Barnhill Drive
Location: Downtown, IUPUI campus
Named For: Robert Barnhill, early settler
Robert Barnhill was one of the first white men to settle in Marion County, arriving March 6, 1820..
Barnhill was born February 28, 1769 in Washington County, Pennsylvania to Samuel and Jean Craig Barnhill. The family moved to Scott County, Kentucky around 1789 or 1790. He married Sarah Marvis in 1791 and moved to Butler County, Ohio in 1805.
In 1820, Barnhill, his wife and 12 children moved to Indianapolis and settled in the swampy area close to the present area of IUPUI along the banks of the White River. The accompanied several other families including the Connaroes.
Because of the adverse conditions, most of the early settlers contracted malaria, including Barnhill. The sickness, which the settlers called “the plague” was spread by a house raising, since all of the men in the era helped. Barnhill eventually succumbed to the illness and died September 9, 1821 and was buried in a “plague cemetery” in the area. After his death, the families moved to Wayne Township southeast of Clermont. His will was the first to entered for probate in Marion County.
Editor’s Note: An alternate theory would make Dr. John Barnhill the namesake. He was a Civil War era doctor in Indianapolis. Considering the proximity to the hospital, it seems a plausible alternative.
23 Comments on "What’s in a Name: Barnhill Drive"
Thanks. An interesting account of the earliest days of people “on the banks of White River” near the placle Fall Creek blows into it.
And just what year was it that the group met at the currently existing house at Conner Prairie Farm to decide the location of the state capital?
The two men who are generally credited with being the first white settlers in what is now Indianapolis were George Pogue and John Wesley McCormick. Pogue built a cabin near E. Michigan Street on the creek that would later be called Pogue’s Run, in 1818 or 1819. John Wesley McCormick built a cabin on the east banks of the White River, just north of W. Washington Street, in 1819. The city officially became the state capital by an act of the Indiana legislature in 1821.
Muchas gracias, Sharon.
I don’t know if he’s your Dr. John Barnhill but John Conarroe Barnhill was buried at Crown Hill in April 1908. His middle name makes me think the Conarroes and Barnhills must have been related.
In response to Mr. Morford, the commission that picked the site of Indianapolis as the location of the then future state capitol dates to 1820.
Muchas gracias, Senor!
NLM
Does your Crown Hill listing indicate when John Conarroe Barnhill was born? He could have very easily have been Robert Barnhill’s grandson (or even son, if he had lived to a very old age).
It would seem to me that the Street Sign in the picture above is a little bit off.
Michigan St. is an east and west street (growing up 3 blocks north of it, I have obviously known this since childhood). From Google Maps, I see that Barnhill Dr. is a north and south street. Also, from Google Maps, I see that Barnhill Dr. crosses Michigan St. at approximately 1070 W. Michigan St. (since Google Maps is many times off on its addressing, this could actually be 1050 W. Michigan St.).
So, why does the sign say “1050 W BARNHILL DR” and “500 N MICHIGAN ST”?
I think the city may be the appropriate entity for this query…
I too find the city’s method of marking its street signs to be confusing. The signs were not always that way. Back in the day (okay, I’m showing my age here), the numbers on the street signs indicated what block you were in on that street. That made a lot more sense to me. If you were walking or driving and trying to find an address on a particular street, you were probably already on that street, so what you would want to know is the numbers of the addresses in the block you were in. Knowing the numbers would give you a sense of how far way you were from your destination. You wouldn’t need to know that Michigan Street is approximately 500 North of Washington Street, for example, because you were already on Michigan Street. Before the change in policy, the 1050 W would have been on the Michigan Street sign, and the 500 N would have been on the Barnhill Drive sign. In other words, the street sign would have told you what block of Barnhill Drive or what block of Michigan Street you were in. It was in maybe the 1990s when the city reversed this practice. Now 1050 W means Barnhill is approximately ten-and-a-half blocks west of Meridian Street, and 500 N means Michigan Street is approximately five blocks north of Washington Street. I don’t find it to be as helpful as the previous method of marking street signs.
Sharon, I agree. I also would not find this new method of marking street signs as helpful as the previous one and I also believe that the previous method made more sense.
Having been away from Indy (living there) since going off to college, I did not know that they had reversed the orientation of the signs since then. As a result, I simply thought that this sign was in error.
Thankfully in Kokomo, IN, they have not made this reversal (which is another reason why I thought the Indy sign was wrong).
I’m sure somebody will correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the numbers on the signs are more like latitude and longitude markings. Michigan St., though an East/West Street, is 5 blocks (thus the 500) north of the 0 point and Barnhill, though a North/South Street is ten and a half blocks (thus 1050) west of the 0 point. I’m inside so I can’t verify this, but I’m pretty sure that every Michigan Street sign will say 500 N all along it’s traverse of the city. So if I’m going north on Illinois St. looking for 700 N. Illinois and I cross Michigan St. and see the 500 N, I know that I have about 2 more blocks to go. And if I’m on Michigan Street looking for 1050 West Michigan and I cross Illinois Street and see 100 W I Illinois, I know I have about 8 blocks to go.
Is that right?
A very interesting article! “What’s in a name”!
