USA > Indiana > Elkhart County > A standard history of Elkhart County, Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development, Volume I > Part 15
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 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34
148
HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
of the county committee in 1896 and 1898. In the following year Schuyler C. Hubbell and Thomas A. Davis, a son who but recently had graduated from the law department of the University of Indianapolis, were admitted into partnership under the style of Davis, Hubbell & Davis. During the past few years he has been living in California.
LOU W. VAIL
Lou W. Vail is a son of Jesse D. Vail, the pioneer merchant of Benton, one of the organizers of the republican party in Elkhart County, and active as a county commissioner and earnest Union citizen during the Civil war. The family is of Quaker stock, and a portion of Lou W. Vail's education was obtained in the Raisin Valley Academy, of Adrian, Michigan, a widely known school conducted by the Friends. He completed his literary education at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, teaching school for a decade in the country districts and at Millersburg, Benton and Wakarusa. In the early 'zos he spent three years in wild Kansas, did not like the country as it was then, and returned to Elkhart County. In 1877 he commenced the study of law in the office of Judge Henry D. Wilson, was admitted to the bar in December, 1879, and at once com- menced practice. During the first five years he was in partnership with Daniel and Aaron S. Zook, and for the succeeding five years served as deputy prosecuting attorney. Mr. Vail was elected to the city council in 1891, but resigned in the following year in order to personally conduct his campaign for the state senatorship, in which he was successful. His creditable service in the Legislature during 1893-95, and as county attorney for several years subsequent to 1896, so advanced his judicial prospects that in 1900 he was a lead- ing candidate for the circuit bench. For several years his practice has been conducted with Charles A. Weymeyer, under the firm name of Vail & Weymeyer.
ELMER E. MUMMERT
Elmer E. Mummert, a leading lawyer and public man, is a native of Goshen where he still is engaged in active practice. In 1885 he graduated from the law school of Michigan University and began practice as in partnership with Wilber L. Stonex, who had
149
HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
but recently entered his long service as county attorney. In 1889 Mr. Mummert himself was appointed deputy prosecuting attorney, serving as such four years; was later elected city attorney for Goshen. In 1900 he became the nominee of the republican party for state representative, was successful at the polls in that fall, and two years later was re-elected. He represented his county in the sixty-second and sixty-third sessions of the General Assembly as a member of important committees and taking a leading part in the discussions and deliberations. During his first term he introduced the general library bill, since known as the Mummert Law, and upon the strength of which Andrew Carnegie has given between forty and fifty libraries to Indiana. During his second term Repre- sentative Mummert introduced some of the most important bills considered during the session, among them the General Improve- ment Law for cities and towns, and also the law that made possible the magnificent new high school building in Goshen, which, con- sidered both from an architectural standpoint and as an institution, is a lasting credit to the city. He has for years been active in local and state politics.
Mr. Mummert did much to establish the Goshen Public Library in his home city. For a year he importuned Mr. Carnegie to make a contribution for that purpose to Goshen, although none but the library committee knew of the quiet and effective efforts being made by him, until the gift was secured and public announcement given to the city. This successful initial step was followed by his securing the library legislation already mentioned, and a short time later he made a second trip East to interview Mr. Carnegie, by which $25,000 in all was secured for a public library in Goshen. This gave Goshen the distinction of being the first city in Indiana to receive recognition in this manner. He was appointed to serve on the first library board. Mr. Mummert, besides being active in promoting public affairs, was for five years secretary of the Com- mercial Exchange of Goshen, and in this capacity gave much time and effort to the enterprises planned and undertaken during that period. He is a leading member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Goshen.
ANTHONY AND BENJAMIN F. DEAHL
One of the strong law firms of the county is Deahl & Deahl, of Goshen, composed of Anthony and Benjamin F., brothers. They
150
HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
were both born in Millersburg, Elkhart County, of a solid German family, and were widely known as teachers in that part of the county before they commenced the practice of the law. B. F. Deahl was at one time also superintendent of the Nappanee schools. They are graduates of the law school of the University of Michigan, Anthony in 1889 and Benjamin F., in 1896, and in the latter year the partner- ship was formed. Benjamin F. Deahl was mayor of Goshen, from 1898 to 1902, serving out the unexpired term of J. H. Heatwole and the regular term beginning September, 1898. During that period he was quite active in the work of the Indiana Municipal League. They have both been active in public enterprises outside their profession, the senior member being for a number of years president of the Goshen Commercial Exchange, and prominent in the various public works promoted by that organization. He has also served as special judge in numerous cases, and is generally acknowledged to be in line for the honors of the bench. In 1816 Governor Ralston offered Anthony a position on the board of pub- lic utilities of the state, but the offer was not accepted.
