USA > Indiana > Kosciusko County > Pierceton > A history of Pierceton, Indiana > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
1
-
Le
. on
C
fo.
On the west side of the main street beginning at the railroad' we find the fire station. Next is a snack bar. Then on the corner is the Standard Filling Station. This is a brick block. Crossing the street to the south we come to Bernie Summy's grocery and meat market. Bernie is a large man and good natured. west of him is UNITED Telephone CONNE, BLOG
the old overall factory. South of Summys is a barber shop. Then
comes Lenwell's furniture store occupying two fronts. Then comes the Smith speciality shop, then Powley's Drug Store. This is a Rexall store. Then the I. G. A. Supermarket has two fronts. Then comes a store where they sell Philco Appliances. Next is Bailey's PASTINA CAFE barber shop. Next is Claude and ilma's beer joint. Then next to the alley is Baxter's 5 and 10g store. Above these last two stores: there used to be the Leland Hotel. Crossing the alley to the SNYDER
south we come to the Pierceton Bank, then to a restaurant, and then to the B.& 0. Hardware Store. South of this is the Pierce- ton Press. The Pierceton Record is still published once a week. BetH ACHT l'ext there is a beauty salon and in the next two rooms are Fred Beebe's two stores. The south. one is an antique shop where onde can buy anything from an old cow bell to a Grandfather's clock. Across the street to the south is the library built in 1916 with the help of the Andrew Carnegie fund. South of this is the Snyder garage which has been there for 25 years. South of it is a factory WHITLEY PRODUCTS
owned by a Columbia City corporation. North nest of Beebe's is a monu- ment shop. Fast of the tracks on the east side of the Main Street is the buildings of the Fierceton Lumber Company. They have much invested and are building on the west side of the street just north of the tracks. It is now operated by Mr. Joann. The Metho- dist church is a block or so north on the IE corner of the inter- section. It has recently been remodelled and is very attractive.
e
Le
1
O
Y
ec
The antique store such as Ir. Beebe has at Fierceton is a new kind of a store that has come into being within the last 25 years. They are along all the main highways and cater to touris tourists and people who have cabins at the lake. The idea of a lake cabin has come into vogue with improved roads and automo- biles. In an antique store we find those things which were in our homes and on our farms fifty or seventy-five years ago. Of course the price is exorbitant compared to what it was when those things were common in our stores. We paid .6.00 at Beebe's for three goblets made of glass, which in Froehly Brothers store in Pierce- in 1879 ton'on the present postoffice corner, would have cost one about 75%. But one can expect this because such things are "out of print". Beebe has old dinner bells, sleigh bells, teachers small school bellsto call in the children from the play grounds, old fashioned hanging lamps, grandfather clocks, mantle clocks, and old kitchen clocks. He may even have an old sleigh or a conrad or Snyder wagon made in Pierceton seventy-five years ago, nagon wheels seem to be in demand as ornaments in the front yard. In some antique stores we have seen little negro boys that used to be hitch racks to hold the horses from wandering away. Some of these used to be out in front of the homes in some cases in Fier- ceton. Statues of Indians that used to be a sign for a cigar store are seen once in a while. it is possible too to make an an- tique. at Culver in the library at the Military academy there are two library tables. One is a for sure oldtimer but the other was made recently. One cannot tell them apart for they look alike Old dishes make up much of the stock around an antique store. The style of dishes seems to change quite a bit as do the styles ( of wearing apparel. Old dishes have a certain charm and beauty.
