Gavel Gamut
By Jim Redwine
(Week of 02 February 2016)
TWO HUNDRED YEARS IN 60 SECONDS
My friend Mike Webster is developing a tourism website for Posey County, Indiana. Mike is a fine photographer, writer and web designer. His goal is to alert tourists to the numerous interesting and unique features of our fair corner at the confluence of the Ohio and Wabash rivers. He will be showcasing some of Posey County’s many contemporary attractions. Of course, it is our rich history that has attracted poets, philosophers and scientists here since 1795. Often they have come to observe and stayed to enrich our culture. This mixture of past accomplishments infused with bright new energy makes Posey County a special place. Those of us privileged to live here recognize our good fortune. Those of you who may be searching for an experience both unexpected and inspiring may find it in Posey County, Indiana.
As part of his website development Mike asked me to write a few short, internet type, history vignettes. One should not rely on these stories as if written by Edward Gibbons. First of all, Posey County is not in decline. Perhaps an attitude of browsing through the musings of a weekly newspaper columnist would be appropriate. Regardless, I hope they and Posey County appeal to your road trip state of mind.
THE FOOTPRINTS OF HISTORY
Are you searching for the tread of history? Stop! You have found it. In 1819 Father Johann George Rapp convinced his flock of Harmonists to build the Granary by showing them the stone footprints of the Archangel Gabriel in his backyard. Come see them for yourself in New Harmony, Indiana.
Now there are cynics who claim Father Rapp engaged in myopia, hyperbole and, God forbid, even Oral Robertsism, by claiming God was threatening to call him home if the Granary were not built. But you, Gentle Tourist, could not be so unkind.
THE GRANDFATHER OF OUR COUNTY
George Washington may be the Father of Our Country, but, if one believes the rumors, he was also the Father of the Father of Posey County. Thomas Posey, for whom our fair county is named, was born on George’s farm at a time when eighteen year old George was paying an inordinate amount of attention to the young widow Posey. And while it may be true there is a striking resemblance between George and Tom, only a purveyor of salacious gossip would cite George’s intense interest in Tom’s military and political careers as evidence of anything but friendship.
Oh, by the way, there were those fans of both George Washington and Thomas Posey who changed the name of our county seat from McFaddens Bluff to Mt. Vernon to honor Washington. I submit this is pure correlation.
THE PAINTED COURTHOUSE
Posey County’s current courthouse was dedicated on July 04, 1876. You are invited to visit this working museum. However, the only existing image of the courthouse that was standing on the same location from 1825 – 1876 is a painting by the famous painter Karl Bodmer. In 1834 Bodmer was touring America, perhaps much as you are now, when he and his companion, Prince Philipp Maximilian of Neuwied in Prussia, stopped for six months in Posey County.
New Harmony has an ongoing exhibit of Bodmer’s wonderful paintings, including our old courthouse. You can see America as it was at the beginning through the eyes of a great artist. While there you may also want to visit The Workingman’s Institute that remains a repository of rare artifacts from a time Posey County hosted two famous experiments in communal living.
HALF-HORSE, HALF-ALLIGATOR, ALL MAN
Gentle Tourist, you may relax in any part of Posey County without concern for your safety. However, there was a time our river community held a reputation for willing consorts and willing brawlers. Boatmen knew of Posey County from Pittsburg to New Orleans. One such benighted knights of the flatboat era was Mike Fink. Davy Crockett described Mr. Fink as a six-foot, three inch, one-hundred-eighty pounder who was half horse and half alligator. Fink wore a red ribbon in his hat as an invitation to all comers to knock it off. In one of Mt. Vernon’s early watering holes boatmen would test their eye gouging, biting and drinking skills. There was a massive set of antlers hanging from the ceiling. When Fink issued his challenge to all in attendance, the antlers fell and cold-cocked him. The Posey County stalwarts carried Fink to his boat and set him adrift not to be heard from again, at least here.
Now, as for you, Gentle Tourist, you may visit the Ohio Riverfront where Fink met his demise without fear of running into anything but beautiful vistas and maybe an ice cream sundae.
MARK TWAIN KNEW POSEY COUNTY
Samuel Clemens was a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi. The Mississippi and Ohio rivers meet at Cairo, Illinois just south of Posey County. Clemens traded stories up and down the river. One of Posey County’s early murder cases had to be his inspiration for the grave robbing case at the center of Tom Sawyer.
Gentle Tourist, you will remember that in Tom Sawyer, young doctor Robinson, “so young and promisingâ€, paid Injun Joe and Muff Potter to rob the grave of Hoss Williams. At the cemetery Injun Joe killed Dr. Robinson with Muff Potter’s knife. Muff was so drunk he believed it when Joe told him Potter had done the deed.
In the March 29, 1818 Posey County case, Dr. Thomas Moore Parke, “a young physician of much promiseâ€, robbed the fresh grave of Peter Hendricks with the assistance of a drunken brawler named George Gibbons A/K/A Givens. Gibbons killed Dr. Parke. Rachel Givens A/K/A Gibbons was arrested as an accessory. She helped George Gibbons escape from jail, furnished him with a jug of poisoned whiskey and set him afloat on the Ohio River where he died. Rachel’s charges were dropped.
Mark wain, as all writers, had to borrow from a lot of sources. Come visit Posey County and see one of Twain’s sites of inspiration.
THE HAUNTED COURTHOUSE
In 1878 three hundred white men murdered five Black men on the campus of the Posey County courthouse. At that time the jail was on the southeast corner of the courthouse lawn. The white men broke into the jail and cut a middle-aged Black man to pieces then dumped him in the jailhouse privy. The mob then hanged four young Black men from trees next to the courthouse.
The legal and law enforcement communities with the complicity of the newspapers covered up the murders. No one was ever charged or punished.
Today many people believe the ghosts of the murdered men still cry out for justice from the bowels of the old courthouse. People who enter the basement try not to do so alone.
As for you, Gentle Tourist, we invite you to visit our historic courthouse. Perhaps daytime would be best.
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