A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana, Part 25

Author: Rev. E. D. Daniels
Publication date: 1904
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1273

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The party visited Door Prairie and all were struck with its beauty, but the General more than the rest. As the land was to be offered for sale the following week at Logansport, he asked leave of his party to return to the sale. After spending a day or two in looking up section corners, he passed on and was present when the sale opened. He first waited on the agent who had the sale in charge and told him he was like the Frenchman at the lottery who said he had no ticket and no money to buy one but wanted a chance at the prize, and the agent gave him the privilege of buying all he thought he could pay for by the

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meeting of the legislature on the following De- cember. The General chose a tract of eleven hundred acres and had his initial O placed on it. He was so mixed up with politics that moving was impossible for the present, but the next year found him again on Door Prairie just in time to witness the Black Hawk scare in that locality. The massacre of some fifteen whites near Fox river, Illinois, was a more serious matter, and he wrote to Governor Noble about it, stating that he would leave next day for Chicago and inform himself with regard to it. He did so, and gave what active service he could during that Indian trouble, as will be related elsewhere. These services, regimental reviews, and legislative duties occupied his time and attention until after the first of February, 1833. But he had a prairie farm on his hands, and so, on the twenty-sixth of that month, he took leave of politics and set out for his new home in LaPorte county.

On leaving Greencastle his outfit consisted of his wife, five children, three laborers whom the General hired by the year, two wagons, seven yoke of cattle, one horse, four cows, sixty head of hogs, and his household furniture-quite a patriarchal procession ; that is, if he had possessed more wives, and sheep instead of hogs, which latter the Hebrews would hardly tolerate. The weather was cold and continued so to the end of his journey, so cold that he crossed the streams and marshes north of Lafayette, including the Kankakee, on the ice, halting three miles west of LaPorte on the tenth day of March, 1833, with the whole party in good health and spirits. From the time he crossed the Wabash his days and nights were spent entirely in the open air, except what shelter might be obtained in an open tent stretched before a log fire, the fire serving to keep the feet warm. On arriving in LaPorte county he found the snow a foot deep, but de- clared that it served well to sleep on instead of a straw bed until he could do better. In five days he had built a log house sixteen by eighteen feet, with a puncheon floor, a clapboard door, a loft, a ladder for the boys "to go up to roost," and a hole in one end of the cabin to let out the smoke. All hands were kept so busy that no one had time to complain and the days passed pleasantly. Rails were made, hauled and put up by the thousands and in due time seventeen acres were seeded with oats, fifty-five in corn, one hundred and sixty in

wheat and four hundred acres fenced before the next Christmas.

The General's first trip to mill was to Berrien county, Michigan, requiring four days with his ox team. He welcomed the incoming settlers, lived on friendly terms with his neighbors, and thought that for some years the flow of immigra- tion increased faster in LaPorte county than in any other county of the state, and that in enter- prise and general intelligence it was surpassed by none. His course of farming was a success. He himself set the example of industry and there- fore obtained the full worth of his money from his hired laborers. He added farm to farm and furnished to each of his sons a farm as soon as he reached the time of life when he could take care of it, so that when his youngest came of age, in 1857, he had given them quite a fortune. He was a devoted friend to horticulture and a lover of floriculture, as the neatness and surroundings of his home testified. In the cultivation of flowers and in the internal arrangement and decoration of the home, his wife was always a willing helper. He never regretted coming under the tuition of the Yankee school ma'am. Often in his travels, on business as well as on pleasure excursions, he had his wife accompany him, not only for campan- ionship but as he wittily said as "a word in ad- vance for civil treatment and good quarters." His frequent visits to agricultural and horticul- tural fairs, not only in his own county and state, but in surrounding states, kept him well informed as to the uses and abuses of these institutions. He condemned the objectionable features often tol- erated and permitted by their managers, but aside from these he regarded the encouragement of these fairs as useful to agriculture, the basis of our national prosperity. He held official connec- tion with these fairs for many years and was well qualified to give a mature opinion concerning them.