It is a far cry from the old grocery store of Momekin in 1910 and a farther one from the store of william N. Graves of 1879 to the modern cash and carry chain store of the present day. The I. G. A. supermarket in Pierceton is somewhat on the same order. Clerks used to weight out the amount a person wanted and figure out the cost and tie the purchase into a bundle. The old- time scales had weights. Later self computing scales came into use. About the only thing that was already tied up was a. quarters worth of coffee A sugar. This was done on Friday for Saturdays trade. Deans, coffee, rice, crackers, ginger snaps, hominy, brown sugar, granulated sugar, etc. all had to be weighed out and packaged when it was bought Tobacco was sold in cuts off of a plug. and a nickles worth or a dimes worth cut off by a cutter when it was purchased. Horseshoe tobacco was a good seller. If a person saved the tags he might get a mantle clock for about a thousand. tags Dattleax was another good seller. Coffee came packaged but much was sold in bulk and even green coffee was sold and roasted in the home. The customer could have coffee ground in the big "arm strong coffee grinder found in every grocery store or he could grind it at home as used in a small coffee mill. This is another gadget now to be found at Beebe's antique store. There was not much can- ned goods in the old grocery store. One might find peaches, corn, and succotash, and peas. Much dried fruit was sold. Grocers had dried apples, dried peaches, prunes etc. Dried herrings and macker el and white fish was kept at most stores. The old cigar case cont contained several brands that were home made. The popular price for a cigar was five cents. A few people could afford a ten cent cigar but not many. No green garden products were sold in the winter and not much, if any, in the summer for people had their own gardens.
$
The old store, too, was a place to loaf and talk over the town gossip and hear the latest on politics. This would go on until the proprietor decided to close up about 10 P.M. Stores opened early in the morning and kept open until late at night. Kerosene lamps hanging from the ceiling furnished the lights until about 1895 when incandescent lights came into style. All of this is changed in the modern grocery store where the customer goes about the store with a carry all and picks from the shelves what they want. Meat is the only food not already weighed out and wrap- ped. In the case of bacon it co es already wrapped and. weighed. when the customer has selected all thay want they end up at the exit counter where the bill is added up on a machine, the food is sacked or boxed, the customer pays the bill and the deal is fin- ished. There is little if any sentiment connected with the trading No credit is extended as in early day. Many a grocerman years ago furnished food to poor families during the long winter when the man was out of work hoping to be repaid the next summer when their condition would perhaps be better. Now everything is wrapped as a matter of health. Years ago bread was not wrapped. In fact it was not sold in grocery stores but baked in the home. Butter was bru brought in and traded for groceries. A good store on Saturday would take in five or six cases of eggs a few dozen from each farmer. Fastideous women buying butter would want to taste it. The clerk would give them a taste on the end of a butcher knife. Butter from certain families in the country was spoken for in ad- vance. Eggs were not sorted but any person bringing in soiled eggs found that the store would turn them down. The candy case in the old grocery stores contained some chocolates, peppermints, wintergreens and on the shelves was stick candy in jars.
-
-
The earlier history of Pierceton like that of every other town in the county had to do with saloons. Pierceton had more than its share of these places and stories in the old papers tell of the troubles between the saloon element and the people who wanted to rid the town of this drink nuisance. In the 1870's the women formed a club known as the crusaders. They were so in- tent in getting a change that they picketed the saloons and tried to persuade men, especially the younger ones, from going into the place. This picketing went on from six in the morning until the place finally closed up at night. Sometime during the day that they would hold services out in front. Some saloonkeepers would invite them in and one even furnished them song books to sing fror Men wore red and blue ribbons pinned on them by the women. One color meant a total abstainer, the other a temperate drinker. AS we have said before the women of Pierceton cleaned out one of the joints and were acquitted. In Bourbon one old saloon keeper slip- - ped upstairs with a bucket of sour beer and dashed it down on the women below. Every person who wanted to run a saloon had to get a license thru the commissioners court so tha names of these old saloon keepers of Pierceton are all on record. The notice had to be published stateing where their saloon was to be. The modern bet beer joint is perhaps not as bad as the old saloon except that no women were around the old saloon. Then too the old saloon had blinds in front so a person could not see in. Drinking used to cause more fist fighting on the street than we have now. No week was complete without a fistic encounter in some saloon. Une bully once was in a Warsaw saloonAsaying what he could do. The marshall was RoboMowvander
Na small man and the bully daed asked "row may are there of you"?
