CHAPTER I. GOVERNOR WILLIAM HENDRICKS. Any day toward the close of December of the year 1822, there might have been found seated at a desk or table in a plainly furnished room of perhaps the only brick house in Corydon, a man of interesting, if not striking, personal appearance-a vigorous form, fully six feet tall; a clear, strong face, with the blue eyes and fair, reddish hair which tell of Scotch descent. Engaged in examining manuscripts, printed documents, reports and volumes of statutes, and in writing documents and affixing his signature, he seems to give his whole attention to the work before him, investigating every detail with conscientious care. The room is spacious, with a ceiling of moderate height, and well lighted by two large, many-paned windows, placed opposite each other. On another side and facing the door is a fire-place, built wide and deep, with hearth of flat stones and fire-dogs of brass, in which burns a generous fire of hickory logs, crackling cheerfully and dropping great coals into a glowing bed. The house is built in the usual style of the Virginia mansion of the day. Two full stories in height, it stands upon the slope of a hill northeast of the town, presenting its chimneyed gables to the east and west, and to the north. its side front, at the middle of which a small, columned portico shades the main entrance. The hall runs through the middle of the house. Toward its farther end is the stairway, too small for architectural effect, and a door 10 VIŅU leading to the dining room and kitchen in the rear wing. On the sides are the two main rooms of the house, one the parlor, and the other now used for a working office. In this sits the busy worker. From time to time he calls a grave but kindly "Come in!" in response to a knock on the door, for no clerk or secretary assists his labors; much less has he the luxury of a servant within call. Perhaps toward evening he steps out upon the porch to fill his lungs with the frosty air, and wishing to see if there is any stir of life in the village below, he walks on to the gate, for the corner of the house shuts out the view from the door. In such moments as these perhaps he thinks over the train of events which have brought him where he is-how eight years before, he had set foot for the first time on the soil of the Territory of Indiana, a young school teacher, printer and law student, fresh from the two years of labor in Cincinnati which had followed. his graduation from the little Pennsylvania college at Cannonsburg. His success from that day had been rapid. He brought with him the second printing press seen in the Territory, and established at Madison The Western Eagle. His political career opened at once. The winter after his arrival he was made secretary of the General Assembly sitting at Vincennes, and compiled and printed at his own expense a complete collection of the territorial statutes, declining the compensation offered therefor by the liberal Assembly. Next year he was elected a member of the Assembly, and in 1816 was secretary of the Corydon Convention, called to draft a Constitution for the State. He was elected to Congress immediately on the admission of the State into the Union, and took his seat in that body as the first Representative from Indiana. The horseback journey over the mountains, in company with his courageous wife, he doubtless |