USA > Indiana > Newton County > A standard history of Jasper and Newton counties, Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and country, Volume I > Part 19
USA > Indiana > Jasper County > A standard history of Jasper and Newton counties, Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and country, Volume I > Part 19
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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 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
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there are any other jurors from the part of Jasper county which has been stricken off, they also may consider themselves discharged.'
FIRST OFFICIALS ELECTED AND SWORN IN
"In March, 1860, Thomas R. Barker was appointed by Governor Willard as organizing sheriff for the new county, and as such organ- izing sheriff he issued a call for the election of officers for the new county. In accordance with said call, about the 10th of April, 1860, the following persons were declared duly elected to the several offices, as follows :
"Zechariah Spitler, clerk; Alexander Sharp, auditor; Samuel Mccullough, treasurer; John Ade, recorder; Adam Shideler, sur- veyor ; Elijah Shriver, sheriff ; William Russell, Michael Coffelt and Thomas R. Barker, commissioners.
"On April 21, 1860, the officers elected to the several offices in Newton county met in the town of Kent, which had been selected as the county seat by the three commissioners appointed by Gover- nor Ashbel P. Willard for that purpose. These commissioners were Livingston Dunlap, Joseph Allen and Samuel H. Owen. After performing the duties assigned them, they made their report to the governor on March 15, 1860.
"On April 21, 1860, the formal proceedings were as follows : Thomas R. Barker, organizing sheriff, then and there administered the oath of office to William Russell and Michael Coffelt, as com- missioners of said county. The said Thomas R. Barker then de- clared the board of commissioners duly qualified to act as commis- sioners of said county, and called them together for the purpose of doing such business as might be brought before them. The said board, being now in session, approved the bond of Zechariah Spitler as clerk of the circuit court in and for said county. Thomas R. Barker, as organizing sheriff, then administered the oath of office to Zechariah Spitler and declared the office of clerk of the circuit court duly established.
"The commissioners then approved the bond of Alexander Sharp as auditor of said county, who received the oath of office by the clerk of the circuit court. The said office of auditor was then declared by said sheriff to be duly established.
"The commissioners then approved the bond of Samuel McCul- lough as treasurer of said county ; also of John Ade as recorder of said county ; also of Adam W. Shideler as surveyor of said county ; also of Elijah Shriver as sheriff of said county. The clerk of the
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circuit court then administered the oath to said Samuel Mccullough, John Ade, Adam W. Shideler and Elijah Shriver. The said Thomas R. Barker then declared that the said officers being duly qualified, the said offices were duly established for said county of Newton.
"Thomas R. Barker, having resigned the office of organizing sheriff and his successor having qualified, then took the oath of office as a commissioner of said Newton county.
"The commissioners then adjourned to meet the following Mon- day morning at their first regular term, at which time the routine business of the county was taken up."
To make the foregoing account of the civil organization com- plete it should be added that Sheriff Barker had issued his call for the special election to be held April 2, 1860, and that there were six voting precincts-one each in Beaver, Jackson, Iroquois and Lake townships and two in Washington. The total number of votes cast was 492.
JOHN ADE AND FAMILY
When Mr. Ade was elected recorder of the new county he moved from Morocco to Kentland, and, at the conclusion of his four years' term in that office was chosen county auditor. He already had a family of five children-one born in Ohio, two in Morocco and two in Kentland-and the sixth and most famous, George Ade, was born in February, 1866, while the father was serving as county auditor. The family occupied a rambling wooden house opposite the courthouse square and George attended the village school, where he early developed a taste for scribbling and cutting-up. It is said that he preferred to write in his own way and chose his own sub- jects, and that one of his first literary efforts to appear in print was "A Basket of Potatoes," which he composed while being kept after school to write an essay on some more dignified subject. As George did not seem to take to farming, or banking, or the grain and land business, after getting what he could out of Kentland he went to Purdue University, from which he graduated in 1887. There he met John Mccutcheon, the cartoonist. After graduating from Purdue, Ade was a reporter on the Lafayette Call for a time, after- ward joined Mccutcheon on the Chicago Record, and started the pace as a newspaper man and playwright which has made him famous and wealthy. He has invested his large earnings in farms and livestock, mainly in Newton and Jasper counties, and to the success of these ventures he has always given large credit to his
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elder brother, William H., who still resides at Kentland, where he has held public office and is prosperous and honored. George has testified to his reliance on the good judgment and brotherly interest of William, both in private and in public, in the latter class being an article which the author contributed to the Country Gentleman, several years ago, entitled "Keeping Up With Brother Bill," in which was exposed the frantic literary rush of the writer of "The College Widow" and other plays to coin his brains into money, in order to appease the demands of William for profitable investments in lands, cattle and horses. He strongly intimated that it was hard to keep up with Brother Bill.
