Lincoln Pioneer Village

Rockport, Indiana

 

Lincoln Pioneer Village is an unusual example, unique in Indiana, of an educational tourist attraction built under the auspices of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration(FERA) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

 

The Lincoln Pioneer Village was primarily the brainchild of sculpture George Honig, a native of Rockport and well-known regionally as a Lincoln scholar, who approached the Spencer County Historical Society with his idea in 1933. The society which had formed in 1915 to prepare for Indiana's centennial celebration the following year, enthusiastically supported the plan. Incorporated in 1928, the organization's mission was largely to promote the Lincoln Legacy as well as the general history of the area.

 

HISTORY

 

In 1926 the city of Rockport purchased the long abandoned Spencer County Fair Grounds for a new park. The town already had one park, Rockyside, which was historically significant as the site of the boat landing from which Abraham Lincoln had embarked on his fabled trip to New Orleans.

Every two years at Rockyside Park, the society presented a pageant on Lincoln's flat boat trip from Rockport to New Orleans, but that the proposed Lincoln Pioneer Village would be something new, larger and permanent. Honing and a society representative approached the Civil Works Administration (CWA) in early 1934 but nothing came of it.

 

The CWA was soon discontinued at the end of March 1934, but the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) began a program of work projects soon after. Honig, with a full support of the historical society took his plans to the city council which successfully applied to FERA for funding to erect a memorial village that would make the town of Rockport a "center for tourists."

FERA would provide funds for the labor, but nearly everything else was the local sponsors responsibilities. An intensive public campaign to solicit money, materials, and artifacts from the community, the county, and even statewide was very successful with full public support. Lincoln Pioneer Village was a community project that not only provided employment and a permanent attraction that would generate local business, but that also reflected the ideal of using one's recreational time advantageously, would enhance its value.

 

Lincoln Pioneer Village was vigorously promoted by Rockport and the Spencer County Historical Society. It's president, Bess V. Ehrmann, hailed the village as "a memorial unlike any other ever built to honor Lincoln, as well as a worthwhile attraction depicting a type of pioneer village in Spencer County between 1807 and 1830."

When Lincoln Pioneer Village opened in 1935, The village was entirely closed by stockade fence that had been hand fashioned of rough-cut poles. The original main entrance is gone; it was near the northwest corner, and incorporated a double cabin as an administration building and gift shop.

The complex contains a collection of gabled log buildings replicating several that figured significantly in the boyhood and adolescence of Abraham Lincoln. The buildings are placed in a random manner representing the ramshackle appearance of an early pioneer settlement, and scattered about the side are numerous millstone's, two replicas of sheltered stone-and-timber wells, and some split-rail fencing. The village today is surrounded by a chain-link fence.

Most of the individual structures were replicas of actual buildings, as close to the originals in appearance and construction as could be ascertained, that had been scattered throughout Spencer County in the early 19th century.

Many played some role, large or small, in Lincoln's coming-of-age there. Some of the buildings were more significant for their place in the early history of the county, such as the Brown Tavern or Browns Inn. Which, crude as it was, was Rockport's first Inn and accommodated many famous visitors.

The eight contributing buildings in the district are the Crawford Home, the Brown Tavern, the Lincoln Cabin, the Gentry Mansion, the Daniel Grass Home, The Azel Dorsey Home, the Old Pigeon Baptist Church, and the Jones Store. Well placed in a setting to represent a typical early 19th Century village in southern Indiana, each building replicated one that had actually existed in Rockport or at various sites throughout the county. Descendants of the pioneers whose homes were replicated in the village donated family heirlooms to furnish the buildings.

The Lincoln cabin is a replica of the family's 2nd Homestead in Spencer County, with the loft reached by series of pegs driven into the wall. The Grigsby cabin was first interpreted as the home of cooper Ruben Grigsby, a neighbor of the Lincoln's: later it became to represent the home of Aaron and Sarah Lincoln Grigsby, Abraham sister, who died after two years of marriage while the family was still in Indiana.

