A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana, Part 29

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

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Marl exists in many places in LaPorte county. It exists in Galena and in several other townships. It is very apt to exist where there are extinct lakes, as there are scattered over the county. In Clear lake no marl has been found. The same is true of the northern arm of Pine lake, but in the southern arm there is marl, though of inferior quality and not sufficient in quantity to pay for working. In Stone lake there is very little marl and even that is under eleven feet or more of muck. Fishtrap lake has only muck, and the same is true of Horseshoe lake. Both are now mere muck beds. But marl underlies the whole of DuChermin or Hudson lake, being thickest at the west end, varying in quality and constituting a fair workable deposit. In Fish lake, in Lincoln township, there is marl of excellent quality and in workable quantities. Until recently this was thought to be the nearest workable marl deposit to Chicago, it lies near two good railroads-the Grand Trunk and the Wabash, and its location is excellent. And recently, still nearer Chicago, marl has been discovered in Dewey township,

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near English lake, on the low prairie lands which have been redeemed by the drainage of the La- Crosse Land Company. It is of great depth and has been pronounced by experts to be of excellent quality. It is found in what is evidently an old lake bed of immense extent. It is probable that after a time the enterprising gentlemen who are improving that region will build a cement factory ; and with a factory there, and another at Fish lake and still another at Hudson lake, worth in the aggregate $1,000,000, which is a moderate estimate, one can see what it would do for the county. The three factories should turn out at least fifteen hundred barrels of cement per day. The process is a continuous one, with no stops for Sundays or holidays. Here then is a prospect of over five hundred thousand barrels a year which, with cement varying from $1.30 to $1.50 per barrel at the factory, would bring to the county a business worth at least $650,000 per year. To the above should be added the fact that the very quality of clay required in making Portland cement exists within convenient distance of the two southern marl deposits. Across the Kan- kakee in Marshall county there is a great abund- ance of it.

Marl has also been found on the farm of Charles Bosserman, near Oakwood, in the south- ern part of Springfield township ; it is pronounced to be of good quality, but it has not yet been as -. certained whether it exists in payable quantities. If so, it will be the nearest workable marl bed to Chicago.

But the main products of this county are those which arise from farming and stock-raising- wheat, rye, oats, barley, corn, and other grains, the root crops, butter, eggs, milk, cheese, horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry.

By 1835 the county was producing rich har- vests. On July 29th of that year Mr. J. S. Castle, of Michigan City, wrote, of a ride which he had just taken beyond LaPorte, "On the prairie the harvest is beginning, and the farmer has a most cheering prospect-two weeks will save the whole of the wheat, and no living man need wish for a finer crop. The corn, too, is putting forth its strength and its beauty, and the oats surpass even the farmer's hopes."

In 1838 the Chicago American said, "While on a trip last week through Door Prairie, in this

rich and enterprising Whig state, we were much gratified with the thrifty appearance of the farms and smiling prospects of a golden harvest. When the stranger leaves the suburbs of Michigan City for a few miles, he enters on a rich and beautiful prairie whose spacious and well filled houses and granaries and waving crops at once convert his wonder into admiration."

In September, 1838, the Buffalonian said that the farmers of LaPorte county had produced two hundred thousand surplus bushels of wheat that season, and that four hundred barrels of flour had already passed Buffalo from this county. And at that very time there were in the county one hundred surplus bushels of potatoes, and fully as many of oats. And the LaPorte County Whig of that year says, "Wheat is now selling at 871/2 cents per bushel in this county, and our farmers have 300,000 bushels to dispose of." Then the country between Otis and Westville was all woods. Later, when it was cleared, one firm alone McLane & Wells, of Union Mills, shipped away two hun- dred thousand bushels of grain in one year. For many years there have been shipping points in all parts of the county.

That year also Thomas D. Lemon, Esq., ex- hibited a pumpkin raised in his garden in the village of LaPorte, which measured seven and one-half feet in circumference.

