Charles Sealsfield 1828

Charles Sealsfield's tour of the United States contained a fairly standard dismissal of the quality of the wine raised at Vevay. His description of Madison as a town is somewhat standard. But his account of John Sheets' [whose first name he doesn't mention] killing of the boatman [White, not named] , combined with the statements about Sheets' financial dealings provides an unusually negative view of one of Madison's leading merchants.

The Americans as They are: Described in a Tour Through the Valley of the Mississippi Long: 1828 Hurst, Chance and Co. St. Paul’s Churchyard Original from Harvard University. Digitized by Google.

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, how-ever, 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.

Madisonville, [sic Madison] 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: " 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.

Eliza Steele 1841

This account is taken from the book written by Eliza R. Steele and published in 1841. The author's introduction says she traveled 4,000 miles throughout the United State and that it was compiled from notes she took and letters written during that time.

A Summer in the West Published 1841 J.S. Taylor and Co.

United States

278 pages

Original from the University of Michigan, digitized by Google Books

Madison, upon the Indiana shore, is the place where we were to strike the Ohio, if we had journeyed through Indiana as we proposed at first. A railroad leads from this town to Indianapolis, ninety-five miles, and is completed to Vernon, twenty-five miles. From Indianapolis to La Fayette is a Macadamized road, and another rail-road will soon be completed from the latter place to Lake Michigan.

That would have been our route, and we should have seen some of the best towns in Indiana. Madison is a very pretty town, and larger than any we had passed. It is built principally of brick, and we counted six churches and a court house, besides banks, foundries, factories, mills and boat yards. The streets are wide and Macadamized. It is situated upon a sloping bank of the river, while behind it, the hills which rose up to nearly three hundred feet, were covered with farms, dotted with sheep and cottages. Some handsome mansions were erected among the hills in conspicuous situations and must have commanded a fine view of the town beneath, and the river winding away through bluffs and forests in front of them.

The population is about two thousand. Madison is fifty-three miles from Louisville, and twenty miles farther is Vevay, settled by a party of emigrants from Switzerland. The river here stretches away to the north, leaving a point which is the county of Switzerland, bathed upon two sides by the Ohio, and containing very fertile soil.

Here the transplanted Swiss have made a new home, and it is a very beautiful one, occupying themselves in raising grapes. Their vineyards are very flourishing and they make much good wine. They cultivate the blue grape, Madeira grape, and the native county grape, which makes good wine. The hills here, no doubt, often resound with the songs of their father land from which they are so many miles distant.

Thomas Hanson 1774

Thomas Hanson was a surveyor who accompanied Col. Floyd on an expedition on the Ohio River in 1774. He description of surveying 2,000 acres, seven miles of bottom land that was three and a miles below the mouth of the Kentucky River, suggests that he surveyed the land just upstream from Carrollton.

Thomas Hanson's Journal, April 7-August 9

Journal from his trip on the Ohio River in 1774.

edited by

Avi Hathor

21st. Mr. Floyd surveyed 600 acres of land on the lower side of the mouth of Kentucky which takes in little Kentucky for Col. Preston. The land is very good, but I think some of it overflows.

22nd. In the evening we embarked and went down the river three miles & half, leaving a letter at the mouth of Kentucky to direct any Person or Persons that followed the line how to find us.

23d. As we were on a bottom, Mr Taylor surveyed 1000 acres & then Mr Douglas began at his line, & Surveyed another 1000 acres, which took in the Bottom, except a small point at the lower end. It is 7 miles long. We campt at the lower end, Good land. 24th. Mr. Floyd went on the top of the hill from the River & surveyed a tract of land which is good and well Timbered & watered. We encampt 5 miles below on a small bottom, where it rained in the time.

25th. Mr Floyd surveyed the Bottom and some upland to the Quantity of 1000 acres. It was Showery weather.

Black Hoof (Shawnee) 1802

In this meeting with President Thomas Jefferson in Philadelphia, the Delaware and Shawnee made a number of requests, including asking for a grant of land for George Ash, who had lived with them. The description, four miles down the Ohio river from a point opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River, puts much of the tract in Jefferson County. Ash signed as a translator.

Copyright by Glen Black Laboratory of Archaeology, Indiana University.

National Archives
Records of the Office of the Secretary of War,
Letters Sent, Indian Affairs, Vol. A.

Conference held with the Delaware and Shawanoe
Deputation, February 5-10, 1802.

The other Interpreter is a man we raised from a Child and look on him as one of ourselves, we therefore with to give him Four miles down the river and one mile up the land, his name is George Ash and the plac[e] we meane for him is at the mouth of Kentuckey on the Indian boundary line[.]

John Woods 1821

John Woods was on his way to the English settlement inn Albion, Ill. His was one of several accounts of the town that touched upon the Ohio River Valley. Besides giving a brief, first-hand account of Madison, he repeated hearsay about the quality of wine in Switzerland County.

Wood's Two years' residence in the settlement on the English Prairie--June 25, 1820-July 3, 1821

27th. At dusk we passed the Kentucky, a river of the state of the same name, and navigable some distance up the country. After dark we passed Vevay and New Switzerland, and soon after got stuck on a sand bank; some of us got into the water and turned the ark

around, and then we floated off again, and about midnight anchored. This day, twenty-five miles. I regretted passing Vevay after it was dark, as I much wished to land to inspect the vineyards belonging to a Swiss colony settled there, who cultivate the vine on a considerable scale, in the manner of their native country. In the twilight we had a glimpse of their vineyards, but too far off to see much of them.

