Vevay got more than its share of publicity because of the Dufour wine endeavor. And local writers contributed a decent amount of literature about the town. This account was published in the Saturday, July 13, 1816 edition of Niles Weekly Register, one of the best known national news organs in the first half of the 1800s. Although it refers to the second issue of the Indiana Register, Niles did not provide the actual date of the publication of the Switzerland County weekly.
Vevay, Indiana. In the second number of the Indiana Register, a neat weekly paper published at Vevay, we have an account of the town. Vevay was laid out in the fall of 1813—but was a forest in 1814. In that year it was selected as a suitable place for the seat of justice for Switzerland county. It stands on the Ohio, 22 feet above the highest freshet, 45 miles by land, 70 by water, below Cincinnati, and contains seventy-five dwelling houses, besides shops, &c. and has a brick court-house, jail and school house. A brick market house Is contracted to be built, and preparations are making for building a house for public worship. It has 8 stores, 3 taverns, 31 mechanics of different professions, with shops, &c. 2 lawyers, 2 physicians, a carding machine and a public library of 300 vols. Receives a mail three times a week, and has several mills in its neighborhood. The site is said to be beautiful and it promises to become the centre of the wine business of the west, the grapes raised here being of a very superior quality. One gentleman calculates on making the present year 1,000 gallons, of wine, which sells at 2S per gallon.
