lost and found: 100 acres

I spent a fair amount of time at the library looking at micro-film, to the point that my eyes couldn’t take anymore. The further I went on that particular reel the pages seemed worse, with ink splotches and the ink bleeding through front to back of the pages. It makes for messy copies, very difficult to read.

I did discover that, once again, things are not always as they seem. Months ago I copied this information straight out of the General Index of Deeds, 1835-1843:

Grantee: Brushfield, G.H./ Grantor: F. D. Lanier Description of Lands: Pt N.E. Section 31 Twp: 4 Range: 11E Town: Madison Lots :175  100 acres Date of Deed: September 7, 1840, When Recorded 1841 Book: L page: 231

I suppose I could have made a mistake. I wrote the range down as “H”, and since I have found it says 11 East on the deed I changed that on my records. Of course there is a book “H” with the Brushfield deed written in it.

From the micro-filmed copy I read something else which is very different from what I copied regarding Book L, page 231. The deed on this page was written on the 22nd of June, 1836, recorded on June 25, 1836…clearly different dates. I don’t think I just pulled those dates out of a hat the first time I saw the General Index of Deeds, 1835-1843. But it’s no wonder the last time I looked on microfilm that I couldn’t find the deed for those 100 acres by using those dates. Now I know that George H. Brushfield can be placed in an area not far from where his brother, Benjamin, purchased property, something I was unable to prove before finding this. Original records are so very important, which is why I prefer to see things for myself.

This same premises was previously “conveyed to said Lanier by Joseph Troxell and wife by deed bearing date, the 8[th] day of February 1830.”

According to myindianhome.net page, Mr. Troxell died in 1832: “Stones now in Springdale, toward the hill. Many removed to other places.  Troxell, Joseph, d. Oct 30 1832, in 56th yr”

100 acres is not an easy thing to misplace, but it took a little longer to find than I thought it would.  

 

Madison became a city…

Why am I writing this? My last post had to do with some survey dates and additions to the town or city of Madison. If you do a search on the city of Madison, Indiana, to see when it became a city, you might get confused.  Here are a few of the blurbs I read:

“founded in 1809″

“Madison was settled about the beginning of the 19th century; was incorporated as a town in 1824, and was first chartered as a city in 1836.”

“…was settled when Indiana was still a territory and became a city in 1809.”

“…the town officially incorporated on April 1, 1809.”

“It was incorporated as a town April 15, 1824, as a city by the act of Legislature of 1838.”

What’s a person to believe? I got tired of trying to figure it out for now, so until I see something in a first hand record to tell me otherwise, and, considering Madison just celebrated it’s Bicentennial this year…as in 200 years…right or wrong…I am using the “official”  Bicentennial website for Madison which says, “1824 April, Madison was incorporated as a town by a special act of the legislature.” The website also states, “1837 Madison was incorporated as a city. Moody Park served as Madison’s first mayor from 1838 to 1850.” Obviously the bicentennial dates to 1809.

Meanwhile, I will keep looking at records.

July 4, 1844

A good day for the Town of Fulton. It was the day of a survey, the earliest date I have found for  public mention of it as this being the survey description for the Town of Fulton (thus a good day for me and my research). This was authorized to be recorded on June 15, 1846, and then recorded on September 4th, 1846, as it became an addition to the City of Madison. The Town of Fulton is said to be east of Brushfield’s lot in the description…Brushfield’s being the eastern boundary line for the City of Madison.

 

**This information came courtesy of using the Jefferson County Historical Society’s  MP-0034 collection of the Early Subdivision Plat Maps for Jefferson County, which were the first recordings of plats as laid out for Madison, Indiana.  These plat maps are extraordinarily fragile. I wish someone would donate enough money to that organization to better preserve these maps. It isnecessary. I felt honored to be able to view and handle these precious records, and worried the whole time about causing them damage. I was careful.  I thought it was best to take photos rather than to ask for copies of anything…just like I did at the courthouse just prior to the fire there. One description was scanned though, because it made it easier to read, the description being from 1835, wherein the Brushfield property is mentioned as a marker for the Sheets Addition. Chickens and eggs.

Button, Button…

Button Button, Who Had the Buttons?

