USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume I > Part 15
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CHAPTER VIII
CEDAR CREEK TOWNSHIP
BEAUTIFUL LAKE PRAIRIE-THE TAYLORS-LOWELL AS A TIMBER AND MILL SEAT -- M. A. HALSTED, FOUNDER OF LOWELL-THE NEW HAMP- SIIIRE SETTLEMENT-THOMAS AND JOSEPH A. LITTLE-ABIEL GERRISH -SAMUEL AND EDWARD P. AMES-RECOLLECTIONS OF MRS. NANNIE W. AMES-FIRST SETTLERS-THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SETTLERS- SHELBY-RICHARD FULLER-CRESTON-A PATRIARCH INDEED.
Cedar Creek Township attained its present form and area when, in 1839, the original South Township was divided into the three townships whose names were determined by the long creeks which flow from the central sections of the county southward into the Kankakee River. The larger portion of Cedar Creek Township lies south of Center, and most of its southern half is included in what is known as the Kankakee Region. Among the famous islands in that region are Fuller's and South, and the Griesel Ditch, which has done so much to drain the marshes of the Kankakee and make them productive lands, is almost wholly within the township. Orchard Grove is also a well known fea- ture of that part of the county.
BEAUTIFUL LAKE PRAIRIE
The early settlement of Cedar Creek Township was largely determined by the beanties and fertility of Lake Prairie, rightly called the Gem of the County. Many years ago a prominent educator of Indiana when first emerging from the woodlands which encircle its gently rolling land, exclaimed : "I have been thirty years in the West and have been in every county in the state, and never but once have I seen so beautiful a view."
THE TAYLORS
The advance guard of the settlers who drifted into Cedar Creek Township and formed the settlements at Creston and Lowell were the
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Taylors, the Edgertons and the Palmers. The Taylors and the Edger- ton families located on the east side of Red Cedar Lake in 1836.
Obadiah Taylor, the head of the former, was born in Massachusetts, resided for many years in the State of New York, and when he came to Lake County with sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, was an aged man. He died in 1839, as did Dr. Calvin Lilley, one of his sons-in-law who had settled on the land which afterward became West Point.
Adonijah Taylor, born in New York in 1792, and Horace Taylor, born in 1801, both sons, were among this colony of early settlers, as well as Horace Edgerton, who had married a daughter ( Betsey Taylor) and had been a widower, with seven children, for about three years. James Palmer, who had married another daughter, Almira Taylor, was a Connecticut man, a soldier in the War of 1812. He came into the county later than the others-not until 1846-and in 1854 moved into Cedar Creek Township.
The Taylors. Edgertons and Palmers, so numerous and closely re- lated, were the most prominent of the very early settlers southeast and south of Cedar Lake in the beautiful Lake Prairie district. Even as late as 1850, when Creston was something of a village, its population was composed largely of descendants of the Taylor and Edgerton families.
LOWELL AS A TIMBER AND MILL SEAT
Lowell, which is one of the best incorporated towns in the county, is situated in the northwestern part of Cedar Creek Township, in a fine agricultural distriet. It is east of the southern portion of Lake Prairie and northwest of the rich farming belt skirting the Kankakee marsh lands.
As early as 1836 what is now the site of Lowell was selected as a mill seat on Cedar Creek by John P. Hoff of New York City. He purchased his claim from Samuel Halstead. To be exact, upon the authority of the Claim Register, Mr. Halstead entered "timber and mill-seat" section 23, township 33, range 9, making his elaim in August, 1835, and register- ing it on November 26, 1836. The Claim Register adds: "This claim was sold to and registered by J. P. Hoff, October 8th, who has not com- plied with his contract and therefore forfeits his claim to it." Mr. Hoff was evidently one of those eastern lands speculators whom the Squatters' Union was trying to keep out of Lake County affairs.
Under date of November 29, 1836, the register makes this entry : "Transferred to James M. Whitney and Mark Burroughs for $212."
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This mill-seat does not seem to have been purchased by anyone at the first public land sale of 1839.
M. A. HALSTEAD, FOUNDER OF LOWELL
In 1848 A. R. Nichols and others were found by Melvin A. Halstead as holders of the locality. Mr. Halstead secured an interest in the site and water privileges, a dam was built, and by the winter of that year Haskins & Halstead had a sawmill in operation.
