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

66 BOLLOWAT INDIANAPOLIS.
over the water, about where Kingan's po k house stands. The latter was the favor-
ite place, as the bank was covered with line turf, the water deep, and the snag a
delightful place to dive from. Very often a visitor might see, near sundown, a
hundred boys at once, playing, splashing, diving, ducking each other, and laughing
around that snag, with as joyous an indifference to the fact that the bottom was fifteen,
feet below them, and that drowning was possible, as if they had been porpoises in
a tide-way. But fatal accidents did occur sometimes. Dr. Brown, a very estimable
and promising young physician, went bathing on a little bar running down
.into the deep water at the snag, without being able to swim, and without know-
ing that the shallow bar made a sudden "step
off." The water was thick with
boys shouting and splashing about, and when the Doctor waded off the bar into
drowning water, and cried for help, it was thought he was only "funning," as a
score of others were at the same moment, and he drowned in the midst of a crowd
^any one of whom could have saved him as easily as he could turn his hand It
was a very sad affair. The boys and young men built fires to give light and dived
ifor the body a long time, but uselessly. It was found the next morning, by John
Morrison, son of Judge Morrison. The very short bend in the river, below the
Vincennes Railroad bridge, was, in those days, "in the woods." The town did not
^approach near it. The water was very deep, and the current very strong. Fatal
accidents occurred here frequently. The usual resort for recovering drowned bodies
was by diving. Among those always pressed into this disagreeable and dangerous
service, were Kev. Amos Hanway and his younger brother, Samuel, now well
known as a contractor of public works. Both were skillful fishermen, and almost
lived on and in the river, and both possessed the capacity of lungs which would
have made them a fortune at the Ceylon pearl banks. Samuel Hanway has
frequently dived from the east to the west side of the river, at the old- ferry,
when the river was wider than it is now. The brothers never refused to
come at call, rarely or never failed to recover the corpse, if the current had not
carried it clear away, and did their inestimable work gratuitously, generally, if not
always. These incidents are not important parts of the history of the city, cer-
tainly, but they will not be without interest to those who care to know something
.more of its early life than the records of its government and business changes.
In July 1839 the ordinances were revised, arranged, and published; and meas-
ures were taken to buy another fire engine in the fall. Three hundred dollars were
appropriated for that purpose, and a committee appointed to get one fur $600, if
possible, and obtain donations to make up that amount. The first sale of lots for
delinquent town taxes was held on October 25th at Washington Hall by James
Van Blaricum, the Marshal. A resurvey of the donation disclosed the fact that in
-the first survey a mistake had been made which included eight acres that belonged
to the United States. The lots had been sold in 1831, aud some arrangement had
to be made to save the purchasers from loss. The Legislature represented the case
to Congress, and Congress donated the extra eight acres and saved a possible "My-
ra Gaines " case. In November, Mrs. Britton, the wife of the Episcopal minister,
opened a Female Academy near University Square, and made it quite successful.
It subsquently passed into the hands oi Mrs. Johnson and was changed to the
building on Meridian street near the Episcopal church and called "St. Mary's Sem-
inary." On the 4th of November Gov. Wallace issued the first Proclamation appointing
a day of Thanksgiving. He fixed the 28th, and the Thursday that is, or
comes nearest, the 25th of that month, has been uniformly fixed :for Thanksgiving
day ever since.