USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume I > Part 10
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 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42
"The cemetery mentioned is near Hebron, about one mile from the county line."
RECOLLECTIONS OF JAMES H. LUTHER
James H. Luther, who has already been mentioned as one of the first to travel through Lake County and write an account of his experiences, missed the usual Beach Route, in the spring of 1837, and goes on to say : "This mistaking my road made extra travel for me, via Liverpool, where George Earle was then in glory as to business (for business there was lively ) ; thence I took in what is now Old Thorntown and Rexford's (now Blue Island) to Chicago.
THE OLD STAGE ROUTES
"On my return the same spring, I took stage from Chicago to my nearest point home, which was nearest the Old Maids' tavern, about ten miles west from Michigan City ; and its route was along the lake banks near where Cottage Grove Avenue now runs to the Calumet, which we ferried, thence to the Calumet again where Hammond now is and where there is now a fine drawbridge. On the north side of the river there was a stage tavern. Mr. Hohman afterward bought the property and lived upon it till his decease. M. M. Towle (and perhaps others) erected here a slaughter house. Other business interests followed, and finally Ham- mond was laid out. Business increased and additions to the town were made until, at this writing, it is a corporate city whose voters almost decide the political balance in the county election.
"Thence the road ran on between the Grand and Little Calumet rivers, via Baillytown, where there was a stage tavern kept by one Culver ; thence northeasterly to Michigan City. Besides the taverns mentioned on the north side of the Little Calumet, there was another, kept I think by a Mr. Gibson; which was near what is now Gibson Station on the Michigan Central Railroad, north of Hessville. Friend Bartlett Woods says that about seven miles west of Liverpool there was a big log-house tavern kept by Jack Cady, and about four miles further west was a stage-
71
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
house built by one of the Gibsons, which was afterward purchased by Allen H. Brass and was well and widely known as Brass's tavern.
"From Mr. Brass I get the following: He settled in what is now North Township in 1845 and says the first (I think it must have been the second ) wagon road from Michigan City and Valparaiso to Chicago was via the Old Maids' tavern, Long Bridge, Liverpool, crossing at Brass's, then at Osterhout's and Dalton's, and thence to the city. He also says there was a road north of that, which was doubtless the one described. Of the citizens living north, between the Little Calumet and the lake, he could only recollect the widow Gibson, David Gibson, the Moss family and a Mr. Carger. He further states that the Tuttles of Chicago ran the stage line on the North Road, and that Clem. Brown, lately deceased in Crown Point, once lived on this route and was general manager, if not a company proprietor.
FIRST OF THE CALUMET INDUSTRIAL REGION
"In the years from 1855 to 1860, George W. Clark of Chicago pur- chased several thousand acres of land in the northwestern part of the county, southeasterly from the State line near South Chicago, at $1.25 per acre. It was swamp land with alternate slough and sand ridge that previously had been considered entirely worthless; but within the last three years (written in 1884) Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Clark's brother-in-law and heir by his wife, sold eight thousand acres of it for an even $1,000,- 000. There are at this time several bodies of that land, which are held at from ten to one hundred thousand dollars or more per acre. The principal causes of this great appreciation in the prices are the railroads passing through it, consisting of the Michigan Southern, Michigan Central, Baltimore & Ohio, Nickel Plate, Chicago & Atlantic and the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago ; also, its close proximity to the greatest inland city in the United States, if not in America, Chicago; and to the head of Lake Michigan, which affords one harbor, and prospectively others, by and through which the immense shipping of all the lakes may take refuge inland for many miles along the Grand Calumet River, whose waters are deep enough to float any vessel that traverses the lakes and rivers, from the Atlantic Ocean to Chicago.
"I will now close this writing with some statistics which cost me two days' labor, and which, I think, will prove the most interesting of any- thing before written, because it will show the growth of that part of our country.
72
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
FIRST COUNTY ELECTIONS
"Book I, of the Records of the Commissioners, has a record of the organization of the county, from which I get the following facts: On March 28, 1837, an election was held to elect a county clerk, recorder, two associate judges and three commissioners. There were three candi- dates for clerk, of whom Solon Robinson received 38 votes, D. Y. Bond 21 votes, and Luman A. Fowler 17. Total 76 votes. For recorder, Wil- liam A. W. Holton received 50 votes and J. V. Johns 22. For associate judges, William B. Crooks received 50 votes, G. W. Bryant 28, William Clark 50 and Horace Taylor 1. For county commissioners, Amsi L. Ball received 78 votes, and S. P. Stringham and Thomas Wiles 59 votes each. Lots were cast in the case of Messrs. Stringham and Wiles and the latter was chosen for the two years' term. Mr. Ball got the three years' term and Mr. Stringham the one-year term.