In 1849 bricks were made and Mr. Halstead erected a house of that material, into which he and his family moved in 1850. This man is acknowledged to be the founder of Lowell. After seeing his family com- fortably settled in their brick house, he started for California and returned in 1852 with some capital to invest; at all events, he purchased the interest of O. E. Haskins in the mill-seat and property, erected a flour mill, and in 1853 platted the town of Lowell. He also encouraged and aided the early churches and schools, held numerous local offices and remained at Lowell until his death, easily its first citizen in ability and public esteem.
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SETTLEMENT
The growth and the standing of Lowell was also advanced in its earlier years by what was known for some years as the New Hampshire settlement. The nucleus of the settlement was made in 1855, 1856 and 1857 by seven families-those of Thomas Little, Abiel Gerrish, Samuel Ames, Henry Peach, E. N. Morey and Rev. Hiram Wason.
THOMAS AND JOSEPH A. LITTLE
Capt. Thomas Little was of an old Massachusetts family, one branch of which finally reached out into New Hampshire. The family, which he headed for Lake Prairie, Lake County, had been fixed in Merrimack County, of the Granite State.
Hon. Joseph A. Little, one of the sons, was about twenty-five years of age when the Western New Hampshire settlement was made. In 1859, four years after his coming, he married Miss Mary Gerrish, daughter of a prominent member of the colony and a neighborhood friend "back East." He became one of the most successful farmers in the county and was one of the first to become prominent as a wool-grower on a large scale. His three sons and three daughters have been a credit to their parents and the family name, the former having become well
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known agriculturists in the Kankakee region. Mr. Little obtained his title of Honorable from the fact that he served in the Indiana Legislature during the years 1886 and 1887. He died February 19, 1892, a strong, able, useful man, and one who did much for Lake County both through his good works and the influence of his character.
ABIEL GERRISH
Abiel Gerrish was a man of mature age when he came to Lake Prairie from his home near the mouth of the Merrimack River. His wife was a very devoted Christian woman and died in September, 1881, the two having celebrated their golden wedding during the previous year. He himself died in June, 1884. They were the parents of one son and five daughters, their daughter Mary marrying, as stated, their old neighbor's son, Joseph A. Little.
SAMUEL AND EDWARD P. AMES
The head of another of these seven New Hampshire families was Samuel Ames, whose early ancestors were born in New Hampshire. Mr. Ames also represented Lake County in the Legislature as one of its able and influential citizens. He died at Elkhart, Indiana, about fifteen years ago. His youngest brother, Edward P. Ames, who was only eight years old when the family settled at Lake Prairie, married Miss Nannie Wason, daughter of Rev. H. Wason, an active minister of those early days. Mr. Ames lived many years at Hammond, and his wife has contributed not a few interesting papers to the records of the Old Settler and Historieal Association.
RECOLLECTIONS OF MRS. NANNIE W. AMES
Thirty years ago Mrs. Nannie W. Ames wrote the following deserip- tion of Lake Prairie and its early settlers. ineluding the New Hampshire colony, many of whose immediate descendants gravitated to Creston and Lowell: "Lake Prairie's own children who have gone away to seek homes elsewhere have come back and said, 'There is no place like this after all.' The scene has changed in this quarter of a century, but has only gained in beauty. Now, as far as the eye can reach, may be seen comfortable houses and farm buildings, orchards and shade trees, with here and there a bordering of deep green osage; while still further in the distance the tall windmills point out the homes beyond the range of vision.
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"Not an acre is unfenced, and but few are unfit for cultivation. The soil is good and best adapted to corn, oats and grass. The earth has well 'yielded of her increase,' for almost without exception the land owners are in good circumstances. The one landmark of early days was the Lone Tree, a burr oak that is still standing on the farm of Cyrus Hayden. Many stories are told of men lost on the trackless prairie who came to that and were able to locate themselves and find their way home.
FIRST SETTLERS
"The first settler was Robert Wilkinson, who came in 1835, and lived in the edge of the grove near where Charles Marvin now lives. Twenty years later he moved to Missouri, where he died. But two of his children are living in the county-John Wilkinson and Mrs. William Hill, both of Lowell.
"In 1842 George Belshaw came and settled on the farm afterward known as the Tarr Place and now owned by his grandson, Charles Bel- shaw. His two sons, William and Henry, entered the land they now live on.
"In 1846 James Palmer came from St. Joseph County, bought 320 acres of land and built the house afterward owned by Abram Ritter, about a mile north of the Presbyterian Church. His son, A. D. Palmer, who now keeps store in Creston, lived for a few years just north of his father. Two brothers, George and Abram Ritter, came about 1851. Abram bought land of James Palmer, where his widow and youngest daughter, Mrs. Livingston, still live. George entered the land now owned by T. A. Wason, Edwin Michael, E. P. Ames and E. N. and T. P. Morey. George Ritter died in a few years and none of his children are now living in the county.