In 1867 the General, in connection with Hon. C. F. Coffin and A. C. Downey, was appointed by Governor Baker, a commissioner "to establish a House of Refuge for the correction and reforma- tion of juvenile offenders," and after a careful examination of a number of institutions of the kind, in company with his co-members, the fam- ily system was adopted, and the General drew up a plan for the same, which was fully approved and adopted by the board. The lands were pur-

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HISTORY OF LAPORTE COUNTY.

chased by the Governor, on consultation with the board, and embraced a beautiful plat of ground near Plainfield, some fourteen miles west of In- dianapolis. The plan originally embraced one main and ten family buildings, besides shops, out- buildings, playgrounds, gardens, fountains, etc., for the accommodation of five hundred boys with the officers of the institution. So arose the Plain- field House of Correction. After the building of the institution was well in progress the General resigned.

At the age of seventy, the General felt the need of curtailing his duties and accordingly sold

his farm and left a fine country residence for one of less pretensions, where he passed the remain- der of his days. He was a rugged character, of great personal force, and his Irish extraction form his father's side continually manifested itself in his ready wit. He made for the things which were honest and upright, and for the best good of the community. He was public-spirited, lend- ing his aid to every movement which promised to promote the public welfare. He was a devoted member of the Old Settlers Association of the county, and his name heads the list of the death roll at their meeting on August 28, 1878.

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ISAAC E. ELSTON.

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CHAPTER XV.

DEVELOPMENT-MICHIGAN CITY.

"Against the Tiber's mouth, but far away, An ancient town was seated on the sea- A Tyrian colony-the people made .Stout for war, and studious of their trade; Carthage the name-belov'd by Juno more Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore." Aeneid BOOK I, DRYDEN'S TRANSLATION.

With the single exception of Hudson, Mich- igan township is now the smallest in LaPorte county, as its northwestern corner is cut off by Lake Michigan. Formerly it had a great abundance and variety of the finest forest timber interspersed with streams which afforded nu- merous mill seats. One of these was Trail creek ; a deep, sluggish, very crooked stream which meandered through the country and discharged its waters into Lake Michigan at the foot of Hoosier Slide. The first saw mill in the town- ship was built by John Walker, father of Major Benjamin P. Walker of LaPorte. John Cheney, John Ritter, the Shreves, Sanfords and Van Winkles were all early settlers. Being a wooded country, Michigan township settled less rapidly than others, and owning to the sparseness of the population its history is mainly that of Michigan City.

The early French explorers and missionaries have been referred to in a previous chapter. It is probable that some of these visited the locality of Michigan City; at any rate we have very good reason to believe that at least one of them did. In 1673 Nicholas Perrot, an adventurous Frenchman connected with a trading company at Montreal, made an exploration of Lake Michi- gan, and in giving an account of his travels he said that at the head of the great lake there were "mountains of white sand." As the locality of

Michigan City is the head of the lake, as the sand dunes at that point meet this description exactly, and as there is no other place on the lake which does, it is almost certain that this was the place which he visited and thus describes. It is quite likely that Chevalier DeTonty, LaSalle and others visited the spot, but there is no direct proof of it, save perhaps in the case of Father Claude Allouez, who speaks of visiting the Indians at the "sand hills," and the region re- mained in the possession of the Miami Con- · federation of Indians, or particularly of the Pottawottomies, until the advent of the white settlers in the early thirties of the nineteenth century.

This town had the honor of being first men- tioned in the United States Congress as "the inconsiderable position at the mouth of Trail Creek." Its name is said to have been given to it by the party who first. surveyed the state road leading from the Ohio river through Lafayette and Logansport to its termination at Michigan City. This party consisted of John M'Donald, of Daviess county, Chester Elliott, of Warwick county, and John I. Neely, of Gibson county. The land for the original plat of Michigan City was purchased by Major Isaac C. Elston, of Crawfordsville, Indiana, at the sale of the Michi- gan Road lands in Lafayette, Indiana, at the gov- ernment price of $1.25 per acre. He was a citizen

