| Notes |
- . 1855 Dec 21 - Liquor Law in Indiana. the Judges of the Supreme Court of Indians differed recently in a case involving the constitutionality of the Prohibitory Liquor Law in that State Judges Perkins & Davison are against the law in total. Judge Stewart sustains it, except the manufacturing, search & seizure confiscation & the agency clauses. Judge Gookins sustains the whole law.
Ref: Newark Daily Advertiser, NJ.
. 1857 Jan 13 - The Indiana Legislature met at Indianapolis on the 8th. The Republican members were sworn in by Judge Gookins & the Democrats by Mr. Willard.
Ref: Centinel Of Freedom, Newark, NJ.
. Newspaper editor & publisher, attorney, state legislator, author, poet, circuit court judge & justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, Samuel Barnes Gookins was one of Terre Haute’s most esteemed citizens for more than a half century.
The youngest son of William & Rhoda Monger Gookins, S.B. Gookins, as he became known, was born May 30, 1809 in Rupert, Vt. His father died when he was 5 & his mother brought Samuel & older brother Milo to Indiana in 1823.
Sam & Milo were orphans upon his mother’s death in 1825. She was one of the first pioneers interred at Terre Haute’s Grandview Cemetery. The boys resided briefly with the family of Capt. Daniel Stringham, father of Rear Adm. Silas Stringham. Milo Gookins, born in 1800, moved to Vermillion County in 1826, the year Sam apprenticed himself for four fruitful years to pioneer Terre Haute newspaper publisher John Willson Osborn. Gookins wed Osborn’s daughter Mary Caroline on Jan. 23, 1834.
After brief stints as editor of the Vincennes Gazette, the Western Register & Terre Haute Advertiser, Sam studied law under Terre Haute lawyer, Amory Kinney, perhaps Indiana’s first abolitionist. Admitted to the bar in 1834, Gookins was in a partnership for several years with Kinney & Terre Haute lawyer Salmon Wright. In July 1850, following the resignation of Judge John Law, he was appointed president judge of the First Judicial Circuit, which included several counties including Vigo. The appointment lasted through January 1851. Acquiring scenic acreage noted for its abundance of wild strawberries east of Third (then Market) Street & north of Hulman Street, Judge & Mary Gookins embellished the tract with spacious & attractive buildings, later acquired by Coates College for Women.
Known for many years as “Strawberry Hill,” the Gookins’ home was built in 1848 & a mile south of town. It became a haven for intellectuals. After serving one term (1851-52) in the Indiana House, Judge Gookins was elected justice of the Indiana Supreme Court on Oct. 10, 1855. He resigned effective Dec. 10, 1857, citing the inadequate salary he was being paid while living in Indianapolis during the week & maintaining a family residence in Vigo County.
Gookins founded the Chicago law firm of Gookins, Roberts & Thomas in 1858 & continued to commute by rail on weekends to Terre Haute until retirement in 1875. The Gookins had four children; two died in infancy.
Son James Farrington Gookins, co-founder of the Ulyssean Debating Society which met at Strawberry Hill, became a celebrated artist.
Daughter Lucy wed George C. Duy in New York City on June 16, 1870. The Duys also resided at Strawberry Hill.
When the Rev. Lyman Abbott of the Congregational Church & his wife Abby were invited for tea at the Gookins home in 1861, then situated one mile south of the city limits, they deemed it a high honor. Upon retirement, Judge Gookins chose to reside permanently in Terre Haute & obligated himself to write the history of Vigo County as part of Henry W. Beckwith’s History of Vigo & Parke County. He died unexpectedly June 14, 1880, a few months before the book was published.
Ref: Historical Perspective: The versatility of Judge Samuel Barnes Gookins, 1880. By Mike McCormick.
Indiana State Representative & a Indiana Supreme Court Justice. He moved to the Terre Haute area in 1823. When his mother died, he went to live with another family. He learned the newspaper business & from 1834 to 1850 was widely known as a publisher.He was defeated in a race for the Indiana Supreme Court in 1852 while he was a member of the Indiana State House of Representatives, 1851 to 1852. In 1855, he ran again & won. He served as the 5th Justice in the Indiana State Supreme Court from October 10, 1854 until December 1857, resigning for reasons of low pay & poor health. In 1857, a justice received only $1200 per annum. He moved to Chicago, Illinois, & practiced law there until 1875, when he moved home to Terre Haute. He published a History of Vigo County in 1880. Was a partner in the law firm Kinney, Wright, & Gookins for many years before becoming a supreme court judge.
Ref: Find A Grave: include a handsome photo of Judge Gookins, full white beard. - - -
- PART TWO:
Among the earliest comers to this new world was one who for more than fifty years has been a noted man in this community. Judge SAMUEL B. GOOKINS came to Terre Haute a mere lad, and without means or influence, yet by his own energy and talent he has wrought out for himself a niche in the temple of fame that may well command the respect and admiration of his fellow men. Judge GOOKINS has very recently passed away, and the record for his life will appear in another part of this work Terre Haute. We are treating now of the times when he first landed on the banks of the Wabash, and in giving the history of that period desire to show the great contrast between then and now.
