Conner Prairie

We came upon another gem today, this one courtesy of my mother-in-law. Bobby’s parents have been sending us their copies of Smithsonian magazine and in the May issue this year there is an article about a place that takes you “back to the frontier.” Elise loves historical places with docents (more accurately known as living-history museums) and this place was full of them. We didn’t think we’d make it here (too far north) but it turned out that our appointment with the Airstream factory in Ohio brought us right by Indianapolis, so we happily fit Conner Prairie into our schedule.


On the way to Indianapolis

Our drive yesterday from St. Louis was interminable. It seemed like we always had three hours left to go. We finally arrived at the White River Campground and found a relatively quiet spot in this very busy place. At dawn, we were awoken by rain –not quiet rain either. Our plan was to get up around 8:00 a.m. and spend the day at Conner Prairie. The rain postponed that. After the first storm passed we went back to sleep, dozed through the second storm and finally got up just as the third storm was coming in. We didn’t get to Conner Prairie until close to noon. We had a fairly clear afternoon with no rain and as I type this back at the trailer, we are experiencing yet another series of storms, with all the thunder and lightning one could wish for.


The Conner home

But back to Conner Prairie. William Conner was a wilderness trader, the first landowner, and one of the first white men in the Indianapolis area in the early 1800s. Once here, he married a Lenape Indian woman and had six children with her. When her tribe left in the 1820s, she left too, and took the children. She did not want them growing up in the white man’s world, knowing they would be considered half-breeds. William tried to convince her to stay, but she wouldn’t, and he had no interest setting up his business in the wilds of the Missouri Territory where the tribe was heading. She left. He stayed. Four months later, he remarried, this time to a white woman. He had made enough money from his successful trading business that he built a home for his new bride. They lived there for 14 years before moving into town, nearby Noblesville. With this wife, Mr. Conner had 10 children. The home is the only structure that is original to the homestead. The best part of the house is the view from the front. It looks out onto the prairie. It does not look like it did in the 1800s, nonetheless it is a view I would be happy to have from my front step.


The view from the front

In 1934, Eli Lilly, an Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical tycoon and philanthropist bought the property to restore it to its former glory. He spent thousands of dollars on the restoration and decades looking for authentic outbuildings, tools and other 19th century artifacts to bring to the site.

The property is divided into four areas, all connected by gravel paths. There is the Lenape Indian Camp, the Conner Homestead, 1836 Prairietown and 1886 Liberty Corner. The only one we didn’t visit was the Indian Camp but not from lack of interest, just lack of time.



Our first visit was to the barn across from the Conner home. In it we saw two lambs, one boy and one girl, both just 24-hours old. The mother went into labor yesterday and in about 15 minutes, she had birthed these two little, leggy creatures. I asked one of the staff if the mother was moved when she gave birth, but he said that she was not. She gave birth there, and the visitors got to watch!


Mr. Whitaker tries to sell us a communal toothbrush.

I loved the docents who were dressed in their period clothing. They never stepped out of character. We found out from Mr. Whitaker, who owned the general store, that the Curtis’ had bought the contract of Sgt. Hastings, a man who had been injured in the War of 1812 and could not work or provide for himself. Since he had no family of his own, there was no one to care for him. For Sgt. Hastings and others in difficult straits, such as a young woman named Maggie Miller whose husband had left her (and young orphans of course), the state paid people to take care of them for one year. It’s a little like today’s foster care system. The one difference is that the contracts for these people were bid out, and the lowest bid won. The state checked on them during the year and the families taking care of the poor were paid quarterly. After one year, the contract was up and Sgt. Hastings, along with the others, were bid on again. If their contract was bought by someone else, they had to move.


Elise plays a game with Mrs. Curtis.

My point in describing this is that when we left Mr. Whitaker’s and headed to the Curtis’ home, I asked about Sgt. Hastings. “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Curtis told me. “Sgt. Hastings lives in that building over there. He’s not home right now. He went down to the Golden Eagle Inn earlier today.” It’s seamless. There was no hesitation about who Sgt. Hastings was or how he fit into things at the Curtis home. I love it.


Schoolmaster John and Elise discuss geography or perhaps math.

The highlight of Elise’s day was the schoolhouse in Prairietown. The schoolmaster, John, was excellent. So good, in fact, that we visited there three times. We discovered going to school cost five cents a day (or an equitable trade of some kind) and you only went to school in December, January and February. The rest of the months your family needed you home to work the farm. Sounds good, doesn’t it? The catch is that school was six days a week from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
To keep the attention of the young ones (the youngest in his class would be 6 years old), a lot of singing was done in the schoolroom. The schoolmaster, who had a lovely singing voice, taught us a few songs the children from the 1830s would have learned. One was a geography song and the other taught the children the vowel sounds in conjunction with the consonants. Elise couldn’t get enough. As we were getting ready to leave after our second visit, we told the schoolmaster of our trip. He knew Elise was coming back and assigned her a task. She was to come back and tell him three places she had visited on the trip that she had really liked and show him on the map where she had been. The map was circa 1830, so she had a little trouble navigating once she got past Texas, but she loved showing him the places she visited.


John skillfully parries the many questions from the boy in grey.

One of the highlights for me was the candle making. For $3 each, Elise and I got to make a beeswax candle to bring home. We started with a simple string of woven cotton tied to a stick. The candlemaker taught us how to dip it in the kettle of beeswax. Straight up and down and no lingering. If you linger too long in the wax, the wax already on the candle will start to melt back into the hot wax in the kettle. Between each dip, we walked back and forth to a sign about 30 feet away to give the wax a chance to cool. It took about 45 minutes of dipping and walking to make candles that were almost an inch in diameter. It was, for me, incredibly soothing. The motion of dipping the candle in and taking it out again was very rhythmic and calming. In the 1800s, all the candles for the year were made in November. The cooler the air temperature, the faster the candles cool, so the more you can make. They also had a brace where they dipped eight candles at a time, instead of just the one we had today. That was a little trickier because you had to make sure the candles didn’t touch each other while you were making them.



With only about 20 minutes left to our day, we hurried over to Liberty Corner and met the Zimmermans. To get there we had to cross the Cedar Chapel Covered Bridge. I want one of these in my neighborhood. The Zimmerman home has a beautiful front porch and it was there that we found Mrs. Zimmerman working on some needlepoint. We asked if we could work on the farm and right away Elise was put to work. First she was signed in as an indentured servant — we have the form to prove it — and then she filled up some water buckets to take to the Percheron horses. Next she brought in some firewood for the kitchen. And then the day was over. 5:00 p.m. was upon us and it was time for everyone to go home. The shortest day for an indentured servant ever!


The Zimmerman home


Workin’

We found out today that our visit here was anticipated by some of the staff. Someone there (or a friend) created a Google blog search that watches for mentions of Conner Prairie. Since Bobby had mentioned that we were heading here, they were on the lookout for the family that was traveling full time in their Airstream! So it’s like we’re famous. Or something.


Elise and Mrs. Zimmerman are off to water the horses.

We are sad that we don’t have more time to spend here. A few more days, at least, are needed to fully discover this wonderful place. Besides, I want to make more candles.