Center Township

Center Township - including Lebanon

Center Township -- the name describes its position in the county. It is the largest township in the county, with irregular boundary and touched by every other township in the county except Eagle and Sugar Creek. It contains about sixty-six square miles of territory. It is drained by Prairie creek principally which rises in the southeast part of the township and flows northwest into Sugar Creek at Thorntown. When in its natural state there was not much flow to it but mostly spread. The old settlers can remember in flood time when it spread all over the central part of the township. It runs through Lebanon; that city furnishes a spacious ditch to lead its waters decorously through, and on for miles beyond , so they will not occupy all the streets and door yards of the city. The time was when this little stream occupied, when on a high, all the woods in and about Lebanon, except a few of the highest points. The children who walk the paved street today and witness the quiet stream even at flood time within its confines, would not recognize a picture of seventy-five years ago, when Prairie creek was an inland lake.

The hand of man hath wrought great changes. It was toil that developed out of a great swamp woods the beauty of Lebanon. The history of Center township is the same as the story of other townships. First the blazed path and round log cabin, then the cut out roads and hewed log cabins; then a semblance of a ditch on each side of the cut-away and openings for the sluggish water to find its way out of the woods. Later, came grades and corduroy, more ditching and perchance a frame house and perhaps some one ventured on erecting a brick house which was the wonder of the natives. Most of the brave men and women who with great toil, sacrifice and privation laid these foundations of our grand county have long ago gone to rest. They were the grandparents of the present generation. They endured hardships for us. If we could place their lives and manner of living by the side of ours in this age, the contrast would be wonderful. It would make us more grateful for our blessings and to those who so toiled and sacrificed unselfishly for us.

By an act of the Legislature of 1830, this county was organized. There were six hundred brave pioneers in the county at that time. The same act provided five commissioners to locate and name the county-seat. It was to be within two miles of the center of the county. Three of the commissioners met at that point the 1st of May, 1831. The center of the county would be on the second meridian line, near the southwest and southeast corners of town 19 north, range 1 east, and range 1 east of the second meridian. Here the commissioners met on that bright May morning. It was an uncheery place for the capital of a county. Tall timber, dense undergrowth and bogs and willows. No human dwellings in sight, not even the sound of the woodman's axe. A little north of the center was a knoll, a spot dry enough for a court house; here they located the spot and drove down a large stake to designate where the court house should stand. It was a town without a human soul, not even an Indian, no hut, no wigwam, not even a name--nothing but a broad expanse of forest with impenetrable underbrush, and wet feet. the commissioners went in search of a name. One was so unconcerned he fell asleep, the others could not agree, so they roused their companion and placed upon him the responsibility of christening the place. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, looked around at the tall timber, surveyed the sluggish prairie just to the north of them. He called to mind the Bible story that his mother told, about the tall timbers of Lebanon and the Jordan, and shouted "Lebanon," its name shall be, and so its name was fixed and so to this day all the children of the "State of Boone" learn early in life to frame the name of "Lebanon." Mr. A. M. FRENCH was the young man that first called the name, and the stake was driven on the land that belonged to Colonel KINNARD. There was a man by the name of Colonel DRAKE who was also interested in the land.

This was the greatest day that had ever been in the county of Boone to that day. A large crowd of regular unkempt Boonites had gathered to witness where the seat of government would be located. It was a day long to be remembered. On that consecrated spot a monument has been erected that will stand until time shall be no more. The third monument --our magnificent court house -- has been erected over the spot to commemorate and hold the position.

The first man who had the courage to locate a home in such an unsightly place was Abner H. LONGLEY, about one year after the stake for the court house was driven. He erected his one room log cabin on lot No. 1. He ornamented it with a veranda by planting a post in front of the cabin, a log on top and covering with the branches of trees so as to make a shade and protection.

Such were the very beginnings of our county-seat. Around this spot revolves the history of Center township and largely that of the county. The making of a branch or ditch for the high waters of Prairie creek to flow out, opened up a way not only for the flood, but also for ditching all that section of county. Into this the willow bogs were chased, the land appeared high and dry, streets were made, some corduroy, some plank for side walks; then came gravel first by rail, then out of the deposits made thousands of years ago, until the paved streets of our day, with steam and electrical cars. A look into the wonderful development within the memory of many yet living seems marvelous, yet it all came by slow growth and through great toil and hardship.

