A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana, Part 34

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

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The earliest wagon shop in the county of which mention is found was that of Theodore Parker at Door Village in 1833, the year the business. life of that Scipio township metropolis began. He did his own blacksmithing. Hiram Parker built a tavern there the same year. Noth- ing more is known of the Parkers, who dropped out of history as abruptly as they entered it, leav- ' ing no trace. Possibly this shop was sold to Bigsbee & Company, or to Dyer Smith, who had wagon shops there in 1839, with smithies at- tached. Ten years later John Parkinson engaged in the business rather extensively for those times, and in 1855 Leland Lockwood embarked in the trade at the same point. After a few years no more wagons were made at Door Village by any one regularly engaged in the occupation.

Galena township has been the greatest manu- facturing center in the county outside of the two townships containing cities, and possessed a wagon shop as early as 1835, when Shubael Smith, then a resident for two years, had a shop a mile west of Mayes' Corners, where Mathew

Mayes ran a blacksmith shop at the same time. Mr. Smith was a Methodist exhorter and often preached in the neighborhood. His entry of gov- ernment land was a part of section 8. Loami Shedd started a small shop a little east of Center school in 1841. Eight years later John B. Smith opened one on the New Buffalo road, then much traveled. Perhaps the latest to be opened and the one that will be best remembered by the present old inhabitants was the one started by Truman Barnes in 1857 a mile or so north of Center school and continued as a wagon and furniture factory for twenty years. When Independence and Puddletown were rivals for the municipal honors of Wills township the former was able to boast of one institution that the latter never had, for it contained during some years a wagon shop established by T. Chapman in 1837. This man was a brother of Dr. Jared Chapman, who was an active character in the township after 1830. The shop opened at the village of New Durham in 1838 by William S. Medaris, who afterward owned the sawmill at Durham station, attained some size before it was abandoned, for after William B. Webber, who was his black- smith from the outset, bought him out in 1850, he in one year, 1852, turned out 114 wagons and buggies and mounted 300 steel plows. William Pathe and Michael Burgher succeeded to the business before it passed out of existence a quar- ter of a century ago. In the same township there was a small wagon shop at Otis for some years

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and Westville has had two or three. At that place Jacob J. Mann, who founded a factory for the manufacture of agricultural implements and in- vented a successful gun of great range and power, was making wagons in 1848. B. M. Zener and Levi Field were in the business there in 1884. Probably Dr. Bosley was the first wagonmaker in Coolspring township, at Beatty's corners in 1842, and Jeremiah W. Bevington at Waterford until about 1884 was the last. H. P. Ellsworth followed the business at Kingsbury about twenty years until he was appointed the first Grand Trunk agent at that place in 1873. Moses Emery, hotel-keeper, canal boatman, lawyer and farmer, was also a wagon builder about twenty years in Hudson township until along in the sixties.

At a date not recorded, but prior to 1853, a man named Bagley had an extensive wagon fac- tory in LaPorte. The names of those who pre- ceded him in that line are not remembered, but there were several shops in the place, beginning about 1835. It was in the Bagley factory that William C. Pitner learned the trade and laid the foundation for the business he established in 1860, the memory of which is perpetuated by the fast dimming sign on the old- factory at the comer of Monroe and Jefferson streets. His son Fred M., eventually became a partner in the concern and continued the business after his father's death, selling out later to Koepke & Gehrke, who in the current year will discontinue. Mr. Pitner was born in Ohio in 1835 and came to LaPorte in 1853 to enter the Bagley shop as an apprentice. He died in 1891, having won an honored name and success in business. A por- tion of the Pitner plant was burned by an in- cendiary fire in April, 1886. In 1871 William C. Wegner, a native of Prussia, began an appren- ticeship with Mr. Pitner and June 8, 1887, at his present location, he opened a business for himself and has prospered. He has two sons engaged with him. J. L. Boyd began making light ve- hicles in 1864 at the southwest corner of Clay and Walker streets and continued a little more than twenty years. William H. Drew in 1865 established the LaPorte carriage manufactory on the east side of Adams street north of Main, which was maintained by him more than twenty- five years. The Eagle carriage and wagon works

first on Main street and then on Madison opposite Hall's opera house, was founded about 1876 by John F. Craft, a painter, who, during the twenty- eight years of his management has had a num- ber of blacksmiths and wagonmakers doing busi- iness in conjunction with him. Miller & Wild, C. J. Swanson, William H. French, Ira Barber and others have had similar establishments in LaPorte in recent years. The Spring Wagon Company, of which D. B. and D. H. Turnbull are the chief owners, began operations in 1901, using the Turnbull patent spring for heavy wagons as the leading feature of its product. The business is small, but has a hopeful outlook. The largest enterprise the county has had in the manufacture of vehicles is the LaPorte Carriage Company, owned by local and Chicago capital.

