Stepping Back 150 Years on Indiana’s Scenic Trail

Thomas Gaff made Crescent Beer, which was considered good enough to export to Germany. He also made Thistledew Whiskey, about which little is recorded, and Ceraline, the first packaged cold cereal. And he owned steamships.

With the profits from those sundry enterprises the 19th-Century industrialist could well afford to have any kind of home he wanted, almost anywhere he wanted.

And the house that Gaff built--in 1852 at a crook in the Ohio River called Aurora, Ind.--is the back road tourist’s introductory treat to a lazy, loopy 75-mile stretch of the Ohio River Scenic Route.

Easily reachable from either Cincinnati or Louisville, the clearly marked route winds along the northern, or Indiana bank, of the broad river on Indiana highways 56 and 156 from tiny Aurora to Madison, which has often been described as the nation’s “19th-Century Williamsburg.”

In any season the route offers wide, soothing vistas of the winding river and surrounding hills in Indiana and Kentucky, and a peaceful glimpse back into Midwestern life a century and a half ago.

Overlooking Town, River

Gaff’s lemon-yellow house, Hillforest, is easily found in Aurora, majestically overlooking town and river from the “top” or hill end of Main Street.

Owned by the Gaff family until 1927, the mansion was the meeting and entertainment site for three decades of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars before it was bought and restored in 1956 by the Hillforest Historical Foundation.

Guided tours are available Tuesday-Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. from May 1 to Dec. 23, for a $3 fee. Information about meeting facilities or special events, including Christmas teas and solve-the-murder-mystery buffet dinners, can be obtained by writing to the foundation at P.O. Box 221, Aurora, Ind. 47001, or calling (812) 926-0087.

History-minded townswomen proudly show visitors through the three-story home, designed personally by Gaff, who amusingly incorporated his favorite steamship features into the architecture of an Italian Renaissance villa.

Signed and dated molds for the ornate plaster lace that edges each formal chandelier and ceiling have been found in the foundations of the house, but Gaff’s design plans have never been found.

Chief among Gaff’s steamship-as-house touches is the round third-floor belvedere modeled on a pilot house and complete with mounted spyglass and river charts.

Gaff entertained his male friends here in the room with unquestionably the best view of Aurora and the river.

To underscore the male-only nature of the special aerie, the sole access stairway was built too narrow to accommodate 19th-Century women’s voluminous hoop skirts.

Unsupported Staircase

The house also boasts a vast, unsupported “flying” wooden staircase from the first-floor entry to the second floor, akin to those of river boat grand salons. Despite the creak of the stairs under the tourist’s step, guides point out that the design is so strong that it even supported a pony the Gaff offspring once rode upstairs.

Among the several trompe l’oeil touches that challenge restoration artists and intrigue visitors are flat wallpaper that appears to be recessed molding, and peacock glass windows in the huge cypress doors, which are red and gold on one side and red and blue on the reverse.

The mansion contains a small shop with post cards and needlework and a small museum with Gaff family news clippings and memorabilia.

The broad front porch with rocking chairs and a stone-seated perch atop the outdoor “melon cellar,” where the Gaffs cooled foods with ice cut and carried from the frozen river, afford peaceful places to rest and reflect before continuing the trip.

Just downriver from Aurora sits the dot on the map called Rising Sun, where vacationers can picnic in a delightful river-bank park, or on weekends and holidays take a sightseeing or dinner cruise on the Hoosier Belle.

Rising Sun is a good starting point for camping, fishing or boating excursions in the area.

Information can be obtained from the Rising Sun Tourism Bureau, P.O. Box 95, Rising Sun, Ind. 47040, or by calling (812) 438-2319. Information on tours or charters and reservations on the Hoosier Belle are available by calling (812) 438-3212.

Meandering farther along the scenic route the traveler arrives in Switzerland County and the tiny town of Vevay (pronounced Veevy), named and misspelled for the settlers’ hometown of Vevey, Switzerland.

Wine Grapes Planted

Obtaining a land grant for the area in 1802, the Swiss planted wine grapes in the sandy soil. The grape culture eventually was replaced by tobacco and other crops, and the river town prospered.