Center township is bounded on the north by Washington and Clinton townships, on the west by Washington, Jefferson, Jackson and Harrison townships, on the south by Jackson, Harrison, Perry and Worth townships, on the east by Harrison, Perry, Worth, Union and Marion townships. It is composed of the following lands to-wit: Sections 13, 14, 15, 21 to 28 inclusive, and 33 to 36 inclusive; in town 19 north, range 1 west, and sections 1 to 4 inclusive, and east half of section 17, and 9 to 16 inclusive; and parts of sections 20 and 21 in town 18 north, range 1 west; also, sections 13 to 36 inclusive in town 19 north; range 1 east; also sections 3 to 10 inclusive and sections 15 to 18 inclusive, in town 18 north, range 1 east.

The early history is so closely interwoven with the history of the city of Lebanon, that much of it will be given in connection with the sketch of that city.

Churches outside of Lebanon by the latest report are given as follows by the mission survey of 1911. In the southern part of the township was organized at an early date a Methodist church, which is now reported dead. Southwest part of township the Christian church, one hundred members, growing. East of Lebanon the Brethren, forty-six, losing ground. North of this church is the United Brethren, ninety-six, losing ground. West of Lebanon the Disciples, dead. North the Christian, forty-four members, losing ground. Northeast corner Christian church, ninety-eight members, growing. Good roads and the great church privileges at Lebanon have been a great draw on the country churches of Center township. It is the question how long they can stand against these influences. This question does not only concern the churches of this township but the interest of the rural church everywhere. How long will we continue to have country churches?

Schools

The history of the early schools of Center township are so closely interwoven with the history of Lebanon, that it will be given more fully with the history of that city. In this connection we will give the first law in the state that was intended to promote the interests of the public and under which the rural schools came into being.

In 1824 in the eighth year of the State of Indiana, the Legislature enacted the following law, to-wit:

Sec. 6. Each able-bodied male person of the age of twenty-one or upward being a freeholder or householder, residing in the district, shall be liable equally to work one day in each week until such building may be completed, or pay the sum of thirty-seven and one-half cents for every day he may so fail to work, and provided, moreover, that the said trustee shall always be bound to receive at cash price, in lieu of any such labor or money as aforesaid, any plank, nails, glass or other materials which may be needed about such building.

Sec. 7. That in all such cases such school house shall be eight feet between the floors, and at least one foot from the surface of the ground to the first floor, and finished in a manner calculated to render comfortable the teacher, pupils, etc.

Under this law and pattern, school houses all over the state were rapidly constructed. At that day and age they passed puncheon floors, backless seats, spacious fire places and chinked logs as comfortable for teacher and pupil. We have so grown that today we would consider such school furniture as rather backwoods. And yet, under these facilities boys and girls were reared that built the great commonwealth of Indiana. It does not take finery to make intellect. It requires the opposite. Under the old constitution the public schools depended entirely upon the income from the congressional fund, no tuition tax being provided for by law. From eight to twelve weeks usually exhausted the public money. In a majority of cases the term was extended several weeks by subscription upon the part of the patrons of the district. Under this regime, the schools of Center township and all other townships and counties in the state were established and maintained.

The law was changed in 1848 and the system that we are working under now with modern improvements was instituted. There may be more convenience without doubt, but the question may be discussed, are there any better men and women produced under the latter than under the former system? Under the old law, Center built seventeen schools outside of Lebanon and distributed them throughout the township. Under the present system she is maintaining twelve schools over the same territory.

Roads

After the Indian trails were supplanted by the blazed ways came the cutouts to allow a team to pass. The first great highway was the state road from Indianapolis to Lafayette, which entered near the southeast part of the township, passed diagonally through it and out at near the northwest corner, going through Lebanon. From Lebanon, roads were built towards Crawfordsville, Noblesville, Frankfort, Jamestown and all other directions in the county. It was many years before these roads reached the grandeur of the present. Through toil and great sacrifice they have come to us as the rich heritage from our fathers.

