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

H. W. BEECHES CENTRAL CANAL. 67
The Presbyterian church of the town having, in May of the year before, 1838,
followed the split that was running through the entire denomination in the United
States, starting, as all church divisions did then and for long afterwards, from sla-
very, the "New School," consisting of fifteen adherents, formed a congregation on
the 19th of November and worshipped in the lecture room of the County Seminary.,
under the ministrations of Rev. J. H. Johnson. In May 1839, Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher was invited from Lawrenceburgh, where he had his first congregation, and
took the pastorate in which he was destined to lay the foundation of the fame he has
since reared so high. A year after his arrival a new church building was erected
on the north west corner of Circle and Market streets, and occupied by him until
he removed to Brooklyn in 1847, and by his successors, as will be elsewhere noted,
till a new church was built on the corner of Vermont and Pennsylvania streets at
a cost of $75,000, and the old one enlarged and improved and converted into the
City High School in 1867.
The abandonment of the public works this year (1839),
as noticed in the account
of the adoption of thesystem of internal improvements by the State, g>ive the prospects
;
of the town a terrible blow, wh ch only appeared more disastrous as time devel-
oped the improbability of the completion and availability of any of the enterprises
upon which so much really depended, and so much more was speculatively built. The
canal was the only one that had reached the town, and as it was really in g od
condition "as far as it went," to use "Mr. Nickleby's" favorite qualification, some
preparation of boats had been made for the trade it might be expected to develop.
It was opened from the feeder dam at Broad Ripple June 27th, 1839, by an excur-
sion to that point. The section above to Noblesrille, and that below to Martins-
ville, were so far advanced that a comparatively small amount of money and labor
could have made a complete channel of water communication for about forty-five
miles through the center of the State, and been found of very great value to the
people. But everything was left, the spade in the dirt, the wheelbarrow on the
plank, where the news of the State's bankruptcy overtook it, and not another lick has
been struck from that day to this, except to repair the breaks and preserve the wa-
ter power which the leases made obligator}' upon the State or her assigns.
All the
way are still visible the marks of this futile improvement; in some places filled up,
in some overgrown with underbrush and trees, in others still clear and capable of
easy conversion to use. Below the town about three miles, the bed of the canal was
turned into a country race course, and many a bet was lost there that would, but
for this State provision, have been decided on the town course on West street. As far
down as "Pleasant Run," where the canal was carried over that stream by an unfinished
aqueduct, the water was kept a navigable depth for some years, aird ran out
into that creek a little way from the river, and made it a choice place for fisher-
men. But gradually the wooden locks south of the town decayed, the canal through
the swamp then called "Palmer's Glade" became obstructed with weeds, grass and
mud, and the water disappeared. A small channel was then dug from the wooden
locks straight across to the river, just below the mouth of Pogue's creek, and
through that the water is discharged now, and probably will continue to be for the
next generation. It was in this little stream that Mary Hennerby and her little
companion were drowned, or thrown after being murdered, by the villains who outraged
the elder, in June 1870.
The admission of the water into the canal for the first time, in the spring of 1839,
was the occasion of a general jubilee, not among the adults, who already began
to see that the eight finished milea were all we were likely to get, but among the