Vevay.--Geographical Sketch of the State of Indiana.--Madison.--
Charlestown--its Court.--Jeffersonville.--Clarksville.--New
Albany.--The Falls of the Ohio.
Vevay, in Indiana, became a settlement twenty years ago, by Swiss
emigrants, who obtained a grant of land, equal to 200 acres for each
family, under the condition of cultivating the vine; they accordingly
settled here, and laid out vineyards. The original settlers may have
amounted to thirty; others joined them afterwards, and in this manner
was founded the county town of New Switzerland, in Indiana, which
consists almost exclusively of these French and Swiss settlers. They
have their vineyards below the town, on the banks of the river Ohio. The
vines, however, have degenerated, and the produce is an indifferent
beverage, resembling any thing but claret, as it had been represented.
Two of them have attempted to cultivate the river hills, and the
vineyards laid out there are rather of a better sort. The town is on the
decline; it has a court-house, and two stores very ill supplied. The
condition of these, and the absence of lawyers, are sure indications of
the poverty of the inhabitants, if broken windows, and doors falling
from their hinges, should leave any doubt on the subject; they are,
however, a merry set of people, and balls are held regularly every
month. In the evening arrived ten teams laden with fifty emigrants from
Kentucky, going to settle in Indiana; their reasons for doing this were
numerous. Although they had bought their lands in Kentucky twice over,
they had to give them up a third time, their titles having proved
invalid; but still they would have remained, had it not been for the
insolent behaviour of their more wealthy neighbours, who, in consequence
of these emigrants having no slaves, and being thus obliged to work for
themselves, not only treated them as slaves, but even encouraged their
own blacks to give them every kind of annoyance, and to rob them--for
no other reason than their dislike to have paupers for neighbours.
My landlord assured me that at least 200 waggons had passed from the
Kentucky side, through Vevay, during the present season, all full of
emigrants, discouraged from continuing among these lawless people.
The state of Indiana, which I had now entered, begins below Cincinnati,
running down the big Miami westward to the big Wabash, which separates
this country from the Illinois. To the south, it is bounded by the Ohio;
to the north, by lake Michigan; thus extending from 37° 50', to 42° 10',
north latitude; and from 7° 40', to 10° 47', west longitude. Like the
state of Ohio, it belongs to the class coming within the range of the
great valley of the Mississippi. It exhibits nearly the same features as
the state of Ohio, with the exception, that it approaches nearer to the
Mississippi than its eastern neighbour, and is the second slope of the
eastern part of the valley of the Mississippi: it declines more than
Ohio, being but 250 feet above lake Erie, and 210 feet above lake
Michigan, which is one hundred feet less in elevation than the state of
Ohio. Two ridges of mountains, or rather hills, traverse the country;
the Knobs, or Silver-hills, running ten miles below Louisville, in a
north-eastern direction, and the Illinois mountains appearing from the
west, and running to the north-east, where they fall to a level with the
high plains of lake Michigan. These hills have a perfect sameness. The
climate is rather milder than that of Ohio. Cotton and tobacco are
raised by the farmers in sufficient quantities for their home
consumption. The growth of timber is the same as in Ohio. The vallies
are interspersed with sycamores and beeches; and below the falls, with
maples, and cotton and walnut-trees. The hills are covered with beech,
sassafras, and logwood. This state, though not inferior to Ohio in
fertility, and taken in general, perhaps, superior to it, has one great
defect. It has no sufficient water communication, and thus the
inhabitants have no market for their produce. There is not in this state
any river of importance, the Ohio which washes its southern borders
excepted. A scarcity of money therefore is more severely felt here,
than in any other state of the Union. This want of inter-communication,
added to the circumstance that the state of Ohio had already engrossed
the whole surplus population from the eastern states, had a prejudicial
effect upon Indiana, its original population being in general by no
means so respectable as that of Ohio. In the north-west it was peopled
by French emigrants, from Canada; in the south, on the banks of the
Ohio, and farther up, by Kentuckians, who fled from their country for
debt, or similar causes.
The state thus became the refuge of adventurers and idlers of every
description. A proof of this may be seen in the character of its towns,
as well as in the nature of the improvements that have been carried on
in the country. The towns, though some of them had an earlier existence
than many in Ohio, are, in point of regularity, style of building, and
cleanliness, far inferior to those of the former state. The wandering
spirit of the inhabitants seems still to contend with the principle of
steadiness in the very construction of their buildings. They are mostly
a rude set of people, just emerging from previous bad habits, from whom
such friendly assistance as honest neighbours afford, or mutual
intercourse and good will, can hardly be expected. The case is rather
different in the interior of the country, and on the Wabash, the finest
part of the state, where respectable settlements have been formed by
Americans from the east. Wherever the latter constitute the majority,
every necessary assistance may be expected.
For adventurers of all descriptions, Indiana holds out allurements of
every kind. Numbers of Germans, French, and Irish, are scattered in the
towns, and over the country, carrying on the business of bakers,
grocers, store, grog shops, and tavern keepers. In time, these people
will become steady from necessity, and consequently prosperous. The
number of the inhabitants of Indiana amounts to 215,000. Its admission
into the Union as a sovereign state, dates from the year 1815 to 1816;
its constitution differs in some points from that of Ohio, and its
governor is elected for the term of three years.