At Michigan City the manufacture of wagons and carriages has never been carried on to any considerable extent, the industry being confined to a few small shops run chiefly for repairs. The J. H. Winterbotham concern, employing prison labor, made carriage and buggy bottoms for some years in conjunction with the cooperage business, the late W. B. McCartney, who came to Michi- gan City from Columbus, Ohio, in 1871, being in charge of that branch.

AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.

When agriculture was first undertaken by white people in LaPorte county the implements used were almost as primitive as those of the ancient Israelites. The flail was in common use, winnowing was done by hand and plows were made with wooden moldboards, iron shoes and homemade stocks and beams. The pioneer was to a great extent his own mechanic, shaping the woodwork for his implements and sometimes do- ing a little rude blacksmithing on his own ac- count. In those days manufacturing was not specialized and centralized as it has come to be now and the inventor had not arrived to put the farmer in a shaded seat behind a spanking team of horses for almost every operation in the field and had not given him the steam-driven separator for his threshing. As each community acquired its blacksmith and wagonmaker the farmer found expert help in his implement making and repair- ing, and after some years the bulk of the business

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was taken over by the small factories that began to spring up here and there. First of these in the county was that established in 1840 and for some years conducted by Chester Heald at Door Vil- lage, where he had a small foundry and made a few rough and awkward threshing machines. Two years later, early in 1842, Joseph Lomax and Abel Lomax, Jr., commenced the manufacture of winnowing machines at LaPorte and advertised in the newspapers that they would make a new, original and superior machine, small, convenient and durable, differing greatly from the common model of that period; that it would clean grain faster and more perfectly than any other fanning mill then in use, and that they would take mer- chantable produce for pay. The Lomax family came to the county about 1836 and located in Pleasant township, the two named coming later to LaPorte. Joseph Lomax was associated with Wilbur F. Storey in the publication of the LaPorte Herald. In 1846 Jacob Early was man- ufacturing the fanning mills under a contract with the Lomaxes and some litigation arose be- tween them and was carried to the supreme court. The decision of that court is found in 7 Blackford's Indiana Reports, page 599. The business languished because of insufficient capi- tal, and in 1852 Ellis Michael, of Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, came to LaPorte and took it up, adding such improvements to the machine from time to time that in 1859 it was practically reconstructed, and in March of that year it was introduced to the market as new under the name of the Michael fanning mill. In 1869 P. G. Winn came into the business and the firm of E. Michael & Company was formed. Later, about 1882, Ellis Michael went into the drug business with C. H. Michael and the firm of E. Michael & Company was composed of Edward F. and E. Howard Michael, in whose hands it continued its very satisfactory growth, and a few years later Charles H. Michael acquired an interest and then the sole control, which he still holds. He has greatly enlarged the product of the plant by add- ing the manufacture of ladders, stepladders, lawn swings, chairs and settees, and other ar- ticles made of wood, and the little enterprise of 1840 is now a concern of extensive proportions, the oldest manufacturing industry in the city. The present proprietor was born in Lycoming

county, Pennsylvania, in 1851 and has lived in LaPorte since he was in his infancy. Ellis Michael passed away at his home in LaPorte on Saturday, October 16, 1897.

