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 24
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 24
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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
SOIL AND PRODUCTS
It has been estimated that about 60 per cent of the lands in Newton County may be classified as prairie, the soil of which is generally of a loamy nature. Groves of timber are scattered through the central parts between the valley of the Iroquois and the low lands of the Kankakee region, that area being also interspersed with ridges of sand. There is quite a variety of soil, altogether, so that vegetables, grains, large fruits and berries flourish in different sec- tions of the county, although the raising of corn, cattle and hogs still constitute the main sources of revenue for the farming com- munities, and Kentland, Brook and Goodland owe much of their advancement to that fact.
GEORGE ADE ON AGRICULTURAL CHANGES OF TWENTY YEARS
The wave of progress in all farming operations has washed over Newton County and it is well up in the methods of scientific farming. The bulk of the best lands have been drained and the active genera- tion is intelligent and broad-minded. If these assertions are doubted, perhaps conviction may come by reading this portion of an article contributed to the Country Gentleman by a son of Newton County not unknown to contemporaneous letters, George Ade, the author- farmer. He is speaking of Newton County, especially of his home stamping grounds at and around Kentland, and he pictures some of the changes of twenty years :
" 'Twenty years later' sounds like a long jump of time in a play or novel, but it is a brief span looking backward. Twenty years ago this summer we were planning to attend the World's Fair at Chi- cago. That doesn't seem very long ago, does it? Yet twenty years ago the young farmer with a new wife and a span of horses could buy good land on credit for $50 an acre, the mortgage drawing seven or possibly eight per cent. Wtih two or three crops to boost him along he could count on reducing the principal so the interest would not devour him. Those who bought at $50 an acre and used ordinary diligence in farming paid out long ago and now are inde- pendent landed proprietors.
1 . 3. 332
EXHIBIT OF SOIL PRODUCTS
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JUMP FROM $50 TO $200 PER ACRE
"The young farmer of today, who has a few hundred dollars and a team of horses, is distinctly up against it if he wants to get a farm of his own. The same land that was freely offered at $50 is now $200 an acre. It is better drained and has a stone road along one edge, but it is no more productive than it was twenty years ago, and the grain produced from it may not command much higher prices at the elevator. The mortgage rate has been reduced from seven or eight to five or six per cent, but five per cent on $200 is an awful leap from eight per cent on $50.
"Land at $200 an acre will change us, all at once, from a new and shifting community to an old and settled community. Those who have are going to hold. Transfers of land are becoming infre- quent. The tenant farmer on 160 acres hasn't the courage to assume a debt of $32,000 and pay $1600 interest on the mortgage when he can get the farm for about $1300 a year in grain rent.
"Our country lanes are punctuated with the trim white houses and the bulky red barns of men who landed out here in the seven- ties and eighties from Ireland or Sweden or the Teutonic region of Pennsylvania and went to work as farm hands at $20 a month. They saved up to get their teams and implements and marriage licenses ; then they bought land on time, and today they are independent and wealthy, with the boys attending Purdue and a motor car standing under every clump of maples.
"It is the fashion of each generation to say that the day of opportunity has passed, but it certainly does seem, right in our neighborhood, that the farm hand who wishes to transform himself into a country gentleman has not the chance that fell into the way of young men thirty years ago.
"We have capitalized so heavily that the man with a few dollars is afraid to get into the game. Like some of the trusts that we denounce so willingly, we have quadrupled the valuation without increasing the size or output of the plant. We know that land has gone sailing to $200 an acre, but we don't know why.
SCIENTIFIC FARMING, THE EXPLANATION
"The fact is that out in the Mississippi valley we are trying to live up to a sudden inheritance. We have come face to face with a new and bewildering set of conditions. We find ourselves the cus- todians of great hunks and wads and bundles and bales of unexpected
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and undeserved wealth. Even the most benumbed and unambitious slave of the old-time routine has been jarred by the revolution. He is compelled to give some heed to a new contraption called 'scientific farming.'
"When I attended Purdue University in the eighties the course in agriculture was a joke. The lowly 'ag' student was a logical campus goat. The Hoosier farmer merely snickered at the sugges- tion of sending a boy to college so he could learn to plant fields and feed cattle.
