By Eric C. Rodenberg INDIANAPOLIS – Captain Ahab had his whale. Mike Todd has the family table. Todd, a longtime westside resident of Indiana’s capitol city, has been looking for his family’s table – once considered an integral piece of Indianapolis history – for more than two years now. He has spent hundreds of hours poring through microfiche documents at the Indiana State Library, claiming to have worn out two pairs of eyeglasses in his endeavors. “All those beautiful afternoons spent in the library, I’m turning into a real nerd,” he says. Which is atypical of the 61-year-old retired truck driver who was a star high school wrestler and football player in his day. His family, including his wife and daughter and several siblings, are given to rolling their eyes once he gets on his historical screeds. “I try to tone it down,” he says. But, it’s difficult. It was difficult for Ahab too. “Once I get started, it’s hard to quit,” he says. “My grandmother always preached McCormick and the family history. Of course, we didn’t listen then. But, now I’m proud of my family and what they did for Indianapolis, and the rest of the state.” In southern Indiana’s Owen County, McCormick’s Creek State Park is named for an ancestor who settled on 100 acres there in 1816. McCormick Street in Indianapolis is one of the shortest streets in the city, going some 100 yards before reaching its dead-end. As a memorial to the McCormick cabin site, the city placed a granite boulder and plaque and dedicated it on June 7, 1920. That area is now part of White River State Park. This is not just any table either. It was once considered a historical treasure and displayed at the Museum of the Indiana Statehouse in the 1920s. On Jan. 11, 1820, the Indiana General Assembly authorized a committee of 10 commissioners to select a site in central Indiana for the new state capitol. On May 24, 1820 they met at McCormick’s cabin on the banks of the White River and selected Indianapolis as the site for the capitol of Indiana. “It is said the commissioners used the table in the transaction of their business and also ate their meals on it,” according to a 1926 Indianapolis News story. It is a well-traveled table. The table was made in the late 18th century in Westmoreland County, Pa. From there, in the early 1800s, the table traveled by wagon to the very fringe of the wilderness, what was known as “Conner’s Post,” an early trading post established by pioneer John Conner near the Whitewater River in what is now Indiana. In 1813, John Conner laid out the town of Connersville, adjacent to his fur trading post, and briefly served as sheriff of the newly organized Fayette County, southeast some 65 miles from what would become present-day Indianapolis. The table arrived in what would become Connersville in 1808, the property of John McCormick Sr., who descended from a Scotch family that emigrated to America in about 1700, according to a March 8, 1926 story in The Indianapolis News. Looking for new opportunities, the McCormicks – John McCormick and his sons, Samuel, James and John, Jr., moved from their homes in Connersville and constructed a double log cabin on the east bank of the White River on Feb. 26, 1820, according to the News report. As such, they became the first settlers of Indianapolis, but not without great toil and discomfort. “ … twelve men in all, left the fort at Connersville and came to this city, then a wilderness,” cites a newspaper account, “and after prospecting up and down White River, finally built a cabin on the bank of the river … The snow at the time was very deep, and they were not sheltered by a house any night during the trip, which occupied eight days. Before arriving here, the sleigh broke down and was finally abandoned.” The table was loaded in one of the wagons. The McCormicks built the city’s first sawmill, opened the earliest tavern and ran a ferry service across the White River at a time when Indianapolis was still a wilderness. The table was so revered that it was brought to the State Museum in the Indiana Statehouse for historical display in 1926, prompting the news report. The table had been passed down through the McCormick family for years. The table, presented to the Museum by its owner Edwin Brent McCormick, had an inscription, “beautifully lettered and mounted under glass on the top of the table, telling something of the history of the piece of furniture,” according to the 1926 story. At that time, the museum was in the basement of the Statehouse, Todd explains. But, inexplicably, the table was moved from the basement of the capitol building to the Flag Room at the very top of the Statehouse. The McCormick family was not happy with the move, Todd says, believing it was relegated to an obscure area in the upper reaches of the Statehouse out of public view. The table disappeared around 1933, after a new administration entered the Statehouse after a major political change in the Gubernatorial race and the Indiana General Assembly. Todd speculates that after a massive changeover in statehouse jobs, someone may have slipped into retirement with the table. The museum has moved twice since it acquired the table. And, a former curator of the museum told Todd the museum collection was not properly cataloged until around 1990. Todd could find no record that the table was given back to the family. The prevailing thought among state officials is that the table was disposed of decades ago. “You wouldn’t destroy a table with such a plaque,” Todd says. “Something that significant, would be passed on … maybe to a small museum … maybe to a historian or collector.” Despite no evidence the table exists, he is willing to pay $5,000 for the table. “I just know that table is still around,” he says. “I think it’s still in central Indiana … somewhere.” Despite the cold trail of evidence, Todd insists that somebody has seen the table and knows what happened to it. “Something that significant just doesn’t disappear,” he says. He welcomes any calls to (317) 941-9493 for information about the table. |