USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume I > Part 19
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The descendants of Peter Orte, the third of the earliest pioneers of St. John Township, have disappeared, but two grandsons of Matthias Reeder remained in the old neighborhood and one of them became a citizen of Crown Point. John Hack himself, the pioneer of them all, died at Crown Point in 1855, sixty-nine years of age. From the testimony of those who best knew him in the flesh and the spirit, he was a strong, dignified man, sound of morals, clear of intellect and warm of heart.
ST. JOHN, THE VILLAGE
The village known as St. John has really existed since the establish- ment of the postoffice by that name in 1846. Its church is still the center . of one of the largest Catholic communities in the county. From a busi- ness standpoint it is favorably situated in the midst of a rich dairy dis- triet, is the site of a large creamery and ships milk and butter in quite large quantities over the Monon route. St. John has several large general stores and claims a population of about two hundred and fifty.
FRANCIS P. KEILMANN
The oldest business men of St. John are Francis P. Keilmann and George F. Gerlach, the latter being the author of the interesting paper on "Catholicism in Lake County," from which has been extracted the incident regarding John IIack and the burial of Henry Sasse's wife.
Mr. Keilmann is of that large Hesse-Darmstadt family, the members of which have done so much to found both Dyer and St. John. His father, Henry Keilmann, was also a native of that German province, and brought the family to Portage County, Ohio, in 1840, four years after- ward settling on a farm in St. John Township. Francis P., the fourth son and fifth of seven children, was in his thirteenth year when the family homestead was thus fixed near St. John. After receiving a busi- ness training in Chicago for a number of years, he returned to his old home and formed a partnership with his brother Henry, who had already
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started business at St. John. The firm of Henry & F. P. Keilmann con- tinued until 1865, when the latter became sole proprietor. At that time George F. Gerlach was a elerk in the store and in 1867 Mr. Keilmann received him into partnership. That connection continued until 1885, sinee which the two have been in business at St. John as its leading merchants.
DYER AND A. N. HART
The village of Dyer, about four miles to the northwest of St. John, on the Monon line, is just east of the Illinois boundary. At an early day a settlement was made on Thorn Creek, and in 1838 the State Line House was built. In the middle '50s, when the Joliet Cut Off was being put through Cady's marsh, there were two taverns for travelers at that locality, as well as a few residences. The event which brought growth to Dyer and developed the adjacent country into fertile and productive land, capable of raising large crops of grain and vegetables and of sus- taining fine herds of eattle and dairy animals, was the coming from Philadelphia of Aaron N. Hart, a publisher who had collected some capital in eastern and western book ventures, and about 1857 decided to invest it at and around Dyer.
In the year mentioned Mr. Hart was traveling through Indiana and Illinois in the interest of his publications when he saw the immense Cady's marsh, then covered by water, and the large pond known as Lake George between what are now Schererville, Hartsdale and Dyer. Realizing the personal and neighborhood advantages to be gained by draining these submerged bottom lands, he at onee proceeded to buy up several thou- sand acres of despised "swamp lands" at prices ranging from 75 cents to $1.25 a acre. He then commeneed and executed a thorough system of drainage of Lake George and other lands under water which he had purchased, and within a few years the widely known Hart Diteh had been dug to the Little Calumet and had redeemed to fine productive- ness fifteen or twenty thousand aeres of land, as well as established a prosperous community.
Mr. Hart moved his family to Dyer in 1861, but afterward engaged in the real estate business in Chicago, leaving the immediate management of his immense landed interests east of Dyer to be managed by others. The later years of his life were again devoted to the improvement of what had long been known as the Hartsdale farm of 8,000 aeres. At the time of his accidental death, January 12, 1883, it is said that he owned 17,000 acres in the county, most of which was in St. John Township. His widow and children realized a fortune from his investments therein.
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MR. HART'S DEATH
In view of Mr. Hart's great prominence as the founder of Dyer and a leading promoter of the county's, agricultural interests, the circum- stances of his death, which caused widespread notice, are here given as narrated by the local press: "Friday morning about 11:30 o'clock, Mr. Hart was superintending the construction of a ditch cutting off a large bend in Plum Creek, which flows through his farm at Dyer. The ditch had already been cut through and a current was flowing. The bottom of the ditch was about two feet wide and the banks some ten or twelve feet high. A man was working just ahead of him, cutting off clods and frozen earth, while Mr. Hart was standing at the bottom of the ditch, pulling the loosened clods down into the ditch that they might float off. Suddenly, without warning, the left-hand bank caved, the sharp, frozen edge of the falling bank striking him in the region of the heart. Death was instantaneous. He was thrown against the opposite bank and buried to the waist.
