USA > Indiana > Kosciusko County > Pierceton > A history of Pierceton, Indiana > Part 4
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Mrs. Winch furthers says "In 1837 John Hoover, william Stephenson, John Dunham, Robert Mcbeal, and John Doke came in from Ohio. The next year was the sickly year and Mr. Stephenson died. John Dunham was the father-in-law of William M. Millein. In his family cemetery the Indian Lozette was buried. Mr. Dunham set up the first carding mill on the Tippecanoe River. It was for Elias Shull. Robert Moweal was a resident of Pierceton for a long time but later moved to Warsaw where he died. He was an em- ployee of the Pe Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne & Chicago Railroad. I came here with my parents in 1838. We had formerly lived near Collimer. Charles Chapman, the old bachelor from whom my father bought the apple trees came in 1838. His little cabin stood here long after he had vanished from site. Chapman died and was buried in the hol- low of the Ryerson Cemetery near the graves of Korman Lipps and Abner T. MoQuigg. Here lie several nameless sleepers. One of them was a poor traveller who died of a throat disease at the Ryerson tavern. Jesse Little also came in 1838 and settled on a farm in Section 36. Young folks used to have a good time going to his house to sing. The remains of him and his wife, Elizabeth, were buried in the Ryerson cemetery. 11 Roxanna Winch died in
and her remains are buried in the Ryerson. cemetery. It
would be interesting and educational if someone had the time to collect all the articles and poems she wrote and make them into a book. A compilation of all the Pierceton items that have appeared in the old papers of the past would make a crecitable history of the town. Predominaty among them would be the writing of S. Rox- ana Winch. It is doubtful if many people living today remeliber her in the balmy days of the 1880's.
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Schools of the Long ago.
Spelling matches were an interesting and educational past- ime in the early schools. One school would invite another and there would be a contest. We are told that in 1852 scholars who attended the Ryerson School issued a challenge to other schools to send in their best spellers. William J. & J. P. Chaplin har- ness five yoke of oxen to a sled and drove about the country el picking up those who wished to attend. These were held in the evening and sometimes the contest would go on for several hours. Towards the close there would be only a few of the best spellers still standing and the person pronouncing the words would be harup for material. Words would be taken from scellers such as McGuffey's, from the Bible and other books. If some bystander voll volunteered a word he had to know how to spell it himself so they could check on it. Reading was made more of in those days than now. We have an old reader of this period. Many pages of the front part are taking up with inflections, emphasis, etc. slants which are not taken up now in the modern readers. The McGuffey readers were much used. LIcGuffey was a teacher living at Cincinna- ti. Rays arithmetics and Whites arithmetics were used. One look- ing through them today finds them very dry and many of the me- thods are in impractical to us. For example the multiplication of one mixed number with another. This is now handled thru changing both to decimals. Another matter was compound ratio and propor- tion. Many a teacher has worried thru this with his students when the whole matter could have been reduced to compound units. A problem would run somewhat like this: If three men working 10 for 1 day
hours a day can dig a ditch 200 feet long, three feet wide, and
for liny four feet deep how many men working 6 hours a day can dig a ditch
300 feet long five feet wide and two feet deep? The whole prob- lem, as we can see, is impractical for men are not machines and cannot compare with machines. The teacher of today would tell the . class that it depended on the kind of men that were working. One strong man who was willing to work might be worth three that did not want to work. Then it would depend on how the men felt and how much they had had to eat or drink. It would also depend on the kind of dirt to be thrown out of the ditch and the solidity of the ground they had to stand on. The amount of water in the ditch would have something to do with it and the weather would have a lot to do with it. If they ran into stxones these would retard the work and if they ran into runny sand this would perhaps put the whole outfit out of commission. Most workers of early day had access to the little brown jug and so the kind of whiskey it con- tained would be a factor in this problem. Thus we can see that there are so many factors entering into this problem that it like many others found in these old books is just a frameup that sounds good on paper. If it has to be solved the way to do it is to fig- ures it by the cubic yard, or cubic foot. The cubic content per man would per hour would be the basis of any answer that might be sought. Arithmetic was perhaps considered the main subject in the old schools especially for boys. Compound proportion was then known as the rule of three. Today it seems that mathematics might go by the wayside for they have invented machines that can do all the processes of mathematics, adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, extracting the square root, and even solving problems in algebra. The highest mathematics is used in astronomy and in electricity. Einstein's work was largely in the electrical field. It may be that machines will ultimately work differential equation