KENTLAND STILL THE COUNTY SEAT
Newton County has had even more than the average amount of contention over the location of its seat of justice. As the prime contention for the necessity of striking off the new county from Jasper was that Rensselaer was so remote from the citizens of the western sections as to be almost inaccessible, it was expected that the new seat of justice would be fixed at some central point. It was originally fixed at Kentland, in the southern part of the county, but then its only railroad town, and, although the more central localities, represented by Morocco, Brook and Beaver City, after- ward contended for the honor and advantage, Kentland has retained its early advantage, despite the extension of railroad conveniences into the more northern districts. On the other hand, the inconvenience to taxpayers has been growing less with the later development of the county, and the expansion of Kentland, Goodland, Brook and Southern Newton County in general; whereas, when the county seat was located in 1860 probably 90 per cent of the population of the county was north of the Iroquois River, for some years the bulk of the people has been confined to three of the southernmost town- ships. The reason the central contestants made no better progress, while they had the preponderance of population in their favor, was that there were too many of them, and each was pulling against the other.
SEAT LOCATED BEFORE TOWN WAS PLATTED
On the formation of the county, A. P. Willard promptly ap- pointed Livingston Dunlap, of Marion County, John B. Winstand- ley, of Floyd County, and Joseph Allen, of Montgomery County, to fix upon the location. The event clearly showed that the Governor
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was actuated by personal motives in the appointment of this com- mittee and was present on the ground when the Legislative Com- mission came to view the situation. Samuel H. Owen was subse- quently substituted for Mr. Winstandley, and on March 15, 1860, the commissions thus constituted submitted the following report :
"To the Hon. A. P. Willard, Governor: The undersigned Com- missioners, appointed by the Governor of the State of Indiana to locate the county seat of the county of Newton, in said State, after a full and faithful consideration of the subject, and view of the various sites proposed by the inhabitants of said county of Newton, and after having given an opportunity for the making of donations and having duly considered the same, report that they by a majority of said board do locate said county seat of Newton County at the proposed and platted town of Kent, on part of Section 22, in Town- ship 27 north, and Range 9 west, of the lands in said county ; and we return herewith the original proposition of donations to said county for said location, to wit: Cash, A. J. Kent, $500 ; subscription of sundry persons, $245; one hundred and sixty acres of land, being the southeast quarter of Section 23, Township 28 north, Range 8 west, as described in patent, 196 lots of 30 by 150 feet each, as per proposition, court house square, 350 by 250 feet, to be selected by the County Commissioners.
"Respectively submitted this 15th day of March, A. D. 1860.
"L. DUNLAP, JOSEPH ALLEN, SAM'L. H. OWEN."
It is needless to say that this decision gave rise to the liveliest dissatisfaction. Charges of bribery and every unworthy motive were freely made, and the facts in the case certainly gave very good grounds for suspicions. A little east of the point selected lay a considerable tract of land, the title of which rested in the name of the governor's wife; the governor, by his presence here during the visit of the commissioners, gave color to the report that he did not care to trust even his own henchmen out of his sight, and his own intimate relations with Mr. Kent formed a combination of circum- stances that might well give circulation to such charges, even among a people less willing to believe them.