Not every year produced abundant harvests. There were occasional failures then as now. For instance, in 1848 the weather was highly favor- able for the ripening of corn which was a heavy crop, but the wheat crop was mostly a failure from injury by the fly the previous fall, and hence the farmers planted nearly double the usual area of ground with corn. Potatoes also came in well, "thumping big ones, and a great many in a hill." The summer of 1849 was a very wet season, in consequence of which much of the wheat was affected by rust or mildew; its growth was checked before maturity, and the berry was some- what shrunken; but it produced good flour and brought from eighty to ninety-eight cents per bushel, and some of it as high as a dollar, in Michigan City. Farming had its vicissitudes then as now. Occasionally for a year or series of years a certain crop would fail, wholly or in part, but in the main farming in LaPorte county has been very successful.

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Large quantities of hay are raised in the county, much of which is pressed and shipped away. In 1891 ten thousand one hundred and twenty-seven tons of hay were reported. In 1892 the returns were eighteen thousand six hundred and ninety-two tons, and three thousand four hundred and sixty-nine tons of clover. There is considerable buckwheat, some barley, also some broomcorn and flax, but not much account has been made of raising tobacco. Many of the farmers, especially in the southern part of the county, ship their milk to Chicago on the early morning trains. The county stands almost at the head of the ninety-two counties of the state in the production of butter, both as to quantity and quality.

Alvin Buck, who came from Worthington, Massachusetts, to this county in 1838 and was a noted farmer, made a superior quality of cheese at his home, Clay Hill farm, northwest of La- Porte. His house burned down in 1871 and was replaced by the present brick residence. W. A. Banks, present postmaster of LaPorte, who came to the county in 1845 from his birthplace in New York and located in Scipio township, made butter on a large scale at his home for some years. Several creameries have been established in various parts of the county in late years, and three are now in successful operation : At West- ville, conducted by Herman Krissel; at Union Mills, by D. H. Wakeman, and that of Schlosser Brothers, of Plymouth, located at Hanna and managed by J. H. Jordan. In the latter part of 1899 the LaPorte papers advocated the establish- ment of a creamery in that city, and one was built a little later, but it did not prove success- ful and was wound up through a receivership in 1904.

The subject of sugar-beet culture has been agitated, especially in some of the farmer's in- stitutes, and beets have been raised in the county and shipped to a sugar factory in Michigan. As yet little progress has been made in this industry, but as a result of drainage in Starke county sugar-beet culture is taking the attention largely of the owners of the low lands; and one is at a loss to see why it should not be so in the low lands of LaPorte county. For the raising of beets these lands are said to be excellent.

The farmers of the northern townships are

giving their time and attention more and more to fruit culture. In Galena and Hudson townships many are raising peaches, and the fruit is .said to do well.

Mr. I. S. Jessup was the first nursery man in the county, establishing a nursery of fruit trees near LaPorte in the early forties, and supplying not only LaPorte but neighboring counties, and even a part of Michigan. Fruit trees were a necessity, and Mr. Jessup supplied the demand. On October 10, 1846, he writes to a cousin in Ohio, James Jessup, Esq., to get him some pear seeds and bring them on his return to LaPorte. He says, "If you cannot get them for less, pay $5.00 per pint rather than not get them." He directs this cousin to get him a peck of apple seeds from some cider mill, and explains how to do it. He tells him that if he comes home by way of Indianapolis he must go to a certain nursery and get five hundred grafts each of ten different varieties of apple trees, and. a large bunch of cuttings of Catawba grape. And so Mr. Jessup gave his orders. His heart was evidently in his business, and to him the county is indebted for its early supply of fruit trees. Many will remember his "Lake View Nurseries," well stocked with many varieties of trees and shrubs.

Rising now to the animal creation, we find that dressed poultry is no inconsiderable item, which is shipped to Chicago. And as to pork, both LaPorte and Michigan City were once packing centers. In 1842 a large business was done in this line in LaPorte, not so large, how- ever, as on the previous year. The falling off was caused by a fall in the price of the article. The principal buyers in LaPorte were Wheeler and Traver. Notwithstanding the lull in the trade, these gentlemen in January of that year had packed several thousand barrels, and were still averaging about two hundred barrels per day.

