Tonight I am thinking of a trip that I made to Crawfordsville, Indiana 11 years ago.

This is mainly as I am virtually teaching a class in Indianapolis this week and next. When I visited Crawfordsville, I had also visited some friends in Indianapolis. More on the visit to my friends there in a post coming soon.

I have actually been thinking of Crawfordsville recently as the trip happened during fall and I took some great pictures of leaves while I was there.

Crawfordsville was the home of General Lew Wallace. He served in the Mexican-American war, became a lawyer and was also a general for the Union in the Civil War.

The picture above is of his study, which is in very nice park like setting.

After the end of the Civil War Wallace returned to Crawfordsville where he wrote most of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ while sitting under a beech tree near his house.

Wallace finished the novel in 1880 while serving as the territorial governor of the New Mexico Territory. He then served as the U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire from 1881 – 1885.

After returning to Indiana he had his study built so that he would have a place of solitude where he could spend time alone while studying or writing. He also needed a place to keep his small library of more than 1,000 books.

Crawfordsville also has a very nice Carnegie Library which is now a museum.

In the basement of the museum there is a really cool old voting machine. I have used this picture in some posts that I have written about elections, so it is also in my mind in this week that has been dominated by election news.

Some interesting memories tonight.

Steven