A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana, Part 32

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

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May 12, 1837, Thomas and William McCart- ney purchased a tract of timber in section 4, Lin- coln township, and built a sawmill on Spring run, now called Mill creek. This, the first in the town- ship, was run by Thomas McCartney until it was sold to William Hughes ten years later, and still later it was moved away, probably about 1874, when it was owned by Jared Drollinger. During the same year Benjamin Galbreath and John, his son, built two mills in the vicinity of Independ- ence, in Wills township, a sawmill and gristmill. "They had come to the settlement during a very wet time," says Packard's History, "and imag- ined they had a fine waterpower. Both mills and dams were built at the same time. The grist mill was started first, with one run of stone. The son, John Galbreath, succeeded in grinding three sacks of corn, when the waterpower was gone forever, for it was the first and last time it was

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used. There is now no stream whatever where this enterprise was undertaken. The father suc- ceeded in sawing three small logs. The next year both mills were torn down." This was in section 28. During the year 1836 Andrew Avery, who was mentioned in connection with the Garret Bias sawmill, located in Lakeport, Hudson town- ship, and under the inspiration of brilliant prom- ise held out by the little village for future great- ness he began in 1837 the construction of a saw- mill to be operated by a novel sort of power. Again Packard's History is borrowed. "On the east bank of Du Chemin lake the land is quite high for some sixty rods; it then sinks below the level of the lake. Through this mound it was proposed to dig a ditch. A large force of men were employed and after an immense amount of work a canal was perfected through which the water ran to the depth of four feet. With this power he contrived to run a wheel. For a while he succeeded very well, but, like all the lakes in the country, it became less in volume as the land was cleared up, the timber cut off and the sod broken, until, two years after, the project was en- tirely abandoned. The lake is now at least four feet below its former level." This mill began operations in 1838, when Avery was a lieutenant of militia, and in the next year a gristmill was attached and a company was organized to capital- ize and run it, Salem Huntington, Richard Hicks and James F. Smith being his partners under the firm style of Huntington, Avery & Company. In 1840 Avery bought out his partners and moved the mills to a spot close to where Asa M. Warren, the "Blacksmith by the Lake," had his shop in 1829, and where the mill building now stands in use as an icehouse. Avery employed oxen as his motive power at this place, using sometimes five yoke. In 1842 the building was burned and an- other and larger one was immediately erected. Two years later the steers were superseded by steam, and in another two years the plant was en- larged under the ownership of Early & Avery. Jacob Early soon sold out and in a short time Avery again became the sole owner, but in 1857 he failed in business, though ultimately he tri- umphed over his difficulties and the mill property was left in his hands. Again it burned, in 1870, and was rebuilt without delay by Mr. Avery, who continued to run it until in 1883, when he sold

out to Azro H. Eckert, reserving the machinery to be removed within a month. The gristmill had ceased running prior to that time. The building has been converted into an icehouse, where the town of New Carlisle obtains its supply of ice. Solomon L. Palmer, who was born in Oneida county, New York, in 1810, and located in Ga- lena township in 1835 on section 22, built a saw- mill in 1838. He died in 1873. In . Packard's History it is said that the Jessup mill of 1839 was the first sawmill erected in New Durham town- ship, but it has been seen that there is a fairly clear record of the Bryant mill of 1833 in that township. The Jessup mill stood on the head- ·waters of the Little Calumet, a mile west of the present site of Otis, in section 6, and was built by Israel and James Jessup, connections of one of the earliest families in the county. It is there ' yet, owned by Samuel C. Hackett, having passed through several hands since its construction. Noble township received its first sawmill in 1839, as it seems, when John Johnson & Brothers, set one up on Markham (now Mill) creek, three- fourths of a mile below the present Union Mills. This mill disappeared about 1875. Clinton town- ship possessed but little timber and was not at- tractive to the lumberman. About 1840, however, or perhaps a little earlier, a small mill was con- nected with the waterpower at Bigelow's mills on Hog creek. If there were others they are not remembered. Among the early manufacturers of lumber was Nicholas W. Closser, who built a waterpower mill on Trail creek about a mile below Waterford, and later a steam mill on Door Prairie, about four miles west of LaPorte. . The dates of these enterprises are uncertain, and the mills have long since passed of sight. Mr .. Closser brought his family to the county from Indianapolis in the summer of . 1834, traveling by. ox teams and occupying twenty-one days on the road. He was a member of the first Sunday school in Marion county, Indiana, and took great interest in similar work after his ar- rival in his new home. He was a soldier in the Black Hawk war, second constable in this county, an early trustee of Scipio township, county school superintendent, and maker of the first table and bedstead to be manufactured on Door Prairie. He was an enthusiastic member of the Old Settlers' association and served as its president, delighting

