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 9
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 9
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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
Judge Thompson has made his influence felt outside the legal field. As county school examiner he was one of the first to introduce and advocate normal methods of instruction. His enterprise has also been manifest in such public works as railroads, gravel roads, high- ways, ditches and public buildings. It was largely through his influ- ence that the milldams on the Iroquois River were removed, resulting in a great benefit to the public health. The judge has also done a good work in buying large tracts of land held by non-residents and
.
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JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES
selling it to settlers who have improved it and thus benefitted the county. He reclaimed a large tract of swamp land in Union Town- ship by the construction of about fifteen miles, of ditches, and divided it into small farms which have since gone into the hands of actual owners and been made attractive and productive. All of which marks the judge as a citizen of broad usefulness, ability and versatility.
ROBERT S. DWIGGINS
There were few practitioners at the Jasper County bar of a stronger character, or greater diversity of talents than Robert S. Dwiggins. He was a leading lawyer, a prominent republican and state legislator, an earnest, moral man, and a deeply religious char- acter, being a regularly ordained minister of the Church of God, in which he stood as a national figure. He was a native of Ohio, but was only two years of age when the family moved to Grant County, Indiana, then (1836) a frontier country. The boy was educated in the common schools and at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, and except when he was away to school his life, until he reached his twenty-fourth year, was passed on a farm. In March, 1859, when he located at Rensselaer to study law in the office of Robert S. Milroy, the horizon of his life commenced at once to expand.
In 1860 Mr. Dwiggins was admitted to the bar and at once entered practice. But his progress was stayed for a time by the Civil war. The day after Lincoln's call for 75,000 men, he enlisted for three months in Captain Milroy's company of the Ninth Indiana and served through the West Virginia campaign. In 1862 he was com- missioned by Governor Morton as recruiting lieutenant and enlisted about 200 men for the Eighty-seventh Regiment. He also recruited a company for the Ninety-ninth Regiment, but on account of ill health he was unable to get the company into camp before the quota was full, and he did not again enter the service. Again he entered law practice, which he continued until 1879, when he and his brother Zimri organized the Citizens Bank of Rensselaer.
Mr. Dwiggins cast his first vote for the republican party, which was organized soon after he attained his majority. In 1860, soon after his admission to the bar, he was elected district prosecuting attorney, which he resigned for service in the West Virginia cam- paign. In 1867 he became connected with the Federal service as inspector of snuff, tobacco and cigars ; was chosen presidential elector on the republican ticket in 1868, and two years later was elected to-
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JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES
the State Senate for the district comprising the counties of Jasper, Newton, Benton, White and Pulaski. For some years he had been an earnest opponent of the liquor traffic, and while a member of the Senate was chairman of the committee on temperance. It was largely through his efforts and the work of the committee which he headed, that the Baxter bill was passed, which was the first local-option law enacted in the State of Indiana. Although the prohibition party did not poll enough votes to bring its leaders public preferment, its mem- bers in Indiana showed their estimate of Mr. Dwiggins' services in behalf of the cause by nominating him for governor in 1884 and judge of the Supreme Court in 1886.
As a figure in the Church of God, Mr. Dwiggins attained much eminence. He was widely known as a minister and exhorter and was twice president of the national conference.
Mr. Dwiggins' activities were so varied, numerous, continuous and strenuous, that his physical system broke under the strain, and in 1886 he was obliged to retire from active life. His later years were spent in travel through the United States, Canada and Mexico, and in recording his impressions and deductions as a forceful, graphic and philosophical writer.
MORDECAI F. CHILCOTE
Mordecai F. Chilcote, the venerable lawyer of Rensselaer, has also been a leading soldier, republican and educator. By marriage he is identified with the best traditions of the bench and bar of Jasper County, his wife having been a sister of Judge E. P. Hammond. Mrs. Chilcote died in 1885.
Mr. Chilcote, who is a native of Ohio, moved with the family to Eaton County, Michigan, in 1852. He was then twelve years of age and passed his boyhood and youth on the family farm and in school. From the time he was eighteen until he reached his twentieth year he was a student at Olivet (Mich.) College and then came to Jasper County to teach school. He had made little progress in that line when, in 1861, he enlisted in the Ninth Indiana Regiment for the three months' service, and re-enlisted in the Forty-eighth. Six months later he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and soon afterward to a captaincy. He saw active service in the West Virginia cam- paigns, Department of the Tennessee, but upon his return to Rensselaer resumed his interrupted course as a teacher.
