By: Kayla McCarthy, Bicentennial Intern, Class of 2018, American Studies, Bloomington
I thought this project would look a lot different. I expected more of a linear, step-by-step chronological history where one clue leads to another in sequential order.
Instead, it’s like a game of one-way Battleship. You know, the one with the laptop-like boards, the wee gray ships, the red and white pegs.
Like the ships, which are different sizes and placed horizontally or vertically anywhere on the board, connections between IU and U.S. presidents are substantially different from each other and interspersed throughout IU’s nearly 200 years of existence. My objective: pinpoint the dates and histories of these interactions in the vast sea of time.
If I find a connection, then it’s a hit! But sometimes, my research leads me to dead ends or information that isn’t relevant to my topic. A miss.
As I have researched, I have placed red pegs all over the board, but they aren’t contiguous. For example, one ship is 1915 when President William H. Taft spoke at IU for Founders Day, and another is 1953 when the Marching 100 played at President Dwight Eisenhower’s first inauguration. Two different instances with two different narratives.
My pockmarked board is off to a great start! But now I’m searching for the stories behind the connections. This is like trying to find and sink a whole ship in Battleship. When you get a hit, you know there’s a ship in that location, but you don’t know its size or its orientation. If the hit is at H5, your best bet to get another hit, and to sink the ship, is to guess one of the bordering squares: H4, H6, G5, or I5.
Similarly, when I do find an interaction, I now have a good reference point – a name, a date, a location – to do some deeper digging, but that other information could be in any one of several places: individual correspondence, church papers, newspaper archives, oral history transcripts, etc.
Furthermore, just like in Battleship where you don’t know the size of the ship so you keep guessing adjacent squares until you miss, similarly in my research it is uncertain whether a single instance will breed any other information, and if so, how much information.
It all depends on the substance of the connection and the accessibility and existence of archives, records, papers, photos. I keep digging until I find more information or until I come to a dead end. And then I move on to the next ship.
Let me give you an example of a ship that I’ve been working on:
Remember when I said I’d tell you about how former IU president William Daily roasted future U.S. president Benjamin Harrison? Well, it wasn’t just a one-sided, sharp-tongued insult. In fact, the insult was birthed out of Harrison’s disparaging witness statement against Daily that would indirectly cost Daily his IU presidency. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
On one of my earliest days of research, I searched for “Benjamin Harrison” in the IU Archives online database. One of the results was a file in the William M. Daily papers. Huzzah! A hit!
Okay, let me see. It’s under the series “Testimony.” Testimony? *Click*
“Indianapolis. Jan. 11, 1859
This is to certify that I, in company with Benj. Harrison ___ of this city did on the evening or afternoon of the 31st day of Dec. A.D. 1858 see William M. Daily in a state of intoxication, or drunk. I cannot be mistaken in this, for his appearance and actions belonged only to a drunken man.
Signed, William Wallace.
I saw W Daily at the time referred to by W Wallace, and noticed his singular conduct, which I could account for only on the ground that he was drunk.
Signed, Benj. Harrison” [1].
This was getting juicy! But I had missing bits of information. Why were there testimonies being collected against William Daily? What were they being used for? How was Benjamin Harrison involved? Here’s what I’ve found out so far using my Battleship methodology.
Beginning in 1853 after one and a half days of serving on the IU Board of Trustees, the Reverend William M. Daily became the third president of Indiana University [2]. In July of 1858, a Dr. Alexander M. Murphy filed eleven charges against President Daily for plagiarism, incompetence, dishonesty, and not paying his debts, among other offenses.
The two most egregious charges were “the habit of using intoxicating liquors to Excess,” and two accounts of trying to induce a woman to have “illicit carnal intercourse” with him while his wife was away [3].
On July 12, 1858, the Board of Trustees met to decide what charges should be brought against President Daily. After voting, the Trustees decided that Murphy would need to present a list of witnesses to substantiate his charges. The next day, Murphy dropped all charges [4].
Around the same time that Murphy brought the charges to the Board, similar claims that called into question President Daily’s character and competency were circulated in newspapers [5].
Six months later, in January of 1859, more charges were heaped upon Daily, this time through the Methodist Episcopal Church. The presiding elder of the Bloomington district of the Indiana Conference sent a letter to another reverend, requesting that he conduct a case and collect witness testimony for a charge of immorality against Daily [6].
Here’s where Benjamin Harrison comes in.
At the time, Harrison was a reputable lawyer in Indianapolis. He and his law partner were two of several witnesses who submitted statements regarding Daily’s behavior on December 29 and New Years Eve of 1858 in Indianapolis. Along with claims of public intoxication, others testified that he followed a Louisa Smith and asked her if he could go home with her for “sensual purposes.”
One of these testimonies came from Smith herself. These statements accompanied the presiding elder’s letter and were to be used in a trial, which was to take place at the Wesley Chapel in Indianapolis on January 19, 1859 [7].
It is unclear what exactly happened at the trial, but my theory is that the trial’s verdict determined the fate of Daily’s status with the Indiana Conference of the M.E. Church. At the annual meeting of the Indiana Conference in October of the same year, it was recorded that William M. Daily was expelled from the Connection [8].
Although Daily denied the charges and rumors about his unruly behavior, he resigned from his presidency on January 25, 1859, in order to spare the University from further controversy. A month later during his farewell address given to students and faculty, he proclaimed:
“I have been pursued with…slimy subterranean damnable conspiracies, brought about by malignant, selfish fiendish devilish men who are instigated by malicious hellish hate and foul and damning envy, and whose sole object is to put me down, to put the institution down, to ruin my reputation and to ruin me” [9].
Roasted.
That’s one ship sunk, many more to go.
Read more about The Sample Gates and the White House here: https://blogs.iu.edu/bicentennialblogs/2017/02/13/the-sample-gates-the-white-house-salutations/
Works Cited
[1] Statements, 1859 against William Daily by Indianapolis law partners William Wallace and (future U.S. President) Benjamin Harrison, 11 January 1859, William M. Daily collection, Collection C227, Office of University Archives and Records Management, Indiana University, Bloomington.
[2] Indiana University. “Past Presidents.” n.d. http://president.iu.edu/about/past-presidents/index.shtml
[3] Annual Session Board of Trustees of Indiana University July 12, 1858. Indiana University Board of Trustees minutes, Collection C218, Office of University Archives and Records Management, Indiana University, Bloomington.
[4] Annual Session Board of Trustees of Indiana University July 12, 1858. Indiana University Board of Trustees minutes, Collection C218, Office of University Archives and Records Management, Indiana University, Bloomington.
[5] Testimony, in favor of Dr. William Daily, July 1858, William M. Daily collection, Collection C227, Office of University Archives and Records Management, Indiana University, Bloomington.
[6] Rev. F.A. Hester’s charge to collect witness testimony for the Daily Trial by S.L. Gillet, 12 January 1859, William M. Daily collection, Collection C227, Office of University Archives and Records Management, Indiana University, Bloomington.
[7] Rev. F.A. Hester’s charge to collect witness testimony for the Daily Trial by S.L. Gillet, 12 January 1859, William M. Daily collection, Collection C227, Office of University Archives and Records Management, Indiana University, Bloomington.
[8] Methodist Episcopal Church. Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church. New York: Published by T. Mason and G. Lane, 1840-1940.
[9] President Daily’s Farewell Address, 20 February 1859, William M. Daily collection, Collection C227, Office of University Archives and Records Management, Indiana University, Bloomington.