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, It was customary in the old schools of years ago to have only one teacher. Sometimes his school was crowded. Some of the pupils were almost as old as the teacher. The teacher, himself, was sometimes not much farther advanced than some of the students having been graduated from a high school and having attended a summer normal. The grading took the shape of primary, inter- mediate and grammar grades. The grading such as we now have did not come until in the 1870's or 1880's. Before Pierceton built the brick school in 1870 at the south edge of town there were a couple of frame buildings used and these were up town. Lees- burg started a school building campaign, it seems, for they built a brick building in 1868-9 and this started Pierceton and this started Warsaw. It showed some foresight in the school board of Pierceton to build where they did for this is a fine location and there are enough grounds about the building for playgrounds and future enlargement. Consolidation of school began when George 13
Worley was superintendent about 1900. All of the eleven schools that used to dot the township are now abandoned and the students are hauled to Pierceton. In 1920 the Adams and the Menzie schools were still going but the others had been vacated. The schools of t the township used to be used much in political campaigns. Speakers would go out and there would be a rousing speech perhaps followed by a pole raising. A big demonstration of this kind took place at Pierceton in 1868 when Grant and Colfax were running. Pierceton always took a very active part in any political demonstration and sent delegations to the countys seat when a big rally was on. While not as strong a republican center as Leesburg yet it was strong enough to be counted on as a republican community. Joe Taylor, county clerk in 1882, was from Pierceton.
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Pierceton in 1869.
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Pierceton was in the height of its lumber industries in the years immediately after the Civil war. In 1869 Mr. George R. Thralls and Mr. Quim Hosler of the Northern Indianian went to the different towns about the county and took notes for long articles that appeared in the paper that fall. The columns about Pierceton ran aA thru two issues. In the issue for August 12, 1869 there are six columns about the industries at fierceton. He pe Thralls recalls of being on the site of Fierceton in May, 1836 when he came up from the south and crossed the Wabash at La Gro. Ne and some others stopped at I'r. Helvey's this side of the county line and stayed over night and then continued to hunt land. He mentions tha log cabin of Tr. Hayden east of Pierceton. In 1846 he was surveying and stayed all night at the hewed log house of Lewis Keith on the present site of the town. He says that all of what is now the town site was a heavy forest. some roads were cut out and settlers moving in. The aristocratic settlers were talk- ing about eating pound cake, drinking store coffee and eating white bread. By 1853 they began to talk about railroads and store clothing. He says that the town of Fierceton was laid out in the spring of '53 on lands owned by Lewis Keith and Hannah Warsing. Thralls was one of our first surveyors and was also a druggist
Suriye at Warsaw. His old record book is still at the office and is very neat. He built the first brick house in the county seat and also the building where the Interstate Public Service Company now have their offices. Thralls went to Florida later for his wife's healt. and died there in 1888. Hossler lived where the bibler funeral
home is. He was a partner of Reub Williams and they published the paper every Thursday in the thrid story of the Phoenix Block.
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In 1869 Pierceton had about 1600 inhabitants. The private homes Thralls says were neat and. well kept. The grounds are nicely planted with flowers and everything shows that the citizens are industrious, refined and intelligent. There were four churches in town-Methodist- Presbyterian-Universalist and Catholic. There was no school worth mentioning but one was soon to be built. Children were being educated in district or private schools. There was the Odd Fellows, the Masons, and the Sons of Temperance. There was one newspaper, seven doctors, four lawyers, one dentist, one photographer, and two hotels. There was a furniture factory, run by W. C. Conant and John Moore, a woolen mills run by Frary and Murray, a flour mill run by Michael Murray, a hub and spoke factory by Wm. H. Spayde and Co., a wagon and carriage shop by Shaffer, Rush and Engle and another by Conrad, and two sawmill
one by Thacher & Brother and another not in use. The furniture factory three had three buildings the main one being feur stories high. They employe and boys 85 to 100 men at pay from $1.50 to -4/ $4.00 a day. Bedsteads that they made sold for as little as $2.50 and others as high as 25.00. In 1868 they uses a million and a half feet of lumber and and made 15000 bedsteads alone to say nothing of other furniture. Their sales that year was over 3100, 000. dellars. Most of their furniture was
sold white, that is it was not varnished and had on it no trimmings. This was added if required but not solicited. Many thousands of dol- lars had been spent for the machinery that filled the three floors. A large store room was south of the tracks, the other buildings being on the north side and east of the depot along the railroad. Beautiful designs were cut on the more expensive furniture and scroll work was put on with specially built machines. They also made coffins some of which were of black walnut. These were shipped all over the country.
