August Gleanings From Fort Wayne: Lawn tennis, the novelty of typewriters and pole raisings

  Newspapers in the 1870s and beyond almost all had a column with a name like “Gleanings,” “Brevities” or “Town Topics” in which the editor commented on local happenings, seasonal changes, who was visiting in town and so on. I’ve compiled collections of these from the two places the Barbour branch of my family were living in during this era: Coffeyville, Kansas and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Almost all my earlier “Gleanings” articles were from Coffeyville, however. These are Fort Wayne items.

Compiled from August 1868

• Pole-raising is getting to be a mania among the Democracy of this city. Hickory poles are rising all over the city. Most of them, however, are mere “saplings.”

• Watermelons are coming into market in great numbers and are getting cheaper. A good thing; thus far they have been an expensive luxury. 

• The new High School building is receiving its finishing touches preparatory to its dedication. 

• The first rehearsal of the allegory “The Drummer Boy” will take place at Colerick’s Hall this evening. We are desired to say that as many as are interested in the successful presentation of this beautiful drama in this city are requested to be in attendance at 7 ½ o’clock. Some ten or fifteen ladies and some gentlemen are still required to complete the cast of characters. We would say that the “Drummer Boy” has had an almost unprecedented run at Indianapolis, Terre Haute and Lafayette, in this state; Detroit, Michigan and other places… 

• LaRue’s Arctic Entertainment – It’s been a long time since Fort Wayne has had an entertainment that all classes of our citizens could patronize without violating religious scruples. On Wednesday evening LaRue’s Arctic will open at Colerick’s Hall, and afford the elite and our best citizens a source of real enjoyment…Apart from the interest attached to the voyages of the American and English explorers in the Arctic regions, the painting itself, illustrative of that ice-bound country, possesses intense merit alone as a work of art. 

• We were glad to see so good an attendance at Hamilton’s Hall on Saturday evening last. [A description followed of a recital put on by the female students of Mr. Shotwell. He played the organ and the little girls, all dressed in white, sang sixteen songs, one of which was “Father Come Home,” also known as “Father Don’t Drink Anymore.” Temperance songs were popular for decades.]

     Pole raising was frequently reported in Fort Wayne in the 1860s and ‘70s. This now forgotten custom was part of political rallies especially during presidential campaigns. The pole was carefully selected typically of hickory or ash trees, the tree cut down, trimmed, and hauled to the gathering. They were of great height, 100 feel not being unusual. There was considerable effort involved in putting it upright in a hole. The pole was topped with political flags and streamers. There was a festive atmosphere with farmers coming in from the country with their families and picnic baskets, parades, oratory and recitations.

     On August 22, 1868 a pole raising was advertised in the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette. “Saturday evening on Calhoun street, one-half mile south of the Railroad Depot.” Five speakers were promised. “Come on out and hear the truth.” In September the Republicans announced a rally and pole raising in the Eighth Ward with two speakers. “Turn out Workingmen!” the ad urged. “Turn out, Everybody, and hear the real issues of the day discussed!”

     Incidentally, St. Leon, Indiana, a town of 660 people in Dearborn County, claims to be home to the only pole raising in the U.S. today. It is normally held on the second Saturday before a presidential election with a parade and festival. The small town has held this ceremony since 1892, but since 2021 a committee changed the political nature of the event. The U.S. flag and the Indiana state flag are instead hoisted on the pole. 

     Political pole raisings continued around the country into the 1920s. The advent of modern communication and a fading interest in political oratory are attributed to the dying out of this custom. 

      “The Drummer Boy” was an amateur production of  “home talent,” that swept Indiana and a few other Midwestern locations, such as Cleveland and Detroit, in 1868. It was a fundraiser that brought in money for such causes as the following:

•  Widows and orphans of Civil War veterans (Fort Wayne) 

• The  Seventh Regiment Monument Fund in Cleveland

• The local orphan asylum in Evansville

     It was described in the Evansville Daily Journal as a series of thrilling tableaux. The tableaux vivant was a very popular form of entertainment in which participants created a scene, often with elaborate costumes and scenery, accompanied by music. Scenes were usually historic reenactments, such as “Washington Crossing the Potomac,” or symbolic representations of concepts like “Truth” and “Liberty.”

     In this case, they were scenes from the Civil War, so fresh in the memory of the audience. They began with the recruiting and departure, with the local courthouse depicted in the scenery, the drill of raw recruits, which was meant to elicit laughter; the bivouac, the march, the skirmish, the battle, the parade, the parting from friends, the tragic death, guardian angels, and – most affecting of all, a scene of suffering in Andersonville prison. In Fort Wayne Mr. Edsall, perhaps William Edsall, left the audience in tears. 

     The drama closed with another especially affecting scene filling the stage with 100 locals dressed to represent the goddess of Liberty, Justice, Peace, the Mechanical Arts, Agriculture, soldiers and sailors, citizens and so on filling the stage. 

