USA > Indiana > Allen County > Monroeville > A time to remember who we are ; a historical resume of the settlement of Monroeville in conjunction with the Indiana State Sesquicentennial > Part 1
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01799 1065
GENEALOGY 977.202 M75T
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TIME TO REMEMBER WHO
WHO WE ARE
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Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne IN 46801-2270
FOREWORD
You and I live in the present. This is our progressive spirit. We have hope and faith in the future, but the deep roots of our character lie in the past. We should take time to remember who we are. We can be mindful of our heritage and of the responsibilities it imposes upon us.
A TIME TO REMEMBER WHO WE ARE
A historical resume of the settlement of Monroeville in conjunction with the Indiana State Sesquicentennial.
Written by Helene Blauvelt Trentadue with Book Cover and Illustrations by Mary Lou Brouwer Ross
PROLOGUE
Most of us would resent being called unpatriotic, and yet how many of us know the story of our native state. Let us trace the colorful adventures of our hardy pioneer fathers and mothers who laid the first hearthstones in this state of ours. These people who first united a continent, we think of them and take time to remember who we are.
When three centuries ago, the Indian paddling his bark canoe with the flow of the St. Mary's river then turned his course into the counter current of the St. Joseph and then to the southward round in the bend of the Maumee, he beheld the strange sight of the first white man.
To these wild people of the forest, he appeared as a messenger of the gods. He might have been but he was not. In truth, he was the advance spirit of destruction, the forerunner of men who would one day take this wilderness from the red man. As he stepped ashore and bestowed upon the wondering savages the gifts of sparkling beads and bits of shining metals, the white man saw smoke from the fires of the Indian village and he heard the strange sounds of unknown tongues.
The story of the beginnings of this section of Indiana is a story of the most famous portage in America. The mere mention of the word portage brings to our imagination the pageant of the explorer, and the adventurer, the black robed Jesuit Father and the blood thirsty savage, the French and English soldier, and the trader and pioneer.
A portage or "carrying place, " is a pathway between two rivers coursing in generally opposite directions.
Let us go with the earliest white traveler as he accidentally enters the mouth of the Maumee, after coursing from the eastward along the southern shore of Lake Erie. He pushes forward until he reaches a point where two rivers which we now know to be the St. Mary's and the St. Joseph join to form the river which has brought him on his way. The Indians point out to him the pathway which leads from the St. Mary's across the woodland and prairie to a smaller stream called in later years, Little River. He carries his canoe across the six or seven miles of the portage, launches it and finds he is carried on into the Wabash, then into the Ohio and finally into the great Mississippi.
Our land was united by Europeans coming down the rivers exploring and claiming the land as early as 1647. La Salle is the first great name to be remembered in connection with the story of our state. He had come to Canada barely out of his teens and wandered through our western country and down our rivers.
Y. JOSEPH R.
LAKE ERIE
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Few white men knew Indiana territory before the seventeenth century. When first visitors reached the New World, the Norsemen, the Spaniards, the Pilgrims, they came face to face with virgin forest. Whenever they traveled inland they found themselves in the midst of trees, and each came to America amid a different type of woodland.
The highest, the oldest, the biggest trees in the world grow in the American woods. Indiana territory was covered with dense forest of oak, walnut, maple, elm and hickory. No pines nor hemlock existed then. Timberland was wet, but when cleared productive. Bears, wolves, foxes, beavers, otters, mink, muskrat and other smaller animals roamed the woodlands. This country was a great point for trading furs, for the Indians knew the art of hunting, cleaning and preserving the skins of animals.
Indian trade was carried on by means of men in small boats on rivers carrying merchandise and exchanging them for valuable furs at Indian villages. Their trades were bright colored cloth, knives, hatchets, traps, kettles, tobacco, liquor and gunpowder.
In those early days when wild animals and a few Indians controlled the land, the few men who did venture inland were our first frontiersmen. He was the lone developer of his land. Only one ingredient was needed to provide him with a livelihood. That ingredient was hard work, but sprinkle this with a little bit of luck and man's gift of ingenuity. Yes, a man felt good as he walked the length of his claim at the end of a hard day. But it took work, it took planning and ingenuity and a little bit of luck. These early Americans were ready to make their way in the new country. They were hardworking, self-reliant, and forward looking. Their close touch with practical things made them practical.