In 1848 Jacob J. Mann, who was carrying on a country wagon and blacksmith shop at West- ville, and his son Henry F. Mann, who had learned the trade in the shop, invented a harvest- ing machine and put several of them in opera- tion that season. A patent was issued to them June 19, 1849, and that year they made ten. The harvester was not a practical success and they spent four years in a further study of the subject before they built another. In 1853 they filed a caveat on their improvements and received their second patent June 3, 1856. The machine they turned out in 1853 was exhibited at the state fair held that year at Lafayette and was awarded the first premium in competition with the popular harvesters of the day. In 1855, under the firm name of Jacob J. Mann & Company they built a factory at Westville and dur- ing the dozen years following they made and sold about two thousand harvesters, some of them being built by John D. Stewart at LaPorte. The elder Mann died at Westville in 1868 and the business was then dis- continued. The son had moved to LaPorte some years prior to that and in 1861 invented a cannon, hereinafter mentioned, the manufacture of which took him to Pittsburg. A few years ago he re- moved to Utah, where he now resides.

John B. Fravel manufactured Galling's im- proved wheat drill for a short time at LaPorte, about 1848, under a license from the patentee. Under a similar arrangement and at the same place Fowler & Garrison made the Harkness patent hayrakes, about 1849 but became enmeshed in the law, as a reference to 3 Indiana Supreme Court Reports, page 189, will show. In I$52 Nathan P. Huckins, resident of the county since 1832 and who died in 1875, built a small factory at Door Village and made winnowing machines for several years.

The next date encountered, 1853, is an im- portant one in the history of LaPorte, for in that year the mammoth Rumely institution had its in- ception in the establishment of a little machine shop on ground still occupied by the concern. Two brothers born at Baden, Germany, Meinrad

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Rumely in 1823 and John in 1818, landed in New York, the one in 1848, the other in 1849, having learned about all that the leading mills of Ger- many and France could teach them about the manufacture of iron and steel. Meinrad had been in the great works of Markelsheim, France, since his fourteenth year and was an expert of un- usual mechanical ability and inventive genius. His ambition guided him to the new world as soon as his contract in France was completed and his elder brother followed him. They first found employment in a machine shop at Massillon, Ohio, where they remained three years, but the desire to own their own shop was strong within them and Meinrad started on a tour of observa- tion while John took a new position in a foundry at Piqua, Ohio. In the fall of 1853 they located in LaPorte and opened their place of business under the firm style of M. & J. Rumely, doing all of their work themselves. The two men had skill, industry and enterprise in large measure and the younger was a prolific inventor. It was not long until they had an improved plow on the market, in 1856 they commenced building separators, in 1861 stationary engines were added, then boilers and traction engines, spark arresters, friction clutches, ice elevators, and other machinery and appliances. At the United States Agricultural fair at Chicago in 1859 their engine and separa- tor won first premium in a heavy competition, and they have won many similar triumphs since then. The younger man purchased his brother's interest in 1883 and in the next year added a sawmill. In 1887 the business had attained such size and its operations were so widespread, ex- tending to all civilized countries, that incorpora- tion became necessary and the present organiza- tion, named the M. Rumely Company, was ef- fected and chartered under the state laws. Each year new buildings have been erected, that for 1903 being a large and handsome machine de- partment on Main street and that contemplated for 1904 being a beautiful and commodious office structure at the corner of Main and Madison streets. Meinrad Rumely until almost his last days gave the business his personal attention, but the manufacturing department is in charge of his son William and the office is managed by Joseph, another son, both of whom possess the character- istics which have enabled the institution to pass

from one success to another until it has become the largest manufacturing industry in the city, employing four hundred men or more. It is the oldest business in the city under the continuous management of its founder. Since the above was written Meinrad Rumely has passed away. His demise occurred on Thursday morning, March 31, at 3:30 o'clock, and caused universal sor- row. At his funeral on Tuesday, April 5, the business houses of the city were closed, and the business men of the city, the pastors of the churches, as well as the Rumely employes at- tended in a body.

Another of LaPorte's large and old estab- lished enterprises is that of the LaPorte Wheel Company, formerly the Niles & Scott Company, and originally, at its foundation in 1870, Gregory, Turnbull & Griffin. It occupies the original building, now greatly extended, erected for an unsuccessful paper mill in 1867. The output comprises vehicles, agricultural and mechanical wheels of many kinds and a large assortment of small wooden parts of machines and implements. From 1870 to 1902 William Niles, the oldest liv- ing white person born in LaPorte, was the presi- dent of the company and during that time he and Emmet H. Scott, his brother-in-law, had the management and built up a vast business. The company was reorganized in 1876 as the Niles & Scott Company, incorporated in 1881, and again reorganized under the present name in 1902, when Messrs. Niles and Scott withdrew from the business. A line of metal wheels and parts has been added in later years and the plant requires. about three hundred operatives.

