USA > Indiana > Lake County > The First Hundred Years (1938) > Part 1
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF LAKE COUNTY, INDIANA BY SAM B. WOODS
LAKE COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
For Reference Not to be taken from this room
To the Lake County Public disvary Patrons, in memory of my Father Sam B. Woods.
Zielma Woods Mahnstone
Dac 5. 1966.
The First Hundred Years
-of Lake County, Indiana
-By-
SAM B. WOODS.
As Lived and Acted by Bartlett Woods and Family and Sam B. Woods and Family
This is particularly of Lake County, Indiana, but the questions, trials and tribulations are the same over the entire country.
Copyright, 1938
3 3113 03141 7530
m
To My Mother ANN ELIZA SIGLER WOODS Who through her intelligence,
Perseverance, industry and good judgment Kept the home fires burning And made it possible For Father To give his time and talent
To public affairs.
BARTLETT WOODS O to die advancing on! Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, As we go the unknown ways. Fresh and strong the world we seize, World of labor and the march; By those swarms upon our rear, We must never yield or falter, Through the battle, through defeat, Moving yet and never stopping. Pioneers! O pioneers!
-Walt Whitman.
FOREWORD
We feel justified in giving this book, "The First Hundred Years of Lake County" to the public because we believe that it has real merit as a volume of interesting historical facts centered around the articles and speeches written by my father, Bartlett Woods, who preserved them all in a scrap book.
Father came to this county from England in 1837, and from the very beginning, took a deep interest in everything that went on about him, especially public and political questions. Being brought up in that atmosphere, I naturally followed in his foot- steps, and long before his interest in public affairs ceased, mine began so that we can honestly claim a hundred years of keen observance of events in Lake county.
My parents were among the early pioneer settlers of the county. My mother was a Sigler and her family dates its history in America back to Revolutionary War days when several of her ancestors took part in the struggle to free the colonies from the mother country. The Siglers were hardy sons of the soil, born and bred in the American way of doing things.
Mother always prided herself on being Pennsylvania Dutch. She was strong in body and in mind, ambitious and determined, and had a good sense of business management. What she could do in a day, a week or a year, looking back from a 1937 viewpoint, is beyond belief. She was the typical pioneer wife and mother, capable of performing any task that happened to come her way. She had a big family to raise, there was never ending farm work, and most of the time, company.
My father was raised in Hastings, Sussex, England. His father was postmaster of the town and gave the boy a good educa- tion. On finishing school, he went to London and worked as a bookkeeper in an office. When he was eighteen, he came to America. Compared with those young men who had been brought up in this frontier country, he was at a great disadvantage. He had had no experience with the ax or the plow and knew none of the tricks of life in the wilds. The thing that saved the battle for him was the good judgment he showed in selecting his life part- ner.
Father was always far more interested in public affairs gener- ally than he was in his own business of farming. However, he
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was as successful at that as was the average man of that time.
When the question of slavery arose, Father was body and soul against it and took advantage of every opportunity to write or say something in the Abolitionists' cause. To him goes the credit for organizing the Republican party in Lake county and he represented his district as state representative for two terms during the Civil War days. He was always active in seeking benefits for the farms, the farmers and their wives, being an arduous worker in the Patrons of Husbandry, now the Grange, the Farmers' Institute and the Fair Associations. He was the champion of the common people. I defy anyone to say that he ever did anything for a selfish or mean purpose. Though he may not always have been right, when he fought for a thing, he thought that it was just and proper. Whether he had the backing of a crowd or stood alone did not matter to him if he felt that he was following the path of duty. Though he claimed allegiance to the Republican party politically, party loyalty did not hold him in the yoke if he did not think the policies were sound.
Mother died in 1900 and Father followed her three years later. They are both buried in Maplewood cemetery in Crown Point.
