USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume II > Part 1
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
L
7 ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 02427 2509
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
http://www.archive.org/details/standardhistoryo02howa
A STANDARD HISTORY OF
Lake County, Indiana AND THE Calumet Region
Under the Editorial Supervision of WILLIAM FREDERICK HOWAT, M. D. Hammond, Indiana
Assisted by
A. G. LUNDQUIST
A. M. TURNER
C. O. HOLMES GEORGE W. LEWIS CAPT. H. S. NORTON JOHN J. WHEELER ALBERT MAACK
VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED
THIE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY CIIICAGO AND NEW YORK
1915
-
By Hill Bookseller- $22.50 (2VEIS)
1159707
Loui Louie Bry any
Lake County and the Calumet Region
HON. LOUIS A. BRYAN. In popular opinion the history of Gary begins with the year 1906, with the magnificent enterprise of the United States Steel Corporation in creating an industrial city from the founda- tion up. However, much interesting history precedes the coming of the Steel Corporation, and concerning the phase of Gary's growth and devel- opment no one man is better informed or had a more intimate part in the actual events than Louis A. Bryan, to whom may properly be given the credit for the farsighted vision which looked ahead nearly twenty years and visualized the splendid city which now stands on the lake shore and is known to the world as Gary. Mr. Bryan acquired his interests and established his home in what is now Gary in 1894, and what is of special interest to note, established in 1896 the Calumet Advance, which was the first newspaper published on the site of the modern city, and he also held the office of postmaster of the Village of Calumet from 1898 to 1906, and was justice of the peace for the same period. The files of the Advance contain many valuable statistics of the early history of Gary, and Mr. Bryan has contributed much other information from data in his pos- session and from his personal recollections to the editors of this publica- tion. A brief sketch of his own career is therefore an appropriate sub- ject for the biographical contents of this history.
Louis A. Bryan was born near Jackson, Michigan, September 16, 1855, a son of Asahel and Louisa (Coomer) Bryan, being the youngest of eight children. From his father, Asahel Bryan, he inherited his sterling character, his love for pioneering, and taste for the law and mechanical pursuits, and during his early years learned in the school of actual experience horsemanship, scientific farming, the craft of the woodsman, and the trades of cabinet maker and machinist. He became an expert with many tools, and at Lansing was at one time engaged in making coffins and fine furniture. While a resident of Michigan he was for thirteen years engaged in the agricultural implement business, and rep- resented as general agent Aultman, Miller & Co., of Akron, Ohio, manu- facturers of the "Buckeye" haying and harvesting machinery. From Michigan he went to Omaha, Nebraska, where he established the only coffin factory at that time west of Chicago, and sold his goods to the wholesale trade.
Mr. Bryan is a lawyer by profession, having read law in the intervals of his business career, and was admitted to the bar at Chicago in 1890. While engaged in practice at Chicago he came to Lake County in 1894, when there was little except dense forest between Whiting and Michigan City, and bought several thousand acres of land, much of which is now included within the city limits of Gary. His home at what is now Island
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Park, consisting of nearly twenty acres, was carved with his own hand out of what was then only a dense jungle of sand and swale. It was at that time that he planned a city, which to a large degree was the prede- cessor of the modern Gary. He laid out, and at his own expense par- tially improved, twenty miles of the present streets, including Broadway from the Wabash Railway tracks south to the Little Calumet River. He did that city planning from 1894 to 1906. While here in those early days he secured the location and erection of an extensive piano-stool factory, one of the early industries. The factory buildings were later transformed into and now constitute the terminal station of the Gary and Interurban Railroad at Twenty-second Avenue and Jefferson Street. He was also for several years engaged in the cultivation of 225 acres of land, and for about eight years operated an extensive business in sand, selling two trainloads of sand every day. At one time he had a Belgian hare farm, and kept about twenty-five hundred of those animals. From his land he sold some four hundred tons of hay every year, and cultivated about forty aeres of corn, potatoes and other crops. Being confident that this portion of the lake shore would some day be the site of a great city, he bought all the land he could, and used his influence wherever possible to promote the development and establish the foundation for the coming city. From 1890 to 1900 Mr. Bryan practiced law in Chicago, and was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1900. During his career as a lawyer he has handled about thirty-three hundred lawsuits. He is justly entitled to the distinction of being the first citizen of Gary, the first postmaster, the first justice of the peace; he established the first newspaper in the district, was the first to sign the petition for the incorporation of Gary, held and directed its first election, and was Gary's first treasurer.
