USA > Indiana > St Joseph County > A history of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Volume 1 > Part 51
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Olive township. It was commenced in May, 1832, and was located on land now owned by Engene Wykoff. The location was chosen for its nearness to a narrow strip of timber that ran out into the prairie about half a mile on the lands of John Druliner. now owned by James Reynolds, and far enough from the woods so that there would not be a hiding place within rifle shot of the fort. A trench was dug about four feet deep around a square of three or four rods on a side. In this sticks of timber were set 12 or 16 feet long. They were left round if not more than 4 or 5 inches in diameter, and if larger split in halves. The ditches were filled and on the outside the prairie was broken up and the sods piled against the palisades about breast high so as to stop chance balls which might otherwise pass between the palisades.
"A shallow ditch was left just outside the embankment. It was the plan to erect block- houses at each corner with loop holes for riflemen, higher than the palisades, from which the sentinels could watch over the prai- rie on all sides. The work on the fort went on rapidly at first; but as reports of coming Indians were heard, some stole away.
"The work lagged as the scare grew old. The blockhouses were never finished and when the news of the capture of Black Hawk came the work stopped. The palisades were carried off for firewood and after a few years a few rotten timbers in the ground and a rank growth of grass was all that marked the site of the old fort. Over thirty years ago I could not find its locality.
"Plainfield was the first platted village in the township, platted in December, 1833. The village of Palestine was next laid out in De- cember, 1834. It was about 115 miles east of Plainfield, and you can't point out its site. In fact, I doubt if many of you ever heard of it.
"August 15. 1835, Richard Carlisle laid out the village of New Carlisle, the only town that has survived: for the village of Hamil-
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY.
ton, later Terre Coupee, laid out in 1837, is on its way to join Plainfield and Palestine."
Mention is made in Mr. Haines' reminis- censes of the Carey Mission, near Niles. Al- though that mission, like the mission at Fort St. Joseph," above Niles, was without the limits of St. Joseph county, and even beyond the boundaries of the state of Indiana, yet so intimately was each of those missions con- nected with the early settlement of the St. Joseph valley, that no history of any county that borders upon our beautiful river would be complete without some account of both of them.
Just over the Michigan line, half way be- tween Niles and Buchanan, in the great northern bend of the St. Joseph river, but at a considerable distance to the south of the stream, was located the Carey Mission, named after a distinguished Baptist missionary to the East Indies, an institution well known in the early history of southern Michigan and northern Indiana, and of particular interest to the neighboring people of Olive township and western St. Joseph county during the years immediately following the first settlement of the town- ship. The Carey Mission was established in 1822 for the education of Indian children. The founder was the Rev. Isaac McCoy, a zealous Baptist missionary and educator. Mr. McCoy and his assistants exhibited the great- est self-sacrifice and zeal in their effort to build up in the wilderness an educational in- stitution that might serve as a center from which Christianity and civilization should be diffused among all the Indians of the north- west. A large farm was cleared and com- fortable log buildings erected which served as dwellings, school houses and barns. Good crops of wheat and other grains were raised, and, in 1825, a flouring mill was built, the first mill west of Tecumseh or Ann Arbor, and for a time the only one within a hundred
a. For the history of Fort St. Joseph's see Chap. 2, Subd. 4.
miles of the mission. The enterprise at- tracted the favorable attention of the people of Michigan, and Lewis Cass, then governor of the territory, sent agents at different times to examine into the management and work of the mission. The reports were most favorable. At one time there were as many as two hun- dred Indian pupils in the institution, and the future of the mission seemed very bright. White emigration, however, proved to be the ruin of the work of the benevolent mission- ary. It was foreseen that the Indian title to the adjacent lands would soon be ex- tinguished, and that the Indians would be forced to remove to the west, as indeed proved to be the case in a very few years. "Accord- ingly," says Mr. Edward B. Cowles, from whose history of Berrien county, Michigan, the foregoing account is chiefly taken, "prep- arations were made at the mission for bring- ing it to a close, and for its removal beyond the western boundary of Missouri. It was not fully wound up, however, until 1832."a The name of the "Carey Mission," and of its founder, the Rev. Isaac McCoy, were familiar words in the history of St. Joseph county dur- ing the existence of the mission, from its establishment, in 1822, until its dissolution and removal, in 1832.
