A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana, Part 33

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

USA > Indiana > LaPorte County > A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana > Part 33

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What is claimed to be the largest and most valuable waterpower in the county is that of the Roeske Brothers, in Michigan township. John Walker, as has been stated, built a sawmill there in 1834 and it was soon transferred to James M. Scott, who put in flouring machinery and ran it for a long time. It is now called the Eureka

mills, but old residents still call it Scott's mills. Scott built a fine large mill and supplied a great extent of country, patrons coming all the way 'from Chicago, Joliet, Rockford, Galena and other distant points. He bought wheat at 60 cents a bushel and sold flour at $10 a barrel. Mr. Scott was defeated as the Democratic candidate for associate judge in 1835. He owned much land in the county and removed to Ohio about 1842, changing later to Wisconsin. In 1874 Denton Miller, a native of Saratoga Springs, New York, owned the property and ran it as a sawmill and brickyard, and in 1884 it was in the hands of the Roeskes, who still hold it. In 1884 J. Dolman had a flour and feed mill on the Michigan road at the edge of Michigan City managed by Ed- ward Dolman, who is now at Wanatah. This enterprise has disappeared.

In the Historical Atlas of LaPorte County, published in 1874, occurs this statement : "Le- Clere, W. Pinney, F. Scarborough and E. Bige- low built the first mills, before 1840, on Hog creek," in Clinton township. These mills, except Bigelow's, dropped out of sight several decades ago. Abijah Bigelow moved into the township in 1835, coming from Massachusetts, and bring- ing a small colony of Canadians with him. He at once commenced the erection of a gristmill in section 21 and completed it in 1837, thus founding the town, now defunct, of Bigelow's Mills, at one time quite a flourishing place. Mr. Bigelow was a Whig and served one term as county commissioner. He sold the mill to John Closser, postmaster of the place, and he to John Wright. Henry Harding became the proprietor in 1854 and continued as such until his death ten years later, when Abram Sovereign bought it of the administrator. Adam Bohland took it in 1865, the same year that the present owner, his son William A. Boliland, county treasurer, was born. The mill has stood idle since Decem- ber, 1901.

Nathan Johnson was the founder of Water- ford and out of the sawmill he built there in 1833, as has been told, grew the present Cool Spring mills owned by heirs of Casper Kuhn, who died at Michigan City. Nov. 4, 1903, leaving a widow and eleven children. Otis E. Bowers, in 1839, bought the Johnson sawmill and attached a dis- tillery. The flour mill was put in later and the

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property passed through several ownerships. In to the Whig state convention and was elected 1870 it was burned. Casper Kuhn, who had state senator that year and again in 1843. His purchased the water privilege in 1858, then son, Dr. Orpheus C. Everts, died in 1903 after a long and useful life. Dr. Timothy Everts and Judge Gustavus A. were others prominent in the early history of the county. Dr. Everts ran the gristmill three years, when he sold it to. Bell & Gray, but they failed to meet their payments and he took it back. Not desiring to keep it he formed a stock company, all the shares in which were subsequently bought up by George Butt, who ran it until 1856. In 1866 John P. Teeple, who died in LaPorte in 1903 at the age of one hun- dred years, bought it and later it passed into the hands of Hamilton & Teeple. In 1880 Hamilton owned it alone and A. C. Teeple was the mana- ger. Carlin H. Terry is the present proprietor. erected the present brick structure and equipped it with a good outfit of flouring machinery. It is said to be one of the three best waterpowers in the county, the Roeske and Vail properties being the other two. Kuhn was a native of Switzerland, reared at Buffalo, New York, and for some time was engaged in business at Misha- waka, Indiana, before he came to Waterford. One year prior to his death he conveyed the mill to seven children by his first wife as their full share of his estate. The Orr & Standiford saw- mill of 1833 in Coolspring township was changed into a gristmill two years later and acquired the name of Rough and Ready, after Zach. Taylor. In 1854 Joseph Dolman came to the county from Iowa and took charge of it, and there Edward Dolman, his son, then a lad verging on manhood and now a veteran miller at Wanatah, was in- itiated into the mysteries of the business. In recent years W. W. Higgins and Martin S. John- son have been the proprietors. About three- fourths of a mile below this mill on the same stream was the old Blackhawk mill, now for- gotten. In 1835 the Stanton sawmill was im- proved by the addition of grinding machinery. Alfred Stanton purchased it of his father, Aaron Stanton, and operated it until he moved to Ore- gon in 1842. This was probably the Blackhawk mill.