Since the Steel Corporation acquired its holdings and began the building of its great plant in 1906, Mr. Bryan has been rapidly disposing of his extensive land holdings in this vicinity. A large part of the resi- dence and business district of Gary has grown up on land that was at one time owned by him.
On January 6, 1876, Mr. Bryan married Evva Courter, of Dimondale. Michigan. Her death occurred in 1910. Into their home they adopted a niece, Mona Demode, who married Harry L. Sultzbaugh. a promising young business man who is now actively engaged in the real estate busi- ness in Gary.
On August 18, 1912, Mr. Bryan married Winifred Harner, daughter of Mr. Henry Harner, of Detroit. They have one son. Roderick Louis Bryan, born July 5, 1913. This son, now at the age of only two years. shows many evidences of genius beyond the ordinary, and with the multi- tude of advantages which will be his, not possessed by his father or his grandfather in their youth, a future may be predicted for him that will enable him to carve his mark also upon history's page.
Mr. Bryan cast his first vote (1876) in support of prohibition prin- eiples, and has been one of the ardent workers in that party ever sinee. For ten years he was the only man in Calumet Township who voted the prohibition ticket. He has displayed great courage and persistence in advocating the restriction of the liquor traffic in his community, and the incident is still remembered by many citizens how in 1908 he caused the closing and illegalizing of 119 saloons in Gary in a single night. Mr. Bryan has been a member of the Good Templars' organization since 1869; has held the offiees of worthy chief of the local lodge, district chief of the district lodge, and grand worthy chief of the grand lodge of that
Asachel Bryan
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
organization. IIe has also been affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows for more than thirty-five years, having filled all of the highest offices in both lodge and encampment of that order, and is a member of the Jenkin Lloyd Jones Church, Lincoln Center, in Chicago. As a worker for temperance and woman suffrage he has made speaking campaigns all over the United States, and always at his own expense. He has spoken before many notable Chautauqua audiences on the live topics of the hour, but always advocating the extermination of the drinking saloon and the rightfulness of woman's ballot, refusing at all times to accept any compensation for his services. While his property holdings in Lake County are most conspicuous, he also holds large inter- ests in Jackson, Michigan, in Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles, Cali- fornia. ITis residence is considered the finest private home in Indiana. surrounded by beautiful grounds, and is one of the show places of Gary. Mr. Bryan is an enthusiastie motorist, having bought his first automobile in 1902, and has owned some twenty-five machines since that time. He has toured the entire country, including the Pacific Coast States many times, driving his ear through the Everglades of Florida, besides pene- trating far into both Canada and Mexico. His experience in handling and adjusting and repairing machinery gained in early life made it possible for him to do these things without the aid of any meehanician whatsoever. At one time he drove his car over the rails of the Santa Fe from Los Angeles to Chicago in eight days, running only in daylight, and operating his car as a special under regular dispatchers' orders, taking and maintaining the right-of-way over all fast trains at all times, arriving in Chicago promptly on schedule limit. He is also a lover of fine horses and in the days before the automobile kept twenty or more which were regarded as the best in the country. He is an expert rider and driver and is very fond of outdoor sports.
Mr. Bryan has been an intense student and has found time during his busy life to delve deeply into many subjects, notable among which are astronomy and phrenology. He has constructed a tower on the new house at Island Park for the installation of a more powerful telescope which is being made to his order, and with which he expects to learn many things as yet to him unknown that may be revealed in the starry vaults of the universe.
By his knowledge of phrenology he is able to read human character as one reads a signboard by the wayside. He has written many inter- esting things and is now engaged on a simple phrenological study for young men which will enable its possessor to read human nature unerr- ingly at sight. .
