Williams tells a memorable story that she and her sister Clara went with their German maid to services at St. Paul's Lutheran Church at 6 AM on Christmas morning in 1886. There they heard soft organ music and a German choir in the gallery singing, "Unto Us a Child Is Born," and other carols in German. They could smell the scent of the pines on either side of the altar. When they left church the sun was beginning to rise.

Other children of the era remembered walking along Madison Street, where many of St. Paul's parishioners lived, and they marveled at seeing the lighted Christmas trees in every window.

Recalling the Past

2011-11-21T05:55:00.001-08:00

By Laurabelle Hibbets McCaffery

Veterans Day 2011

November is a time for remembering. When the first snowflakes fall, childhood memories of snowmen, snowballs, and winter fun come to mind. The beginnings of the holiday season often bring past holiday gatherings of family to mind as well. When I think of Thanksgiving, I recall my mother creating wonderful smelling and great tasting food for our Thanksgiving dinner. And the best part? We would be joining either the Meek or the Hibbets family for the day. The food was not the only attraction. Listening to the adults talk was fascinating. They talked about their youth and their own parents. The stories they told! I recall my father telling of going to see Wild Bill Hickok perform at the local fairgrounds. I also remember them talking about the cross that supposedly the KKK burnt on his lawn. I heard about the building of the city of Gary, Indiana and how a lot at 5^th and Broadway went for 5 dollars! My railroad engineer uncle was telling about the horrendous accidents he had seen with horses and cars on his New York Central routes, another uncle was talking about joining the CCC. Grandmother was reading a letter from an uncle who lived in Hawaii. It was like my own private adventure. And sadly, no one wrote it down and I was too young to know that what I was hearing was real history and that I should somehow save it.

This holiday season when the family is gathered together, listen to the family stories and ask lots of questions. Ask who did what and when and where. And take good notes.

Good notes may well have been the basis for the publication of an important book of local history, HISTORY OF FORT WAYNE & ALLEN COUNTY, Indiana 1700 – 2005. Vol.1 was edited by John Beatty and volume 2 edited by Phyllis Robb. They were aided in this arduous task by Kathryn Bowen Bloom, Judge William Lee, Stan Hood and many other dedicated volunteers, contributors, and writers. It is a treasure trove of historical information about politics, immigrants, entertainment, business and industry, local history, communications, and above all--people. In the second volume there are histories of local families as written by the families themselves as well as histories of businesses and institutions in the county. You can find the Fort Wayne-Allen County Historical Society listed. Some family names listed are Snyder, Lothamer, Schmidt, Rossworm, Wolf, Dodane, Bleeke and Bloom. There are hundreds more. Perhaps you or someone you know is there. There are also photographs and illustrations so you can see your history as well as read about it. One of the best features is the extensive indexing. This makes it easy to look up people and events.

Since November is the traditional start of the holiday season, it might help you on your quest to note your own history to have a few fun facts for November. Use them for ice breakers when you want to ask about family history. And they are found in volume 1 of HISTORY OF FORT WAYNE & ALLEN COUNTY, Indiana.

In November of 1845 a meeting between Samuel Hanna, Samuel Edsall, Allen Hamilton, and Peter Baily set the stage to raise subscriptions for a plank road heading north. This road became the Lima Road and went to Sturgis, Michigan. They also provided names for at least two of our streets in Fort Wayne

November 1860 brought the presidential election and Stephen Douglas garnered more votes in Allen County than Abraham Lincoln.

In November of 1947 voters defeated a referendum to build the Anthony Wayne Parkway through downtown Fort Wayne. The downtown merchants supported it. Neighborhoods fought it with fear of loss of housing and fear of who might be the new neighbor. Another argument was that the expressway would turn the city into four sectors. I think that happened anyway.

November always brought elections. Harry Baals was elected mayor in 1934. And in November of 1950 E. Ross Adair started his long career in the House of Representatives as well as an Ambassador to Ethiopia.

WKJG-TV signed on the air on November 21, 1953 on the third floor of the Purdue building at Jefferson and Barr. Hilliard Gates did the honors and his guests included Mayor Harry Baals and movie star Marilyn Maxwell.

November 5, 1923 saw the opening of the Broadway Theater on Broadway as a premier move palace. It unfortunately morphed into a purveyor of x-rated films in the 1970s before it became a restaurant later.

November is a good time to acquire this set of books. They would be great to have with you at a family gathering this fall and winter. You can see where you are in relation to our local history and maybe find something about your own relatives. It is a great book for reading bits at a time and in whatever order you want.

The HISTORY OF FORT WAYNE AND ALLEN COUNTY, INDIANA, 1700- 2005 is available for purchase at the museum shop. It would make a great family present.

History Center adds an "Everyday Star" Judge William Lee to the Parkview Murosity Project.

2011-11-16T17:48:00.000-08:00

Parkview Foundation will have an interesting mural added to its new Parkview Regional Medical Center. The idea to create a large mural that celebrates the generous people of our community led to the creation of a project called, "Murosity." It's an invented word combining "mural" and "generosity" to create the term murosity. Utilizing high school students, professional artists, celebrities and Parkview physicians and coworkers, 160 people in all, each painted a canvas to honor one of our region's Everyday Stars. Although each painting is fourteen-inches square in size, organized together through a mosaic of images, they form a large eight feet by twenty feet Everyday Star mural. When viewed from a distance, the mural appears to be a pleasant Indiana country scene. The canvases are intended to provide comfort and encouragement to those who view it in the waiting room of the new Parkview Emergency Department. Visitors will be able to see that the big picture is divided into individual canvases that can be enjoyed separately along with text that tells why the pictured Everyday Star was chosen.

The Allen County Fort Wayne Historical Society's History Center is included among the separate canvases featuring Everyday Star Judge William C. Lee with supporting text. This one reads:

"A senior judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, William C. Lee received his undergraduate degree at Yale University and Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Chicago in 1962. He returned to his native Fort Wayne to practice law in 1962 and was named to the bench by President Ronald Regan in 1981. In 1988, he was recognized as Indiana Trial Judge of the Year, and he received the Huntington College Honorary Doctor of Laws in 1999.

From 1978 to 1981 Judge Lee was a member of the Board of Trustees for Fort Wayne Community Schools and served as its President from 1980 to 1981. He has been a member of the board of such civic organizations as Fort Wayne Fine Arts foundation; Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra; Fort Wayne Civic Theater; and Legal Aid of Fort Wayne, Inc.

Judge Lee served as President of the Allen County Fort Wayne Historical Society in 1993, and again from 2002 to 2006 for a total of six terms...the most any one person has served in that office to date. While doing so, the Judge guided the organization to a return to prominence in the community, and reset it on a sound financial footing. Among the lasting legacies he has instituted as president has been leading the way in publishing the 2005 History of Fort Wayne and Allen County, which has become the "go to" history book for the county. When it became clear that Fort Wayne Community Schools no longer had funding available for students' visits to the " History Center ," it was Judge Lee who started the Heritage Education Fund. It ensures that the youth of this region might experience the unique benefits that one of the largest regional history museums can offer. This Everyday Star has made it possible that our community's' youth see and touch the rich heritage that is their home."

You can learn more about the Parkview Foundation Murosity Project by visiting www.Murosity.com

Celebrating Thanksgiving in Pioneer Fort Wayne

2011-11-05T06:39:00.000-07:00

Little has been written about the celebration of Thanksgiving in pioneer Fort Wayne. It is well-known that President Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day for the final Thursday in November in 1863, and the day was no doubt widely observed from that time afterward. Prior to the Civil War, however, most observations of the day were small and associated with settlers from New England, where, especially in Massachusetts and Connecticut, Thanksgiving had been an annual holiday from the seventeenth century. It appears likely that New Englanders and New Yorkers brought the tradition with them when they came to Fort Wayne in the 1830s. Surprisingly, the more wealthy at least enjoyed a wide variety of food and used recipes brought with them from the East.

Susan (Man) McCulloch, wife of banker Hugh McCulloch, a native of New York, offered one of the earliest references of the holiday in a letter to her mother, Maria Halsey, in Plattsburgh, New York, dated 24 November 1839. She speaks of her anticipation of guests on Thanksgiving Day, which occurred on the 28th that year. She describes the bounty of her home harvest late in the previous summer. "I had their room all ready for [guests] and the chickens were fat and waiting for their necks to be wrung. The watermelons and cantelopes [sic] were then in their prime, and I just wanted Cousin Amasa and Mr. Myers to see how much could be raised on 15 acres of Fort Wayne ground. If they could have seen our watermelon and muskmelon patch, it would have made their mouths water. They never saw such melons in Fulton Market. We had between six & seven hundred bushels of corn, between three & four hundred bushels of potatoes, about a thousand heads of cabbage, hundreds of bushels of beets, turnips, onions, and carrots and some of the largest pumpkins you ever saw. The finest potatoes are selling for eighteen pence a bushel and corn for 25 cents. Flour has been sold for 4 Dollars a barrel this fall... We have had a delightful autumn, scarcely a single hard storm and no sickness of any account, but the weather changed yesterday and this morning the mercury stood at six below zero."

In 1845, she reported in another letter, "Thanksgiving day we had all my husband's relatives, Miss Wallace and Miss Love to dine. We had a first rate dinner. Everything nice. Even my husband was exactly suited in the evening. We all played blindman's bluff." That same year at Christmas, the menu consisted of roast turkey, boiled turkey, chicken pie, plum pudding, mince pie, puffs & jelly, Blanc Mange, Charlotte de Russe, pickles, and coffee. "Though I say it who should not say it, every thing was good. Of course, Mr. McC. was pleased."

There are more clues to the diet of Fort Wayne residents in other letters of Susan. In October 1838, she reported in detail some of her kitchen preparations. "Mr. Merrill, the president of the state bank, [is] staying with us, and I have been all morning making pies & apple dumplings. Will you write me the proportions of meat, apples & seasoning for good mince pies in your next, Dear Mother? I have quite forgotten. I have just learned how to make good tomato pickles. They are equal to the best mangoes. I have made a large stone jar full of peach preserves, another of wild plums, another of tomatoes, another of watermelon, and shall make some apple jelly when I get some red apples. Butter is so scarce that I cannot make cake and must have something nice for company. I have a great many blackberry preserves. I have but one store room, and you may think how it looks, 18 feet long & 4 wide, all my bedding piled up in trunks in one end, dresses & coats hung around on pegs in the other, a barrel of sugar, bag of coffee, box of raisins for candies, jars of sweetmeats, boxes of spices & cocoa, chest of tea, etc. Our cellar is now dry so that we can put butter & lard in it."

On another occasion, January 1839, Susan hosted a reception for the marriage of William Rockhill and Eliza Waugh, and she introduced whipped cream to the city, apparently for the first time. "We threw open the rooms upstairs for the company and laid the supper tables below. On each end of the large table extending through the room I had a pyramid of cakes weighing about 18 pounds, frosted and ornamented with white flowers and white sugar plums, one of fruit cake and the other of federal cake. In other parts of the table I placed five or six large loaves of cake of different kinds, frosted and ornamented with colored sugar plums, cold chicken, ham, roast pork & beef sliced thin, biscuit crullers, cakes, and wine. On the side tables I had calve's foot jelly, Blancmange whips, snowballs, raisins and nuts. For preparing these things I had no assistance but such as little Mary [Fairfield] and my girl could render me, so you know I must have been very busy. Everything was first rate, not one loaf of cake was heavy. Half of the people here did not know there were such things as Whips and Blancmange. The way they ate the fruit cakes would have frightened eastern people. Not a few were sick the next day in consequence of it. So now I am a cook, say what you will about the practice."

A great deal for those who love educational venues...like museums!

2011-10-26T07:14:00.000-07:00

This blog post is an update of a previous release from the History Center.

Imagine, if you will, it’s late December, you have a house full of out of town relatives who are not leaving until after the New Year, the kids are already bored with their new toys, and the adults are beyond the point of restlessness. What better way to make the time fly than to visit three of Fort Wayne’s favorite, entertaining and educational venues!

The History Center, the Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory and Science Central have an affordable way to experience these three wonderful sites. Through the Museum Dream Pass program, for only $14 per adult and $10 per child (children ages 2 and under are free), one can have unlimited access to these three family-oriented museums for up to seven days.

These three organizations also offer a reciprocal, triple membership package for only $125! “Triple members” not only receive all of the basic membership benefits for all three organizations, but save over 20% off the price of purchasing these three memberships individually. If this deal is not sweet enough, “triple members” are granted all of the reciprocal benefits awarded to three national museum partnership programs. This means that “triple members” can go to almost every corner of the country and find an educational site that honors this local membership.

The History Center is a partner in the national Time Travelers reciprocal program. Nearly 200 historical museums, historical sites and other venues share in the Time Travelers program, offering a range of benefits from free admission, to special discounts, to exclusive offerings. Current and future History Center members receive these benefits at no additional charge to their regular membership dues.

A few of the area organizations participating in the Time Travelers program include the Illinois State Museum, the Ohio Historical Society, the Chicago History Museum, the Detroit Historical Society and the Grand Rapids Public Museum.

Contact the History Center at 260-426-2882 or see the Time Travelers link on our website’s home page at www.fwhistorycenter.com for more information.

Additionally, “triple members” are automatically given membership in the American Horticultural Society (www.ahs.org) and the Association of Science-Technology Centers, Inc. (www.astc.org). These two additional partnerships each boast about 200 participating organizations, meaning that “triple members” receive benefits to 600 organizations nationwide. The Indianapolis Children’s Museum, Minnetrista, the Field Museum, COSI, and the Chicago, Cleveland and Toledo Botanical Gardens are but a few of the organizations offering benefits to “triple members”.

Ahead of Her Time

2011-10-24T06:53:00.000-07:00

blog post by Laura McCaffrey

Gene Stratton Porter was a Hoosier original. Born in the mid-1860s on a farm in Wabash County in Indiana, Geneva (Gene, as she would soon decide) was the last child for Mark and Mary Stratton. She had lots of freedom and roamed the fields and woods as she wanted. Her lifelong love of nature-flora and fauna
began there. Her father encouraged her interest in nature and taught her much about the land and its inhabitants. She did well in school work only if it was something she found interesting and even left school shortly before graduation.

Gene was an attractive young woman and caught the eye of an older business man when she was visiting friends. He was Charles Dorwin Porter. And the rest, as they say, is history.

But not quite.

