The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1920-06-29
BILLY BLODCETT INTERWEAVES HISTORY
INTO STORY OF WAYNE COUNTY REUNION

". H.. "BfIly" BlodGett, former
Wayne county boy and stnr reporter
of the Indiana pol U.s. News, has the fol-
lowing to say OF the Wayne county
reunion at Indianapolis, SundnyD
Wayne county has supplied from
5000 to 1000 of the population of In
dianapolis, and the former citizens OF
that county have an organization here
known as the Wayne County associ-
alton, of which John A. Schaffer is
president. DR.. L. S. Harold, vice-presi-
dent, Mrs. Laura Radcliffe Bates, sec
rotary, and Mrs. c. H. Dill is treasurer.
Every winter it gives a banquet and
each June it holds an out-of-doors
meeting. The summer meeting was
held Sunday at Brookside park ana
while there were numerous speeches.
the main business was to eat and talk
over old times.
Just when the Wayne county Pill.
grims left the happy walks and shades
of their early homes is not in the
records, but there were many at the
meeting Sunday whose hair has
changed to white in the years since
they left the lights of their village
homes behind them.
Robbins Principal Speaker.
John W. Robbins, for many years a
leading lawyer of Richmond, now
prominent member of the Indianapolis
bar, was the principal speaker and
be told of the battle of Centerville,
When the troops" marched along the
turnpike that connected Centervllle
and Richmond, to take to Richmond
The county records at the muzzle OF
IN old one FOUNDER cannon loaded
Nth every conceivable thing including
Shopped-up horse shoes.
That's the turnpike that Ben Dug
dale used to walk over every day-but
Zen doesn't walk it now. He weighs
too much. Some were present who
were part of the Minute Men, organ
lied to repel the Morgan raiders, and
Will Afford, who used to have the sore
throat three times a week from root
ing for the Henley ball club. and
F1etch Medearis, who was the original
sidewalk skating champion Of Rich
mond, to the great horror and disgust
of John S. Lyle, the old-time justice
of the peace whose ONCE was in Main
street, near the Courthouse, told their
experiences.
Bellies who were graduated from
Earlham college and had their grad
uation dresses made by Mrs. Swaffon,
or the Misses Griffith, or Margaret
North, and their shoes made by A.
WATSON or Henry Winter at Milton.
now are sending their grandchildren
to the old school.
Oliver P. Morton, famous war Gov
ernor OF Indiana Nimrod Johnson,
John F, kibbey. the Julians, J. H.. G.
W. and J. B., who lived in Centerville,
and made history for Indiana, were
remembered
A. H. Vestal & Son used to ship
1000 bushels of sweet potatoes from
Cambridge City every year, and at
F.. Vinton's United States hotel some
of the celebrated men of the day used
to stop when stage coaching along the
National road. In many Indianapolis
albums are still to be found pictures
made by J. Jackson, daguerrean
artist" of Cambridge City and Joseph
Watson, ''daguerretypist and ambroty-
Dist" who had a room" in the Gilbert
block in Richmond.
Prominent Men Recalled.
Some at Brookside Sunday were lit
lie boys and girls when the 57th bat
tnlion marched away under command
Of the Rev. I. w. T. McMullen and the
Rev. F.. A. Hardin.
They remember how gallant Colonel
w. A. Bickle looked at the head of his
t9tn regiment, now lney CHeeTeu
Colonel Nelson Trusler as he led the
saith regiment away to the war.
The young folk, and there were
many, were told of Joshua Dye who
. kept the American house at Arlington,
and E. Forkner who worked as a
rlasterer, dealt in hides and leather
and practiced law at Economy. and
whose greatest legal rival was H. B.
Rupe, who practiced law and served as
~ a notary public.
Another of E. FORMERS legal rivals
was William B. Reed, justice of the
peace at Dublin, and Samuel Study.
the forebear of a famous line of law
yers who was a cabinetmaker and
- furniture dealer at Hagerstown, where
the grist mill of Nehemiah Cheeseman
and Daniel Fleming as well as the saw
mill of William Murray were operated
by the waters of the old White Water
canal.
The ancestors Of some who were
present Sunday reached Wayne coun-
~ by the big six-horse omnibus that
made weekly trips from Cincinnati.
The early Wayne county pilgrims to
Indianapolis related how they stopped
at Titles hotel ar the southeast COR
ner OF Washington and New Jersey
streets or the Wright house in East
Washington street for 81 a day and the
privilege of riding to and from the old
Union Station in free omnibus
Historians Present.
Adam Drifmeyer. Richmond tobacco
dealer; Jim Elder. editor OF the Rich
mond Jeffersonian and later first
Democratic postmaster at Richmond