 

I remember my grandmother’s button jars. They were always a thing of wonder, with all the shapes and sizes and designs. People don’t really keep button jars as much anymore but I still remember abalone and pearl buttons.

 

Found in the book, The Trade-mark Reporter by United States Trademark Association:

 

“Under the heading “Button,” it is stated in the Encyclopedia Britannica (volume IV, page 891):

 

“Pearl buttons were made (in the United States) on a small scale in 1855, but their manufacture received an enormous impetus in the last decade of the nineteenth century, when J. F. Boepple began, at Muscatine, Iowa, to utilize the unio [word deleted] shells found along the Mississippi. By 1905 the annual output of these ‘fresh-water pearl’ buttons had reached 11,405,723 gross, worth $3,359,167, or 36.6 per cent, of the total value of the buttons produced in the United States. * * * (See U. S. A. Census Reports 1900, Manufacturers, part iii, pp. 315-327.)”

 

Madison was once known for its pearl button factories and with the Ohio River’s mussel shell beds, running from the area known as Fulton to Eagle Hollow, there were plenty of shells from which to make the buttons. Fulton was that area sometimes referred to as the area from the city limits east to the end of Vaughn/Fulton Street and sometimes referring to an area around Ferry Street east. The mussel area would’ve been between the E. Sr. 56 marks on the map.

 

Mussel shells made for pearly buttons, so here is a little musselling info from (Musselling and Pearling) Flatheads and Spooneys By Jens Lund:

 

Page 104-105

 

“Freshwater mother-of-pearl is thick, solid, and often beautifully iridescent. From the 1890’s throughout the early 1950s, most mother-of pearl harvested in the Ohio Valley went to make button blanks (buttons without thread-holes, which would be added later at the shirt factory.)”

 

Page 15

 

“The mainstay of musselling was the button mill. German buttonmaker J.F. Boepple established the first button blank factory in the United States on the Mississippi at Muscatine, Iowa, in 1889. The industry took off from there, and button mills appeared in many lower Ohio Valley communities.”

 

 

Page 112

 

“The simplest way to harvest mussels is to wade in shallow water in known mussel beds, feel for them with one’s feet, and then bend over and pick them up. This process is known as polliwogging…”.

  

With that paragraph for a cue I went outside and did my own sweet, dry version of polliwogging, meaning I bent over and picked up a handful of artifacts, some shells, right there in front of the house. I figured it would help if I brought them in and took a photo. As you can see, some have the button blanks cut out of them.

  

 

Apparently there is a reason I could find these so easily. From a 1977 Madison Courier article by Howard Denton about Madison’s button factories:

  “During 1913 and 1914, two other (other than Pearl Button factory)  small button cutting plants were opened. One was in a part of the building now occupied by the Key West Shrimp House (the back side of the building is shown in photo above) on Ferry Street.  As a result of a strike at the main Pearl Button Company, Joe Minor and a brother together with some former Melish employees began button operations at the above Ferry Street site. Further, Andy Aberdeen also started a button factory on an alley off the far end of North Walnut Street.”  

 

 The factory-now-restaurant that most people associate with button-making in east Madison is on the west side of Ferry Street. There is a little history about their building on their website. I like the long low architecture of the building. There is what some call a “sister” building just north of that one on Ferry Street, currently in use as apartments. I’m not sure when either was actually built since neither seems to be on the 1887 Bird’s Eye map, but the Sanborn maps may or may not give a clue.

The northernmost building (located at 215 Ferry Street) appears to be the one which shows up on the 1897 Sanborn map and the Sanborn 1904 map but  the southern building (117 Ferry Street) is first shown on the map as a spoke and carriage warehouse on the 1904 Sanborn map, if that is indeed the building.

 I can’t say I believe everything on the Sanborn maps because they left off before they got to the eastern corporation line, leaving one street out of the neighborhood and misnaming  another one, as you see it says Filmore where it should be High Street and the smaller alley is not named at all, and that really is Filmore. So how accurate is the placement of the buildings or the labeling of them?

According to a later Sanborn map (1927) the building at 215 became (for a while) a carpet cleaning facility plus a steam laundry and dry cleaners  and the button factory became a cotton belt factory (as shown on the 1927 Sanborn map) . It was shown as a tobacco warehouse on the 1911 Sanborn map. Unless of course, the smaller building labeled A is the correct building placement. What’s a map reader to do? 