In February, 1885, for reasons that seemed to involve political and labor questions, the man- agement of the Oliver plow works in South Bend: indicated a desire to find a new location and the people of LaPorte became much interested. Meetings were held and negotiations opened, but after a brief period of hope the project fell through and the Olivers continued in business at the old stand.

FURNITURE, PIANOS, ETC.

By splitting a straight-grained log with maul and wedge, shaping the pieces with an ax and planing them down with a grub hoe, the ma-

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terial was produced for most of the furniture used to find such a tasteful and extensive establish- by the pioneers in home, school and meeting ment." He inspected the several departments and was shown "specimens of furniture equal to any either east or west, and prices cheaper," which led him to urge his readers to patronize home industry. house. Nicholas W. Closser, who settled in Scipio township in 1834 and who has been men- tioned in connection with a sawmill enterprise, made the first bedstead and table that were pro- duced in that township or as far as is known, in F. W. Meissner, born on the Rhine in 1823, emigrated to America in 1854 and located in La- Porte to enter the grocery business. In 1860 he organized the firm of F. W. Meissner & Company and commenced the manufacture of bedsteads. Several changes occurred in the membership of the firm and from time to time additional lines were taken on, and gradually a large furniture manufacturing business was built up. In 1868 Robert Buck, J. Camfield and Henry Masch be- came partners with Mr. Meissner and greatly extended the business. Washington Wilson, Fred Ahrens and others were at different times connected with the firm, and eventually it was acquired by Mr. Buck and the name changed to the Buck Furniture Company, as it now stands. The factory is one of the city's best enterprises and still occupies the original site of 1860. It was burned a few years ago but rebuilt in better form. In the autumn of 1862 a bedstead factory was started by the firm of Reynolds, Weaver & Smith at Westville. Weaver sold out to his partners in 1865, and in 1869 they disposed of the business to Charles Ruggles, who changed to the manufacture of wood-bottom chairsand continued about eight years. William J. Smith, a North Carolinian who came to LaPorte as a child in 1836 and was a shoemaker in his early manhood, went to Westville in 1868 and from then until 1878 was employed in the chair factory. the county, having any attempt at finish or orna- ment. In 1880 the late Benjamin T. Bryant had at his home in Clinton county, a bedstead, bureau, bookcase and stand which were made in the first furniture factory started in LaPorte (date un- known) and they were made of lumber cut from trees that grew on his father's land in New Dur- ham township. The earliest cabinet shop in the county of which there is any record was opened at Independence, Wills township, in 1835 by Elias Axe, and the next was that of Arnold Sapp at Bigelow's mills in 1837. Both had disap- peared ten years later. William Sheridan, a na- tive of Ohio who came to LaPorte in 1833 at the age of 21, located in the new village of Lakeport in Hudson township in 1837 and opened a cabi- .net shop. He probably worked at the same trade at LaPorte during his residence there and may have been the first furniture maker in the county .seat. He died in 1873. Asa Harper, born in North Carolina a few months later than Sheri- dan, reached LaPorte also in 1833 and worked as a carpenter and cabinetmaker. He soon became interested in Cool Spring and Michigan town- ships, removed to that region in 1835, and in 1836 to Michigan City, where he worked at the same business and as a ship carpenter until 1856, when he settled on a Cool Spring township farm. He died there twenty years ago. Another very early venture of the same character was that of In the records of the Old Settler's Association for the first annual meeting, held June 22, 1870, the following entry appears: "After dinner and some pleasant chatting the society was again called to order and a beautiful chair was pre- sented to the oldest settler of the county, Levi J. Benedict, Esq., of Westville, in a few chosen remarks by the president, Hon. C. W. Cathcart. The chair was manufactured by the Messrs. Fargher, of the city of LaPorte, and was donated to the society for this purpose. Mr. Benedict then presented the society with a walnut cane, which was made out of the roof-tree of the first house built in New Durham township. The Ingraham Gould at Springville, Springfield township. Mr. Gould located at that place in 1834 and built a tavern, which he kept until 1848. In 1838 he opened a store, selling it the next year, and in 1845 he put up a turning lathe and for some years did a large business in the manufac- ture of bedsteads and other furniture requiring turned work. He was once a candidate for county treasurer but was unsuccessful. About the year 1847 E. B. Stroup opened a chair and cabi- net shop and ware room in LaPorte. The editor .of the Whig was invited over and, presumably for a consideration, was "surprised and gratified