The next township reached in the order of date is Wills, in which but one gristmill enter- prise is recorded, that of the Galbreaths men- tioned in connection with their miscalculated sawmill venture at Independence. After grind- ing three sacks of corn the wheels stopped for- ever.

Noble township has possesssed one of the leading mills of the county since 1838, when Dr. Sylvanus Everts completed the mill begun by him at Union Mills the year before. Dr. Everts was the founder of the village, locating there after living two years in Union township, where he was the first physician. He was a notable man in the community and in the county and came of a family of notable men. He was very active in business and in politics and in all mat- ters of local interest. In 1840 he was a delegate

The first and only gristmill in Galena town- ship was established in 1858 by the Francis brothers in section 17 on Barnes creek, a branch of the Galien river, where the Winch woodturn- ing factory had formerly stood. The Francis family also had a sawmill on the same stream further up. A. J. Holman, a New York man, operated the gristmill from 1861 to 1876. Jonas Finley, whose son William married Holman's sister, owned the property many years until his death in 1873, when William W. Finley became the owner and so continues. William Finley's sister married Solomon Ross, owner of the mill in Springfield township. Mr. Finley has owned several mills in this county and operated them successfully.

Union township has two of the earliest mills in the county, both at Kingsbury. John T. and Henry L. Vail located there in 1833 and at once put up a little log gristmill on land bought by them of Jesse Morgan, the original enterer, in the southeast quarter of section 36. In 1837 they rebuilt with a substantial frame structure and added a fulling mill and distillery, with a wool-carding machine the next year. These were dropped after a while and the business confined to flouring. John Vail died very suddenly of apoplexy and the property fell into the hands of Lot and Edward Vail, who, about 1868, sold it to Moses Butterworth. Twenty years later R. R. & L. Ullon were the proprietors and now Charles B. Clayton is operating it. John Win- chell built a log gristmill in the same section the

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same year the Vails built theirs, there being some doubt as to the priority between them. This mill is now owned by William A. Steigely, a former county commissioner, and Charies F. Boelter as partners and is called the Kingsbury mills. John Winchell was the earliest settler in St. Joseph county, Michigan, and did black- smithing for the Indians; he was also the earliest permanent settler in Union township, this county. His Indian adventures were many and thrilling. His death occurred in 1836. In the spring of 1835 Jacob Early moved to Kingsbury and bought the mill. July 4 George W. Reynolds, who had on the preceding day completed the Orr mill in Coolspring township, as has been related, commenced the work of replacing the log mill with one of frame, which stood about thirty years. Reynolds soon afterward married John Winchell's daughter, and their daughter is the wife of Daniel P. Grover, present county asses- sor. H. P. Lans, a German, bought the prop- erty in 1867 and built the mill that stands there now. It later became the property of Mrs. Bod- ley a sister of the Butterworths, and was operated by H. D. Lans, son of H. P.

The peculiar canal experience of Andrew Avery and his ox-power mill at Hudson in the pioneer days has already been sufficiently de- scribed. In Kankakee township Jesse H. G. Coplin bought the sawmill at Rolling Prairie in 1857 and in the next year added gristing ma- chinery, Luke or Wallace Francis of Galena township being connected with it some time later. The history of the mill has been told in the section devoted to sawmills. It is now owned and operated as a first-class flouring mill by Will- iam Strutz and Christopher Reinke, under the name of Strutz, Son & Company. In section 28 of this township, on the Little Kankakee, near the pumping station of the LaPorte Water Sup- ply Company, there is an old mill that is now in disuse. It was owned for a long time by Nicho- las Weber, and Theodore Lorig had land ad- joining. These names will be met again in the city of LaPorte.