Among the towns in Olive township are Warwick and Terre Coupee, formerly called also Prairie Coupee, but better known as Ham- ilton. These are on the Great Sauk Trail. Hamilton was at one time a place of con- siderable importance. The Methodist society erected the first church at Hamilton, in 1839, 'or a little later. Another old town is Plain- field, a little north of the present Terre Coupee railroad station on the Lake Shore. The principal town of the township, and one of the prettiest towns in the county, is New Carlisle, sometimes called Carlisle Hill. It stands on a fair eminence overlooking the beautiful Terre Coupee prairie. Where else could the ideal rural home be found, if not
a. Cowles' Berrien County Directory and His- tory, Niles, Michigan, 1871, pp. 31-39.
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY.
here, on this fine hill, before which stretches out so fair a garden of delights? Beautiful Terre Coupee, how the view must have trans- ported the early missionary, coureur des bois, traveler or emigrant, or even the stolid In- dian. as he passed from the thiek woods while
inaking his way along the old Sauk trail and this vision of lovely landscape burst upon his eyes. Prairie Coupee, a prairie ent out of the dark woods and lit up with the light of heaven. it must have seemed to his enrap- tured vision.
CHAPTER IX.
THE TOWNS.
Incidentally, in the general history of the county and in that of the townships, as well as in the reminiscences set out in various chapters, mueh of the history of our eities and towns has necessarily been already de- tailed. It is not the purpose to repeat what has thus been sufficiently stated, but it seems proper that our several municipalities should have separate chapters, in which, without un- necessary repetition. a connected urban his- tory of the county may have a place.
I. TOWNS THAT WERE.
In a new country, with few inhabitants, the forests yet standing and the soil uneulti- vated. exeept in spots few and far between, without roads. except trails winding through the woods. over the prairies and along the marshes; and, with all these, also ambitions men seeking fortunes in the increased values which may come to lands happily located for the purposes of commerce and manufactures, it is to be expected that many towns will be started with glowing prospects. never to be realized. It has been so in St. Joseph county, and the plough runs over many a townsite of which even the present proprietor does not know the name.
See. 1 .- ST. JOSEPH .- The first of those half forgotten towns was St. Joseph. This town, located at La Salle's portage on the St. Joseph river, in section 27, township 38 north, range 2 east, in what is now German township, was, on May 24, 1830, selected as the county seat of St. Joseph county, by the
commissioners named in the act organizing the county, approved January 29, 1830.ª On September 14, 1830, the town was formally laid out by William Brookfield, our first eoun- ty surveyor, who was the owner of the traet.
The plat of St. Joseph was the first town plat laid off and recorded in St. Joseph eoun- ty. and by reason of this eireumstanee, and because the town was our first county seat, the following quotations and other partieu- lars taken from the venerable reeord will be of historical interest :
"Town of St. Joseph, by William Brook- field.
"All the blocks in this town plat, excepting those on which 'Brookfield's square' are writ- ten, belong to the county, agreeably to his donation to the county. Donation September 14, 1830. Those blocks on which 'Brookfield's squares' are written are exclusively his own." "State of Indiana.
"St. Joseph County, S SS. :
"On this eighth day of November, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thir- ty. personally appeared before me, Lathrop M. Taylor, recorder of St. Joseph county, William Brookfield, and acknowledged the within instrument to be his free aet and deed for the purposes therein expressed.
"Given under my hand and seal the day and year first above written.
"L. M. Taylor (Seal.)"
There is on the plat a representation of the St. Joseph river, turning sharply to the north, a. See Chap. 5, Subd. 2, of this work.
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY.
with the following lettering: "Big St. Jo- seph River of Lake Michigan;" and on the margin of the river, at the turn, the words : "Portage of the Kankakee."
The following title is also shown: "A cor- . rect diagram of the county seat called St. Joseph, in the county of St. Joseph, state of Indiana."
"The Michigan State Road" is shown to enter the plat at the corner of "South street" and "Broadway," three quarters of a mile south of the river, and it turns west on "Wes- ley" street. at the corner of Wesley and Broadway, two hundred rods south of the river. Its direction on Broadway is near- ly northwest, and it is there marked on the plat "Michigan State Road." On Wesley street appear the words: "Michigan State Road, running due west to Lake Michigan- 33 miles nearly due west."