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of the state, but was originally from New York. This gentleman had the sagacity to forsee that amid the splendid resources of the county and the grand commercial position which it presented, Michigan City was destined to hold no "incon- siderable" rank among the flourishing towns in the western world. In October, 1832, when the commissioners came to the county to locate the seat of justice, we find Major Elston busily en- gaged in laying out the original plat of Michigan City. He laid it out wisely. The lots were all large and every lot was bounded by one or more streets. The most generous provision was also made by the proprietor in donations of school, church and parsonage lots, as well as the most liberal accommodations to the earliest settlers. Major Elston lived to see and realize the accom- plishment of his highest anticipations of the city's prosperity, which was a rich reward for his en- terprise, and he possessed at the same time the good will and esteem of his fellow citizens.

Asa Harper, who afterwards lived in Cool Spring township, assisted in the survey. There is good evidence that there was a partially finished cabin in Michigan City as early as October, 1832, and that it was the only building in the place. This probably served as the home of Major Elston and the surveying party in laying out the town, the original plat of which was recorded September 17, 1833; though there have been many additions since.

In August, 1833, Jacob Furman and B. F. Bryant built a log cabin on a spot afterwards known as Peck's corner. Samuel Flint arrived in October, 1833, and at about the same time came George W. Selkirk, who afterwards be- came a farmer in Cool Spring township. It is said that there was but one frame building then in the town, which was built by Samuel B. Webster. Mr. Flint built the second one for the occupation of his family. In June, 1833, Thompson W. Francis arrived but left soon after, not returning as a permanent resident until March 16, 1834. But as he was a carpenter it is probable that he did some work during his first stay, which may account for Webster's frame building, which Samuel Flint found when he arrived. Joseph C. Orr and Samuel Miller, Esq., were on the ground by March, 1834. Orr built a tannery and lived in a log house on the site afterwards occupied by Ames and Holliday's drug store. He made

this log house serve as an inn where he enter- tained strangers until a suitable hotel was built. Samuel Miller, Esq., obtained the establishment of a postoffice and became the first postmaster. He sent a. horseman to LaPorte once a week for the mail. The Michigan road had been laid out and the laborers were then at work upon it; but it was not completed at the northern terminus, there was only an Indian trail between Michigan City and LaPorte, and foot paths or new cart paths from place to place. Soon afterwards a route was established between Michigan City and Chicago around the shore of Lake Michigan, the mail arrived daily in four-horse stages, and it is said that the quarterly returns of the postoffice soon exceeded $100. Samuel Miller, Esq. became one of the heaviest merchants of the town. Colonel William Teal, if not the first, was one of the first merchants. In company with him was David Sprague, Esq., and they did an enormous business. These gentlemen were associated with the original proprietor as holders of the remain- ing unsold lots. Daniel Brown and Jacob Haas formed a mercantile copartnership in 1834. Teal and Sprague, Brown and Haas, and Samuel Miller were all merchants at the same time, and the volume of business which they transacted in 1834, nay, for the single month of June in that year, is simply amazing as we shall see in the chapter on Business and Commerce. In 1834 two hotels were built ; the first by Lofland and Taylor near the harbor, the other by Samuel Olinger, Thompson Francis doing the carpenter work. Business was good, the merchants had more than they could do, vessels were continually arriving with merchandise of various kinds and departing loaded with grain and produce, wagons were continually arriving from the interior loaded with grain and produce and departing loaded with merchandise, settlers were con- stantly arriving who were laborers, artisans, tradesmen, farmers, and merchants; the hotels were full of new arrivals or travelers passing through, the stages were crowded; dwelling houses, warehouses, business blocks and public buildings were going up, the streets were full of bustle and activity, and all the affairs of this new and rapidly growing town were progressing at a noisy pace which surprises us even at this late day. Before the close of 1834 this place which two years previous had been inhabited only

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by forest men and wild beasts, contained a popu- lation of seven hundred and fifteen souls.

