USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume I > Part 17
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 contests between the different literary societies of the county have covered many years and have been held at various points. For instance, during its earlier and perhaps most vigorous years, the Southeast Grove Society has responded eagerly to challenges and upheld its "side of the question" with credit, at Crown Point, Cedar Lake, Hobart and other places in the southern and central parts of the county. Such activities are of the greatest benefit to the residents of rural communities, and no section of Lake County has developed them more persistently and to better advantage than the citizens of Eagle Creek Township.
THE TURNERS, DINWIDDIES AND PEARCES
Among the most prominent of the pioneers of Eagle Township were the Turners, the Dinwiddies and the Pearces. In the general history of the county's settlement the location of Judge Samuel Turner and his family on the banks of Eagle Creek, with a mention of the noteworthy services rendered by various members, is described in other pages of this work.
John W. Dinwiddie, of the Dinwiddie Clan, was the Eagle Creek representative. He was born in Ohio and was brought to Porter County, with other members of his father's family, at an early day. He lived with his father and sister at Indiantown until he was a young man, moving to Plum Grove in the late '30s and obtaining in that locality quite a large traet of land. Mr. Dinwiddie spent a few years of business life at Crown Point, but as the pioneer days faded and the railroad period of more strenuous life commenced. he retired to his Plum Grove farm, which he conducted on an extensive scale for a number of years His prairie and marsh lands covered 3,500 acres, and his comfortable home was the center of much of the best social, literary and public activi. ties of the township. For some time he held the office of township trustee and built three large frame schoolhouses. He died April 12, 1861, only
161
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
forty-seven years of age. The deceased was recognized as one of the most energetic, prudent and thorough business men and farmers in the county, an excellent manager, firm in principle and successful in carry- ing out his plans, and was rapidly advancing in the accumulation of property when sickness and death came unexpectedly upon him.
Michael Pearce, also an Ohio man, located a claim about 1838, and two years afterward married Miss Margaret J. Dinwiddie, a sister of John W. Dinwiddie. He likewise held public office, serving both as school trustee and justice of the peace, and, like his brother-in-law, died in 1861. The death of two such men in one year was a severe blow to the little community at Plum Grove.
Vol. I -II
CHAPTER XI
HANOVER TOWNSHIP
ADVANCE GERMAN COLONISTS-HENRY SASSE, SR .- HENRY VON HOLLEN -LEWIS HERLITZ-HERMAN DOESCHER-H. KLASS AND KLASSVILLE- JOHN H. MEYER, FATHER AND SON-FOUNDER OF HANOVER CENTER AND BRUNSWICK-GERMAN LUTHERANS, METHODISTS AND EVANGELI- CALS-OTHER CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS.
Hanover Township is part of the original Center Township, which also included the territory comprising the present Center, Winfield, St. John and Ross. The steps by which it acquired its present form and area were the detachment of Winfield in 1843, the creation of St. John and Ross in 1848, and the separation of Hanover from what was left of Center, in 1853.
ADVANCE GERMAN COLONISTS
Although the first settlers of what is now Hanover Township, on the west shores of Red Cedar Lake, were of New England origin, the second and the larger colony was composed of sturdy Germans who stamped their nationality on the township itself. The location of the stalwart Ball family on the Lake of the Red Cedars during the year 1837, with the founding of the famous Cedar Lake Baptist Church, has been de- scribed at some length, and account has also been taken of the Sasse, Von Hollen and Herlitz families in the following year. As the advance of those fine German emigrants who formed the strongest ele- ment in the pioneer life of the western part of the county, and whose good influence is still potent in the lives and works of their descendants, it is no more than historic justice to pause at this point and give them their dues more in detail.
HENRY SASSE, SR.
Henry Sasse, Sr., the pioneer of the German Lutherans, came from Michigan in 1838, with his wife and son, the latter then six years of age.
162
163
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
At that time he had been in America but four years, having emigrated from his native province of Hanover in 1834. The father of the little family bought the claims of Aaron Cox and Josiah Chase on the north- west of Cedar Lake. Mr. Sasse came with means and also accumulated property. He was a man of much native ability and strong influence, although never prone to assume public duties. Circumstances led him to visit his old home in the Fatherland three times after settling in Hanover Township; so that he was well-traveled and well-informed.