Kevin, the online records for Crown Hill (www.crownhill.org) only list the burial date and the Section and Lot number of the burial site. Sometimes the birthdates can be found in the cemetery records, or lacking that, on the monument itself. But every once in awhile a google search will bring a lot of results, such as this one: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=45867593 So apparently this John was born in 1830 and was a minister.
It’s hard to believe that all of these streets… Barnhill, Beauty, Blackford, Blake, California, Hanson, Agnes, etc. once bisected a neighborhood of hundreds of houses that stretched from Martin Luther King Street to the river. Growing up on the west side, I can remember seeing a lot of these houses when we drove downtown. Nothing remains today except for a few old limestone curbs here and there.
The last few I remember seeing were by the river, near the old fire station on Michigan Street.
Even remember an old Governor’s Mansion north of Military Park that was a tenement the last time I remember it in high school…
A governor’s mansion north of military park? Must be where the governor lived when his wife didn’t want to hang her clothes out on the circle — the house was once there, but never lived in.
So, what address north of Military Park?
That one was on West New York, versus Monument Circle…know the deal on the clothes washing! That was a good one!
There have been only six official governor’s residences since Indiana became a state. There were two governor’s residences before Indiana was a state, i.e., when Indiana was still a territory, one in Vincennes and the other in Corydon.
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The first governor’s residence after statehood was in Corydon, when that city was still the state capital. The original structure no longer exists, but a new structure built on the same foundation as the original one still stands.
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The second governor’s residence was the one that was located in the center of Monument Circle. Because of its lack of privacy, it was never occupied by any governor. It was demolished.
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The third governor’s residence was on the northwest corner of W. Market and N. Illinois Streets. After Governor James Whitcomb’s wife died there, reportedly due to the damp and unhealthy conditions of the property, Governor Oliver Morton abandoned it. It was demolished.
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There was no official governor’s residence from 1861 to 1919. Obviously, the governors during those 58 years lived somewhere, so perhaps one of them lived in the property north of Military Park that Basil has referenced. However, such a residence would have been privately owned and not an “official” governor’s residence. It would take a little research of city directories, property tax records, and/or census enumerations to find out which of Indiana’s governors lived at an address just north of Military Park. With four-year terms of office over nearly six decades, that’s quite a few records to be studied.
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The fourth governor’s residence was at 101 East 27th Street. It was “behind” (immediately east) of the Marott Hotel and faced Fall Creek Parkway. It was demolished.
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The fifth governor’s residence was at 4343 N. Meridian Street. It is still standing and is now privately owned.
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The sixth and current governor’s residence is at 4750 N. Meridian Street.
Sharon — Good job! NLM
Well, it may be time now to focus on what replaced those houses — IUPUI — and the various “looks” the area had.
I went to work for Indiana Civil Rights Commission in 1966 and the office was in the southwest corner of the 10th floor of the State Office Building [there's a topic for future discussion and research]. At that time to look toward what is now the IUPUI campus, one would see that “sea” of small houses to which David Brewer refers. I wonder how good a record we have of all the people who lived in those houses or who lived in Lockfield Gardens apartments. There were many African-American families, but I have to confess that I do not remember any news items about the previous residents of the area that became IUPUI.
I worked for ICRC until Sept., 1975, and in that period of time ICRC changed office locations, including being out of the SOB at an address of 219 N. Senate in a building that no longer exists. Lee Crean was the director during some of those years that the office moved twice, including back into the SOB on the third floor. My own desk sat right under the point where a loosened slab of the exterior could have dropped. neatly slicing the desk in two. It never happened and ICRC is now on the ground floor of the building which has been changed, as well as the old Employment SEcurity building that sat to the south, and the street between the two provides access to the two buildings.
I personally know one young man who lived with a grandfather in a house not very far from the IUPUI — a house, which I believe, still stands. His name is Greg Smith and he is a Shortridge H.S. grad [perhaps class of 1980]. Greg is now a police chief living in Arlington, Texas. He might be an excellent person to interview about the changes that occurred in the IUPUI area.
In the mid 1960s the Metropolitan Planning Department, under F Ross Vogelgesang had a rather insightful report written on the residents and businesses planned to to relocated for IUPUI, called “The People in the Path”, a rather complete analysis of the socioeconomic background and overall relocation requirements on the then-residents of the Near West Side where IUPUI is now, and another, less exhaustive, but nevertheless insightful presentation of the residents to be relocated by the Interstate system…
I’d bet that the residence on Military Park was one of those “contract” residences…thanks for the insight! it is appreciated.
I dont know why I can not remember Barnhill but what is now New York and Barnhill was New York and Agnas in the 40s. In the 1940s at New York and Agnas there was a tavern( Pick Way INN) on the North East corner ,a horse barn on the South East corner and the Taystee bread bakery on the west side of the rail road tracks. If you walked the rail road track to the South from Agnas St. you could go throught the cotton mill property (Bemis Bros Bag Co) The mill owned a lot of small homes on Minerva St and rented them to mill hands. When the mill closed a lot of our neighbors moved away. I recall the streets David Brewer speaks of and went to school with the children that grew up in that area in the 40s. We all went to #5 on Washington St. ang then to Washington High.