Turning to New Durham township there is found a steam gristmill established by James Haskell at Westville in 1853, but it was sold and moved away about 1860. Haskell was a set- ler of 1834 in Clinton township, having come

from Massachusetts, and he removed from the county in 1871. Tobias Miller erected a mill there in 1858, propelled by steam, and soon sold it. Miller moved from Union county, Indiana, in 1834 and settled in Wills township. After sev- eral changes Sloan D. Martin acquired the mill and ran it until the outbreak of the war, when he went into the service. While first lieutenant of Company H, Eighty-seventh Indiana Infantry, he was killed in the battle of Chickamauga, Sep- tember 19, 1863. and his widow retained the property until the mill burned in 1870. Lieu- tenant Martin was born in LaPorte in 1835 and was always a miller. His son Charles was en- gaged in the Westville mills as late as 1880. James Dolman,. Jr., and James Dolman, Sr., built the Westville mills in 1872 and sold to E. & N. Dolman the following year, Joseph Dolman, the present proprietor, buying the plant later. This family of millers came to this county from Iowa in 1854 and were connected with many milling enterprises. The father is long since dead. This mill was burned in 1878 and rebuilt. There is a small feed mill at Westville owned by E. L. Rey- nolds. When the Luff & Owen paper mill just west of Otis, at the crossing of Reynolds creek and the Lake Shore railway and at the site of the old Jessup sawmill, was burned down about 1876, its place was taken by a steam and water flouring mill, now owned by Samuel C. Hackett.

Wanatah, in Cass township, has had a mill where the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago rail- road crosses Hog creek (erroneously named Hawk creek on the county map of 1892) since Joseph L Unruh (wrongly called Nurwgh in Chapman's History) established one there in 1867. He had very hopefully founded the vil- lage of Rozelle, but the completion of the railroad mentioned killed the enterprise and he promptly moved and became the first storekeeper and hotel man of Wanatah. This was in 1857. He built a large warehouse near the tracks and subsequently occupied it with milling machinery. He sold out his various interests in 1870 and moved to Chicago, E. L. Kiel, who was in his employ, taking the mill. Julius Conitz and Herman Mitz- ner had interests in it later, and Edward Dolman, one of the most capable millers in the county, is the present owner. Something has been said about him above, but it may be added that he

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entered the business in Coolspring township in 1854 as a mere lad, that he was employed in several mills until Jacob Early made him mana- ger of the mill now owned by Lorig & Weber in LaPorte in 1871, that he was interested in the Westville mill from 1873 until 1880, at which date he took up the business at Wanatah, and that he has invented a number of valuable appli- ances in the line of his business. It is said that at an early day an attempt was made to build a steam mill at Callao, but the work was left un- finished because of the death of the proprietor.

Pleasant township has had one gristmill, oc- cupying the site of the old Root & Graham saw- mill of 1836 in section one on the Little Kanka- kee. It used to be known as the "Mud" or "Hickory" mill, but is now known by the name of its owner, William Forney, who purchased it in 1868. He came to the county ten years pre- vious to that date and located in Union township. He was born in Pennsylvania of Scotch parents in 1830.

About 1854 Jacob Early built a mill in La- Porte at the corner of Clay and Washington streets and owned it until his death, which oc- curred August 30, 1873, when he was eighty years old. Edward Dolman, now of Wanatah, was the manager at that time. John P. Early then took the mill and it was sold a little later to Strong & Barnaby, who had their office in the new First National Bank building. Some time prior to 1884 Theodore Lorig and Martin Weber, under the firm name of Lorig & Weber, bought it and are the present owners, with Martin Lorig as assistant in the business. It is called the LaPorte Flouring mill. In 1875 the LaPorte Milling & Manufacturing Company, with John P. Early as president and John H. Early as sec- retary, was formed and built a mill on the north side of Washington street just east of Michigan, on the lot owned by John H. Early, completing it the following year. October 28, 1878, this company made an assignment to E. S. Organ for the benefit of creditors and the property was sold four months later to Alexander Crane, adminis- trator of the estate of Jacob Early. In another month the Star Milling Company was organized and took the business, with John P., John H., Elmund A. and M. L. Early. Alexander Crane and E. S. Organ as stockholders. Toward the

close of 1880 troubles had again accumulated, and George Hall commenced a suit against the company which resulted in a judgment for him and a sale of the property by the sheriff to him. Not long after that the mill was dismantled and its history closed. Hall sold the premises to Simeon S. Bosserman, who sold to Albert' J. Stahl and John H. Harding, and they to the La- Porte Electric Company.