Mr. Sasse's first wife died June 10, 1840, leaving two sons. The younger, William E., born near Ann Arbor, Michigan, November 20, 1836, died in Hanover Township June 2, 1870. The father married again in 1841, his second wife being a widow with eight children. She died in 1866 and none of her children are living. Henry Sasse, Sr., married a third time in 1870, and by her he had Herman E. Sasse, now a prominent business man of Crown Point. Henry Sasse, Jr., the son by the first wife, was long a leading farmer and a successful teacher, later a dealer in agricultural implements. He died leaving one married daughter, Mrs. Henry Gromann, who, in turn, has one son, one daughter and one grand- daughter. From this record of the Sasse family, it is evident that the descendants of sturdy Henry Sasse, Sr., are not numerous. So far as known, they all reside at Crown Point.
HENRY VON HOLLEN
Henry Von Hollen was another of those intelligent, energetic Ger- man Lutherans who came to the lake neighborhood in 1838. He was a fine looking man, tall and strong, and gave the world the full benefit of his proportions, as he had received a military training in the cavalry service of the Fatherland. But although Von Hollen was of such fine military bearing and poor, he was not above hard work and ceaseless industry. He at once purchased some wild, cheap land on which had already been found a cranberry marsh, and this investment, with the good honest work which he put upon the property, made him in a few years a well-to-do citizen. When he died he left his wife in possession of ample means, and at her death she ranked as one of the wealthy women of Lake County. Mrs. Von Hollen lived for sixty-five years on the homestead which she founded, with her husband, in 1838, but of their small household no descendant is left.
LEWIS HERLITZ
Lewis Herlitz was the third of that little band of Protestant Ger- mans who came to what is now Hanover Township in 1838. He bought
164
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
the claim made by Hiram Nordyke, of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, two years before, which was located north of Red Cedar Lake. His wife and Mrs. II. Sasse were sisters. Mr. Herlitz built a good house on the claim which he had bought and secured his title from the Government when it came regularly into the market in 1839. In a few years Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Herlitz had a pleasant and comfortable home, and their large circle of sons and daughters, who completed an intelligent and
By Courtesy of Frank F. Heighway. County Superintendent of Schools.
LINCOLN CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL
courteous household, had cause to "rise up and call them blessed." The father died in 1869, but children and grandchildren are honored in the old home neighborhood and at Crown Point.
HERMAN DOESCHER
Herman Doescher was another of the best known of the early Ger- man settlers. He came somewhat later than the three families mentioned. in 1842 settling in the western part of Hanover Township with one
165
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
son and several daughters. He died in December, 1886, having lived in the county forty-four years, leaving six children, thirty-seven grand- children and twenty-one great-grandchildren.
But whether these pioneer German settlers, who so long lived in Han- over Township, left many or few descendants. a strong and good influ- ence remained after they had passed away; and that, after all, is the true test of a worthy life.
II. KLASS AND KLASSVILLE
Another German pioneer, who, in 1850, settled in the extreme south- western part of the township was II. Klass. There, on the eastern edge of the Grand Prairie of Illinois which stretches across that state to the Mississippi River this solitary German planted himself and his family. After a few years other families joined him and his, school and church life commenced and the locality became Klassville, now recognized as a pretty, industrions rural community. It is about half a mile from the state line and some twelve miles southwest of Crown Point, and, like all the other neighborhoods west of the two eastern tiers of sections in the township, is quite bereft of railroad transportation. It is such little villages as these which most appreciate all movements, whether private, township or county, which tend to improve the roads.
JOHN II. MEYER, FATHER AND SON
The Meyers and the Beckmans came a little later than Mr. Klass. John H. Meyer was a native of Hanover, Germany, where he was married and where all his children were born. In 1851 he and his family sailed from Bremen and forty-two days later arrived in New York. The par- ents and one of their children went to Savannah. Georgia, for the winter, but the other three remained in New York. In the spring of 1852 the parents started for the West with the intention of locating at Fort Wayne, Indiana, but on the death of a brother, who had taken up land near Cedar Lake, they came to Lake County and purchased 200 acres of land near the western extremity of that body of water. The father and nineteen-year-old son built a log cabin on a bank of the lake, high and dry, and commenced the hard, healthful life of the pioneer. The family was absorbed by the growing community of German Luth- erans, and in time both father and son (also John H. Meyer) became prosperous and prominent. The younger man, who married Miss Chris- tena Doescher, became the father of twelve children, most of whom, as men and women, moved out of Hanover Township. His wife was also
166
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
born in the German Hanover, so that the name was endeared to many members of the family through numerous associations.