In responding to his letter, Gene warned Porter that she was unlike other women. She said what she thought and pretty much did as she wanted. He was agreeable and after a brief courtship they were married and had a daughter, Jeanette. Charles prospered and Gene definitely said and did what pleased her. Writing.
Photography. Drawing. Mucking about in the swamps in northern Indiana. Collecting plants and birds. She became a world famous author and an avid advocate for conserving our natural resources. In her time she influenced politicians and presidents and provided reading joy to millions. She went to California to visit, but eventually went there to live. She died in an automobile crash in 1924.

Today we remember her in Indiana more, perhaps, because of the land she gave to the state than for her best sellers. (The Gene Stratton-Porter State Historic Site
near Rome City, Indiana and the Limberlost State Historic Site at Geneva,
Indiana). Reprints of her books are currently available as are some of her movies. Books that made her famous included Freckles, The Girl of the Limberlost, and Michael O Halloran.

AHEAD OF HER TIME is the title of the free Mather lecture and book signing to be presented by local author Barbara Olenyik Morrow on Sunday, November 6 at 2 pm at The History Center.

The book, NATURE’S STORY TELLER, is well-illustrated with photographs of Gene and the people and places in her life. The story told is indeed of a woman ahead of her time, worrying about land, habitat, climate, and
conservation long before it was fashionable.

Although this book is ostensibly written as part of a series of Indiana history books for youth, it is an excellent adult book as well. Gene Stratton-Porter emerges as a thoroughly believable and modern woman who was passionate about her cause. And we should all applaud her vision.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading again about the author I read greedily as a child. I think I will read again the lessons she taught about goodness and clean living and loving nature. Nature can be cruel, but her books provided lessons in a kinder and gentler way of living. Olenyik Morrow has captured the essence of Stratton-Porter in her narrative.

NATURES STORYTELLER; THE LIFE OF GENE STRATTON-PORTER (Indiana Historical Society Press, 978-0-87195-284-4) by Barbara Olenyik Morrow is available at the Museum Shop.

Italian Roots in Indiana

2011-10-17T06:55:00.000-07:00

Written by Laura McCaffrey

If you were unable to attend the Mather Lecture for October, reading THE STONECUTTER’S ARIA is perhaps the next best thing to being there. Carol Faenzi, of Indianapolis, presented the lecture and authored the book.

THE STONECUTTER’S ARIA covers a century in the tumultuous life of a real Italian family who immigrates to America to find a better life and eventually ends up in Indiana. Faenzi writes about her own family history and these are actual people’s lives we are reading about.

Just as though the book were an actual opera, each character tells their story as it relates to the time and place. The story begins during the late 19th century with the Giovannoni family in Carrara, the marble capital of the world and also home to an opera company. Music and marble have been in the family for generations, but hard times and promise of opportunity send the more adventurous to America. Such a one is Aristide Giovannoni who marries Ione and has children before he leaves for America and a new life. Ione and the surviving children follow and we get a steerage view of travel from Italy to America in the early twenties. The cities in the east are fine but too many Italian grocers compete and since Aristide and many other Italian immigrants are stonecutters they go where work is. Indiana.

The quarries of southern Indiana need for skilled workers create the influx of a sizeable Italian population in Indianapolis and other areas. The day to day life of the Giovannoni and Faenzi family become more complex and provides somewhat of a microcosm of life in the Great Depression. Oddly enough, the stonecutters prospered because the government and others erected many public buildings and Indiana limestone was a prime component. World War II presented some obstacles and the next generation went different ways.
Later, Faenzi herself will become one of the voices as she sought her heritage here and in Italy. Through her efforts, we can realize what drew these hardworking and talented people to Indiana and what they have added to our heritage. Researching for my reading, I discovered that Italians were also attracted to the mines in Southern Indiana. This made me understand why Clinton, Indiana in Vermillion County has an Italian Festival

On Old Barns and Artists

2011-09-23T06:13:00.000-07:00

I have always cultivated a secret passion for old barns, and have been dismayed at how many are vanishing from our landscape, so it is gratifying (and humbling) to witness a talented artist wielding her paintbrush in defense of them. Like small children, they can’t speak for themselves. They are too easily and frequently abused and neglected. But like our great-great-grandparents, their broad shoulders have withstood the brunt of storms and the test of time. They helped shape Indiana…and oh, the stories they could tell!

Gwen Gutwein is one of the artists who has so generously donated a work of art to our 2011 Buffalo Tro fundraiser, a plein-air oil painting of the Old City Hall building, which now houses the History Center. She is an exhibitor and award winner of the Hoosier Salon, which in the art world is a Pretty Big Fat Deal. With a focus on realism, it has roots going back to 1925 and earlier. It was foundered by members of the Hoosier School of art and the famed Brown County Artists. (You’ve seen their work if you’ve even been to the Student Union at I.U., or to many Indiana art museums).

But what especially sets Gwen apart is her series on Indiana Barns. She has dedicated the past six years of her life to capturing them on canvas before they are gone. With a goal of 2 (or more) from each county, she has completed 100 since 2005, and has 84 more to go. I had the privilege of taking a peek inside her studio, and got a close-up look at some of these magnificent barn paintings, but you can also see her first 50 barns as part of a traveling exhibit sponsored by the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.

Gwen grew up on a farm, and has fond memories of playing in the barn with her siblings and cousins. As she got older, she was amazed at the skill and integrity that went into building them. “They really knew what they were doing when they built these barns. Even on a hot summer day, you walk down to the lower level and it is 65 degrees. You can’t get that with a modern pole barn.” She also marveled at the old-growth timber that went into the barns, and continues to be preserved by them.

She set brush to canvas when she noticed them disappearing—a collapse of a neglected old heap here, a tear-down to make way for a faceless subdivision there. One by one. Gone, and never to return.

Each of her paintings has a much deeper story behind it, and sometimes it is heartbreaking. She was painting an 1835 stone barn in Southern Indiana, and mentioned it to some architectural experts, who came down from Chicago, climbed all over it, inside and out, and proclaimed it a Smithsonian-quality treasure. In its basement were three 60’ hand-hewn chestnut beams, with 24 additional chestnut beams and many 24" wide planks in the hayloft. The farmer was begging her to buy it—he had sons, and they just weren’t interested in this legacy. “I’ll sell it to you with ten acres of land. I’ll sell it with five!”

Other stories are chilling. In one county, she has only painted one barn. Another barn owner agreed to let her paint an additional barn, but then her son stepped in and denied the permission. She said it is the most desolate county, with huge tracts of corporate farmland, few trees, fences gone, tractors bigger than her house, and a business model designed to wring every last grain of corn or soybean from the brutalized ground—rather than turning at the edge of a field, the tractors drive straight across the roads as they are plowing, planting and reaping. (Most of the smaller family farms are now huge conglomerations). “In that county,” she noted, “people couldn’t even look me in the eye.”

For the most part, though, she is welcomed joyfully by barn owners who take great pride in what they have and want to share it with others. The collection has already been featured extensively in galleries and museums, but Gwen is not selling any of the paintings. She explains, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts; if I piecemeal them out, the collection will lose its integrity.” Her hope is that the collection will be preserved intact and be kept in the public eye so Hoosiers can continue to appreciate the treasures they have in their landscape, and take steps to start preserving them before they are all lost.

To see the full series of works in the Barn Project, go to gwengutwein.com. The three barns shown here are all in Allen County, and the Old City Hall painting was donated on behalf of our Heritage Education Fund. Gwen sells her paintings through her studio and local galleries, and also have offered barn calendars since 2008.

A Few Thoughts on the Buffalo Tro and Parties at Chief Richardville’s House

2011-09-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

For many years I would have occasion to pass the Chief Richardville House, set back in the trees on a gentle hill overlooking Bluffton Road. I was always intrigued by its forlorn-looking gray façade.

When I joined the board of the History Center, I learned some of the stories the house could tell (going back to 1827) when it hosted the glittering parties of the great Miami chief. Imagine how highly sought this invitation was, when most of Fort Wayne’s inhabitants were living in rough-hewn hovels of sticks and stones!

Two grand, gnarled old silver maple trees frame the house. According to a recent Native American visitor, a member of the Miami tribe, these two old guardians are “spirit trees.” Normally a silver maple will not swirl dramatically, but according to this belief, trees growing in a place of powerful spirituality will manifest this spirit by growing in a manner contrary to the way they are “supposed” to grow. To me, the “genius of the place” is one of welcoming joy and a loving family, although perhaps my emotions are just tricked by the intrinsic beauty of the property.

Even when the house was owned by a gravel company, which tore up the surrounding landscape, no one dared set hand to those two trees. They knew they were special.

Were these trees saplings back when Jean Baptiste de Richardville and his family lived in the house? How many horses and carriages trotted by these trees, the occupants dressed splendidly as they alighted for an important meeting or one of the galas Richardville loved to host?

The descendents of Chief Little Turtle’s family played under these branches. The future of our region was shaped in the elegant parlor. The house itself is the result of hard negotiations with the U.S. Government, bargains driven by the man who controlled the key Portage for the region and sought to protect his tribe.

Stories passed down from the generations whisper of how Richardville became Chief by his mother Tacumwah’s counsel—establishing his leadership by slashing the bonds of a white captive who was doomed to the stake—and how his gold helped to found the University of Notre Dame. (He was educated by Jesuits and was fluent in six languages: English, Miami, French, Greek, Mohican and Latin.)

Under the stewardship of the History Center, the house’s exterior has been restored to its former beauty, and visitors are welcomed. Once a year its bonfire and torches are lit, lights warmly shine from the windows, fiddle music swirls across the lawn, and its doors are opened for an evening of festivities in a manner that recalls the early frontier. This is the Buffalo Tro.

The Tro helps to raise funds to bring thousands of schoolchildren through the History Center for free. Many of these kids wouldn’t be able to attend if their stressed teachers had to drum up support from a cash-strapped school or send that note home asking for a few dollars from a parent who may rank among the high percentage of Hoosiers who are jobless.

I love that the Tro supports these kids, but more selfishly, I love that the Tro helps bring to life the history that I have only read about in books, starting with my 4th grade Indiana history textbook. (I also love that, beer in hand, we get to throw buffalo steaks onto the red-hot coals.)

This year’s Tro will be particularly special, as the house is on track to receive National Historic Landmark status—the only other structures in this corner of Indiana with this designation are the Allen County Courthouse and the Auburn Cord Dusenberg Museum. What a mark of respect to Chief Richardville, his beloved Miami, and the generations who have helped preserve this wonderful house. I have my invitation in hand, and I’m looking forward to the party!

(The Buffalo Tro is Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 6:00. Call the History Center at 260-426-2882 if you are interested in attending. Admission is $50 and proceeds go to the Heritage Education Fund.)

Educating Women Physicians: A Fort Wayne Tradition!

2011-09-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

To no one's surprise, approximately one half of medical students today are women. Until only some thirty years ago, however, women had very limited opportunities to enter the profession. Not many people know that Fort Wayne had a medical school that was an exception to the general rule of excluding female students. From its opening in 1876 until it merged with Central College of Physicians and Surgeons in Indianapolis to form the Medical College of Purdue University in 1905, the Fort Wayne College of Medicine publicly advertised its acceptance of women on the same basis as male students.

The board of trustees and faculty took a great risk with this admission policy. Women of the period were generally considered intellectually inferior. Medical schools were afraid that female students would drive male students away and thus be a financial drain. They were already plagued with scandals over dissection of cadavers, even grave robbing. Furthermore, many people thought that by studying nude bodies in the presence of men, women would lose their femininity and invite sexual harassment. Even if they obtained medical training, women physicians were generally shunned by their male peers. What were the leaders of Fort Wayne Medical College thinking?

General clues for this bold policy rest with three of the college's founders, the Rev. Reuben Davisson Robinson, and Drs. Willam H. Myers and Christian B. Stemen. All were on record as supporters of women's education. Rev. Robinson, the former minister of Wayne Street Methodist Church, had served as president of the co-educational Fort Wayne Methodist College from 1855 to 1866. Dr. Myers was known as an early advocate of women's rights. At the first meeting in Fort Wayne to promote woman suffrage held in 1871, Dr. Myers announced that he had become a convert. In 1883, when the Indiana Medical Society debated admission of women to the Indiana Medical College, Dr. Myers advocated what was still a minority position. "Our college has always admitted ladies, and we have suffered no inconveniences from their presence," he told his colleagues. "I think they have had a salutary influence upon the gentlemen they met there." Finally, Dr. Christian Stemen demonstrated by personal example his support for women physicians by mentoring his daughter, Harriet Stemen Macbeth, as a medical student and practicing physician.

Fort Wayne Medical College always had a small enrollment. Perhaps its most illustrious female student was Alice Hamilton. At the beginning of her internationally recognized career as a trailblazer for industrial medicine, she took advantage of the college to brush up on science and medicine prior to her acceptance in medical school at the Univeersity of Michigan. She gained experience in the college's clinic serving poor workers on the city's west side.

Of the women graduates who remained in Fort Wayne, most is known about Dr. Harriet Macbeth and her niece by marriage, Dr. Bertha Goba Macbeth. Both served the growing industrial city and its surrounding communities for many years. Following practices of the day, they visited patients in their homes. When money was scarce, patients showed their appreciation with chickens and farm produce.

When we drive by the grand old building on Superior Street that was the last home for the Fort Wayne College of Medicine, we can feel proud. In the long history of women in medicine, Fort Wayne was ahead of its day.

Allen County's Oldest Restaurant

2011-08-22T13:00:00.000-07:00

The Nine Mile Restaurant sits rather inconspicuously on the east side of U.S. 27, and motorists unfamiliar with its excellent food and rich history often drive by on their way to Decatur without giving it a second look. They shouldn't. The tavern and one-time inn is one of Allen County's treasures - very likely one of the oldest, if not the oldest,restaurant in the northern part of Indiana.

To appreciate the restaurant's history, one must go back to the early 1830s and the pioneer settlement of what became Marion Township. Several ancient trails ran through the area, including Wayne Trace, through which Anthony Wayne's army had marched after leaving Fort Wayne in 1794, and the Piqua Road, which was surveyed in 1830 and made use of what was probably an older Indian trail. This road became what is now U.S. 27. In the 1830s, however, it represented one of the few paths a pioneer had for reaching Fort Wayne - once considered a far-away place from the more settled parts of central and southern Indiana. The land was so marshy that travelers on the road often had to fell trees and find parallel paths in the woods to get around the thick mud that rendered the road impassable.