NORTH TOWNSHIP BOUNDED
"At that time the county was in three townships-North, Center and South. North was bounded by order of the Board, in Record Book I, April 5, 1837, as follows: District No. 1 to consist of all the territory lying north of the center of Congressional Township 35, in Ranges 7, 8, 9 and 10, all north of Township 34, which includes half of Ross, all of Hobart, half of St. Johns and Winfield.
EARLY FIGURES FOR NORTHI AND HOBART TOWNSHIPS
"In all of this territory-North Township-the tax duplicate of 1839 shows that there were 109 names and 66 polls, and the total tax for that year was $763.26. Between this and the making of the duplicate for 1850, other townships had been set off; and in my statements for 1850, 1870 and 1880 I get from the then townships of North and Hobart the following: North and Hobart were taxed separately after this. On the duplicate record for 1850 North had 75 names, 21 polls, $996.20 tax; Hobart, 95 names, 43 polls and $530.58 tax. Totals, 170 names, 64 polls and $1,526.78 tax. The duplicate of North for 1870 shows there were 553 names and 199 polls taxed. The total tax charged $5,722.09. Hobart had 453 names and 152 polls, and a tax of $5,529.61. Totals of both- names 1,006, polls 351 and tax $11,251.70. In 1880 North had names 619, polls 319, tax $13,878.38 ; Hobart, names 631, polls 222, tax $4,586.60. Total of both-1,250 names, polls 541, tax $18,464.98.
"There were, of course, more or less non-resident persons' names on
73
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
the duplicate; but the foregoing will show the growth of each of said townships by the names taxed and of the prosperity of each, and the whole, from one decade to the next."
SIX EARLY YEARS COVERED BY T. II. BALL
Even at the risk of a few repetitions, we now present a portion of an article prepared by T. H. Ball covering various important matters con- cerning the first six years of the county's life. "Into the wilds of Lake County," he says, "there came in the fall of 1834, as pioneer settlers, Solon Robinson with his wife and two young children. They settled on the spot around which is now the town of Crown Point.
"Then there was no political division known as Lake County; the land in this region had two years before been purchased by the United States from the Pottawatomie Indians, many of whom still remained on their old hunting and trapping grounds, friendly and quiet, but Indians nevertheless, having learned from the French missionaries and traders some virtues and some vices connected with European civilization. The land had a few months before been divided into townships and sections by United States surveyors, but none was owned or could as yet be pur- chased by private individuals. Fort Dearborn, or Chicago, thirty-six miles west of north on Lake Michigan, a military outpost and Indian trading place, was beginning to become a village on the outskirts of white settlement. And here, amid the surroundings of only trapper, fur trader, Indian explorer, and vast solitudes, remaining apparently as the Mound Builders had left them, except as trodden by wild beasts, by Indians and by Frenchmen, stretching westward to the Mississippi and to the Rocky Mountains, this family sought a new home.
DISCOVERY OF ROBINSON'S PRAIRIE
"It was the last day of October, a month that usually around the Great Lakes is filled with glorious autumnal beauty, when they reached -having traveled from Jennings County, Indiana, says the family tradi- tion, with an ox team and wagon-the open level, covered with waving grass and bright with many a flower that grows in no tree's shadow- known for many years after as Robinson's Prairie, a region in marked contrast with the heavy growth of beech, maple, walnut, elm, hickory and oak through which for so many weary days they had journeyed. About noon of a clear delightful day they entered this prairie region, about sunset they camped for the night ; the next day the camping spot was selected for a home.
74
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
THE FIRST COLONY AT CROWN POINT
"A cabin was soon erected and pioneer life began. In midwinter, from the same neighborhood in Jennings County, three other families came and the little hamlet, almost excluded from the outside world, was formed. The cabins of these families were on sections 5 and 8, and the names of each individual (as probably the names of the inhabitants of Crown Point will never again be named one by one) are here given :
"1. The Robinson family : Solon Robinson, Mrs. Maria Robinson, Solon Oscar, about four years old, Josephine, a babe. Young men : Luman A. Fowler, from the East, and Jerome Curtis and J. B. Curtis, two estimable young men from Jennings County, both of whom returned in a few months to their former home, where the latter was still living in 1876.