"Today the agricultural course is the most popular one at Purdue. Fifty broad-shouldered huskies completed the four-year course in June. These boys are not going to head for the cities, to get desk jobs or slowly starve within the overcrowded battlements of the learned professions. They are going back to the farms to raise more corn and wheat and oats per acre than ever were raised before ; to feed the broad and buxom steer so as to top the market ; to live civilized and useful and happy lives in comfortable homes, sur- rounded by all of the conveniences and most of the luxuries.
"The motor car and the stone road have eliminated distance. The morning paper is poked into the R. F. D. box before noon every day. The baseball scores are on tap at central. The shower baths are just as satisfactory as those at the biggest New York hotel. If the poor peasant farmer chooses to sit down in the cool of the evening and listen to the Sextette from Lucia, who shall deny him his humble joy ?
"More than 600 students come to Purdue every year for instruc- tion in agriculture, horticulture, dairying and animal husbandry. This total does not include the hundreds who come in January for the week of lectures and demonstrations. A whole army descends upon the college town. The men come to learn about fertilizers and the economy of silos and the principles of stock feeding; how to get their hog-cholera serum, how to judge seed corn, how to spray fruit trees, how to measure butter-fat in milk. The women come to learn household management, the relative food values of stuff sold at grocery stores, and how to make bread and cook meats.
"The indifference and contempt of thirty years ago have given way to an almost rabid eagerness to learn the new methods-to utilize at once on the farm every important truth demonstrated by the investigators at Purdue.
"The special cars sent into every part of the state are billed in advance like a country circus. When one of these decorated cars pulls into a way station there is a crowd waiting to look at the
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exhibits and to listen, with relaxed lower jaw, to the new gospel of farming with the head instead of the back muscles. Lately the legislature has provided for an agricultural guide, counselor and friend in every blessed county -- these local experts to work under the direction of a chief at the University.
"The yield must be increased and the fertility conserved. The old endless routine of corn one year and then oats with clover next year, hauling out the manure when it gets piled up too much round the stable, seemed to be regular farming when land was $50 an acre. But now some of our neighbors are shaming us. We hear that over the state line, near the town of Gilman in Illinois, a real farmer, named Frank Mann, is getting 80 bushels of oats to the acre, when we have to be satisfied with 45. He is shucking 100 bushels of corn to the acre, thereby proving that 60 bushels is not a full yield. Both our greed and our pride have been roused by the reports from our more advanced neighbors.
"For instance there is a quiet and calculating young farmer over near our neighboring town of Morocco. He owns 160 acres of land and makes every square inch of it serve his purpose. He prepares his ground carefully, makes sure that his seed is clean and of first quality, has tested various commercial fertilizers and applies them persistently. He has some good cows, some good brood mares, some good hogs and a few feeding steers. He reaches out in many directions for revenue and there is no doubt that he clears $5000 a year. The tenant farmer on a quarter section calls it a good year if he shows a gross total of $3000.
"The answer is that the farmer who cannot take $5000 from a quarter section every year will have to transfer his activities to some profession less exacting.
"Our neighbors are learning how to judge and test seed corn. They have decided that weeds and puny seeds should not be planted with the good oats. The silos are sprouting in numerous barnyards. The theory of fifteen years ago, that the man who tried to feed fancy stuff for the Chicago market would go broke, has been suc- ceeded by a belief that the man with a feed yard full of steers and shoats will make a hatful of money and not impoverish his soil.
"You can't keep stock on $200 land. That learned dictum is about to pass into history. The new declaration is that a man can't afford to keep poor stock on $200 land. We have some Belgian mares and a good lot of colts, a bunch of likely white-faced yearlings, an interesting colony of Durocs, a flock of well-wooled Shropshires and
-
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a few good Holsteins, and I am sure they will fit into the landscape even when the land sells for $400 an acre.
"The fertilizer problem has got us guessing. We no longer con- tend that land as black as your hat will hold up if you slap on a little manure now and then. Frank Mann and others of his pro- gressive breed most certainly have induced us to sit up and take notice. We are willing to fertilize to a fare-ye-well if we are assured of a net profit in the long run.
"One trouble is that our advisers at the colleges do not agree among themselves. The automobile salesman who tells you that the other man's car is a 'pile of junk' is no more set and positive in his opinions than the average advocate of a commercial fertilizer. Over in Illinois the rock-phosphate men have made a real showing of results, under the leadership of Dr. Hopkins. The crop reports made by them seem to be convincing, yet the soil experts in the states adjoining Illinois do not join in any unqualified indorsement of the rock. They prefer a mixture in which the acid phosphate will be available at once.