E. A. DAUSMAN
E. A. Dausman is another active practitioner at the bar, of middle age; a native of the county, born on his father's farm, two miles east of Elkhart. Like so many other lawyers he taught school in his early manhood, and while thus engaged at Nappanee com- menced his professional studies in the office of Daniel Zook, who subsequently abandoned the profession in favor of a business and industrial career. In October, 1884, Mr. Dausman was admitted to the bar and, when Mr. Zook was elected county clerk in 1886 succeeded to the latter's practice at Nappanee. In 1892 Mr. Daus- man moved to Goshen, was elected to the State Senate in 1900, and has been prominent as a lawyer and a public man.
ELKHART SOLDIERS AND LAWYERS
The City of Elkhart is represented by a number of good lawyers who have also been brave soldiers. In that class are Capt. Orville T. Chamberlain, of the Seventy-fourth Indiana Infantry during the Civil war, and who since has served the public as town clerk, city attorney and district attorney. James S. Dodge, in his youth a
151
HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
Union cavalryman and later in life a graduate and a practitioner both in medicine and the law, and Collins Blake, in his nineteenth year, of the Eighth Illinois Cavalry, since 1882 a resident of Elk- hart, a lawyer since 1898 and for years a justice of the peace and city judge.
VETERAN GEORGE T. BARNEY
Elkhart also has the distinction of holding the record in the continuous length of practice attained by any member of the bar in the county. The late George T. Barney, Mexican war veteran, pioneer of the Lake Superior region and prominent in the public affairs of Elkhart, is the gentleman to whom reference is made. His grandfather was an Irishman; his father a native of New York, and an iron worker by trade who located in Ohio in 1833. George T., then twelve years of age, was only one of nine children. His first money-making job was to carry the mail between Elyria and Ober- lin, Lorain County, Ohio, when both of those towns were young. About two years afterward he commenced to learn the carpenter's trade and was thus engaged in Ohio and Michigan, when he enlisted for the Mexican war and saw eighteen months of hard and sobering service. In 1848 he located at Kalamazoo, Michigan, married there and several years afterward went to Marquette, in the Upper Peninsula. In that region, then almost unsettled wilds, he got into public office, being twice elected sheriff and receiving the guberna- torial appointment of Government timber agent. He was constable, justice of the peace, enumerator of the Chippewa Indians, and what not? At the outbreak of the Civil war he tried to enter the service, but was rejected on account of disability.
Mr. Barney came to Elkhart in 1866, having previously studied law, and been admitted to practice before the Michigan Bar in 1861. During the first two years of his residence in the city he engaged in business, as well as professional work, and always dabbled more or less in fire and life insurance. In fact, Mr. Barney was what one might call a thrifty man. As he became a Mason in 1850, there were few of that fraternity in the state who outranked him in length of service. He was identified with numerous other orders. At the time of his death he was one of the very few Mexican war veterans. As early as 1867 he was active in the formation of the Indiana Mexican War Veterans and was several times elected to the
152
HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
presidency of the organization. His public offices included a seat in the Indiana General Assembly, to which he was elected in 1874; four years as clerk of the Elkhart City Court, commencing with 1878, and membership on the Elkhart School Board in 1900-03.
JUDGE JOSEPH D. ARNOLD
Joseph D. Arnold, who practiced his profession at Goshen and Elkhart for many years, was elected city judge of the latter munici- pality in 1892 and occupied that bench for some time. His father, A. B. Arnold, was an early settler of York Township, where Joseph D. was born in 1836. The younger man was deputy county clerk before he commenced to read law with John H. Baker, the Goshen lawyer and judge, and was admitted to practice in 1863. With the exception of a few years spent in farming at Lake Geneva, Wis- consin, he gave his entire attention to the practice of his profession and his duties in connection with the judgeship. From 1868 to 1870 he served as prosecuting attorney for the district comprising the counties of Elkhart, St. Joseph, Laporte and Marshall, and after 1879 was a continuous resident of Elkhart. Judge Arnold married a daughter of N. F. Brodrick, a settler of 1835 and a well known merchant and justice of the peace.
