USA > Indiana > Kosciusko County > Pierceton > A history of Pierceton, Indiana > Part 2
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16. Opposite the street and some few lots north of the M. E. It is on Lot 4 of Blk
church is shown a cooper shop. The Woolen Mills were in Block 11 on Lots 3-4-5-6. The Catholic church is shown on its present site. Just north of the tracks on the west side of the street there was a cabinet shop. J. 1. Shorb lived in the south part of town and owned all of Block 5. At Wooster Levi L. Baker had a grocery and so did Samuel Riddle. Ann M. Baker had a boarding house there and Tunis VanVleet was a farmer next to town.
From this Map of 1866 we also find that the Ryerson School was No. 12 as we guessed it must have been and that it was on the south side of the old angling road west of Ryerson's sawmill and just on this side (east side) of the ser section line of Jec. 34. This old map also shows the Moore school No. 9 as being at the West ha- center of the west one-half of section 22 at the SE corne of the road intersection. This must have been the old school be- fore one was built farter north and on the west side of the road. This old school site was at the NY corner of the J. Griffith 80. Land around Pierceton in 1866 was owned by the following people. C. Jackson owned 244 acres west of town later owned by Matchett. South of this S. Reed owned 160 and F. Evans the same amount. To the north Hannah C. Warshing owned a farm. To the northeast R. Reed had 160 and A. Hoover 320 to the east. W. Shelburn owned 55 acres out east and J. S. Spayde had 96 acres east of town.
V South of town George Ryerson had 156 acres. Prominent farmers in
Washington Township at this time were David Beard, Margaret Bus- sing, A. Brown, Daniel Brown, Daniel Brallier, G. W. Clover, G. W. Dunlap, J. S. Doke, Samuel Firestone, Alexander Galbreath, J. Gal- breath, J. E. Hayden, Alfred Hoover, James Humphreys, J. Hart, Daniel Hoover, 3. S. Leedy, Edwin B. Leedy, John Menzie, Archibald Menzie, Jacob Phillips, Jacob Stinson, John Shamley, Evert VanCur- en, Daniel VanNess and Joseph Warner. Doctors in town in 1866 were FATHER OF U.S. VICE PRESIDENT THOMAS R. MARSHAL. William Hayes, D. M. Marshall and J. R. Baker. General stores were kept by T. M. Murray, John A. Shorb and William H. Spayde. Min- nich Brother had a hardware store, Thomas Graven ran the hotel, Ira Ryerson and J. H. Lisle were each in the lumber business,
L. Lampson made harness, J. W. Shaffer made wagons, Waldo & Brest- ed, Levi Snyder, and Hamilton & Dudley were in the boot and shoe
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business, E. G. Eddy and John Lightfoot were engineers, T. D. Doke was in the livery business, D. Litchenwalter was a justice of the peace, Crawford & Baker and Getty & Sherman had grocery stores, H. F. Davis was a carpenter, J. B. Skinner dealth in tin- ware and stoves, Snyder and Hemmick had a furniture store, Dwight P. Nichols was agent for the railroad and also had the express of fice, Samuel Forsythe was a butcher, Lewis Keith was a farmer near town. A. B. Downs was a tanner, and D. W. Phillips and J. H. Moy- ston each ran a saloon. These were the days of the hand pumper for fires and Pierceton had a big fire in the late 1860's. Cis- terns had to be built at strategic corner and these kept full of water for am an emergency. These were the days of wooden sidewalks and cobble stone gutters if they had any at all. Little money was in circulation and merchants took farm produce for their goods. Pierceton in 1866 no doubt was made up mostly of frame store buildings heated with stoves in which wood was burnt and lighted with candles or kerosene lamps. At night the town was dark so te that a person venturing forth to, town would have to take a lantern to guide them. Children went to subscription schools where their parents paid a certain fee for the ten weeks course. School was held at somebody's home or maybe an empty store room in Awould be rented for the term. It was also a day of religious re- vivals. People became really in ernest about their salvation, as they should today, and led others to the alter where they repent- ed.of their sins and decided to lead a better life. Without the radio, without the picture show, without electricity to do so many things in the home today, without furnace heat, without comfortable beds, without hospital service when needed, without paved streets, without sewers, without libraries we wonder how the people in Pigreeton lived in 186
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Michael Murray at an initial cost of ¥18000, erected the first flour mill in Pierceton. This was in 1862. The first story of the 33 story mill was made of staone. After eight years Murray sold it to Stoufs and Bowman. By January, 1877, it had passed into the hands of Balliet & Co. They added a new stone engine room and placed a metal roof on the building. In 1865 Eli & Phillip Fluke put up a planing mill in the north-west part of town near the railroad. A year later they added a sawmill. In 1868 fire des- troyed the whole setup but other mills were built on the same site by Johnathan Thacher and W. H. Cornell. It then passed thru sev- eral hands and was once owned by Gabe Lesh. By 1877 Douglas & Cor- nell were the proprietors. £ 1877 was the day of many mills over Kosciusko County and the next twenty years marked the hay heyday of small communities such as Packerton, Millwood, Hepton, etc. Lesh was principal of the Pierceton Schools about 1877 as a man 34 years old. In 1876 he built the bending factory in Warsaw, which made siow handco. The mill at Pierceton gave employment to 8 men besides several log haulers. Fine timber from surrounding farms was hauled to town. Snow was desirable in the winter for then the logging could J be done on bobsleds and the logs were much easier to load and get out of the woods. Log haulers furnished their own team. There was sometimes some competition among them and some have been known to get out to the woods very early and lay their whip on a certain log. This meant that that was their log to haul to the mill. After the logs had been unloaded and measured up by the mill fore- man the logs were stamped on the end and became the property of the mill. Band saws and circular saws were used # for sawing the logs, the band saw being able to handle a log the best.
