Year: 1959
Type: article
Abstract: The Wabash and Erie Canal was the leading project in Indiana's plans for internal improvements during the early 1830's.Opened to traffic from Fort Wayne to Huntington, Indiana, in 1835, amid anticipation of blessings from cheap transportation, it also brought problems of expensive maintenance, indebtedness, and an unassimilated group of people to add to the permanent population of Indiana.This new group consisted of Roman Catholic Irish immigrants, many of whom worked on the canal and then remained in the state after the route was completed.The Irish were only a small element in the rapidly increasing population of the area along the Maumee-Wabash rivers between Toledo and Lafayette in the decade after 1830.At the time most of the Indiana portion of the area was included in Allen and Cass counties, which then had a combined population of 2,158.By 1840 these two counties had been divided to form Allen, Huntington, Cass, and Miami counties with a total population of 16,049.'The relatively small Irish segment in this section was distinguished by rowdyism in a period known for its lack of orderly and peaceful ways of life.Irish antics on paydays and distinctive features of their general habits were described by many witnesses, and the folklore of the upper Wabash valley contains stories and songs illustrating these peculiarities, as well as the Irish yearning for the Emerald Isle.* *Bert Anson is a member of the faculty in the De artment of History at Clarion State Teachers College, Clarion, Pennsygania.This article is an outgrowth of his doctoral dissertation, "The Fur Traders in Northern Indiana, 1796-1850" (Indiana Universit 1953), which was written under the direction of Professor John D. k r n h a r t .'U.S., Bureau of the Census, Fifth Census of the United States: 1830.Population Schedules, Zndzana,.I, .sheet357; 11, sheet 11.A microfilm copy of this census is on file in the Documents Division of the Indiana Universit Library, Bloomington, Ind. See also Sizth Census of the United Aates: 1840.Enumeration of the Inhabitants of the United States, 347, 349, 355, 359.2 Carl Wittke, The Irish in A m d c a (Baton Rou e, 1956), 40-51, gives a colorful picture of the impression made by the frish immigrants on Americans.An incident of canal brawling is described in Sandford C. Cox, Recollections of the Early Settlement of the Wabash Valley (Lafayette, Ind., 1860), 145.Father Ste hen Theodore Badin is quoted on the Irish and German Roman Cathofic settlers along the canal in Thomas T. McAvoy, The Catholic Church in Indium, 1789-1834 (New York, 1946), 188-190.*For Roche's role in the establishment of St. Mary's Church, see F. Sumner Bash, History of Huntington County, Indiana ( 2 vols., Chicago, 1914)) I, 314.Short biographical sketches of Roche are in the obituary published in the Huntington Democrat, October 18, 1894, and in The Catholic Universe (Cleveland, 0 .) December 3, 1897.Huntington County histories hereafter cited follow these accounts.
Source: Indiana Magazine of History
Author: Bert Anson
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W1581026620