Exploring Indianapolis in 1836

Today we decided to do a little exploring around Indianapolis before we resumed our journey west. From the KOA map that the camp hosts gave us last night when we arrived, we discovered that just a few miles north of our location on I70 was something identified as "Conner Prairie." From what we could tell, Conner Prairie was a largely outdoor interactive museum where various aspects of life in the 1800s are portrayed by museum docents.

It didn't take long for us to discover that this was going to be a museum trip unlike anything we'd experienced before. From our very first activity where I was invited to throw a Delaware Indian tomahawk at a slice of tree trunk thirty feet away (sorry, no photo of me), to our final experience nearly three hours later where we were invited to join the Union army to fight the rebs, we were totally immersed in the history of Indiana of nearly two centuries ago. Just as an aside, I was the only one in the group who buried the tomahawk in the tree. Of course, my competitors were in the sixty grade, but hey, they're more used to throwing things than I am.

Naturally, Concetta and I did not originally intend to spend nearly the whole day at Conner Prairie, but once we began wandering in and out of all the various commercial and agricultural buildings we just couldn't bear to tear ourselves away. All the docents played their parts wonderfully, remained in character, and taught us a lot about a dozen different vocations.

Just to be a smart ass, I even tested the blacksmith to see if he was a real blacksmith or just someone banging on an anvil with a big heavy hammer. I pointed to a special tool hanging on the wall, a copy of which I have in my collection, and said to the young blacksmith, "So, do you know what that tool is?"

"Yes, of course," he said. "That's a Traveler."

He was right, it WAS a Traveler which not one person in a thousand would know about today. The tool was used to measure the circumference of a wagon wheel so that a metal "tire" could be cut to the right length, welded together, and placed over the wooden wheel to hold the whole thing together and insulate the wood from the rocky roads. Looking much like a modern accident-scene wheel device on a handle, the Traveler would be rolled around the wooden wheel establishing a measurement, then rolled along a flat piece of iron for an identical number of revolutions. The iron would then be cut at the appropriate point.

Early wheelwrights would put the completed iron tire on a large fire until it heated enough to expand. Then several people would pick up the red-hot tire with tongs, carry it over to where the wooden wheel was laying on the ground, and then drop the tire over the wheel. Of course the red-hot tire would immediately set the wooden wheel on fire. But when the wheelwright would dump buckets of water on the wheel it would not only put the fire out but shrink the iron tire, causing it to grip the wooden wheel in a vice-like embrace. Absolutely fascinating to watch if you ever get the chance.

So, the blacksmith proved his mettle and put me in my place. All the other docents proved equally knowledgeable. I especially liked the dying and spinning cottage where the process of cloth manufacturing was thoroughly explained to us. They had dozens of different colors they had used to dye the wool made from a huge variety of natural plant extracts. At least most of them were plant extracts. The one that fascinated me the most was the tiny parasitic insect that is found only on the prickly pear cactus that, when harvested, yields a bright red dye. They told us that folks in the Old World were very, very excited about the discovery of this little bug since until that time they couldn't have cloth in brilliant red.

I watched the woman running the loom for a time and learned a lot about that discipline. In the past I thought that you just moved the warp threads up or down after each pass of the weft thread on the shuttle. In reality, you have a number of warp pedals (this particular docent's loom had four) and you hit them in combination to open up a specific color combination for passing a specific color of weft. This allows for patterns in the cloth. The final product is called the "weave." Our ancestors were so darn inventive it just astounds me.

We learned about wood working and the preparation of logs for cabins. We learned about trapping and hide preparation for sale and trade. We learned about Irish stitching (a sort of needlepoint). We learned about doctors and the concocting of medicine in a small rural community. We learned about so many things that I probably should have recorded it all. The time went by so fast that 2:00 p.m. came and went and we suddenly realized that we had simply forgotten about lunch. We had to tear ourselves away and go find a quick sandwich and cup of coffee.

Finally, as the sun (or what we could see of it through the rain clouds) sank lower in the sky we decided that we just had to get on the road or we'd have to return to our previous KOA camp and stay the night again. So it was that we left Conner Prairie, found Highway 40, and headed west toward Terre Haute, Indiana. We're not sure what opportunities lie in wait for us here in Terre Haute, but our next big destination is the Cahokia Indian mounds near St. Louis. So if nothing distracts us in the morning, we'll be rolling toward the city that has been know since the emigrant wagon train days as "The Gateway to the West."

Until then, we wish you good food, good wine, and good traveling. Ciao.