WILLIAM B. HILE
William B. Hile has been a resident of Elkhart since 1889 and was with the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern for several years while he was studying law. He finally graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan in 1898, formed a partnership with E. A. Baker, who had been his roommate in college, and has been twice honored by the republicans by election to the office of prosecuting attorney for the Thirty-fourth Judicial District. His first term commenced in 1900 and his second in 1902.
LOUIS A. DENNERT
Louis A. Dennert, county clerk from 1898 to 1902, is a lawyer in good standing at Elkhart, of which city he has been a resident since 1893. He was born at Adrian, Michigan, whence his father moved to Elkhart when the son was about two years of age.
153
HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
August F. Dennert, the father, was in the employ of the Lake Shore Railroad for nearly half a century. The son received his early education in the public schools of Elkhart, graduated in law from the University of Michigan in 1890, spent several years in Richmond, Ohio, and in Chicago, and in 1893 returned to Elkhart for practice. Excepting his service as county clerk he has been actively engaged in professional work, in combination with real estate transactions. He was for a number of terms secretary of the Elkhart County Bar Association.
YOUNGER LAWYERS OF PROMISE
Among the still younger, but promising members of the bar of Elkhart County may be mentioned William H. Charnley, Oscar Jay and Harlan A. Stauffer.
THE ELKHART COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION
Although nearly all the active members of the bar are members of the Elkhart County Bar Association, it has no regular times of meeting, and is called together seldom. When a brother dies a meeting is always called to pass suitable resolutions; and that is about all its stated function.
CHAPTER VIII
TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION
EARLY ROADS FROM THE WABASH VALLEY-THE FORT WAYNE- NILES MAIL ROUTE-ERA OF ARKS AND FLAT BOATS-THE KEEL BOATS-BIG ARKS COUPLED ELKHART AS A RIVER TOWN-THE PROCTERS AS BRIDGE BUILDERS-GOSHEN PEOPLE REBEL AT OB- STRUCTIONS-ADVENT TO ELKHART OF THE RIVER STEAMBOATS- FIRST TRAIN INTO ELKHART VILLAGE-WILBER L. STONEX ON RAILROADS-SYNOPSIS OF PROGRESS IN THE COUNTY-AS PART OF INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS SYSTEM-BUFFALO & MISSISSIPPI RAILROAD COMPANY-LAKE SHORE & MICHIGAN SOUTHERN A REALITY - DIVIDED FAVORS - EXTENSIONS - CINCINNATI, WABASH & MICHIGAN-THE BIG FOUR-THE WABASH-THE BALTIMORE & OHIO-THE CITIZENS' STREET RAILWAY, OF ELK- HART-INDIANA ELECTRIC RAILWAY COMPANY-CHICAGO, SOUTH BEND & NORTHERN INDIANA RAILWAY-THE WINONA INTERURBAN RAILWAY-ELKHART AS A RAILROAD CENTER- RAILWAY FACILITIES AS A WHOLE-THE GOOD ROADS MOVE- MENT-DETAILS OF ROAD-BUILDING, 1912-16.
In the way of transportation and communication Elkhart County has mainly depended on land-ways. Of course, there was an early period when flat boats and arks plied both the St. Joseph and the Elkhart rivers, but as the latter stream was not navigable for steam- boats only the extreme northern sections of the county received the full benefit of the water craft. The finality of the matter was that because there was a general demand for adequate means of moving the products and the people from the greater territory of the county to and from their destination, the railroads came early, which quickly solved the problem for the county as a whole.
Another result of this early predisposition to cultivate the soil, even in the matter of providing means of transportation and com-
154
155
HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
munication, may be especially traced within the past few years. The early settlers largely depended on the land-ways for travel and transportation of goods; then came the railroads covering years of development, steam and electric; and, with a comparatively recent lull in railroad building, has come an earnest revival of highway construction. The automobile has come to stay; farms are being rapidly improved ; rural districts, as well as villages and cities, must be placed in touch not only with the railroads, but with each other; all of which calls for good roads, and the townships and the county are building them.
EARLY ROADS FROM THE WABASH VALLEY
Before the advent of steamboat navigation to Elkhart in the early '40s, the southern and central portions of the county, represented by Goshen, were being absorbed into the systems of highways which were being extended from Fort Wayne and Logansport, or the valley of the Wabash.
