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Ax Murder on the Ohio River

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       Isabella and Cyrus M. Park lived on a farm near Charlestown, Indiana. It was about seven miles from Charlestown and three miles from Henryville in the southeastern part of Indiana. It’s also not far from the Ohio River there in Clark County.    Clark County is named for George Rogers Clark who settled along the Ohio River after the Revolutionary War. He built a cabin just above a large limestone outcropping along the Ohio in what is now Jeffersonville just across from modern day Louisville, Kentucky. His younger brother, William Clark went across the United States with Meriwether Lewis thanks to Sacajawea guiding and translating for them. That limestone outcropping is a place you can visit today and it is chock full of prehistoric fossils. I have been there and I highly recommend it.     Cyrus Mop Park had served briefly in the Union Army at the tail end of the Civil War. He was a respected member of the community around Clar...
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A Lynching in Boonville:1900, Boonville, Indiana

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Mr. Rowley, the Boonville Lynching Victim   Boonville, Indiana was the bigger small town in our area when I was growing up. We went to Boonville for groceries on payday. We went to Boonville to go to the dentist. (My Dad worked at Peabody Coal Mine and so we were some of the lucky ones in our community and had dental insurance. Since we had well water with no fluoride in it we were always getting cavities as kids. We used toothpaste with fluoride but we weren’t the best about brushing and flossing as kids.)    Boonville was the county seat. The courthouse is still a lovely architectural landmark in the town square. (But in 1900 the courthouse was not yet built.  There was a square and the courthouse was planned though. A wrought iron fence surrounded the spot where the courthouse would be built and mature trees were thriving in the corners. The streets were just dirt still in 1900.)    When we were older and started going to sporting events we oft...
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