At the same time Mr. Chilcote commenced the study of law in the office of Hammond & Spitler, and in April, 1868, graduated from the
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JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES
law department of the University of Michigan. His practical ability was soon recognized, not only in the practice of his profession, but in public and political affairs. He obtained quite an extensive corpora- tion business and was for some years local attorney for the Monon Railway. For more than twenty years he was a member of the school board of Rensselaer and did much for the efficiency and expan- sion of the city's educational system. Since he became a voter he has been a republican and has gained prominence in the party, having served for ten years as chairman of the county central committee and (in 1892) as a delegate to the national republican convention from the Tenth Congressional District. His name therefore stands for not a few substantial and honorable things in Jasper County.
CHAPTER VI
LAND HIGHWAYS
INDIAN TRAILS IN JASPER COUNTY-THE WHITE MAN'S TRAILS AND EARLY ROADS-BRIDGES AS CONNECTING LINKS-THWARTED AT- TEMPTS AT RAILROAD BUILDING-INDIANAPOLIS, DELPHI & CHI- CAGO· LINE, A SUCCESS-RENSSELAER GETS RAILWAY CONNECTION NOW IN THE MONON SYSTEM-THE BIG FOUR-THE THREE I'S RAILROAD-THE CHICAGO & EASTERN ILLINOIS.
The highways of the land, from the Indian trail to the modern railroad, have always been laid down from the beginning of time by the bold features and provisions of nature. The trend of the courses of travel between region and region, settlement and settlement, town and city, state and state, country and country, is decided by great lakes, rugged mountain chains, broad and productive valleys, fertile plains, rank and repellant marshes, sources of food supply, means of shelter, and healthful and convenient sites for homes and communi- ties. Jasper County was rather outside of such basic influences as thus determine the courses of the great highways of travel and communication, and the paths which passed through its territory diverged into the grander highways determined by the lakes of the north and the splendid valleys of the south.
INDIAN TRAILS IN JASPER COUNTY
When the white settlers first came into the county they found several pronounced Indian trails worn into the sod of the prairies eight or ten inches, and about eighteen inches in width. One of the best known of them led from Lake Michigan across the Kankakee near the Baum bridge, and took nearly a direct course to the Indian village in Newton Township. Another connected the village with the one in the eastern part of the county, crossed the Iroquois west of Rensselaer and recrossed it some distance east. From the latter point the trail extended to the Monon River and thence to the Wabash. Still another crossed the county through the Forks Settle-
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JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES
ment toward La Porte. These were the principal trails in Jasper County which served as rude landways, or links, between the region around the southern shores of Lake Michigan and the valley of the Wabash, and paths between the several small Pottawattamie villages of what is now a white man's county. A few white men also trod these Indian trails until the new landlords commenced to lay out another set of roads according to their own ideas of what they should be.
THE WHITE MAN'S TRAILS AND EARLY ROADS
Blazed and staked roads pioneered the way for those that were regularly laid out. The old Horse Head road was, perhaps, the link
FAMILIAR OBJECT ON THE EARLY ROADS
between the two classes of roads. This was in the eastern part of the county and took its name from a horse skull which was placed upon a large bowlder and was a conspicuous landmark on the route.
The State road was the first legally established highway, leading from Williamsport on the Wabash River and the head of early navi- gation, to Winamac, important in the pioneer period as the location of the land office. This road extended from the first named place, by the most available and direct route, to the Falls of the Iroquois ; thence to the now-extinct Village of Saltillo, crossing the Iroquois ; again at the old ford above the farm of John Groom, and crossing the Pinkamink on the old bridge at Saltillo and thence, by way of
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JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES
White Post, to Winamac. The Saltillo Bridge was the first structure of the kind in the county, and the Indian trail-road which led from Rensselaer northward to the Kankakee River was probably the second thoroughfare. The latter crossed at Eaton's Ferry, or the old Baum Bridge, built at a later day.
BRIDGES AS CONNECTING LINKS
Congress early granted a 3 per cent fund for the building of roads and bridges, and in 1835 Thomas Randle was appointed agent for its disbursement. Porter County was much interested in having a bridge put across the river at this point, but Randle refused to draw anything from the fund to aid the enterprise. He was accord- ingly displaced, and Joseph Schipp, who moved over the river from Porter, was appointed to succeed him. Under the new agent the bridge was commenced in December, 1837, but after the log piers had been built and the stringers placed for a completed structure three- quarters of a mile long, everything was swept away by fire. Subse- quently a bridge over 700 feet long was completed at that locality, Jasper County constructing the long and substantial grade at the southern end.