Pioneers began settling Marion Township in 1832. Philo Whitcomb, one of the first to arrive, established a post office at a place called Root near what is now U.S. 27 and Flat Rock Road.
Then in 1837, John Karn opened a tavern at the site of the present Nine Mile Restaurant. As the Piqua Road improved, a stagecoach line was established, and Karn's tavern became an important stop. In 1850, John Holmes acquired the tavern and rebuilt it in a Greek Revival style, calling it Nine Mile House, because it stood exactly nine miles from the Allen County Courthouse. The site became one of the most important gathering places in the southern part of Allen County - a place where travelers spent the night and where pioneers met to exchange news over a pint.

A series of owners followed Holmes. At one time, it was known as Bubb's Nine Mile after its then-owner, Anthony Bubb. The oldest known image of the structure, shown above, dates from the 1930s, when there were gas pumps and a Coca-Cola sign in the front. Later the structure underwent a series of significant renovations that changed and greatly expanded its appearance.

Today the restaurant is painted brown, but the original roof-line can still be seen within the other additions. Nine Mile is popular with residents in the Hoagland and Poe areas, but it is less well-known to Fort Wayne residents. It has an excellent menu, with barbecued ribs being one of its specialties. The cuisine is very much of the down-home variety, and while I don't profess to be a restaurant critic, I have always found my visits there enjoyable. My wife, who has deep ancestral roots in Marion Township, likes to speculate that many of her ancestors must have eaten there over the last century and a half. We enjoy the ambiance, even if the interior isn't designed to be historic. We know that buried deep within the walls is still the 1850 structure.

Nine Mile is well worth a visit. Plan on having an intimate dining experience, with tables placed close together, and with excellent service. While there, you can celebrate how unusual it is for any business, especially a restaurant, to operate continuously at the same location since 1837.

Tierces, Kits, Firkins, Kegs, Barrels and Hogsheads

2011-08-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

Historians write about the days before automobiles and of early grocery stores that received edibles in barrels, cloth bags or wooden boxes. Today, we as consumers understand those "packaging" terms, but there were names for shipping containers that we no longer use nor would we understand. With a few small tools to loosen and remove the nails that fastened the wooden box lids, a pine box top was removed and the bulk contents were ready for display. The same was true with barrel heads that could be removed and the contents opened for easy viewing. When a customer made a selection the product was weighted out usually by the pound and placed in a paper bag for the customer to take home.

Many products were stored and shipped in barrels such as smoked pork or pork packed in brine. Some held apples and flour in the days before refrigeration. Iced compartments were not thought to be practical until railroad cars were fitted out to provide the service. Wood barrels churned out by local cooper shops made both “tight” and “slack” types. Tight barrels were made for holding liquids such as vinegar or cider requiring hardwoods such as white oak with strength enough to endure rough handling during the days of the mid-nineteenth century. Slack barrels made of softer woods such as elm, basswood or linden were fine for sugar, fruit, flour, or salt. Then there were different grades of slack barrels since flour required a tighter fit than say one for apples.

Next a grocer had to know the several sizes and capacities of barrel design. Smallest of them was a tight barrel called a “kit” which held one or two gallons used often for salt-mackerel in brine. “Kegs” came in various sizes as did half-barrels used to contain linseed oil that were made of oak and some times reinforced with iron hoops. Depending on the product a slack keg was ideal durables such as nails. A “firkin” normally held about one quarter of a barrel and typically was a tight barrel used for consumables such as butter or lard. Standard sized barrels were supposed to hold 31-1/2 gallons. A larger size called a “tierce” had a nominal capacity of 42 gallons and the type most often produced. Another was the “hogshead” which was larger ranging up to 140 gallons.

As a suggestion, the next time you go grocery shopping please don't confuse that hard working clerk with a line like, "Oh, I don't know, how about giving me a tierce worth, but I will have to have help getting it to my car."

From an unpublished manuscript with the working title, The Merchants of Vittles, T. Castaldi - 2011

Be a Tourist In Your Own Hometown!

2011-08-10T06:34:00.000-07:00

Be a Tourist in Your Own Hometown takes place this year on Sunday, September 11th, from noon to 5 pm.

You, your friends and family can visit 12 of Fort Wayne’s museums and attractions for free!

Simply pick up a FREE passport and begin your travels.

For more information, contact Visit Fort Wayne at 424-3700 or at www.visitfortwayne.com.

Here's how the program works:

1. Pick up a passport at any Fort Wayne Scott’s or Kroger’s location. Or download a one-page passport online at:

www.VisitFortWayne.com/beatourist.

2. On Sunday, September 11th, you will be able to visit 12 of Fort Wayne's participating attractions and museums - FOR FREE! Just use your passport to gain free admission to all attractions listed within - one passport good for entire party.

Participating Attractions:
African/African-American History Museum
Allen County Courthouse
Artlink
Embassy Theatre
Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory
History Center
Fort Wayne Museum of Art
Parkview Field
Science Central
The Lincoln Tower
Historic Fort Wayne

Historic Swinney Homestead

Discovering history via quilts

2011-08-04T06:27:00.000-07:00

My grandmother was a quilter. Every year she spent the winter months making a quilt as something to do during those long, grey days when she couldn’t be outside in her garden. I still have two of those quilts—one a wedding ring quilt and the other a bow tie quilt made from fabric of the dresses my mother, sisters and I had back in the 1950s. What a piece of family history!

Since moving to Fort Wayne I’ve gotten to know another quilter. Jan Johnson moved here from the Pacific Northwest to live closer to her grandchildren after the death of her husband. Jan is a quilter AND a history buff!

So this year at the Buffalo Tro, we once again have Jan’s history quilts in our Silent Auction—one of Underground Railroad signs and the other made from the wrappers that went around cigars in the early 1900s, showing the flag of the country where the tobacco was grown and the cigars made.

It seemed only appropriate with Tro coming up that we blog a little about it and more posts will start appearing about the magic of the Chief Richardville House on a warm fall evening. Peace and quiet, a sense of the fabulous parties the Chief hosted at his residence, the taste of buffalo cooked in an open fire and the knowledge that your presence can help school-age children attend the History Center via our Heritage Education Fund are all part of the evening.

But back to the quilts. Last year I mentioned to Jan that we have a hands-on exhibit for kids that features artwork of quilt block patterns that were allegedly used to direct runaway slaves on their path to freedom. Jan hadn’t heard of this use for quilts—but she was intrigued—and so she began her research into historical quilts. As she travels, she looks for fabric—like the tobacco flags—that can be incorporated into quilts or for historic patterns that she can replicate.

We can’t possibly tell you all there is to know about the history of quilts in one blog post—or even multiple posts. The books on this art form are many and varied and take up quite a bit of space at the Allen County Public Library’s main branch. But here are a few quick bits of history to know:

American women in the 19th century regularly made quilts to raffle to raise funds to support political causes. Just because they couldn’t vote didn’t mean they couldn’t express their opinions!

The origins of American quilts extend to Europe, Asia and India.

Quilts were a rare item in the 17th century and were found only in the homes of the well-to-do and merchants. These quilts were not handmade by their owners but imported.

During the Civil War, women on both sides raised money for the cause by making and raffling quilts. One such quilt sold the first time for $100, the next week for $400 and four more times in amounts of $115, $500 and $250. The quilt was entitled “Gunboat” and made in 1860 by Martha Jane Singleton Hatter (1815-1896), of cotton, silk and silk taffeta. It measures 66 x 66 inches and now is a part of the collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art.

There has been much study of African-American quilts but authenticated quilts are often difficult to find because they remained in the possession of slave owners.

Two exceptions are quilts made by Harriet Powers, born into slavery in 1837. Fifty years later she made two quilts, one of which hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the other in the Smithsonian. According to “African American Quilt Making in Michigan”, “Powers used appliquéd silhouettes of human figures, geometric motifs, and other design combinations that resemble the styles found among the people of ancient Dahomey in West Africa.” Quilts made by Elizabeth Keckley, a slave who bought her freedom with her skill in needlework, are thought to contain scraps of garments she made for Mary Todd Lincoln.

Flour and feed sacks were often used to make quilts (and clothing) during the Depression and on into the 1950s in some areas. Booklets were printed giving instructions on how to remove the dye stamps of the logos. It was even suggested that the string be saved to make doilies and tablemats. THAT’S recyling!

When trying to date a quilt, it is suggested that, if there is no documentation as to when it was made, you settle for a 25 to 50 year span.

If you’d like to know more about native quilting, you can visit the Michigan State University Museum or sign onto: http://museum.msu.edu/museum/tes/thc/exhibit%202.htm

Each of Jan's quilts contains information about the patterns used for the quilt blocks.

The information above comes in large part from the book “The American Quilt: A History of Cloth and Comfort, 1750-1950” by Roderick Kiracofe, text with Mary Elizabeth Johnson, copyright 1993.

Other works consulted for this article were:

“Quilts from the Civil War” by Barbara Brackman, copyright 1997

“To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions” edited by Marsha L. MacDowell and C. Kurt Dwhurst, copyright 1997

“African American Quiltmaking in Michigan” Marsha L. MacDowell, editor, copyright 1997

The Extraordinary Portrait of James Hackley

2011-07-29T11:28:00.001-07:00

One of the colorful figures of Fort Wayne during the era of the military fort was Capt. James Hackley. Hackley served in the Third Infantry and had been stationed at Fort Dearborn (Chicago), where he became acquainted with Dr. William Turner, who would marry William Wells's daughter, Anne. Turner returned to Fort Wayne where he held several prominent posts, including for a time, Indian Agent.

Anne Wells's sister, Rebecca, became interested in Hackley after a cousin told her to "set your cap for him." Her uncle, Samuel Wells, also thought well of the young captain and recommended the match. The two were wed in April 1817 and moved to Fort Dearborn, where they remained a year until returning to Fort Wayne, when Hackley resigned his army commission.

The Wells daughters were prominent in the early fort community, not only because of the reputation of their father, but because they had inherited a sizable amount of property, including several Indian reservations (inherited through their Miami mother, a relative of Little Turtle). Hackley rose to prominence because of these connection. He became a Mason and held other local offices. For a time the Hackleys and Turners shared Wellsington, the former home of William Wells located near what is now Spy Run Avenue. But problems began to fester when the Wells estate was divided in 1826. Hackley became angry about the inheritance and the portion allotted to Anne Turner (whose husband had died in 1821). In a fit of rage, he tried to murder his sister-in-law while she sat in an upstairs room, but she managed to escape through a window. Despondent, Hackley committed suicide by hanging himself. A large funeral was held afterwards, mostly because his widow, rebecca, was highly respected. The Masons agreed to participate, contrary to their usual discipline.

The portrait of Hackley inthe History Center's collection is painted on ivory and obviously dates before 1818, when Hackley was still an army officer. It remains one of the museum's treasures - a rare artifact with an image from the military era of Fort Wayne's history.

Farmers Markets in the news--then and now....

2011-07-20T06:17:00.000-07:00

Farmer's Markets are in the news this morning--July 20, 2011--and with the Barr Street Market running every Saturday morning until September 10, we thought you'd like to know a little bit about the history of this downtown jewel.

The Barr Street Market, named for John T. Barr, is one of the oldest and best-known features of downtown Fort Wayne. The town of Fort Wayne actually was born on Oct. 23, 1823 when Barr and his partner platted the land they had bought for the city.

Samuel Hanna eventually assumed most of Barr’s Fort Wayne properties and the land for the market was donated in 1837 by Hanna.

The Barr Street Market was based on the design of the Philadelphia Market. The Barr Street Market was a central feature for the provisioning of Fort Wayne as a growing trade and industrial settlement.

James Humphrey and Henry Nierman were awarded the contract in 1855 for a new brick market house. The building was notable for its squat square tower topped by an onion-shaped cupola. In 1892, when Fort Wayne’s first real city hall was erected, the old market house was torn down.

Market Masters were named by the city to operate the market. Among them was Peter Kiser, one of the more interesting characters of mid-19th-century Fort Wayne. Peter Kiser was physically impressive, weighing more than 300 pounds and standing well over six feet tall.

He established the city's first butcher shop in 1832 and came to hold considerable political power, despite the fact that he could neither read nor write.

In 1910, at a cost of $20,000, the outdoor market was given its greatest embellishment -- concrete pavilions joining arches between the City Hall and Washington Boulevard. A pointed double- gothic arch made of iron was erected over Wayne Street, connecting the two market pavilions.

In the first decades of the 20th century, the market saw its best years. City Hall next to the market was the site of city police and ambulance service that operated out of the back doors. The arrival of the full patrol wagon at the police station or the detention of a rowdy always made for an interesting diversion from ordinary market business.

Less appetizingly, the bloodied stretchers of the ambulance service were dutifully scrubbed at the convenient catch basin at the end of the market near the meat and dairy stalls.

The pavilion nearest to City Hall was razed in 1957. In 1958, the Wayne to Washington Street pavilion was destroyed. The market remained idle until 1966, when the Barr Street Market Association was formed to revitalize outdoor trade in downtown.

The History Center acquired the Barr Street Market in 1990. Today, the Barr Street Market is open Saturday mornings from July to September and is presented by Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana in cooperation with The History Center.

Admission to the History Center is free when the market is open.

How Fort Wayne Celebrated a July Fourth

2011-06-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

July Fourth is a popular day of the year for celebrating in the good ole USA , and in Fort Wayne, Indiana, it has been no exception. Well over a hundred years ago, back in 1835, when the Wabash Erie Canal opened up the thirty-some miles of waterway between Fort Wayne and Huntington, July 4th was the day chosen to make the inaugural float trip.

By 1841 the canal had reached Lafayette, Indiana, then considered the practical head of steamboat navigation on the Wabash River and a significant tributary to the Ohio River. It meant that the canal west of Fort Wayne had bridged a single land barrier that stood in the way of an all-water route connecting the Eastern Seaboard with the West via the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico .

However, the plan was for a much longer, navigable, slack-water canal and the route was extended westward to towns along the line touched by the new interstate waterway. As it did so, July Fourth was the day usually set aside for the opening honors. It happened that way in Wabash, Indiana in 1837, in Logansport, Indiana in 1838, in Delphi, Indiana in 1840 and in 1841 when it got to Lafayette.

East of Fort Wayne it was another story where construction on the canal was at a stand still near the Ohio-Indiana state line. Ohio was having some squabbles, including overcoming a boundary line despite with Michigan, and it took until 1843 before the canal was completed to Lake Erie at Toledo, Ohio.