"As for some of the Chicago companies sending out blood and bone from the stockyards, they rave against the rock phosphate. Recently they contended that the powdered rock would form a cement with the moisture in the soil, so that a farmer who kept on applying rock phosphate would finally cement his field into a hard and unyielding concrete pavement. Doubtless they are mistaken. Rock phosphate is a big help, even if the results are somewhat delayed. But the farmer who puts anywhere from $4 to $10 an acre into a single application of fertilizer wants to be sure that he is getting the very best for that particular field.
"The hieroglyphs of chemistry are a terrifying mystery to the layman, so it is not surprising that many farmers who are eager to build up their land have been puzzled and frightened by these claims and counterclaims of the fertilizer companies. Even the soil experts from the colleges cannot always tell just what application will be most effective. They frankly advise every farmer to stake off a few experimental plats and keep careful records and find out in two or three seasons the exact money value of several kinds of fertilizer."
CHAPTER XIX NEWTON COUNTY IN THE CIVIL WAR
(1861-1865)
THE "BOYS" OF '61 -- THE COUNTY AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR -FIRST WAR MEETING-SUMMER AND FALL OF '61-ORGANI- ZATION OF COMPANY B-OFF FOR THE FRONT-DARK DAYS IN NEWTON COUNTY-ENROLLMENT IN THE COUNTY-"THE HOME GUARD"-JOHN ADE-BROOK SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AND TABLET -- NEWTON COUNTY'S ROLL OF HONOR-GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE SERVICE-"OUT OF REACH."
By John Higgins
. In writing history, the task must necessarily depend on records made at the time the events transpired, and from the memory of those living and more or less actively interested in the vital events of the period. It may be well to note briefly in connection with this subject, the condition, or rather, to use the prevailing phrase at this writing (1916), the preparedness or unpreparedness as the reader may conclude, of the State of Indiana, at the breaking out of the Civil war.
At the outbreak of the war, the state had less than 500 stand of small arms, of the flint lock and percussion-cap muskets, 8 can- non, the most of which were scattered among the counties and in hands of individuals formerly members of militia companies. Under an act of the General Assembly approved March 5, 1861, Governor Morton had taken steps to secure the return of all arms, which, on inspection, were found to be only fit for "guard mounting" and drill practice.
The report of the treasurer of state for the year 1861 shows that there were on hand on the IIth day of February, 1861, only the sum of $10,368.58 in actual cash, and this sum was made up prin- cipally of "trust funds" which could not be touched for general military purposes. About the middle of March, 1861, Governor
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Morton, in view of the impending rebellion, endeavored to procure from the General Government a supply of arms for the state troops. The national armories, under the maneuvers of Floyd, formerly secretary of state, were almost empty. Five thousand muskets were obtained. Before these were forwarded, however, actual hostili- ties had begun and Indiana was called upon to do her part in the defense of the nation and the suppression of the rebellion. With no militia force or system; almost destitute of arms and munitions, the public treasury depleted to almost emptiness, the work of prep- aration for the vigorous performance of her part in the Civil war was undertaken.
As heretofore noted in this volume, Newton County was erected out of a portion of Jasper County, under provisions of an act of the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, approved March 7, 1857, and act amendatory thereof, approved March 5, 1859, and record of the board of commissioners of Jasper County December 8, 1859. On April 21, 1860, the new County of Newton became a separate jurisdiction and its several county officers entered upon the duties thereof.
THE "BOYS" OF '61
Surprise is often expressed that there are so many veterans of the Civil war still living. The fact is that out of the total enlistments of 2,823,935, in the Union army, the war was fought at least on the Union side by boys, and the phrase "Boys of '61" is a literal expression of the truth. As a historical fact in connection with this subject, is here stated the official figures of the age of enlistments in the Civil war as appear from the official war records at Wash- ington, D. C., compiled as follows :
Those of 10 years and under 25
Those of II years and under. 38
Those of 12 years and under 225
Those of 13 years and under 300
Those of 14 years and under 1,523
Those of 15 years and under 104,987
Those of 16 years and under. 231,05I
Those of 17 years and under. 844,981
Those of 18 years and under. 1,151,438
Those of 21 years and under 1,007,360
Those of 22 years and over. 818,5II
Those of 25 years and over 46,626
1
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The first nine classes and the last three classes, aggregating 2,823,935 men and boys.