2. The Clark family: William Clark, Mrs. Ann Clark; children : Thomas, about twenty years of age, Miss Margaret, then a young lady, Alexander, Mary M., eight years of age, and John F., a boy of six years. "3. The Holton family : Mrs. Harriet Holton, a widow; a son, William A. W. Holton ; a daughter, Miss Harriet Holton. A married son, J. W. Holton, with children-Ellen Maria, about four years old, and John.
"It thus appears that three men and four married women, five young men and two young ladies, four boys and three girls, twenty-one in all, were members of the little community when, in the latter part of the winter of 1835, where the woodland and the prairie meet, hamlet life commenced. Unlike the early settlement in 1607 at Jamestown, we find here manhood and womanhood, young men and maidens, and little chil- dren. The grain fields, the mills, workshops, the stores, the neighboring settlers, the supplies, were, for the most part, from forty to eighty miles away-in Laporte County, at Wilmington and on the Wabash ; and pro- curing the needed supplies, encounters with Indians and prowling wolves, and hunting wild animals, gave rise to many interesting incidents and adventures, the details of which must be sought for elsewhere or left to the imagination of the reader.
TURNING OF THE FIRST FURROW
"The winter passed, and the ever beautiful spring called the settlers to agricultural pursuits. A large breaking plow, with a wooden mold- board, had been provided ; L. A. Fowler was a carpenter and J. B. Curtis, a shoemaker, but blacksmith there was none nearer than Morgan Prairie in Porter County, where the irons were carried for sharpening. Four
75
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
yoke of oxen were attached to the plow, and the women and children came out from the cabins to see the first furrow turned in the green sward of the prairie.
"The first furrow turned was along the center of section 8, where is now the center of Main Street, commencing for certain reasons nearly opposite the present Register office and ending at the center of the section in South Street. The plowing went on. The women soon returned to their cabin duties. The children and the birds lingered behind the strange machine, the breaking-plow. Some grain was raised that season. An old Indian garden furnished a spot where all the families could raise a few vegetables.
ADDITIONS TO ORIGINAL COLONY
"In the fall and early winter some other families came. In Novem- ber, Milo Robinson from New York City; and in December, Luman A. Fowler, who had returned to Michigan and was there married in October, came with his young wife as a permanent settler. With these also came to reside in the hamlet, the then small family of Henry Wells; and with these, William R. Williams. The latter afterward married Miss Margaret Clark. They came through from Wayne County, Michigan, in two wagons drawn by oxen, with one horse as a leader for each team.
HAMLET GROWING INTO A VILLAGE
"With these additions to their little band, another winter, mild until February, passed away amid varied incidents, and the summer of 1836 brought new laborers, additional settlers and weighty responsibilities. The hamlet was growing into a central village. A store was opened by Solon and Milo Robinson ; a postoffice was established, Mr. Robinson, the postmaster, bringing the mail occasionally from Michigan City, the next offices being Joliet and Chicago. About five hundred settlers who were men, were around this little center, besides women and children-all on lands belonging to the Government, except a few families at Liverpool ; and on the Fourth of July, in the grove and at the house of Solon Robin- son, was organized by a 'majority of the citizens of Lake County,' the Squatters' Union. Solon Robinson became register of claims.
POSTOFFICE OF LAKE COURT HOUSE
"The little log huts were evidently insufficient for the business that would be required in this political center, and in the summer of 1837
76
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
a log court house of respectable size, which became a two-story build- ing, stood on a public square. The county was organized. Henry Wells was appointed sheriff. Elections were held and true political life began. Lake Court House, the name of the postoffice, was evidence of the aspira- tions and expectations of the enterprising citizens.
"A tavern was opened kept by Milo Robinson ; a frame dwelling was erected in 1838 by Russell Eddy ; religious meetings eommeneed, Colonel John Vawter, in June, preaching in the log court house to 'a very respectable congregation ;' marriages were solemnized; bridge building commeneed, and in October was held the first term of Circuit Court, nine lawyers and the judge being present.
TOWN SITE REGULARLY PURCHASED
"In 1839 the land of this region belonging to the Government came into market. Parts of sections 5 and 8 were purchased. And in this year A. McDonald became the first resident lawyer ; and death came and removed one of the enterprising business men, Milo Robinson. The ham- let had already grown into a village.
