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From Insects to Electricity
WESTERN FARMER AND GARDENER BY JO ELLEN MEYERS SHARP
Henry Ward Beecher “would be credited with growing the first cauliflower in Indianapolis.”
Photos courtesy of Indiana Historical Society
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s we celebrate Indiana’s bicentennial, let’s take a look back to when Indianapolis was the headquarters of its own agriculture and gardening publication, edited by a Presbyterian minister related to a soon-to-be-famous novelist. Dial the WABAC machine to the 1840s, and we’ll find a city with one road, the National Road, free of tree stumps and the air thick with mosquitoes. Horses and horse-drawn wagons were the primary modes of transportation. It’s been barely 30 years since Indiana earned statehood, and about 25 years since the capital moved from Corydon in southern Indiana to the center of the state. Among those seeking their livelihood in Indianapolis was Henry Ward Beecher, the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who would become famous in 1850 with the publication of her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Henry Beecher moved to Indianapolis May 13, 1839, from Lawrenceburg (spelled Lawrenceburgh in historical documents), to become pastor of Second Presbyterian Church, which was founded the year before. “Residences are very fine, with large yards and gardens on sides and fronts,” Ward wrote in a letter about his visit to Indianapolis. He borrowed a book about horticulture from the State Library, and a second career was launched. On a salary of $600 a year, Ward and his wife, Eunice, rented a house near downtown. “The only really attractive feature of the tiny Beecher home on East Market Street was the large lot on which it stood,” wrote Jane Shaffer Elsmere in her 1973 biography, Henry Ward Beecher: The Indiana Years 1937–1847. “There were several fruit trees, rose bushes, shrubs, and space for a garden. Beecher deeply loved gardening, and it was believed by this family that he had inherited his feeling for it from his mother, who had spent much time working with her flowers prior to his birth.” In the spring of 1840, Beecher planted more rose bushes, starts of honeysuckle and a willow tree. On March 11, 1840, the day the Beechers buried their stillborn son, Henry planted onion sets and sowed seeds for cabbage and cauliflower. “He would be credited with growing the first cauliflower in Indianapolis,” Elsmere wrote. On following days, he sowed lettuces, radishes and peas. He even planted a few hyacinths and jonquils. At the time, writers and editors published annual gardening and agriculture almanacs for specific states, such as Indiana, or regions like the Midwest. The edibleIndy.com
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