THE COUNTY AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR
Newton County was not yet one year old, when on April 12, 1861, the batteries at Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, struck down the flag of the Union. The premeditated design, with so many days anxious waiting for the end that did not come until nearly five years later, excluded every other subject from the minds of the people of the young County of Newton. The loyal hearts of its small population stood still, as it were, but the shock was only tem- porary. The field of argument was abandoned. Intense indignation greeted the first blast from the guns of the South. The North answered the summons, and mustered for the war. Newton County stood ready to do her part and active preparations for the conflict were immediately begun. The people of the county had been called to meet to express their sentiments, their indignation and their loyalty to the flag, thus struck down by the misguided hands of the South in the vain hope of perpetuating a false principle of liberty.
In those days of heart-throbbing fear and anxiety, Kentland had but eighteen buildings, including the frame courthouse just completed. Its religious services and schools were held in the half second story of a building used for a tinshop below. The week-day confusion of ideas above and below can better be imagined than described. Brook had but nine buildings, including the old school- house where now stands its handsome memorial library. Morocco had but twelve buildings and the Town of Goodland had just been placed on the map of the county under the name of Trivoli.
Following the fall of the flag at Fort Sumter small squads of men of all ages might be seen each evening at the Town of Kentland, marching and drilling as for war, with serious faces, keeping step to the vigorous taps on a dish pan made by a small lad of twelve years of age at their head. On April 15, 1861, President Lincoln issued his first call for 75,000 volunteers to serve three months to put down the rebellion. The dear old martyr! How little his great heart and mind realized the enormous task before him and that it would be necessary to make his second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh calls, and sacrifice millions of men-yea, even his own grand life- before the struggle ended! More than half of the men drilling and marching in these early days of the conflict answered this first call.
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FIRST WAR MEETING
The first war meeting held in the county was at Kentland, in the first week in May, 1861. The drummer boy, John Higgins, had been presented with a real army drum by Dr. E. B. Collins and Samuel Bramble, in lieu of the dish pan used for the marchers. John Rey- nolds and Samuel Yeoman were the fifers, and the way they pro- duced the martial strains of "Yankee Doodle" and "the Campbells are Coming" at this meeting and others following, and later in field and camp at the front, was enough to put down the whole Con- federacy. But it did not, nor was it accomplished, until after more than four years of battles, hardships and privations, more than 500,000 lives on both sides had been sacrificed, and inexpressible suffering had been experienced in camp and vacant firesides.
Dr. E. B. Collins presided at this first war meeting. A solemn stillness seemed to prevail over the whole house and the awful seriousness of the challenge from Charleston Harbor struck every loyal heart with horror at the thought of what this war might mean. Nearly the entire population of the young Town of Kentland and the surrounding neighborhood filled the courthouse. Doctor Fitch, from Logansport, had been invited to address the people. He was followed by Dr. E. B. Collins, John Ade, D. A. McHolland, John Peacock and William Ross. It was finally decided to organize a full company of volunteers in response to President Lincoln's second call for 82,000 additional volunteers on May 3, 1861 ; but the com- pany was finally mustered under the third call of July 5, 1861, for 400,000 volunteers for three years; and so the preparation for the long and mighty struggle was begun so far as Newton County was concerned, and well did she perform her part.
Out of the 208,367 men which the State of Indiana sent to the war, Newton County has the proud record of contributing her full quota, with but a single draft ; and that would have been unnecessary if the boys in their eagerness to fire the first shot had been more careful in being credited to their home county.
After the speaking, the meeting proceeded to raise a full com- pany and called for volunteers. Dr. E. B. Collins and D. A. Mc- Holland took charge of the enlistments. John Ade, the Morton of Newton County, took charge of the enrolling table this first night, with words of encouragement and hope for their safe return, as the boys came forward to sign the roll midst the silent weeping of mothers, wives, sisters and friends. It is not known how many enlisted at this meeting, but it formed the nucleus of what afterwards
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became Company B, of the Fifty-first Regiment Indiana Volunteers, the first full company of volunteers from Newton County. The work of enlisting a full company was too slow for some fifty or sixty impatient patriots, who hurried away to join other companies nearly ready for action, at Logansport, Lafayette, and other cities.
