Baird's History of Clark County, IndianaIn the preparation of this history, the author has endeavored to carry out the following design, viz; to give only the most important and interesting- events, and to place them before the reader in not only an attractive hut systematic form. The chronological arrangement of the history proper from the traditional period to the present time, is treated in decades, as by this method, the gradual development of the people and the resources of the county can be best appreciated. Following this will he found separate chapters on such phases of our history as deserve individual treatment. The military annals, the churches, the secret societies, the ship-building industry, the car works, banks and banking, the bench and bar, etc., etc., ha\e been described from data furnished by men most capable and most intimately acquainted with these subjects.
Table of Contents
Read the Book - Free Download the Book - Free ( 51.7 MB PDF ) VOLUME II
Read the Book - Free Download the Book - Free ( 27.8 MB PDF ) All life and achievement is evolution: present wisdom comes from past experience, and present commercial prosperity has come only from past exertion and suffering. The deeds and motives of the men that have gone before have been instrumental in shaping the destinies of later communities and states. The development of a new country was at once a task and a privilege. It required great courage, sacrifice and privation. Compare the present conditions of the residents of Clark county, Indiana, with what they were one hundred years ago. From a trackless wilderness and virgin prairie it has come to be a center of prosperity and civilization, with millions of wealth, systems of intersecting railways, grand educational institutions, marvelous industries and immense agricultural productions. Can any thinking person be insensible to the fascination of the study which discloses the incentives, hopes, aspirations and efforts of the early pioneers who so strongly laid the foundation upon which has been reared the magnificent prosperity of later days? To perpetuate the story of these people and to trace and record the social, political and industrial progress of the community from its first inception is the function of the local historian. A sincere purpose to preserve facts and personal memoirs that are deserving of preservation, and which unite the present to the past is the motive for the present publication. The work has been in the hands of able writers, who have, after much patient study and research, produced here the most complete biographical memoirs of Clark county, Indiana, ever offered to the public. A specially valuable and interesting department is that one devoted to the sketches of representative citizens of this county whose records deserve perpetuation because of their worth, effort and accomplishment. The publishers desire to extend their thanks to these gentlemen who have so faithfully labored to this end. Thanks are also due to the citizens of Clark county for the uniform kindness with which they have regarded this undertaking, and for their many services rendered in the gaining of necessary information. |