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to sound the summons to dinner at the annual re- unions by blowing an old conch that was a relic in his family. He died in 1891. Another early lumberman was Samuel B. Webster, who got out much of the material for the LaPorte and Plymouth plank road. His father, James Web- ster, who settled in this county in 1832, had been a pioneer manufacturer of lumber, flour, leather and whisky in Fayette and Franklin counties, Indiana. Samuel built the first frame residence in Michigan City and passed his later life, after some years of merchandising at Rolling Prairie, on a Kankakee township farm, where he died. He was honored as a justice of the peace. Many of the mills that have been mentioned, besides. others, were set up under the supervision of John Harding, a capable millwright who came to the county in 1834 and died in 1884.

After 1840, the period now reached in this review, the manufacture of lumber steadily in- creased in the county until the supply of timber began to be exhausted in the seventies. Small portable mills were numerous and their history cannot be traced. In November, 1834, Charles Francis and several sons came to Galena town- ship from Connecticut and the family was in many ways a valuable acquisition to the new set- tlement. The father was bom itt Hartford, Con- necticut, in 1794, and died at the old homestead in this county in 1870. Of the orighed family that came to this county as stated, Simeon Francis born in 1827 and a resident of the city of LaPorte survives. Charles Francis built a sawmill on his farm, section 28, in 1846, propelled it by power derived from a branch of the Galien river, and ran it with the assistance of his sons. It was discon- tinued about 1874, having then been owned some years .by one of the sons, Joseph H., now dead. This mill was less than a mile above the Barnes mill of 1834; and about the same distance below the latter, on the same branch, William Wald- ruff and Hiram Bement, in 1848, set the third sawmill for that stream to run. Waldruff sold to Ira L. Barnes and still later the firm sold the entire business to Richard Etherington. It was converted into a gristmill and is now known as the Finley mill. It has been related by old resi- dents that at about this time one William Mat- thews, who had been living in the neighborhood

of Lamb's chapel, having come there from Mis- souri, lost his life under peculiarly pathetic cir- cumstances. He was a large, powerful man, in- dustrious and of unobtrusive manners, devoted to his family and especially to his little son of six years. He was employed as a timber cutter for one of the sawmills in that vicinity. One day while the wind was blowing a gale, he was in the woods at work, his boy at his side, and the tree he was cutting fell unexpectedly and endangered both of them. The father, without hesitation, grasped the child and with one desperate effort cast it beyond the path of the falling tree, but the instant's delay cost him his life. He was crushed so that he died almost instantly. The widow sold the small property left to her and disappeared from the county. The old dam now visible as a part of the public highway on the south line of section 14, in Galena township was built by Sam- uel Sutherland about 1850 for the purposes of a sawmill, which he ran there during a quarter of of a century and then abandoned. In 1855 J. B. Hatch, who was born in New York in 1830 and still resides near the old mill site that bears his name, purchased the Barnes mill property that was established in 1834 in section 20, Galena township, and made improvements on the saw- mill. What is said to have been the first steam mill of any kind erected in that township was the sawmill of Valentine F. Smith, dating from 1857 and located about forty rods west of the Mayes settlement, now called Hesston. In connection with it he had a shingle mill and barrel-heading factory. The plant was destroyed by fire in 1862 and was not rebuilt. Others who were extensive- by engaged in lumbering in Galena township in years gone by were the Pinneys, David Hudson and William L. Hiley, the last named being now a restaurant proprietor in LaPorte. The last saw- mill ever built in this township, and by many years the last in the county of the oldfashioned upright style, long since out of date, was that of Zachariah Kinne in section II. This mill was in two states, the millwright and surveyor having co-operated to set the saw so that it ran exactly on the state line. The construction of the dam and building was begun in 1877, but was so pro- tracted that one of the local wits of the period made a rhyme about it which was read with im-

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mense success before the Bunker Hill lyceum. now is. In the year 1860 a boy named Landon, In a series of local hits alphabetically arranged the poet closed with the following couplet

"Z is for Zachariah Kinne, who is building a mill ;

If he lives twenty years he'll be building it still."