     At productions in different cities there were also orators and a soloist sang the heart-wrenching Civil War hit, “The Vacant Chair.”

      LaRue’s Arctic Entertainment painting was a panorama. A panorama was a massive circular painting meant to give the viewer a “you are there” quality when gazing upon a depiction of a battle or historic scene. Viewers stood on a central platform that seemed to place them in the center of the scene. They were very popular, a form of virtual reality for our Victorian ancestors.

Compiled from August 1876

• Remember, the type-writer will be on exhibition at the Aveline House this week. Don’t forget to call and see it. 

• The first annual announcement of the Fort Wayne Medical College has been issued. 

• Last Wednesday a lad named Cramer, employed in the Shurick stave factory, was riding on a P., F.W. and C. freight car when he slipped and fell, one of the wheels passing over his foot and crushing it into a jelly. 

• We have received from the publishers an elegant steel engraved portrait of Gov. Samuel J. Tilden, the next president of the United States. Orders may be left at the Sentinel office. Price of picture, $1. 

• A large crop of pears is promised. The watermelon season has opened. 

• Four hundred soldiers passed through our city yesterday (August 1) en route to the Indian country. 

• The macadamizing of Barr street, which is to be commenced at once, will cost about $3,000. 

     The “type-writer” was a novelty in 1876. It was displayed at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, which opened in May. It attracted great crowds but few sales as it was costly and regarded as a plaything, not a time-saver. The first patent for a “typewriting machine” was issued in 1868 to Christopher Latham Sholes of Milwaukee. It did not become commercially available until after March 1873 when he signed a contract for production with E. Remington & Sons. 

      Boys riding on railcars – and subsequently losing limbs - were frequent news items around the country. The editor of the Coffeyville, Kansas newspaper frequently exhorted parents to keep a better watch on their sons and not to allow them to play on the trains. News items such as this one with young Cramer were all too frequent. 

     Samuel J. Tilden, former governor of New York, was the disputed Democratic nominee for president in 1876. He supported civil service reform, opposition to high taxes and the gold standard, but many of his supporters were more interested in ending Reconstruction. He won the popular vote against Rutherford B. Hayes. He also won 184 electoral votes, which was just one less than a majority. Congress appointed a bipartisan committee to determine the outcome of the election. Republicans had a one-seat majority on the committee and ruled on party lines. Democratic leaders agreed to accept Hayes as president on the condition that he end Reconstruction. 

     The four hundred soldiers passing through Fort Wayne headed for Indian country were going to the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, also called the Black Hills War. After gold was discovered in the Black Hills the U.S. government wanted the Indians living there, the Lakota Sioux and the Cheyenne, to cede ownership. Understandably, the Indians were not interested in losing their land. 

     I wrote about macadamizing roads in a March 2024 article, “March Poetry Madness: Mud.” 

Compiled from August 1884

• Some of the members of the Lawn Tennis Club are becoming experts at the game. The [Allen] Hamilton lawn presents a very pretty spectacle every Thursday afternoon, with young ladies and gentlemen in their lawn tennis costumes. 

• Officer Sheridan killed a mad dog the other night, which leads us to remark that canines should be muzzled. 

• Mary Mack, who for three years has been employed in the ladies’ waiting room at the Pittsburg depot, is ill with typhoid fever. 

• The Louisville Nationals play the Fort Wayne club at the league park tomorrow [August 1]. 

     Lawn tennis was codified as a game only a decade before the members of the Lawn Tennis Club were perfecting their moves. In April 1882 the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette reported it was “the coming Fort Wayne game.” A party of “pretty young ladies” were seen on West Wayne Street with rackets in hand. Keil & Bro.’s and Max G. Lade’s Sportsmen Emporium both advertised lawn tennis supplies the next month. 

     Every summer, nearly every newspaper had stories of mad dogs being shot, calls to muzzle dogs, and the occasional story of the unfortunate souls who died agonizing deaths after being bitten by a rabid dog. Louis Pasteur developed the first rabies vaccine in 1885 but its purpose was to save already-infected humans. In the 1920s a preventative vaccine was developed for dogs. A more efficient vaccine was not created, nor did vaccination become common until the 1950s. 

     See my article on the “Ladies Waiting Room,” published May 2023 for more on this once-ubiquitous part of American life. 

Sources:

     Appell, M.J.G. “Forty Years of Canine Vaccination,” Adv Vet Medicine, Vol. 41 (1999), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7149312/

     Turner, George A. “Pole Raising: A Campaign Activity,” https://colcohist-gensoc.org/wp-content/uploads/pole_raising.pdf

     Waller. Robert A. “Women and the Typewriter During the First Fifty Years, 1873-1923,” Studies in Popular Culture, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1986), pp. 39-50. 

Copyright by Andrea Auclair  © 2024