,
ஆக்டி
Jerry A Mr. Gleason heard the commotion and stepped in. Gleason was a big man. He asked the marshall "Where do you want him"? Gleason picked him up and dumped him in the gutter as one would dump so . much rubbish. Liquor had different effects on a man. Some became
very funny and acted like a clown. Others were boosted up in im- portance and could lick any man in the house. Such a character would be taken on by somebody to find out that his sphere in- cluded too many people. Most of them would not get actually drunk but would have enough sense left to get home alone where he would find his poor little wife trying to make ends meet with a family of young children. Perhaps it was pay day that she had been lookir forward to only to find that about ten dollars of his pay had gone to the saloon. Then too a saloon keeper could tell some customer
on pay day that he ran up a bill there once that month when he was
drinking and that he owed so much. This would have to be paid. Then along with a saloon there was more or less gambling in some side room and maybe a few wicked girls stuck off in some antiroom, A man who would sell liquor was usually not above anything that e went with it. Citizens were known to hurl brickbats thru cer- tain windows to clear out the women and men inside. The Temparance League furnished speakers on the subject of Temperance. Many such speeches were made in Pierceton either by outside parties of by men from the town itself. The ministers of any town were usually the head of this league. Much space is given to these speeches in the old papers, sometimes two or three columns. As we said be- fore no town in the county was free of the saloon blight, even such a place as Packerton and Sevastopol having saloons. The saloon on came with the Civil War. Lefore that time whiskey was sold at gro- cery stores as a matter of course.
1
at
€
1-
-
Several hundred telephones operate out of Pierceton to- day not only to the town but to the country around. The dis- trict at Kuhn's Landing is served out of Pierceton as well as that at Ridinger's Lake. We find such calls as the following. Merle Anderson sellis welding equipment. Ashley's department store, B. &. O. hardware company run by Lermit Summers who lives out by the flowing well on Road 15, Deebe's store, biltz cafe, Ilarry Byrer, metal shop, John Camden, contractor, The Consolidated Food Processors which used to be Reid Murdocks, Dri Gas Service, Duckwall Implement store, Gradless . Sons auto body shop, The Gebert Texaco Station at 13 & 30, Rev. Thomas Harrington, liayden M. Jones, plumber, Jot em down
store at Barbee Lake, Lakeland Educational Sales, Marylin's beauty shop, cCarter Feed Mill, Kort's coal company, Kort's service station, forthern Gases Inc., Lelan J. Osborn auc- tioneer, Pastime Cafe, Pequignot is Lenwell's station, Pickler X-ray corporation, Pierceton Dry Cleaners, Fierceton Elevator Company, Pierceton Furniture Store, Pierceton Light & Water Co. Pierceton Press, Pierceton State Bank, Pierceton Stock Yards, Pierceton Triple Service on Road 30 east, Pierceton Trucking Co. , Pierceton Welding Shop, Pleasant View Dairy Bar, Pletcher's IG\ market, Pletcher's Locker Plant, Powley's drug store, Rev. E. H. Saunders, Carl biler's grocery at Riley Memorial Beach, L. B. Slenker, dentist, Snyder Motor vales, Stickler's Standard service, summey's market & grocery, Trump welding shop, United Telephone Co., Weicht's grocery, J. C. Wine & Co. meat retailers,
€
One of the biggest plants in Pierceton has been the Reid Murdock Plant west of town. This has now changed hands and is no longer under this name. This plant started some fifty years ago when such plants were at Warsaw and other places. The one at Pierceton has survived the years and is now still employing many people and handling many tons of tomatoes every year. The farmers about the town of Pierceton contract to sell all their tomatoes to the plant and the plant agrees to buy them. Many tons of tomatoes every year are made into catsup and the pleasant smell of this relish lingers over the town for a certain period every fall. During the tomatoe season trucks will be lined up for blocks waiting to weigh out their load. Clarence quine used to be one of the tomatoe raisers and tells many yarns of the old tomatoe days. Within the last five years the plant has erected one of the finest tall chimneys to be found anywhere and it may be seen for several miles. One travel. ling on old road 30 three miles to the north can see the stack ;} at Pierceton. Tomatoes are sold by the ton to the plant and are packed in crates holding about a bushel. Another product the plant used to put out was canned beans. One going along the roads will see many fields planted to tomatoes and in the fall about the time school begins they will need a lot of help to pick tomatoes. Pierceton schools used to start somewhat later than others to give the boys and girls a chance to help. Tomato are harvested until the first killing frost comes along and thel the tomatoes are spoiled. It is likely that people all over the world have eaten catsup and tomatoes that came from Pierceton. €
The plant employes a number of people and has been an asset to the town for many years and may be for many more.