The owner tired of waiting for the completion of the enterprise and sold the timber he had in- tended to cut with it. The mill was never a suc- cess as a custom mill, but it stood in fairly good repair until about 1893, after which it fell into decay and only the framing timbers are now vis- ible. It was sometimes known as the State Line mill.

Passing to New Durham township we find in Packard's History a statement that in 1844 Henry Herrold built a sawmill south of Otis, and the statement is repeated in Chapman's History. Henry Herrold's parents, Jacob and Sarah, were married in 1828 and the family came to LaPorte county from Ohio in 1854. They had nine living children at the time of their removal, of whom Christopher, the one next older than Henry, was born in 1834. It is apparent that Henry Herrold was neither at the place nor of sufficient age to build a mill near Otis in 1844, nor until after 1854, about which time he did put up the mill referred to. He sold it to W. F. Cattron & Company. It was run by waterpower. The statement also found in Packard and Chapman, that "in 1845 Philander Barnes built a mill about a mile west of Otis," fails of verification. The mill about a mile west of Otis was the Jessup mill of 1839; the name "Philander Barnes" has not been found in the records of the county after a consid- erable search ; the mill known for many years as the Barnes mill in that vicinity was about a mile and a half north of Otis, in Coolspring township instead of in New Durham. That mill, which stood in section 31, was operated until about 1875, when the then owner, J. Barnes, abandoned the waterpower. Its origin is unknown to the present writer. In 1852 Captain Jo Davis and his son Caleb established a steam sawmill a mile or so north of the village of New Durham. About two years later it was purchased by William S. Medlaris, who removed it to section 2, on the newly opened railroad, where Durham station

while playing in a dugout canoe on a pond near the Medaris mill, was accidentally drowned. It has been said that this event took place in the Medaris millpond, implying that the mill was driven by water; but the pond had no con- nection with the mill, which was operated by steam. The pond alluded to has en- tirely disappeared. In 1872 E. M. Bryson bought the mill and continued to run it for more than twenty years. He installed a 25-horsepower en- gine and did a large business. In 1855 Shep Crumpacker erected a steam sawmill something less than a mile west of Westville. John Logan, now a resident of LaPorte, built the frame build- ing and Clayton Weaver, who died in 1903, at 'his farm residence near Stillwell, built the stone foundation. Moses S. Wright later owned the property for a considerable length of time. In 1879 Joseph R. Kimball set up a small portable sawmill near Westville, which was the last ven- ture of the sort in the township.

Leaving New Durham township the next date encountered is 1845, when Thomas Fisher and Jonathan Dudley established a steam sawmill at Independence, in Wills township, near the un- fortunate speculation of the Galbreaths that has been recounted above. This plant ran nicely there until it was sold in 1851 to James and Thomas Hooton, Theodore Boardman and David Will- iams and by them removed to Puddletown, where it passed through several ownerships.4. Among those who held interests in it at different times were James Parnell, William Houghton, Martin Uga, Aaron Miller, Edwin Picket and James N. and Lorenzo Dow. As late as 1880, says one authority, there were two sawmills in operation at Puddletown. In one of these milis Mathew Feather, a workman, lost his life in 1871, a piece of lumber flying from the saw crushed his skull and produced instant death. In 1850 James and Samuel Webster, pioneer settlers in Pleasant township, put up a sawmill on the Little Kanka- kee in section one of that township. It was a short lived enterprise and is now forgotten by the oldest inhabitants. Not until the railroad was in operation through the county did Kankakee township enjoy the advantages of a local lumber manufactory. John Drummond. A. J. Bowell and J. H. Fail, who were among the earliest arrivals