Many of our early relatives died in the struggle to claim the land. To fight the elements and stay alive produced admirable men and women. A man's gun, wife and Bible, and quite likely in that order, were his companions. Men cleared wilderness and tended the soil, they fought off hostil Indians as best they could. Many a settler died with an arrow through his chest and many a logcabin was burned to the ground. As we take time to remember, quite likely it was our great-great grandparents who were a part of this great settlement of the Northwest territory, our Indiana.
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A. WAYNE TRACE 1194
Actually the Indians ruled the area until after the Revolutionary War. Then United States set up a temporary government with the creation of the Northwest Territory. In 1800, what is now Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin became Indiana Territory and William Henry Harrison was appointed governor. The capitol was Vincennes.
The state's early history is closely related to that of the area. The United States government was so far away that notice was served on the national government unless help came soon the area would leave the Union and join Canada for protection.
Three armies were sent against the Indians. Two were destroyed. Then Washington called General Wayne whom he had known in the American Revolution. £ General Wayne said he would go, if he could have what he wanted. Wayne wanted to choose his own men and dress them in the finest of uniforms. Washington consented to Wayne's demands. It is said that Anthony Wayne gave the whole territory between the Ohio and the Mississippi to that peaceful immigration of settlers. Yes, Mad Anthony opened the glorious gates of the Ohio to the tide of the frontiersmen, men, women, and children who desired a home.
The rich earth and timbered land of Monroe Township had been virtually cut off to settlers by tribes of hostile Indians. George Washington realized the greatest problem was to protect the white settlers in this territory. You can easily picture the tremendous job the President of our great land had on his hands. At this time Washington chose Wayne and presented him with two great tasks, peace with the Indians and protection for the frontiersman, so that homes could be built which would become the bulwark of our nation.
old Portage Houte
In 1790 the president had sent General Harmer which had ended in a bloody victory for the Indians. In 1791 he had sent General St. Clair, and his army was slaughtered by the savages who attacked them from all sides. The white man could not fight the Indian with white man's methods.
But Wayne knew the Indian's manner of fighting. This was to kill the opposition's leaders first. The big defeat for the Indians was at Fallen Timbers near Maumee, Ohio in the month of August, 1794. After conquering them in Fort Wayne, the real history of northern Indiana began. Later at Green- ville, just inside Ohio, the Indians gave up their claims to vast areas.
Throughout our area the Miami Indians roamed. Close by there were the Pottawatomies and the Wabash Indians. The Miami Indians had as their chief one of the most intelligent of all Indian chiefs, Little Turtle. Little Turtle felt it was impractical to battle the white man after seeing his lands taken and his men destroyed. He hated the white man's trade of liquor for furs. He went in person to the legislature of Ohio for a law preventing it, but without success.
General Wayne upon entering and following the Maumee river found Indians in one continuous village, with highly cultivated fields of corn showing the hard work of many, but he cleared and burned their homes, built a stockade and in the spirit of Wayne, named it Defiance.
General Clark drove the French out of Vincennes and General Harrison cleared the same city of the British. General Harrison defeated Tecumseh at Tippecanoe. So you see, it was a fight for possession for our early settlers.
The Treaty of Greenville cleared the way for Indiana's great agricultural success with the aid of some French traders and thousands of Germans who came into our state.
1.
John Appleseed
1820'S
A plain, honest people were these Hoosiers with homely and unpretentious qualities of kindliness and courtesy, the builders of a great state. They were far too busy to ever think of being lonely or bored. They turned work into play by inviting the neighbors to come and visit them and help in making their homes. Woe to the newcomer who put on airs when in company with these plain, candid, straight forward people. Early settlers kept busy making clothes, cooking, making soap, curing meat, drying vegetables and fruits. Their homes were happy homes, plain and simple but made with neighborliness and kindli- ness.
The wife and children shared the responsibility in making a home. The father provided meat for the table with his rifle. The rifle, the ax, and the open fire were the tools of the pioneer. The home of the first settler was a busy one. The furniture was simple and made by his own hands. Flat stones were used to grind the corn into meal for the Johnny cake. Gourds were dippers and drinking cups. An iron pot was used for cooking purposes and hung on an iron crane outside the cabin. In the winter, families would gather around the hearthstone inside the cabin and the only light was the light from the fireplace. Women made their own soap, cured the meat, and wove the cloth for their clothing. The life of the frontiersman was hard work but happy.
Yes, to the Hoosier belongs the gentle rolling farm land, the valleys and rivers, and the small towns and streets where old friends pass back and forth. To the Hoosier also belongs the art of arguing politics. Year around, the real Hoosier is peculiarly addicted to interest in politics. The social life of these early Hoosiers was expressed in house raising, quilting bees, and other work that could be done with their neighbors. During these affairs the men worked and women exchanged recipes and zodiacal signs for weaning babies. Children stood around to strengthen their legs, and their favorite games were crack the whip, leap frog, and London bridge.