The blockhouse fort replicated one that it had been located in Grandview. This was the one where Chief Se-Te-Tah was killed by a Meeks family member for revenge for the murder of Athe Meeks Sr. in 1812. This fort was one of four in the county. It collapsed into ruin and was recently demolished.

The Daniel Grass Home, a dogtrot cabin, was that of the judge who first owned land in what is now Rockport. The Azel Dorsey home, a large, two-story cabin, served as the first courthouse in Spencer County. Dorsey was briefly schoolteacher to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln worked as a clerk in the Jones Store, which had been located in Jonesboro, (present Gentryville), John Pitcher's office Law Office in Rockport was the first in Spencer County, Pitcher lent young Lincoln books to read.

The Old Pigeon Baptist Church replicated the one that Thomas and Abraham Lincoln help to build. Although his family belonged, Abraham himself was not a member. The James Gentry home, today called the "Gentry Mansion," housed neighbors of the Lincoln's who sometimes employed Lincoln on their farm. Both Lincoln children worked at the Josiah Crawford home: Abraham borrowed books from the family.

The building called the Crawford Cabin was originally interpreted as a Pioneer Church during its first year, until the present Old Pioneer Baptist Church was completed in 1936. The Pioneer School represented the crude sort of building in which Lincoln received a smattering of education when he could be spared from work.

The Mackey house was the home of Aunt Leafa of Rockport, who taught African American children to read and write before there were schools allowed for them. Lefea Mackey once owned the land upon which the present Pioneer Village stands. The village also had included a Barter and Market house that was demolished a few years earlier. The original entrance was through a double cabin that served as the office, gift shop and museum it was torn down in it in the early 1980's.

In 1938 the Southern Indiana McGuffey Club erected a monument near the school commemorating that event. Sculpted by George Honig, it honors William Holmes McGuffey, who developed the famous McGuffey Readers, used by school children nationwide.

That site sits in something of a hollow at the southeast corner of Rockport City Park on the southwest edge of town, at the corner of 9th Street and Eureka Road.

The concrete block museum building, which has a sandstone facade on its north elevation, was built in 1950 at the north edge of the village. An addition was constructed on the south of this building in the early 1990's.

The museum housed a collection of mostly nineteenth-century artifacts from the Rockport area and Spencer County. Including a large cabinet built by Thomas Lincoln. It also contained the original wooden signs that once graced the entrance to the village.The building's pioneer construction blends well into the village and once retained on display, old wagons and large farm implements and the like, several of these implements had originally been placed randomly about the village grounds.

Most of the buildings, unless otherwise noted, contain but one room. All are sparsely furnished largely with nineteenth-century artifacts, many of which are heirlooms from the descendants of the families whose homes the cabins represent. Some of the furniture was crafted by New Deal workers at the time of The village's construction. Many of the original interpretive signs, hand painted on pieces of masonite hanging outside the entrance of the building, survive, despite neglect.

Lincoln Pioneer Village embodied the ideal that was so prevalent in the 1930's: "the intelligent use of leisure time." A particularly ambitious project for such a small town, Lincoln Pioneer Village was designed by noted artist and sculpture George Honig, probably best known for his heroic works in bronze, "Spirit of 1861" and "Spirit of 1916" in Evansville, and numerous small bronze memorial sculptures throughout Southwestern Indiana. Honig supervised the construction, although not all the elements present in his early sketches were realized.

With much ceremony and festive celebration, the Lincoln Pioneer Village was dedicated July 4th, 1935. Scores of costume interpreters portrayed specific characters and generic Pioneer Hoosiers.

In the early 1950's scenes from The Hollywood film "The Kentuckian" starring Burt Lancaster where shot in the village. The production crew constructed an additional building as a tobacco warehouse for the movie, which remained part of the village.

For decades Lincoln Pioneer Village remained a successful educational interest attraction. Thousands of school children from around the state visited on field trips. By the 1970's the village was in decline.