In the late forties, about 1847-50, Mr. Will- iam Clement had a slaughter house on Muckshaw lake, not far from the present city water works. In winter thousands of hogs were butchered and dressed there, often as many as two hundred in one day, which was then con- sidered a big day's work. Corn was cheap, the hogs were large, and as the meat was cheap the offals, pluck, heads, bristles, and everything per-

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taining to the animal were saved and turned to account. The lard and meat were barreled and taken by wagon to Michigan City and shipped to New York city, where they were exchanged for dry goods for Mr. Clement's store, which stood where Oberreich and Arnold's store now is. In this work Mr. Clement was assisted by John Taylor, Peter Wilson, Joseph Witzal, and other farmers who lived south of the town. A butcher's sign in those days was a beef shank hooked on a post outside the shop.

Michigan City was in no way behind. Messrs. C. B. and Lyman Blair were engaged even up to and during the time of the Civil war in the beef and pork business. Lyman bought all the live and slaughtered hogs he could procure at living prices, and packed them in the winter for the summer shipment.

In the fall of 1861 Mr. Lyman Blair packed some fourteen hundred head of beef cattle and a much larger number of hogs. He killed at the rate of three hundred to five hundred hogs a day, a large portion of which was rendered into lard. He had an establishment which was per- fectly and conveniently arranged for the dispatch of business. The lard was rendered by steam in two large wooden vats holding ninety barrels each. Every portion of the dressed hog save the hams was put in. At that time Mr. Blair stated that a dollar's worth of lard could be realized from an ordinary hog's head. He had on hand about three thousand fine hogs and was buying all he could get either alive or dressed. In this business he was spending more money broad cast over the county than any other two or three men.

At that time also DeWolfe and Haywood had a stave factory which employed about thirty men and did a large business.

Up the lake beach after crossing over a high bluff one could ascend to an interesting point called Blair's Observatory, where he could obtain one of the finest imaginable views of the lake and the surrounding country.

And as to beef, up to November, 1861, Mr. Blair had slaughtered and packed fourteen hun- dred head of cattle, the net value of which was $35.000. He had also sent nine carloads of fine cattle to eastern markets in one week in Novem- ber, the smallest of which animals weighed fifteen hundred pounds. And Mr. Blair was only one

of those who were engaged in the business. E. Folsom & Co., James McAdoo and others were similarly engaged. This may serve to give the rising generation an idea of the business of the county, and how it was done. Since then, of course, the main supply of cattle for eastern markets has come from the great plains of the west. But the old brick packing house at Michi- gan City was once a lively place.

In 1863 we find John Hilt advertising for army horses. In 1861 John F. Decker advertised that he wished to purchase at once five hundred horses for use in the army. The war created a demand for horses all over the country. In 1876 there were no first-class draft horses in the county. The subject of importing stock from the old country had been agitated in the county ever since 1857. Even at that early date it was pointed out what other counties were doing in this line, especially Decatur county, and it was urged that LaPorte county follow suit. Nothing was done, however, to organize a company for that pur- pose, until 1876, when steps were taken to organ- ize the Door Prairie Live Stock Association for the importation especially of blooded stallions. This was a stock company; there were thirty- four shares at $50 each, and the company had twenty-nine members. Messrs. Albert Hall, C. B. Simmons, and .W. A. Banks, acting for the company, bought the first full-blooded Clydes- dale stallion ever brought into the county as owned by any of its citizens. Messrs. L. T. Harding and W. A. Banks bought another. The company thought that coach horses were needed, and so they bought two-one of three years, and one of two. Messrs. Banks and W. E. Crighton bought a Dalesman Cleveland Bay. Matters did not go quite right at the place where the horses were kept, and the company was dissatisfied, and so seven members bought up the stock and con- tinued the business. Messrs. L. T. Harding and W. A. Banks made the first two trips abroad. Time after time, generally every other year, some members of this company would go abroad and bring back blooded horses, until they had im- ported thirty-four, all stallions; if any mares were brought the members of the company bought them as individuals. To this company must be given the credit of improving the equine stock of the county, and also of the state, for they

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supplied other counties as well as their own, and blooded horse stock became a product of LaPorte county.