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The woollen mills are 36x44 fest and four stories high.
The upper floor was for custom carding. Wool was carded here for farmers and sheep raisers. The floor below this was for spinning. The clean wool to be made into cloth is first run thru a carding machine. It is then run thru a second machine for more perfect carding. From this machine the wool comes out in a loose woollen rope. A third machine seperates it into an endless strip. Another machine forms the wool into threads. These are about the size of a straw. This is called roving. From this machine it goes to a spinning jack etc. etc. until it is made into cloth. The weaving . rooms were on the second floor. They made jeans, satinettes, cas- simeres, tweeds, blankets, plain and plaid goods and flannels. In another twister they made stocking yarns. This was the day of woolen underwear and heavy woolen stockings. Scouring, fulling and dyeing was done in the basement. Every room was heated by stean which came from an engine room. No fires were allowed. They shipped their surplus wool to the east. Other such mills existed in the county especially that of Elias Sholl at Monoquet.
The flouring mill at Pierceton, Thralls says, stood south of the railroad. It was 40x70 three stories high. It had a boiler house and water tanks. The grinding was done by four pairs of the finest French burrs. They made wheat flour, corn meal and buck- wheat flour. Buckwheat cakes were much on the breakfast table in these days. A former mill here had burned down. Pierceton has alway had a flour mill and one stands today south of the tracks and in the east part of town. Perhaps it is this same old building that Thralls and Hossler visited 82 years ago. In very early day in this county the early settlers had to go many miles to get their grain ground. Early mills were at Oswego and Monoquet and Webster.
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The hub and spoke factoryw was 40x60 feet. It was run by Spayde and Shorb. They turned out seven hundred spokes a day. took Spokes were tied into bundles of 52 because it tokk that many for the four wheels of a vehicle, 13 to a wheel. Hubs were more difficult to make and passed thru more machines. They were tied in bundles of four. The machinery for this plant cost about seven thousand dollars. ith nine hands they turned out about 400 dollars worth of wagon stock per week. The proprietors were both worthy young men . Shaffer, Rush and Engle had the running of the wagon shc Thew wood shop was 22x36 and three men worked in this part. The blacksmith and ironing shop was 22x40. Here there were three fires and four men. The paint shop was above and here were two painters. They made wagons, spring wagons and carriages and turned out ap- proximately 100 per year. Across the street was Peter Conrad's wagon and carriage shops. These shops were east of the present Legion Hall on both sides of the street. Conrads shops in 1869 were still in the making. It appears that wagons at this date were manufactured at the state penetentiary. - er Manufacturers outside of the penetentiary did not like this and did what they could to discourage people from buying the ones made in this institution. The sawmill of Thacher & Brother had a circular saw which could sw saw 10,000 feet of lumber in ten hours. Old papers of this date recite quite often about some sawmill burning down or a boiler ex- ploding and killing or injuring several people. Many such mills were scattered over the county. In the 1880's after the Nickle Plate railroad was built Packerton became a busy milling center. John Packer was kept busy going around to different places where he owned sawmills. The county perhaps would have been better off if some of the good lumber shipped away had been left standing.
