Plainfield High School - Silhouettes Yearbook (Plainfield, IN)

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tithe Han 'jguren ' Im ll44BgCIU14Ill oil' Van lBTlJ11I'6IUt I In 1841, during the last year of President Van Buren's administration, certain political enemies of his were trying to pass a road bill through Congress calling for, among other highways, the improvement of the National Road. More out of obstinence than for any other reason, Van Buren had vetoted it every time. In 1842, after his term had expired, Van Buren took a trip through the south and west. When he reached Indianapolis, the state capital of Indiana, he was royally entertained at a celebration and banquet in his honor. He remained in the state capital over-night and the next morning he started west along the National Road. In the meantime, certain Whigs, partly out of revenge for his veto of the road bill, and partly to impress him with the need for better highways, had bribed Asa Wright, driver of the Ex-President's stage-coach, to overturn the coach and spill the Old Autocrat in the mud, at a certain place a few miles west of Indianapolis. Asa Wright was familiar with every twist and turn in the road. It was not difficult for him to pick a nice spot for His Royal Highness to land in. No sooner had he reached Plainfield, then only a little community of half-dozen houses, than he began to look around for a place to stage the accident . When he had reached a place where the Friendis Church is now located, he turned the coach abruptly, striking an elm tree that grew by the side of the road, broke off a wheel and over- turned the stagecoach. The coach-door fiew open and Van Buren, with a glorious fiourish, went head first into the juiciest mud hole in the National Road. After the mud was scraped off the ex-President, to the accompaniment of much lurid language, Van Buren walked up the road to the Tavern that stood on the spot now occupied by the Citizenis State Bank of Plainfield, where he improved his appearance before resuming the journey. Whether a result of the unfortunate accident or not, the next road improve- ment bill passed by Congress was not vetoed by the President and in 1850-1851 the National Highway was made a plank road. Today it is a broad cement thorough- fare running from coast to coast. The tree that Wright turned his coach over against, is now an old monarch, fighting its last stand against wind and weather. In 1927, a tornado swept through the locality and tore nearly half of the beautiful old Elm away. The Lions Club of Plainfield came to the rescue however, and provided the money necessary to have the old tree cemented and strengthened, and today the historic old land mark still stands, a memory of the past and a silent lesson to America's youth. Pile 10

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