When the younger Mr. and Mrs. John H. Meyer were married in 1861 they began life as renters on section 19, just west of the central part of the township, and for six years they farmed on their rented land. The first land purchased was in section 31, east of the Klass property. Mr. Meyer went into debt for a portion of his purchase, but soon freed his property of the encumbrance, bought other land and in his later years was the owner of more than three hundred acres in Hanover Township, an excellent residence and farm buildings, with even a larger farm in Missouri. And what contributed more than property accumu- lation to the advancement of the community, Mr. and Mrs. Meyer reared with wisdom a family of six sons and two daughters.
FOUNDER OF HANOVER CENTER AND BRUNSWICK
Herman C. Beckman, an uncle of Mr. Meyer, was the most prominent of the early merchants of Hanover Township, and was mainly instru- mental in founding Hanover Center and Brunswick. He came to Amer- ica from Hanover in 1846, was married in 1852 and in 1855 opened a large store at the little settlement just southeast of the center of the township, at the corners of sections 20, 21, 28 and 29. This soon be- came known as Hanover Center, and the community still shows a store, a large church, a good schoolhouse, dwellings and the usual buildings of rural settlement.
Brunswick, two miles west of Hanover Center, was founded when Mr. Beckman transferred his general store and his other business in- terests to the point first mentioned. This was in 1858. For many years he carried on at that point a large general business, dealing especially in butter and eggs. For twenty-nine years he was postmaster at Brunswick, served as county commissioner, and was altogether an able, prosperous, upright, kindly and highly honored citizen. At Mr. Beck- man's death in Brunswick during 1894 his son, John N. Beckman, continued the paternal career with interest, especially developing their joint raising and improvement of Jersey cattle. Brunswick is more indebted to the Beckmans for its growth and good standing than to any other personal influence.
GERMAN LUTHERANS, METHODISTS AND EVANGELICALS
As stated, the German Lutherans established themselves at an early day in various parts of Hanover Township. In 1857 they effected
167
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
an organization under Rev. Peter Lehman, known as Zion's Church, and built a church on the west side of West Creek near the Illinois state line. Twenty-six members formed the original body. At first a parochial school was attached to the church, but with the growth of the township and county systems it was discontinued.
The German Methodists who had settled on the western part of Lake Prairie and the West Creek Woodlands also formed a church organization in the '50s and at a somewhat later day the German Evangelicals commenced missionary work west of Cedar Lake. A church was organized under the pastorate of Rev. G. Vetter and a small house of worship erected. Although the society existed for many years it never attained much strength.
OTHER CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS
In the immediate lake district the Baptist Church was the strongest among the English speaking settlers, whose religious faith was also satis- fied through the preaching and ministrations of various Methodist mis- sionaries of the Lowell Circuit.
At a somewhat later period than the foregoing religionists came the Roman Catholics, who had long been established in St. John Township to the north. In 1861 they organized St. Anthony's Church at Klass- ville, and in 1869 St. Martin's, at Hanover Center. As is customary, intellectual and religious training went hand-in-hand with those bodies, and as the German Lutherans also conducted schools for a number of years the children of the early settlers of Hanover Township were reared into intelligent and moral citizens.
CHAPTER XII HOBART TOWNSHIP
INDUSTRIAL CENTER FORCED WESTWARD-FIRST TOWNSHIP PIONEERS- LIVERPOOL, THE FIRST TOWN-HOBART IN THE ROUGH-LAKE STATION AS A GOOD SHIPPING POINT-MILLER'S STATION-NEW CHICAGO.
Hobart Township was the first to be formed from old North, but although this occurred in 1849 it did not substantially reach its present area until 1883. Its original boundaries were slightly changed by the county commissioners on December 6, 1853, but until thirty years later its territory was virtually confined to what would now be the south line of the incorporated Town of Hobart and the Little Calumet River. On March 9, 1883, its territory was again changed, sections 1 and 2, town- ship 35, being given to it from Ross Township and its western boundary, running on the west line of section 2, was extended to Lake Michigan, its eastern boundary following the county line to the lake also. It was thus made five miles in width and eight miles from north to south. The four northern sections of its western tier were afterward detached from Hobart Township to accommodate the City of Gary, which sprung from the sand dunes in 1906.