Thirty-three squares, of ten lots each, are found on the plat. Of these, four are marked "Brookfield's squares." Half a square, or five lots, is marked "Public square." Two lots are marked "Episcopal church;" two, "Methodist church;" five, "court house;" three, "jail;" two, "Presbyterian church ;" three, "market;" two, "Baptist church;" two, "Academy ;" two, "R. Catholic church ;" and two, "United Brethren in Christ." The remaining lots, two hundred and sixty-eight in number, were given to the county.
The north and south streets are marked. "Brookfield." "Washington," "Jefferson," "Broadway," and "Madison;" and the east and west streets, "North," "Berry," "Worth," "Evans," "Ross," "MeBane," "Wesley" and "South." Each street is six- ty-six feet wide, except Washington, Jeffer- son and Madison, which are each ninety-nine feet in width, and Broadway, which is one hundred and twenty-three feet wide. The alleys, which all run north and south, are each three rods wide. The lots are each five rods in width by eleven rods in length.
Berry, Worth, Evans, Ross and MeBane streets were named after the five commission-
ers appointed by the legislature to locate the county seat.ª
St. Joseph was never more than a pro- jected town, a town on paper, and was never in fact the county seat, even during the short period it was nominally so. The county busi- ness was from the beginning transacted in the house of Alexis Coquillard, in the town of South Bend. The people were not satis- fied with the location of the county seat at St. Joseph, and, as shown in chapter fifth, subdivision seven, of this history, the legisla- ture, in the year 1831, passed an act and named commissioners for the re-location of the seat of justice. On May 12, 1831, the commis- sioners so appointed removed the county seat from St. Joseph to South Bend, from the his- toric Portage at La Salle's Landing, to the south bend of the river. The "bend" is about four miles above the portage; but the city has so extended that the north limits are now but a mile and a half above, and the time may yet come when the territory of the present county seat will take in the old conn- ty seat.
All that is left of St. Joseph is the pioneer plat in the office of the county recorder. Mr. Brookfield left the county and the state soon after the disappointment caused by the re- moval of the county seat, and the incipient town quietly settled back into its native wil- derness.
Sec. 2 .- PORTAGE .- The failure of the town of St. Joseph at the old portage did not altogether extinguish the anticipations of those who thought that a prosperous settle- ment must, in the end, grow up at or near the site of the landing where for countless ages the commerce of the wilderness had been transferred on its way from the lakes to the gulf, and from the gulf to the lakes. One more effort was to be made to establish a town at the portage, and, to make assurance doubly sure, the town itself would be named Portage. St. Joseph had been laid a. See Sec. 3, Acts, 1829, pp. 28-31, set out in Chap. 5, Subd. 2, this work.
HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY.
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out as a county seat; the new town would be laid out as a seat of commerce, education and manufactures.
The prime mover and the mainstay of the town was Judge Elisha Egbert, one of the most noted men in the history of St. Joseph county. He was judge of the old probate court for seven years, and then became judge of the common pleas court, and held that office from the establishment of the court in 1851 until his death in 1870.«
On July 12. 1834, the town of Portage was surveyed for Elisha Egbert by Tyra W. Bray, the county surveyor. It was located on the southwest fractional quarter of section 26, township 38 north, range 2 east, about half a mile to the south and east of the site of the former town of St. Joseph. Additional surveys were made in March, 1837, by Thomas P. Bulla for Abner Morse, John Egbert and Jacob Egbert ; and as late as February, 1838, a still further addition was made by Lemuel Crawford. The town seemed on the high road to prosperity. Hotels and stores were erected. Physicians took up their abode in the new town, and there were representatives of all lines of business suited to a growing com- munity.
Judge Egbert succeeded in securing from the county commissioners the establishment of a public ferry over the river at this point ;b as well as to have county roads laid out to and from Portage, on both sides of the river.
Still another project was the cutting of a mill race from the Kankakee to the St. Joseph. This was an idea entertained by many a pro- jector of that early day. The Kankakee is many feet above the St. Joseph. and it seemed . extremely feasible to dig a mill race which, with so great a head, should supply unlimited water power for mills and machinery. The people of the town of Portage were so san- guine of success in this line that they pro- cured a charter from the legislature for a company to engage in the enterprise. The
a. See Chap. 6, Subds. 3 and 4.
b. See Chap. 7, Subd. 2.