Because I am my mother's and father's son, and since I have stayed on the farm that they took from the government, I have naturally tried to follow where they led. Father courted his wife with an ox team while I courted mine with a horse and buggy. I finally persuaded Mellue Vilmer of Crown Point to become Mrs. Woods and make her home at Hickory Ridge farm. With her help, it became one of the finest dairy farms in the state. She was a school teacher and had been brought up in the town, but with her method and management, she could set a pace that was hard for country bred girls to follow. But she was not willing to make of her home a cheap boarding house and always rebelled at having to keep numerous hired men and at having to feed the threshing and ensilage cutting crews of fifteen or twenty, especially since often some of these men never belonged in a well regulated household.
Mrs. Woods soon learned that there was more to farm life than the smell of new mown hay and the song of the birds. There was the smell of the cow barn and the bawl of the calves.
I began at an early age to write pieces for the local papers. When something happened that I could not condone, I felt called upon to object. Since I was so young and green from the country, the would-be political bosses condemned me for my audacity in daring to criticize their actions. As is usual with bums and dead beats, they had no real argument with which to support their
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conduct, so that they had to resort to strong language and per- sonal abuse that does not read well to the one whom it is aimed against. But with a clear conscience and a good constitution, I have managed to live it all down. My own and my father's discussions have earned for us many cussings but more compli- ments. When my father died, the folks who had been fighting him could not find enough words in the English language with which to express their respect for their deceased opponent.
The Good Book advises us not to hide our light under a bushel. Neither my Father nor I will be condemned for that offense. It seems that whatever thoughts came into our minds on public af- fairs were turned by process of printers ink into reading for the people. So far I have no regrets, for I now see our country in a sad state of affairs, and only for the reason that the better class of people have grown weary of well-doing They either lack ambition or are cowards. They permit the worst elements in society to have too much opportunity to carry on their practice of crime and rotten politics. There are more good people in America than bad so why do they not control its government and society. We pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Though shalt be done-" and then let the country go to the Devil.
For the past five years, I have been a regular correspondent for a weekly paper on the questions of the day. This material, together with my previous writings and the clippings in Father's scrap books, will comprise the bulk of this volume. These scrap books are practically a summary of the events, movements and ideas that have affected our county during the first century of its existence. Our material for this book was thus ready made, and if we have been able to present it in such a way that the public will appreciate it, our hopes and ambitions will be realized.
I believe in this United States of ours. We have a good form of government and the only reason that we do not actually have a good government is that so many of our people do not take their citizenship seriously. They do not interest themselves sufficiently in public affairs or fight strongly enough for their convictions. A government is just what the people make it. If the baser element works harder at controlling it than the better class, then they will win out. To build and maintain a good government takes the effort and interest of every worthwhile citizen.
Bartlett Woods took his citizenship seriously, and I think, intelligently. We need more like him. I believe I am safe in saying that he had more influence on the history of Lake county than did any other man who ever lived here. The reader may get the idea that he was a chronic objector, but if one follows
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my Father's writings through carefully and looks into his reasons, one can understand his objections.
I wish to here thank the good friends who gave me such generous help and encouragement in getting up this book and especially to Clyde H. Riggs for his advice and assistance.
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INTRODUCTION
(The writer of this sketch, Mrs. Ethel Bennett, is a grand- daughter of Bartlett Woods and daughter of Charlotte Woods Merrill. Her father was Dr. Wallace W. Merrill of Hammond. Mrs. Bennett had the distinction of graduating from the Univer- sity of Chicago in March 1936 with highest honors at the age of fifty-two. Two of her children preceded her in graduating and a third will soon follow.)
TO GRANDFATHER WOODS
They called you "The Grand Old Man of Lake County." I sensed, in a way, the respect you received from your neighbors and friends, the love and admiration you were given by your children; there was a subtle something in the very air about you that appealed even to my childish mind, and, yet, I didn't really understand then what the words "The Grand Old Man of Lake County" meant. You will remember, grandfather, that I was but thirteen that year I lived with you and grandmother and you were seventy-seven. I had had but a few years in which to grow and was rough and crude both emotionally and mentally, while you had a background of years of experience, years in which to soften and mellow, years in which to become tolerant and sym- pathetic.
