VanVleet Passages from History of Fayette County Indiana, Her People, Industries and Institutions
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Abraham Van Vleet biography and related passages excerpted from
History of Fayette County Indiana, Her People, Industries and Institutions

Contributor:
Stefani Evans on 22 January 2005
Source:
Frederic Irving Barrows, Ed., History of Fayette County Indiana, Her People, Industries and Institutions (Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Co., 1917).
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p. 294

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES AND FAIRS
In the summer of 1834 an attempt was made to organize an agricultural society in Fayette county. Horace [sic] Van Vleet, then editor of The Watchman, published at Connersville, wrote several articles on agriculture and explained the importance of an agricultural society. On the solicitation of a number of farmers he published a call for a meeting, which was responded to and resulted in the appointment of General Caldwell for president and Horace Van Vleet, secretary. About forty dollars was subscribed and paid in for the organization to Van Vleet, but soon after this Van Vleet died. No claim was made for the agricultural fund, and the first attempt to organize an agricultural society came to an end with the death of the man who tried to establish it.

[Stefani Evans Note: This is likely Dennis Van Liew Van Vleet, son of Abraham Van Vleet and his wife Catharine Van Derbeek, born 21 August 1808 and baptized 15 Oct 1808 in Somerset County, New Jersey. Dennis, co-editor of The Watchman with Samuel W. Parker, died suddenly in Connersville, Indiana; 4 November 1834 aged 26 years.]
p. 435 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AT CONNERSVILLE
In the year 1824 the Cincinnati Presbytery of the "old school" of the Presbyterian church sent Rev. Daniel Hayden to Connersville to preach, and, if practicable, to form a society. Reverend Hayden came to the village on Saturday, October 22, and preached in the court house the following day and then on Monday organized the society. A. Van Vleet, Adam Smeltser and John Boyd were elected the ruling elders.
p. 465 THE PRESS OF FAYETTE COUNTY
It is not certain when the first newspaper was established in Connersville, but it seems that the Indiana Statesman was started in the county seat some time in 1824 by Abraham Van Fleet. Van Fleet, a native of New Jersey, had come to Connersville in 1820 from Lebanon, Ohio, where he had learned to set type on the Western Star, and started a paper of his own in Connersville as soon as he felt that he had sufficient patronage to make it a profitable venture. It is not known how long the paper was issued, but it appears very evident that it disappeared before 1826.
There is a strong probability that the Indiana Statesman was followed by the Observer, which made its appearance in June, 1826 (Vol. 1, No.4, was dated July 8, 1826), under the proprietorship of the same Van Fleet and one Daniel Rench. Undoubtedly it was printed in the same shop as the Statesman and the evidence would seem to indicate that it was the latter paper under a new name. At the time of the Observer's establishment it was a small four-column folio. In 1828 it published the local laws of the state. Some time before 1829 Van Fleet retired from the paper in favor of John Sample, who had been sheriff of the county from 1821 to 1825. Sample and Rench issued their last number on May 8, 1830, having sold out to Samuel W. Parker.
p. 466 OTHER PAPERS OF BRIEF CAREERS
Samuel W. Parker and D. Van Fleet issued the first number of the Watchman on May 31, 1834, a successor very likely of either the Indiana Sentinel or the Argus. Parker had formerly been connected with the Political Clarion and he became the editor of the new paper.
p. 474-475 ABRAHAM VAN VLEET (or Fleet)
Abraham Van Vleet, the founder of the first newspaper in Fayette county, was born in New Jersey in 1783. His career prior to his location in Connersville in 1823 is not definitely known, but it appears that about 1812 he located in Lebanon, Ohio, and shortly afterward became connected with the Western Star, then published at that place. It is not known whether he learned the printing business in the office of that paper, or whether he had served his apprenticeship before going there. It is well established that he came to Connersville in 1823, bringing with him sufficient equipment to publish a paper. The population of the town and county was evidently not large enough to support a paper, although a reference to the Indiana Statesman in the commissioners' records in 1824 proves conclusively that he had a paper going for a time at least in that year.
No copies of this first paper in the county have been preserved, and consequently it is impossible to speak with definiteness concerning it. A fugitive issue of the second paper (Vol. 1, No.4) published in the town, the Observer, carrying the names of Abraham Van Vleet and Daniel Rench as publishers, is dated July 8, 1826, which would indicate that it was started in the first week of June of that year. Van Vleet severed his connection with the paper sometime prior to 1830 and either turned his interest over to John Sample, Jr., or to Rench. It is certain that Sample was part owner in May, 1830, since on the 8th of that month the paper contains the valedictory of Rench and Sample; conveying the definite information that they have sold it to Samuel W. Parker. Van Fleet, according to the best authority, went to New York city in 1831 and died in that city the following year.
p. 521 Other business interests in Connersville up to the 1830s were the tin, sheet-iron and copper factory, owned by J. Dawson; Hull & Fearis, saddlers; John Willey, meat market; Merrifield & Miller, hatters; Christian Beck, gunsmith; H. Goodlander, jeweler; A. Van Vleet and Hiram Bundy, weavers; John Perin and Lyman Carpenter, oil millers; A. Conklin and W. H. Coombs, chair factory; Thomas Rutter was a hatter; _____ Frisbee, tannery; George W. Parks, blacksmith; George W. Reed, tailoring; Nicholas Baker, shoemaking; J. Hart, tinner; Silas Ford, spinning wheels; Robert Griffis, saddlery; John McCoy, hatter, and Isaac Wood, spinning wheels.

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