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act granting the charter was approved Janu- ary 30. 1837," and, amongst other things, pro- vided :
"That William McCartney, sen'r, Franklin W. Hunt, Daniel Dayton, Abner Morse and Elisha Egbert. be and they are hereby author- ized to eut a race of such width as they may think proper, commencing at or near the northwest side of the Kankakee pond,b so as not to divert any of the waters of the Kanka- kee that naturally flow into the Illinois river down said Kankakee that lies west of the town of South Bend, in such manner that the race shall not extend beyond the southern limits of said pond, in St. Joseph county, Indiana ; thence running on the western side of the Kankakee marsh, so as not to injure the hy- draulic privileges of any other person or per- sons, and terminating at or near the town of Portage in said county."
A similar mill race was afterwards dug by Alexis Coquillard and associates, from the Kankakee to the St. Joseph, but the water so leaked away in the loose soil that sufficient did not reach down to South Bend to supply any available power.
A literary and industrial institution of a high order was also projected, of which the Rev. Abner Morse was to be the president. This institution received a charter from the legislature, by an act approved January 30, 1837,e in which it was provided: "That Abner Morse, Caleb Martin, William MeCart- ney, sen'r, Franklin W. Hunt, Daniel Day- ton, S. Brace, Elisha Egbert and George Hunt, sen'r, and their successors in office be, and they are hereby constituted and declared to be a body corporate and politic, by the name and style of the 'St. Joseph Manual Labor Collegiate Institute.' " The trustees were given "power to appoint a faculty in said college, consisting of a president, pro- fessors and tutors, as the necessities of the institution may demand, and the faculty so
a. Local Laws. 1836, p. 393.
b. Now Summit Lake, or La Salle Lake.
c. Local Laws, 1836, p. 292.
·
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY.
appointed, by and with the approbation of the board of trustees, shall have power to grant and confer such degrees in the liberal arts and sciences as are usually granted and conferred in other colleges in the United States." A further provision was that "said institution shall be located at or within two miles of the village of Portage, in the county of St. Joseph, and state of Indiana."
But the "St. Joseph Manual Labor Collegi- ate Institute" was never anything more than a project on paper; and, like all the other ambitious projects of the town, has been long since altogether forgotten. The panie of 1837 was on, and the promoters of the town suf- fered reverses, in common with those of many another struggling and hopeful band of pro- jectors in every part of the country.
William McCartney, who appears as one of the incorporators of the "St. Joseph Manual Labor Collegiate Institute," was the owner of a farm on the river, in German township, a little above the town of Portage. This farm is connected in our history with an effort made to establish the only community asso- ciation ever attempted in St. Joseph county. Timothy G. Turner has left us the follow- ing brief account of this ill-starred commu- nity :ª
"In the winter of 1845 a community, sug- gested, probably, by the system of economics elaborated by the French philosopher, Charles Fourier, was established on the McCartney farm, about two miles below South Bend. It was a joint stock company, organized under the name of the 'Philadelphia Industrial As- sociation.' Its objects were economical and social. Its operations continued about two years. The Hon. William C. Talcott, of Val- paraiso, Indiana, favors us with the following reminiscences in relation to it:
" 'I think Mr. McCartney was the first president, and I was secretary during almost its entire existence. It was chiefly through my influence that the association was formed
a. Gazetteer of the St. Joseph Valley, 1867, p. 48.
and managed. There were, probably, more than a hundred persons, old and young, eon- nected with us, from first to last; but I should not think more than about seventy living on the premises at once. During a part of the time they ate at a common table.
" 'The main cause of their dissolution, I have ever believed, was that Mr. McCartney violated his promise to invest the whole traet of land; and, after we were fully organized and on the ground, ready to receive the title and use the land, he withheld all of the valu- able and available portion, and turned us off with the broken, marshy land, lying between the road and the river, at twenty dollars per aere, the appraised price of the entire tract.' "' Mr. Turner adds, that while the association failed, Mr. MeCartney succeeded in getting his land cleared up and improved for nothing.