Back in 1841 the canal had reached Lafayette, where there was access to steamboats on the Wabash River. Until then, it meant that the canal had been landlocked toward the east since there was no navigation much beyond the Indiana - Ohio state line. But, now in 1843, a boat could travel uninterrupted by canal from Lafayette 's landing on the Wabash River to Lake Erie at Toledo...and do so in two days. Goods began flowing into the frontier and Indiana 's produce and products could be shipped to customers in the world's markets. It was an enormous boost in opening up the old West.

On July 4th in 1843, Fort Wayne pulled out all the stops to celebrate Independence Day. It might possibly have been the greatest of July Fourth celebration of them all with a great Grand Opening celebration on "The Summit" ... Fort Wayne 's nickname as the highest point along the canal route. Invitations had been sent out across the nation and many of the country's great personages unable to attend wrote letters of regret, and canal boats arrived in such great numbers that the length of the canal in town was cluttered with traffic.

There was parade said to have been nearly a mile in length that formed on the " Public Square " and marched to the Thomas Swinney farm. Several bands made up the procession providing the rhythm and beat for the marching soldiers representing the Revolution and the War of 1812 proudly displaying the national colors. They were followed by the city's notables along with citizens of Ohio and other states as well as a contingent of Miami Warriors. When they arrived at Swinney's there were hundreds in attendance and reports say that after the bands had played some national airs, the Reverend Mr. Boyd made a fervent and appropriate prayer followed by Hugh McCulloch, Esq., reading of the Declaration of Independence. General Cass, a perspective presidential candidate, delivered an admirable address. Historian Bert Griswold wrote, "The stirring address of General Cass was frequently punctuated by the firing of a cannon, which excited the cheers of the multitude without the range of his voice."

By 1853, a Wabash & Erie Canal boat first reached Evansville on the Ohio River signifying that a packet passenger boat or a freight barge could begin at Toledo, lock-up to Fort Wayne, float across the 16-mile "Summit" level then lock-down on its way to Lafayette continuing on to Evansville and meet an Ohio River steamboat. Naturally, it could make the same trip it in the opposite direction, which it did so for many July Fourths thereafter.

Today, we gave an appropriate link to that Grand Opening Celebration of what became the longest canal in America welcoming visitors at the front door of the History Center in Fort Wayne. You can actually see and touch Commodore Perry's naval cannon, along side the marker that tells of this relic of the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie, and the cannon fired at the dedication of the Wabash & Erie Canal that Fourth of July day in 1843.

Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society at 90 Years - Some Reflections

2011-06-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

[Below is the text of an address given to the Historical Society at its 90th Anniversary Meeting on June 21, 2011. It was a beautiful evening, and I was deeply honored to be asked to give the Keynote.]

Ninety years! What a great accomplishment for any local organization! I am honored to be asked to say a few words on this august occasion. I think we can all be proud that our historical society has reached this venerable age.

What was it like in Fort Wayne when the Historical Society was founded? What events happened here that led people to establish a historical society? Local historical societies were very much an east-coast phenomenon in 1920. They could be found across the country at the state level, but not so much at the local level, especially not in the Midwest. They were very rare in Indiana, and so I think the founding of our society tells us something special about Fort Wayne and the ideals of the people who created it.

Let’s go back to the years just before 1921, the period leading up to the founding of the society, and examine some of the currents in Fort Wayne at that time. Perhaps together we can understand the climate in which our historical society was founded, and why it has endured so successfully these 90 years.

For our city, and indeed for all of America, 1920 was a time of immense social, political, and technological change. Our industrial output was growing at an almost unprecedented pace. The Dudlo Manufacturing Company, General Electric, Wayne Knitting Mills, Perfection Biscuit, the S. F. Bowser Company, the Fort Wayne Rolling Mills, Louis C. Rastetter and Company, and the Berghoff and Centlivre breweries were among many industrial firms manufacturing goods and hiring hundreds of laborers. We were a booming town in 1920. Our population had risen to 86,549 and would exceed 115,000 by 1930. Most citizens were proud of the role that Dudlo, Bowser, GE, Packard Piano had played in the recent war effort. Dudlo’s magnet wire had served many uses in the war. Bowser’s pumps had been used in Europe. GE had provided a number of small engine components, while Packard had stopped making pianos and instead produced airplane propellers. And the post-war period augured well for even more productivity. The very year that the Historical Society was founded, city officials were working with International Harvester to build a new truck plant on the eastern side of the city at a cost of $5 million, a plant that the company promised would employ between 4,000 and 5,000 new workers. When completed, it would have a profound impact on our city for generations.

Fort Wayne also remained a major railroad hub in 1921. It was not only a place where locomotives were being designed and built, but also the rail center of the upper Midwest - the place where lines from across the country converged. The hub gave local industries an important strategic advantage in transporting goods to the rest of the country. This strong railroad culture, already more than 60 years old, had helped to shape and forge Fort Wayne’s identity. Many families had relatives who worked in the Pennsy shops or on the rails in some capacity. During World War I the shops had remained open extra hours to keep locomotives and freight cars in working order for the war effort, transporting soldiers and materiel.

The growth that Fort Wayne had experienced during the period between 1910 and 1920 had spurred a variety of other changes. The city experienced a new building boom in 1920 that was almost unprecedented, and city leaders had worked hard to keep up with the growth. Mayor William Hosey had spent the decade before 1910 rebuilding and in some respects reinventing the city’s infrastructure, leading a drive to build municipal electric and water pumping plants. He would continue that effort in the 1920s, when the city outgrew the earlier utilities. Fort Wayne also had two competing telephone companies, and by 1920, many private residences had telephones for the first time. Entrepreneurs had promoted the construction of many new public buildings, some for entertainment purposes. The Majestic Theatre had been rebuilt and opened in 1905. The Lyric opened in 1908 and Diamond’s Airdome in 1909, offering a variety of vaudeville acts. The Empress Theatre had followed in 1913 and the Palace in 1915. The palace, in particular, was a favorite destination of downtown theater-goers.

The central business district remained the most significant commercial destination for anyone living in northeastern Indiana. If one walked our downtown streets, one would have seen a variety of venerable department stores and business houses, from Wolf & Dessauer, the People’s Store, and the Boston Store, to Meyer Brothers Drug Store, the Rurode Dry Goods Company, and many others.

The city continued to expand its boundaries, and a number of suburbs had emerged by 1920, including Lakeside, Oakdale, and Forest Park, with many more neighborhoods in the planning stages. The streetcars, now electrified, were used heavily by the public. A worker could buy a Victorian style house in Lakeside or South Wayne, climb on board a streetcar, and in a half hour or less be at his place of work.

Many local residents were buying homes for the first time. Some opted to purchase an American Four-Square House, the most common residential style in the city in 1920 and considered by many to be the most efficient and economical. Those with more money many have opted for a new style of home in one of several emerging architectural styles, including Colonial Revival, Spanish Revival, Tudor Revival, Prairie, and Craftsman.

Many local streets were paved with brick, and increasing numbers of middle class families could now afford to purchase automobiles. Model T Fords had become commonplace by 1920. Five years earlier, the Lincoln Highway had been completed through Allen County and dedicated with the promise that once finished, it would allow anyone to climb into an auto and travel across the country. This new national highway offered an astounding level of personal freedom to people who had been isolated on farms or forced to ride only on railroad or interurban lines. Country roads were often muddy and impassible. The Lincoln Highway would change people’s outlook.

A variety of other cultural changes were afoot in Fort Wayne and across America in the decade leading up to 1920. At the beginning of the decade in 1910, Fort Wayne was still what one editor once called “a most German town,” with a flourishing subculture that included German language worship services in many local churches, German parochial schools, and German spoken in many local shops. Some businesses catered exclusively to a German clientele. German-American residents, both Catholic and Protestant, voted heavily in a Democratic Party block. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson had won the combined city and county vote over Taft, 8,600 to 3,400 votes, and he was propelled to victory locally in part by a reliable political machine that heavily favored Democrats.

But the anti-German feeling brought about by World War I had changed all of that. German church services all but disappeared under community pressure. Non-naturalized German-born residents were targeted as potential enemy agents and fingerprinted. Many German-speaking households had become English-speaking after the war. For Democrats, this change came at a price. Incensed at Wilson for bringing the country into the war and for promoting the anti-German campaign at home, many, especially Lutherans, switched parties and became Republican. In the 1916 presidential election, the Republican Charles Evans Hughes edged out the combined city-county vote over Wilson, 10,200 to 9,385. By 1920, the Republican Warren G. Harding would carry both the city and county by a substantial margin, 24,113 to 12,721. Many Lutheran families in Fort Wayne have remained Republican ever since.

Women were adding their voices and efforts to many new causes by 1920. Having worked ardently for the vote for several decades, their campaign had intensified during the 1910s, especially as more women across America had entered the workforce. Organized groups of women had become more active and had proved to the community that they had clout. In addition to the DAR and the Women’s Club League, women had founded the local YWCA, had been instrumental in organizing and expanding the public library, and they had worked tirelessly for the Red Cross during the war. With the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, women at last had won the right to vote, and they participated in large numbers in the national election that brought Harding to office. They would play a key role in the founding of our Historical Society and have always been influential supporters.

Women had been instrumental as well in the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, ratified in 1919, which brought Prohibition. Like the anti-German campaign of the World War, it would have a significant influence on Fort Wayne culture. Fort Wayne residents loved to drink. At the turn of the century, saloons could be found on almost every city block, and alcoholism and public intoxication would reach epidemic proportions. By closing down the saloons, many believed workers’ lives would improve and the city would become a more wholesome place to live. While certainly alcohol consumption diminished, Prohibition also drove it underground, with boot-legging and speak-easies both common in our area.

Probably the most important trend that influenced the founding of the Historical Society – more than any of the others – was the City Beautiful Movement. Proponents of this national reform movement, given impetus by the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, believed that by improving the environment where the laboring classes lived, beautifying cities, eliminating slums, and promoting free access to public parks and playgrounds, quality of life as a whole would be elevated. Until 1910, Fort Wayne had grown without any unifying vision for its design. Air and water pollution went unchecked. Our rivers smelled, and our air reeked from the output of thousands of coal-burning furnaces. While we had few areas that could be called slums, many parts of the city that had grown ugly with no ordinances for signage or building standards. A number of prominent residents, many belonging to the upper classes of our society, became advocates for reform. They envisioned a city with more parks and green spaces, scenic vistas and streets, and a clean riverfront with hiking paths. After establishing a separate Board of Park Commissioners, they brought in such nationally-renowned urban planners as George Kessler and Arthur Shurtleff to present plans for a series of civic improvements. Kessler’s 1911 parks and boulevard plan laid the groundwork for the establishment of Foster, Franke, and McMillen parks and the development of such scenic boulevards as Rudisill, State, and Anthony. While not all aspects of Kessler’s plan were realized at the time, those that were implemented succeeded in creating a network of parks and avenues that placed Fort Wayne well ahead of many other mid-sized cities.

The founding of our Historical Society represented an extension of the ideals of the City Beautiful Movement. A city that cares about its appearance and cultural amenities should be one that seeks to preserve its history. Just as parks were important in elevating living conditions, a museum was needed to inculcate a sense of civic pride and cultural awareness in the minds of local residents. I would argue that creating a historical society like ours represented an act of cultural maturity – a sign that Fort Wayne’s residents were confident enough in their community’s identity that its history should be studied, taught, and preserved. Many of the local leaders of the City Beautiful Movement, especially David and Samuel Foster, were also Historical Society founders.

In 1901, a Relic Room had opened in the courthouse under the auspices of the DAR. It contained a collection of arrow points, Indian tools, and a small number of artifacts from the early forts, all displayed behind a few glass cases. A seed was planted.

In the decades that followed, local residents became more conscious of the city’s history. Local advertising man Bert J. Griswold had heightened that awareness through a series of newspaper columns that had culminated in the publication of his two-volume Pictorial History of Fort Wayne in 1917. A year before, the city had staged an elaborate historical pageant in Reservoir Park that included costumed characters from the city’s history. Widely attended, it inspired school children to tell the stories of Anthony Wayne, William wells, and Little Turtle. The DAR, too, had been tireless in promoting the awareness of local history by placing historical markers across the city. The Parks Commissioners under David Foster’s leadership were also aware of the importance of history and in 1917 had unveiled an equestrian statue of Anthony Wayne in Hayden Park.

Having a historical society represented an important civic achievement and is best appreciated by noting how few in number such societies were in Indiana. And it came about at an opportune moment. The children of the pioneer generation were passing away. Many families had inherited valuable artifacts and heirlooms - everything from daguerreotypes, letters, and clothing to military relics, paintings, furniture, and ephemera that had historical significance. By establishing the society when we did, we were able to collect items that would surely have been lost to posterity had we not existed. In many ways, too, our society represented a way for residents to hold onto the past during a period of intense change, when many felt all traces of our heritage were in danger of slipping away.

In 1921, the Historical Society was organized at a meeting in Wolf & Dessauer’s auditorium with William Peltier as founding president, Bert Griswold as vice president, Margaret Crankshaw as secretary, and Ross Lockridge as treasurer. Peltier belonged to one of the oldest French families in Indiana, and Griswold, of course, was a popular historian. That first program was titled, “History is a Pageant, not a Philosophy.” There was, initially, no museum. The society met at various venues around town for the next several years, where its members formulated plans for the future. Then in 1925 a major break came when the Park Board offered the Swinney Homestead as the society’ s permanent home. Again, we see evidence of the strong bond between our society and the Park Board. After two years of remodeling it opened in 1927.

Initially, the museum accepted almost any historical artifact, whether or not it pertained to Fort Wayne or Allen County: stuffed animal trophies, birds’ nests, and a variety of souvenirs gathered from travel to other countries. If it was old, the Historical Society would take it. But even if its collection policies were indiscriminate, the society did important work by continuing to raise public awareness about local history, erecting new historical markers and holding picnics and dinners to commemorate the anniversaries of local historical events.

Through it all, the society managed to amass an impressive collection of artifacts. Over the years it has evolved into one of the most impressive local museums in the state with a collection Indiana objects rivaled perhaps only by that of the state museum. Our publications also blossomed, from small pamphlet-sized newsletters to a journal like the Old Fort News that is one of the most scholarly in the state and widely respected.

So let us celebrate our first 90 years with this thought: even with all the changes through the years, our accomplishments, our increasing professionalism, and our continuing challenges, our mission has remained unchanged: We continue to be dedicated to teaching others about the history and value of our community – and preserving the multitude of stories and artifacts that make Fort Wayne and Allen County the fascinating places that they are. Our work will never be finished. There will always be more stories to uncover, more artifacts to preserve, and more people to teach. But I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we are deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished so far. May the next ninety years be every bit as fruitful. Thank you.