-
The Rooster u. B. Church.
Most of the facts are from the
From the Pierceton Record of April 14, 1937.
Supplied by Chas. Hass.
The organization of the Wooster U. B. Church dates back to February 22, 1861. It was organized by Rev. Allen Richart. He was the first preacher in charge and his understudy was
Rev. John Flack called the junior preacher. The charter member
were: C. T. Barber, B. A. Barber
Daniel Vanness Mary Harbaugh
Lyda Hoover Luy A. Harbaugh
Hannah Wolford
James Hoover
Peter Hoover
Martha Hoover
H. D. Eukus
Mary C. Finton
H. N. Hoover
Sarah Hoover
Armasa Pringle A. Guffton
Adam Hoover Josiah D. Finton
In 1865 appear the names of Abraham and Catherin Scott parents of L. G. Scott. Mr. Scott was a member of the first Board of Trustees and for about twenty years was a class leader in the church. The name of L. G. Scott appears first in 1879. Villian Scott Simon was then pastor. Like his father be filled important of- ficial positions for thirty years. The contribution of such a family in service and finances cannot be estimated.
When Rev. F. B. Miller was pastor in 1865 there was a membership of only 19. By 1868 when Allen Richart was again preacher in charge the membership had increased to 28. Nicho- las Castle, later Bishop, was then Presiding Elder.
In 1869 Rev. E. Johnson was preacher in charge and a new day seems to have come in the church for the membership then mounted to 58. It is at this time that we first meet the names of Mr. & Mrs. John Vanness. At an early date they became life members of the Missionary Society. For 63 years until the time of his death in 1921 Mr. Vanness was an active member of the church. For sixty years he was a member of the Board of Trus- tees. Ile gave liberally and gave the church $500.00 in his wi will.
In his will he also gave $500.00 to the Theological Seminary. Mr. L. G. Scott also gave #500 to the church the interest on which is to be used for current expenses.
It appears that the congregation held their first ser- vices in a school building on the site of the now abandoned brick building occupied by the John Zorn family for a resi- dence. (1937) . It was not until about 1874 that a church building 30x42 was built. The trustees at that time were Abram Scott, Peter Hoover and John Vanness. The cost was around $1200.00 according to an old subscription list. This building was used as a church until 1907. Two entrances both at the west end were used, one for women and the other for men. Inside the ladies were seated on the north side of the room and the men on the south as was customary at the time. Dedicatory services for this building were conducted by Rev. Bishop Johnathan Weaver. He was bishop from 1865 to 1884. He was a man of culture and fidelity and a prince among preacl ers. His pastorate here was certainly a day of rejoicing ard enthusiasm. We pass over the years 1874 to about 1906 of 1874-1894 which little record seems to exist. During these years Wooste) was a busy trading center but began to wane about the turn of the century.
In 1907 while Mr. Bast was the minister the church build- ing was remodelled to its present appearance. W. H. Bast was also a contractor and so it was natural that talk should lean towards remodelling the building. The improvement consisted of some cobblestone masonry, covering the old siding with shingle and changing the front and the windows. A furnace was put in take the place of the stoves. Rev. L. O. Oyler was Superintender
of the Warsaw District at this time. On March 15,1908 the newly arranged and remodelled edifice was dedicated by the Rev. H. H. Fout. The cost of remodelling was about $1500.00. Two ministers before this church building was remodelled were I. N. Shilling and Rev. J. N. Martin, Shilling being the suc- cessor to Martin. Recent ministers of the church have been J. W. Cummings, J. W. Borkert, Rev. S. Snyder, Rev. R. C. Dillman, up to about 1914. Rev. O. L. Richart son of .llen Richart, who founded the church, served two years as pastor 1914-1916. Then about this time J. W. Lower became pastor to the satisfaction and joy of the congregation. It was while Rev. Lower was minister that the new furnace was installed and other improvements made. L. G. Scott was then church treasurer. Rev. Talter G. Schaefer of Colorado Springs is from the Wooster Church. Mr. Schaefer is now (1937) a mission ary in the enterprise at Colorado Springs.