The results of his observations into the stellar spaces and his researches into the nature of humankind are being carefully compiled for the benefit of his young son, Roderick Louis Bryan.
Hon. Asahel Bryan, the father of Louis A. Bryan, and grandfather of Roderick Louis Bryan, was one of the remarkable men of the age in which he lived. Born February 4, 1815, on a farm in Camden, Oneida County, in the State of New York, he first became a farmer, then a mechanic, then a surveyor, then a legislator, then a lawyer, and finally a judge.
At the age of only sixteen years he left the old home in New York State and struck out for the Western "unknown." A freight barge on the Erie Canal landed him in Buffalo and a sailing ship on Lake Erie landed him in Detroit. Even at that age he was a sturdy and competent
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
farm hand, a skilled carpenter and joiner, and exceptionally proficient with surveying instruments.
At the age of twenty-one he was married to Miss Louisa Coomer, daughter of David and Betsy Coomer, of Farmington, Oakland County, and became one of the leading spirits in the early activities in Michigan, he being one of the dauntless few to help mark out and establish and create the history of that very prosperous and wealthy and progressive and remarkable state. In nearly all of its early history his handiwork and the marks of his genius and influence can be seen. He was one of the foremost figures and controllers in the change from territory to state at the time Michigan was admitted into the Union (1837), he being then less than twenty-three years old.
Ile was influential as a legislator, and was the author of the law abolishing capital punishment in that state, for which act millions have blessed his name. And the fact that there has been and is much less crime as a consequence of such a law (saying nothing of the rightfulness of it) proves the wisdom and foresightedness of the measure. The high- est quality of statesmanship consists in foreseeing, far in advance, bene- ficial results of legislative action.
This legislative act of his which forever put a stop in that state to the brutal practice of taking human life by law was only one of the many measures beneficial to posterity for which he stood like adamant. He was a perfect axman and an unerring shot. With his keen-edged and glittering ax and his handy, trusty rifle he carved out from the dense forest among savage, wild beasts, three magnificent farms, the first at Novi, Oakland County; the second at Richfield, Genesee County, and then with the moving of the state capital from Detroit to Lansing, in 1847, the last and best in Tompkins, Jackson County, in a great bend of Grand River, where Louis A. Bryan, the subject of the sketeh, was born.
On his farm in Jackson County he raised many fine horses and when the war of the rebellion broke out in 1861 he turned over his entire stable, consisting of some twenty or more of the finest cavalry mounts, to the Government without asking for any payment whatever.
As a horseman he had as few equals as in other things. IIe never met a man who could beat him at a game of checkers, or who could shoot straighter, or locate a section corner in the deep forest with more accu- racy. He never saw a horse that he could not teach to be ridden, driven and worked. and he never used a whip or spur. The largest tree he ever remembered cutting was a great white oak which measured five feet across the stump, and he felled it in two hours. He was a judge for many years, and his decrees were always tempered with mercy and he never sentenced a human being to the death penalty. He never did any dissipating ; his habits were elean, his thoughts pure, and his language unoffending. No one ever saw him either angry or exeited. Those who knew him slightly respected him. Those who knew him better admired his life, and those who knew him best loved him for what he was.
He passed from this life at the ripe age of eighty years, never at any time having met with any accident or sustained any personal injury, or ever having been confined to his home with sickness for even so much as a single day in all his life. He was a member of the Masonic fraternity and stood high in that organization.
After breakfast on the morning of his eightieth birthday he called his sons and daughters into his presence and after reciting to them many of the stirring events of his life's career he hid them all good-bye, then
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went peacefully to sleep. In ten minutes his breathing became per- ceptibly shorter, and still shorter, until, in another ten minutes he ceased to breathe altogether. His passing was like unto the dropping of ripe fruit.
Asahel Bryan's was a perfect life and a perfect death, and whether his son, Louis A. Bryan, and his grandson, Roderick Louis Bryan, will be able to equal or exceed the records made by their illustrious forebear is a problem that remains as yet unsolved.