THWARTED ATTEMPTS AT RAILROAD BUILDING
But the necessity for passable routes and crossings was eventually solved, in large part, by the coming of the railroads, although relief was not practically realized in Jasper County until the late '70s, or less than forty years ago. The narrative of earnest and repeated attempts in that direction is not especially interesting reading, only as showing the determination and long-tried courage of the people.
As early as 1852 a road was projected from New London, Ohio, to Chicago, which was designed to pass through Jasper County, but it was killed by the financial stringency of 1857. Jasper and Newton counties were mainly concerned in the course which the road would take from Fort Wayne, and there was a brisk competition between Kankakee and Rensselaer as to which should be selected as the prin- cipal station in Northwestern Indiana. Obviously, Rochester and Winamac were logical co-workers with Rensselaer in the matter, but neither side won, as the hard times of 1857, added to the heavy defalcation of the Ohio state treasurer, whose bondsmen were also leaders in the railroad enterprise, effectually squelched the Fort Wayne project and the Rock Island air line.
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JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES
In the early '70s the railroad scheme was revived under the name of the Continental Railway Company, which was known in Indiana as the Fort Wayne & Western Railroad. Robert S. Dwiggins was president of this company. A branch from Rensselaer to Chicago was chartered, with the understanding that large railroad shops were to be located at the Indiana town, which was to be an important section point for the transfer of traffic between eastern and western sections. Jasper County raised $50,000 by taxation, and about as much more by subscriptions, conditional upon the road being con- structed in two years ; but the subscriptions were never collected and the taxes were refunded, as all that was actually accomplished was the grading of fifteen miles of the road-bed east of Rensselaer. From New York to Council Bluffs, Iowa, more than 1, 100 miles, the Continental Railway was projected as a first-class road at a cost of $150,000,000, but it was frost-bitten and blighted by the financial disasters of 1873.
INDIANAPOLIS, DELPHI & CHICAGO LINE, A SUCCESS
The Indianapolis, Delphi & Chicago Railroad, organized in May, 1869, under the Indiana state laws, survived and gave to Rensselaer and the populous parts of Jasper County their first connection by rail. It was reorganized in September, 1872, and projected a line from Indianapolis to Frankfort, Clinton County, Monticello, White County, Rensselaer, Jasper County, Lowell and Dyer, Lake County, and Chicago, Cook County. Not until 1877 were subscriptions for the building of the road through Jasper County actively solicited; the amount asked was $50,000. Late in the year named, Alfred McCoy, R. S. Dwiggins and Ira W. Yeoman, took the lead in the movement, held meetings in the schoolhouses in the northern part of the county and at various places in Rensselaer, so that by October the entire amount had been pledged.
On the 3d of October, 1877, the company contracted with Yeo- man, Hegler & Company for the construction of the road, the firm named to furnish all the material and engineers necessary to lay out and construct the grades. The road was to be three feet gauge ; road- bed eight feet wide on top and the rails to be not less than thirty-five pounds to the yard. The line was divided into eight divisions: The first, from Dyer to the south line of Lake County ; second, from the Lake County line to Rensselaer ; third, from Rensselaer to Bradford ; fourth, from Bradford to Monticello; fifth, from Monticello to Delphi ; sixth, from Delphi to Rossville; seventh, from Rossville to Frankfort ; eighth, from Frankfort to Indianapolis.
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JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES
RENSSELAER GETS RAILWAY CONNECTION .
Work was at once begun on the third division, and on Thursday, February 14, 1878, Rensselaer celebrated its completion by a barbe- cue, a free excursion on the road and an enthusiastic meeting. Mr. McCoy furnished the fatted ox of the occasion-834 pounds net. Some 2,000 persons were present, and for the first time the inland county seat experienced the joys and advantages of railroad com- munication. The fourth division was completed from Bradford to Monticello in August, 1878, and on the 4th of September, 1879, the road was opened from Rensselaer to Delphi.
NOW IN THE MONON SYSTEM
That was the extent of narrow gauge track that was constructed ; for soon afterward the road was absorbed by the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago Railroad Company. The line from Rensselaer to Chicago was constructed as standard gauge; the part already con- structed was widened to the new gauge. The road was opened from Delphi to Chicago in 1882 and from Delphi to Indianapolis in 1883. It is now part of the Monon System. It passes diagonally across the county, from southeast to northwest and its stations are Pleas- ant Ridge, Rensselaer, Surrey, Parr and Fair Oaks.
