Indiana State Fair - 1938 Northwest Territory Pageant

During this fair season I've spent most of my effort digging up (hopefully) interesting pictures and ads, easy reads that connect those of us who enjoy attending the fair with the people who felt the same in the past. Today I’m going to dig a little deeper and take a look at the 1938 Indiana State Fair and the Northwest Territory Pageant which played a major part in that year’s festivities. The Pageant was conceived as a celebration of the opening of the Northwest Territory to settlement.

In 1786 the Ohio Company of Associates was organized to promote the establishment of a settlement in what at that time was the western country. They raised funds and sent a representative to Congress to apply for the purchase of the necessary land. By 1787 the Northwest Ordinance had been passed by the US congress and a territory larger than any country in Europe (except Russia) was opened to settlement. The men of the Ohio Company set forth on December 3^rd, 1787 and arrived in what would become Marietta Ohio on April 7, 1788 where they set up the first civil government under the Ordinance west of the Allegheny Mountains.

150 years later, the Northwest Territory Celebration Commission began preparations to celebrate the contribution of these early settlers. They recruited a caravan of thirty six collage students to reenact the trek of the Ohio Company, bought two yoke of oxen, five cavalry horses, and assembled a Conestoga wagon from antiques salvaged from barns and carriage sheds in Pennsylvania’s Conestoga Valley.

Suited up in period gear, the commemorative party set forth from Ipswich, Massachusetts on December 3, 1937 and reached West Newton, Pennsylvania in fifty two days. In West Newton the party built flatboats, canoes, and a pirogue (a small flat-bottomed boat). They floated down the Youghiogheny River toward Marietta, Ohio, arriving on April 7, 1938.

Having completed the reenactment, the party made a tour of the states that rose from the Northwest Territory (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan), performing at festivals and fairs along the way. The planners of the sesquicentennial had created promotional materials for this phase of the celebration including four-color maps showing the phases of settlement and the native peoples who were displaced as the settlers moved westward. These maps included the text of the Ordinance of 1787 and were distributed to school children as educational material. A bibliography listing all known published materials on the settlement of the Northwest Territory also was created for and distributed for free to teachers within the territory. 

Ordinance of 1787 Stamp

1938 150th Anniversary Stamp

Two commemorative stamps were released for the sesquicentennial. The first, known as the Ordinance of 1787 stamp, was issued on July 13, 1937 and first day sales held in New York City as well as Marietta, Ohio. The second was issued on July 15, 1938 and commemorated the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the first civil government west of the original thirteen states. Commemorative ox team mail was offered, carrying letters along with the Pioneer Caravan from Ipswich to Marietta. A special cachet of letters was issued by the commission and the letters stamped and postmarked at Ipswich and again upon arrival at the Marietta Post Office. From Marietta they were re-mailed to the original addressee through regular mail.

The Commission also produced a historical novel in association with the commemoration. The novel was intended as an aid in teaching American history to high school students. Meade Minnigerode penned The Black Forest, combining historic facts with a romantic plot line.

Additionally there were school contests and local celebrations, but the main and most visible feature of the commemoration had to be the Northwest Territory Pageant linked with the caravan reenacting the trek of the Ohio Company. The Pageant directly involved each of the states which made up the Northwest Territory and through it the entire name became more aware of the sesquicentennial. The speed of the caravan was dictated by the plodding pace of its oxen and children along the route were able to touch the beasts of burden, connecting physically and conceptually with the life and struggles of the early settlers of their states.

Sioux Leaders at 1938 Indiana State Fair

In 1938 the caravan reached Indianapolis, putting in an appearance at the Indiana State Fair where they pitched camp near a band of Sioux who were taking part in the pageant. According to a doctoral paper written in 1948 by Carl Applegate on the topic of the Northwest Territory Celebration:

“To the left of the caravan the merits of a two-headed cow were being extolled by her proud owner. Though the area was filled with side-show people, the long hair and well trimmed beards of the "pioneers" attracted attention. They heard the query of the carnival folk who said, "Where you been, how'd you do, where you goin' next?"

The pageant was staged at the fairground’s mile oval racetrack, but the effort proved a mistake. A horse-pull was being staged on one side of the track while the other hosted an exhibition of dairy cattle, leaving spectators watching three events simultaneously. On September 17^th the caravan arrived in Vincennes in a rainstorm with just twelve days remaining in their trek.

Staging the Pageant at the 1938 Indiana State Fair

One last Indiana connection can be made through one of the dogs which accompanied the caravan along its route. Stogy (short for Conestoga) deserted the party somewhere in Indiana. The exact location where Stogy took his exit is a mystery, I didn’t find any reference aside from a citing in Applegate’s paper, but somewhere in Indiana lay the bones of dear Stogy.

I’ll end by echoing the sentiment expressed in Applegate’s work, though we no longer look westward and load up Conestoga wagons or flatboats to set off for unexplored horizons doesn’t mean we’re finished with being pioneers. We’re a questing people, an inherently incomplete and imperfect nation seeking something we cannot even define. The most valuable thing we can take from our forefathers isn’t the need for more territory or the blind desire to impose their social norms on other peoples, it is the ability to endure, forebear, and persevere over all obstacles no matter how impenetrable they may seem.