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In the Indianian for April 2, 1868 a correspondent from Pierceton says that the town is to see a big debate staged by Kev. au N. Carry of South Bend, a Universalist, and and M. E. minister Rev. M. Mahin of Logansport. The Universalist had established a church at Pierceton to which many belonged. According to the ency- clopedia universalism is a belief in the final triumph of good over evil in the universe. It is a belief that God is pledged by his goodness and omnipotence to put an end to sin and ulitimately to save the whole family of mankind. It is the doctrine that the des- tiny of mankind is progress onward and upward forever; that always before man is a chance to develope and that always in man is a power to unfold, always a time and a place in which to grow, and always in man the power to respond to the opportunity. The first Universalist in the U.S.A. vas John Murray who came over here from England in 1770. The first real organization of churches with the name Univer- salists was effected in the town of Oxford, Massachusetts in 1785. en Princeton The debate was on the ultimate holiness of mankind and the endless punishment of the wicked. It must have been quite a debate. The animated discussions lasted four days and a half before certain mod. erators. Rev. McMahin was a man of fine ability and a good logician. He sustained the doctrine of endlass punishment with credit to him- self and enthusiasm for the cause. Rev, Carry a fuent, happy was speaker and his ability was well known in Pierceton. Dr. Hayes pre- sented him with a beautiful bible accompanied by several legal ten- . ders. The balance of the items for April 9, 1868 is taken up with an election for a justice of the Peace in which the republicans won over a whiskey ring that had a man up for this place. Politics were hot in Pierceton at this time.
In 1872 a building was erected for use as a chair factory. This was done by B. W. Kirkland. An engine and boiler room was built near by. Four men were employed in this factory. Shumaker & Humphreys had another rustic chair factory in the north part of town. They used hickory and made rustic chairs, vases, hanging- baskets, flower stands and rustic ornaments. In the fall of 1866 Peter Conrad started making wagons in Pierceton. He erected severa frame buildings for this purpose. From the second story of one was an inclined plane for lowering the finished wagons and buggies He employed 8 to 10 men and turned out about 100 vehicles a year. The pioneers in this business in Northern Indiana were the Stude- baker Brothers at South Bend. Conrad and Oram farm wagons were used very largely in this county for fifty years and one can still 7 find the remains of some of them in some of the sheds about the county. Conrads took the prize at the county fair for several years. Another builder of wagons and carriages at Pierceton was M. Rush, who had a place at that time just north of the Central Hotel. He employed from 3 to 5 men and turned out about 60 ve- hicles a year. James Atchinson had a wagon factory which later was owned by Runyan and Fashbaugh. In 1876 F.V.B.Winnich began the manufacture of shovel plows. In connection with this he had a tin and metal shop. He made a speciality of tin and sheet iron roofing. Frary & Murray had a woollen mills in Pierceton. The building was four stories high with an engine and dye room. 20 people were employed and they mads as high as 300 yards of cloth per day. L. C. Smith had a hub and spoke factory . 8 men were em- ployed and the hubs and spokes were bought by Chicago firms.
Pierceton in 1879.