I can see you yet starting out on your daily walk to town for the mail. For the mail? I think, rather, to see your friends and discuss the affairs of the day. I can hear yet the clump clump of your cane as you tramp down the hill, over the little stone bridge, to the postoffice on the square. Bent shoulders, heavy shaggy iron-gray hair, a round face lightened by twinkling blue eyes protected by spectacles, delicately tinted pink cheeks, small figure but the clump of the cane indicating the resolute, undismayed character of its owner.
And with this picture other memories come flooding over me. I see so clearly the tan and brown two-story frame house stand- ing at the top of Ruffleshirt Hill among the locusts (I have for- gotten why this hill was so nicknamed), the red barn at the rear with the chicken-coop and yard attached to the south side
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and the lean-to and run-way for old Topsy at the back. Be- tween two of the locusts in the front yard hung a hammock of barrel staves. I can hear it squeaking now as Ina and I swung to and fro with Bell Peterson and Ethel Ebright. We used to, quarrel, I remember, for the first turn. How silly! And fall sometimes. How tragic! The driveway at the south of the house was not of cement or crushed stone as it might be today but just a path which had been worn in the grass by the constant goings and comings of Topsy and the horses and buggies of your sons and daughters. In the yard to the north of the house was one beautifully symmetrical tree which had a peculiar attraction to us children, your pet mulberry. Why the attraction? I imagine because it had fruit on it and plenty of it, fruit which could be eaten at any time of the day in season. You haven't forgotten, grandfather, that we children were always hungry and that the juicy dripping mulberries sometimes appeased an early craving for dinner? Nor were we always particular where we stepped in reaching for these handfuls of berries. There were often as many on the ground as on the tree, and our shoes or bare feet would carry onto grandmother's ingrain carpet a dark purple stain. She scolded sometimes, but we were calloused little imps and the scoldings were soon forgotten.
Back of the beloved mulberry was the garden. And what a garden it was! Shut off from the street by a grape-arbor ex- tending from the house to the Wells' driveway on the north, it spread out to the next block. Apple and cherry trees, currant, gooseberry and raspberry bushes, corn, peas, beans, lettuce and potatoes. A huge garden, much too large for your and grand- mother's needs, but you would keep it. Hard to break away from early training, is it not, grandfather? I can hear Uncle Will or Aunt Cal urging you to hire the Ainsworth boys to hoe and weed. But, would you do it. No. And would we children ever offer to help? No.
There was another tree that had a great fascination for us youngsters, the slender young Siberian crab-apple that raised its shapely branshes to the sun in the open space near the broad un- covered platform which served as a porch for one of your back doors. The apples on this tree were good, good to eat and good because they had many seeds which the whole gang used to count, after naming the apples, "One I love, two I love," and so on. You don't remember. Well, grandmother would, for she wanted the apples for jelly.
Not only did we raid the apple tree, but we also crept stealth- ily to the cooky jars, two gallon size, which stood on the bottom shelf at the top of the basement stairs. Those sugar cookies as
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large as saucers and those luscious snappy ginger concoctions ! For hours poor grandmother would work about the hot stove, steam clouding her glasses and perspiration dotting her temples and moistening the finger-length curls which hung down on her neck. How pretty those curls were! No wonder you were so proud of her-when you called "Mother," there was a whole world of love and admiration in the one word. And she spent so much time making cookies, pulling pan after pan from the oven, spread- ing them on the table to cool, and then packing them carefully in the jars for future use. Not much future, however, for any cooky when we children were your guests. And then there was the toast made from home-made bread, great thick slices placed on the hearth in front of the hot wood fire. Never was there such toast! I can taste it yet with its flavor of country butter.
And you, grandfather, used to eat cream on your goose- berries. We children would squirm in our chairs at the breakfast table as we pointed to the tiny white curds floating about in your sauce-dish. You said you did this in England when you were a boy. England meant little to me then but your diary, the one you kept on your fifty-seven day trip across the Atlantic in a sail- boat is now among my prized possessions, as is the illustrated book on England which you gave me when I graduated from high school. What an undertaking that trip was! How hard it must have been for you to say good-bye to your family as you set out to this new country to which two of your brothers had preceded you! Lucky that youth doesn't look too much into the future, don't you think, but is selfishly interested in the present only and its own present ?
