J. Richard Beste Family's Visit to Terre Haute in 1851

Part III

It took J. Richard Beste several weeks to recover from the ailment which confined him to the Prairie House during June and July 1851.

Dr. Ezra Read was his constant companion, trying every imaginable remedy to relieve him of his feverish symptoms.

Ultimately, the physician billed him $183 for services. Though Dr. Read said he charged one dollar for each visit, he gave Beste a discount due to the numerous calls. Dr. Read sometimes came to the hotel at 3 a.m.

It was a hot and humid summer. Beste's bed was placed in the center of the room so he could capture the "full current of air between the open window and the door."

"At 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning only were we allowed to shut the window," Beste recalled, "as the air from the lakes was not then considered wholesome.

"I was much amused by the constant reference I heard to the air of these lakes, the nearest lake of which, Lake Michigan, was two hundred miles distant.

"In America, the atmosphere seems to be as independent of distance as the inhabitants. In England, we should not think that a sea breeze, or the foul air of a bog 200 miles off, could do us much good or harm."

The view of the sky from his open window was memorable. "Nowhere have I seen such heavy masses of cloud so magnificently colored as were lit up in varied hues by the setting sun," he recounted.

"A refreshing breeze which had sprung up 'from the lakes' at about 3 o'clock, generally blew them away soon after sunset and left the deep blue sky spangled with the brightest stars.

"If any clouds remained, they shot out the most brilliant sheet of lightning for hours, and illuminated the sky with more glorious flashes than I have ever known from the summer heat lightning in Italy.

"The air, throughout the evening, was vocal with the chirruping of a species of large grasshopper, as noisy as the frogs of Talence, though more musical. The natives called them, 'catidids.'"

Once he was strong enough to walk, Beste became better acquainted with Terre Haute.

"The Prairie House was situated at the entrance to town on one side of the National Road, and was separated from the town by a common," he noted once again.

Dr. Read's residence "was very near on the opposite side of the road and on a little green," near the northwest corner of Seventh and Ohio streets. There were other residences in the neighborhood "that belonged to the more wealthy of the inhabitants."

Beste may have been referring to the fine homes built on Ohio and Cherry streets between Sixth and Seventh streets before 1850 by James Wasson, Ezra Smith, Curtis Gilbert and Henry Rose and the magnificent residences erected by John P. Usher and Jacob D. Early on the south side of Ohio Street in 1850.

The trip from the Prairie House to Court Square "was a very disagreeable hot walk in the sun, for it was not bordered by trees. At the end of it began the High street of the town, which was lined on each side with stores.

"Then there was a square on the left side, where trees shaded the pavement all around from the boiling sun above.

"On one side of this square was the other hotel of the town, 'Browne's House,' which we had not known of when we arrived. It was considered to be more noisy and frequented than the Prairie House, but, we, of course, could not move to it; and being perfectly satisfied with the one where we were, we did not wish to do so."

Shortly after Beste and his family returned to England, Touissant C. Buntin, the manager at the Prairie House, bought Browne's House at the southeast corner of Court Square and, a few years later, changed its name to "Buntin's Hotel."

Beste's daughters befriended 12-year-old Okalla Read, the doctor's daughter, a student at St. Vincent's Academy at the northwest corner of Fifth and Walnut streets.

"'Okey' was a clever girl," Beste asserted. "She played and sang very well for her age, and did a great number of fancy works which she was taught by the nuns at whose school she attended every day and bore away more prizes than any other girl of her age."

Dr. Read's wife, Lovilla, was an older sister of Dr. Stephen J. Young, a future Terre Haute physician who was attending Cincinnati Medical College in 1851.

Beste observed that Mrs. Read was "very well educated and played on the piano very well, but spent most of her time on the sofa or in the rocking chair," a criticism he had for most women he met during his visit.

Indeed, Beste's opinion of American women bordered on contempt. In his view, they were conceited, lazy, affected and talked with a "nasal whine." However, he acknowledged that Americans considered those traits "charming."

At one point, he wrote: "I have remarked upon the elegant dress of the American women, upon the rocking chairs upon which they rock and fan themselves incessantly; but I have not remarked upon their care of children [or] any wish to inform their minds [or] any endeavor to amuse and employ their fingers with fancy work.

"I have not remarked on these because, in no salon throughout America, did I ever see any female even momentarily employed with children, with books or with needle work . Everywhere I saw the same listless, whining apathy."

Though not raised a Catholic, Mrs. Read was very pleased by Okey's teachers at the academy, "conducted by four nuns" and "attended by ninety pupils."

The sisters "never meddle with their religion, but really I should not much care if they were to make my daughter a Catholic," Lovilla Read once told Beste. "It must be a good religion that makes them such sweet creatures."

Conclusion next week

Mike McCormick is the Vigo County historian. His column, Historical Perspective, appears here each Sunday.