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in the township, built a steam sawmill at Rolling Prairie in 1852 and sold it after three years to Johnson & Folant, who two years later sold it to Jesse H. G. Coplin. The following year a grist- mill was added to the plant. An explosion oc- curred in this mill in 1860 which killed Thomas Lewis, caused the loss of an arm to Frederick Knight and slightly injured Coplin. He sold to B. F. Huntsman in 1863, and in 1868 the mill was burned and rebuilt. In 1885 and 1886 Mr. Huntsman handled at this place one of the larg- est sawing contracts ever entered into in the county. J. H. Lesh & Company, heavy lumber dealers and manufacturers of Goshen, Indiana, bought the last large timber tract that has been sold in LaPorte county and Huntsman cut it out for them, employing from forty to one hundred teams at a time in the operation. The mill did little business after that and is now gone. A. C. Bowell, who lived and died on section 16, in this township, had a small sawmill and cider mill for a few years about 1880. Shaw & Johnson had a steam sawmill near Rolling Prairie which had been set there by W. H. Whitehead some time prior to 1874, and in that summer moved it to section 32, near Lamb's chapel, in Galena town- ship, where its.remains yet stand on the farm of D. Bowell. A. C. Bowell had an interest in it and J. E. Bowell owned and ran it last. In 1874 C. R. Madison, a native of Denmark, bought the mill property in section 6, Springfield township, which was afterwards operated as a gristmill ex- clusively by Henry E. Huntley, who died very suddenly February 28, 1904. Mr. Madison suf- fered severe injuries by being caught under a load of falling logs in the pineries of Michigan and later, while employed in a carriage factory in Chicago, he met with another accident that re- moved most of his fingers. In 1850 the Hack mill in Springfield township, section 16, was built by Martin & Hill. It was a steam mill and was first located at Springville, the removal occurring in 1855 after the original owners had sold out. In 1874 the mill was destroyed by fire, but Peter Hack, the then owner, rebuilt it and continued to run it about twenty years longer. Joseph Dauphine, it is said, erected a steam sawmill in the same township in . 1860. Arthur Brewer has · a mill in section 26, Galena township, with which

he does considerable business in the winter season.

Many others have been engaged in lumbering in a small way in the county, of whom a few may be named. T. M. and Alexander A. Hicks, of Hudson township, had a water mill in section 17 and later they settled down to farming. Edmund T. Smith, an Englishman, ran a mill about ten years after the war. Dorf & Kenton had a small steam mill for a time in section 26, a little west of Mount Pleasant, locating there in 1869. George H. Bean, who was married in 1869 at the age of eighteen years, spent some time in the business and then became a farmer. The last three were in Galena township. Harry Bennett, now living in the eastern part of the county, was a sawmill man. William H. Replogle, a Center township farmer, has a mill near the Chicago & South Shore electric railroad, but it is not much used. Noah Travis of Union, and B. N. Shreve, of Coolspring, R. W. Smith, of Springfield and B. F., W. H., and H. Huntsman, of Wills, were others. There was a small mill at Corymbo for a short time about 1875.

Michigan City, one of the greatest lumber markets in the state, has never been a producing point, the Trail creek mills having occupied the local manufacturing field. Since the location of the Andrew steam mill at Camp Colfax in 1832 the county seat has seldom been without an active sawmill. Jacob Early, who settled in the county in 1835 and was a pioneer merchant, miller and land owner, had a steam mill on Clear lake near the Lake Shore Railroad, which was perhaps the second mill at LaPorte. He was for a long time interested in lumbering and flouring in several townships. His clerk and son-in-law, Edmund S. Organ, a settler of 1836, county treasurer and LaPorte postmaster, was with Mr. Early in some of these operations. In 1876 the sawmill at the foot of Detriot street in LaPorte was owned by Huntsman Brothers, W. H. and Horace; and C. Huntsman was head sawyer. In 1885 Sim Bos- serman was the proprietor, according to the newspapers of that date, but the mill had not been running continuously, several cessations having occurred. The city directory of 1884 made no mention of its existence but referred to the mill established by Meinrad Rumely in the

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winter of 1883-4 and first run during the first week in that January. This was located in the old Lake Shore paintshop, leased for the purpose and had a feed mill attached to grind Saturdays.' After six years the Rumely mill ceased. In the summer of 1898 the Leslie mill at the foot of In- diana avenue was burned. As LaPorte had the earliest, so also it has the latest lumber making establishment in the county, J. K. Wise, formerly of North Manchester, Indiana, having in 1903 put in a large sawmill near the Lake Shore sta- tion. The business is conducted by the firm of J. K. Wise & Company, and is occupied chiefly in cutting timber brought from outside the county.

On the authority of the Indiana Gasetteer there were twenty-seven sawmills in LaPorte county in 1849. This number was increased in later years until more than sixty had been put in operation and those engaged in the business re- garded the timber supply of the county as prac- ically inexhaustible. Galena township had a mill for every two sections of land. Certainly, ex- cepting the soil itself the great forests of hard- wood constituted the greatest natural source of wealth in the county. While the eighth decade of the nineteenth century was passing the ad- mission was forced that LaPorte county's saw timber was practically a thing of the past, and one by one the mills dropped out of active opera- tion. At the prsent time there is not obtainable in the county sufficient timber to keep one mill continuously running. A directory of the county for 1892 mentioned but one 'sawmill, that of Aaron S. Vail in Springfield township, and a list of county manufacturing enterprises compiled in 1898 for the purposes of a map disclosed no fixed lumber mill.