Madisonville, the seat of justice for Jefferson-county, on the second
bank of the Ohio, fifty-seven miles above its falls, contains at present
180 dwelling-houses, a court-house, four stores, three inns, a printing
office--with 800 inhabitants, most of them Kentuckians. The innkeeper of
the tavern at which I alighted, does no credit to the character of this
people. He was engaged for some time in certain bank-note affairs, which
qualified him for an imprisonment of ten years; he escaped, however, by
the assistance of his legal friends, and of 1000 dollars. The
opportunity of testifying his gratitude to these gentlemen soon
presented itself. One of his neighbours, a boatman, had the misfortune
to possess a wife who attracted his attention. Her husband knowing the
temper of the man, resolved to sell all he had, and to move down to
Louisville. Some days before his intended departure, he met Sheets in
the street, and addressed him in these words: "Mr. Sheets, I ought to
chastise you for making such shameful proposals to my wife;" so saying,
he gently touched him with his cane. Sheets, without uttering a
syllable, drew his poniard, and stabbed him in the breast. The
unfortunate husband fell, exclaiming, "Oh, God! I am a dead man!"--"Not
yet," said Sheets, drawing his poniard out of the wound, and running it
a second time through his heart; "Now, my dear fellow, I guess we have
done." This monster was seized and imprisoned, and his trial took place.
_His_ countrymen took, as might be expected, a great interest in his
fate. With the assistance of 3000 dollars, he even this time escaped the
gallows. I read the issue of the trial, and the summons of the jury, in
the county paper of 1823, which was actually handed to me in the evening
by one of the guests. But a more remarkable circumstance is, that the
inhabitants continue to frequent his tavern. At first they stayed away
for some weeks; but in less than a month the affair was forgotten, and
his house is now visited as before.
The road from Madison to Charleston, leads through a fertile country, in
some parts well cultivated. The distance from Madison is twenty-eight
miles. It is the chief town of Clark county, and seems to advance more
rapidly than Madison, the country about being pretty well peopled, and
agriculture having made more progress than in any part of the state
through which I had travelled. I found it to contain 170 houses and 750
inhabitants, five well stored tradesmen's shops, a printing office, and
four inns. The town is about a mile distant from the river, on a high
plain. When I arrived, the court was going to adjourn, and I hastened to
the court-house. The presiding judge and his two associate judges were
in their tribune, and the parties seated on boards laid across the
stumps of trees. One of the lawyers having concluded his speech, the
defendant was called upon. The gentleman in question, whom I took for a
pedlar, stood close by my side in conversation with his party, holding
in his hand half an apple, his teeth having taken a firm bite of the
other half. At the moment his name was called, he walked with his mouth
full, up to the rostrum, and kept eating his apple with perfect
indifference. "Well," interrupted the judge impatient of the delay;
"what have you to say against the charge? You know it is high time to
break up the court, and I must go home." The gentleman at the bar now
pocketted his apple, and having thus augmented the store of provision
which he probably kept by him, looked as if he carried two knapsacks
behind his coat. "It strikes me mightily,"--was the exordium of this
speech, which in point of elegance and conciseness was a true sample of
back-wood eloquence. Fortunately the speaker took the judge's hint; in
less than half an hour he had done--in less than one hour the jurymen
returned a verdict, the county transactions were finished, and the court
broke up.
From Charleston to Louisville, the distance is fourteen miles. The lands
are fertile. Several very well looking farms shew a higher degree of
cultivation, especially near Jeffersonville. There the road turns into
an extensive valley formed by the alluvions of the Ohio. Jeffersonville,
the seat of justice for Floyd-county, three quarters of a mile above
the falls of the Ohio, was laid out in 1802, and has since increased to
160 houses, among which are a bank, a Presbyterian church, a warehouse,
a cotton manufactory, a court-house, and an academy, with a land office,
for the disposal of the United States' lands. The commerce of the
inhabitants, 800 in number, is of some importance, though checked by the
vicinity of Louisville, and by the circumstance, that the falls on the
Indiana side are not to be approached, except at the highest rise. Two
miles below this town, is the village of Clarksville, laid out in 1783,
and forming part of the grant made to officers and soldiers of the
Illinois regiment. It contains sixty houses and 300 inhabitants. New
Albany, a mile below Clarksville, has a thousand inhabitants, and a
great deal of activity, owing to its manufactory of steam engines, its
saw mills, and the steam boats lying at anchor and generally repairing
there. It is a place of importance, and though hitherto the resort of
sailors, boatmen, and travellers, who go down the river in their own
boats, it is annually on the increase.
The Ohio is generally crossed above the falls at Jeffersonville. The
sheet of water dammed up here by the natural ledge of rocks which forms
the falls, expands to 5,230 feet in breadth. The falls of the Ohio,
though they should not properly be called falls, cannot be seen when
crossing the river, and the waters do not pour like the falls of
Niagara over an horizontal rock down a considerable depth, but press
through a rocky bed, about a mile long, which spreads across the river,
and causes a decline of twenty-two feet in the course of two miles. When
the waters are high, the rocks and the falls disappear entirely. Seen
from Louisville at low water, they have by no means an imposing
appearance. The majestic and broad river branches off into several small
creeks, and assumes the form of mountain torrents forcing their way
through the ledge of rocks. When the river rises, and only three islands
are to be seen, the immense sheet of water rushing down the declivity at
the rate of thirteen miles an hour, must afford a magnificent spectacle.
At the time I saw it, the river was lower than it had been for a series
of years.