He has left a record of his experiences in seeking a new home, which we give to the reader in his own words. "It is only a little more than 52 years (now 1877) since I landed from a canoe at Modesitt's ferry. Indiana had then made quite a start in the world. She was seven years old. Until near the time of my emigration (in 1828) the general route from the east to the west was by land to the upper tributaries of the Ohio. On May 5, 1823, I set out from the home of my boyhood, in the town of Rodman, Jefferson county, New York, to reach the west by the new route. Our company consisted of my mother, a brother of twenty-three and myself, not quite fourteen. We traveled by wagon fifteen miles to Sacket's Harbor, where we took passage on the Ontario, the second steamer, I believe, that navigated the lake whose name she bore. The lake was unusually rough, and the steamer, a heavily laden and slow going craft, propelled by a low-pressure engine, made slow headway. After contending with contrary winds for a night and a day we "put about for Sacket's." The next trial was more successful, and though encountering a heavy gale, we reached the mouth of the Genesee. We ascended that river to Carthage. The famous warrior who captured Rome was not there, but something else quite as wonderful to my boyish mind was, and that was a railroad; in other words a tramway running from the wharf to the storehouses on the top of the bluff. It was a double track with a windlass at the top, and the motive power was dead weight; the descending car drew the other up with extra weights to adjust the "balance of trade." After discharging and receiving freight, we went to sea, bound for the mouth of the Niagara, which we found very hard to reach, for the winds were contrary. More than once we were in danger of shipwreck, but finally succeeded in making a harbor, Johnston, a little way up the Niagara. The same day we reached Lewiston, seven miles below the falls, having consumed eight days in making the trip. Here we took a wagon and came to a landing called Fort Slosher, a few miles above the falls, thence by open boat to Buffalo. Here we met with a disappointment in our plans. We had intended to go from Buffalo to the mouth of the Miami of the Lakes, but no lake craft of any kind could be found to make the trip. We waited several days in Buffalo for the Superior, the only steamer then on Lake Erie, but waited in vain, and finally were obliged to take a schooner for Detroit. We left Buffalo harbor late one afternoon with about forty passengers on board, mostly bound for Michigan Territory. At Detroit we shipped on board a small coasting schooner for Fort Meigs, at the head of Miami bay. We beat our way against a head-wind to the mouth of the Detroit river, where we lay for a day under the lee of an island waiting for the winds to subside, but the cabin boy and I, having obtained leave, lowered the boat, and, going over to the Canada shore, made the acquaintance of the white bass, whose reckless and voracious bite is enough to wake up the dullest fisherman. The next morning the wind let us out, and in due time we reached Fort Meigs.
The next feat to be accomplished was the ascent of the Miami, or Maumee, as it is called. We there found an old French trader with a canoe constructed in a style much superior to the common pirogue, but his price, $20, we considered quite too high. We finally found a canoe well made and new that had never been afloat, which we purchased from Mr. HALLISTER, the principal merchant of the place; but on loading we found it much too small. It cost us $7. This was swapped with the old Frenchman for his fancy craft, paying him $5 to boot, and so we got his $20 water-craft for $12.
We had two Frenchmen to help us up the rapids, about eighteen miles, and retained the services of one of them all the way to Fort Wayne. We made a short trip at Fort Defiance and reached Fort Wayne in five days, camping on shore at night with an impoverished tent made of bedding sheets stretched upon our setting poles. At Fort Wayne we procured an ox-team from "Billy" HOOD and so much of a wagon as is furnished by tongue, axle and two wheels, on which we mounted our canoe and dragged it across the portage, a distance of about ten miles, to the head-waters of the Little river, a tributary of the Wabash. We set our canoe afloat in a marsh covered with pond lilies, and had quite a hard work pushing through them as we had in pushing up the Miami. We reached the Wabash, however, after a vigorous effort, and set out upon its downward current.
June had arrived and the water in the river was low. We had no pilot, and, not being acquainted with the currents, the navigation of the stream was attended with much difficulty. One day we only made about five miles. When we found the water too shallow to float our craft we went ashore, cut a hickory sapling, split it, pulled off the bark, and, laying the flat side downward, mounted the canoe upon it and shoved it over into deeper water. This accomplished, we were in a swift current, and my place was at the bow, with a setting pole, to keep her from striking upon the rocks, of which the river was full, while the other brother officiated as pilot at the stern. One afternoon late we were caught aground, and lay out in the middle of the stream all night. The next night we landed early, not far from where Logansport now is. While there we made some new acquaintances; they were rattlesnakes. If Eve had been as shy of the serpent as we were of those I think she never would have tasted of the forbidden fruit. The Indians still occupied all the country. Indeed, they were its only occupants except a few traders. Our trading post was about where Huntington now is; another at the mouth of the Mississinewa. The first settler we found as we descended was on the north side of the river, nearly opposite the mouth of the Wild-Cat, not far from the present crossing of the New Albany and Salem railroad. The next settler on the river was FILSON, some two or three miles above the present site of Montezuma.
We went ashore near where the flourishing city of Lafayette now is. The Indians were friendly, often hailing us from the shore and wanting to trade, offering to exchange their wild game for cornmeal, an article always in demand by them.
On the 18th of June, 1823, we landed at Fort Harrison, and, after having reconnoitered the post to our satisfaction, we again took water, and an hour later landed at Terre Haute, having made the trip in six weeks and two days. So far as I have been able to learn, ours was the second family that came to the Wabash valley by the northern route.
Ref: History of Terre Haute, Bigo Co., Indiana, 1880. - - -
1845 Oct 18 - Removed to the Court House, North West corner, up stairs, KINNEY, WRIGHT 7 GOOKINS, Terre Haute, Jul 27, 1844 -473w. Ref: Wabash Courier.
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1809 - 1880 (70 years)