With a population of about 2,000, the modern Vevay is a cozy town that plays host to horse-pulling contests in June, ice cream socials on the Fourth of July and a Swiss wine festival in August. The weekly Switzerland Democrat prints community news such as:

“It’s been gloomy all day here on Tapps Ridge and we had a few showers. I told the kids this is blackberry winter and they are in bloom. Mrs. Maude Hamilton called on Mrs. Hildred James Sunday afternoon.”

And, “Berniece Scott saw her doctor in Madison Monday due to her hip coming out of place. The life squad took her to the hospital where they put the hip back into place. The life squad brought her home. William and Vandora Bennett called on her that evening.”

Wandering on foot or slowly by car along Vevay’s little-traveled streets, the history or architecture buff can easily find favorites:

The columned brick Switzerland County Courthouse, completed in 1864 at a cost of $30 million and still serving the county’s 7,150 residents; the birthplace of Edward Eggleston, who wrote the Midwestern classic “The Hoosier Schoolmaster”; or the Coon Saloon, an occasional stopping place for Daniel Boone.

Indian artifacts, Ohio River lore, Civil War mementos and Indiana’s oldest piano are on display in the county’s Historical Museum at Main and Market streets. It is open Wednesday through Sunday, May through October, 12:30-4:30 p.m., and admission costs $1.

On the west end of Vevay, where state highways 156 and 56 rejoin, is the Scenic Route’s best place to spend a night, or more--the Ogle Haus Inn.

Antique-Filled Hotel

Built only a few years ago by a wealthy history-minded citizen, the antique-filled hotel resembles a Bavarian-Swiss inn, complete with stein room. The river-view dining room offers a wide range of delectable and affordable entrees from blackened Cajun whitefish at $7.95 to the more expected German-Swiss fare of sauerbraten at $11.55 or Wiener schnitzel at $10.55.

The inn has 50 balconied rooms, most with a river view and a happy mix of modern and antique furniture, meeting and banquet facilities for up to 200, a solarium for reading or cards, an outdoor pool and a river-bank gazebo poised for catching the breeze and watching the soothing river roll by.

Rates are $55-$60 for singles and $60-$65 for doubles April 1-Oct. 31, and $15 less in the remaining months. Suites also are available. For information or reservations, write to Ogle Haus Inn, P.O. Box 177, Vevay, Ind. 47043, or phone (812) 427-2020.

Twenty miles downriver lies Madison, the verdant, hilly backdrop for the films “Raintree County” and “Some Came Running.”

Incorporated in 1824, the impeccably maintained “19th-Century Williamsburg” is a demonstration city of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. And 133 city blocks are listed in the National Registry of Historic Places.

As a pioneer transportation hub of river boats, railroads and wagons, Madison was once Indiana’s most prominent and prosperous city.

The wealthy settlers built sturdy homes like those they left behind in Virginia or Maryland. The mansions still stand, some historians claim, because there was no money to tear them down when fortunes fell flat.

Greek Revival Mansion

Most imposing of the homes is the beautifully restored Greek Revival mansion of financier J. F. D. Lanier, which is appropriately maintained by the state of Indiana. During the Civil War, Lanier magnanimously loaned the faltering state treasury $1 million interest free.

Lanier’s home and extensive garden stretching down to the river front are open to the public.

Shops in the city’s converted trolley barn and an antique mall in a former paper mill, plus frequent sidewalk flea markets, make Madison a delightful place to shop or browse.

Madison, which annually stages a Chatauqua of the Arts fair and a Christmas candlelight tour of historic sites, was not always so genteel.

In the mid-1800s pirates sometimes sank river boats at that bend of the river. Even among the area’s solid citizens, one-third of all voters purportedly had been arrested for non-payment of debts, rioting or disturbances, and 90% of the farmers had their own stills.

A schedule of special events, maps of historic homes and other information can be obtained from the Madison Chamber of Commerce, Madison, Ind. 47250.

Above Indiana 56, appropriately beside yet another of the imposing county courthouses strewn throughout Indiana, the familiar blue and white sign in Madison declares “End Ohio River Scenic Route.”

That back road getaway is accessible from Cincinnati or its airport in northern Kentucky by driving northwest on Interstate 275, crossing the Ohio River into Indiana at Lawrenceburg, then turning west on U.S. 50 at Exit 16, and southwest on Indiana 56 at Aurora.

From Louisville, drive northeast on I-71, exiting north on U.S. 421 and crossing the river into Madison, then turning east on Indiana 56.