The Allen County-Fort Wayne History Book

2011-06-15T06:19:00.000-07:00

While our bloggers have been providing posts about Fort Wayne and Allen County history for about a year now, there is a more definitive work available for you to learn more about the history of this area.

A two-volume history of Allen County was compiled and published in 2005 by the Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society and the Allen County Genealogical Society.

The last definitive narrative history of Allen County was published by Bert J. Griswold in 1917. Though many pictorials and topical histories of Fort Wayne and Allen County have been published since the Griswold book, none have been as comprehensive and narrative in nature as the current work. Griswold published a second book in the 1920s.

The two-volume work contains over 800 pages of county history as well as biographies of local families, churches, schools, organizations, and businesses. The book also features hundreds of historical photographs and documents.

In an effort to compile the most complete history of Allen County possible, the Historical Society and Genealogical Society recruited a team of more than fifty literary volunteers to write articles on various aspects of the county's history. In addition, biographical submissions from local families, businesses, schools and churches, and clubs and organizations were encouraged.

Now on sale for $89.95, the history is a fine addition to any home.

How the Zagel Children Were “Drafted”

2011-06-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

Translated from German and introduced by Roger Franke

In a recent issue of the “Old Fort News” writer John Beatty describes in much interesting detail the impact that events from the Civil War era had upon the citizenry of Allen County and Fort Wayne. Of lesser importance historically, but perhaps yet worthy of note, is the recollection of a childhood incident from several years after the war’s end by German-language writer Hermann Zagel. Hermann was born in 1859 near Columbus, Indiana, but moved with his family in 1860 back to the Fort Wayne area where his father Andrew accepted a call to become pastor of Trinity Suburban Lutheran Church on Decatur Road (then called Piqua Road). Hermann had many fond and vivid memories from the days of his childhood and youth in Allen County, some of which found their way into print in a popular German language periodical of the time and in several of the six books that he authored. Hermann’s day job was that of a Lutheran parochial schoolteacher, but it was as a writer in German language that he gained his fame in the latter 1800s and early 1900s, his readership being centered in the many scattered German-American communities throughout our country. But he was gradually forgotten again in the years surrounding and following World War I as these ethnic pockets over time transitioned to the use of English. Hermann died in 1936 in Peoria, Illinois.

The Civil War had ended several years before the occurrence of the incident translated below, but to the members of the Andrew Zagel Family on Piqua Road in Allen County, Indiana, some aspects of the conflict lingered fresh in their minds. The children, in particular, had seen for themselves how the military-aged sons of a neighboring family had fled to the woods and hid from the “drafters” while they were in the neighborhood looking for recruits for the Union Army. The word “draft” was quickly absorbed into the everyday German conversation of the Zagels, but not at all in a manner that one might expect.

But let’s permit Hermann Zagel to tell the story, and I’ll attempt to do some justice, at least, to his tale in English translation.

Bedtime at the Zagels was usually a long drawn-out process. We children never seemed at all sleepy. If our relationships prior to going to bed had been amicable, then that atmosphere continued in bed with much talking, gesticulating, giggling and laughing. But, if shortly beforehand, a quarrel had taken place, that hostility would be continued on in bed. In both cases it usually fell to our good and worthy mother, hard at work on our behalf with mending, sewing, or spinning, to call out with an insistent voice a request for peace and quiet. Who knows how often the admonitions were repeated until her thread of patience finally broke, and she proceeded to the next step -- “drafting.” Does the kind reader know what that is? Hardly so, for that is an expression which originated in the parsonage on Piqua Road and belonged uniquely to our family.

Earlier in our childhood which had occurred during wartime, we children heard a lot about “drafting:” in German “Konskription von Soldaten.” We had been witnesses to the fact of how neighbor E’s grown sons were supposed to be called up for military duty and out of fear of the “drafters” had fled to the woods to escape -- in our manner of thinking “to escape punishment.” And so it came about that we accepted the word into our German vocabulary with the meaning of “corporal punishment” and in particular “bedtime punishment.” Our mother seemed to take a liking to the term and its new meaning, for she readily adopted it. Whenever things got a bit too loud in our beds and no amount of urging or admonishing produced any results, she would stand up and in a solemn voice declare, “Well, I see that I am going to have to “draft” you,” after which she would start rummaging around among the sticks behind the stove. That kind of “conscription” rarely failed in its purpose.

One evening we were “drafted” in triplicate. Brother Hen and the writer of this account occupied the large bed. Underneath of it was a piece of furniture from those bygone days of old—almost forgotten today—that was also a bed, but lower and narrower than the large one. It moved on rollers and was pulled out in the evening for its intended use and the next morning, after having served its purpose, pushed back to its place underneath. In this bed at that time slept our two younger sisters Mellie and Hanna. When bedtime came we were in a very rosy mood. If we dived into bed on that evening, I no longer remember, but most likely so, but I do know that plump little Mellie had smuggled her doll with the sweet-sounding name Gootshie into the trundle bed with her. It didn’t take long until a fascinating game involving the doll was in progress.

Little Mellie called to us that her Gootshie wished to visit us in our bed above. In an instant Hen and I were prepared to give her a worthy reception—namely with our pillows. We no longer lay under our feather tick but were sitting on top of it. Little Mellie, likewise, sat on her covers close to the footboard of our bed and in jerks moved her doll slowly along the footboard higher and higher and asked with each push, “Is Gootshie coming yet?”

“Not yet!”

Again came the question, “Is she there now?”

“Not yet!”

Until, with the last push, Gootshie’s porcelain head became visible above the footboard. Two pillows immediately whizzed through the air and struck poor Gootshie with such force on the head that her sight and hearing would have been obliterated, had she been in possession of such faculties. That was repeated directly again with glorious delight. In spite of mother’s emphatic demands from the spinning wheel for a cease to hostilities, Gootshie again and again attempted to visit, and always with the same reception until we were screaming with laughter. With that the patience at the spinning wheel came to an end. Mother jumped up and in the next moment from the box behind the stove reverberated the noise of the familiar rattle among the sticks. We used the moment to disappear with utmost haste under the covers. In vain! The feather tick flew up and a “drafting” began. So much so that our “conscription” was clearly visible in bold outlines on our bodies the next day yet. Along with us, plump little Mellie was thoroughly “drafted” too, for our mother allowed no lack of justice in her discipline. Five minutes later a deep stillness prevailed in the large room, such a stillness that one could clearly hear the squeaking of the mice in the walls. Gootshie never again made any attempt to visit us ill-mannered rapscallions.

The participants in the above “tragedy” include the narrator Hermann, born in 1859, his brother Hen (Heinrich), born 1854, his sister Mellie (Amelia), born 1861 and Mellie’s porcelain- headed doll Guschtel, translated here as Gootshie. Another sister Johanna (Hanna), born 1868, is mentioned but was too young at the time to take part in the “action.” Mother Zagel, Anna, was born Fruechtenicht in 1830 and was the wife of Pastor Andrew (Andreas) Zagel whom she married in Allen County in 1849.

The source for the anecdote is a book by Hermann Zagel entitled “Dies und Das und noch Etwas” (This and That and Something Else), published 1908 by Louis Lange Publishing Company, St. Louis, Missouri, pages 86, 87, 88.

History Center member Roger Franke, in his own words: "I am an Allen County native, well almost, born in a hospital in Decatur in 1940, but grew up since babyhood on my parent's farm near Hoagland. I became a high school German teacher and taught many years at Westview High School in LaGrange County. Both my wife Patricia and I are retired from teaching and have lived near Wolcottville since 1967. We have three grown and married children with families of their own. I have an avid interest in family history and local German-American life in the 1800s and early 1900s."

Recapping 90 years of Historical Society events

2011-06-03T07:05:00.000-07:00

Here are some highlights of the 90 year history of the Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society:

The 1920s

Historical Society formed in 1921.

Artifacts from the Mary Penrose Wayne Chapter of the DAR combined with artifacts owned by the Historical Society resulted in a collection of over 100 items by 1923. The items were displayed in the Relic Room of the Allen County Court House until 1926.

The Historical Society leased the Swinney Homestead from the city in 1924 and established its first permanent museum.

First curator was Isabelle Taylor.

Officially changed name in 1924 to Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society.

Grand opening of the new museum was on January 17, 1927.

Other major events of the decade included the “Old Fashioned Tea” to celebrate the 26th anniversary of W & D, and dedication of a bronze tablet to Gov. Samuel Bigger at his grave in McCulloch Park in 1922.

The 1930s

In December, 1931, the first issue of the “Old Fort Bulletin” was published.

February, 1932 saw the hiring of the first full-time curator, Charles Cherry.

The Historical Society’s constitution was revised in 1932 so that the organization could collect books and manuscripts, thus establishing an historical library. First person accounts of local history were published.

March 24, 1932, the Historical Society officially incorporated.

“The Old Fort News” was first published in March 1936.

The 1940s

The Historical Society expanded its professional reputation by hosting the Midwest Museum Conference in 1941 and the Hoosier Historical Institute in 1946.

Margaret J. Smith, granddaughter and only surviving descendant of Thomas Swinney, planted a sycamore tree on the grounds of the Swinney Museum.

The 1950s

The Society initiated a docent program, acquired a locomotive for the museum grounds, began bus tours and started a pilot program to send educational materials to area schools.

By 1959, the membership had grown to 950 members.

The 1960s

The Society began museum field trips for 4th grade students.

National recognition with an award of merit was achieved from the American Association for Local and State History.

A 1910 doctor’s office with artifacts from Dr. Lawrence Shinabery’s collection was set up in the third floor attic of the Swinney Museum.

The 1970s

The Settlers were founded to preserve and teach pioneer skills and began separate programs in 1971. By 1976, over 200 women had enrolled in these programs.

The Society acquired the former city hall at 302 East Berry and began restoration of the building in late 1977.

The 1980s

October 10, 1980, the Old City Hall Historical Museum was dedicated. Restoration totaled almost $1.2 million with funds coming from both private and public sources.

The Settlers moved to the Swinney Homestead.

An industry and technology gallery opened in 1984.

The police gallery opened in the old jail in 1985.

In 1985, the Festival of Gingerbread was founded as a major fund raiser for the museum.

The DAR officially donated its entire collection of artifacts to the museum in 1988.

The 1990s

The Barr Street Market was acquired in 1991 as well as the Chief Richardville House.

The George R. Mather Lecture series premiered in 1993 and continues today.

The Society celebrated its 75th anniversary with a special exhibit “Gems of the Collection”, displaying some of the best artifacts owned by the Historical Society and reinforcing the uniqueness and depth of collection’s range.

The 21st century

The History Center in partnership with the Helmke Library at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW), created an online Digital Collection for access to many historic materials owned by the Historical Society, including photos, maps, and manuscripts. See http://acfwhs.lib.ipfw.edu/

The home of the Historical Society was officially named the History Center in 2002.

The Heritage Education Fund was started in 2003 to help in funding field trips for area schools.

New marketing efforts resulted in a new branding for the History Center and revamped newsletters, web site and the development of a blog and Facebook page.
See http://www.fwhistorycenter.com/ and http://historycenterfw.blogspot.com/

The 25th anniversary of the Festival of Gingerbread in 2010 broke all attendance and revenue records.

In February, 2011, a ribbon cutting was held for the newly restored Shields Room that had once been the city council chambers.

A Historic View of the Deadly Atlatl

2011-05-31T06:54:00.000-07:00

The following is a guest post from Erik Vosteen, who has long been a popular presenter at the Chief Richardville House. From flint napping to bark baskets to weaponry, Erik has brought many of these lost arts back to life for his audiences. Erik says, "My interest in the atlatl stems from a general interest in ancient technologies, processes, and resources of the Eastern Woodlands. I have been fascinated with people's interaction with nature and use of local resources since I was a child, and have explored many ancient technologies through the years." Erik will be demonstrating the atlatl on Saturday, June 4, 2011 from 1 to 4 p.m.

By Erik Vosteen

The atlatl — pronounced "at-latl" — is an ancient projectile weapon system that utilizes a light spear called a "dart" and various types of "throwers" (the atlatl) to cast darts much further than is possible with the bare hands. In North America, there is no historic evidence of this system being used to hunt large land animals.

Historically, they were being used by various cultures including the Inuit up north and the Aztecs down south to pursue animals associated with water — marine mammals and fish, and surprisingly, ducks in Peru. Archaeological evidence, however, suggests that pre-historic people of North America did use variations of this system to hunt large land animals — most notably caribou.

The Aztec people did quickly begin using atlatls and darts against the conquistadors — it being the only weapon capable of penetrating the Spanish armor. The Spanish noted that the Aztecs were able to cast darts on the run, which the Spanish could not do with firearms, that they could load and cast them faster than firearms could be loaded and fired, and, surprisingly, that the Aztecs could cast darts as accurately for as far as the firearms of the day could be shot.

While the atlatl appears to have been used by many cultures worldwide, not all cultures used them — such as in Africa where the hand thrown spear was preferred. It is worth noting that when dangerous animals like large cats are encountered, a hand held spear is still considered more effective protection than a firearm. To quote a native Jaguar hunter in South America, "he who hunts the Tigre with a gun doesn't return, he who hunts them with a spear brings the Tigre home..."

There are many variations of both darts and atlatls designed to utilize the available resources for the intended result. For instance, Inuit atlatls have handles designed to be an emergency paddle while hunting in a kayak, while Peruvian duck darts were designed to skip across the water when cast into flocks of sitting ducks.

No matter the specific design, there are some features that recur — like a groove to guide the dart to the tine in the thrower, and a tine that is recessed in the grove to protect it from impacts that might break the tine rendering the atlatl non-functional.

We will be using atlatls that mimic the most notable features of historic atlatls. To learn more and to try your hand at casting some darts, come to the Richardville house June 4th.

For more information on Erik's activities, visit www.burntmud.com. For photos of our activities, please visit the History Center's Facebook page. For information on the Chief Richardville House, please visit the History Center's web page at www.fwhistorycenter.com/chiefRichardvilleHouse.

Celebrating 90 years of history

2011-05-26T06:48:00.000-07:00

On June 21 during our annual dinner, we will celebrate the founding of the Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society. See our website at www.fwhistorycenter.com for more information.

The Historical Society was founded in 1921 on February 12. About 141 residents of the community, among them prominent business and social leaders of Fort Wayne, met in the auditorium of Wolf & Dessauer to enjoy an historical revue of the Wabash and Erie Canal and to officially enroll as charter members of the Historical Society.