"In 1850 Jacob Baughman moved here from Ohio with his family and entered 320 acres of land now owned by Frank Plumer, Jay D. Baughman and Abiel Gerrish. He has two sons living here now-Jay D. and Jacob Baughman, of Lowell, with two daughters, Mrs. Knisely and Mrs. A. G. Plumer, while two sons are in the West.
"About this time A. G. Plumer came from New Hampshire and bought a large farm just west of Mr. Baughman, where he now lives. On the edge of the prairie, a mile south of Mr. Plumer, lived E. D. Foster, the father of Lyman and Alfred Foster, who were early settlers in the county, but lived outside of Lake Prairie. H. R. Nichols and Oliver Fuller were among the early settlers, Mr. Fuller living on the farm now owned by Mr. Bruce. Mr. Nichols has lived in Lowell for some years,
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where his two sons are in the hay business, but he still owns the farm where he first settled.
"In the southeast the brothers James and Amos Brannon moved on the land where they now live about 1850, though they had been in the county several years before. James Brannon married Eleanor Foster and Amos Brannon, Sally Taylor, both daughters of early settlers. A little farther to the southeast, not really belonging to the Prairie, yet identified with the society and the church there, were the two families of Peter Burhans and his brother-in-law, Marshall Barber. Mr. Burhans moved to Crown Point a few years ago, but his sons Charles and Alex- ander live on his farm.
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SETTLERS
"In 1855 and 1856 several families came from New Hampshire and settled near each other. Thomas Little bought the land owned by a Mr. Barker, who had lived on it several years, and which is now a part of the large farm owned by his son, Joseph Little.
"Abiel Gerrish, who died this summer, bought land of Jacob Baugh- man and his son John; also eighty acres of A. G. Plumer. His only son, James L. Gerrish, has lived on this farm for some years.
"Henry Peach bought his farm of E. Knisely, who then went West, but afterward returned and bought land on the State line, where his widow and youngest daughter still live. Mr. Peach died in 1858, and his was the first grave in the Lake Prairie burying ground. His son Abiel lives on the farm now.
"Samuel Ames and E. N. Morey bought unimproved land of the heirs of George Ritter. Mr. Morey still lives there and has sold part of his farm to his oldest son. Mrs. Morey's father, Dr. Peach, eame with his family a year or two later and lived here until his death a few years ago, at the advanced age of ninety-eight. He was the oldest person in the county. Mr. Ames moved to Elkhart, Indiana, two years ago, to live near his daughter, and his son, Ed. P. Ames, now owns the farm.
"In 1857 Rev. Hiram Wason, also a native of New Hampshire, came from Vevay, Indiana, and became the pastor of the Independent Presby- terian Church, which had been organized the year before with twelve members. He bought land of A. G. Plumer and built the house where he still lives. He resigned his charge of the church in 1864 and has preached only occasionally since."
Dr. Thomas Peach was the head of the family by that name, and his wife was Susannah, sister of Abiel Gerrish. He was an aged man when he came to Lake Prairie in 1857. He and his wife made their home with
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their son-in-law, E. N. Morey, at whose residence he died in 1882. As Mrs. Ames states, he was ninety-eight years of age at the time of his death and the oldest man in the county-one of the oldest in Indiana.
Ephraim N. Morey was reared as a farmer's boy in New Hampshire, but was afterward engaged in railroad work in both the East and the West. He married a daughter of Doctor Peach. His death occurred in 1902. Of the four children born to Mr. and Mrs. Morey, perhaps
SHELBY CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL, CEDAR CREEK TOWNSHIP
William H. Morey became best known in Cedar Creek Township, as he was finely educated and served for some time as principal of the Lowell High School.
SHELBY
Cedar Creek Township is preeminently a farming district. and, out- side of Lowell, Shelby is really the only center of population lying entirely within its limits. The village claims a population of about two hundred and fifty.
Shelby was brought to life as a station of the Monon (Louisville, New Albany & Chicago) Railroad, which was in running order in Lake County
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by 1882. At that time Water Valley, as the district immediately to the south was called, was a busy and productive region in the ice-harvesting season, and when Shelby became a railroad station it was naturally adopted as a shipping point. It was also the center of one of the richest grass and hay sections in the township, if not in the county, and the dairy farms in the vicinity are large and well managed. The promise of growth was so substantial that in July, 1886, William R. Shelby, presi- dent of the Lake Agricultural Company, after whom the place was named, laid the site off into streets and lots. This site embraced the southwest quarter of section 28, township 32, range 8, as well as ten acres adjoining that traet on the northeast and fifteen acres of section 33 on the southeast.