INDUSTRIAL CENTER FORCED WESTWARD
Like all the townships formed out of old North, Hobart is netted with railroads. It also embraces the eastern portion of the famous Calu- met Region, and the mouth of the Grand Calumet River is midway on the coast line of Lake Michigan. As long ago as seventy-five years, the commercial prophets of the county anticipated the creation of a great center of water transportation, trade and industry at that point-a rival of Michigan City and Chicago. The early result was the Indiana City of 1836. That proved to be but a paper town, but the wise men of commerce still kept their eyes on the old mouth of the Grand Calumet. Result of the comparatively recent day : Calumet City. But fate, com- parative distance from Chicago and the works of man, in the shape of great artificial waterways, forced that center westward.
168
169
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
The Little Calumet River crosses the entire width of Hobart Town- ship a short distance north of its central sections, and its southern por- tions are well watered by the principal branch of that stream, Deep River, with its tributary, Turkey Creek.
FIRST TOWNSHIP PIONEERS
It was at and near the point where Turkey Creek joins Deep River, in the southern part of Hobart Township, that some of the earliest set-
By Courtesy of Frank F. Heighway, County Superintendent of Schools. HOBART TOWNSHIP CONSOLIDATED HIGH SCHOOL
tlers of the county located. William Ross, the first farmer and home- steader, settled with his family on section 6, on the shores of Deep River, in the summer of 1834. At about the time that the Ross family settled there, William Crooks and Samuel Miller took up a timber and mill site in the same section, and a man by the name of Winchell commenced a mill a little further west near the mouth of Turkey Creek. Winchell did not complete his plant, and the so-called "'Miller's mill" was a very small and crude affair. Of the men mentioned, William B. Crooks only came afterward into some prominence. In 1837, at the civil organiza- tion of the county, he was elected one of the first associate judges, and evidently carried some weight.
170
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
LIVERPOOL, THE FIRST TOWN
About two years after these pioneers located in the southern part of the township, John B. Chapman, John C. Davis and Henry Frederick- son, the two last named from Philadelphia, platted a town site on the southern banks of Deep River near its junction with the Little Calumet. This is said to have been in June, 1836, and not long afterward George Earle, as stated, purchased the town site. We have also seen how the town lots were sold and how this Liverpool posed for a number of months as the county seat, a temporary rival of Crown Point. But it lost the fight in 1840 and never really survived the blow.
HOBART IN THE ROUGH
When Mr. Earle saw that Liverpool was logically and really a back number, he gave his attention to the founding of another town two miles southeast on Deep River. In 1845 he had commenced to build a family residence at that location, began the improvement of the water power and laid the foundation of a saw-mill; in other words, was lay- ing out a town in the rough. The saw-mill was put in operation in 1846, a grist-mill was soon added, and in 1847 the settlement looked so prom- ising that Mr. Earle moved his family thither from the deserted Village of Liverpool. His second town, Hobart, was platted in 1848. For a time its growth was slow, but in 1854 the Pittsburg & Fort Wayne Railroad reached the town site, and from that year it was an assured success as a center of population, trade and commerce. The details of its later growth are reserved for a following chapter.
LAKE STATION, A GOOD SHIPPING POINT
In 1851, about two years after the permanent establishment of Hobart, the Michigan Central Railroad was completed through the Calumet Region. It will be remembered that Hobart was at that time without such advantage, although within five years it had secured railroad con- nection through the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago and the Joliet & Northern Indiana lines. At the building of the Michigan Central in 1851, Lake Station was located on the northeast quarter of section 17, a mile west of the Porter County line and just north of the Little Calumet. It was in the midst of a good grain and live stock district, in the eastern portion of the game and fur-bearing region, and convenient to the rich berry country. For a number of years, especially while the Michigan Southern, the Michigan Central and the Joliet Cut Off had the trans-
171
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
portation field in Northern Lake County, Lake Station was one of the most important shipping points in the county, large quantities of grain, pork, game, cattle, butter, eggs, poultry, hay, sand, and (in season) ice being shipped to Chicago and other western points. But with the coming of the other railroads, chiefly in the '80s, it retrograded in that particu- lar and lost all possibility of becoming a place of substantial growth. A schoolhouse, a general store, two churches and a few houses about con- stitute the settlement of today.