The establishment of county roads was among the first acts of the county officials after the organization of the county. In the record of the Board of Justices, under date of November 7, 1831, is found a report rendered on a state road running from Logansport, via Turkey Creek and Elkhart prairies, to the northern line of the state in the direction of Pigeon Prairie. Then in the March session of 1832 the "River Road" was reported on, this extending from the western line of the county, mainly following the course of the St. Joseph River on the south side, to Pigeon Prairie. Also an item in the record of the session in May, 1832, ordering that all public roads be laid out in the various districts, shows the progress that communication was making at that early date.
The well known Fort Wayne road was the third to be reported on, the report being made under date of May 31, 1832. This extended from Fort Wayne, via Goshen, to South Bend. Road No. 4, ordered opened at the September session of 1832, was from the west line of the county on the north side of the St. Joseph, as far as Christiana Creek, and thence in a northerly direction to the state line.
From this time on the commissioners' records are filled with reports of proposed roads in various parts of the county, and many roads were surveyed and opened up for traffic within a few years.
-
156
HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
It soon became evident to the county fathers that the highways were not sufficiently wide, and therefore at the November session of 1836 it was ordered that all county roads should be made forty feet wide, whereas they had been thirty or thirty-three in width.
THE FORT WAYNE-NILES MAIL ROUTE
With the establishment of these roads between the valleys of the Wabash and the St. Joseph, or really between the Ohio Valley and the region of the Great Lakes, the mails and passengers com-
OLD TIME MAIL COACH
menced to circulate, and Elkhart County at length felt that she was part and parcel of the great outside world. Joseph H. Defrees tells about the Fort Wayne-Niles mail route, the first to benefit Elkhart County : "In the spring of 1831, I think it was, a mail route was established between Fort Wayne and Niles, the mail to be carried over it once in four weeks. In the fall of the same year the post- office increased the speed (?) from once in four weeks to that of once in two weeks. Many of you, no doubt, well remember how elated you felt when you heard the sound of the old tin horn, blown by 'Old Hall,' as he came wending his way through the grove east of the village (Goshen) with his tantrum sorrels, himself astride of one, and the mail bags, containing news from the 'settlements,'
157
HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
on the other, with a 'string' fastened to the bits of the leader in order to guide him in the right path. The old horn with its music dis- coursed sweeter strains to its hearers than did ever Hall and Arnold's in their palmiest days." Think of it! one mail in four weeks, or in two weeks. Now, radiating in all directions through the country, approaching within convenient distance of every home in the county, are the rural mail routes, delivering packages, letters and the metropolitan dailies once a day, and with greater regularity and punctuality than was the case in the larger towns less than half a century ago.
The postal service in the year 1837 at Goshen is indicated by the following item in the Goshen Express: "Mail arrival and depar- ture : Western mail arrives from Niles via South Bend every Sunday and Wednesday evening; departs every Tuesday and Saturday morning. Eastern mail via Fort Wayne arrives every Monday and Friday evening ; departs Monday and Thursday morning. Southern mail, via Leesburg, arrives every Thursday at 12 o'clock; departs every Thursday at I o'clock p. m." And the same paper, on Septem- ber 16, 1837, calls attention to a project for carrying the mail from Fort Wayne to Niles, Michigan, in four-horse coaches, and praises the proposition as "a grand undertaking," whereby this beautiful county would be opened up to immigrants, who naturally followed the easiest lines of access to new countries. "The mail from Fort Wayne to Niles," says the editor, "is now carried through on a horse."
In a fair consideration of the means of communication which the county has employed, the stage coach must be included-the old "twice-a-week" stage coach. It was a slow mode of travel, but the passengers had a good time. The rate of speed in pleasant weather and with favorable roads was perhaps seven or eight miles an hour and the average cost was perhaps 5 cents a mile.
ERA OF ARKS AND FLAT BOATS
The era of the arks and the flat boats covered the period from about 1830 to 1844, when their supremacy on the upper reaches of St. Joseph River was disputed by the steamboats. The important towns along the stream were Three Rivers and Mendon, St. Joseph County, Michigan; Bristol and Elkhart, this county ; Mishawaka and South Bend, St. Joseph County, Indiana, and Niles and Berrien
158
HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
Springs, Berrien County, Michigan. From the point of the island at the mouth of the Elkhart River to St. Joseph, Michigan, by way of the tortuous stream, it is ninety-six miles. The trip con- sumed from several days to a week, depending on whether you were going up or down stream, and whether you were on a keel boat, or the much more cumbersome ark, which resembled a scow or large raft.