Neighbors began gathering early for a house raising, Some came early, because no one could afford to miss any doin's which might be called social. Others came to do for their neighbors what had been done for them when they first settled in Indiana territory. Besides their labor, each family brought a house gift. These ranged from some cherished knick-knack to a dooryard plant.
One old woman gave her iron, flat-bottomed pan with a tight cover for baking. "People in the East swear by an oven," she said, "but I always say, if you have a good skillet, you can bake anything."
The men brought homemade tools. There was a grub hoe and an ox-yoke, a scythe, and there were also gifts of hens, and even a tame rabbit. There were stone jugs of liquor with stoppers made of a piece of corn cob. These were generally offered slyly to the man of the new house when the women were looking the other way.
Now each log for the walls was notched underneath and sharpened to a wedge on its upper side so that each would fit like a saddle over the one below it. When the house was roughly built, it must be warmed by dancing and laughter far into the night. This was a time to remember throughout the long weeks ahead when each family would live their days alone. Before the day was done, a piecework quilt would be finished and presented to the woman of the house. Tongues wagged as fingers flew and turned scraps of calico into beautiful quilts.
Elaborate quilt patterns were the Prairie Rose, Log Cabin, Lone Star, Irish Chain and the Flower Garden. Four Patch and Nine Patch were simpler designs for the everyday use.
A blanket, toweling, a bucket of sorghum,a bag of dried apples, a supply of candles, or a rag carpet were gifts every woman cherished.
There was much ceremony to the christening of a new home. No one could set foot into it, once the roof was on, until the owners had gone in, to pronounce a house blessing. A house must be blest, first with solemnity and then with festivity, for this was a real part of the Hoosier's life.
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WABASH AND ERIE DAYS
Up until 1829, the only natural highways of commerce were the rivers and the Great Lakes. Much of the good farm land that was not close to a river was without access to markets in the East where the produce of the forests and farm became marketable. Early settlers knew the possibili- ties of the wonderful land, but they were very skeptical when they knew their farms were located two or three days journey from a waterway to market.
Now this was before steam railroads, and the settlers only hope lay in the construction of water canals.
In Indiana, the canal building was constructed at the state's expense. The earliest of these, the Wabash and Erie extended from Lake Erie along Maumee and Wabash rivers to the Ohio. Indiana sold state lands and borrowed two hundred thousand dollars. Some canals were built by private owners and some were owned by the state. None were so successful in their operations as the Erie Canal.
The good materials needed for the locks and waterways was scarce and progress was slow. The wheelborrow was the only tool for moving earth, not the bulldozer, but hand tools with horses and mules.
The Canal was formally dedicated on July 4, 1843. Senator Cass was at the dedication. The Senator, dimembark- ing from the boat, was so busy answering the ovation from the crowd, that he forgot to look where he was walking and fell off the gangplank into mud and water. This little episode became a joke on a nation wide scale. Although he was mussed up a little, people still thought it was very funny.
The canal boat passed out of history's picture and little remains of this great enterprise, excepting small mounds and ditches where the canal passed through and a few stories handed down with a lot of Hoosier tradition.
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THE EARLY SCHOOL
When the great Northwest Territory, a part of which is Indiana, was laid out, the Ordinance of 1787 provided for its organization and also stated there could never be any slavery in it. Education and religion should be encouraged. In accordance with this, the early pioneers who came to Monroe Township provided for both churches and schools.
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The first school houses were made of logs and long wooden benches provided seats for the boys and the girls. The lessons were written on slates and many of the boys had shiny coat sleeves from wiping the slates clean. The
three R's were taught by the teachers who did the best they could with only meager preparation. On the wall hung the fifth wheel. This was not the fountain pen nor the basket ball, but the birchen rod which was an essential part of every school. This was often used on the boys who played hookey down at the swimmin'hole on Flat Rock.
Let us not pass the memory of the first schools without remembering them again and again, for they contain many of the memorials which we cherish. In these sacred haunts were found apple cores, paper wads and a great amount of Indiana soil. Here also was passed out the future Indiana, the great truths that have made her illustrious through such names as Tarkington, Ade, Morton, Purdue, Hendricks, Marshall, Wallace, Colfax and many others.
Boys and girls were mischievous in pioneer days as they are in the present generation. Many a boy had to sit out the three hours on the dunce stool. Recess time came when the master rang the bell.
