Brookville and Its Contribution 19 



BROOKVILLE AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE INTEL- 

 LECTUAL LIFE OF THE STATE. 



John C. Shirk, Brookville. 



I have been asked to give a fifteen minutes talk this evening on 

 Brookville and its contribution to the intellectual life of the state. 



It is hard to do justice to the subject in the time allotted. It is 

 120 years since the first white settler came to Brookville. The hardy 

 pioneers, the brighest and best manhood of the eastern states came down 

 the Ohio River. It was necessary to follow and locate along streams 

 where there was plenty of water power. After they had passed Cin- 

 cinnati they found the big Miami River to be the first stream coming 

 in from the north. This they followed for five or six miles to the north- 

 east where they discovered a beautiful and enchanting stream coming in 

 from the north, this they called the White Water. They followed it 

 about 25 miles when they came to two forks of near equal size coming 

 together in a beautiful valley with verdant hills beyond and on every 

 side. It seemed to them a paradise on earth. Here in 1803 came Amos 

 Butler, the grandfather of our honored guest this evening, the founder of 

 the Indiana Academy of Science. 



Amos Butler, Senior, built his cabin just north of where the 

 Hermitage now stands and soon had built a flour mill on the river bank 

 near by. Here he supplied the early settlers with flour. 



In 1808 Amos Butler and Jesse B. Thomas first platted Brookville. 

 The little town soon became quite thrifty. In the year of 1820 a United 

 States land office was located at Brookville and continued there until 

 1825 when it was removed to Indianapolis, which was quite a calamity 

 to Brookville. 



On the 9th of January, 1836, a bill passed both houses of the State 

 Legislature authorizing the building of the White Water canal. It 

 was a gala day in Brookville and was celebrated with a parade, bon- 

 fires and booming of cannon all through the night. On the 13th of Sep- 

 tember, 1838, the ceremony of breaking the ground was celebrated in 

 Brookville. Governor Noble, Ex-Governor Ray, David Wallace and 

 others made addresses. James Finley, editor of the Richmond Palladium, 

 gave the following toast: "There is not in the wide world a valley so 

 sweet — As the vale where the branches of the White Water meet". 



When the canal was completed as far as Brookville the town had 

 quite a boom and the people were quite happy. But when the canal 

 was built on to Connersville and Cambridge City and Brookville ceased 

 to be the head of navigation, the town lost much of its importance. 

 But the canal was a great convenience and our fathers boasted of how 

 nice it was when they could board a canal boat at Brookville in the 

 evening, arrive in Cincinnati the next morning, spend the day there and 

 again take the boat, enjoy a good night's sleep and wake up on the morn- 

 ing of the third day back in Brookville. Then it took two nights and 

 a day to make the trip to Cincinnati, now we make it in about one hour 

 and one-half each way on the road. 



"Proc. Ind. Acad. Sci., vol. 33. 1023 (1924)." 



