Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-09-08
PLATED INDIANAPOLIS.
Memory of Alexander Ralston, Who
Was an Associate Of Aaron Burr.

From the Indianapolis News.
One whose good name was not bligh.ed
By a connection with Aaron Burr, when
that genius contemplated his great scheme
Of empire, though his fortunes were seri-
ously marred and his life purposes turned
awry. lies buried in Crown Hill cemetery.
His grave is unmarked by any stone. There
is nothing above 1t but the green sward.
and yet his name is one that well deserves
to be remembered in Indianapolis.
This is the grave Of Alexander Ralston,
after whose plans the original square mile
of this city was plated, with Its broad
streets and It's broader avenues, the latter
diverging from the circle. To this plan, as
the city has grown, the lengthening streets
Rave been made to conform. The result
has been a city which well bears the name
of beautiful.
Alexander Ralston's connection with
Aaron Burr was scarcely as great as that
of Philip Nolan in Edward Everett Hale's
story of "A Man Without Country Raj
ston was a Scotchman, and before leaving
his own country had been intrusted by
Lord Roslin, a large landholder, with i'm
portant engineering operations on his lord
ships estate. He was SO proficient in
his profession that when he came to this
country he was employed under the direc-
ton of the President Of the United States
in laying out Washington city. His con-
nection with Aaron Burr was one of bust
ness merely. Burrs purpose seems to have
been to collect body of followers to con-
quer Texas, perhaps Mexico. and establish
a republic of which he BURR should be the
head. With that purpose Burr associated
the hope that the western states would
ultimately fall away from the Union and
cast their lot with him. He would make
New Orleans the capital of the new nation.
AS rendezvous and refuge for his follow
ers he actually bought vast tract of land
on the Washita river, Arkansas, for which
the sum of $4,000, great amount of
money in that time, was paid.
Burr like Napoleon, who was contem-
porary. had a clear eye for the recognition
of talent He sought out Ralston to survey
these lands in Arkansas. called the Bias
trop lands" proclamation issued by the
the enterprise and warned the people
against it. The project Immediately col
lapsed Burr's arrest followed.
Fourteen years later Ralston came to lay
out the new capital of Indiana. He was a
man of fine disposition, of kindly ways,
but the fact that he had been connected
with Aaron Burr followed him and he was
looked upon with suspicion. Not man
who had anything to do with Burr in his
scheme for a southern empire but was
smitten by popular prejudice, and this
Scotchman, though entirely innocent Of
wrong motives in accepting employment
under Burr never from that day forward
had a mans chance.
Twenty-four years ago the Rev. James
Cooley Fletcher of this city, speaking of
this Scotch engineer and surveyor, said:
When l was four years old l often saw
Mr.. Ralston. l remember him a yener-
able and refined-looking old man with fine,
silky gray hair that flowed in PROPULSION over
his shoulders. He then resided in a small
brick house on the north side of Maryland
street the second lot west of Kentucky
avenue. Ralston was a bachelor. HIS
woman called 'Cheeny,' who afterward
married John Britton. (Britton was the
swell barber of the Indianapolis of about
sixty-five years ago.
Mr. Ralston was a most kind-hearted
man. An incident told by my mother at
tests his benevolent disposition. In the
winter of 1922 the cold was exceedingly
severe. White river froZe over so that
great trees could be drawn across by oxen.
All the small streams were frozen solid
Cows, horses and other beasts could not OBJ
tain water. Each morning during this Sc
we're weather Mr.. Ralston could be seen at
his we'll drawing water for his neighbors'
cattle. This being done he would go into
his house and obtain a supply of corn ana
bread. This food he would scatter to the
birds that came by hundreds to his dwell
ing"
It is now seventy-seven years Che died in
1927 since the death of Mr.. Ralston This
city is the monument Of mis- engineering
skill. 1t is said that he was the first man
OF any marked literary attainment I'LL
this place ever knew. During the last year
of his life he became a great reader of the
Bible and when unable to leave his house
by reason of illness was seldom seen with
out the book in his hands. He was born in
1850
The unmarked grave of Ralston at Crown
Hill, where his body, having been removed
from Greenlawn cemetery. was placed Sep
TENDER 30. 1874 Is in what is known as
'.the teachers lot" His body lies beside
that of another fine old bachelor, John b.
Dillon BY the loving care of the late
Simon Yandes and other friends the grave
of the latter is marked by monument
bearing the inscription: John b. Dillon.
author and poet: historian of indiana; born
at Wellsburg. w. Va: died at Indianapolis
January q, 1879. age seventy-one years.
Behold the upright, for the end of that
man is hopeful
With the exception of Washington and
Market, the streets and avenues in the
original plat of the town were named after
states that were in existence In 1871. TWO
of these streets have since been renamed
Mississippi street Is now Senate avenue and
Tennessee street Capitol avenue. Two
streets have disappeared, having been OBJ
liberated by railroad tracks and freight de-
pots to the east of Pennsylvania street and
south of Maryland and Georgia streets.
These two old highways were South Caro-
Ina and North Carolina streets. which ran
from northeast to southwest along Pogues
run