In the town there were not many doctors nor lawyers, but a sufficient number for all require- ments; for health prevailed, drunkenness was al- most unknown, the people lived at peace with each other, and were united in their efforts to make the new town a prosperous one. On July 8, 1835, a paper was established, the first in the county, the Michigan City Gazette, and a writer on the new paper, evidently in love with his sub- ject, eloquently discourses as follows :-

"The advantages which this place possesses are manifold. Contiguous to us are the fertile and beautiful prairies with an adequate number of delightful groves, as well as an endless variety of the finest forest timber; and all these inter- spersed with streams which afford mill seats ample in capacity and numbers for all purposes. Such is the character of the lands about us, while the site of our town is sandy and mud is never seen in our streets. Immediately upon the lake shore two huge bluffs rear their lofty heads as if on purpose to form in winter a rampart to protect us from the blasts that sweep along the lake, yet leaving a loop-hole through which we may peep at its angry surface, and in summer to relieve the eye from that monotony which would otherwise exist, furnishing at the same time a natural observatory which on ascending the sum- mit affords one of the most striking views in the world. Here before us is spread that beautiful and transparent sheet of water, Lake Michigan, inviting us across its placid surface to an easy and rapid intercourse with the present and future inhabitants of its shores, the extent of which is but little short of one thousand miles, affording also a way of conveyance by which we may send a bushel of wheat to Rochester for twelve and a half cents. These waters also furnish us with the finest varieties of fish. The salubrity of our climate is worthy of special notice. From the short experience of its inhabitants, and from all the known experience of the natives, no place in either the western or eastern country is more decidedly healthy. But one burial from among our citizens, a child, has taken place the last year."

Major Elston obtained his land from the gov- ernment on November 6 and 13, 1830, May 13, and July 1, 1831, and April 10, 1832; this laid

the foundation of Michigan City. The first Ger- man family which is said to have arrived was that of A. A. Voigt, who made the place their permanent home. Almost at once Michigan City became a ready market for the surrounding country ; not only because of its water trans- portation but because of its home consumption. In 1835 the farmers found it profitable to bring their butter, eggs, cheese and bacon to this market where there was a great demand for these articles. In that year the place had begun to assume the appearance of a good-sized town. One man, Mr. J. S. Castle, had formed his opinion of the place before leaving New York; this opinion and the falsehoods circulated on his way almost made him abandon the idea of coming; but as his goods had already been shipped there was no other alternative. But when he arrived, instead of finding "six or eight log buildings" as he had been told on his journey, he found a young city in good earnest, with its four-story frame buildings composing hardware, dry- goods, clothing, grocery, and apothecary stores, besides four or five warehouses. One of the buildings which was especially praised was the Franklin Building, whose proprietors were Messrs. Ames, Clark and Sprague. These men were highly commended by travelers from the east for erecting such a structure, who declared that it was superior to anything they had seen in the western country. The building contained "four large stores" and was of four stories. By the middle of July, 1835, two of the stores were filled with goods-one by Fisher Ames and Com- pany as a variety store, the other by D. and N. W. Low as a domestic store. The other two stores were filled with goods during the course of the summer. In this building the Hon. E. A. Hanni- gan, then member of Congress from this district, and who was a candidate for re-election, addressed the people of Michigan City on Monday, July 13, at 4 o'clock p. m., and was followed by David H. Cole, who gave a short address. Thus early did Michigan City take her place as a fully fledged city in the political campaigns of the day. Her lines of communication were being extended; by July a regular mail was running to and from "twenty mile prairie," and intercourse between the city and country was being facilitated by every available means. The building opposite the present Vreeland House still stands, a vestige

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of the structures of 1835. Nor were the people exclusively bound up in their own town; they could appreciate outlying localities. One of the citizens, writing under date of July 29, 1835, says,

"We are just returned from a short ride on the prairie beyond LaPorte. As always so new, we stopped to admire the little lake and the beautiful scenery north and northeast of it, and while passing over the three miles from the lake to the schoolhouse on the Michigan road, we in- voluntarily exclaimed more than once, how de- lightful would be a house with a good library and a few choice friends in this place !"