LAKE COURT HOUSE, THE COUNTY SEAT
"The aspiring and also enterprising little village of Liverpool, sit- uated on Deep River, had secured in 1839 the location of the county seat ; but many were dissatisfied, and the Indiana Legislature therefore ordered a relocation. West Point, on Cedar Lake, and Lake Court House both sought the location. The commissioners from Marion, Pulaski, White and Carroll counties came in June, 1840, and Lake Court House was sueeessful.
NAMED CROWN POINT
"George Earle, of Liverpool, had been appointed county agent. He with the two proprietors of Lake Court House, Judge Clark and Solon Robinson, met to give the new county seat a name. West Point, at Cedar Lake, with no local significance, had already been named, and it was agreed, with no local allusions, to call the county seat Crown Point. This name the place has ever since borne. Seventy-five lots were laid out, Judge Clark appropriating twenty acres and Solon Robinson forty. A publie square was donated to the county, and one aere of ground was set apart for a court house and for public offiees. Other donations of
77
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
lots, of land, of money and of labor, were also made, and the work of town building went earnestly forward."
SETTLERS AROUND RED CEDAR LAKE
. Mr. Ball writes as follows regarding the localities which have so long been associated with various members of his family: "Red Cedar Lake, or the Lake of the Red Cedars, or as more commonly called in Lake County, plain Cedar Lake, has some interesting special history. In its original wildness it was beautiful. Job Worthington of Massachusetts, who spent a summer and a winter there in 1837 and 1838, said years afterward that he had thought of it by day and dreamed of it by night as one of the most beautiful places that he had seen; and as late as 1879 Colonel S. B. Yeoman, of Ohio, who was deciding upon a line of railroad to run across Lake County, is reported to have said that whatever inter- ests in other parts of the county might be affected by the location to be made, Cedar Lake was 'too beautiful to be left out, promising so much as a pleasure resort.' So the proposed road was laid on the west side of the lake, adding nothing, however, to its beauty ; and a pleasure resort it did indeed become.
THE HERVEY BALL PLACE
"Solon Robinson spoke of the lake as being in 1834 very attractive to claim-seekers. Charles Wilson laid a claim that summer on the west side, section 27. This soon passed into the hands of Jacob L. Brown, and by him the claim was transferred to Hervey Ball for $300. So says the Claim Register, date July 18, 1837. The family tradition adds, 'in gold.' This was much more than the claim was worth, but it was then considered one of the most desirable locations in the county. For some twenty-three years this place remained in the possession of the Ball family, and was one of the prominent religious, educational and literary centers until the pioneer days had ended. Its church, its school, its Sunday School, its two literary societies, were second in influence to none in the county.
THE VON HOLLEN AND HERLITZ FAMILIES
"After the first settlers-the Brown, Cox, Nordyke and Batton fam- ilies-had sold their claims, the neighborhood, which was to continue for many years, was formed in 1838 by the four families of II. Hall, II. Sasse, Sr., H. Von Hollen and Louis Herlitz; and of these the last
78
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
(of the older members of the households), known as Mrs. H. Von Hollen, has lately passed away (written in 1904), eighty-seven years of age and having lived in the old home for sixty-five years. Younger members of the Herlitz family yet remain on what was at first the Nordyke claim, bought from that genuine pioneer sixty-five years ago.
THE TAYLORS
"On the east side of this lake were located and settlements made, in 1836, by members of the large Taylor families, of whom the men then in active life were four-Adonijah and Horace Taylor, brothers, and Dr. Calvin Lilley and Horace Edgerton, sons-in-law of the father, Onadiah Taylor, then quite an aged man. These families gave considerable atten- tion to sawmill building and to fishing. On the southwest side of the lake were the two regular fisherman families of Lyman Mann and Jonathan Gray. They soon left that side of the lake."
DAVID AGNEW FROZEN TO DEATH
Among the sad and tragic occurrences of the early years, none caused more grief than the death by freezing of David Agnew, whose wife was a Bryant, on the night of April 4, 1835. As one of the Bryant family making the settlement at Pleasant Grove, it fell to his lot to take an ox team from Morgan Prairie in Porter County to the new settlement.