I have since learnt that a few Swiss emigrants settled at New Switzerland in 1805, and in 1810 they had eight acres planted with vines, and in full bearing, and from which they made two thousand four hundred gallons of wine, then said to be very good. Since that time their vineyards are considerably extended, but their wine of an inferior quality. They also cultivate wheat, Indian corn, hemp, and flax. They are represented to be a sober, industrious people, and much respected in the country. They speak the French language, most of them having come from the frontiers adjoining France.

28th. We landed at Port William, Kentucky, a small place, and procured some very excellent bread. As we proceeded slowly I landed on the Indiana side, and went to two or three cottages; at one of them I got a peck of fine peaches, for which the inhabitants would not take any money. They were hardly ripe, but made very good puddings; as the settlements were new, none of the trees were six years old. At one cabin a man showed me a tree on which there was then growing at least a bushel of peaches; he had planted the stone from which this tree sprung in the spring of 1816. We landed at a cabin in Indiana, where there were a few vines cultivated after the [Note Port William, now Carrollton, is situated at the mouth of the Kentucky River. In 1789-90, General Scott built a blockhouse at that point, which was occupied until 1792, when the town of Port William was laid out.--Ed.] [RWS note: This editor's note is from the 1904 publication, apparently. The narrative was first published in 1822.]

29th. Early in the morning we reached the town of Madison in Indiana, capital of the county of Jefferson, of sixty or seventy houses, a mixture of brick, frame, and log; it has a steam-mill, &c. The country less settled, and on the banks a much less number of horses, cows, sheep, pigs, geese, &c. to be seen.

Robert Johnson 1789

The incident discussed here places a battle between settlers and Indians within the boundaries of modern Switzerland County, assuming Johnson’s description of the site—25 miles before the mouth of the Big Miami—is accurate.

Robert Johnson, Lt. of the County of Woodford, to the President of the United States.

DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY, 22d August, 1789.

About the 10th instant, two men were fired on by a party of Indians, but no damage sustained; only one of the horses the men rode was killed; the Indians took the saddle and bridle, and the night following, they stole eleven horses; our men pursued them, next day came up with them, and retook all the horses, together with the said saddle and bridle, and killed two (one of which was a white man.)

On Sunday, the 16th, six negroes were taken by a party of Indians in ambuscade, about three quarters of a mile from my house; they carried them about one quarter of a mile, where they were surprised by the noise of some people riding near them; they tomahawked four, two of which died, two were left for dead, which are now in a hopeful way of recovery; the other two made their escape while they were murdering the rest.

The day following, the party was seen twice, and the evening or night of the sixteenth they stole some horses from Captain Buford; we pursued them as quick as possible, with about forty men, to the Ohio, about twenty-five miles below the mouth of Big Miami, where twenty-six volunteers crossed the Ohio after them; we came to a large camp of them, early in the morning of the 20th, about twelve miles from the Ohio; we divided our party, and attacked them opposite, on each side; they fought us a short time in that position, until they got their women and children out of the way, and then gave back to a thick place of high weeds and bushes, where they hid very close; we immediately drove up about forty of their horses, and made our retreat across the Ohio.

We lost three men and two wounded. The Indians wounded one of our men as we returned.

William Corbett 1818

William Cobbet’s 1818 trip down the Ohio River produced one of the highest praises for the wine of Switzerland County. He went on to Louisville without stopping in Jefferson County.

A year's residence, in the United States of America. Treating of the face of the country, the climate, the soil, the products, the mode of cultivating the land, the prices of land, of labour, of food, of raiment; of the expenses of house-keeping, and of the usual manner of living; of the manners and customs of the people; and of the institutions of the country, civil, political, and religious... By William Cobbet. 1828. First edition. New York, 1818.

1818

June 16th.--Left Cincinnati for Louisville with seven other persons, in a skiff about 20 feet long and 5 feet wide.

492. June 17th.--Stopped at Vevay, a very neat and beautiful place, about 70 miles above the falls of the Ohio. Our visit here was principally to see the mode used, as well as what progress was made, in the cultivation of the vine, and I had a double curiosity, never having as yet seen a vineyard. These vineyards are cultivated entirely by a small settlement of Swiss, of about a dozen families, who have been here about ten years. They first settled on the Kentucky river, but did not succeed there. They plant the vines in rows, attached to stakes like espaliers, and they plough between with a one-horse plough. The grapes, which are of the sorts of Claret and Madeira, look very fine and luxuriant, and will be ripe in about the middle of September. The soil and climate both appear to be quite congenial to the growth of the vine: the former rich and the latter warm. The north west wind, when it blows, is very cold, but the south, south east, and south west winds, which are always warm, are prevalent. The heat, in the middle of the summer, I understand, is very great, being generally above 85 degrees, and sometimes above 100 degrees.

Each of these families has a farm as well as a vineyard, so that they supply themselves with almost every necessary and have their wine all clear profit. Their produce will this year be probably not less than 5000 gallons; we bought 2 gallons of it at a dollar each, as good as I would wish to drink. Thus it is that the tyrants of Europe create vineyards in this new country!