Among the flourishing churches of Shelby is that of the Disciples of Christ, organized in August, 1912.
RICHARD FULLER
Richard Fuller was long one of the prosperous farmers of that region, and later the leading business man of Shelby, where he dealt extensively in hay, grain and stock and conducted the Fuller House. James Fuller, the father, had settled in Cedar Creek Township as early as 1839, when Richard was ten years of age. He had entered Government land, im- proved his farm and died thereon, prosperous and content, in his seventy- first year. Richard Fuller snatched what education he could as a hard- working farmer's boy and, after he became independent of paternal control, engaged in farming for a number of years in West Creek Town- ship; but in 1888 he made Shelby the headquarters of his extensive interests both in agriculture and business. At one time he operated over one thousand acres of land. but during the later years devoted himself to the conduct of his hotel.
Shelby has never been more than a small settlement, but, as stated, is a fair shipping center for a large and productive distriet.
CRESTON
Creston also received its name as a station on the Monon line when it was completed through the southwestern and western portions of the county in 1882. The station itself is in West Creek Township, but quite a number of families which form the settlement reside over the line in Cedar Creek Township. It is situated about a mile south of Red Cedar Lake and half a mile west of the early center, where in 1849 or 1850 there was a store, a postoffice, a blacksmith shop and a schoolhouse. The
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postoffice was named Cedar Lake, and at the schoolhouse the well known Baptist church and Sunday school held their meetings for some years.
At the railroad station now called Creston there are two stores, a church and a schoolhouse, supported mainly by two-score families in the neighborhood-among which, as noted, the Taylors and the Edgertons are still generously represented. Hay and grain are shipped to some extent from this point.
About the time Cedar Creek became Creston, the railroad station, E. B. Warriner, a grandson of Hon. Lewis Warriner, was writing as follows: "And now we come to Creston, or the settlement on the prairie. This neighborhood, formerly called Tinkerville, yet without any significance in the name and now, from the name of the station, called Creston, extends east and west a mile and a half, and north and south about two miles. Its principal north and south street is the dividing line between Cedar Creek and West Creek townships; its east and west streets are two and a half miles apart. It is on the northeastern portion of Lake Prairie.
"Claims were made here, as has already been seen, as early as 1836, and a mill was soon built on Cedar Creek, or the Outlet, known as the Taylor and McCarty, and then the Carsten mill ; but the settlement proper dates from about 1842. It soon became the home of the MeCarty, Edger- ton and Taylor families from the lake side, and then, as the years went along, of the Stillson, Palmer, Thompson, Scritchfield, Davis, Hill, Wheeler, Garrison, Nichols, Carstens, and still other families; the earlier lake families being blood relations and nearly, if not quite, all who came into the neighborhood becoming connected by marriage with these kindred families. Some thirty families may be counted here that are related by tie of blood, or connected by marriage, with the Taylor, Edgerton and Palmer families, and are thus connected with Obadiah Taylor from Pennsylvania."
A PATRIARCH INDEED
Peter Surprise, one of the most aged men who ever lived in the United States and one of the most noted patriarchs of the age, died near his old homestead, between Lowell and Creston, on the 27th of August, 1903. He was well advanced in his one hundred and tenth year. Mr. Surprise was born of French parentage, in a province of Lower Canada, Febru- ary 24, 1794. In early manhood he married Rosanna Taylor and with her, who had then become the mother of three children, he moved to the State of New York. There he was for a time a charcoal burner. About 1835 he came as one of the earliest of the Lake County pioneers, follow- ing a colony of French neighbors who settled in Illinois near the present
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Momence; he himself, with his family, settled in what was to become Cedar Creek Township. Both in New York and in Indiana were born more children to Mr. and Mrs. Peter Surprise, until the circle comprised eight sons and six daughters. On August 10, 1837, Solon Robinson, who was then county clerk, made out the naturalization papers of the middle- aged father-as ages run-declaring him to be "no longer a subject of . William IV of Great Britain, but a citizen of our free Republic." (As a matter of fact, Victoria had been for some months Queen of England, but the Atlantic cable and the ocean greyhounds and the rushing rail- roads were not then in existence, and Mr. Robinson and Mr. Surprise were in blissful ignorance of the change in rulership.)