SUMMER AND FALL OF '61
At this time, in the summer of '61, the county had but 539 voters, representing a population of about the size of Jefferson Township as it now is, but the work of enlistment went on. War meetings were held in every schoolhouse in the county. One was held at "Collins" schoolhouse on the border of Beaver Lake. The music of the fife and drum mingled with the rippling waters of the lake, and the loud calls of thousands of wild ducks and geese hovering about, seemed to applaud and endorse the cause for which the people were assembled and bid its young recruits God-speed; but the lake and its wild ducks, like many of those who attended this meeting, have long since departed from view. Edward and John Sherman, brothers, were enlisted at this meeting.
Wherever these meetings were held they were largely attended, William Ross, J. A. Hatch, John Ade and E. B. Collins were speak- ers; Samuel Yeoman, fifer, and John Higgins, the drummer, sup- plied the martial music wherever held. During the summer months of '61 the work of organizing Company B went on. The Seventh to the Fortieth regiments, rendezvoused at different cities in the state, were nearly ready for active service. Many of the Newton County boys could not, or would not wait for the home company, and left to join some one of the above regiments. Among them were Thomas M. Clark, John Deardruff, Adonjah Smart, Isaac Smart, Jacob H. Sager, David Sager, Horace K. Warren, John Blue, and some others whose names can not be recalled, but they all appear in the tabulated list in connection with this history.
In the early fall of 1861, Company B having nearly reached its full complement of 100 men and boys-they were mostly boys, averaging in age about 181/2 years, according to official enrollment- met at the old schoolhouse in the Town of Brook, on October 12, 1861, for final organization and election of officers and preparation for departure for the front. Several new names were added to the roll at this meeting. The women and girls of Brook and vicinity had provided a huge dinner for the boys and, needless to say, they proved themselves as good soldiers at the table as they did after-
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wards at the front, when "hard tack" (army biscuit) was the only item of fare for several meals. But few of those present at this feast now survive, and of the ladies who helped to cook and serve the dinner of 1861, fifty-five years ago at this writing (August, 1916), only Aunt Polly Lyons, Mrs. John B. Lyons, Mrs. John Lowe, Mrs. Ann Hawkins, Mrs. Finley Shaefer, Mrs. Mary Meri- deth, Mrs. Harve Thomas, Mrs. James Lowe, Mrs. Ephraim Ham, and Mrs. Aaron Lyons, survive.
ORGANIZATION OF COMPANY B
At this meeting David H. McHolland was elected captain ; Albert Light, first lieutenant; Adolphus H. Wonder, second lieu- tenant; Jeremiah Sailor, orderly sergeant; William R. Lewis, Jira Skinner, Robert Barr, and E. R. Arnold, sergeants; J. F. Shaefer, Aaron Kenoyer, J. D. Morgan, G. E. Tiffiny, J. S. Hurst, William Dewees, Alvin Arnold, and Daniel Doty, corporals; John Higgins, drummer; Samuel Yeoman, fifer; Kin Ferguson, teamster. Later, in the month of October, Col. A. D. Streight, who was organizing the Fifty-first Regiment Indiana Volunteers, at Indianapolis, came out and made the boys a ringing war speech, offering them the posi- tion of left-flanking company in his command and promising that Dr. Erasmus B. Collins should be the surgeon of the regiment. This just suited the boys and they voted for the Fifty-first; and this is how the first organized company of volunteers from Newton County became known as Company B in the Civil war.
Others who had taken much interest in recruiting this company had previously enlisted in other commands, among them Charles E. Ross in the Eighth Illinois Cavalry ; Dr. J. A. Hatch, surgeon, Thirty- sixth Illinois Infantry; Dr. C. E. Triplett, Sr., surgeon, Eighty- seventh Indiana ; Daniel Ash, captain, Ninety-ninth Indiana; C. A. Wood, Ninety-ninth Indiana; Daniel Graves, captain, Twelfth Cav- alry; Cyrus Leaming, Fifth Cavalry; James Bissell, captain, One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Indiana ; Isaac Smart, Ninth Indiana ; Morris A. Jones, Eighty-seventh Indiana; H. K. Warren, captain, and David and Jacob H. Sager, in the Fifteenth Indiana. It will be seen that the county was not only represented in men, but officers and surgeons as well; and so the inhabitants of the county sought to serve their country in various ways as became loyal citizens. Just before leaving for the front, A. J. Kent gave the boys a big dinner and dance at his hotel in Kentland. Samuel Bramble officiated as chief barber on that occasion, cutting their hair free of charge.
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