"The man nearest him states that Mr. Hart did not utter a word, but simply threw up one hand; whether it was an involuntary motion or a gesture, he cannot tell. It required the exertions of ten men to extricate the body, which was at once taken to the residence of the family near by. It is supposed that the bank had become loosened by the blasting which had previously been done to open the ditch, and that it was ready to fall at the slightest touch." Funeral services were held at the Hart residence in Dyer and also at Crown Point, where the remains were interred.
GEORGE F. DAVIS, RAISER OF FINE LIVE STOCK
The Davis families, who settled later than the Harts, also added much to the business life of Dyer; there were three brothers, George F. Davis becoming one of the large stockraisers of the county. The latter accom- plished as much as any citizen of the county to improve its live stock and give it a high standing in the general markets. He became especially well known as a raiser of improved breeds of hogs, making a specialty of the famous Victoria swine. IIe also bred Cotswold sheep, shorthorn cattle, and fancy land and water fowls. At the World's Columbian Exposition, in 1893, Mr. Davis took twenty-six premiums on his Victoria swine and seven on his fat stock, as well as others on sheep, pigeons and poultry. All of which redounded to the general standing of Dyer.
DYER OF TODAY
Dyer has had a flour mill for many years, but its creamery, which commenced business in 1893, is its leading industry. It is quite a busy
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DUROC HOGS
SPECIMEN INDIANA CATTLE
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shipping point for the dairy products of an extensive district, as it has good railway connections through the Monon, the Joliet Cut Off, the Michigan Central and the Elgin Belt Line. The village, which numbers perhaps four hundred people, has a large brick schoolhouse, built in 1898, and two churches, Catholic and Protestant. The Catholic house of wor- ship, Church of St. Joseph, was erected in 1867.
HARTSDALE
Hartsdale is a station on the Hart estate, at the crossing of the Joliet Cut Off, or Michigan Central, and the Pennsylvania Road. At the death of A. N. Hart in 1883 much of his real estate in St. John Township passed to his son, Malcolm T., who died at his home in Crown Point in November, 1898. The widow assumed his large interests at Hartsdale, although she also continued to reside at the county seat.
NICHOLS SCHERER AND SCHERERVILLE
Schererville, three and a half miles east of Dyer, takes its name from Nichols Scherer, a native Prussian, who came to the town of St. John in 1846. He was then a youth of sixteen and accompanied his parents.
Mr. Scherer began working as a swamp-land ditcher in the employ of the state, and was afterward appointed land commissioner, which posi- tion he held until he became connected with railroad interests. For about nine years he conducted a hotel at Dyer, when he engaged in the construction of the Chicago & Great Eastern (the Panhandle), superin- tending the building of the section from Richmond, Indiana, to Chicago. He was connected with that road when he located on his land, which covered the site of the present Schererville. In 1865 he laid out the town and gave it his family name. Besides being officially connected with the construction department of the Panhandle, he also built sections of the Michigan Central, Eastern Illinois and the Joliet Cut Off, now a part of the Michigan Central system. At the same time he was engaged in the shipping of sand from Schererville, dealt in real estate in the common acceptance of the term, and was a successful farmer. In fact, it is impos- sible to conceive of the village without the well-directed industries which were so long founded and fostered by Mr. Scherer.
Nichols Scherer platted his village as a station on the just-completed Panhandle road. It now has a population of some two hundred and fifty ; has two or three stores, a two-story brick schoolhouse and a large Roman Catholic church, St. Michael, founded in 1874.
CHAPTER XVI
WEST CREEK AND WINFIELD TOWNSHIPS
GENERAL FEATURES-FIRST SETTLERS OF WEST CREEK TOWNSHIP- -JOSEPH JACKSON AND THE FIRST STORE-FIRST SCHOOL-THE HAY- DENS AND HATHAWAYS-PIONEER CHURCH-NORTHEASTERN SETTLE- MENTS-THE BELSHAWS-ELDER MORRISON UNMATED-PIONEER SCHOOLHOUSES-EARLY TIMES IN WEST CREEK TOWNSHIP-RECLAIM- ING THE SWAMP LANDS-WINFIELD TOWNSHIP-LEROY AND PALMER- DENNIS PALMER.
