The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-07-28
TRADE IN THE EARLY DAYS
How a Profitable Turn Was Made by a
Pioneer Merchant in Ginseng.
The Small Beginning in Manufactures That
Has Developed Into System of Great Di-
mensions-A Few Of Our First Industries.


The recent death of an eccentric old resi-
dent of Muncie, who, for years past, had
supported himself by gathering and curing
the root of a forest plant called ginseng"
supposed to have been brought to Canada
from China by some of the Jesuit mission
aries to the Indians, recalls some details of
the trade in the cured root that are now
known to very few except pioneers and
their immediate descendants. The Indian
apolis school-boy of fifty years ago was as
familiar with ginseng" as his children or
grandchildren are with ''sassafras," called
"sassyfrac" by the country boys, or "sweet
flag,n called "calamus." 1t grew profusely
in the dark, damp soil on White river bot
toms, and the valleys of Pogue's run.
Fall creek and Pleasant run. The
root, freshly dug and washed, was cream
color, and the taste was aromatic
and pleasant, and the boys of that
day chewed as much as the girls do
gum nowadays-when they could get it.
There was always q steady trade in it, for
the Chinese demand always kept the mar
ket up, and quite number of farmers
boys made an extra quarter or levy" by a
half-day's digging and selling to "stOre-
keepers" Said an old Seminary boy to the
reporter. II have spent many an hour on
Saturday, in the late spring and summer,
hunting ginseng in the woods about the
old graveyard pond'-partly covered now
in as part of the big dumping-gr0und-an
in the higher ground east to the woods
south of the residence of Samuel Merrill,
and with a little care in washing and dry
ing | could always get % cents a pound for
it when didn't eat it myself. A good many
boys kept little hoes called ''sang hoes
not "seng" as reported the other day
which were about three inches wide In the
blade, narrowing to a shank at the socket,
with couple OF prongs forming fork for
venient, and admirably adapted to the
work.
"But 'ginseng has disappeared as COM
p1etely as if it had never existed. Where
the timber and underbrush still stand
thickly on the river and creek bottoms, and
tho tive-leaved plant could be seen on all
hands but little less abundant than nettles
or iron weed, not sign OF 1T IS visible or
has been for generation. 1t seems to be
one of the wild growths that cannot be do
sort of domestic cultivation. Repeated at
tempts have been made to convert it into q
regular crop by systematic planting and
care, but never with any success. The
pawpaw has been transplanted from the
native patch on some bayou bank to a we'll
managed garden, but that has never been
very successful. while ginseng has never
even approached an appearance of q dispO-
sition to replace its wildwood freedom
with the superior size and quality of a
Chinese and the Indian names imply re-
semblance of the root to the human
form, and it may be true. as
a round trunk running out into
two legs or prongs was a. very
here. Its little bunch of scarlet berries
bore the flavor of the root very strongly.
The Indian turnip,' when ripe. shows a
still larger lump of the most brilliant red
berries, but they are not nearly so rank of
ginseng. They are beauties for household
ornament, however, though if an Indian
turnip' was ever good for anything else
never heard of it, unless it might be to
play a rough joke on some boy who needed
n little reduction of the circumference of
his head. It's myriad of fiery pins and
tacks sticking and burning the tongue and
throat in thousand places at once would
take the conceit out of q new Congressman
or an old bully from 'rattlesnake ranch
still be found occasionally, as can the
whimsically, cut leaves and blood root of
the 'pOcOon."
More than sixty years ago Nicholas Nc
Carly, father of our Nick, who is the father
of West Indianapolis, was the leading mer-
chant and business man of indianapolis
and dealt largely in Philadelphia, then
much preferred by Western men to New
|. York, and there he learned the value of
ginseng as an article of commerce. Follow
ing up his idea, as he always did when
there wasa practicable object to be reached
he suggested to James Blake, another of
the few men who put Indianapolis in the
way of good work and good luck, that it
would pay to buy up the raw ginseng root
and cure it for the Philadelphia market,
fair price for it, or divide profits. which
ever seemed pest. Mr.: Blake took hold of
the project at once. and built a little hewed
log house. with a furnace In it, on the
west side of what is now Ala
kiln-dried and cured the root as he got it
from the farmers round about, Mr.. McCarty
aiding largely by the purchases he made
with dry goods and groceries from his store
on Washington street. The annual crop.
ready for shipment, was taken on to Phila-
delphia by Mr.. McCarty in wagons mainly,
and there 1T went to pay for the next stock
of store goods, which was taken out to the
new purchase" in the same wagon that
carried to the sea-cOast the Chinese ''cure-
all" This trade and manufacture was kept
up several years, ten or dozen, probably,
till Mr.. McCarty's business became too
large to allow such load to hang to it.
The little house, called the Sang House."
remained, however, till near the time the
Madison railroad was completed, in the fall
of 1S47, but was never used for it's original
purpose, or any other, afterwards"
So ran the story of the first commercial
manufacture of Indianapolis. There were
mills to grind wheat and corn, but the
product was all used at home. There were
saw-mills, but the lumber was needed for
our own houses and furniture. There were
carding factories, but they made nothing
but wooden rolls for the women to spin into
yarn for socks and mittens, or thread for
weaving into "wamuses" or working
dresses There was q distillery called
''still-hOuse"), but its whisky was drunk at
home under the name of ''Bayon Blue"
The first attempt at commercial manufact-
ure as distinguished from domestic con-
sumption. was begun in January, 1927,
when the State Legislature ordered the
States agent to survey seven acres near
the river at the mouth of the Fall creek
bayou, for a site for q steam mill to be built
by a company Incorporated the follow
ing Jan. 2S 1928, as the Steam Mill
Company, with capital of 10000, in $50
shares. The principal owners were Nicholas
McCarty, James Blake and James Ray. 1t
was. to be. both a steam and grist-mill.
grinding w heat and corn both, and the first
on White river to use boiling cloths, and
carding wooden rolls for farmers families.
The building, four stories high. with an
attic story. was begun early In the fall of
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