Old Medary Ville News

Fresh content coming soon!!

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 10:42:56 GMT

Project news feed resumed

For any of you patient souls who might still be looking at this site for news of the Old Medary Ville project, I hope you’ll forgive my long absence. During the past summer and fall two more properties have been added to the project work.

One of them is the brick house built by Simpson Low at 601 East Pearl Street in Medaryville, directly north of the old hotel.

The other is the Nelson Randle House, located just north of Moody’s Road in Barkley Township, Jasper County.

The Cabinet in the Cellar

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 04:30:08 GMT

Cool and mysterious

One of my longtime goals, finally realized this weekend, was to dredge up the old cabinet I found last year in the basement at Dr. Hackley’s, get it upstairs and brushed off, and see what it was all about.

The cabinet is in two pieces, and it wasn’t clear until it was moved out of the cellar that the two went together. But indeed they do, as can easily be seen in the picture above, which was taken in the kitchen at the Hackley place. Note the old kitchen wallpaper.

Drummer's Roof Complete

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 02:48:50 GMT

It was tougher than it looked

We got the roof on today. Still some work to do—the chimney needs flashed yet, and there’s still nothing where the “soffit” would go.

The roofing crew was pretty much ready to never see the house again when they got finished. While the exact quote escapes me, it went something along the lines of “if there had been one single piece of that roof on either side that was square, it would have been a lot easier.”

Flossie Poisel's 1887 Memory Tour

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 04:12:19 GMT

In 1965 she recalled the streets of her childhood

I am going to reprint here what has become a valuable document for me in my efforts to paint an accurate picture of Medaryville’s past. In 1965, Flossie (Low) Poisel, who grew up in Medaryville, wrote the piece below for the local paper, The Medaryville Herald. It is a memory-generated “walking tour” of the town, beginning on the north side of Main Street at the railroad tracks and proceeding east, then crossing the street, coming back all the way west along the south side of Main Street, then crossing and going back east again, finishing up at the point of beginning. Later on I’ll have some commentary based on this recollection.

The little drummer's house

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 03:15:50 GMT

Origins of this building cloudy

But it’s old!!

Hopefully before the weekend is out, the pile of OSB and roll roofing that can be barely seen in the shadows off to the right of this picture will replace the crappy-looking (and leaky) tarp that we have up there now acting as temporary cover for this building.

The building, known as a drummer’s house, has been associated with the hotel pretty much since the beginning, and there are some intriguing clues, though none of them what could be called airtight, as to just when this building was built, and by whom.

Baughmans Old and New

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 02:39:40 GMT

Store expansion brought brother Lee into the business

A note here about Frank Baughman’s store, and his family. I now have a better “after” picture (after the store was expanded), as well as information that fills in some of the timeline of his tenure as a Medaryville businessman.

As the caption in this picture says, by 1953 this building (as later remodeled) was known as Clark’s Drugstore. Later, it was the home of a restaurant owned by Marjorie Fulmer, known as “Marjorie’s Potpourri.” It was razed, unfortunately, and the new library sits on the site of both parts of the store.

Note that the building in the picture above is the western part of the “double” store shown on the next page and elsewhere. The new (east) part left the world first, in a fire on January 12, 1977. That fire is described in detail in the sesquicentennial book.

A Trip to the Hub

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 03:43:09 GMT

Courthouse and library visit

I spent a few hours today at the courthouse and library in Winamac. The library has an extensive genealogy section, and I found a few things there that I didn’t know existed.

The courthouse visit was fruitful: Joseph B. Shultz bought his first parcel of land in Pulaski county from none other than the famous Turpie Brothers, of Monon! They had extensive landholdings in White County, and were written up in the old White/Pulaski county history book. Francis Horner bought his first piece of Pulaski county land from J.L. Stump. Dr. Elston bought some of his farm property from Henry Ballard. I’m still sifting and sorting, and I’ll definitely need to make a trip back once I digest all of it.

Sprucing up the hotel

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 03:35:10 GMT

The story of the 1901 remodel by local carpenter Henry Madaus.

One of the challenges presented by very old buildings is figuring out just who did what to them, and when, not to mention why and how. This article presents some of my research into the history of the hotel; hopefully it will illustrate how clues are used to put together a story, too.

This picture, taken from the 1953 Centennial book, shows a view down Main Street looking east. It is captioned as having been taken in 1902. I don’t think this is correct.

Playing with Flickr

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 14:39:11 GMT

Would this make more sense than maintaining pictures locally?

After studying what others are doing with the Radiant CMS, I wonder if it would make more sense for the pictures to live on a high-functioning external site, as opposed to having to maintain those sorts of things here locally. So clicking the photo below will take you to a test page I just put up at flickr.com

I’m open to comments on this: info@oldmedaryville.org

Introducing Rodman Pythian Hackley, M.D.

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 05:08:58 GMT

Famous hereabouts for his ‘Old Glory’ elixir

Dr. Hackley came to Medaryville from Wolcott sometime around 1900. He bought the Francis C. Horner house, which was built in the 1870s. It was known as “Father Horner’s” in the recollection of Main Street, 1887 by Flossie Poisel. It is the building on the right in the picture, taken ca 1908. It is thought to be Dr. Hackley standing in front of his office on the newly-constructed brick street.. One of the trees in the picture stood until last year;. It was removed after having been struck by a car.