West Creek Township derives its name from the westernmost of the three large streams which flow from the central portions of the county southward into the Kankakee River. West Creek constitutes the main drainage basin for both the township by that name and Hanover Town- ship to the north. Its upper waters rise near the town of St. John, in the southern portion of the township by that name, while its lower courses are sometimes almost lost in the marshes of the Kankakee region.
GENERAL FEATURES
When the settlers first eame to West Creek Township there was con- siderable timber along that stream and south of the State Road, but its area was substantially prairie land, the far-famed Lake Prairie extend- ing to the borders of the Kankakee region. These beautiful and fertile prairie lands drew the first settlers to this portion of the county.
West Creek Township was one of the three civil and territorial divisions into which the county commissioners divided the original South Township, on the 9th of May, 1839. Its boundaries have remained the same as when the township was ereated, and its growth has been slow compared with that of more northern distriets; as to population, it has even retrograded within the past quarter of a century. With the drain- ing of the Kankakee lands since the early 'S0s and the building of the Illinois, Indiana & Iowa (Three I) through that fertile seetion, agricul- tural conditions have greatly improved. It has beeome an especially promising live stock country, and has always borne a fair reputation in Vol. 1 -13
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that regard. As an illustration, the horses raised by Nehemiah Hayden and his sons, who were among the first settlers of the township, have obtained a wide reputation.
FIRST SETTLERS OF WEST CREEK TOWNSHIP
The first settler in West Creek Township was Robert Wilkinson, whe was a Southern man and settled on Lake Prairie in the northwestern part of the township. In the following year Charles Marvin arrived in that locality from Connecticut. In the '70s Mr. Wilkinson moved to Missouri, where he died, and Mr. Marvin occupied his former home- stead, which he materially improved, for many years afterward. Both of these pioneers had families, various members of which added to the valued manhood and womanhood of the township and county. Several of the Wilkinsons became residents of Lowell.
The Wilkinsons and Marvins were soon followed by such settlers in the central and southern sections of the township as Derastus and Henry Torrey, Chancelor Graves, John Kitchel, Heman M. Spalding, Joseph Jackson, John Michael and William Farley. Most of them came in 1836, as did G. L. Foster and Reuben Chapman.
Of the foregoing, Henry Torrey soon moved to Lockport. Derastus, commonly called Major Torrey, went to Kansas about 1850 and died in that state. Chancelor Graves and William Farley died in the fall of 1838, the first deaths in the township. Mr. Kitchel resided in the town- ship but a few years, and Mr. Spalding died many years ago, his wife and family continuing to reside long afterward in the county, with the exception of the youngest son, who became a practicing physician in Chicago. John Michael moved to Michigan, after a residence of over twenty years in the township, two of his sons continuing to live near the old homestead. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson passed their last years at Wapello, Iowa.
JOSEPH JACKSON AND THE FIRST STORE
The Joseph Jackson briefly mentioned was a New Englander, who had moved into Michigan before he cast his lot with Lake County. He was the first to locate in the southwestern part of the county in what became known as the West Creek neighborhood. Mr. Jackson located his claim in the spring of 1837, in the summer he came with his son, Clinton Jack- son, and his son's family, and in October of that year moved his own family from Monroe County, Michigan, to the new location. They came with teams and were nearly three weeks on the way. They started on
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a warm, bright October afternoon, with the family, household goods and a small stock of dry goods and groceries. On the way the homesteaders ran into a snowstorm, and when they arrived at West Creek found the ground well covered with the harbinger of winter. But the Jackson cabin was ready, and without much ado the little stock of general goods, which represented the first business house in that part of the county, was thrown open to neighborhood inspection.
Benjamin Farley, with his five sons and two daughters, soon became near neighbors to the Jacksons, and his name has been worthily per- petuated in the lives of those who followed him. He was a New Yorker and well along in middle age when he came to the West Creek neigh- borhood.