FLOUR AND GRIST MILLS.

The Indiana Gasetteer of 1849 said: "In the northern portion of Indiana there is sufficient water power and inexhaustible beds of bog iron ore, so that whenever labor for agriculture ceases to be in demand it will be employed in manu- factures. Wheat is made into flour at home, and South Bend and Michigan City expect soon to rival Madison, which leads the state in manu- facturing." The alterations in labor conditions

thus forecasted have not yet been such as to bring the bog iron ore forward conspicuously, but Mich- igan City, under the impetus of her splendid manufactures, is more than twice as large as Madison, and the grain grinding industry LaPorte county has kept in full step with other advances. The authority above quoted said further that there were then, 1849, thirteen mills in this county, "some of them merchant mills and among the best in the state." Even then a considerable movement from Arba Heald's little hand mill, "about as large as a tin pail," had been accomplished. In many instances, particu- larly where the waterpower seemed adequate, saw and gristmills were established together, and in other cases gristmills were attached after the others had been in operation. Other machinery, as carding mills, distilleries, turning lathes, etc., were likewise run in connection with the early mills. These facts have led to confused recol- lections as to the character of many pioneer estab- lishments, and, in the absence of complete rec- ords, some of the statements made as facts are open to more or less doubt.

Springfield township has the oldest mill in the county, that built in 1832 by Charles Vail in section 31, an account of which has already been given. Another old mill in this township was the Ross mill, now occupied as a barn. At the May term, 1836, of the commissioners court, Erastus Quivey, Hiram Griffith and Joseph W. Foster applied for and received permission to construct a dam across the "Galene" river near the ninety-first milepost on the Michigan road, on condition that the dam should be built of earth, 50 yards in length, 40 feet wide at the bottom, 20 feet wide at the top, and 8 feet high, with a substantial forebay and "waste weir through it for a budge," and that it should be maintained in good repair at all times for a pub- lic highway. It is pretty well established that this mill was built in 1833 on land bought of the government by William Clark in 1830 and that it was first a sawmill, as has been already stated. John Hazleton was the millwright who set it up. Three of these men settled in the township in 1832, Foster coming a little later but in season to be elected first justice of the peace at the elec- tion of April 6, 1836. At the same election Quivey and Griffith were both candidates for

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supervisor and fence viewer, and both were de- feated. The Willow creek mills, operated at one time as a sawmill by C. R. Madison, the crippled man, as has been seen, first appeared in 1834, when Joseph Pagin, in whose house on Clear lake the first circuit court in the county was held, erected a gristmill in section 6, Spring- field township. At about the same time David Pagin, in whose house on Miller's lake the locat- ing commissioners met for the selection of the county seat, put up another mill on the same stream a little below Joseph's. They had been in the county since 1830 and settled first near the future site of LaPorte, but moved in 1832. In 1839 Joseph and John Pagin set up a third mill between these two and established a distil- lery at the lowest one. Joseph ran the first mill until it wore out and then abandoned it. David's was never much of a success and it, too, was dis- continued. The other became the Willow creek mill, owned by H. E. Huntley at his death Feb- ruary 28, 1904. Mr. Huntley was born at Day- ton, Ohio, in 1838 and was a member of Com- pany B, Seventy-third Indiana infantry, receiv- ing severe wounds in battle. One of his sisters married Charles Emory Smith, owner of the Philadelphia Press and ex-postmaster general. In 1835 Jacob Eearly built a mill in section 28 of the same township, now known as Hanson's mills. It has been worn out and rebuilt several times. Early's son-in-law, E. S. Organ, owned it for a long time, Davidson & Tie had it in 1892, and Robert and O. W. Hanson are the present proprietors. O. W. Hanson spent the summer of 1904 in a trip to the old family home in Den- mark. A mill whose ruins may be seen in sec- tion 35 of this township was built by Abram Fravel in 1840 and owned by I. W. Frick in 1874. Mr. Fravel, who died in 1879, was defeated as a candidate for school commissioner the year in which he set up the mill, and in the following year, as well as in 1853, he was defeated as a candidate for county auditor.

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A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana, Part 32

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