This was further a problem when the Milton-Madison big book, as I call it, came out and labeled the building as 105 Ferry, when the owner told me it was really 117 Ferry Street. Maybe the building is really one built in 1945 as the inventory suggests, but I don’t believe that because the photo is earlier than that (circa 1929) and that would mean the building at 215 is the one shown as the cotton belt factory. Makes you wonder how anyone ever gets all this stuff done correctly, doesn’t it? I’m just trying to correct the record around here.

The overhead view puts it on the map where Sanborn drew it, with the exception of the street names. The button factory is not considered a contributing resource in the district because it didn’t fall within the period of significance (up to 1874) , so I thought I would just look at a couple of maps.   

 

Back to Mr. Denton’s article…

Mr. Denton’s February 8, 1977 article mentioned another button factory  operated by the Potter family, saying the “Fulton plant mainly cut blanks which were later made into finished pearl buttons by other factories. It operated until 1919.”

 

 I would’ve been hard pressed to say for sure which building until I looked at the description given in the article, “the button factory in the 1913 photograph illustrating this article, was located in Fulton on Park Avenue, just across from where Stewart’s grocery stands. The building shown also served as a chapel and a country store.” 

 

According to the neighbor who lives in the house next door to me (at 1036 Park Avenue), his house was Stewart’s grocery. His brother owns the two properties across the street where the family was born and raised, and I doubt either of those two were the Potter factory. It was probably the property across the street from me.  

  

 I looked at the Madison census information for Potters in 1910 (City of Madison PAGE 1 and PAGE 2 ) and 1920. Wesley Potter is listed as a general foreman, and Anna and Emma Potter are listed as “button factory” workers. The 1920 Madison Twp census (page A and page B) shows more Potters, with a mention of the Melish Button Factory. All I can say is there were, indeed, a lot of Potters around here; certainly enough for a factory! 

 

 

 

1900 census

The quickest way to put a lot of people at certain addresses in this neighborhood is to use the 1900 census, because it’s a middle point for names from over a hundred years ago; a point from which to work in either direction. It helps then to look at earlier census sheets for their location in the neighborhood, since there were no addresses on the census sheets  prior to 1900. It helps to have a point of reference, say a family known to be at a certain address, and some families have been here a while, so that will help as I plod my way through.For this post, I’m just putting the census sheets up. I cannot make all the connections as to who owns and who rents at the moment, but it is now on the site as a reference for those interested. Maybe then, those reading this blog will understand I have a lot of work to do yet.

Park Avenue: even numbers, odd numbers and First/Front,  East Filmore and Front/Park/First

on a Roll with Sheets

Once upon a time Samuel Roll and wife Mary (nee Sheets) , who was born on January 31, 1867, lived in one of the Brushfield houses on Park Avenue and they had one child, named Samuel. There isn’t much else I know about the Roll family at this point, except that  in the 1890-91 city directory there is a listing for “Roll Samuel, carriage painter, res 1016 Park ave.” After the elder Samuel Roll died his widow did live with her son awhile. The Rolls show up at 1030 and 1016 Park Avenue.

The Sheets family has a little more to go on right now, though. Mary Sheets was the daughter of Jacob Sheets and Amanda Chandler. Jacob Sheets was born in 1845. In the Sheets family records at the Madison Jefferson County Public Library is a death notice that states, that when Jacob Sheets died, his funeral was held in his daughter’s home on Park Avenue, that being the 1030 address. I will probably need to do a separate post on Jacob at some point. According to the obituary he was as soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Anyway…Jacob’s parents were John and Mary Sheets. His father, well-known John Sheets, was born in 1821 and died April 13, 1881. The union of hisparents, John Sheets and Elizabeth Leishman, brought forth the following children: Unknown Sheets, Hannah Sheets, John Sheets, Jacob Scheitz Sheets, Francis Frank Sheets, and Michael Sheets. The elder John Sheets was born in Prussia, Germany, in 1797.

