first lots
July 30th, 2009
I’ve been doing neighborhood research on the area east of Ferry Street in Madison, Indiana on the ferrytofulton blog. This is where I begin to map out the Town of Fulton ( not Fulton county) in Madison, Indiana. There is less information available on Fulton than there is/was on the area east of Ferry to the town of Fulton, so this is going to take a while. I’m just getting started in the area, and this is just the first post for the area known as Fulton. This is what I’d call a progression blog…you’re reading wherever I am in the progression of my research.
The best and oldest map I generally use for reference is the 1854 Section 12 map, which can be found on the Madison Jefferson County Public Library wall. What would I do without it? It hasn’t failed me, so I’m sticking with it. This small piece of the map shows the area around Ferry Street to the east, ending at where the road known as E. Vaughn and/or E. Fulton, formerly called Ohio street, makes its connection along the riverfront. There are 4 streets that run north/south and ten sections.
In 1854, there was not a lot shown on the map just east of the city of Madison, Indiana, but there were homes and there are markers as to where properties lines begin and end in what was called the Town of Fulton. I pretty much will have to draw a new map with descriptions and stories because anything on the south side of the riverfront road (shown as Fulton Street now called Vaughn Drive) between Ferry and the end of Fulton/Vaughn) has been wiped off that map. Only a few buildings shown on the 1854 map between High Street and Vaughn still exist.
So, I’m starting at the westernmost boundary of Fulton, with the notched 
stone in the woods and using the stone wall on the western side of the property I presently inhabit on the south side of Park Avenue (within the city limits of Madison) as a reference point as mentioned in a 1975 survey for the first few lots on the northside of Park Avenue, part of which is State Route 56, both previously known as Lawrenceburgh Road. The corporation line is where the road changes from Park Avenue to State Route 56. I have seen where the road has been called the Madison & Brooksburgh Turnpike, the Lawrenceburg[h] Road, at times E. Second on census sheets. Since I started my research I have seen lots of reasons to be confused about which road is which, so it is all a matter of comparison.
When I saw the “stone located” on the Guerich survey (referred to therein as the earlier Barnard Warren property) that my neighbor possesses, I decided it makes for a nice beginning. After that, I have to work backwards a little.
On the O’Brien survey, note the property shown as lot #1 (north of the road) is split; part is in the city of Madison, the other is “county”, as the neighbor puts it. One day the most recent homeowner for lot #1 (north side) was outside cutting back trees and bushes from the rock wall on the property and told me she was suprised to find out her property was taxed as two separate plots. My neighbor (the one who lent me the survey work) told me the properties were all part of one, but as the individual lots sold the split occurred. The first/last address on Madison’s east side is 1035 Park (on the north side of the street) though once that honor went to 1036 Park, on the south side; both addresses having been part of a larger plat.
A building on the Brushfield property (that property being mentioned in the legal description of the survey), located on lot 3 of the Brushfield addition, has been written about in another post as being the eastern boundary marker for Madison, Indiana. That brick building dates at least to the 1854 map, but no one can yet say exactly (yet) when it was built.
The Brushfield property shows up as east and west boundaries for other additions to the city, but I have yet to find what I would call the earliest plat just for that particular property. It describes boundaries for Madison, etc, but I haven’t given up.
( ***SEE UPDATE deed AND I now also have the subdivision shown here.)
The part that which is east of the corporation line is shown here:
Though my neighbor’s survey shows he is occupying lots 2, 3 and 4 in the John Marsh Addition to Fulton, one still needs to compare newer versions with older maps.
Here is the original description for the Town of Fulton, as found in the Jefferson County Historical Society collection MP-0034.
Lot #1 in the Town of Fulton starts where the plat book shows the Brushfield’s Land, which is the easternmost boundary for Madison, with Mr. Brushfield’s Candle Manufactory being the building at the corporation line on the 1854 map.
Further west, within the city of Madison is the western marker for the Brushfield Land identified on an 1835 survey for the Sheets Addition to the Town of Madison, which is shown below as those numbered plats on the map. These are south of High Street, now E. First Street, and west of Ferry Street and that large empty space south of Lawrenceburgh Road.
Stay tuned for more.
Fulton?
July 30th, 2009Fulton, Indiana? Know where that is? Some might think, at first mention, that I was talking about a town in Liberty Township, Fulton County, Indiana, but no, that is much farther north than where my buffalo roam. This is about the Town of Fulton, an addition to Madison, Indiana on the north bank of the beautiful Ohio River.
Ok… let’s do this again…Fulton? Oh. sure. I know where that is…or was…or maybe I should say what used to be called the”Town of Fulton” which is an area that a lot of people in Madison, Indiana don’t know much about. Those that live there know it is a part of the city of Madison that somehow has been forgotten in the history books. Forgotten? No, not really. Maybe the history just buried a little. Time for the Fulton revelation.
Research is like peeling an onion; history reveals itself in layers.
Of course, there are those quotes from the movie, Shrek, to remind me that not everyone likes layers. Well, the truth is like that, too; sometimes it makes you a little teary-eyed, like an onion on the chopping block, and sometimes you just savor each unwrapping, maybe even thinking about carmelizing it with some sugar. Of course, good research is like a working marriage, using old and new to make it work, so there is that other Shrek-onion reference where the onion is a carriage. At some point you have to have the imagination and creativity to get you from one place to another. I have a tendency to see things a little differently and know the truth is often buried within something else. It’s like a treasure hunt, at times!
Obviously this is not the typical “history blog”. You will discover that as you read posts here and on the ferrytofulton blog as well. I don’t know if I need two blogs or not, but I am not that conputer savvy yet for a dot come and since these are two separate areas of research and each a unit in itself, it seems easier to do it this way.
Where was I? Oh yes, back to Fulton. Should we assume that the town of Fulton is named for Fulton of steamboat fame, maybe it was named after the Reverend Andrew Fulton…anyone remember him? Could the town have been named for someone’s place or origin or a family member? I can’t say for sure but I am leaning toward the first thought, especially since there were a few shipyards in the area. I will have to look at other possibilities, though. 
How about a description of where Fulton was/is? Ok, this from an early subdivision plat map as found at the Jefferson County Historical Society’s facility in Madison, Indiana:
“…on the Ohio River in Jefferson County Indiana, being a part of fractional Section No. One Township No. Three North of Range Ten east in the Jeffersonville District and adjoining and being east of Brushfield’s Lot Fulton Street bearing…” Blah, blah, blah, it’s on the map. The “Jeffersonville District” threw me a little, but I know the description is for Madison, Indiana, not Jeffersonville, Indiana or Port Fulton, Indiana, either. I know it can get confusing at times. So much to sort out, so little time.
Want more? Stay tuned. Come back for a visit or check out the Ferry to Fulton posts, which are about an area that often overlaps the boundaries.