Musical Memories: How Music Has Shaped Hoosier History

7 Locations | Curated by Caroline Emenaker

Music is everywhere. From the theme of your favorite show to the music you turn on in the car, we move through our lives with the musical memories we create. It can be hard to imagine the lives of Hoosiers in the past. However, music allows us to feel how they felt and carry the sounds of their experiences into today.

This tour examines moments and movements in Indiana History through music. For many, music was an integral part of religious worship found in churches and religious meetings. It served as the beating heart of battles in early American conflict. Music could teach societal lessons through stories and the news of the day. There were even festivals and concerts that brought orchestras and classical music to Hoosier ears.

Some locations of music performances and movements still exist. Other buildings are long torn down. This tour starts with Fort Wayne and the Revolutionary War. It moves then to Lawrenceburg near the border of Ohio. Finally, it stops in central Indiana at the turn of the 20th century. Just as songs have traveled throughout time and place, so does this tour.

The area comprising Fort Wayne, IN was a homeland to several cultures of indigenous people long before the American Revolution. In pre-contact times, North American Indians hunted wildlife and lived in the area after the glaciers melted. Later populations constructed a community, which included…
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On January 10, 1820, Amasa Fuller shot and killed Palmer Warren in his office in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Fuller had been engaged to a young lady when he left for Brookeville, Indiana, in late 1819. That December, Amasa received a letter from Palmer Warren, signed by Fuller’s future wife, renouncing…
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In 1837, Presbyterians in the United States began to split over theological issues. The “Old School” Presbyterians of the first church wanted to maintain their religious views and were more tolerant of slavery. The “New School” supported abolition and reform. On November 13, 1838, the Second…
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On June 16, 1859, a Methodist camp was founded in the Indianapolis District of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Located in London, Indiana, part of Shelby County, a group of twenty-eight ministers, Methodists, and laymen founded a campground in Indianapolis. Originally, the area was a village named…
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In 1854, six German men founded the Indianapolis Maennerchor or “Men’s Choir”. Their members formed the group to keep their German heritage alive in Indianapolis. Singing songs from Germany, their first public concert was on May 28, 1855. Within a year, they had turned from a small amateur choir to…
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By the 1870s, more business flowed toward Richmond, Indiana. In 1872, George Trayser, a renowned piano maker from Germany who had previously maintained factories in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, and had been awarded several U.S. patents for his innovative piano technology, moved his operations along…
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Music festivals in the 19th century were grand and well attended. Tomlinson Hall, a large civic building, was built in the 1870s and 1880s right next to the City Market near Monument Circle. The building was over 20,000 square feet and designed to seat 4,200 guests and 650 people on stage. For…
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