In the township history in the old atlas we find that the first schoolhouse in Washington Township was a log school on the farm of William Moore in 1840. Adam Laing taught the first term there. It was a subscription school where each student had to pay and this was met by his parents. Andrew and Abner Makemson were cost boys who attended this school. The second schoolhouse was erected . near the home of John Ryerson on Deed's Creek south of the future site of Pierceton a mile. Mrs. William H. Spayde and Ira Ryerson were two of the pupils there. By 1879 there were eleven schools in Washington Township and 506 pupils were enrolled. The Moore sono school was just north of town on the west side of the road. It was old No. 9 in the center of the NW= of Section 22. In 1879 the land around the town of Pierceton was owned by the- William C. Matchett on the west for a mile, by M. L. Barbour to the north- west, By Baker, Gray and Shorb on the north, by S. Reed to the northeast, by Andreas and Spayde to the southeast, and by Ryersons to the south. The old road past Ryerson's mill ran north of west towards Warsaw and south of east towards Ft. Wayne. It crossed Deed's Creek on the Matchett farm. Remains of the old bridge can still be seen. This road has been abandoned for many years and now runs east and west on the half section lines of Sections 28- 29-30. It was about the first road laid out and started at the Ft. Wayne courthouse and went to Warner's Mills northwest of Warsaw -
on the river. The distance as given in the old records of the Commissioners' Court was 45 miles. Buildings on the W. H. Gibson farm west of Ryersons were on this road and also those on the Matchett farm. Judge Royse, as a boy, lived along this road south
of Pierceton. In a well written article published some twenty years manymandats and ago he tells of the stage driver blowing a horn as he arrived. Ker
In 1870 at a cost of about 10,000.00 a new school building was built in Pierceton. This was a brick structure built near the south edge of town on a knoll. Before this time the schools of the town had suffered because of the lack of a good building. Chester Prentice Hodge was the first principal in charge of the new building. Mathias Scott was in charge of the grammar grades, Miss Mary Sanders taught the intermediate grades and Miss M. A. Beach had charge of the primary. Isaac M. Gross followed Hodge in 1872 and 1873. In 1874 0. W. Miller was in charge followed by J. H. Lewis the next year. M. F. Scott had charge in 1876 and 1877 and W. J. Speer in 1878. Miss Crawford taught primary for six years beginning in 1873. Miss Belle Stinson and Kiss Leora Taylor were intermediate teachers. In 1879 there were 336 students enrolled. School began in September and lasted for six months. This schoolhouse built in 1870 served well until 1921. In June of that year it burned and the present building was built. at that. time Ray Kuhn was superintendent. In 21-22. 22-23 and until Jan- The 1924 school was held in various places. High school was uptown in rooms formerly used by a casket factory. School began in the new I was teaching there and was 35 that day. building January 21, 1924. It was a very cold, blizzardlike day and not one half of the children were there. The new building was very warm and comfortable. We were teaching there at this time and well remember the day. The high school at this date contained about 120 pupils. Mr. Kuhn deserved a lot of credit for keeping the school work up to standard while the children were scattered here and there about town. The Menzie school was going at this time as well as the one south of Ridinger Lake. It was known as the Adams school.
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Early History of ashington Township.
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Some years ago about 1923 when Road 30 went thru for the first time it was very heart-breaking to Pierceton people to 1 3 miles see the road go^north of town on the north line of Section 15-16 etc. for this was never a very important road. We were teaching in the Pierceton high school at the time. Being connected with the surveyor's office they as me if I had anything to do with that location for Road 30. I told them I had nothing to do with it. Had they gone to George McCarter they might have had the righ:
man .
It has pleased Pierceton people to see new road 30 built
in thru the north part of town. This was done about 148-9 1948-9. New Road 30 is one of the best roads in the State and they have a right-of-way be bought so that some day it can be a four land vention ~ the lane highway, the new road being north of the present one. The total width is 172 feet. With Pierceton now at the crossroads
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of Road 30 and Road 13 it bids fair to become in time a city of importance. When Road 13 was rebuilt in the summer of 1949 the town was cut off from the outside world to some extent for it seemed that about every road into town that summer was blocked. obtained The town lost some but gained a great deal more for it got a ,
wide paved street with curbs at Stateexpense. Road 30 is one of the big thru roads of the nation and someday it will be four lanes as it is now west of Wanatah. What will happen to the Penn- sylvania Railroad is a matter of conjecture. With airplanes comin into common use the time may come when all railroads will haul only freight and very few, if any, passengers. Railroads cannot begin to compete with airplanes as to speed and as for safety there are no sidings in the skies, nothing much to run into, and the roadways are high and wide. A railroad train is abso- lutely limited to the tracks in front of the engine.