The writer intended to make this chapter largely statistical, and had already prepared much of it in that form, but finally concluded to write in a more general manner, and refer the reader to the reports of the State Statistician, which should be in every well ordered library, and which may be obtained from the state capitol. There are reasons why certain reports seem unfavorable to the county. For instance, a poor year, or much wet land planted with corn, will bring down the average yield per acre, and make a poor showing. Again, a year may be a poor one for one crop but a good one for another. The only fair way therefore is to average everything, and that too for a term of years, and compare it with the same average of other counties. But, to say nothing of the time and labor required for such a statisti- cal study, it would take up so much space as to preclude utterly our mentioning anything of his- tory under the head of products. And then again,

the writer is reminded that when a youthful stu- dent, about to enter into a debate, he applied to an experienced speaker for help, who said, "Young man, one of the easiest ways to lie is by statistics; do not rely upon them but treat your subject on general principles."

Suffice it to say, then, that, all things con- sidered, as to wheat, corn, oats, and other grains, hay and clover, as to the larger and smaller fruits and vegetables, as to the raising of stock and the cut of wool, as to eggs, milk, butter and cheese, in a word as to the main products which belong to agriculture and horticulture, LaPorte county stands well up among the ninety-two counties of the state. The writer has gone far enough in the statistical study to know this.

But where will the county stand when her resources are fully developed, when for instance her tens of thousands of acres of rich prairie land, which hitherto have been under water a good part of each year, are drained and brought under cultivation? For the answer we refer to the eighth chapter.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

TRADES, ETC.

Clang, clang! the massive anvils ring ; Clang, clang ! a hundred hammers swing; Like the thunder rattle of a tropic sky,

The mighty blows still multiply,-

Clang, clang ! Say, brothers of the dusky brow, What are your strong arms forging now?"

-ANONYMOUS

In LaPorte county the conversion of raw ma- terial into forms suitable for the use of mankind was undertaken at once upon the arrival of the earliest permanent white settlers, who, with few tools but an ax, hastily constructed a rude cabin of logs and fashioned a few primitive articles for domestic use, such as tables, benches, beds, and other furnishings of immediate necessity. Machine processes of manufacture were intro- duced into the territory now delimited as LaPorte county in 1832, from which time industrial en- terprises multiplied rapidly along the streams, in the woods, and at the growing centers of popu- lation until the present gratifying showing of shops and factories was attained, but there was a considerable period of time during which the pioneers made for themselves at their own homes a large portion of the articles required in their domestic and agricultural life.

Planted in the depths of a great wilderness, remote from mills and often unattended by crafts- men, the men and women who laid here the foun- dations of civilized society were of necessity their own artisans to a very large extent and every home was a factory. Many a farmer or farmer's son, becoming skilled in some particular trade, was enabled thereby to add substantially to the family revenue.

Next to shelter and foodstuffs clothing was

the issue of paramount importance to the hardy pioneers, and in the division of labor this industry was left to the women. Every cabin was flanked by its patch of flax, and the planter who did not possess a few sheep had to trade with his neigh- bor for wool. From these raw materials the old-fashioned housewife was expected to pro- duce clothing for the family and linen for bed and table. The full grown flax was pulled up and spread out on the ground to rot in the rain and dew, after which it was thoroughly broken, by the older boys, if there were any, with the vigorous use of the flax-brake, then put through a softening process called "skutching" and a separating operation known as "hacking," which left ready for the spinstress two fabrics, tow and thread fiber. By the use of the little spinning wheel, proficiency in the handling of which was for the girls a test of advancing womanhood, the fiber, or lint, was made into a fine strong thread called warp and the tow into a coarser thread used as filling. These were woven together on a hand- loom and from the tow-linen produced was made the summer wear for the family, the females usually preferring to color theirs with homemade dyestuff to suit the taste, while the less pre- tentious menfolks were satisfied to take it as it came from the loom. When the wool was brought in, the good mother and her daughters shaped

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it into convenient rolls by the aid of a pair of handcards provided for that purpose and spun on the big wheel into yarn filling (sometimes used for knitting stockings, mittens and comforters), which, when woven with the linen warp, made the "linsey-woolsey" of the good old days, or, if woven with a cotton warp, resulted in the fabric known as "jeans". The former suitably dyed, was in general use as a strong, warm and hand- some texture for feminine apparel, and the latter, colored with butternut juice, was tailored by the women for the men's wear.

