Madison's "Race Riot" 1840

In the 1880s, writer Andrew Grayson had a column published in the Madison Courier that described what has been labeled a race riot, but which was probably not quite that full-fledged a conflict.

There have been writers who doubted the event happened and no one has previously given a specific date. However, this account, published in Niles National Register of Aug. 15, 1840, coincides with the more detailed version written by Grayson.

While the newspaper gave the story an Iowa headline, it was clearly Madison, Ind., as the town is called Madison, Ia., and Ia., was the abbreviation for Indiana. Also, the account was carried in the Louisville journal. Moreover, there is no Madison, Iowa, although there is a Fort Madison, which would have been called that.

Vol. III Niles National Register, August 15, 1840 Baltimore, 5th series, No. 24.

"We understand, that, on Friday night, there was a conflict between a number of whites and blacks at Madison, la., in the course of which two men were shot and very severely wounded. One of the negroes was subsequently taken to the river for the purpose of being thrown in and drowned, but the interference of some influential persons saved his life. On Saturday night many of the citizens were arming themselves and swearing to exterminate the negroes from the city." Louisville Journal

Dupont, Ind., 1881

This account was printed in the Madison Weekly Courier of June 8, 1881, after having been originally printed in the Vernon Banner

Dupont is a thriving little village in Jefferson County, on the railroad, two miles from the Jennings county line, and is eight miles south of the heart of the world. The town was laid out in 1839 by Dr. Tilton, father of Mark Tilton, pension agent at Washington, assisted by John Abbott, and was named by William Griffin in honor of a town in Ireland. Although the town was commenced in an early day it did not get its full growth, and was not completed till a few years ago.

There are three general stores here, kept by L.E. O'Neal, B. W. Hughes and T.S. Williams.

We have three doctors and no coffin-maker. Dr. Geo. B. Lewis practices medicine, carries on a drug store and a postmaster, and has farming carried on besides. Very few men can carry on so many kinds of business without spreading them out and making them to thin, but Dr. has his son J.F. Lewis, helping him heal the sick. Dr. J.F. Flanders also comes in for his share of the practice.

G.W. Graston runs a saw and grist mill. W.A. Guthry buys and ships large quantities of timber at this point.

The Methodists have a strong class here and a good brick house with bell and organ; and a Sabbath school that continues all the year round. Rev. Wm. Barton is the preacher in charge.

The Baptists have a large membership and a frame house with bell, organ, etc. and a Sunday school set to run world without end. Their house is tolerably good, but they are determined to tear it down and build a greater. In years gone by this church was blessed with the labors of such men as Taylor Stott, M.B. Ferris and Thomas Hill, father our our Allen Hill, who served nobly their generation. For the last ten years Rev. J. F. McCoy has been pastor most of the time. He is the biggest preacher in Southern Indiana to the scales drawing 233 pounds and still growing. His souls is as large as his body, and he is chuck full of music from top to bottom. He and his wife present a striking contrast--she is small, delicate and rather inclined to be good-looking and weighs less than one hundred pounds.

The morals of Dupont are good and the people are industrious and thriving, but the boys are exceedingly numerous and rough about the cuffs when they stop. No whisky sold and very little drunk in and around Dupont. They have a good school and are abreast of the times generally.

Jefferson County's Notorious Bad Highways 1917

In 1917, the state board of education issued a wide-ranging study about Jefferson County entitled, "A Survey of Jefferson County, Indiana, for Purposes of Vocational Education." It delved into the county's economic needs, along with making numerous recommendations for consolidation of schools as part of its plan to promote the establishment of vocational education schools. Several state education officers, William Millis, president of Hanover College, The field work was done by Mr. Robert J. Millis and Mr. Fletcher N. Hufford, students in sociology in Hanover College, along with Joseph H. Hanna, County Superintendent of Schools and Professor Glenn Culbertson, Professor of Agriculture in Hanover College. Culbertson grew up in the Scottish settlement. The group approved a report that carried damning information about the county's roads.

REPORT OF THE EVANSVILLE SURVEY FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION CHARLES H. WINSLOW STATE DIRECTOR OF VOCATIONAL RESEARCH January 1, 1917 APPROVED BY STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION

"A definite program for highway improvement should be adopted. This program should provide for the active construction and repair of roads and bridges with reference to permanency of improvement and within a budget which, while sufficient for tangible results, would not embarrass the development of the county in other respects. The inefficiency of road building and repair in Jefferson County is notorious and is clue primarily to three causes: (1) The lack of a definite program to be followed for a term of years, the result of which is the construction of unimportant roads, while the main highways have been left to deteriorate to the vanishing point. (2) Incompetent engineering. (3) Political abuse of the office of County Road Superintendent. The present county officials are, in the main, efficient, but have little or no control over the construction work. The county has ample deposits of first-class materials for road building, but too often the engineer authorizes poor material and the result is that many roads must be rebuilt before the bonds issued on the original construction have been paid. With this poor return for the money invested, it is significant to find that 41% of the public funds collected from the tax payers is expended on roads and bridges. It is believed by the Committee that this is too large an investment to entrust to the care of inefficient management of road construction and repair in vogue."