PROPOSED CHANGE TO BEAVER CITY
An effort was at once made to change the location thus decided upon, and, under the mistaken supposition that if a courthouse was
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erected near the center of the county the court would decide to remove the county seat to that point, a small town was accordingly projected in the southeast corner of Beaver Township, a courthouse erected, and on the 4th of September, 1860, a petition was presented to the new board of county commissioners, by John Darroch, John Coffelt, F. W. Hamey, Andrew Hess, Silas Johnson, and James Archibald, for the removal of the county seat, and for its re-location at and on the south half of the northwest quarter of section 36, township 29 north, range 9 west, averring that the petition contained the signatures of two-thirds of the legal voters in the county and by affidavits proving that the petitioners were legal voters of the county, and that their signatures were genuine, and also at the same time filed a deed for a site for county buildings, at and on the point above named, containing 314 acres and upward; also, at the same time deposited $50, as provided by the statute, to employ an architect, etc., all of which was laid before the board by the auditor. The building erected in Beaver Township by Messrs. Darroch, Coffet, Ham, Hess, Johnson and Archibald was the duplicate of the court- house at Kentland, and stood for many years as the Beaver City Courthouse, although never the county center of justice.
OTIIER ATTEMPTED REMOVALS
The petition for removal was immediately met by a remonstrance headed by A. J. Kent, and after several days the commissioners reported that as the petition contained 342 names and the remon- strance 202, and there were 544 legal voters in the county, the requi- site two-thirds vote had not been obtained; which was necessary for the relocation of the county seat under the act of 1855.
On June 3, 1861, C. E. Triplett, Z. Spitler, E. Bridgeman. John Lyons, Andrew Hess and others presented another petition "for the removal and relocation of the county seat," the site designated this time being "near the town of Brook, to-wit: On the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 19, Township 28 north, Range 8 west." Ten petitions, said to contain 390 signatures, a deed conveying five acres for public buildings, a bond conveying a tract of land not less than 160 acres for the use of the county, a further donation of every third lot in the proposed plat of the town, and a bond for the payment of $1,000 in lawful money, were the inducements offered at this time. This movement was also met by a counter movement, executed by A. J. Kent and others, but fate seemed kind to the beleaguered minority, and a flaw in the
.
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money-bond threw the petitioners' case out of court. The com- missioners had previously thrown out the names of all those who had joined the army as they were no longer legal voters in Newton County.
At a special term of the Commissioners' Court, held May 17, 1869, James Nelson filed a petition in behalf of 685 citizens asking that the county seat be relocated at Beaver City. He also filed a deed for land as a courthouse site for courthouse and jail and paid $250 to cover fees for architect and commissioners. A. J. Kent, according to custom, filed a protest, and two days later the peti- tioners withdrew their case, with all papers previously filed.
On the 10th of March, 1870, another "petition for the removal and relocation of the county seat," signed by Daniel Ash and 609 others, was brought before the board of commissioners by Messrs. Hammond & Spitler, attorneys for the petitioners. The object at this time was to move the seat of justice to Morocco. The usual remonstrance was filed, but the case was summarily withdrawn by the petitioners without a hearing of the case. It afterward trans- pired that they had been made the victims of misplaced confidence, some of the important papers pertaining to the case having been stolen.
Again on December 24, 1872, John W. Daveer, John Thompson and 952 others petitioned for the removal of the county seat to Brook. This was opposed by a remonstrance signed by C. B. Cone, A. J. Kent and 580 others. This remonstrance was at first excluded for insufficiency, but was subsequently amended and filed, where- upon the petition was summarily withdrawn.
On June 19, 1876, an attempt to remove the county seat was made by Daniel Ash, et al., in favor of Morocco. The petitions retained Hon. J. R. Coffroth, Hon. R. S. Dwiggins, Carmichael and Darroch. The remonstrance, headed by J. G. Perry and Patrick Keefe, was supported by Col. R. P. DeHart, E. O'Brien, W. H. Martin and J. T. Saunderson. In this case the petitioners made the fatal error of neglecting to deposit with the auditor the money required by law to hire an architect and pay expense of assessing damages. A tender of this money was made at the time of hear- ing, but the board of commissioners refused to accept it, and an appeal was taken to the Circuit Court. A change of venue was taken to Jasper County, and subsequently to Tippecanoe County. Here the case was finally dismissed, upon motion, on the ground that the Commissioners' Court had original and final jurisdiction.