THE BIG FOUR
The Toledo, Logansport & Burlington Railroad Company com- menced laying its tracks at Reynolds, White County, the junction with the New Albany & Salem Railroad, in July, 1859, and had completed the line through the southern part of Jasper County by the end of the year. It passed through a rich agricultural and graz- ing country and was the means of founding Remington. The original road subsequently passed under the control of the Pittsburgh, Cin- cinnati & St. Louis Railroad Company and, eventually, of the Chi- cago, Cincinnati, Columbus & St. Louis (Big Four) Railroad.
THE THREE I'S RAILROAD
What was long popularly known as the "Three I's" Railroad was built through the northern part of Jasper and the southern portion of Lake County, in the early 'Sos. It is now a portion of the New York Central System. Its stations are Dunnville, Wheatfield, Stoutsberg
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JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES
and DeMotte. In 1883, when the line through the thick of the swamp lands was nearing its completion, a local writer spoke of it in this way : "The Plymouth, Kankakee & Pacific Railroad is a line that has been agitated for some ten or twelve years. It is now known as the Indiana, Illinois & Iowa Railroad Company, and at the present writ- ing (1883) is building its track through the townships of Kankakee, Wheatfield and Keener. This line passes through a sparsely settled part of the county, and attracts but little interest in it. The locality through which it passes will undoubtedly be greatly benefited, but its general importance to the county is not great"
THE CHICAGO & EASTERN ILLINOIS
The Chicago & Eastern Illinois, or the Chicago & Wabash Valley, known at its inception in 1879-80 as the Chicago & Great Southern or Indiana & Great Southern, furnishes Newton County with its chief transportation facilities, although from Mount Ayr it turns toward the northeast, effects a junction with the Monon Line at Fair Oaks, Jasper County, and with the Three I's at Wheatfield, thereby adding to the railway accommodations of the northwestern sections of Jasper. In Newton County the line has been incorporated by the New York Central System.
CHAPTER VII
GENERAL AND STATISTICAL
DECADAL POPULATION, 1840-1910-COUNTY REVENUE AND TAXABLE PROPERTY-PRESENT AREA AND VALUE OF PROPERTY-COUNTY FINANCES-THE SWAMP LANDS SCANDAL-DRAINING AND IM- PROVEMENT OF THE LANDS-JASPER COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.
Various details of the county's development have been set forth, such as the formation of its civil divisions, the establishment and progress of its courts, the building of its avenues of travel and communication, and the natural background of aboriginal exit and the entry of white pioneers. The rule is, with the readers of books the world over, to lightly pass over statistics; but figures have their good uses, if applied in moderation, and they are mainly grouped in this chapter.
DECADAL POPULATION, 1840-1910
In giving the national census for the years ending the past eight decades, an increase of population is shown for every such period except the last, and there is every probability that 1920 will decidedly reverse the slight decadence. The small increase shown by com- paring the figures of 1850 with those of 1860 is explained by the fact that old Jasper County had been cut in two to form the revived County of Newton, the first census of which (1860) indicated a population of 2,360.
In 1840 the population of Jasper County was 1,267; 1850, 3,540; 1860, 4,291 ; 1870, 6,354; 1880, 9,464. The showing for the past three decadal years, by townships and incorporated towns, is as follows :
1910
I900
1890
Jasper County
13,044 14,292 11,185
Barkley Township
1,074
1,303
1,093
Carpenter Twp., including Remington Town ..
1,968
2,198.
2,058
Remington Town
982
1,120
940
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JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES
Gillam Township
609
753
622
Hanging Grove Township.
432
480
479
Jordan Township
637
771
631
Kankakee Township
406
47.2
413
Keener Township
7II
764
492
Marion Township, including Rensselaer City. .
3,692
3,484
2,568
Rensselaer City
2,393
2,255
1,455
Milroy Township
286
396
259
Newton Township
53I
5,58
585
Union Township
1,28I
1,319
747
Walker Township
655
909
687
Wheatfield Twp., including Wheatfield Town.
762
886
55I
Wheatfield Town
357
366
COUNTY REVENUE AND TAXABLE PROPERTY
The earliest available statistics relating to Jasper County were gathered for the 1840 census. Keeping in mind that its territory then embraced virtually what are now the counties of Newton, Ben- ton and Jasper, the statement will be appreciated that it then con- tained 138 polls and taxable property amounting to $20,347. In 1840 Jasper County embraced an area of about 1,300 square miles ; it was larger than the present State of Rhode Island.
In 1844, the revenue of the county, Benton having been struck off, was $457.87.