The 76th anniversary of the Rooster Church (according to an account in the Pierceton Record for Wednesday, April 14, 1937) was held in the church with Rev. O. P. Givens as the minister in charge. Services were Sunday april 11, 1937. 150 people enjoyed the carry in dinner after the services. Rev. B. H. Cain, an able minister, and superintendent from Rochester, gave an address. Ex-Judge Royse who as a boy lived near Wooster, gave a very able address of life as it was in that vicinity before the Civil War. Royse was the son of Geo. ree Washington Agustus Royse who was a native of New Hamp- shire. He rode the circuit as a Methodist minister in Ohio
and after coming to Indiana it is supposed that G.W.A. taught the first school in the new county. In 1836 he and William Felkner assessed the county, Royse taking the east side and Felkner the west. G.W.A. died in ipril, 1859. L. W. Royse was born nearPierceton in 1847, however, this was six years before Pierceton legally existed. Ilancy Choplin Royse was Lem's mother. She was a native of Vermont being born near the old Bennington battleground. She was a member of the Universalist church at Pierceton. Royse taught school and was not a soldier in the Civil War because he had to sup- port his widowed mother. Royse was admitted to the bar in 187 was at one time mayor of Warsaw, and later in life was judge. He was an able lawyer in the firm of Royse and Shane. He live until December 1946 being nearly 100 years old at the time. of his death.
Contributed by Anna Troehly.
There used to be at least three trains stop each week day at Wooster. The accomodation came along going west at 8 o'clock in the morning. Another came at 1:00 P. M. going west. An eastbound train stopped there at 10:00 P.M. Wooster used to have at one time 56 families. Zach family had several children in their number. Among the first set- tlers there were Thomas and John Rafter from County Mayo in Ireland. They came in 1837. Wooster at one time could boast of having three saw mills and one brick yard. Darias Pollock used to be the village blacksmith. Henry Keefer had a general store and a Ir. Baker had a hall over the store. Baker's Hall was the place where dances were held and other . public meetings. Later a daughter, Lell Baker, used the lower store room for the buying and selling of eggs. A little later George Bridenthrall had a variety and notion store in Tooster About the same time George Raridan had a grocery store there. Mr. Wesley Downs, later a resident of Pierceton, was the last postmaster at Wooster. He served from 1885-1888 under Cleve- land. Ir. Downs was the father of Mrs. Fred Fletcher. The postoffice at that time was on the lot now owned by Donald DeCamp. Some of the other early residents of Wooster were Michael & Catherine Daily, Daniel Keefer, John Vanness and his wife, Mr. & Mrs. Holbrook, the Dicks, McGinleys, the parents of Jap Hoover, the Harbaughs, Iliram Hickeys, Sylvan Phillipses, and the McGinleys. Wooster is a village that per- haps will never be revived because there is no lake near and people will go to lierceton to trade.
To supplement what Anna Froehlyycontributes about Wooster we might say that a map of this village appears in the old atlas for 1879. The original plat consists of about 40 lots designated by blocks. Then there is Hoover and Harbaugh's Addition east of the original plat and block 17 northwest of the first plat. Ai sawmill is shown on Lot 6 of Block 6. A church and schoolhouse is shown in the H&H Add. on the west lots of Block 12, the church being on Lot 4 and the schoolhouse on Lot 5 just south of the church. One block east of the schoolhouse and on the south side of Washington Street is shown a blacksmith's shop. John Vanness owned the land to the north of town, T. Brosnaham and H. E. Pollock on
owned east of town and Peter and Rebecca Hoover lived and
owned the land to the west. Perhaps the biggest improvment that Wooster has seen since the building of the railroad was the building of new road 30 about 1949 which passes just north of the tracks. Automobiles now go thru the old townsite fifty to seventy miles an hour and thousands of trucks go by every week. Passenger trains go by on the railroad 85 miles an hour and the old freight of forty cars now is replaced by those two to three miles long pulled by diesel engines which have come into use since World war No. 2. One is reminded of Goldsmith's lines in the Deserted Village.
Near yonder copse where once the garden smiled And still where many a garden flower grows wild, There where a few torn shrubs the place disclose The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.