For footwear the wandering cobbler who trav- eled from house to house with his tools was relied upon to fashion boots and shoes from the home- tanned hides, or moccasins were procured from the Indians. Occasionally the shoemaker would not get around until after snowfall and many a venerable grandsire can tell of going farefooted to his chores with snow on the ground. A well prepared coon skin made a very warm and equally unsightly cap, and properly selected rye straws were woven by the women into bonnets for them- selves and hats for their masters. The wo- men also fashioned for themselves curiously wrought sunbonnets of brightly colored goods shaped over pasteboard strips with fluted and. ruffled capes falling behind over the shoulders. The manufacture of quilts gave op- portunities for social gatherings when there were neighbors close enough to get back home before chore time, and the quilting ranked along with the huskings, logrollings and houseraisings and washing bees among the primitive society func- tions of pioneer days. The industries of the homestead did not include the preservation of fruits and vegetables, save to a small extent by drying, but meats were preserved in various ways; lye-hominy was a regular institution, and some other food articles were occasionally laid by for winter, thus forming the beginnings of the packing and canning industries of later times.

Prior to the advent of cabinet-makers the settlers perforce included that trade among their accomplishments and made their own beds, tables, cupboads and chairs. For bedsteads an oak butt about eight feet long and of sufficient diameter was split into rails and posts, a shorter log was split up for slats, and the pieces selected were dressed down with the drawknife and fitted to-

gether with the ax. Two rails were used for each side and three for each end, the rounded ends of the slats were driven into auger holes in the rails, and the four high corner posts were tied together at the top with strong cords from which curtains might be suspended if desired. In the more fortunate homes a feather bed surmounted a "straw tick," and with plenty of "kiver" such a lodgment was comfortable on the coldest winter night. With equal skill a table was constructed by pinning two thin oak clapboards, smoothed with a sharp ax on the upper side, to cross pieces set on four strong legs, the surface of the table being about four. feet by six.

These homely processes constituted the be- ginnings of industrial activity in LaPorte county, as elsewhere, and continued necessarily until the mills came into existence and mechanics appeared and roads were opened to trade centers; indeed they could be observed more or less for many years in the remoter districts, and puncheon floors and split slab benches were used in schools after they had disappeared from the homes. In use in a log cabin in Galena township as late as 1890 there was an old bed made by inserting a rail and foot board, supported at the outer corner by a hewn post, in the log walls, which thus formed the head and inner side of the bed, and using cords instead of slats to sustain the mattress. The same cabin contained a corner cupboard con- structed by resting split boards on wooden pins driven into the log walls.

The earliest recorded instance of commercial manufacturing in LaPorte county is found in the once hopeful little settlement at Hudson lake, where, in 1829, Asa M. Warren established a blacksmith shop and made tomahawks and other implements for the Indians. He became a man of consequence. He was the third white man to enter land in the county, Eber Woolman and John Egbert having preceded him by one day, and his entry, made November 4, 1830, was a part of section 4, township 37, range 4, owned by him yet when he died, with other land adjoining, which he purchased of the original Indian owners. In July, 1832, he was drawn on the first petit jury in the county and in that year he voted three times, at the first election for county officers April 9; at the first township election, August 6; at the first presidential election held in

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the county, November 7, on which occasion he served as judge. He was elected township trustee and county commissioner, acted as presi- dent of the county board one year, and was an unsuccessful candidate for county recorder in 1855, being defeated by Anderson Hupp, Demo- crat. Mr. Warren was born in New Jersey in 1804, moved with his parents to Warren county, Ohio, in 1822, was married there to Mary Lucas in 1828, came west in the same year and spent some time in St. Joseph county and at Niles, Michigan, and traveled down the old Sac trail to the mission at Hudson lake in the autumn of 1829. There he located the land he wanted in adjoining sections, 4 and 33, and set about dig- ging a well on the latter, but failing to reach water he changed his building site to the lake shore on the other section and built his cabin and set up his forge. Later he built a house at the point he originally selected and there, March 26, 1885, he died, full of years and honor, leaving as his widow a second wife (who was Mary Frances), and eleven children who had called him father. The date of his location on the lake is. proved by his old account books, preserved by him until his death, containing entries of charges for blacksmithing running back to the date given. None of his family is left in LaPorte county at the time this is written.

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A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana, Part 29

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