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After visiting all of these factories Thralls and Hossler drove back home. Mr. Murray and Mr. Hayes paid their tavern bill and Mr. E. G. Eddy was thanked for escorting them about the town and introducing them to different people. They spent a pleasant day and said they would call again. The balance of their writeup appears in the August 19th issue of the Northern Indianian. In this they write about the different stores in town. Miss Delilah Finney was a milliner, selling bonnets, ribbons, flowers, etc. In these day thay made hats beginning with the frame. Wedding bon- nets were sold. Another milliner was Mrs. A. A. Westfall. She also was a dressmaker. Stores in these days sold womens dress goods but no ready made dresses. Thomas H. Murray was in the dry goods business. Tom as he was usually called was a whole souled, and genial storekeeper. He was one of the oldest merchants in town and had sold out and bought back several times. Gibson & Lawrence also had a dry goods store. They ran what Thralls calls an Indiana store, i.e. they sold most anything a person had need for. In ex- change for goods they took country produce. Another general dry goods store was kept by William H. Spayde & Co. The company was Mr. Shorb. Conant & Moore had a general store and sold general merchandise. and also furniture. Many of the men who work at their factory traded here. O. H. Aborn of Warsaw was their book keeper. These stores all presented a neat appearance and command a large share of trade. J. W. Bradshaw was an attorney in the Reed build- ing and J. H. Taylor was an attorneyand had his office in the Hayes Block. They are both young men, says Thralls, industrious anc deserve the patronage of the town. Dr. Hays was the oldest physi- cian in town. He rode all about the township when people were poor
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and could not pay. Thralls says that the doctor used to buy drugs ( of him at Warsaw back in the 1850's. Hayes was once thrown from his buggy and injured. The doctor, he says, is now in good circumstan- ces and is well along in years. Four other doctors were Dr. Marshal Dr. Long, Dr. Callett, and Dr. Matchett. Dr. F. E. Olney was a dentist in the Hayes Block. Olney in later life went to Las Vegas, New Mexico. In the basement oft the Hayes Block they found H.K. Hayes running an ice cream stand. A restaurant was in connection where one could buy a sandwich for 5g, a cup of coffee for 5g and a full dinner for 25g. The day must have been hot for they say this was the only cool place they found in town. Hayes set them up to the cigars and they rested there for a long time. They next visited a billiard hall kept by Mr. Duck. Duck sold no liquor for which they complimented him. Next they met their old friend D. P. Nichols, the agent for the railroad company. Dwight was al- most an institution in Pierceton for he had been their so long. He was the first one to sell goods in town according to Thralls. In connection with his railroad work Nichols bought up grain and produce and shipped it to eastern markets. They found Minnich Bros. dealing in hardware. They had a tin shop in connection and did all kinds of repairing. They also sold agricultureal instruments a display of which would be interesting to us today. This was the day of cradels for wheat, of up and down churns, of five and ten gal- lon crocks, of vinegar barrels, of high four legged cook stoves 1 with the oven next to the pipe, of heavy iron room stoves made for burning wood. Coal had not yet come into use except for blacksmiths and a load of wood could be bought on the streets of Pierceton for 21.50. It paid sometimes to investigate the kind of wood before a person bargained for it. Maybe it was water elm. below and oak on top.
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Anderson & Dowling were another hardware firm in Pierceton in 1869. Snyder & Brother were dealers in boots and shoes. They also dealt in leather findings. Boots and shoes were made to order if the customer did not want to buy a pair made in the east. J. L. Garber also sold boots and shoes. Many a small boy enjoyed his first pair of red topped boots. L. L. Lampson was in the harness business. Harness making was an art followed by skilled men. Heavy harness was made for work horses and lighter weight for driv- ing. The finer sets were decorated with buckles and other ornamen- tal trimmings. Sleigh bells were sold in season. In winter when -
sleighing was good the streets of Pierceton were good runways for sleighs and bob sleds. Another harness maker was William Fenton. . They found John Castater finishing up the new house for Mr. Conant. This house iss south on the main street. The Sherman Hotel near the depot was presided over by Thomas Graven. At this place they took dinner and were waited on by polite young ladies. The rates at a hotel in 1869 were $1.00 a day. At the Crawford House, another hotel they found Messrs. Steel and Clover in charge. B. F. Lindlaeur was the man who did the tailoring in town. william Brace was a town barber. A barber then had many customers who wore beards. Trimming the beard was part of the barbers work. Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, and Garfield were four presidents who wore beards. Harvey Hostetter had a livery barn where he had ten horses and could fit out most an kind of a rig one would desire. Buggies, sleighs, surreys, cabs, and sample wagons were in' demand by runners, tourists, and people who wanted to take a ride on Sunday afternoon. Some people who drove to town would put their horses up at the barn and get them in the evening. The charge was 25g a horse. One usually found horses they used to own or some they would like to own. men loafing around the office at the livery barns talking about
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Miscellaneous Matters.