MONROE TOWNSHIP'S FIRST SETTLER'S - 1839
The year of 1839 brought many changes to our township. As the sunrise breaks the gloom of night, so had the national government with the help of treaty and warfare brought about the daybreak of peace and security for the pioneer. Not peace and security as based on the standard of today, but opportunity and convenience as typified by the ax, the rifle, and the open fire.
John Friedline was the first white man to set foot upon Monroe Township. He entered the township in 1838, staked his claim, and returned with his family two years later. In the meantime, five families had settled here and were making clearings. Traveled roads were very few and usually deep with mud. Many left comfortable homes in Carrol County, Ohio, to make a new way in the wilder- ness. The covered wagon brought men and women willing to sacrifice few comforts they had known in order to make new homes and farm the rich virgin land of this territory.
The land was thickly covered with timber and a spontaneous kind of grass that grew three or four feet high. Oak trees grew four feet in diameter with straight trunks without a single branch for seventy five feet, and then from that point seventy more feet in height. Vacant ground was deep with an, undergrowth of wild pea vine which prevented the use of a plow. The vine had to be removed by hand and the corn was planted by slow and tedious methods. The pioneer's hard work was rewarded with good crops.
William and James Black, Joseph Rabbit, Jacob Drake, Peter Schlemmer, Noah Clem, Moses Ratledge, and sons, Elijah Reddinghouse, John Friedline, Hugh Anderson, Samuel Clem, John Stephenson, James Savage, Thomas Jones and Peter Barnhart were those who entered first into this great town- ship to carve upon the stone of early progress, the name of pioneer.
Flat Rock Creek
Early Road
THE FIRST ELECTION - 1840
By 1841, a great number of families were pouring into Monroe Township. There were new clearings and improvements in the settlement. One of the greatest evidences of the American way of Life at this time was the election. Communities were small and it was not unusual for elections to end in a tie vote. Such was
the first election in Monroe Township, which was held on the first Monday of April, 1841 in the home of
William Ratledge to provide a Justice of Peace.
There
were thirteen men who voted. The opposing candidates were Noah Clem and William Black. Peter Schlemmer's vote was challenged, for he was a native of Germany. After much dispute, Mr. Schlemmer went home and pro- duced the legal proof of his right to vote and the tie was broken. Seven votes for Noah Clem, the new Justice of Peace.
THEY WERE THANKFUL
The affairs of the township moved forward in the early forties, crops were very good and the early settlers were surprised and thankful. They were sur- prised for much of the land was timberland and very wet. It was supposed that the land would remain very wet when cleared. To their surprise, they found that as fast as clearings were made the land dried, and many of the richest farms were redeemed from the low forest lands. They were thankful!
They set aside a time and place to worship God. With the happiness and satisfaction that came from work well done, also came the desire to worship in thankful- ness to the Creator. Such a need was experienced by every man in the settlement. The pioneer was learning that there were kindred spirits, desires, strivings, appreciations, ideals, and interests within the minds of his neighbors, and much of this was unspeakable in words. The gathering together in a home for the first church meeting was an outward demonstration of their faith.
The first religious meeting was held in the home of John Friedline, whose great spiritual qualities spread through his entire family. His son, John D. was well known and loved by present citizens of Monroeville. Many times he was known to make this remark, "I am not interest- ed in many churches, only one church, the church triumphant."
The first church service was held in the year of 1845 and Rev. Exline, a Lutheran preacher conducted the service according to his denomination. He was a native of Van Wert and a circuit rider preacher. He made many trips through this part of the country holding services in the homes that desired it.
In the same year, a Rev. John Hill, another circuit rider, held services in the barn of Sam Clem and at this meeting the United Brethern Church was organized. The Methodist Church was organized in 1847; Evangelical Lutheran, 1864; Christian, 1867; St. Rose Catholic Church, 1868; showing that in the early stages of development in our township, the pioneer was weaving the basic fabric of the American way of life. Freedom of worship!
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IN THE 1850'S
One of the most essential elements in a civilization is its government. The power to protect both life and property, to secure justice for all, and the capacity to do for the individual those things which are too big for him to do for himself.
The little colony of Jamestown had not progressed very far until the love of liberty and desire for self- government brought forth the first popular legislative assembly in the new world. However, in the same year, and in the same soil of freedom, was planted the seed of an institution destined later to deny to a part of our people their God-given right of freedom because of their race or color .. This institution of slavery grew through the years to such staggering proportions that it all but sank the last best hope of the world, the American government.
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