In 1850, the Indiana State Gazetteer publishes the following : "Jasper is the largest county in the state and contains about 975 square miles; but Beaver Lake, the Kankakee Marshes and the Grand Prairie occupy so large a portion of it that its settlement and improvement have hitherto proceeded slowly. It is divided into eight townships, viz: Iroquois, Newton, Marion, Barkley, Jordan, Beaver, Jackson and Gillam."
In 1856-57 the county revenue was over $9,000 and the taxable property was reported at $1,540,000. In 1882 the income of the county, shorn of what is now Newton since 1859, was $111,738.
PRESENT AREA AND VALUE OF PROPERTY
The assessors of the county collect much valuable and interesting information for those who understand its significance. Their latest available figures for 1916 indicate that the county has an area of over 354,000 acres, or nearly 555 square miles. It is divided, and assessed for purposes of taxation, as follows :
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JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES
Value Lands and Number
Twps. and Corps.
Acres
Improvements
of Lots
Barkley Township
38,085.51
$ 1,034,095
95
Carpenter Township
32,835.87
1,567,165
Gillam Township .
24,174.74
650,350
58
Hanging Grove Township.
19,025.61
537,040
Jordan Township
23,869.62
745,465
Kankakee Township
16,612.02
327,810
I52
Keener Township
30,125.28
535,425
195
Marion Township
31,928.82
1,528,525
202
Milroy Township
15,164.65
290,095
Newton Township
21,795.70
710,330
52
Union Township
35,579.23
894,260
533
Walker Township
37,333.78
563,710
27
Wheatfield Township
27,336.18
496,530
785
Rensselaer Corp.
460.84
165,135
2,173
Remington Corp.
190.27
82,145
582
Wheatfield Corp.
234.76
15,275
325
Total
354,752.88
$10,143,355
4,488
Value Lots and
Value Personal Property $ 295,315
Total Value Taxable Property
Twps. and Corps.
Improvements
Barkley Township
$ 4,550
Carpenter Township
288,835
1,856,000
Gillam Township
360
154,105
804,815
Hanging Grove Township.
112,310
649,350
Jordan Township
202,555
948,020
Kankakee Township
5,805
105,365
438,980
Keener Township
20,155
87,480
643,060
Marion Township
3,995
282,840
1,815,360
Milroy Township
76,845
366,940
Newton Township
960
197,595
908,885
Union Township
37,315
254,455
1,186,030
Walker Township
2,995
143,595
710,300
Wheatfield Township.
2,240
91,140
589,910
Rensselaer Corp.
683,420
563,070
1,411,625
Remington Corp.
233,680
152,655
468,480
Wheatfield Corp.
37,955
98,715
151,945
Total
$1,033,430
$3,106,875
$14,283,660
$ 1,333,960
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JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES
COUNTY FINANCES
From the report of the county auditor and the county treasurer it is evident how large a portion of the expenditures go toward the support of education, in various forms, and toward the maintenance of the highways of the county up to the standards of the day. The state school tax disbursed amounted to $18,644; local tuition tax, $36,211 ; special school tax, $36,690; common school, $22,366; and city and state vocational, $2,591. During the year there were ex- pended for gravel road repairs, $20,416; road taxes, $27,900; bridge construction and repairs, $28,741; other expenditures on roads, ditches, etc., $3,380.
Including the balances of the different funds on hand January I, 1915, the total receipts for the year were $876,004.86, and the dis- bursements, $665,262.16, leaving a balance in the treasury, Decem- ber 31, 1915, of $210,742.70.
THE SWAMP LANDS SCANDAL
Jasper County, as will be realized by a comparison of the assessed valuation of lots, or town property, with that of township lands, or rural property, is overwhelmingly agricultural. Great progress has been made within the past twenty years in the draining both of its swamp lands and those which are on a higher level. It was many yeas before the settlers, as a whole, had free access to the choice bottom lands, in which ditch contractors, politicians, state and county officials speculated so outrageously and which they-at least, "mo- nopolized"-so dishonorably. These manipulations and scandals constituted one of the most serious drawbacks to legitimate settle- ment and improvement with which the reputable public has ever contended. A review of this disagreeable chapter in the history of Jasper County is therefore presented.
By congressional act of September 20, 1850, the swamp lands belonging to the United States were granted to the State of Indiana, upon condition that they should be drained and made fit for agricul- tural purposes. A second act passed in March, 1855, added various tracts located by holders of military land warrants, making the total amount thus turned over to the state by the General Government, 1,252,000 acres. To carry out the provisions of the law the governor appointed various swamp land commissioners who had the handling of the funds to be expended for ditching and other improvements, but which, as subsequent transactions and investigations proved,
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