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In this day of good roads and fast automobile service and still faster airplane travel there are many people living who know nothing about the old horse and buggy days of the 1860's and .on up to the early 1900s. Roads into Pierceton were so bad in the spring that the only way some people could get to town was by horseback or by shank's mare. Horse trading took up a good part of some peoples time. A man would drive a certain horse to town and drive home with another one. Hitchracks were all along the main streets of Pierceton and cobblestone gutters kept the horses from pawing holes in the ground. Then there were feed yards where horses could be unhitched and feed from the wagon bed. A gang of gypsies would come to the outskirts of the town and while the men of the gang would trade horses the gypsie women would be uptown telling fortunes. There were many tricks to the horsetrading game and per kring poryt, Her
and many a time a farmer drove home an animal not nearly as good as the one he had. Certain medicine could be given a heavy- horse that had the heaves that would tide him over for a few hours until the new owner was a long ways from the man who traded it to him. The age of a horse could be told by looking at his teeth. It was hard to fool a good horseman on the age of a certain animal. A gypsie might proclaim his age to be three years when ,if the truth were known, he would never see fifteen again. No week around town was complete without at least one runaway. These were sometimes serious. Horses became frightened at something blowing down the street or scared at the trains and when frightened they seemed to run as though they were blind. People risked their own lives by trying to stop a runaway. Horse racing on Sunday afternoons used te be a common pastime out int the country. A good straight road about a mile long would be selected and blocked off as a track.
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illiam 0. Kyle was born in Summit County, Ohio in 1834. As a boy he moved around with his parents to Noble County, Indi- ana, VanWert County, Ohio, and to Ft. wayne, Indiana, where his father conducted a g cooper shop for a large flouring mill. it the age of 22 he made an extended trip over parts of the United States but returned to Indiana to live. In 1858 he married Miss Rachael Wagner. Later in this year he settled in washington Towns ship where he was living in 1879. His farm consisted of 100 acres of which he had cleared 75. He was a prominent citizen of the town- ship. The Kyle farm was in the extreme northeast corner of the township east of Ridinger Lake and a cooper shop is shown along the road. It was north of Firestone's land. Theodore J. Heagy was born October 6, 1832 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. His fat- her was a well to do farmer. } In 1839 the family moved to Mont- gomery County, Ohio and some years later to Wayne County, Indiana. Here Ir. Heagy grew to manhood. In 1856 he married Miss Mary E. Barnes and they came to washington Township in 1872. in 1878 he was "made an Off Odd Fellow" in Pierceton. In 1879 there were sevenchildren in the family. The Heagy farm was 15 miles east of Ileagy town and a mile north. # tile factory was on the Cummins farm at the crossroads. The Cummins school No. 8 was on the northwest corner of the cross-roads.
In looking over the map of Washington Township for 1879 we find some of the largest farms to be owned by the following people William C. Matchett owned about the whole section just west of Pierceton. ilfred Hoover owned 320 acres a mile east of town on the north side of the road. The William Bussing Estate comprised about 360 acres over in the northwest part of the township. To
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the southeast of town the Deardorf estate had 236 acres. Farms containing 160 acres were numerous. Some of the owners were Z. I. Stephens, William H. Gibson, Dennis O'dea, J. Maston, N. Elake, S. Reed, M. P. Chaplin, J. Rafter r. C. P. Smith, Daniel Hoover, 1. Werstler, Ed Doke, Joseph arner, J.3.Leedy, Libe K. Leedy, J. C. Humphreys, J. H. Stinson, J. O. Cretcher, T. L. Line, Vincen Makemson Est. Robert Makemison, John Makemson, Fred Llder, 3. Perry and L. Tenny. Other names appearing on the map are those of John Cole, M. L. Barbour who laid out Barbour's Addition to Pierceton, E. VanCuren, George Vaness, J. Vanator, J. A. Clemens, A. C. Shan- ton, J. A. Cummins, J. Hart, W. J. Graham, William Sheely, J. 3. Weaver, E. Lautzenhizer, A. G. Adams, and Elias Fashbaugh besides many others.
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