JOHN D. SMALLEY. The present mayor of the City of Hammond has lived there for more than twenty years, is a veteran in the railway service, and has been an official of the city for the past nine years, leav- ing the office of city comptroller to take his present office. His adminis- tration as mayor during the past three years has been in every respect praiseworthy, and many improvements in municipal affairs may be traced to the energetic leadership of Mayor Smalley.
John D. Smalley was born at Upper Sandusky, Ohio. He graduated from the high school in his native city in 1878, and during the following two years was employed as a bookkeeper at Nashville, Tennessee. Re- turning to Ohio in 1880, he entered the employ of the Pennsylvania railroad, and has been a railroad man for more than thirty years. While with the Pennsylvania Company he was promoted from one position to another, and in 1892 came to Hammond to become agent for the Erie railroad. From the duties of local agent in 1903 he was moved to larger responsibilities as supervising inspector of the joint rates inspection bureau with headquarters in Chicago. However, Mr. Smalley has re- tained his residence in Hammond.
On May 1, 1905, he was appointed city comptroller and held that office until March 8, 1911. On the resignation of Judge Lawrence Becker as mayor he was appointed to fill the vacancy, and was regularly elected mayor in November, 1913, on the democratic ticket.
JOHN H. CLAUSSEN. A Crown Point business man with many years of profitable relations with the community, John H. Claussen is a native of Germany but has spent most of his life in Northern Indiana, and has been a farmer, was in the agricultural implement business for some years, and finally took advantage of the opportunities created by the rapid growth of the automobile business and now handles some of the leading makes of cars sold in Lake County. Mr. Claussen has proved himself the man for the business in which he is now occupied, and his popularity and prominence in automobile circles is steadily increasing.
John H. Claussen was born in Germany May 30, 1872, a son of Claus C. and Phoebe Claussen. His father, who was a farmer both in Germany and after his removal to America, came to Porter County, Indiana, in 1882 and to Lake County in 1888. The son finished his education after arriving in Indiana, and as a youth entered a wholesale produce and grocery house in Chicago, where he remained from 1886 to 1894 and gained an extensive knowledge of trade and business gen- erally. Returning to the Indiana farm, he followed agriculture for some years, and in 1903 established himself in the agricultural imple- ment business at Crown Point with Charles H. Meeker, under the firm name of Meeker & Claussen. In 1911 Mr. Claussen sold out his interests in the firm and established a local agency for the handling of automo-
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biles. His chief business now is distributing the cars of higher grade, the Chalmers, Studebaker, Maxwell, Overland and Apperson.
Mr. Claussen for the past six years has served as township trustee. For two years he was general superintendent of the Lake County Agri- cultural Society. Besides his other business he is half owner in the Hayes & Claussen East Park subdivision at Crown Point. Mr. Claus- sen is a member and director of the Crown Point Chamber of Commerce, affiliates with the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America, and the Independent Order of Foresters, and his family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
On February 10, 1897, Mr. Claussen married Anna Kuehl of Lake County. Their four children are Harry, Arthur, Benjamin and Bernice.
CHARLES H. MEEKER. The Meeker family have been identified with Lake County for more than forty-five years, and Mr. Charles H. Meeker has been best known in Crown Point, the county seat, as a dealer in agricultural implements, a business started by him more than twenty years ago.
Charles H. Meeker was born in Calhoun County, Michigan, Novem- ber 2, 1857, a son of Sherman and Elizabeth A. (Cress) Meeker. The father, who was a native of Pennsylvania, moved out to Illinois, later to Michigan, and in 1867 settled in Center Township of Lake County and was a farmer until his retirement to Crown Point. He and his wife, who is also a native of Pennsylvania, were the parents of four children : Nathan B., Charles H., Henrietta and J. Frank.
Charles H. Meeker passed his childhood and early youth in White, Carroll and Lake counties, Indiana, was reared on a farm and got his education from the district schools. At the age of twenty-three he married, and then settled down to farming in Center and Ross town- ships, and finally brought his experience as a practical agriculturist to the agricultural implement business, which he established at Crown Point in 1891. For a number of years Mr. Meeker was associated with J. H. Claussen in that business.