Peter Surprise was born while Washington was yet President; he lived about seven years in the seventeenth century, through all of the nineteenth and through two full years of the twentieth, reaching the advanced age of 109 years and 6 months, being the oldest citizen of Lake County, if not of Indiana. There is no record of any older.
The wife of his young manhood died July 10, 1876, then seventy-five years of age. Seven of the children have also died. For nearly forty- one years his home was with his son, Henry Surprise, who became a wealthy farmer and capitalist. For several years before his death the aged father was not very strong in mind, but took much exercise and interest in working on the farm, until in the last year of life his sight became so dim as to confine him to the house. After a few days of illness his long life closed at 8 o'clock in the evening of August 27, 1903.
Seven of the immediate descendants of Peter Surprise are yet living -- Elizabeth, Harvey, Henry, William, Oliver, Elvina and Lavinia; also twenty-two grandchildren and forty great-grandchildren are in Lake County. Burial services were held at Creston, August 29th, conducted by Rev. T. H. Ball. Six grandsons were pall bearers and a large assem- blage of people were present.
We take leave with regret of the pleasant rural life of Cedar Creek Township, but, in view of Lowell's importance as an urban center, shall return to describe the development and present status of that town in a succeeding chapter.
CHAPTER IX
CENTER TOWNSHIP
VARIED AND BEAUTIFUL-FIRST SETTLEMENT-THE WARRINERS-CEDAR LAKE'S EARLY FAME-THE TAYLORS AND THEIR CONNECTIONS-CAL- VIN LILLEY AND HIS HOTEL-DOCTOR LILLEY AND ADONIJAH TAYLOR, PARTNERS-NEIGHBORHOOD EXTENDS SOUTHWARD-THE KNICKER- BOCKERS AND WESTBROOK FAMILY-THE DILLES AND WARRINERS- EASTERN SETTLEMENT GROWS-EDUCATION AND RELIGION-THE MCCARTYS AND WEST POINT-LEWIS WARRINGER AND FAMILY-WEST POINT ABANDONED-GRAYTOWN ALSO A FAILURE-COMMENCEMENT OF THE "RESORT" BUSINESS-YOUNG AMERICA IS LAUNCHED-OTHER IMPROVEMENTS-RICHARD FANCHER AND THE FAIR GROUNDS.
The original Center Township of 1837 comprised what are now sub- stantially the township by that name, as well as Winfield, Hanover, Ross and St. John. Winfield Township was its first territory to be taken away, in 1843; St. John and Ross were slieed off from its northern area in 1848, and the county commissioners made a separate township of Hanover in 1853. Thus Center Township was reduced to its present area and form. As a whole, it may be said to lie a little southeast of the center of the county, and Crown Point, the county seat and the only settlement in the township, is a trifle east of the center.
VARIED AND BEAUTIFUL
Its varied physical features make it a very beautiful region. At its southwestern corner is Red Cedar Lake, whose bright waters and green shores also grace the southeast borders of Hanover Township. Besides these headwaters of Cedar Creek, the head streams of Deep River flow from a point northwest of Crown Point, while southeast and south of the county seat, and nearly in the center of the township, are tracts of charming woodlands and groves; of the latter, School Grove is one of the most noted in county history. As it was located on school section 16, the early settlers could not file claims upon it, and thus it was kept out of the market considerably longer than Southeast Grove, in Winfield Township.
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This was a source of some aggravation to the pioneers, as School Grove contains fine springs and wooded heights, although much of the land is broken and marshy. Further south and southwest are the beautiful prairies, which extend to the groves and marshes of the Kankakee region. The gem of them all, Lake Prairie, extends up into the southwestern sections of Center Township.
FIRST SETTLEMENTS
The first settlements of the township cluster around what is now Crown Point and the eastern shores of the Lake of the Red Cedars; as they are among the first in the entire county, the leading characters in the founding of the county seat have already been described. So "Solon Robinson's place" is passed over for the time being in favor of the sturdy men and women who first peopled what has been called East Cedar Lake.
THE WARRINERS
We have already mentioned Lewis Warriner, who settled on the south- east side of the lake in 1837 and was for years one of the leading citizens in his section of the state. He was a man of broad and fine literary dis- crimination, wrote much and well, like Solon Robinson and Judge Hervey Ball, and at his death in 1869 left local records which have since been utilized by various members of his family. His descendants inherited his tastes and inclinations in these regards, and E. B. Warriner, one of his sons, has contributed much of interest relating to the pioneers who located on the eastern shores of Red Cedar Lake. The following facts are collated from one of his papers.
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