It would seem that everything connected with an attempt to build up any enterprise at the old portage was a failure. At first, the old St. Joseph, Brookfield's town, and now Judge Egbert's more hopeful town of. Port- age, both alike went down before the vigorous municipality growing up at the "south bend" of the river. In the face of financial and other difficulties, the people of Portage be- came discouraged, and, one by one, all the projected enterprises were abandoned. The town went down as rapidly as it had arisen, until not a vestige of its former glory re- mained.
With its other misfortunes, the town suf- fered from a nickname which belittled its pretentions to greatness. The river at this point turned abruptly to the east, and then as abruptly to the west, making a little peninsula which humorous people in derision called a pinhook; and Pinhook the town was named to the end of its days.
The following items concerning the good old town of Portage, under its nickname of Pinhook, are from the genial pen of the la- mented Richard II. Lyon, who devoted so large a part of his later years to local histori- cal investigations. His body most appropri-
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY.
ately rests in Riverview cemetery, near the site of the historic scenes on which his fine mind so often dwelt :
"The original, ancient. historic Pinhook bend of the St. Joseph river was located a short distance below St. Mary's Academy, about four miles from the city as the stream goes, and was on ground laid out as the town of Portage, platted in 1834, but now wholly extinet. It was nicknamed by the Indians on account of the peculiar strip of land around which the river turned in the form of a bent pin. The French traders, the boatmen and the early settlers of the region adopted the name and Pinhook became one of the most famous points of interest on the river from its mouth to the head of navigation in Branch county, Michigan.
"The Portage town covered the lowland, comprising about 53 aeres, east of Riverview cemetery, then owned by Judge Elisha Eg- bert, now the property of James H. Ray. It took the nickname of Pinhook and was better known by that title by the pioneers than by its real legal name. A ferry was established there and roads led to Pinhook from all direc- tions. Several stores, shops, dwellings and warehouses were built in the town, ground do- nated for a Congregational theological school, and a distinguished educator of New Eng- land, the Rev. Abner Morse, father of the late Congressman William A. Morse, of Massachu- setts, sent to start the college enterprise on its way. It never got beyond the purchase of a bell, however, and when the country arose from the financial blow it received in 1837, Portage was no more and the bell went astray somewhere.
"Produetive farm lands now occupy the entire site of the old town, not a vestige of any kind of the early habitations being left. The last lot owner in the plat was the late Dr. Daniel Dayton, who was one of the town's original boomers and for a time maintained his office and residence there. Until a few years ago taxes on his real estate holdings in Portage, regularly assessed against the estate,
were as regularly paid, annually, in the ag- gregate to abont 41 cents per annum, although the corporation had ceased to exist for more than half a century. An effort was made to secure water power privileges for Portage through a big race constructed at the base of the high bluff south, west and north of the town, with an outlet on the cemetery associa- tion's grounds. A portion of the exeavation for this race is the most conspicuous landmark left of Pinhook's palmy days.
"About twenty years ago during a freshet that caused old St. Joe to rise and rage be- vond its wonted limit, the river left its cir- cuitous route around the hook, burst over its banks and cut a new channel pretty straight through the pin, thus destroying the remain- ing glory of the boatmen's ancient landing place and the pioneer town. Since that date, with old Pinhook gone by, the river adhering to its new and straighter channel, the pinhook bend has been removed a short distance down the river, on the east side, where opposite the cemetery highlands the stream makes another graceful turn around a narrow strip of low- land. Here is modern Pinhook, on the estate of Samuel S. Perley, and here it will no doubt remain until the contemplated dam in the river at the Indiana-Michigan line is con- structed, arresting the current and backing the water up for miles, completely submerg- ing both ancient and modern Pinhook on the old St. Joe."
Is it the irony of fate that the sites of the lost towns of St. Joseph and Portage are now embraced by Riverview cemetery on the south, and the County Infirmary, on the north ? Should the old towns arise for a moment from their ashes, they would find themselves en- compassed by the resting places of the dead and of the old and infirm; and they might then, perhaps, fall back into their long sleep with an added sense of the fitness of their surroundings. But would not the ghosts of these dead cities of the old Portage take with them into that sleep of forgetfulness a smile of exultation that across these same grounds,
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