 Members of the Sheets family occupied more than one house east of Ferry. The name John Sheets is probably familiar to many in Madison. On page 52, of Donald Thomas Zimmer’s, Madison, Indiana, 1811-1860: A Study in the Process of City Building, I read, “In 1836 John Sheets platted the area aound Ferry Street extending from Sering Street to the river. The Sheets addition marked the earliest development of any part of Madison east of East Street.” (This being about John Sheets, of the Sheets Add, as it is called…the expansion to the east of the original town of Madison, Indiana. )

The census checks shows John Sheets listed in 1820, so they have been around a while. Members of the Sheets family were just one family who called this a family neighborhood. It will take me a while to decipher who lived where. There are so many in this family just the thought of all the research gave me a headache, but I will get through it at some point. One on-line Madison City Directory,( the 1890-91 edition) available through the history rescue project online shows the following Sheets listings for addresses that I know are east of Ferry:

Sheets Frank R, lab, res 1023 Park ave

Sheets Harry H, wks brewery, res 1023 Park ave

Sheets Jacob, lab, res s s Fulton e of corporation

Sheets John, lab, res 1023 Park ave

Sheets John H, lab, res 1023 Park ave

 There are more but this is all I am doing in this post for now.

I’ll get the connections at a later date. Soon I hope.

John Sheets’ children (the one who was born around 1821) were John Sheets , Jacob Sheets, Peter Sheets , Nicholas Sheets, and Margaret Sheets. Picking one of them out of a hat for info, Peter Sheets was married to Helen Amanda Roll Sheets, b. October 3, 1842 (also went by the name Ellen). Peter died in 1939 at the age of 88, at least according to one newspaper obituary…another says he was 91. Peter died at the home of his daughter, according to the paper, Wednesday, September 6, 1939. He had been employed at the nieghborhood button factory at one point. 

Peter’s wife died 12 years before him, the obituary saying that at the time of death she was living at an EAST Filmore address. I will have to look into the exact addresses in the neighborhood as I see more deeds. I have already made one connection. I recall seeing the Sheets name in a city directory, at 1017 Park Avenue, as late as the 1940’s, so obviously the family has been in Madison a long while, some in the immediate vicinity. I’ll add to the Sheets listings as I get to them.

map to map

Right before the courthouse fire I took some photos of assessor’s books and haven’t really been able to follow through on them all to date, but I thought I might make a couple of comparisons on a few of the maps I have, just for the area east of the corporation line—the area known to some as Fulton.

It would seem a lot of people in Madison know nothing about Fulton,  nor are they familiar with the eastern-most area of Madison in that section on the Sanborn maps, or maybe I should say NOT on the Sanborn maps, in the area just west of the corporation line. For some reason that area that seems to  not exist on any of the Sanborn maps, and the maps that pre-date the Sanborn maps show the area. There is also a mistake on the street below the property. This isn’t a problem for me, just those who go by the Sanborn maps and ignore the area does indeed exist IN Madison. Those who want to know where Fulton is or was, can look  east of the corporation line, which is clearly marked, and I have emphasized with a green line.

I have more photos, and it seems another photo of a larger Brushfield subdivision has been misplaced at the present, so I will need to address that later. I would like to see the assessor’s books again before I get into too much of what is east of the city of Madison, as the area previously known as the Town of Fulton needs to be addressed as a whole separate issue at some point. I have spoken with a neighbor or two east of the corporation line and they will be invaluable in piecing together the history of that area. I just need to look at their deeds.

To date , most of my focus has been on the area east of Ferry Street, mostly because the bridge folks needed to know I am looking into the area’s historic significance on my own. I have put together information that here-to-fore no one even seemed to care about.  The map in the new bicentennial book cuts off the area east of Ferry as well, but you know, the enlarged map on the library wall shows it all. I have to wonder why no one has looked at this area (which IS within the city limits and is shown on all the maps) before this.  I will get to the whole neighborhood myself at some point, whether or not others want a bridge through it.

I did notice recent changes to the riverfront included cleaning up the city lot which used to contain a lot of rubble; it’s where the waterworks used to sit. Clean-up of course, could very well have destroyed some architectural artifacts, but there are those who would rather bury the past so it looks “nice”.  I can see  that city lot from the back yard and it is shown on the Sanborn map. Brushfield property once went to it and next to it.