Jacob Early was a Virginian by birth and came to this county in June, 1835, with his fam- ily. In that year he bought the log gristmill of John Winchell at Kingsbury and made his home there, rebuilding the mill and opening a store. At about the same time he opened a store at LaPorte and built the mill now owned by Han- son in Springfield township, which was after- wards operated by his son-in-law, E. S. Organ, then a clerk in the LaPorte store. In 1839 he was one of the first vestrymen of Trinity Episco- pal church at Michigan City and in the next year he was a member of the Whig county central committee and was active in politics many years. From 1840 to 1852 he did an extensive distillery business near Union Mills, and from 1854 to 1856 he was interested with Andrew Avery in the mills at Hudson Lake. At this time he built the LaPorte mill. He also built the sawmill on Clear lake at the foot of Adams street and lo- cated his residence in LaPorte. Notwith- standing his long life of hard work he died leaving an estate that netted but $2,- 629.48, with debts and expenses of adminis- tration aggregating $200 more than that sum. John H. Early came to this county from Walker- ton, Indiana, in 1875, but John P. had lived here from the arrival of the family in 1835. Both were born in Virginia. The latter was opposed to Lincoln in 1859 and was a defeated candidate for elector on the Bell and Everett ticket. He took much interest in the meetings of the Old Settlers Association. His wife, Maria B. Early, was in 1876 elected conference secretary of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which connec- tion she developed much ability as a writer and speaker. The family moved to California in 1881.

About the close of the war. Valentine F. Smith, who had been a manufacturer in Galena

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township, established a mill at the corner of Main and J streets, which was owned by John C. Fisher later. The J street Milling Company was then formed, with August Backhaus, who was also at the head of the LaPorte planing mill and died in 1903, as president, and Henry E. Tanger as secretary and treasurer. H. F. Droege suc- ceeded Tanger, who engaged in other business, and succeeded Backhaus.

Nicholas Weber erected the Centennial mills opposite the southwest corner of the public square in LaPorte in the year suggested by the name. This establishment in the center of the business district was throughout its career an eyesore to LaPorteans. After Weber's death his widow, in 1883, conveyed the property to Harvey Truesdell and Amos J. Ross, the latter a son of Solomon Ross whom we have already met in Springfield township. Ross conducted the business and made a failure of it, so it was sold to Rouse Simmons in 1884 and three years later Truesdell was again the owner, this time of the entire business. About the time of the Columbian exposition in Chicago the machinery was removed and the building converted into stores, constituting with its brick walls and mausard roof, one of the most presentable busi- ness structures in the city. The lower floor is now occupied by Oberreich & Arnold. In 1876 .W. H. Huntsman had a small gristmill in con- nection with the sawmill of Huntsman Brothers at the foot of Detroit street, which was discon- tinued within ten years. John C. Wilhelm, Charles Krueger and J. B. Silliman have been owners of feed mills and cider presses near the J street mills, and M. Rumely had a feed mill at the sawmill operated by him for a few years.

About forty flour, grist and feed mills are enumerated above. Six townships-Dewey, Hanna, Johnson, Lincoln, Prairie and Scipio- have had no such industries of sufficient import- ance to be recorded. The introduction of the roller process of grinding, the gradual diminu- tion of the water supply for power and the changed conditions of transportation whereby Minnesota flour can compete with that made at home have operated to restrict the local flouring business except under the most favorable con- ditions.

PAPER MILLS.

In the spring of 1873 Bugbee, Luff & Palmer built a paper mill on Reynolds creek and the Lake Shore Railroad, three-fourths of a mile west of Otis. A year later Palmer sold his interest in it to Daniel Webster, an Illinoisan, and in the next year Bugbee transferred his share to his sister, Mrs. Owen, and Webster sold out to H. D. Luff, the firm becoming Luff & Owen. The mill produced a ton of straw board daily until it was burned down in 1878, after which a grist- mill took its place. In 1874 Wesley F. Cattron, a native of Fountain county, Indiana, and a resi- dent of LaPorte county from his seventh year in 1833, erected a brick paper mill near Otis, where the Monon Railroad crosses a branch of the Cal- umet river, and equipped it with steam and water power. Its capacity was one and a half tons of straw board daily. This plant occupied the site of the old Herrold sawmill, mentioned on an- other page, and after about ten years it was con- verted into a flouring mill. Two unsuccessful attempts to establish paper mills were made in LaPorte a little earlier, one of which failed and its building was taken by the LaPorte Wheel Company, and the other lost its plant by fire and never rebuilt.

ASSOCIATED INDUSTRIES.