You can find the names of those charter members on our Facebook page.

Two days later, on February 14, an organizational meeting was held in the Director’s Room of the Lincoln National Bank. The meeting was called by Samuel M. Foster and Floyd Neff acted as secretary.

On March 23 an open meeting for all of those in the community interested in joining the Historical Society was held at Central High School. Membership dues of $1 were paid by 208 persons who signed the constitution of the organization.

The first officers were

William Peltier, president
Bert Griswold, vice president
Margaret Crankshaw, secretary
Ross Lockridge, treasurer

Beginning in 1902, the Mary Penrose Wayne Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution displayed relics on the top floor of the Allen County Courthouse. These artifacts were merged with those of the Historical Society in 1925 and moved to the Swinney House in 1926.

The Swinney Homestead, located just east of Swinney Park on West Jefferson, was willed by Thomas Swinney along with 240 acres of land to the city of Fort Wayne as a park in 1874. A stipulation of the will was that his children would be allowed to continue to live at the Homestead until the last of his survivors had died.

The Historical Society leased the Swinney Homestead from the city in 1924 and with financing from the county and Society members, established the first permanent museum. The formal opening of the museum was on January 17, 1927 with over 200 people enjoying an open house that afternoon.

Information for this blog post comes from the Old Fort News, Volume 58, Number 2, 1995. This edition highlighted the history of the Historical Society on the occasion of the 75th anniversary. Our next blog post for the 90th anniversary will highlight some of the challenges and accomplishments of the Historical Society during its history.

Physicians, Suffrage, and History

2011-05-15T07:08:00.000-07:00

In June the Allen County - Fort Wayne Historical Society will celebrate its 90th anniversary. Among the Fort Wayne citizens who came together in February 1921 to form the Society were two women physicians, Dr. Carrie B. Banning and Dr. Jessie C. Calvin. Both had been practicing medicine and leading public health efforts in Fort Wayne since the turn of the century. In 1921 women had just won the right to vote. Drs. Banning and Calvin were strong role models for what women could do.

Carrie Banning moved to Fort Wayne soon after graduation from Cleveland University of Medicine in 1894. Like a number of other physicians of her day, she was licensed to practice homeopathic medicine. Although the American Medical Association frowned on homeopathy, Dr. Banniing was respected for her medical skills. She was the first medical examiner for women employees at General Electric, the largest empoyer of women. She gave free medical checkups at the Y.W.C.A. to all women. At the beginning of World War I, she recruited nurses to serve with the Red Cross.

Dr. Banning was a passionate worker for improved public health. Supported by the Women's Club League and parent teacher clubs, in 1916 she won appointment as one of the first three medical inspectors for Fort Wayne public schools. In this role, she examined hundreds of school children, calling attention to their need for medical care. Concerned about the spread of disease, she appeared before city council to protest the city ordinance that prohibited wrapping garbage.

Twenty years before women won the right to vote, Dr. Banning championed suffrage and greater women's rights. She knew Susan B. Anthony well enough to call her "Aunt Susan." In 1912 Dr. Banning helped Fort Wayne women organize a suffrage club. She spent years winning public support for the cause that often seemed hopeless. Once the 19th Amendment to the Constitution passed in August 1920, she helped organize the League of Women Voters, advocated for the right of women to serve on juries, and joined in political campaigning.

Dr. Jessie Carrithers Calvin, a contemporary of Dr. Banning, graduated from Northwestern University Medical School for Women in 1895. Winning a very competitive internship, she served at the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane for the next two years. In 1897, now married to Dr. Warren Calvin, a graduate of Rush Medical College in Chicago, she moved to Fort Wayne.

The Drs. Calvin shared a medical practice from offices on the 200 and 300 blocks of West Wayne Street. Dr. Jessie specialized in obstetrics and gynecology, regularly visiting patients in their homes. Dr. Warren Calvin was known for his treatment of skin diseases and as a faculty member of Fort Wayne Medical College. He was also an active supporter of woman suffrage.

In her first years in Fort Wayne, Dr. Jessie became largely responsibile for the organization of the Visiting Nurse League. She recruited church women, raised funds and drew support from local physicians. As a result of her efforts, the Visiting Nurse League was able to hire nurses to visit need people in their homes. She crusaded for better nutrition, safe drinking water and better care for victims of tuberculosis. Dr. Jessie worked through the Women's Club League to educate others on the prevention of contagious diseases.

As the 90th anniversary of the Allen County -Fort Wayne Historical Society draws near, Drs. Carrie Banning and Jessie Calvin would be delighted to be remembered as charter members. They would remind you that Dr. Warren Calvin also shared this honor and they would like you to know something about their future years. In less than a year, Warren Calvin would die. In the dark Depression years 1935 - 1938, Dr. Jessie would proudly serve as president of the society. She and Dr. Banning would continue to look after the health of Fort Wayne for many years to come.

TAKE A DRIVE ON THE ROUTE OF THE WABASH ERIE CANAL THROUGH ALLEN COUNTY

2011-05-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

Today you can ride the Wabash Erie Canal line in your car west through Allen County. Here are the driving directions with the few historic markers that now attempt to tell its story. Allen is but one county that was once connected by water to a series of many communities inspired by the Canal and today connected by roads, streets and highways that share a common heritage. The Wabash Erie Canal, once the world’s second longest canal completed in the 19th century, pleasantly located through a unique wilderness and now offers a rich history we can enjoy through the windshield of our car. If you want to follow the old canal route all the way to Lafayette, Indiana, go to:

http: /wecanalcorridortour.blogspot.com/2008/11/take-motor-tour-on-wabash-erie-canal.html.

For now, to get started, begin in downtown Fort Wayne at the History Center, 302 East Berry Street on Fort Wayne’s “Bicentennial Heritage Trail.”

● Departing the Allen County Fort Wayne History Center parking area to the north, turn west (left) on Berry Street and immediately turn north (right) again at the stoplight at Barr Street. Advance one block to Main Street and turn west (left) and go two blocks to Calhoun Street at the Allen County Court House. Move ahead one block passing Columbia Street on the west (left) which is the “The Canal Landing.” Structures on the north side of The Landing are the reminders of the backs of warehouses and mercantile buildings that served the Canal. Continue south on Calhoun passing under the railroad tracks that replaced the Canal and since elevated marking the Wabash Erie route.

● At the Superior Street stoplight, look to the east (right) across the south east corner parking lot and to the two-story structure at its east end. Known as the Canal House (pictured above), it has survived since 1852 when it was built of sturdy limestone. Another block east on the north side is Headwaters Park where a Canal historical sign is included with several Bicentennial Heritage Trail markers.

● At the Superior Street stoplight, turn west (left); the railroad line on the south side is the route of the Canal, and in one block’s distance cross over the now filled-in turnaround Orbison Basin. Follow Superior Street about one half mile to the 4-way stop at Van Buren Street and turn to the south (south). Cross back over the railroad tracks – and site of the Canal line – under the Fort Wayne Newspapers walk bridge to the Main Street stop light.

● Turn west (right) on Main Street passing Orff Park on the south (left) is a monument commemorating the Aqueduct Club, which was formed in the early 20th century by men who as boys swam in the old aqueduct.

● Crossing the Saint Mary’s bridge look downstream to the north (right) and near the site of the modern rail bridge is where the Saint Mary’s Aqueduct once provided boat passage over the river.

● Continuing west on Main Street eight blocks – paralleling the Canal line to the north – at Growth Street an Historical Marker relates the story of the Saint Joseph River Feeder’s junction with the main line of the Canal two blocks to the north and now buried under the railroad elevation.

● About three blocks ahead is a fork in the road (to the north it becomes Leesburg Road) follow the old Canal line which is present-day West Main Street as it leads south past Lindenwood Cemetery (on the right) to U.S. 24.

● Turn west (right) on U.S. 24 and watch for Rockhill Park on the south (left) side. Here in the park is the beginning place of the River Greenway Towpath Trail and features three Bicentennial Heritage Trail Markers. At the U.S. 24 and Freeman Street stoplight turn south (left), Rockhill Park is on the east, and travel to the junction of Portage Avenue. Turn west (right) on Portage and the site of the Canal towpath to the stop sign where it joins with Taylor Street and continues west to the intersection of Ardmore Avenue.

● Turn to the south (left) on Ardmore to Covington Road and turn west (right) on Covington. At about 4/10ths of a mile the flat place in the road is the site of the intersection of the long abandoned Canal line. Another 6/10ths mile at the Smith Road stoplight, turn left heading south. At 6/10ths mile cross the Towpath Trail at Glendale Road and proceed another 4/10ths of a mile to Engle Road.

● Turn west (right) on Engle Road and pass Eagle Marsh on the left side of the road and look beyond to a part of Fox Island County Park that preserves a sand dune that developed during an era of glacial drainage. Between cycles it was filled with water and when it was dry wind activity deposited sands in such a way to create present-day Fox Island.

● Ahead the road crosses the Canal bed and on to U.S. 24. Turn west on 24 (left). Canal will be on the south (left) side of U.S. 24. As the longest manmade waterway in America, the remains of the Wabash Erie Canal are buried under the highways, farm fields and buildings of our towns from Toledo, Ohio to Evansville, Indiana. A marker once noted:

“The old ditch may still be traced as it parallels U.S. Highway 24 most of the distance between Antwerp, Ohio and Logansport, Indiana.”

● Pass under Interstate I-69 and at 1 mile watch for East Woodland Ridge entering U.S. 24 on the left. This is the addition known as the “Hamlets” with its homes set atop the bluff offering a scene to the south. It overlooks the traces of Marias du Perches, the course of the Little Wabash River, the Maumee-Wabash Portage and the Wabash Erie Canal line in the glacier plain. Today, it marks line of the railroad once the domain of the Wabash Cannon Ball. Woodland Ridge west re-enters U.S. 24. Turn west (left) and continue through the stoplight at Homestead Road and approximately in one-half mile turn to the south on Redding Road.
● Redding Road curves sharply to the west (right) and about 8/10ths of a mile joins the Canal bed in evidence on the south (left) berm of the road. The old channel’s prism is visible past a number of houses that have been erected. Unfortunately, there are places where the channel has been filled in and the historic remnant has been lost. Farther west Aboite Road joins Redding Road from the south. Here across from the junction of the two roads standing on the north (right) side is the VERMILYEA HOUSE dating to 1839. This extant structure was a favorite stopping place for Canal boats and the first post office in Aboite Township of Allen County. Rumors persist of its role as an underground Rail Road station during the days that fugitives from slavery followed the towpath from southern Indiana on the Ohio River moving north to Canada and their freedom.

● To the west of Vermilyea House on the towpath was Ruffner’s Basin, a turnaround point and site for loading and unloading barges. Farther along Redding the road makes a sharp turn to the north to avoid Aboite River and the site of Aboite River Aqueduct No. 2 where Canal boats continued westward. Abutments of cut stone on each bank and during low water level in the river, a minimum of 25 foundation timbers are visible.

● Return to U.S. 24 turn west and pass along a large stone quarry at the Allen Whitley County Line Road. Prior to Canal construction this was the site of the Miami’s White Raccoon Village.

Here the Canal continued west on its route to Evansville on the Ohio River where Canal commerce communicated with the American West with its connection to the Eastern Seaboard. It represents but a fraction of the original 468 miles of Wabash Erie Canal, but this tour has traversed the highest level of the old Canal that gave Fort Wayne its moniker “The Summit City.”

To return to the History Center, turn around and follow U.S. 24 back to downtown Fort Wayne or turn north (right) on County Line Road and travel north to Indiana 14 intersection, turn east (right) and head for town.

Julia Emanuel, The Lady in Lavender

2011-04-28T08:07:00.000-07:00

The year is 1889. Imagine a tall, slender young woman at work in the back room of the Meyer Brothers Drug Store at the corner of Calhoun and Columbia Streets. She is Julia Emanuel, a recent graduate of the College of Pharmacy of the University of Michigan, the only woman in her class of forty one students. Like her male colleagues, she takes great pride in mixing powders and syrups to meet the needs of the pharmacy's regular stream of doctors and customers. Unlike her co-workers, however, Julia spends her entire work days in the back room. Even though a pharmacist, she is made to feel odd! She is not allowed to wait on the customers because that is not what women do. She feels like a skeleton living in the firm's closet!

Women in this period rarely graduated from college or even thought of pursuing a career outside the home. Instead of feeling discouraged by this rigid discrimination, Julia Emanuel, the pharmacist, became a legend in Fort Wayne. Sometimes referred to as "the lady in lavender" because she loved purple, she was an ambitious, talented, one of a kind entrepreneur and bon vivant!

For ten years Julia worked in the back room of Meyer's Pharmacy; then she broke free and started her own business. Over the years, she operated from locations on West Berry Street and on West Wayne Street. Her first shop was 25 feet square with neither a furnace nor a stock room. For her first twenty years in business, her shop was known as the Arcade Pharmacy. She was afraid people wouldn't come to a shop with a woman's name on it. Finally, she changed the sign to read Miss Emanuel's Chemist Shop. She was now a downtown landmark. Her hours were from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Julia instilled confidence in her customers with her great accuracy in filling prescriptions. At heart she was a chemist. She became known for her headache powders, special creams and beauty products.

Julia projected a female perspective. She wanted her customers to take from her store "a sense of warmth, friendliness, and confidence." When she was able to hire employees, she insisted on hiring only women. She also wanted her employees to be college graduates.

What gave Julia the special drive that she needed to be so successful and unique for her time? People often said that she was born to be a pharmacist. She came from a family of doctors. Her father, grandfather, and three uncles were doctors. She grew up surrounded by talk of medical cures. Her mother was also a powerful role model. Julia's father had died when she was a young child; starting with his collection of medicines, her mother opened pharmacies in Antwerp and Paulding, Ohio, to support her three small children. Julia knew first hand the importance of being an independent woman. No surprise that she was active in the suffrage movement!

After fifty two years as a pharmacist in Fort Wayne, Julia retired in 1943 at the age of 73. Two years later, however, she returned to work at Jefferson Pharmacy because of the manpower shortage during World War II. After the war, she became known as an avid golfer, community volunteer, world traveler and bon vivant. She loved being surrounded by friends; she especially loved attending University of Michigan football games.

Julia also loved to express her opinion. "Age! That's simply a matter of the mind. It never occurs to me to consider age as a barrier. When I want to do something I do it," she told a reporter when she was 75. She was still getting good golf shots and walking the course. "And don't forget good posture. Standing erect is not only more comfortable, but it keeps us healthier in our bodily functions."