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house was erected in March, 1829, by the widow Benedict and Mr. Henly Clyburn. The Messrs. Fargher had not been established long in the manufacturing business. Thomas, the head of the firm. was a Manxman, born in 1843. About 1874 William C. Weir took an interest in the business, and a few years later the productive department was discontinued and the establish- ment became exclusively a furniture store owned by Weir Brothers. In 1872 the LaPorte Chair Company was formed for the purpose of making caneseat chairs. In the following year Washing- ton Wilson became its president and R. S. Morri- son secretary, a large brick building was erected at Washington street and Indiana avenue, and the business was given an impetus that carried it well through the Centennial year. Mr. Niorri- son was cashier of the First National Bank at that time and Mr. Wilson was at the head of Wil- son & Fraser, owning the lumber yard established in 1856, and of W. Wilson & Company (Mr. Morrison being the company) operating the pio- neer coal business in the city. These and other in- terests grew more rapidly than the chair factory and were more promising, so about 1880 that enterprise was discontinued. About 1876 two cabinet shops were set up on Fifth street, that of Isaac Wettermann near the corner of D and that of P. Ernmay at G, but they lasted only four or five years. The pioneer mattress factory of the county appears to have been established at Door Village in 1864 by a very indefinite "Mr. Smith." Within a few years past an enterprise called the Quisisana, turning out fine art furni- ture made on orders and after special designs, has grown from a very small beginning to such respectable proportions as to warrant the erection of a building in 1904 to cost $20,000, which build- ing at this writing is far in the course of con- struction.

The Rustic Hickory Furniture Company is well worthy of mention in this connection. It is an incorporated stock company with J. C. Travis president, Warren W. Travis secretary, and Edward Hamley treasurer. It manufactures rustic hickory chairs, tables, etc., for lawns porches and outdoor wear. Its goods are made of second growth hickory and put together in the strongest manner possible; it is next to im- possible to knock them to pieces with an ax;

they are often thrown a great distance by the manufacturers or their agents to test their durabil- ity. The stock comes from the southern part of the state. The company began business in July, 1902, in the Banks and Hilt stock barn which was made into a factory for their use. They shipped large orders away and had two-thirds of their stock made up into goods when they burned out, the fire occurring on April 18, 1903. Before fall they began rebuilding on State street near the Pere Marquette railroad station, on a more ex- tensive and convenient scale. The new factory is 50x200 feet, besides engine room and dry kiln, and was completed ready for occupancy in October, 1903. The company went immediately to work and has been very busy ever since. They thought they had stock enough for a year, but .their orders were so large that they made it into. goods in a comparatively short time. Their goods go mostly to the east, but they have shipped goods as far north as Winnepeg, and as far west as California. They employ twenty-five men.

George F. smith of Michigan City invented and perfected the Alaska refrigerator, and in October, 1877, the Smith Refrigerator and Manu- facturing Company was formed to put it on the market in large quantities. R. G. Peters of Manistee, Michigan, was the president, Charles Hurd secretary and treasurer, and Smith vice president and superintendent. In 1880 the con- cern occupied four large buildings and employed eighty-five hands. In 1882 a reorganization of the company was had, with George W. Bullis of Ann Arbor, Michigan, president, Charles Hurd secretary and Uriah Culbert vice president and superintendent. After a few more years the business was wound up. Ford, Johnson & Com- pany (J. S. Ford, H. W. Johnson and R. A. Hitchcock ), the Hitchcock Chair Company (in- corporated in 1881, J. S. Ford, R. A. Hitchcock, C. H. Purdy and H. W. Johnson), both prison labor contractors, and J. B. Thompson & Com- pany (Joseph B. Thompson, William B. Hutch- inson and William M. Cochrane) have been ex- tensive producers of chairs at Michigan City dur- ing the past quarter of a century.

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A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana, Part 34

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