There is a small group of industries found associated with some of the early waterpower mills, consisting of carding and fulling. machines, distilleries, and the manufacture of small articles of wood. The Indiana Gazetteer of 1849 re- ported four carding machines and two fulling mills in LaPorte county. All of these can now be traced. In the sawmill that George W. Rey- nolds completed for Orr & Standiford in Cool- spring township in 1835 he helped install a ma- chine for carding wool, which appears to be the first in the county. When the Vail mill in Union township was rebuilt in 1837 a fulling mill was put in and in the following year a card- ing machine was added. About 1839, says Pack- ard's History, Lewis Pagin erected a building in Springfield township, near the 'other Pagin mills, and introduced machinery for the carding

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of wool. Bowers had both carding and fulling quarter of section 17 in Galena township and in apparatus at the Waterford mill in 1839. The necessity for these establishments did not remain many years and they long since passed out of existence.

Five distilleries have been located, all of which are bygones. When Otis E. Bowers pur- chased the chief industry of Waterford in 1837, referred to in a preceding page, he added a dis- tillery to the sawmill and it was operated several years very successfully. John and Henry Vail put up a distillery in connection with their other business near Kingsbury in the same year, and it also was profitable while it lasted, which was not long. The Pagins, in 1839, built a distillery in section 6 in Springfield or section I of Coolspring township, below their sawmill and on the same stream. No remnant of it can now be found. In the same year a distillery was started by John Hobart at Hudson lake. Commencing in 1840 and finishing in 1842 Jacob Early put up a large distillery near Union Mills and worked it very profitably until it was destroyed by fire in 1852. This was the largest distillery in the county. About 1839 or 1840 Benjamin Elliott, then twenty- three years old, came to LaPorte from Massa- chusetts and operated the Early distillery at Union Mills for nine years. At the end of that time he became convinced that the business was dishonorable and that the liquor traffic was an injury to the people and so he abandoned the en- terprise, which was proving very remunerative to him. He engaged in other business in Union Mills for eight years, then removed to Michigan City and was connected with the prison for fifteen years. Leaving that institution he took up the business of contracting. He was one of the men who platted Union Mills and when he left . the distillery in 1849 he opened a large general store. Leaving Michigan City about 1883 he made a new location in Brown county, Nebraska.

In 1834 an eccentric genius named Abraham Pursell entered the east half of the northwest

the following year set up a shop for turning wooden articles on Mud creek, near the Mud creek school house. He devised a part of his machinery himself, with a view of producing wooden bowls. The venture turned out badly, and Joseph Winch bought the concern, his prod- uct being spinning wheels and splitbottom chairs. Mr. Winch was a Free Will Baptist preacher who came to the county in 1838 and died Feb- ruary 10, 1854. In 1840 he moved the shop to a better waterpower on Barnes creek near by and built a new and larger house for it, adding to his output hubs, bedposts, and other kinds of wood- work requiring turning. It was here that the Francis gristmill was afterwards erected. Along about the same time John and Willis Wright started a similar industry a mile or so southwest of the Winch factory, and ran it for four or five years, selling it to E. S. Dodds, in whose hands the machinery wore out after some years and was never renewed. Valentine F. Smith, always known as "Frank," who was a miller in LaPorte later, built a turning shop on a branch of the Galien river in the summer of 1849, a mile and a half west of the Winch shop, and ran it until the spring of 1854. When Door Village was in the height of its promise of future greatness Joseph Austin, in 1840, inaugurated an enterprise for doing all sorts of turning, making spinning wheels, and producing small furniture for the household. In the absence of waterpower he employed two large dogs to propel his machinery. Samuel Hall bought the plant but did not con- tinue long in the business, opening a tavern in 1847.

Such in brief is the history of the milling in- terests of LaPorte county, which served well their use, but which are now mostly things of the past. Few sawmills remain; and with respect to the flouring mills, the larger concerns at the centers have taken the place of the smaller ones in the country.

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CHAPTER XX.

FACTORIES.

"And more: me thought I saw that flood, Which now so dull and darkling steals, Thick, here and there, with human blood To turn the world's laborious wheels."

-JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

WAGONS AND CARRIAGES.

In pioneer days the same spreading tree that sheltered the village smithy usually cast its shade also upon the local wagon shop. The two indus- tries were born twins and did not drift apart until the era of great factories set in and made the manufacture of vehicles at the crossroads shops an economic impossibility.

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A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana, Part 33

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