And so Jullia Emanuel kept playing golf, kept globe trotting, kept wearing lavender, and kept having a good time until her death in 1962 at the age of 91.

A Magnificent Religious Artifact

2011-04-19T11:04:00.000-07:00

Fort Wayne is often called "The City of Churches," and for good reason.

A search of the skyline reveals many steeples and domes that reflect the religious faith of local residents. Religious worship has taken many different forms. Some congregations worship in ornate settings in edifices that are more than a century old; others worship in newer or more simplified settings. Occasionally, a congregation will redecorate the interior of a church and discard items of historical significance. Some of these artifacts have found their way into the collection of the History Center.

One item of significance on display in one of the main floor galleries is a painting from the former reredos of Trinity Episcopal Church, located at 611 West Berry Street. A reredos is a structure, usually of wood or marble, that is placed behind the altar of a church. They are found commonly in the Catholic, Lutheran, and Episcopal churches, and also in other denominations. Sometimes they contain paintings or carvings of religious significance, and many versions in Europe are of medieval origin.

Trinity Episcopal Church was founded in 1844, and its present edifice was completed in 1866 - a Gothic revival building designed by architect Charles Crosby Miller of Toledo. The interior has undergone a number of redecorations in its history, including one in 1893, another in 1925, and several others in more recent times. In 1925, Trinity's rector, Rev. Louis Rocca. commissioned the New York architectural firm of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and Associates to redecorate the nave in a colorful style that resembled a fifteenth century European church. (The firm had recently completed the design of Trinity English Lutheran Church nearby). The old Victorian stenciling on the walls were replaced with deep shades of red, blue, and gold, and much of the old varnished woodwork was repainted.

The centerpiece of the redecoration was a new painting for the reredos, replacing an earlier painting of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue commissioned a pair of New York City artists, Telford and Ethel (Parsons) Paullin, to design a new painting. The Paullins had worked with the firm before and were well known. Telford Paullin (1885-1933), a native of Le Mars, Iowa, had studied art in Chicago before coming to New York City. He and his wife Ethel became captivated by Byzantine art as it appeared in Eastern Orthodox churches, and they adapted it to their own style, which they exhibited in many churches, especially in the East. Several years earlier the couple had painted a series of medallions in Byzantine style for the Chapel of St. Bartholomew's Church in New York City, as well as other works of art for the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer. Ethel was known both for her painting and her design of original tapestries. Both had experience painting murals and frescoes. Telford painted a colorful series of paintings comrpising the Stations of the Cross.

The painting created by the couple for Trinity Episcopal church depicts Christ in the sacred role of priest. He holds the Bible in his left hand, and his right hand is giving a traditional blessing. He is surrounded by a group of angels and saints, including St. Mary the Virgin on the far left. The Paullins prepared several studies and watercolors of the painting before completing the final version, and copies of these studies are housed in the Trinity Church Archives.

When the painting arrived, Father Rocca wrote Mrs. Paullin a letter of thanks, praising the work as "a source of constant joy." He added: "The wealth of sympolism you have imbedded in this painting, and the happy choice of color combinations - in fact, your exquisite and masterful treatment of the whole subject - make the painting one which is thoroughly unique, and most precious indeed. It blends in admirably with the general tone of our Fifteenth Century Gothic decorations, and is, as it should be, compelling to the eye the moment one enters the Church."

Some parishioners disagreed about the scale and cost of the decorations. Many agreed that the painting was better appreciated up close, where its minute symbolism could be carefully studied, than from a distance. When the church underwent another redecoration in 1962, the old reredos was removed and a new one installed. The painting found its way into the History Center collection, where it remains on display.

Religious artifacts teach us much about the diversity of Fort Wayne's spiritual heritage. When viewing them, one sees both the commonality and divergence of that experience. It is fortunate, indeed, that items once cast away by a congregation can find a new home in the Museum.

Irene Byron, A Crusader Against Tuberculosis

2011-04-11T18:49:00.000-07:00

One hundred years ago this spring Fort Wayne began its first all-out effort to defeat the most dreaded contagious disease of the day, tuberculosis.

Known as the "white plague," tuberculosis was often a fatal side effect of the town's booming industrial prosperity. New jobs and rapid population growth resulted in crowded housing that often lacked basic sanitation. Workplaces were often no better. Such conditions combined with long working days and poor diets, not surprisingly, became life threatening.

In 1909 city board of health officials were alarmed by 122 fatalities from tuberculosis. At the end of March and in early April of 1911, the League sponsored a health week at the downtown library described as "the greatest of its kind ever held in Indiana." Speakers included a leading bacteriologist from the University of Wisconsin, the health commissioner of Chicago, and Fort Wayne native Dr. Alice Hamilton.

Local audiences no doubt took great pride in Dr. Hamilton. A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Medicine and a former student of the Fort Wayne College of Medicine, she was already recognized for her public health work at Chicago's Hull House and her investigations of hazardous workplaces.

All week hundreds of people listened to lectures and viewed exhibits, taking away a better understanding of different strains of tuberculosis. Scientific research showed that the strain most responsible for killing infants and children could be controlled by strict inspection of milk. There were no known cures for the most contagious form of the disease, the strain that infected the lungs and often proved fatal. What experts did know, however, was that communities faced a life or death public health battle.

In 1913 Irene Byron, a young graduate of the Hope Hospital Training Program for Nurses, began work as the visiting nurse for the Anti Tuberculosis League. In this role, she had responsibility for educating patients in the importance of sanitation. If the disease were caught in the early stages, a good diet, fresh air, and rest could help patients recover.

Miss Byron and other leaders of the Anti Tuberculosis League quickly learned, however, that Fort Wayne was experiencing a tuberculosis epidemic. By September of 1913 more than 600 local residents were suffering from the disease. Two hundred were so sick that nothing short of a miracle could save them. Most of the remaining 400 victims might survive if they could be propery cared for. While tuberculosis sanitariums were becoming established elsewhere, Fort Wayne at this time lacked such facilities.

As a first step, the Anti Tuberculosis League opened a free clinic and dispensary. Irene Byron, now as the league's excecutive secretary, took responsibility for supervising programs of home care. In the summer of 1914 Irene Byron began campaigning for an outdoor hospital that would enforce strict rules of rest, diet, and fresh air. Thanks largely to her efforts, the following spring the Anti Tuberculosis League opened Fort Recovery, a group of wooden huts that housed twenty patients, even very young children.

Miss Byron continued to care for hundreds of other patients in their homes. At the same time she crusaded for a fresh air school to help underweight chidren become more robust. Irene Byron clearly risked her life through her regular visits with TB patients. By the winter of 1915, such exposre had taken its toll, for she was forced to take an extended leave of absence to visit family in California. She apparently regained her health, for when the call went out in the fall of 1917 for nurses to serve in World War I, she was one of the first from Fort Wayne to sign up.

Knowingly, she again risked her life to care for soldiers stationed at Camp McArthur in Waco, Texas, stricken with influenza. Despite the hardships she faced, she hoped to be sent to war areas in France.

Within less than six months in Texas, however, Miss Byron died, becoming Allen County's first woman martyr of the war. She was only 36 years old. Irene Byron's efforts to fight tuberculosis in Fort Wayne nevertheless continued. In the summer of 1919 a new modern sanitarium was dedicated in her honor to care for soldiers returning from service.

Until medical cures were developed in the 1950s, the Irene Byron Sanitarium continued to be a leader in Indiana's efforts to defeat the "white plague." Some one hundred years after the beginning of Irene Byron's public crusade against tuberculosis, it's appropriate to remember the origin of the current Byron Health Center on 12101 Lima Road and its namesake. The young nurse who so courageouosly led the public health battle against tuberculosis has long inspired others by her example.

[Writer's note - Hope Hospital was the forerunner of Parkview Memorial Hospital. Newspaper sources for this article include Journal Gazette April 1, 1911; March 29, 1918; and Daily News January 15, 1916. The photo of a main sanitorium building, now razed, is courtesy of the Allen County Public Library Community Album. The previous owner captioned the photo "Weary days & weary nites."]

Wager Your Wit

2011-04-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

A new season of Wager Your Wit begins on April 4. We'll be posting photos of the items on our Facebook page. For more information, you can also call the History Center at 260.426.2882.

On Grandma, Green Tomatoes, and Hard Times

2011-03-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

Tired of all the bad news on the economy, I recently re-read the “Little House” series of books. I hadn’t picked them up since elementary school, and it was a delight rediscovering the compelling, well-crafted stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life.

Some of the stories sent a chill down my spine, because I understood their implications in a way that I couldn’t as a child.

For example, how the family listened to the war drums of the Indians along the Verdigris River. The family was squatting illegally in Indian-controlled territory, and the Indians were not all terribly pleased by the appearance of white settlers. (The story becomes a heartbreaking one when you look at it from the perspective of the mother of the black-eyed papoose that stole Laura’s heart, as the Indians headed West in a great line of ponies and people).

Likewise the story of The Long Winter, when the family nearly starved to death. Most of us have never been truly hungry a day in our lives, so how can we conceive of the fear of starvation and sickness that ripples in an unspoken undercurrent through the story, as the snow-bound town waits for trains that never come? The family had reached the point where they were listless with hunger; Pa’s hands were so cut and swollen from braiding hay for the fire he couldn’t play the fiddle; and the most chilling detail of all can be imagined in how he must have looked:

"They all began to talk again, but Mr. Ingalls rose up tall and thin from the box by the stove. His face had shrunken to hollows and jutting cheekbones above his brown beard, and his blue eyes glittered bright. "

One detail that struck me was how at the beginning of the book, the family’s garden struggled on the freshly-broken sod. When frost strikes, Ma gathered all the leftover green tomatoes and pickled them. She only got two quarts. It doesn’t say how long the pickles lasted, but how delicious they must have been, and how quickly they must have disappeared. The rest of their harvest comprised five bushels of potatoes, a gallon of sweet relish, a bushel of beans, “lots of turnips,” some corn, and just six yellow-gold pumpkins. It wasn't much.

This is one of those moments where a book sheds a new light on your own life. This past fall I had a bounty of green tomatoes on the vine as frost threatened; they weren’t far enough along to ripen inside, so I picked them and—since I was in the midst of a canning kick (again, don’t ask; it’s genetic)—canned 12 pints with dill and vinegar brine following the direction in the canning bible known as the Ball Blue Book (which is no longer blue, by the way).

I am not sure exactly how I expected them to taste, but upon opening the first jar four weeks later, found that they tasted exactly as a home-grown, home canned pickled green tomato should taste…which I am sorry to say, was not entirely to my liking. In fact my thought was, “Yuck! This tastes like some weird thing Grandma served me when I was little!” So other than an additional jar opened for my book group, for demonstration purposes and which they claimed to like, the green tomatoes have sat all winter on the cellar shelf.

Here is where the local history part comes in. After reading the Little House books, a light bulb went on in my head, and I scrounged through the motley collection of church cookbooks that came to me from my Grandmother Balliet. I had previously amused myself reading the ones from the 1960s and their bedazzling array of dubious “salads” involving jello. But in 1948, the Lutheran ladies of LaOtto, Indiana were all atwitter over pickles. In addition to the 14 official pickle/relish recipes, my great-grandmother and grandmother had handwritten several additional pickle recipes, including one for pickled crab apples.

Obviously, farm women who were scarred by the privations of the Great Depression canned everything they could get their hands on. They carefully saved their seeds from year to year, grew copious gardens, and had root cellars full of the bounty. Sure, they could always go to the grocery store if they ran out before spring…but that would entail hitching up a team of horses and driving miles into town down the Lima Plank Road (which was composed of actual planks) in the dead of winter. Better to work hard, save your money, and ensure that your babies and husband will stay fat and sassy all winter long from your labor of love, even in the depths of Depression.

So on a whim I canned pickled green tomatoes last fall—along with a half-bushel of peaches, 6 quarts of applesauce, 12 pints of an insanely good heirloom tomato, roasted garlic and basil marinara, and I forget how many pints of dilly beans. I was really proud of the accomplishment, because it was really hard work, because I grew most of the tomatoes and greenbeans, and because my toddler son wolfs down his mama’s peaches, applesauce and pasta sauce in messy euphoric handfuls and clamors for more.

But after thinking about it from the perspective of my great-grandmother and her family, or the Ingalls family, or people who are going hungry in our own town today. it is somewhat shaming to have the luxury of being a picky eater. Or to regard my sliver of vegetable garden as entertainment, not really caring if we ate the food, or it happened to rot on the vine or kitchen counter. Or to pat myself on the back for a cute little supply of food that wouldn’t last a farm family a week in the winter. Or to drive a car powered on gasoline mixed with ethanol—a practice that burns a third of the U.S. corn crop in one of the most incredibly inefficient modes possible, while China’s cereal crop dries under sun and the price of food sparks riots worldwide.

It’s a lot to think about, and takes me right back to the grim economic headlines from which I was originally seeking refuge. But it certainly puts “hard times” into perspective. While there has been a spike in people who garden, can, knit or raise chickens, it’s generally not because they are financially pressed, because each of those activities is more expensive in both money and time than just picking the same item up from Walmart. It’s because they are yearning for self sufficiency and connection to the past.

And that is the power of history—to know that you likely have the same knife nicks and dings on your hands as Ma Ingalls; that your great-grandmother probably burned her fingers too when she hauled hot cans out of the boiling water bath; and that you are using the same Indiana-based Ball canning jars as your family for generations—like any good Hoosier. And it gives extra relish to a taste you might not immediately like, to think of how delicious the flavor of pickled green tomatoes would be to a family that faced down the never-ending winter of 1890, or scrimped and saved during the Great Depression.

So maybe I’ll crack another jar open tonight…and dare I try Eliza Jane’s recipe for pickled watermelon rind from Farmer Boy…?

What's behind a display?

2011-03-22T10:58:00.000-07:00

We thought you might enjoy seeing how our exhibitor, Randy Elliott, puts together a display. The photos here were taken as Randy worked on the display of Arts and Crafts items which will be on view this month at the History Center.

An Arts and Crafts Crib

There are two ways items are shown to the public at the History Center: exhibits, which are components or distinct spaces of the galleries depicting specific eras in Allen County/Fort Wayne history, and displays, which are temporary groupings around a topic such as fashion or architecture.