FIRST SCHOOL
By the year 1838 the locality had become so well settled that a little log schoolhouse was built, and Ursula Ann Jackson, one of the daughters of Joseph Jackson, commenced to teach the first school in what is now West Creek Township.
After several years of farm life, the Jackson family moved to Crown Point, erected buildings and conducted hotels, and the father served for one term as the first auditor of the county. After a residence in the county of nearly twenty years as an active and very substantial citizen, Joseph Jackson moved to Iowa in the spring of 1857. He was mayor of the City of Wapello for two terms, and lived in that place until his death at the age of nearly ninety-five.
THE HAYDENS AND HATHAWAYS
Nehemiah Hayden, who located on West Creek in 1837, was the father of nine sons and five daughters, and no family in the southwestern part of the county has contributed more to its agricultural advancement than the Haydens. Several of the brothers in their later years retired to enjoy town life in Lowell; they have owned and improved fine estates, shared in the public and social matters of the township, and, with their families, have contributed to the useful citizenship of rural and village life.
About a year after the Haydens located in the West Creek neigh- borhood, Peter Hathaway, a native of New Jersey, joined the colony. He and his family came direct from New York, and his dozen sons and daughters, with their descendants, have been useful members of many communities and stanch workers in church and Sunday school. Heman M. Spalding settled in the Hathaway and Hayden neighborhood.
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By Courtesy of Frank F. Heighway. County Superintendent of Schools.
SCHNEIDER CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL, WEST CREEK TOWNSHIP
By Courtesy of Frank F. Heighway, County Superintendent of Schools.
SHERIDAN CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL, WEST CREEK TOWNSHIP
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The first bridge over West Creek was built by N. Hayden at a cost of $400. It was thrown across that stream soon after he located in 1837, at a point west of the present Lake Prairie Church, and was called Torrey bridge, as Henry Torrey, a neighbor and settler of the same year, lived near it.
PIONEER CHURCHI
Within six or seven years of the first settlements the West Creek neighborhood became a prosperous portion of the county and quite a religious center. There, in fact, were erected some of the pioneer houses of worship in Lake County.
Methodist services were held as early as 1840 in private houses, but the first church structure, a frame building, was erected in 1844, a little north of the State Road and east of the creek. That church stood until 1869, when it was replaced by the present building. Among the original members of the society were John Kitchel and wife, Silas Hathaway and wife, Peter Hathaway and wife, Mrs. Nehemiah Hayden and Mrs. II. M. Spalding.
NORTHEASTERN SETTLEMENTS
The settlement of the Creston community in the northeastern part of West Creek Township and the northwestern part of Cedar Creek by the Taylors, Edgertons. Palmers and other off-shoots of the old East Cedar Lake colony, has already been described as a lead- ing event of the early '50s; also the formation of the New Hampshire settlement by the Ames. Gerrish, Little, Peach, Plumer, Morey and Wason families, all representing western emigrants from the Granite State, who were among the founders of Lowell. Around the Monon station of Creston is clustered the only considerable settlement in the township, although late maps show Lineville and Schneider on the line of the Illinois, Indiana & Iowa Railroad, in the southern part of the township, and Belshaw. in the eastern part, with Hayden further north.
THE BELSHAWS
Belshaw station last named recalls the prominent families, various members of which have resided in the township and aided its progress since 1842, when George Belshaw, the pioneer, settled on the southern extremity of Lake Prairie, near Pine Grove. The family, with the excep- tion of two of the sons, went to Oregon in 1853. William and Henry, the
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sons mentioned, died in the township and left numerous children to per- petuate the family name.
ELDER MORRISON UNMATED
Reference has been made to the Methodist Church of West Creek, the first religious body to organize in the township. There is a story told of Elder Morrison, a minister from Yellowhead, who sometimes preached to the little gathering composed chiefly of the Hathaways, the Haydens and the Spaldings. The Elder was earnest and able, though uneducated and somewhat eccentric. IIe was also needy, but honest and devoid of self- consciousness. He had been in his new missionary field for a time and, like most of his listeners, had worn out the clothing he brought from the East. One Sabbath he appeared with one boot and one shoe, but as all the men in the congregation were barefooted and the women wore head- gear of home manufacture, he made neither apology nor explanation. Such trifles did not disturb or detain this class of Methodists, and they enjoyed the sermon as much as if clad in broadeloth and velvet and as if the Elder were shod with mates.