This year, 1937, marks the hundredth anniversary of your purchase of the old farm from the United States government, at $1.25 an acre then, and Uncle Sam wouldn't sell it for $300.00 an acre now. I can't remember you and grandmother on the farm. You had moved to Crown Point by the time my star rose in the sky, but I have often heard mother tell of the old log house, of your long struggle to clear the land and put it under cultiva- tion, of the building of the frame house as the family grew larger. You were on the farm during the Civil War, and one of mother's stories had to do with your trip down into Tennessee when Uncle Edwin was killed, your return without his body, your telling of the circumstances of his death as the family gathered about the kitchen cook stove, mother, a shy girl of four, huddling trembling- ly and excitedly beside the wood-box.
And, then, in those early days there was the time you and Uncle Walter were cutting brush in the north-woods on the farm. You were both hot and tired at the close of the day and took a
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short cut home across a pond presumably frozen. Uncle Walter, a young chap, broke through the ice and became suddenly chilled, crying himself to sleep with the leg-ache that night. Little did any of you realize that this seemingly simple accident would eventually result in Uncle Walter's losing his leg. Again I say, "Lucky, is it not, grandfather, that the future is closed to us ?"
Talking about Uncle Walter reminds me of the time when the Woods family was having Christmas dinner at Uncle Walter's home after he was married. Everybody was in the parlor visit- ing and chatting when it suddenly occurred to me, as I saw you walking about, to tie a red balloon to the button at the back of your Prince Albert coat. This dinner, you will remember, took place some time after grandmother's death and after you had become rather hard of hearing. Everybody in the room turned toward you as you walked restlessly to and fro. Everybody laughed. You knew something was agog but could not hear just what was causing the disturbance. Unable to hear, you became more un- easy but smiled, like the good sport that you always were although you knew the crowd was laughing at you. Finally, mother ordered me to remove the balloon, whereupon your only remark was "Thunder and Moses," which, by the way, used to be your favorite expression of annoyance.
How many times this expletive broke forth during the years when you were here! Oftentimes we children would, in our play, race through the house, in the front and out the back way, bang- ing doors, knocking into chairs, and all we ever heard as you arose from your desk where you had been reading or writing was "Thunder and Moses." What patience you had, dear grand- father! What endurance! As a mother I now ask my mother how she ever permitted us girls to visit you so frequently.
You were always busy-reading-writing. If we children had realized you were writing for the Lake County Star, for the Indianapolis News, we might have been more quiet. And we might not. Children are selfish, you know. And you did write and read so much. And smoke, too, your corn-cob pipe. And talk. What fun you seemed to have when Uncle Will or Uncle Jeff came for the day and you could talk politics and crops. I never knew un- til I was grown that you had sat in the Indiana State legislature, or, if I did know it, the knowledge made no impression. What a pity we grandchildren didn't listen more carefully as you visited with your sons and daughters. How you loved them and how they respected you! There was such dignity between you and your children. Never would you abbreviate their names; it was always Caroline and not Cal, Charlotte and not Lottie.
Never did you lose interest in the problems of your children
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and toward the close of your life made regular visits to all of them. In the early days I remember the trips to Uncle Will and Uncle Sam were made in a single-seated, high-topped, coverless buggy (you called it a carriage) with old Topsy between the shafts. You really didn't have to use the reins at all; she knew the roads to the farms so well. And what fun we girls had with Topsy when you were not using her, two or three of us astride her back riding about the neighborhood. Occasionally, too, we were al- lowed to go with you or grandmother on one of your journeys to the farm. The sweet clover along the way! Um -. I can smell it today, and never pass a patch of sweet clover without reliving those early, care-free, happy days when you were here.