MILLER'S STATION
Miller's Station, about two miles northwest of Lake, is at the crossing of the Michigan Southern and Baltimore & Ohio roads on section 6.
By Courtesy of Frank Heighway, County Superintendent of Schools.
MILLER SCHOOL
It dates from 1874, when the latter railroad was put through the county, and is named after one of the good German citizens who bought land at that locality and was engaged in business there. Nearly twenty years before the Michigan Southern had passed along the lake shore in that part of the township, but fixed no station there. Even after Miller's Station was placed on the map by the Baltimore & Ohio, the ice business was its main industry for years. It is one mile from Long Lake and a mile and a half from Lake Michigan, with large sand hills on the north. It was mainly from the inland lake that large quantities of ice were cut in winter and shipped from Miller's Station in summer, most of the supply going to the Chicago packers. Later, the nearby sand banks
172
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
were utilized and the shipments from that source were considerable. Some twenty years ago the Aetna Powder Works were built on section 12, about a mile and a half southwest of Miller's Station. The plant employs an average force of 500 men, some of whom reside near the works, others in Gary and a few at Miller's Station. Of late years, therefore, Miller's Station has shown some signs of growth. It is con- nected with Hobart, about six miles south, by a substantial gravel road. Its citizens are largely Germans and Swedes, industrious and moral peo- ple, the Lutheran element being noticeably strong.
NEW CHICAGO
There is only one other point in Hobart Township which may be called a center of population; and the editor is fearful that the imagi- nation must work overtime to thus classify New Chicago. It was platted, a number of years ago, on the west half of section 19, south of the Little Calumet and near the center of the township. The site of New Chicago was near the defunct Liverpool. At first it was a town of great indus- trial expectations and promises, which virtually all collapsed.
CHAPTER XIII
NORTH TOWNSHIP
ONLY A GENERAL VIEW -- ANOTHER WEST POINT-JOSEPH HESS AND GIBSON-HESSVILLE AND HAMMOND-MUNSTER, AMERICAN-DUTCH SETTLEMENT -- DUTCH SETTLERS OF 1855-HIGHLAND-WHITING AND THE "STANDARD"-EAST CHICAGO AND INDIANA HARBOR.
The original North Township of 1837 comprised substantially the . present townships of North, Calumet and Hobart. More than half of their combined area in Lake County is included in the Calumet Region, which also extends over into Cook County. The center of population, wealth and power of that wonderful region is North Township, which embraces three great municipal corporations, some of the leading in- dustrial plants in the world, properties valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, and (in its southern sections) some of the most fertile and most thoroughly improved lands in the county.
ONLY A GENERAL VIEW
North Township is in the direet pathway of ten great railroads which traverse its territory, and bind it to the East, Chicago and the Mississippi Valley. All the railroads of the county converge within its bounds, and its centers of population are also brought into close touch through a well planned and executed system of interurban electric lines.
North Township in its entirety is such a large subject that the story of its development in detail has been divided into several chap- ters; the one now in hand does not attempt to give more than a general picture.
Its first diminution of territory was caused by the formation of Hobart Township in 1849, from portions south of the Little Calumet River, but it did not assume its present dimensions and shape until March 9, 1883, when the county commissioners extended Hobart Town- ship to Lake Michigan and created the Township of Calumet.
173
174
LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
ANOTHER WEST POINT
To the foreign-born element must be given the main credit for the . early settlement of North Township, and at least two of the pioneer colonies of the township were planted within the present city limits of Hammond. When the Michigan Central Railroad was being constructed through the county in 1849-50 and reached a point which would now be not far from the western city limits of Hammond, the temporary terminus was called West Point; which should not be confused with the West Point which Benjamin MeCarty had established on the eastern shores of Red Cedar Lake many years previously. Passengers bound for Chicago were carried by stage from West Point to that city, and for some time before the road was completed to its permanent terminus the North Township station was quite a bustling place.
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.