Indianapolis- a historical and statistical sketch, 1870,WR Holloway

ORDER FOR REMOVAL OF TIIE CAPITAL. 25
D. C. Proctor, the Presbyterian pastor, and the first regular pastor in the town,
officiated as chaplain, Daniel B. Wick as reader, and Morris Morris as orator. Rev.
Isaac Read closed with a benediction. The "barbecue," or roasting of a deer or
beef whole, was the staple entertainment of all public assemblages of these early
days. Political barbacues were frequent, and the reader may remember the noted
one giveu on the occasion of the viit of Henry Clay in 1842, in Gov. Noble's pas-
ture, east of town. That was about the last of those old-time festivities.
In the spring an organization of physicians was formed called the Indiana
Central Medical Society, with Dr S. G. Mitchell as president, and Dr. Livingston
Dunlap as secretary.
euceessor of this day ;
Its purpose seems to have embraced one point more than its
for under the law of that day doctors were licensed, and this
association was authorized to examine applicants and issue licenses.
Although, at the beginning of 1824, the rather disproportionate amount of hotels
to other improvements indicated an expectation of the removal of the capital, the
change was held off by several influence* the inaccessibility of the town, its reputed
bad health, its lack of suitable buildings or any at all sufficient for the Legislature,
and not least, probably, by the fact that until the session of 1824 the new
county of M>irion had no representative in that, body. But when Senator Gregory
and Representative Paxton took their places, attention was effectively directed to
the matter, ai.d on the 28th of January, 1824, an act was pas ed transferring the
seat of Government to Indianapolis, ordering the removal, under the direction of
Samuel Merrill, State Treasurer, of the offices and archives, by the 10th of January
following, and fixing that day for the meeting of the Legislature in the new capitol,
the unfinished Court house. This was final as far as authority went, and the trans-
fer needed nothing but a wagon or two to be complete. Our members, upon their
return home after the adjournment of the Legislature, were given a complimentary
banquet at Washington Hall, at which the usual enthusiastic anticipations were
indulged, with the unusual fortune, however, of being at once above and below the
truth. So far as the influence of the acquisition of the capital went and the ban-
queters, of course, thought of no oth