Happy days-and, yet, there were some things which bother- ed me. Never shall I forget the nasty cistern water which we had to drink and how the pail in the kitchen was always empty, how the old pump had to be primed at the slightest provocation, and how once in a while wigglers would find their way into the pail after a rain. How could you have drunk that water all those years? Why didn't you put a pump in the kitchen? Why didn't you have a bathroom? Why did we children always have to go to bed early ?
Oh, there were many things that I wondered about. I wonder- ed if your hair had always been gray; I wondered if your eyes had always been protected by spectacles; I wondered if you had always carried a cane when you went to town (you didn't seem to need it in the garden) ; I wondered if you had always talked so loud; I wondered why your eyes always lighted up when the cheery call came from the back porch, "Hello, father: how are you today ?"
Am I looking at you through rose-colored glasses? I think not. Time has simply presented you in the correct perspective. You were rightly called "The Grand Old Man of Lake County." I know it now. Forgive me my trespasses.
Ethel Merrill Bennett.
BARTLETT WOODS
My First Meeting and Subsequent Estimate Of Him.
(A Murray Turner was born and raised in Crown Point. He served Lake county as sheriff for a number of years and later moved to Hammond where he has been an active business man and prominent citizen ever since.)
The County Fair was at the peak of activity. The Three Minute Race was over, the running race to start, the merry-go- round, the peanut and the lemonade stands were doing a land office business, but my station was in the hog department where I
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was exhibiting a Berkshire sow and seven pigs, which were being offered for sale. Hence my sole companions consisted of my humble pigs, which for business reasons, I could not desert. Then, there appeared on the scene a friendly but a very forcible ap- pearing man. He asked my name. He knew my father for the two pioneers had settled in Lake County, the same year-1837- along with not more than two hundred families up to that time.
Mr. Woods complimented me on my exhibit, told me more about their good qualities than I had known. Thus, enabling me to reinforce my sales talk. He also urged me to permanently en- gage in agriculture and live stock activities.
Farming is a high calling, he said, producing the necessities for human life; is a worthwhile honorable business. While the work is hard, your compensation is that you are your own master.
That an able man in mature years would take time off to en- courage a boy of fifteen, proved an inspiration to me and had a distinct influence in my life. I refer to the above, to illustrate the interest Bartlett Woods had in the youth of his community, especially the boys and girls on the farms.
Mr. Woods was a strong man, had a forcible personality. He was more than a citizen, he was for a half century an institu- tion in Lake County. You felt his personality whether you were in his presence or not.
I would say of Bartlett Woods, that the keynote of his life was his uncompromising honesty. That the fruits of the Farmers' toil should be dissipated either by graft or an unwise policy was to him a crime and should not be otherwise designated.
His intelligence, his tireless mental and physical energy, his loyalty to the cause of the betterment of humanity, gave to Bartlett Woods a high place among the leaders of a sturdy group of Lake County pioneers.
A. M. Turner.
John N. Beckman of Hammond, who was raised at Brunswick, Lake county, Indiana, and who has always taken an active and in- telligent interest in public affairs, says of Bartlett Woods: "All of my life, at least the last sixty years of it, I have always had the highest respect and admiration for him. I consider him one of Lake county's outstanding and most useful citizens. He always was a man of sincere convictions and not afraid to make them known. Although of many, I did not approve at the time, I since have been glad to adopt them. His stand on special privileges for the few at the expense of the many especially appeals to me now since the practice has been adopted by many of my associates on the theory that two wrongs make a right.
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CONTENTS
-
Page
Foreword
5
Introduction
9
Early History
17
Letters From The Army
33
Historical Papers
45
Tariff Articles
65
General Articles 85
Hammond Court House Articles 102
Early Articles 109
Articles from Calumet News 138
Report of The Celebration 406
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EARLY HISTORY
About one hundred years ago, there was a general move- ment of population westward to the rich lands of the Mississippi valley. Some of these settlers came from the eastern states but many more found their way directly West from Europe.
My father, Bartlett Woods, was among the latter. He was born July 15, 1818, at Winchelsea, County Sussex, England. The family later moved to Hastings on the English Channel where my grandfather was postmaster of the town. My father had two brothers, William and Charles, and a sister, Charlotte.
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