On February 8, 1836, Michigan City was in- corporated and began to be governed by a mayor and five aldermen. The first mayor was Wylis Peck. The settlement of the town had been very rapid, and by this time the population numbered fully three thousand souls; hence Michigan City started off even at the first as a fully fledged city. But it did not grow very much before the Civil war. Even as late as 1858 the city contained only three wards. It was a great business center, with much enterprise and a comparatively large population, but it sprang into being and at once attained to what for many years was the limit of its activities.

One of the greatest obstacles against which Michigan City had to struggle was the lack of an adequate harbor. The shore was open, sea vessels could not approach near enough to the beach to unload, and hence were compelled to transfer their cargo to lighters and so bring it to the shore. The storms which blew from all directions except from the south were often terrific, and when this was the case the only way to prevent being driven from anchorage and stranded was to put out to sea. Trail creek was navigable, and was made more navigable, above its mouth, but there the vessels were blocked by a sand bar which made the water very shallow so that oftentimes one could wade from one shore of the creek to the other. But at length a vessel crossed the bar and came into the creek, though by what means the sand bar was lowered to admit of this is not stated. The incident is given in Packard's history, and we will let the writer relate it in his own words:

"In the year 1836, on the Fourth of July, a vessel, the Sea Serpent, was brought in over the

bar and this circumstance was made the occasion for a day of rejoicing. The vessel was pushed and towed, the citizens aiding, some considerable distance up the creek and the enthusiasm found expression in a way that was more applicable to those 'good old times' than to the present evil days. A barrel of whiskey was rolled out and set up on end. Then the head was knocked in, a nail was driven partly in the side, and a tin cup was hung on it, when every man helped himself ; and it may be presumed that no one failed to partake of his full share of the liquid. It was a general spree in which every man lent a hand."- Packard's History of LaPorte County, page 88.

From the fact that Daniel Webster was in Michigan City to boom the Buffalo and Mississippi railroad as related in a former chap- ter, and that he once addressed the citizens at LaPorte, it has been inferred that he was present on the above related occasion; but though the refreshments were such as that great statesman would not refuse, the writer has not found any evidence of his presence at that time.

It was not long before the enterprising citi- zens of Michigan City provided against the ne- cessity of discharging cargoes by means of lighters; they built a long pier out into the lake so that vessels could moor alongside and unload and reload. The center of business then was near where the Michigan Central Railroad station now is. Soon there was a row of large elevators reaching from Hoosier Slide up to Franklin street. The buildings reached lakeward even be- yond the Slide to a point near where the light house now is. There were nine or ten big ware- houses. There was a slab bridge across the creek and a track all along the way and the whole length of the pier, and grain and produce used to be run down to the vessels on small cars and loaded, and returning, the cars would take the imported goods up to the warehouses. The Messrs. Blair were the prime movers in the erec- tion of the pier, and the people were enthusiastic in pointing to what individual enterprise had ac- complished, and in their condemnation of the "loco foco" presidential administrations for what they had not accomplished by neglecting or refus- ing to make adequate appropriations to provide a safe and quiet harbor. The pier was a great ad- vantage, but the vessels could approach it and effect their exchange of cargoes only in a com-

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parative calm; if the water was rough they were compelled to suspend operations and put out to sea and ride at anchor, which was a great detri- ment. What was needed was a strong break- water providing an adequate area of still water for anchorage and enabling vessels to discharge their cargoes and reload no matter how rough the lake might be outside. The struggles and triumphs of the plucky citizens with reference to making a harbor will be related in the chapter on Architecture and Public Works; here we only remark how exasperating must have been the conduct of the national government in not co- operating with the people as it should have done.

The warehouses remained for many years and served well their purpose; but on Sunday night, March 26, 1857, they were burned, and a con- siderable amount of produce was destroyed in the fire. On Friday, March 20, 1840, a previous fire destroyed the old brewery.

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A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana, Part 25

Author: Rev. E. D. Daniels Publication date: 1904 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1273

Author: Rev. E. D. Daniels
Publication date: 1904
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1273