The weather had been mild with some rain, and snow and cold were no longer expected ; but on that April day there came a most terrible snowstorm. Circumstances had separated David Agnew with the ox team from the others of the party, but as the storm became very severe Simeon Bryant stopped at Hickory Point, built a fire and waited for their coming. They came not as expected, and about four in the after- noon Mr. Bryant, thinking that Mr. Agnew had concluded not to come on in that storm, built a large fire of logs for a camping place, if his friend should venture, and started on foot for the settlement, distance ten miles west. He was "a remarkably strong, robust man," said one of the family, but was thoroughly chilled when at dark he reached the cabin of E. W. Bryant.
David Agnew was not a very strong and healthy man, and no one thought of his undertaking that perilous trip of ten long miles on such a fearful night. The next morning, when the storm was over, an April fog coming on as Simeon Bryant, David Bryant and E. W. Bryant went out to look over the land, they saw some object lying in the snow, and E. W. Bryant said 'It looks like a dead man." David Bryant took a
79
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
closer look and said 'It looks like Agnew.' And the body of David Agnew it proved to be, beside which those three stout-hearted men stood aghast. What that night had been to him in suffering and in struggle none could fully know.
The Bryant narrative says : "Upon looking around they found beaten paths where Agnew had at first run round in a circle to try to keep from perishing, and then, as if strength had failed and he had not been able to do that, he had supported himself with his arms around the trunks of the trees, running around them until there was quite a path worn, and leaving the lint of his coat sticking in the bark. He finally got hold of a pole about seven or eight feet long, and placing one end on the ground and leaning on the other, ran around in a circle until, as it would appear, his strength was entirely exhausted, and he fell across his sup- port, leaving no sign of having made a struggle after."
One can see in this homely account how heroically Agnew struggled for life; and that he should have perished so near a home and shelter seems doubly pitiable. It was found that he had reached Hickory Point with his oxen and wagon, but instead of trying to camp there by the fire, had drawn out the keys from the ox bows, dropped them with the yokes all chained together upon the ground, thrown out a few unbound sheaves of oats from his wagon as food for the oxen, and had started immediately to follow Simeon Bryant across the ten miles of prairie and marsh.
The Bryant narrative states there was an Indian trail passing by Hickory Point and through Pleasant Grove, but that the night was very dark, although the snowstorm was followed by almost incessant lightning. Somehow Agnew made his way across, but perished almost within reach of help.
OLD SETTLER AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
On the 24th of July, 1875, the Old Settlers' Association of Lake County was organized at the courthouse in Crown Point, and on the 25th of the following month the early settlers, most of them its members, held their first annual gathering at the fair ground just south of Crown Point. W. A. Clark was president of the organization and T. H. Ball, historical secretary. Concerning that first meeting at the fair ground on September 25, 1875, Mr. Ball has made the following record : "The morning was rainy, but the clouds soon broke away, the sun shone and a fair day followed the early showers.
"After partaking of a rich dinner in Floral Hall and recalling old memories in brisk conversation, the association was called to order by
80
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
the president, W. A. Clark. Prayer was offered by Rev. T. II. Ball and the president delivered the following opening address :
" 'Forty years ago today this county of Lake-that for beauty of landscape, productiveness of soil and commercial position is rapidly advancing toward the front rank of the counties of the State-was a solitude, the stillness of primeval nature resting over it. The setting sun gilded the smoke that rose from the Indian wigwam, and the simple but barbarous tenants were content with their squaws, their medicine men and their wars with other tribes. Forty years ago the white man came and took possession of the soil. The Indians were not numerous, and they received their white brothers cordially, introducing themselves under their Indian name, Ishnawbies. The whites they called Shmoko- mans. Five years later the Indians were removed to the Pottawatomie reservation in Kansas, where their descendants still reside in peace and comfort. I visited this tribe fifteen years ago, and when I told them my house was on their old hunting grounds in Indiana near the great Lake Michigan, I was immediately surrounded by a group of their old men who expressed much wonder and interest. There are here today before me men who have seen this county in its original desolation, and I am happy to say they have also seen it blossom as the rose. In spring, sum- mer and autumn they have seen it a sea of flowers and of beauty, then scorched and blackened by the annual prairie fires; and again in winter covered with iee and snow, a bleak, inhospitable and trackless waste, with no sign of human habitation. It is to keep alive and fresh in our memories the incidents, difficulties, privations, joys, sorrows, hopes and fears of the early days of the settlement of this county, and to enjoy a friendly, social reunion, that we have organized ourselves into this society of Old Settlers. May we have many pleasant and happy meetings together.' "'
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.