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10. New Albany’s Old Town Clock Church/Carnegie Center for Art & History/Jeffersonville’s Quartermaster Depot

Materials:

• Across the River to Freedom [10,095 Kb]
• Video: Jeanne Burke, Clark County Historian, at the Old Quartermaster Depot [262,202 Kb, 3 minutes 56 seconds]
• Video: Maxine Brown at the Old Quartermaster Depot, Clark County, Indiana [129,996 Kb, 1 minute 57 seconds]
• Video: New Albany’s Old Town Clock Church with Kathy Wilkerson [58,613 Kb, 53 seconds]
• Video: The Old Quartermaster Depot, Clark County, Indiana with Jeanne Burke [92,192 Kb, 1 minute 22 seconds]
• Activity: Written Document Analysis Worksheet: Abraham Lincoln [33 Kb]
  

About:

Located in south central Indiana, several communities offer diverse educational opportunities for students, educators, citizens, and visitors to further learn about Indiana’s role in the slavery issue.  Across from Louisville, Kentucky, the cities of Jeffersonville and New Albany provide a collection of sites to visit that share primary documents, historical buildings, and first-person accounts. 

The Carnegie Center for Art and History, located at 201 East Spring Street, New Albany, IN 47150, http://carnegiecenter.org.  This small, local history museum, housed in a renovated library (1904-1969), also exhibits contemporary art. The Center offers visitors the opportunity to enjoy art works in a variety of media and to learn more about the process of creative expression through a range of exhibitions and programs for all ages. 

The award-winning exhibit Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage: Men and Women of the Underground Railroad is a multimedia experience of discovery that invites visitors to explore the people and places of antebellum New Albany and Louisville, Kentucky. Explore the actual lives of two groups of people living in this borderland between the North and the South: the enslaved fugitives whose yearning for freedom compelled them to escape on a long trek filled with danger at every turn and the helpers, both black and white, whose selfless acts of courage assisted those on the run. This exhibition provides a compelling and comprehensive examination of the Underground Railroad in New Albany and beyond.

For information about the museum or about education opportunities, contact Sally Newkirk or Laura Wilkins at 812.944.7336 or e-mail them at info@carnegiecenter.org.

Carnegie’s beautiful building.	A quilt exhibit about faith.
Visitors may view a multimedia presentation which offers a variety of stories from the slavery-era. The interactive series of stories enables viewers to watch the entire program or shorter segments. Visits to classrooms are possible.	An example of the imagery and documents in the Underground Railroad exhibit.

The Old Town Clock Church, ( 38° 18′ N, 85° 49′ W) located two blocks (300 East Main Street) from the Carnegie Center for Art and History, is an example of a historical building, maintained through the years as a church, that preserves the portions of the structure utilized in the Underground Railroad.  Currently, the building houses the Second Baptist Church.  It was originally constructed in 1852 as the Second Presbyterian Church, in what was then the largest city in Indiana.  The church is brick, and is constructed in the Greek Revival style of architecture. The church previously had a 160-foot high clock tower that could be seen by boat crews on the Ohio River. However, the tower has been shortened.

The steamboat industry was the engine of the city’s economy during the mid-19th century. At least a half-dozen shipbuilders were in operation and turned out a multitude of steamboats and packet boats. Shipbuilding was accompanied by a wide range of ancillary businesses including machine shops, foundries, cabinet and furniture factories, and silversmith shops. New Albany’s second largest business was the American Plate Glass Works. By 1850, New Albany was the largest city in Indiana due to its river contacts with the South. New Albany’s size and economic influence overshadowed all of its neighboring cities, including Louisville.

Through the work of citizen activists, such Kathy Wilkerson of the New Albany-Floyd County Parks & Recreation Department, buildings such as the Old Town Clock Church are being maintained.  Yet the building is in danger due to limited funds for regular maintenance and repairs.  A company in Cincinnati is generous enough to maintain the clock for a fee of $300.00 per year.

	A view toward the Ohio River, which now displays an earthen levy to inhibit flooding.	Kathy Wilkerson discussing the Church’s history in the community along Main Street.
Inside the church today.	Entrance into the spaces beneath the church where slaves could jump a boat while crossing (or after crossing) the Ohio River, run across an open field (where the levy is seen above), and hide underneath the church.	Maxine Brown and Jeanne Burke discuss the role of south central Indiana during the Civil War.

The African American Heritage Trail “Welcome Center”, located at the Quartermaster Depot Café, a renovated structure within the Old Quartermaster Depot in Jeffersonville, Indiana.  Fort Joe Holt was built at this location during the Civil War as a union fort used as an outpost to recruit soldiers from both Kentucky and Indiana.  The Quartermaster provided a location for soldiers on leave (not in the field).  The Quartermaster was built within an African American community.

Jeffersonville was one of the key gateways to the South during the Civil War. It was served by three railroads from the north and had good water transportation via the Ohio River. Naturally, this influenced its selection as one of the principal bases for supplies and troops for the Union Army operating in the South.  The Union Army had a number of camp sites in the vicinity of Jeffersonville.  One of the principal ones was Fort Joe Holt, located on the river bank near the Big Eddy of the Ohio falls. Troops and supplies were forwarded to the South from these camps. The Fort Joe Holt site was continued as a rendezvous hospital and maintained as such until February 21, 1864, when the Jefferson General Hospital was placed in commission. This hospital was erected in the region now known as Port Fulton, about a mile distant up the river from the old site.

The original structure was in the form of a quadrangle, consisting of a one-story brick building 50 feet wide and approximately 800 feet long on each side, with four main entrances. In the center of the quadrangle, a power house with a water tower, approximately 100 feet high was erected with the additional purpose of guard and fire observation. The original storage facili­ties consisted of 1 50,000 square feet. The building was of brick and stone construction and was completed in 1874.  Colonel James E. Ekin was the first Depot Quartermaster.

Since that time, the Quartermaster has played a key role in the Spanish American Wars, the Mexican Border Activities, and the World Wars storing and supplying resources:  garments, hard tack, harnesses, field baking hardware, munitions, and much more.

For additional details about the history of the Depot, read Jeffersonville Quartermaster Intermediate Depot; History and Functions or contact the Clark County Historian, Jeanne Burke, who dedicated significant effort and time to research the facts of the structure for the community.  THANKS to all County Historians for their knowledge, research skills, and documentation of our history!

Within the past few years, the Quartermaster Depot has undergone a massive renovation and now supports numerous businesses and county administrative offices (two-story structure below).  The round structure below once was a segregated restroom but now serves as a small café and as the starting point for the Indiana Freedom Trail, a discovery tour of places in southern Indiana associated with the history of African Americans.  THANKS to the efforts of Maxine Brown, founder and Chairwoman of the recently established Leora Brown School Museum, an 1891 one-room African American schoolhouse in Corydon, Indiana, stories and places of African Americans in Indiana’s history are being preserved.  For one interesting story, research the Polly Brown case – she was from Corydon, too (http://www.in.gov/judiciary/citc/special/bound-for-freedom/index.html)

Quartermaster Depot Administrative Building, now the county offices.		Quartermaster Depot former segregated restroom now the Cafe.
	The Quartermaster Depot became so dilapidated that it was slated to be demolished, but through the efforts of many individuals, the structure has been renovated and now houses lots of businesses.

After a day of exploring and researching southern Indiana’s history and geography, a visit to Schimpff’s Confectionary in Jeffersonville, Indiana, just north of the Quartermaster Depot, offers treats of all kinds.  Located at 347 Spring Street, 47130, 812.283.8367 or visit their website at http://www.schimpffs.com.