Colonel Vigus

Mrs. Mary Ely Post, oldest daughter of Dr. Post, who left quite a story of her recollections, says that their neighbors on the east, on the corner of 7^th, included W.R. Davis, better known as “Uncle Billy”, a gin maker at 51 Market.  On the west, down the hill, Colonel Jordan Vigus lived, eh was Logansport’s first mayor.

 
According to Mrs. Ely, Vigus had a store on the “corner of 6^th Street”.  His terraced lot was planted with cherry trees, making most attractive rows of blossoms in the spring and still more attractive alleys of fruit laden branches in the summer.

 
Vigus was a man of many interests.  For at least one term he kept the post office in that store.  A Virginian by birth, he had moved to Lexington, Kentucky when he was 18 and served with the 1^st Kentucky Regiment during the War of 1812.  In 1816 he went to Corydon, then the capitol, where he operated a tallow shop and tavern and served as director of the Corydon branch Bank.  He followed the removal of the capitol to Indianapolis in 1825, where he again operated a tavern until 1828 when he joined John Tipton on the banks of the Wabash.

 
He was one of the first commissioners of the Wabash and Erie Canal and was one of the men who struck the first pick into the soil to start that project in Fort Wayne on Feb. 22, 1832.

Transcribed by Christine Spencer, April, 2009