Deluge in the Indian-Kentuck Basin: 1908

The streams in Jefferson County, and probably much of Southern Indiana, once ran clear after storms, my grandfather once said. It was deforestation that turn caused them to turn muddy as they now do. And it was deforestation that produced alternating dry creek beds and raging torrents that drove mills out of business. The forests had once released water slowly, ensuring a steady flow much of the year. This paper by Professor Glenn Culbertson, whose family came from the Scottish settlement in the upper reached of the Indian-Kentuck basin, described an unusual cloudburst whose effects he attributed to the deforestation.


The Twenty-fourth Annual Meeting Of The Indiana Academy Of Science.

The twenty-fourth annual meeting of the Indiana Academy of Science was held at Purdue University. Lafayette, Indiana. Thursday. Friday and Saturday. November 26, 27 and 28. 1908.

Furthermore, we believe that it can be shown that deforestation has a tendency in a region of rough topography, such as is found among the hills of southern Indiana, to localize the hot season rainfall, and to produce conditions approximating those of the so-called "cloudbursts" of the Rocky Mountain regions of the West. A case in point occurred during the past summer in the latter part of July over an area of some six or eight square miles along the divide between the basins of Indian Kentucky and Indian creeks and their tributaries, in eastern Jefferson and western Switzerland counties of this State. The rainfall in this case was unprecedented for the region.

On one border of the given area a government rain gauge, kept by J. R. Shaw, Jr., was filled to the brim, the measurement amounting to three and one-half inches, and then ran over for an unknown period. Afterward the gauge was emptied and received one and one-half inches more, making at the least live inches, and probably much more, in the period of two hours during which the rain fell. Other and more reliable measurements in locations more nearly the center of the storm area were made and a precipitation of at least ten inches in the two-hour period were recorded.

The conditions producing this exceptional and very destructive rainstorm were as follows: The region to the west and southwest of the storm-swept region is one of the roughest topographically in southern Indiana. The whole area for ten or twelve miles in this direction forms the basin of Indian Kentucky Creek and tributaries, and the hills rise in many instances 400 to 450 feet above the valleys, and the slopes are very steep. From the whole basin the forests have been almost entirely removed.

On the day referred to the temperature was unusually high, some thermometers within the area registering 102 degrees in the shade. There was no movement of the air until early in the afternoon, when a gentle southwest wind arose, and this caused the highly-heated air of the whole region to move northeastward. The valley of Brushy-fork Creek, one of the principal tributaries of Indian Kentucky Creek, became the center of the air movement.

About three in the afternoon a cloud began to form above the divide and around the head of the valley of Brushy-fork Creek. The highly-heated air ascended very rapidly on reaching the divide, and the consequent rapid cooling of the air by expansion caused an equally rapid condensation of the moisture of the air. The cloud increased in volume with very great swiftness, and the rain fell in torrents, first over a very limited area and then over a wider region. The center of the storm, however, instead of moving, as is usually the case, remained almost stationary for a period of two hours. During this time the winds from almost the entire surrounding region moved slowly towards the now enlarged area of precipitation. There were few if any clouds outside of the six or eight square miles covered by the storm, but the hot air from the proximity, on reaching this area of rapidly rising atmosphere, constantly added its moisture to that being condensed, with the result that for two hours the downpour continued.

This very unusual precipitation proved exceedingly disastrous to the soil of the cultivated fields, and to the roads and bridges as well as to property of all kinds along Brushy Fork Creek and the larger tributaries of Indian Creek. Both of these streams were several feet above any previous record. Where a few moments before there were dry, rocky creek beds, now became a wild flood from six to ten feet in depth and from 300 to 500 feet wide. Buildings were carried away that had seldom or never been touched by previous floods.

In the opinion of the writer this cloudburst, which in truth it was, was caused by the intense heating of the deforested region of very rough topography to the southwest, followed by the gentle movement of great volumes of heated air in a northeasterly direction, until in its passage over the divide it rapidly ascended. Becoming cooled in its ascent, the enormous quantity of moisture held in the highly-heated atmosphere rapidly condensed, and the unprecedented rainfall for that region followed.

It may be years before conditions of temperature, moisture and winds would unite to produce another such storm in the same locality, yet the probabilities are that in the future such rainfalls will become increasingly frequent somewhere in such deforested areas of rough topography.