OH, Suzanna! Nulltown, Fayette County, Indiana

An exciting thing has happened in Connersville just recently and hardly anyone even knows it yet. The Bicentennial Book, as locals refer to it, has been published and delivered! Officially it is: “A Family and Community History of Connersville and Fayette County, Indiana – The Commemoration of Connersville’s Bicentennial Celebration 2013.” See why we are just calling it “The Bicentennial Book?” Or even “The Book.”

Yes, I know…..ANOTHER history book about a town that is past its prime and struggling. EVERY town in the U.S. is past its prime and struggling right now, no matter how large or small, west coast, east coast, plains or mountains. But you are wrong! This is not just another history book written and published by a professional historian and publishing company trying to push millions of copies…. This is a book that was written by the town, and county residents. “Whatever you want your story to tell” was basically the guidelines for submissions. Of course there were some small restrictions. I have yet to read about any 200 year feuds going on in the hills or hollers along the ole Whitewater River in its pages. They may be there, I’m just saying that I have yet to read them...

A post I had written here on OH, Suzanna was speaking of Nulltown and Nulltown store. I was pleased to see a section in “The Book” devoted totally to Nulltown Store! I had not known it was in the book as I had not been in on any of the compilation of this undertaking. In “The Book” it mentions that what I know of as the Nulltown Store building was the old Grange Building. The original Nulltown store had been housed in the Jacob and Dora Faikert residence on the west side of the road. After their parents’ passing, the Faikert Bros. (John and Jacob) took the business over and bought the Grange building on the east side of the road and moved the store in there.

How had I missed this tid bit of information all my life?!

Very few people I have encountered in my travels even know what the Grange, or The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, was or is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gift_for_the_grangers_ppmsca02956u.jpg

 "In necessary things unity; in uncertain things freedom; in everything compassion." This is the motto of the Grange.

After the Civil War Andrew Jackson sent Oliver Kelly to the southern states on a fact finding mission to discover the conditions of southern agriculture. Of course, the southerners were very suspicious of any Yankee treading foot in their neck of the woods, to say the least. Kelly found that it was easier to get cooperation once they found out he was a Mason. (Masons were a group of skilled tradesmen cooperating to uphold their skills in the Mason trades - to begin with. Now it is not so much centered around tradesmen.) The land and farmers were devastated after the Civil War physically ravaged the countryside and also after their whole system of trade was disbanded. No trade, no money, no progress. Long story short- Kelly and others led to the forming of a group that would bring farmers and their farms up to snuff. This organization was known as The Grange.

 Wikipedia states “the organization was unusual at this time because women and any teen old enough to draw a plow were encouraged to participate. The importance of women was reinforced by requiring that four of the elected positions could only be held by women.” 

Some of the enhancements we enjoy today because of the Grange are:

The Cooperative Extension Service, Rural Free Delivery, and The Farm Credit System
.

I was looking up Rural Free Delivery, or RFD, when Wiki popped up a line:

“Fayette County in southeastern Indiana may be the birthplace of Rural Free Delivery. Milton Trusler, a leading farmer in the county, began advocating the idea in 1880; as the president of the Indiana Grange, he spoke to farmers statewide frequently over the following sixteen years. Formerly, residents of rural areas had to either travel to a distant post office to pick up their mail, or else pay for delivery by a private carrier. Postmaster General John Wanamaker was ardently in favor of Rural Free Delivery (RFD), as it was originally called, along with many thousands of Americans living in rural communities who wanted to send and receive mail inexpensively. However, the adoption of a nationwide RFD system had many opponents. Some were simply opposed to the cost of the service. Private express carriers thought inexpensive rural mail delivery would eliminate their business, and many town merchants worried the service would reduce farm families' weekly visits to town to obtain goods and merchandise.

The Post Office Department first experimented with the idea of rural mail delivery on October 1, 1891 to determine the viability of RFD.”

STOP right THERE!

Milton Trusler?!  From Fayette County, Indiana?!  1880?!  President of the Indiana Grange?! 

 October 1^st?! (ok, ok , that last one is just my birthday, but STILL!)

Hmmmm…..The Grange Building in Nulltown is said to have been built in 1873. The first floor had been used as the co-operative store – remember- RIGHT ACROSS THE ROAD from Mr. and Mrs. Faikert’s store. And I do mean right across the road, by feet! Today the competition would drive two merchants to the grave! And the Faikerts going against something as important as – I hate to say it – as Walmart is today?  They would not have lasted out the year. Wait, wait, the Faikerts operated the post office….. 

I do believe that the spirit of chewing the fat, arguing over grain and livestock prices, social gathering (because "The Book" says that the second floor was used for meetings, dances, debates, and other social and literary activities. The Grange second floor kind of sounds like Facebook doesn’t it?!) and the trains stopping at the store as a regular stop in route to market to Cincinnati all sound like it did back when I was a kid! Did I get a rare chance to experience the first spirit of the Grange? Was I a time traveler and did not even know it? I think maybe that little girl that sat quietly on a sack of feed while her daddy "set fer a bit" with the old timers was a very lucky little girl indeed. Not only was she sneaked candy and forbidden sodas and cocoa too but she got to be influenced by some people that cared about what was going on. She got to learn how to "sit, hide, and watch" as one of my friends are so fond of saying. When you sit and listen to older folks tell you things you learn more than what they are saying. 

Could that old dusty store standing proud on that dangerous curve be the place where Mr. Trusler first debated the possibility of the RFD?

I am telling you – good ideas came from this area. They still do too. They are just more hidden now….

By the way.. if you would like a copy of “The Book” contact The Fayette County Historical Museum at (765) 825-1281.

Or the Connersville Bicentennial Headquarters at 416 Central Avenue, Connersville, Indiana, 47331

You can really get some great links to do some more investigation on the Grange from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Grange_of_the_Order_of_Patrons_of_Husbandry

(Some think that proper research should not come from Wiki, but I think it is an excellent place to start. Research, knowledge and learning are all personal, shared things.)

Until I get the chance to take some pictures out in Nulltown, go to Google maps and put in Nulltown, Indiana. It will be located on State Road 121. Choose Satellite View and then Street View. You can pan around in a 360 degree view. It should take you right to Nulltown Store.
 Across the road is just an empty lot, but that was where the Faikert's house was standing even when I was a child. It and the store were right on the road front. It made squeezing through kind of tough on tractors at times, if I remember right. Sometime while I was gone raising a family the state widened the road and so that curve is barely there  now and one just does not get to experience the thrill (terror?!) of narrowly missing oncoming traffic at the corner of the store....

 Enjoy, and see what kinds of interesting things you can find out about your hometowns.

- Suzanna