Washington Township
Washington Township is one of the townships in the eastern tier in the County. It is about six miles square and so contains 36 tewash sections. It holds out well on the six mile basis north and south but east and west the township is a little short. The west tier of sections con- tain about 32 acres less than they should. Section 6 for ex- ample in the northwest corner has 151 acres in its NE2, 135 in the NW2, 143.93 in the southwest quarter and 160 in the SE This make about 590 acres instead of 640. The north and west tier of sections in any Congressional Township are usually over or short in acreage. Errors were crowded to the north and west byt the early government surveyors. Tho township has all kinds of land in it but much of it is rolling and some real hills occur in the eastern part. Wooster is the only village in the township besides Pierceton. It was quite a lively littl trading place from about 1856 to 1896. The township used to have twelve school houses scattered over its area. While most of its roads run east and west and north and south yet there are a good many that angle and wind around somewhat indicating that they may follow old trails started by the Indians or by the early settlers. Only three lakes are shown on the map of Washington Township, Ridinger's, Robinson and Mud or Froehly. Ridinger is much te the largest and is in the northeast sec- tion covering much of the west half of section 1. Perhaps 40 acres is covered by Robinson Lake in Section 13. Most of this lake is in Whitley County. Mud lake is in Sec. 15 and is about ten acres in area.
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Some of the early settlers of Washington Township were John and Vincent Makemson, John Mcbeal, Henry Hoover, George and Henry Sommerville, Samuel Firestone, William Moore, Alexander Graham, and William Beasley. They all came here in the 1830's. Other oldtimers in the township were John Hoover, William Steph-
enson, Jehu Dunham, Robert McNeal, John Doke, James Crouch, James Chaplin, Charles Chapman, ± Jesse Little, Lewis Keith, James Stinson, John Elder, James T. Stinson, George W. Ryerson,
Martin Braysted, John Bratt, Asa Pratt, George Wagner, William O'Brien, Abe K. Leedy, James Humpreys, Thoma's Logan, John Mc Daniels, Samuel Elder, Absolum Brown, John 0. Crutcher, Henry Phillips, Jacob Phillips, and James Clinger. John Makemson is supposed to have erected the first house in 1835. The first hewed log house was erected in 1853 by Lewis Keith. It was used as a tavern and stood on what is now Lot 1 Block 15 of the original plat of Pierceton. The first store was established in 1850 by Nathan Chapman at the village of Fairview. This was a mile or south so northeast of what is now Pierceton. About 1840 Lewis Keith started the first blacksmith shop. He also built the first mill in the township. It was on Deed's Creek and was a grist mill. Several years after this Alexander Menzie started the first saw mill.Dr. Banta was the first physician and was postmaster at Pierceton. George W. Ryerson and John Chaplin about 1841 set out the first prchards with trees from Ft. Wayne. The first religious meeting was held at the home of John Bratt by William Divinney, a missionary of the I. E. church. The occasion was the funeral. of Mr. Bratt's daughter. The second service was in 1839 at the home of William Moore.
The first tavern in the township was the home of G. W. Ryerson who lived a mile or so south of what is now Pierceton. The ps postoffice was here and mail was brought on horseback. Mr. Ryerson was postmaster and his son Ira. J. Ryerson was the deputy. The first school was a log building erected on the Moore farm. Adam Lainge taught there in 1840. It was a subscription school. The second schoolhouse was erected near the home of G. W. Ryerson and was called the Ryerson school. The first Metho- dist Church building was erected in 1839 on a lot donated by Robert McNeal. Church had been held at his home for five years. Two of the earliest marriages were the weddings of Morris P. Chaplin to Sarah A. Morris and Adam Laing to Mary Chaplin. In the fall of 1858 the railroad was completed to Pierceton and the town celebrated with a grand dinner. This dinner was for the of- ficers of the road and all the laborers. When talk began about a railroad coming thru from Fort Wayne to Chicago there was some speculation as to its route. Fairview was started some distance South northeast of the atre present site of Pierceton but when the road went to the south of the town the town was moved. Abstracts of north
land as far north as Oswego contain deeds to the railroad b m 1853 company. When the route was changed the land was deeded back. Pierceton and Larwill are high points on this branch of the rail- road. There is a dip east of Pierceton called Sheeps Mollow.
The first name of Larwill was High Point. Most of the track id
is down grade from Pierceton to Winona Lake. Pierceton had a sin- gle track as did all other points along the line in this county, until about 1902 when a program of double tracking was carried out so trains could go faster and run more safely.
Brief Tiographies of some of the early settlers. Of Washington Township.