The railroads soon followed. First the Big Four of our day, then the Central Indiana. Following these steam roads came the tractions to Indianapolis, Crawfordsville, Frankfort and Thorntown, so that there is today every convenience of travel, from this township that used to sit back in the woods, to all parts of the world. Think of all this and more coming up from the wilderness, from what we now term the poorest of schools, plain churches and homes without any of our modern improvements. It will be a question whether we of today with our rich heritage and with all our wonderful improvements can do as well.

Lebanon

Lebanon, the county-seat of Boone, is situated in the center of the county. The court house is located on the second meridian line, and five hundred and fifty five-feet north of the half section lines of section 36, being in longitude 86" and 28' west, and latitude 40º and 4' north. It's elevation above sea level is 950 feet. It is over 200 feet above Indianapolis, and 100 feet above Frankfort and Crawfordsville. In this section of the state of Indiana, it is indeed the Lebanon in altitude when compared with other towns and cities. It was staked out in the woods and bogs on Prairie creek, about twelve miles from it's confluence with Sugar creek in Thorntown.

Abner H. LONGLEY has the distinction of driving the first stake for a home in it's limits. It will be of interest to know of how he reached the point. In the spring of 1832, as he came creeping along the state highway that was marked out from Indianapolis to LaFayette, he stuck in a swamp southeast of his destination in the crossing of Prairie creek, a mile and one-half southeast of Lebanon. He had to hunt around through the woods to find someone to help him out of his difficulty. He finally found Benjamin DUNN, who resided on the same road three miles northwest of Lebanon. He had a large pioneer heart, and cheerfully yoked "Buck and Bright" and accompanied him to the place, where he had left the wagon in the swamp, and thus kindly assisted, they brought the wagon and it's contents into the port of Lebanon without "steam or sail." Mr. LONGLEY, having secured a lot on the southwest corner of the public square, erected the first house in the prospective city, a rough, one-room log cabin, and into this log cabin he and his family of ten persons, consisting of his wife and six children, his widowed mother and sister, lived. In front of this cabin the first veranda was constructed. It was built by setting some rude posts into the ground and placing overhead the green new cut branches of the trees. It made a delightful shade and was considered a luxury in its day. It was distinguished by being occupied as the first justice hall in the city of Lebanon. Here the first session of the circuit court was held. When Judge MORRIS, William QUARLES and Calvin FLETCHER, Esqs., arrived for the purpose of holding the first court they remarked, "Well, here is Lebanon, but where are the houses?" Mr. LONGLEY was the entire town at the time. Home, school, church, court and the whole shop was under his hospitable roof. John PATTERSON had the distinction of being the second settler, and built the second log cabin in the flourishing city. The next year, 1833, William M. SMITH swelled the population with his family, and erected the third log cabin. His home has the distinction of coming up by the first log-rolling ever held in the growing city. Soon after this the town had a boom, and S. S. BROWN, J. S. FORSYTHE, J. C. LANE, Jonathan H. ROSE, the first doctor, Levi LANE came, followed by many others. During the winter of 1835 the trees on the public square were felled and cut into logs, rolled into heaps and burned. The great portion of the town plat was yet in the woods. These few cabins were surrounded by tall trees, if they were not the cedars of Lebanon. Hickory, oak, maple, walnut and others of gigantic growth of over one hundred feet in height overshadowed their homes. The first court house was built in 1835. It was a hewn log structure. It stood immediately north of the public square and just west of the present jail. It served as a hall of justice for five years, when a brick building of two stories was erected on the present site, which cost our fathers at that time an enormous sum of four thousand dollars. This second house served until 1855, when the third house was begun and finished in 1857, at a cost of forty thousand dollars. The third house was razed in 1910 and rebuilt in 1911, at a cost of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This growth and development of court houses is an excellent index of the growth of the county-seat, and it in turn of the wonderful advance of the county from an almost impenetrable wilderness to the beauty, wealth and luxury that we behold on every hand today. To have a good idea of what has been wrought by our people in less than seventy-five years, look at Lebanon in its beginnings, and its court house of this date. All other interests of the people have kept pace in homes, churches and schools. This great change did not all come in a day. It was of slow growth. The old citizens can remember when the city was still in the bogs. In 1840, when the first brick court house was built, it was surrounded by modest frame buildings. It was interesting at that time and even at a much later period, to know how the people got about in times when Prairie creek had possession of the town. There were a few plank walks set on blocks sawed from trees and set on end and planks laid endwise. In times of flood they became rafts and it took some art to walk on them. Often the pedestrians would be derailed and have to swim or wade owing to the depth of the water. Later, travel was by mud boats or plunging into mud from the ankle upwards. Back in those days they got it out on the Lebanonites that they were "web-footed," and the name went to all Booneites and stuck to them until they got out of the mud and water. It was the "guy" that goaded them into activity, and hastened the system of ditching and road building.