Mr. Meeker was married September 22, 1880, to Rosa A. Sweeney, daughter of James and Elizabeth (Johnson) Sweeney. She was born in Center Township of Lake County, and she and her husband attended the same school. Mr. Meeker is affiliated with the Independent Order of Foresters, is a republican in politics, and in a public-spirited man- ner has borne his share of responsibilities as a citizen.
THE GARY PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. It is a statement of facts, and in no sense rhetorical exaggeration, that the Gary Public School System is the educational wonder of America. There is probably not a well posted educator in the country who is not to some extent familiar with the facilities and the quality of instruction offered to the rising genera- tion through the Gary schools. The educational service afforded by the Gary public schools is unsurpassed by those in any of the larger cities and most progressive communities in the United States, and the local system has again and again been a subject of description and comment not only in school journals but in the general newspaper press.
It is probable that no community of its size in America has a more cosmopolitan population to serve through its public schools than Gary. The 40,000 inhabitants of this city represent at least thirty-eight nationalities. and it is an important fact that not alone the second
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generation of these polyglot people supply the scholastic enrollment of the schools, but hundreds of these immigrants themselves, earning their daily livelihood by work in the mills and factories, attend the various classes of instruction offered by the public schools and through other organized educational centers of the city.
To provide the schoolhouses and the other material equipment for the educational service of such a community is alone a tremendous achievement for a new community like Gary, and in this article first attention will be called to the economic side of the public school. During the fiscal year of 1913-14, the City of Gary spent the sum of $94,696.58 in the permanent improvement of the various school buildings of the city. Of this amount the larger portion was spent on the Froebel School, and with such improvements the various school properties of the city are valued as follows: Froebel, $401,552.51; Emerson, $374,- 285.94; Jefferson, $105,507.87; Beveridge, $32,505.12; Glen Park, $18,515.92; Ambridge, $2,544.07; West Gary, $1,251.00; Clarke, $5,501.20; Twelfth Avenue, $200.00; School Farm, $25,000; Twenty- first Avenue, $100.00; Fourteenth Avenue, $2,160.00; Twenty-fourth Avenue, $4,695.38; general equipment, $1,231.50. The total valuation of school properties in Gary is $975.050.81. The record for the various schools show that during the year just mentioned 4.350 children were enrolled, distributed as follows: Froebel, 1,612; Emerson, 800; Jef- ferson, 786; Beveridge, 498; Glen Park, 211; Ambridge, 134; West Gary, 25; Clarke, 57; Twenty-fourth Avenue, 227; Twelfth Avenue, none. The total cost of instruction in the Gary schools was $151,315.21. of which amount more than $130,000 was paid out as salaries to teachers. supervisors and principals. Besides these sums the operation of the schools cost $40.177.21. while the maintenance of the schoolhouses and grounds cost $17.326.11. The evening schools and the summer schools are an expensive but useful feature of the Gary school system. In the evening schools a total of 3,146 pupils were enrolled, and the cost of maintaining the schools was, instruction, $14,035.18; operation evening schools, $5,168.82; but through these classes many individuals received a semblance of education that otherwise they would not have received at all. Records also show that more than $3,848.67 was spent in medical examination of school children.
In many American communities education has been conducted on such traditional and routine lines that it would be difficult to secure satisfying answer to the query, What is the aim and purpose of the school system? In a recent educational report of the Lake County schools Superintendent William A. Wirt of Gary answers this question succinctly and convincingly : "In Gary the schools try to appropriate the street and alley time of the children by providing opportunities for work and play as well as opportunities for study." Superintendent Wirt goes on to explain that the character of the child is formed during all its active hours, and since the homes in cities and towns no longer provide the opportunities for the wholesome work and play of children. character training is consequently left to the schools and to the hap- hazard influences and activities between the school and the home. He calls attention also to the fact that the average time allotted in the school for study is 21/2 hours each day, but only few children are so book- minded that they are able to form habits of mental activity from the study of books alone, and by the majority of children this time is spent
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