The second church in the township was built by the German Metho- dists in 1855, and was situated in the northern part. In 1857 Lake Prairie Presbyterian church was organized by the people of the New Hampshire settlement, with Rev. H. Wason as pastor. Their church was not built until several years later. In 1895 a Christian church was erected near the Sanders burial ground, on the southwest quarter of section 28, on the line of the Three I.
PIONEER SCHOOLHOUSES
The first schoolhouse in West Creek Township was built of logs in 1838, near the Torrey bridge, being erected by the people of the neigh- borhood. That was the school taught by Miss Jackson for $1 per week and "board 'round." The log cabin fulfilled its mission for ten years, when the second schoolhouse was built in Clark Grove, northwest of the present West Creek building.
EARLY TIMES IN WEST CREEK TOWNSHIP
One of the pioneer women of West Creek writes: "For the first few years the settlers had to go forty miles to Wilmington to mill, and to Chicago, which was but a village, to do their trading; and they had very little to trade with when they got there. What they raised brought very
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low prices-wheat at 50 cents and less a bushel, and everything else in proportion, after hauling it there in wagons drawn by oxen, through almost impassable swamps, often carrying their loads, bag by bag, on their backs through places where the team could not draw it.
"But their wants were comparatively few, and they were strong- hearted and brave. The neighbors, though far apart, were kind and true, and never failed to lend a helping hand in times of sickness and need, and those times often came in those days of exposure and hardship. Many were sick. In my own home at one time, father and mother lay sick in one bed with fever, and the oldest child only six years old ; but the neighbors cared for them faithfully and tenderly ; and so it was in every case. These pioneers fully understood what was meant by My Neighbor."
When the early settlers came, a strip of land four or five miles in width, which extended across the township north of Kankakee River, was all swamp. There were no roads across this dreary waste, and it could be crossed only in very dry weather or in the winter when the ground was frozen. That was the hunting and trapping region and the great . source of wood supply for the prairie farmers, who hauled the timber and fuel from the islands and groves of the Calumet region when the ground was frozen.
RECLAIMING THE SWAMP LANDS
About 1868 a road was built running from east to west on a ridge just north of the river, and about ten years later another highway was con- structed, running north and south and connecting the former with the road on higher land. Now there are many good roads crossing the Calu- met region in West Creek Township, as well as the railroad, which lines it east and west about a mile and a half north of the Kankakee River. With the thorough draining of the bottom lands, also, the former dreary waste has been transformed into a most pleasing and productive country of corn and sleek live stock.
WINFIELD TOWNSHIP
Winfield Township comprises twenty-five sections on the eastern bor- der of the county, southeast of its center. Its area was included in old Center, one of the original three townships into which the county was divided at the first meeting of the commissioners held in April, 1837. Winfield was set off in 1843, but then included the four eastern tiers of sections of what is now Ross Township, and was not reduced to sub- stantially its present area until the creation of the latter in 1848. It subsequently donated three sections to Eagle Creek Township.
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Every part of it is well watered by the head streams of Eagle Creek and Deep River, and the country is finely adapted to the raising of grain and the forage plants; consequently all the live stock industries thrive.
By Courtesy of Frank F. Heighway, County Superintendent of Schools.
LEROY SCHOOL
It is a good dairy country and the small fruits are readily cultivated and produced.
LEROY AND PALMER
Leroy and Palmer are brisk shipping points within the township and they are both creations of the railroad-that is, backed by strong men as founders.
DENNIS PALMER
The Palmer family came from Ohio in 1854 and located in the north- western part of the present township. The head of that family, Dennis Palmer, was even then well advanced in years, his only son of the same
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name being a sturdy young man of twenty-five. It was, therefore, Dennis Palmer, the younger, who was to prominently record himself as a maker of local history. After residing six years near the original family settle- ment at what is now Winfield, Mr. Palmer bought land in section 16, near the Porter County line. He commenced to raise grain and live stock and in 1882, when the Chicago & Atlantic (Erie) Railroad was built through the county, he platted a town on his land, which was promptly adopted as a station by the railway named. Its founder and sponsor engaged with renewed activity in farming, stockraising, shipping and merchandise, and the settlement around Palmer station grew apace.
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