It is interesting to read the biographies of some of the men who had to do with the early history of Pierceton. In a book called Biographical &; Historical Record of Kosciusko County published about 1887 we find several of these biographies. Charles Watson Conant was born in 1829 in Massachusetts. As a boy he lived in Ohio and here he grew to manhood. He came to this county in 1863. Here he engaged in the lumber business. During the civil wat war he was engaged in making gun-stocks for the Government. Then he had a furniture factory in Pierceton where - he employed about 75 to 100 men. At the same time he carried on a general mercantile business there. In 1872 he sold out his interests at Pierceton and went to Michigan where he died in 1880. Conant and Moore was the name of the firm for some years at Pierceton. The Conant & Moore Addition to Pierceton in is north- east of the depot. Lewis S. Foster who had a drug store in Pierce- ton was born in Ohio in 1836. At Lewisburg, Ohio he worked at making wagons and carriages. After learning this trade he went to Liberty Mills, Indiana. In 1873 he came to Fierceton and became associated with his brother Frank in the drug business. Foster Brothers published the Pierceton Independent from 1879 to 1885. Mr. Foster was a master mason and affiliated with the Methodist church. Francis Henry Foster of Foster & brother was born in 1834. The father came with his family to Indiana in 1843 and located in Wabash County. At the age of 16 he began to learn the trade of a blacksmith and wagon maker. Later he clerked in a store at North Manchester and then enlisted as a private in the Union army. He came to Pierceton in 1867. In 1885 he was chosen superintendent of the Pierceton Manufacturing Co. He was a comrade of the John Murray Post of the G. A. R. and a prominent Odd Fellow.
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Hiram Finton Be. was a mason and plasterer around Fierceton for a number of years. His parents came from Logan County, Ohio in 1846 and settled near Wooster. His father John Finton was in business at Wooster during the balmy days of this village. He was a justice of the peace for the township, and an honored and respected citizen. Hiram Tinton took up the trade of plasterer eighteen
and mason when he was sixteen years old. He married Pricilla Len- nett of Tippecanoe Township in 1861 and there was eleven children. Mr. Finton served in the Civil War and in 1866 returned to Pierce- ton where he continued to follow his trade. He and his wife were Presbyterians and he was an elder in the church. He belonged to the Masonic fraternity and to the John Murray Fost of the G. A. R. was born in Pierceton. Alfred Hoover'in 1811 near Richmond, Indiana. The family belonged to the Friends or Quaker church. Alfred was the oldest son of eight. In 1837 he married Mary Allsed whose father had served in the War of 1812. About 1853 he came to this county and settled on 320 acres that he had purchased from the Government The land was covered at that time with a heavy growth of timber mostly poplar and walnut. Wir. Hoover served as Township Trustee for several terms. Daniel Hoover was born in 1827 in Wayne Co. Indiana. He and his wife came to Washington Township in 1854 and settled on 160 acres of unimproved land. He developed' a fine farm of some 218 acres by hard work and good management. They belonged to the Methodist church and he was a member of the Odd Fellows. As a republican he served as township trustee and also as County commissioner. They had three daughters one of who became Mrs. Dr. C. K. Long of Pierceton. Judging from the picture of Mr. Hoover which appears in this book he was a very intelligent man and phy- ically able to take care of any emergency.
Daniel Kaylor was born in Virginia in 1822. His parents moved to Ohio in 1824. He recieved a common school education. At the age of &# 22 he began to teach school in Logan County, Ohio. He moved to this county in 1846 and took up 160 acres of land in Washington Township. In 1867 he sold the far , and moved to Pierceton. He served as clerk of the town and in 1876 was appointe a justice of the peace. For a period of ten years he taught school mostly in Washington Township. He was a class leader in the ethodist Church for a number of years. Francis Morrison was born in 1787 on Long Island. For seven years he was a sailor on the Atlantic Ocean. He married Miss Hannah Jones of Pennsylvania and they were the parents of Il children. In November 1844 he. settled in Washington Township. They belonged to the Universalist Church at Pierceton of which he was one of the founders. James Goodrich married one of the daughters of Mr. & Mrs. Morrison. He was a comrade of Johnn Murray Post 124 of the G. a. K. at Pierceton. Calvin Beagle born in 1811 made his home in Washing- ton Township for ten years from 1838 to 1848 and then moved to Section 11 of Plain Township. John Beagle was one of his children. Samuel Snodgrass, who was a farmer in Washington Township borned was born in Flain Township of this county August 14, 1836 being one of the first white children born here. His ancestors were of scotch-Irish descent. Joseph Hart came to this county in April, 1849. He built one of the first hewed log cabins in the township. He lived in it until 1864 when he built a frame residence. He was born in Jefferson County, Chio in 1811. Abe Kieth Leedy came to Washington Township October 15, 1842. They stopped on Turkey Creek Prairie and then they spent six weeks in a cabin which
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