A great deal more work goes into setting up a display than you might imagine. First comes research. Randy utilizes various resources on the web to find items that are representative of the time that is being depicted in the display. Since dates seldom match, he looks for a consensus among a number of web sites for his use in determining what kinds of artifacts to look for within our collection.

Researching the Arts & Crafts Display

Then Randy must locate items in the History Center’s collection, make sure all of the cases being used are clean, clean the items for display, find appropriate props to go with those items, determine the layout of each case, and then….actually get to the work of setting up the cases and moving them into place.

Moving and assembling a display case

Signage is also a necessary component and most displays will have main, secondary and title signage as well as artwork gleaned from printed materials if an actual artifact is not available.

As you can see from these photos, our display cases are portable…to the extent that it takes at least two guys to move them…and sometimes four to put them together.

The display cases are moved from staging to the Shields Room and other cases set up for additional displays.

Most of the work is accomplished “behind the scenes” because the museum is open to school groups and others while the displays are being set up and wheeled into place. We love our building but one of the challenges of utilizing a structure built for another purpose is that you use what space you have instead of a space designed for a specific purpose. Thus our “staging area” is really just a former office and we have our artifacts in various parts of the building, necessitating going from floor to floor gathering items for displays. Museums that are new construction often will have staging areas built into the design which provide for better efficiency. But our historic building—which is an exhibit in and of itself-- has far more atmosphere than a newer model.

At work in an office downstairs where signage tools are stored and some displays set up.

Addie (Bleekman) Guldlin, a Notable Reformer

2011-03-09T06:37:00.000-08:00

On the south side of the St. Mary's river off Sherman Street, near the site of an eighteenth century French fort, is Guldlin Park, which will celebrate its centennial this spring. It was named for Addie (Bleekman) Guldlin (1863-1935), a champion of women's rights who is almost forgotten in the annals of Fort Wayne. Mrs. Guldlin had spearheaded the creation of the park, the city's first playground, dedicated for use by children. So who was Addie Guldin and why is her legacy so important and at the same time so neglected?

Mrs. Guldlin was born on 25 November 1863 in Stratford, Fulton county, N.Y., the second child and only daughter of Jerome Bleekman, an entrepreneur and lumber mill owner, and his wife Henrietta (Sixby). As a child she moved with her family to Rarden, Ohio. She graduated from Buchtel College in Akron, Ohio, in 1888, and the following year on 28 August 1889, she married Olaf N. Guldlin, a Norwegian immigrant and speculator in natural gas wells. The couple moved to Allen County in the 1890s with her parents. Olaf invested inthe Western Gas Construction Company at a time when there was a booming interest in natural gas wells in Indiana. He invested wisely and made a fortune, purchasing a large home at 2306 Fairfield Avenue and a cottage at Clear Lake. The Guldlins traveled in the upper social circles of the city, and they were childless.

Mrs. Guldlin had an assertive personality, was deeply interested in a variety of reform movements, and was not content to simply be an ornament for her husband. She became deeply interested in the women's suffrage movement in Indiana, which had made little progress in Indiana because of organized liquor interests whose advocates believed that giving women the vote would usher in Prohibition and harm the saloon industry. Frustrated by this lobby, many women became strong proponents of social clubs that promoted activist agendas outside of suffrage.

Among the clubs that attracted Mrs. Guldlin's interest was the General Federation of Women's Clubs. She became a strong advocate of its Domestic Science Department, believing that women should receive formal training to be homemakers and that keeping house was an art form. She went on the lecture circuit in the early 1900s, not only addressing the need for domestic science, but promoting the cause of women's clubs in general, arguing that women could play an activist role in many spheres in their own communities.

When giving a lecture for the Federation in Indianapolis in 1911, the Indianapolis News called her "one of the most prominent women in America" and added, "She is an enthusiast who speaks with much faith as to create a new appreciation for the subject to those who listen to her."

On another occasion a local Fort wayne newspaper described another lecture appearance: "Mrs. Guldlin never looked more charming in her life than on this evening, as she stood on the platform becomingly gowned in a creation of soft blue, her eyes lighted with animation and her whole being filled with enthusiasm in her subject." Despite the reporting style that seems sexist in a modern context, her remarks were hard hitting. She described having visited San Francisco in the wake of the 1906 earthquake and the utter corruption of its local officials. Many of the officials were headed justly to prison. The local women made a difference, she argued, in making San Francisco a new city with higher ideals. Women, she added, should receive liberal educations. "You can't estimate what you will receive by the cost."

Here in Fort Wayne, Mrs. Guldlin became deeply involved with the City Beautiful Movement and was a strong supporter of the new Park Commission. She began advocating for playgrounds for inner city children who, she argued, had no safe place to play. As a result the park commissioners dedicated Guldlin Park in her honor on May 20, 1911, complete with new playground equipment. Unfortunately, much of her work was destroyed two years later during the 1913 flood.

She continued to advocate for other civic improvements with the support of the Women's Club League. In 1912, she attended a city council meeting as the sole female member of the Civic Improvement Association. In advocating for a bond issue for the Park and Boulevard Plan devised by George Kessler and supported by the Park Commissioners, she told the councilmen: "You see, the women can vote as well as the men at the ward meetings which are being held with the city council." Unfortunately, that particular bond measure was defeated.

Mrs. Guldlin crusaded for women's suffrage, and with Carolyn (Randall) Fairbank attended the first state convention of the Woman's Franchise League of Indiana, held in Indianapolis in 1912. In her article, "Winning the Vote in Fort Wayne, Indiana," published in the Indiana Magazine of History in 2006, historian Peggy Seigel has shown that suffrage efforts in Fort Wayne lagged behind other areas of the state, again because of the liquor lobby and its support by many of the city's German-Americans. Still, she rejoiced at the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment that gave women the vote. She played a prominent role in reorganizing the former Franchise League into the Fort Wayne League of Women Voters. In the 1920s she was the only woman to serve on the City Planning Commission. She was also instrumental in securing the Theodore Thieme mansion and remodeling it for the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.

Addie (Bleekman) Guldlin was a pioneer of women's rights in Fort Wayne and an important activist at the turn of the century, and Guldlin Park remains a fitting tribute for her efforts.

The Political Cartoon

2011-03-07T08:47:00.000-08:00

You’ve heard it said that one picture is worth a thousand words and that’s certainly true of political cartoons. We’ve been doing some cleaning and re-arranging here at the History Center this winter and in the process have re-discovered some books that had been used in the past by our education department. One of those is “The Image of America in Caricature & Cartoon”.

Political, or editorial cartoons as they are also called, have been an important part of our history as documented via the press. From the earliest days of our country through current times, the cartoon has said in pictures what words sometimes fail to express. So in the spirit of finding another vehicle to spark an interest in history with your children, I decided on a snowy Friday to learn more about this art form.

Political cartooning will likely be lost on an elementary student but some middle school and most high school students will get a kick out of the intellect, artistic ability and sometimes quirky sense of humor that many cartoonists have. One of my favorite cartoonists worked for the Casper (WY) Star Tribune. By day he was an architect but by night he used his slightly wicked slant on the world to capture the political climate of the early 1980s. George quickly became a member of our gourmet club, “The Greater Casper Gourmet Club and Literary Soiree Society” and we shared many a laugh at his observations both verbal and on paper.

If you enjoy political cartoons, it’s fun to clip them from the newspaper to start a scrapbook or share with friends and family. I have an ongoing correspondence with one of my husband’s aunts who appreciates and shares the cartoons I send her. In return, I get clippings and emails from her and we’ve formed a bond based upon our interest in politics.
Until the topic of political cartoons got my attention, I had no idea that Dr. Seuss, (Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991), was the chief editorial cartoonist for the New York newspaper “PM”. Between the years 1940 and 1948, he drew over 400 editorial cartoons. The little known book “Dr. Seuss Goes to War” features about 200 reproductions of the best of his work from that time period.

The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum (a wonderful place to visit by the way) has a web site that features some lessons on political cartoons of the Truman era. The link
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/qq/rk_1.htm will take you to the site where cartoons are featured with questions that will help you learn more about the Truman administration.

The Utah Education Network has put together lessons on learning more about history via political cartoons at http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=560. The site gives students the opportunity “to analyze cartoons by identifying the symbols, characters and information and its significance in history” according to the “Google” description of the site.

One of American’s most influential political artists in our time has been Herb Block. A good web site to see Block’s work is http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/herblock/. Block’s work covers the lifespan of most of us so it can be a good basis for discussing events of your lifetime and what their place has been in our country’s history.

As you look at cartoons from the 20th century, you’ll find that, in the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, “things are more like they are now than they’ve ever been before.” The players may change but the themes tend to repeat themselves.

Resplendent Restoration

2011-02-23T12:13:00.000-08:00

Last week the History Center dedicated the Old City Hall Building’s former City Council Chambers and Courtroom as the newly restored Shields Room. The celebration marks the culmination of eight years, over $250,000, and the efforts of hundreds of individuals to return the room to its turn of the last century Victorian grandeur.

James and Margaret Shields, the Journal Gazette Foundation, the Edwin M. and Mary McCrea Wilson Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and many individual donors provided support for the restoration. The Shields Room, so named after the title supporters of the project, is now one of the finest galleries and banquet rooms to be found anywhere in Fort Wayne, or northeast Indiana for that matter.

Although the Old City Hall Building, one of the state’s finest examples of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture, was built in 1893 for a then whopping $63,000, historians do not believe that the room was lavishly decorated at that time. Rather, it is believed that the magnificent decoration that the room now bears was done around 1900. The earliest photograph of the room, taken in May 1901 to commemorate the installation of a new City Council, shows the room’s walls and ceiling splendidly decorated with the design it has today. The complex geometrical and swooping floral patterns bristling with gold leaf are clearly visible in that image.
Oddly enough, it is believed that the room and these designs were entirely painted over shortly before World War I. In its place, an extremely modest border design was painted right above the wainscoting, demonstrating an odd hybrid design of Colonial Revival and Arts and Crafts elements. This began a sad progression of painting the room several times, as it morphed over the decades from white to pale green, light yellow, off white, black, and white.The restoration started in 2003 when the Journal Gazette Foundation provided the initial seed monies for the project. This allowed restorationists to travel back in time as they methodically stripped layer after layer of over painting, which had been applied over the past nearly 100 years, until they reached their target layer from the year 1900. After finding the original designs and patterns, restorationists conducted microscopic analysis on paint fragments to determine the original coloration. The original gold leaf was also found aplenty during the investigation. After uncovering nearly two dozen patterns in their entireties, multipart stencils were made for each and the actual renovation began.Approximately one eighth of the room was restored in 2004, a reveal slice allowing the public to see what was possible if funding became available to restore the remaining seven eighths of the room.After taking a brief hiatus from the project to allow a new $1 million energy efficient heating and air conditioning system to be installed, the restoration recommenced in summer 2009. All of the restoration above the woodwork was completed by fall 2009. The golden oak wainscoting and trim, found throughout the room and in the main entryway, posed another set of challenges. Nearly 100 individual panels were split, broken, or otherwise unsalvageable for the restoration and had to be replaced. Tall and wide, one quarter inch, “quartersawn” oak boards, were costly around the turn of the last century, and are very rare and expensive today. Fortunately, similar boards were located in Michigan at a company specializing in exotic lumber. Craftsmen replaced all the necessary boards and even rebuilt a large section of walling, which had been unceremoniously covered with foam board several decades ago. The entire woodwork was stripped, stained, and fabulously refinished. The result truly makes the room glow, aided by the installation of 48 period lighting fixtures including seven dual gas and electrically lit “quad-globes.” Although the room does not utilize actual gaslights, the replica gaslights shimmer and dance with a striking low wattage flicker wire, mimicking the bygone ambience of yesteryear. Finally, in late 2010, the second floor entryway to the room was restored and the original stenciling, “City Council [Room] 200,” was applied. The project finished when 24 period canvas roller shades were installed just in time for the 2010 Festival of Gingerbread.
The restoration of the Shields Room is a signature component of nearly $2.5 million in capital improvements the History Center has recently made to its facilities. I encourage you to visit the museum to experience the restored room and step into the past, back to a time when the opulence and resplendence of public buildings were visible manifestations of our community’s sense of pride and promise for the future.

Fort Wayne's Earliest Aviation Event

2011-02-09T08:30:00.000-08:00

One of the most intruiging images in the History Center's collection is a copy of a damaged ambrotype from 1859, depicting what is thought to be Fort Wayne's earliest aviation event - the launching of a balloon from what appears to be a central part of Fort Wayne. In August of that year, Professor W. D. Bannister was induced to visit the city after a group of citizens raised $419.22 to pay him to make the ascension. A newspaper of the time commented that Bannisterhad been the partner of "the unfortunate Thurston," who had made an unplanned ascension a year earlier in Ohio by holding onto the valve of a balloon with no basket or ballast. He could not let go, and his body was found six months later in poor condition. Danger surrounded the making of such flights in this era, which only added to the public's excitement.
According to the Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, the ascension took place at a site near Barr and Main streets because of its proximity to a gas main that was needed to inflate the balloon with 18,000 cubic feet of natural gas. The launch went unexpectedly well. Bannister took off about 11 in the morning of August 30, floating eastward into Ohio to Delphos. There he encountered a thunderstorm, prompting him to take the balloon higher to avoid the lightning. In the process, the balloon lost much of its gas, and the professor was forced to land near Ada, Ohio, a distance of some 100 miles from Fort Wayne. The next day he returned to the city in triumph with his balloon.
The above ambrotype presents several questions. Unfortunately, the History Center owns only a copy, and the location of the original is not known. Therefore, we cannot enhance the image to make it more clear. Ambrotypes were made on glass with a painted backing that often became chipped, especially when images were taken out of their cases.
Several landmarks are visible which help us to date the image, the most prominent being the distinctive edifice of First Presbyterian Church, which can be seen in the upper left. The church stood on the south side of Berry Street at the east side of Clinton Street. In the foreground a sign with "Grocery" can clearly be seen, so we know the image has not been reversed. These points establish that the camera is looking southeastward in the direction of the church. The buildings in the foreground are apparently situated on Calhoun Street, just south of Main, which indicate that the balloon probably occupies a place in Courthouse Square. So here is the problem: this location does not square with the newspaper account that the launch took place at Barr and Main. So, either the newspaper was wrong and the balloon took off from the courthouse, or, more likely, we may be looking at the celebration of Bannister's return on August 31, rather than his launch on the 30th.
In any case, this ambrotype is one of the earliest outdoor images of Fort Wayne that we can actually date, and thus it occupies an important place in the history of photojournalism of our city.