Indiana American Archive

In 1830, 19-year-old Coker F. Clarkson leased the Lawrenceburg (IN) Western Statesman.  In 1833, he sold the paper and relocated to Brookville, Indiana.  Located on the Whitewater River, 41 miles northwest of Cincinnati, Brookville was a political nexus where the fourth, fifth, and sixth governors of Indiana once lived.  Clarkson purchased the Brookville Enquirer in July 1833.  He changed the paper’s name to the Indiana American, and operated the four-page weekly as a Whig organ for the next 20 years.

Clarkson sold the American to Reverend Thomas A. Goodwin in October 1853.  While purporting to be an independent paper, “Led by No Party’s Arbitrary Sway,” Goodwin espoused views similar to that of the emerging Know Nothing Party.  Specifically, Goodwin often railed against the influence of Catholics and advocated temperance.  In addition to publishing the American,Goodwin also produced the Temperance Spontoon  in Brookville, which produced thirty-six issues beginning October 3, 1854.  At the 1854 midterm elections, Goodwin’s American endorsed the “Freeman’s Ticket,” which was composed of proto-Republicans and Know Nothings.  In the 1856 election, he approved the “People’s Ticket,” which later became the basis for the Republican Party in Indiana.

In mid-April 1857, Goodwin, citing financial reasons, suddenly left Brookville for Indianapolis, taking the Indiana American with him.  Goodwin introduced himself to his Indianapolis audience by stating his political independence, but he continued to support the causes for which he was well known:  temperance, antislavery, and anti-Catholicism.  Regarding the latter, Goodwin wrote, “We are uncompromisingly opposed to allowing aliens to dictate to Americans what they may or may not do.”

Goodwin expanded the weekly to a semiweekly in January 1861, and later that year to a daily.  In December 1862, Goodwin sold the American to Johnson H. Jordan and J. C. Burnett, and Company.  The new owners re-titled the paper the Indianapolis Daily Gazette with its first issue appearing on December 29, 1862.  Jordan purchased Burnett’s share and introduced a weekly edition in 1864 titled the Indiana Weekly State Gazette and an evening edition, the Indianapolis Daily Evening Gazette in 1866.  Jordan sold the paper later that year.  The Gazette changed hands several more times before ending publication in 1867.