Hello and welcome to a new feature called, “Our Town” an occasional column featuring snippets of local history. Sometimes focused on our landscape, sometimes focused on those who came before us and sometimes focused on the things that made up the material culture of our area. To clarify, “Our Town” should be taken to mean that part of Indiana that we call home and not limited to municipal boundaries.
A few years ago, I wrote a series of three articles for this paper about the founding of Crawfordsville. It is a tale worthy of sharing, although for the purposes of this piece, the condensed version will do. In short, it is the story of a troop of Rangers on patrol in the portion of Indiana not yet settled by the pioneers. These three men were Ambrose Whitlock, Williamson Dunn and Henry Ristine. They were Rangers during the War of 1812. These three men are largely responsible for the creation and growth of this area.
Ristine, a name familiar to those of a certain age, was from Madison and, along with Dunn, noted the suitability of the site. A free-flowing stream, useful for transporting goods south to more profitable markets, and for the establishment of mills along it’s path. High ground for a town, helpful in avoiding the scourge of pioneer life, malaria. Prairies to the north and much excellent timber for building. All of this we possessed, and one thing more — freshwater springs. Following their patrol of the area, the men agreed to return with their families after the war.
The War of 1812 left our young nation quite poor, but with an abundance of new land in the West. In addition, the New Purchase of 1818 opened an additional swath of land for sale. Federal land offices were the mechanism through which the government sold this land. There was such a land office at Terre Haute, Williamson Dunn was its Registrar — or record keeper. There were calls for a new Land Office, more centrally located. Major Whitlock, a man with vision, and a strong supporter of the Secretary of the Treasury, William Crawford, lobbied him for a land office located in Whitlock’s new settlement. That we are named Crawfordsville is down to Whitlock’s gratitude. He became the agent of the new office and Dunn his second in command. Ristine brought his family here to open a tavern in the up and coming new town.
I should pause here to share a little about the Land Office and Ristine’s Tavern. The Federal Land Office was built on the site of the McCormick Building just over the tracks on East Market Street. There is an historic marker there to tell the story yet today. Ristine’s Tavern was just a block and a half west of the Land Office on the southwest corner of Green and Market streets. This was not simply a bar, as we think of taverns today. It was more of a traveler’s inn with food, lodging, stabling and, of course, drink. Ristine’s was perfectly located to accommodate those who came to the Land Office to conduct their business. Once land sales started in this area on Christmas Eve, 1824, business was brisk. There is an old saying, “… doing a land office business,” which means so busy one can hardly keep up. Histories written about Crawfordsville in that first 10 years all indicate that our land office was that productive.
It is not a stretch to say that a very great deal of our success as a community is down to the establishment of this government office in our town. At that time, if anyone wanted to buy land pretty much anywhere north of Terre Haute, they had to travel in-person to Crawfordsville to do it. In his 1965 history of Crawfordsville Richard Elwell Banta notes that the main reason we have so many state roads running through town is that these are the modern day manifestations of the paths those early pioneers took to conduct their business at the Federal Land Office.
Major Whitlock donated each odd numbered lot in his town plat to be sold and the funds donated to education if Crawfordsville were designated the county seat. It was, and he did. He also gave the town perhaps its greatest gift, his springs. Whitlock Avenue is named for him, and the odd area just west of that street in the dip as one heads north is Whitlock Springs, given in perpetuity to our town. That good fresh water still flows to us today.
The third soldier mentioned above is Williamson Dunn, and it is to his generosity that we owe Wabash College. Dunn came to Crawfordsville to serve as the Registrar of Lands at the new land office. The question is sometimes asked, “Why is it called Wabash College if it is not on the Wabash River, and not in the town of Wabash, Indiana?” It is named for this area more broadly as all the land which was drained by the Wabash River was known, at that time, as the Wabash Country. Dunn, a devout Presbyterian was among those few who were, “determined to found a college in the ‘Wabash Country.’” He gave land here, in Crawfordsville, for that purpose.
These three men and their families came to this place, struggled, persevered and prospered. We owe much to these hardy folks of 200 years ago. They created our town in a lovely, healthful place awash in the resources of nature. With little than a small stake, and big dreams, they and those wo followed built Crawfordsville into the thriving town we know today.
I hope you will join me as we wander our way through our history.
Beth Swift is the retired Wabash College archivist and fascinated with history and the stories that tell us about our past.