Thus ended the sixth attempt to wrest the county seat from
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Kentland, under the law of 1855, by petition. Then came a rest of nearly a quarter of a century, and the three efforts in the same line made since 1876 have been made by means of special elections held under the law of March 2, 1899, entitled "An act to relocate the county seat of Newton county." Under its provisions such election can be held on petition of 400 legal voters of the county, who are required to file a bond of $3,000 to pay its expenses. The commissioners, to whom the petition is presented, fix the day of election, which is to be from sixty to ninety days from the date of granting the petition. At least 65 per cent of the vote cast is required for relocation.
Under the law of 1899, Frank Davis and others up to the legal requirement of 400 presented a petition to the Commissioners' Court, on the 2d of April, 1900, for the transfer of the county seat to Morocco. The demurrer was filed by Carroll C. Kent, Patrick Keefe, George D. Rider, W. T. McCray, H. A. Strohm and J. V. Dodson. The election, however, was held June 19, 1900, resulting in a vote of 1,515 for relocation and 1,415 against. Evi- dently, the yeas failed to carry 65 per cent of the total vote.
On July 3. 1900, John B. Lyons and others to the legal number petitioned the board of commissioners to locate the county seat at Brook. The election, held on the 25th of September, resulted in the casting of 1.337 votes in favor of the petition and 1,208 against it.
The ninth attempt was made in behalf of Goodland and, after all legal requirements had been complied with, the commissioners ordered an election to be held January 30, 1901. Carroll C. Kent, W. H. Ade, W. T. McCray, Ephraim Sell, George D. Rider and J. V. Dodson appealed successively to the Circuit and Supreme courts to have the action of the commissioners set aside, but they were sustained and an election was ordered for June 7, 1902.
At that election 1,834 votes were cast for relocation and 697 against. As stated in John Ade's history: "The commissioners met in June, 1902, and certified that the petitioners had received more than the 65 per cent necessary. On August 12, 1902, the commis- sioners appointed by the governor to appraise the public buildings at Kentland met and reported the same to be of the value of $1,000. Said report was signed by Albert M. Burns, Anthony A. Anheir and George W. Williams.
"Afterward, on August 27, 1902, John R. Davis commenced action in the Circuit Court to restrain the county commissioners from letting contracts for the erection of county buildings at the town Vol. 1-13
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of Goodland, and the court did, on the Ist day of September, 1902, refuse to grant the order prayed for.
"On January 29, 1903, Elmer R. Brigham commenced suit in the Newton Circuit Court, asking that a writ of mandate be granted, commanding the commissioners of Newton county to let a contract for the building of a courthouse at Goodland.
"On February 4, 1903, a change of venue was taken to White county.
"Afterward the writ of mandate was granted by the judge of the White County Circuit Court. An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the state of Indiana, which court did, at its November term, 1903 (reported in volume 161, page 616, of the reports of the Supreme Court), decide that the act of March 2, 1899, on which act this case was based, was unconstitutional, and that all proceedings under it were void.
"The decision of the Supreme Court practically ended the long struggle for the removal of the county seat from Kentland. The projection of a new north and south railroad through Kentland, con- necting with the northern points of the county, and the building of a new court house, both operated to make the removal less advisable."
THE OLD COURTHOUSE
Kentland was laid out by Alexander J. Kent in April, 1860; dur- ing the month following, the Logansport & Peoria Railroad was opened for business, and on June 18th the county commissioners proceeded to select the site for the courthouse to be occupied by the new set of officials who had been sworn in about two months before. After viewing the different tracts they selected block 16 containing thirty lots. It was also ordered by the Commissioners' Court that Reuben White be appointed agent to receive the donations for the county seat from A. J. Kent, according to the proposition made by him.
"This arrangement continued until 1867," says John Ade (who was auditor at the time), "when the small building, located north of the courthouse, was erected, containing two rooms. When first built, it was the intention to use these rooms as jury rooms. How- ever, objections were raised on account of their being on the ground floor. Being abandoned for that purpose, the clerk soon after appropriated the west room, the recorder taking the east one. The auditor's office was then enlarged by taking in all the south side
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of the courthouse on the first floor. The sheriff then took pos- session of the room deserted by the recorder, this being the first time he had been able to secure a separate office.
