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INDIANA UNIVERSITY STUDIES 



Organizimg the Bank 



It was impossible at this time to concentrate the trade of Indiana 

 in one center as was done in Ohio at Cincinnati, in Kentucky at 

 Louisville, and in New York at New York City.i^ The White 

 Water valley traded to Cincinnati. The trade of the southern 

 part of the state flowed to the Ohio, but one could not say whether 

 Madison, New Albany, or Evansville would secure the larger por- 

 tion. New Orleans was the final market, and boatmen shipped 

 indifferently from a dozen river-board ports — Charleston, Leaven- 

 worth, and Troy sharing the trade with their larger rivals. Back 

 from the river small centers of population and business, and espe- 

 cially of politics, were growing up at Brookville, Lexington, Salem, 

 Bedford, Bono, Paoli, and Princeton. Vincennes, Terre Haute, 

 Lafayette, and Logansport were the Wabash towns. Crawfords- 

 ville, the ''town in the big flat woods," was the greatest land market 

 in the United States. There was little commerce at this time at 

 Indianapolis, while Muncietown, Andersontown, Delphi, Peru, and 

 Wabash were blooming out from struggling villages into preten- 

 tious county seats. Seven out of ten towns chosen as locations of 

 the branches of the Bank were on the borders of the state; only 

 six of the ten contained over two thousand people each. The pop- 

 ulation of the state was about 500,000. There were about 900 mer- 

 chants resident in the state, and perhaps an equal number of nonresi- 

 dent traders operating on the Ohio and Wabash. 



On the Ohio river the busy pork-packing season was in November 

 and December. 19 Drovers traveled through the neighboring coun- 

 ties and bought up large droves of hogs. These were butchered 

 on the river-board as soon as cold weather set in. These products 

 were shipped to New Orleans in the early winter before the ice 

 blocked the Ohio. Thus there was a good demand for money in 

 that section in the fall. The produce of the Wabash was gathered 

 in fiat-boats from the smaller streams. The boatmen had to wait 

 for the thaw in the spring, when the ice was gone, and there was 

 plenty of water. This required capital in February and March, 

 and the produce was realized on by June 1.-° What little lake 

 trade there was came in midsummer. At this time the farmers 

 of the interior were buying up hogs and cattle to fatten for the 

 fall market. 



" Indiana Journal, February 22, 1834. 



»» Lanier, Sketch of Life of J. F. D. Lanier, p. 17. 



" Indiana Journal, February 22, 1834. 



5» Wm. F. Hardin?, "The State Bank of Indiana,' a thirty-six page article in the Journal of 

 Political Economy, December, 1895. 