If one would look into Lebanon today, with its handsome homes, its modern public buildings, its paved streets and beauty, it would be difficult to convince him that a few years ago it was what our fathers say of it. If we could only see the town in the forties and the fifties, and behold its beauty and luxury of today, it would aid us in appreciating what our fathers endured for us. It gives some conception of the toil and hardships that they underwent to secure for us this rich heritage. They planted in the muck and the mire out of which has come the beauty of the lily of the day. They were the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, the very mud sills of our civilization. If they had not wrought and sacrificed we would yet be in the woods and wading in the swamps. We pause to give this picture of the beginnings, that we may know from whence we came, and to enable us to better appreciate the high privileges that have come to us a heritage from our forefathers.

The town dragged heavily through the mud and made very slow progress. Ten and twenty years passed in this way until many that started to build wore their lives out in the effort, passed away or moved to a more healthful crime. It would make an interesting book to tell the story of the first twenty years of the struggle of this county-seat in the mud and woods of Boone county. The story will never be told because the participants are all gone. Now and then the curtain is drawn and a glimpse of the toilers is caught.

James Samuel STRONG was born in Ohio in the year 1805. Four years later, on June 8, 1809, in the Miami valley, Miss Temperance was born, daughter of George WALLER and Sarah Bell CRIST. Her father moved to what is now Union county, Indiana, in 1812. Samuel STRONG, as a young man, came later, wooed Miss Temperance, and on April 12, 1832, they were joined in wedlock. Before the honeymoon was over the bride and groom set their faces westward and landed in Lebanon and began to build a home. As an industry he established the first tanyard. Here he reared a large family. He was postmaster and school commissioner for a term of years in the forties. By an act of the Legislature in 1852 the town of Lebanon was incorporated in 1853. It had remained as a village for twenty-three years and for the next twenty-two years was content to be called a town. In 1875 it was organized as a city, with the following officers: Mayor, Samuel L. HAMILTON; clerk, W. A. ZION; treasurer, William H. RICHEY; marshal, Jesse PERKINS; assessor, Lysander DARNALL; councilmen, A. O. MILLER, A. C. DAILY, Thomas AILESWORTH, James NEALIS, Sol WITT and Joseph KELLEY. Note the stages of developments, first a village, next a town, now a city measuring well up with its neighbors throughout the great state of Indiana and royally wears the honor of being the county-seat of the foremost county in the state.

Lebanon is a solid city. It is not a mushroom growth. It has come up through hard knocks. If it was built in a swamp, its mud sills were laid deep and are down on hard pan. It is here to stay and grow. It is not one of the big towns of this day, but it is solid and brim full of energy and push. See its paved streets. It would be hard work to make one believe that for a long time in our history that they were almost impassible. See the beautiful homes, the graceful, commodious churches, the substantial public buildings after the latest improved designs, the magnificent school buildings with all modern fittings, the splendid business houses for manufacturing and facilitating trade, and above all the peaceful home-like spirit that prevails, making this a very paradise of beauty, health and quiet. When we behold all these comforts of life we want to forget all the history of the past and dwell on this picture of delight. We are not advertising, but there is no better place to live under the shining sun than the Lebanon of Boone county today. It is like all the precious things of this world, it came through toil, sacrifice and long suffering.

Submitted by: Amy Davis, with thanks for contributions from Guy Davis.

Source Citation:  Boone County Township Histories [database online] Boone County INGenWeb. 2006. <http://www.rootsweb.com/~inboone> Original data: Hon. Leander M. Crist. "The History of Boone County, Indiana," Indianapolis : A. W. Bowen, 1914.