"This arrangement continued until August, 1906, when the new and present courthouse was completed. The old building was aban- doned after a continuous use of forty-five years and was, on Novem- ber 5, 1906, sold to John Simmons for the sum of one hundred and seventy dollars. The original cost of the building had been one thousand dollars. Deducting the amount for which it sold, made the real cost to the county only $830 for forty-five years' service, or an annual rental of $18.50 a year. I doubt if any other county in the state can show such an illustration of economy."
THE NEW COURTHOUSE
The new courthouse is a handsome structure of brick and stone, two stories and basement in height, with large and convenient county offices and accommodations for the judiciary, the lawyers and the public. It was completed in 1906, at a cost of over $30,000. At the commencement of the work, in the spring of 1905, the com- missioners were David Hess, Elmer Skinner and James A. Whaley ; the county council comprised James Chancellor, John R. Hershman, Charles Hartley, George. M. Herriman, R. L. Ewan, Felix Tyler and Edward Roush. .
At the term of the Commissioners' Court, held April 3, 1905, its members made a contract with Eric Lund, of Hammond, Indiana, to furnish all the material and complete a courthouse on the public square at Kentland for $26,195, according to the plans furnished by Joseph T. Hutton, architect and superintendent of construction. Previous to the letting of the contract to Mr. Lund, proceedings were instituted in the Circuit Court to enjoin the commissioners and councilmen from taking such action. In April, 1905, the case came up for trial and went against the plaintiffs, who were ordered to pay the costs of the trial. On appeal to the State Supreme Court, the Newton County Circuit Court was overruled, on the ground that the county council, in making the appropriation to build the courthouse, had done so by motion and not by ordinance, as required by law. During the pendency of the case, Mr. Lund had constructed the foundation and side walls of the courthouse up to the top of the first story, for which he had been paid $12,000, guaranteed by an indemnifying bond signed by various citizens of Jefferson Township.
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The decision of the Supreme Court brought the work upon the courthouse to a standstill, and the owners of the bonds which had been issued to meet the cost of its construction brought suit to recover their value from the county. The county council then met and made an appropriation for the completion of the courthouse, by ordinance instead of by motion, and in September, 1905, the com- missioners placed upon record the report of that body authorizing them to issue bonds and borrow $24,500 for completing and furnish- ing the courthouse and to meet the legal expenses incurred by the county. In the following month, the commissioners appropriated
THE NEWTON COUNTY COURTHOUSE
$28,500 to meet the judgment obtained by the bondholders. In January, 1906, new bonds were issued amounting to $23,000 to complete the courthouse, Mr. Lund's bid for his work ($18,525) being accepted. The building was completed in August, 1906, and all books, records and available furniture were moved from the old to the new courthouse. The final cost of the courthouse was repre- sented by the liquidation of the two Lund contracts, $12,000 and $18,525, respectively.
THE POOR FARM AND ASYLUM
The poor farm of Newton County comprises about 300 acres about four miles north of Kentland, in section 33, Washington
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Township, on the northern banks of the Iroquois River. Two tracts in other localities were bought and sold before the commissioners made the original purchase of the present poor farm.
At the time of the location of the county seat at Kentland, A. J. Kent donated 160 acres of land to the county, which was designed for a poor farm, being the southeast quarter of section 23, town 28, range 8 west. That tract was never used for the purpose indicated, and in August, 1872, was sold to Jonathan W. Stryker.
In September, 1868, the board had bought 200 acres from Solo- mon Warren in section 13, and also sold that farm in 1872, the purchaser being John Sell.
On January 24, 1878, in settling with D. A. Pfrimmer, a former treasurer, over 100 acres of the present poor farm was taken, in part settlement of his indebtedness to the county. For some time the county used an ordinary farm dwelling to care for its few in- mates, but in 1891 contracted with George D. Rider to erect a large frame building for that purpose at a cost of over $4,000. This was burned in January, 1910, and in the following May the commis- sioners contracted with Fred Friedline & Company to erect a brick building for nearly $23,000, according to plans furnished by John Bruck, architect. The cornerstone of the structure now in use was laid by the Masonic Lodge of Kentland in August, 1910, and the building was completed before the close of the year. At present ten inmates are charges of the county. The farm is more than self- supporting.
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