Dog Taken into Custody

Vincennes Capital November 28, 1903:

George Os­wald, a mussel digger, was arrested on a charge of intox­ication and along with him were two sons, aged 19 and 14, and an innocent dog who was tied to the arm of the younger boy. The old man purchased his whiskey by the jug and gave it to his sons so freely that they were soon too weak to navigate and lay down in the barn of Mr. Byers a few blocks away from police headquarters where they were taken into custody along with the dog.

Pearls were never the primary reason for the Wabash and Embarrass rivers’ mussel industry. Buttons were. The mussel shells themselves were used in the manufacture of buttons since 1887, and shells by the tons were used in the early 1900’s. Plastic buttons didn’t exist, wooden buttons tended to break, and metal buttons were too heavy. Vin­cennes was the site of the largest privately-owned button fac­tory in the nation.

The button factory in St. Francisville at 13th and Button Street (formerly Cherry Street) cut 500-700 blanks a week. In 1904, that factory employed 10 men. The shells sold for $3- 12 a ton depending on the type of shell. The shells were then sold by the carload to farmers to burn and use to enrich the soil. The meat was fed to the hogs.

About 1905, while removing the mussel meat from the shell a worker discovered a pearl. Soon other workers made similar discoveries. The local jeweler inspected the pearls and announced they were valuable. At that time, when la­borers worked for less than a dollar a day, a pearl worth $100 or more represented a fortune.

News of the pearl discovery spread like wildfire. Clerks left their stores, hired hands abandoned their plows and fisher­men turned from fish to mussels. Pearl fever spread as quickly as gold fever had in 1849. Pearl buyers flocked in from New York, Paris, Spain, England, Hungary and Belgium. The biggest and best freshwater pearls were selling for $500- $3000. A hired hand earned about $200 a year; the average house in Vincennes sold for $500-$1000. Finding one good pearl could put a person on ‘easy street’.

There was always the dream of one day coming home with a great pearl, and several did. At the turn of the century, the Wabash River near Vincennes teemed with activity as a spe­cial breed of fishermen searched for an elusive treasure that lay on the river’s bed—fresh water mussels and the elusive pearl that lay hidden within the shell.

A fortune in gems came from the Wabash during this maddest, most exciting chapter in fortune hunting. For a period of seven or eight years there was more money coming off the river than there was from all the corn and wheat harvested together, and all the coal mined, on either side of the Wabash River.

For more about this time in history, see our book Water Water Everywhere for sale at the Research Library, History Center, Finishing Touch and on-line at our shop on our webpage.

From the LCHS Collection of Pearl Buttons. During the 1890's through the early 1900's, 1.5 billion buttons were made each year.  After completion the buttons were hand sewn unto cards by women and children.  A button was handled about 30 times before being offered for sale. The advent of plastic buttons and mussel depletion ended the use of mother of pearl buttons.