THE KEEL BOATS
The keel boats averaged 75 feet in length and 12 feet in beam, with gunwales some 26 inches in height. They would carry from 300 to 500 barrels. The boats were rowed down the river with eighteen feet oars, eight to a boat. On the return trip, against the current, it was necessary to pole the boat, a crew of men being used in shifts. Each boat was rigged with a windlass and by fasten- ing a rope to a tree the crew were enabled to get it over the riffles that were found in many places along the St. Joseph.
BIG ARKS COUPLED
The greater arks carried about 600 barrels of flour, or perhaps their equivalent in pork and produce. They were made of two pieces of timber, 50 feet long, hewn to a size 6 by 8 inches, then two sticks 16 feet long were hewn the same way, and the four framed together. Sleepers were put in lengthwise, sixteen foot planks spiked on crosswise and the cracks carefully calked. Studding was fastened to the gunwales. Two of the arks were fastened together and each section called a crib. Down to the mouth of the St. Joseph the coupled arks were floated, unloaded, taken to pieces and the timber sold to the captains of the lower lake vessels. Then the tired crew would make the return journey on foot through the forests.
ELKHART AS A RIVER TOWN
In the palmy days of the river trade, even before the coming of the steamboats, Elkhart was a busy commercial center. The space between Washington Street and the confluence of the two rivers was set apart for warehouses and wharves. John W. Ellis,
RIVER VIEWS IN ELKHART COUNTY
160
HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
D. S. Simonton, and J. R. Beardsley were all interested in the boat trade, but did not have any part in the handling of the boats. The last named gentlemen frequently shipped as supercargoes and attended to the shipping of the goods upon the lake-going vessels. Three large warehouses stood near the Chamberlain property on Washington Street, besides several flour sheds. At the foot of Pigeon Street (now Lexington Avenue) stood the old Simonton warehouse, and in the vicinity of the Franklin Street Bridge two distilleries had been built. Wheat, pork and high wines were shipped to Buffalo and Cleveland from these warehouses, while from the old Beardsley mill, which stood on the north bank of the St. Joe, thousands of barrels of flour were sent to the cities of the Great Lakes.
As the St. Joseph River trade increased, the Government expended many thousands of dollars to make the stream navigable. Channels were dredged, and at the various riffles wing dams con- structed for the purpose of forcing the water into the channels.
THE PROCTERS AS BRIDGE BUILDERS
While river navigation was active the dams and bridges thrown across the St. Joseph and Elkhart rivers were always fertile sources of contention and trouble. John and William Procter, father and son, who settled on a farm six miles north of Elkhart in 1834 and 1835, respectively, were active builders. William Procter, who died only a few years ago, had many interesting stories to tell of the early period of navigation on these streams. He was authority for the statement that the first dam in the St. Joseph Valley of Northern Indiana, and in the construction of which he assisted as a boy, was thrown across the river at Mishawaka about 1830. Every spring a new dam had to be constructed, as the ice would carry the old one out when the spring freshets came. Boats were running on the river during this period, but only arks and keel boats were seen at Elkhart until in the early '40s. Mr. Procter's father constructed the first wooden bridge across the St. Joe at that point. The bridge was in the same location as the present Main Street Bridge; that is, the southern end stood at the same point, but the northern end extended about seventy-five feet farther east, so that it was at right angles with the current. Ice breakers were constructed on the east side in order to break up the ice packs
161
HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
as they came sweeping down the river, and prevented the combined forces from carrying away the structure. It was the intention of the authorities to make this a covered bridge in time, but it was never done, and in the course of fifteen years the timbers rotted away and one span was carried down with the current. As a boy, Mr. Procter assisted his father to build the first bridge, and he had a hand in the construction of the second one that was built. A factional war was precipitated when it came to deciding on the location of the second bridge. The inhabitants of Main Street, believing that their thoroughfare would soon be the leading business street of the future city, insisted that the bridge should cross the river at the foot of their street. At last a compromise was effected and the bridge was built from the alley between the two streets.
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.