USA > Indiana > Elkhart County > A twentieth century history and biographical record of Elkhart County, Indiana > Part 13
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Middlebury was platted about 1836, by Winslow, Warren and Brown. The townsite was owned by a syndicate who are said to have boomed the place for speculative purposes. . \ plat of the town was taken to New York and many fifty-foot lots were disposed of at a
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hundred dollars apiece. There was a landing on the river, and 110 doubt the original promoters had extensive visions-which they influ- enced others to see also-of a thriving metropolis growing up at this point.
But this matter is only a passing phase of the history of the town, whose permanence was already strongly assured by the substantial character of the first settlers. The first building in the town was that erected by W. T. Hunter, in 1835, located at the north end of the pres- ent main street. Mr. Hunter used this house as an inn, and was the landlord of the community for many years. George Sayer opened a store on the east side of the square shortly after the town was platted, conducting a general store, as did also John C. Case. Cornelius North- rup built a flour and saw mill on the river in 1836; the frame of this building may still be seen, on the east side of town. Charles A. and James S. Dole came later and operated a distillery, also had a store. In 1836 the people of this vicinity paid fifty cents a yard for calico and five dollars a barrel for salt. \ Mr. Hoyage was the first blacksmith; Benjamin G. Evans the first postmaster: Dr. Cornell the first justice of the peace; Daniel C. Bishop was a wagon-maker. The first church was the Methodist, under the direction of Rev. Ira Wood- worth. and they held services from house to house during the first year or so.
On the east side of the public square stands a building of unhewn logs, chinked with clay and mortar, which its owner, Levi Kalb, uses as a barn, but which was one of the early store buildings of Middle- bury. The date of the erection of this building is not definite, Mr. Hixon claiming it to have stood since 1836, and Mr. George Adams, of Bristol, asserting it to have come into being contemporaneous with the log-cabin and hard-cider campaign days. At any rate, it is the oldest building in Middlebury, and has more than ordinary interest for this reason.
The Goshen Express of March, 1837. says: " Middlebury is situ- ated on the road from Goshen to White Pigeon, about equi-distant from each place. It was laid out last fall, and already begins to assume the aspect of a village. It contains two stores, public house, etc. It. too, must become in a short time a town with its paved streets, splendid edifices. business houses, etc."
Middlebury was incorporated as a town in 1868, and the first town board consisted of Thomas Naylor, Thomas Elliott, Christian
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Stutz, W. F. Hani and Watson Hutchinson, the last named being chairman of the board. An agricultural community, the village has not depended for its prosperity upon manufacturing or other industries and cannot be said to have ever suffered any serious reverses. Com- mercial activity has been stimulated and many other advantages secured by the building of the railroad through this point in 1889, while up to that time Vistula had served as the principal shipping connection for this vicinity. Middlebury has about six hundred population.
The first schoolhouse in the village was a little frame structure. called the Red schoolhouse from its color, and was located in the north- west part of town. It was built in the late thirties, and up to that time private schools had furnished the pioneer's children their educational ad- vantages. The present school building, erccted in 1857. is a two-story brick, with four rooms. The principal is Professor Balyeat.
The Methodist church has been the longest established, and has at present about fifty members, with services every Sunday conducted by Rev. Wright. There is a missionary society, and the various other de- partments of church work are maintained. The Lutherans worship in a brick structure, their minister being Rev. Ziegler, and they also have a missionary society. The Mennonites hold services in their own build- ing. and formerly there was a Baptist congregation in the village. Fra- ternally Middlebury is represented by a tent of the Maccabees and by a Knights of Pythias lodge. A G. A. R. post was maintained for a num- ber of years, but is now disbanded. There are some fifteen Grand Army men in the town.
The present town board of Middlebury is as follows: John G. Bockus. Thomas Hutchinson, Henry Beers, L. Ecker and W. O. Eld- ridge, president. Fred S. Hixon is clerk and M. 1. Farver is treasurer. C. W. Elliott is postmaster. Middlebury is a R. F. D. center for three routes. The rural free delivery is a vast improvement over the mail system that was maintained during the days when Isaac Carpenter car- ried the mail for all this part of the country on the route between White Pigeon and Goshen. He was one of the first men to travel that route. away back in pionecr times.
A list of the business, industrial and professional interests of Mid- dlebury, as found in 1905, would contain the following-Farmers' Bank ; $15,000 capital: H. W. Hixon. president, and Fred S. Hixon, vice president. Exchange Bank. Joseph D. Mathers, president. and Harry Cole, vice president. J. Jontz, dry goods ; A. G. Shettle, dry goods and
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general store : Harvey Gohin, dry goods ; Gohn Brothers, clothing : Wise & Barnes, hardware: Kauffman & Kauffman, hardware; Joseph F. Nus- baum, drugs: Oscar Griner, grocery; David Schrock, grocery; George Golin, grocery : Nusbaum & Nusbaum, lumber; Griner & Griner, lumber, coal, etc. Also one tank manufactory, one cement block works, the Middlebury Rolling Mill, a 75-barrel mill, run by water power; three blacksmith shops, one milliner, two hotels, one livery stable, two barber shops, two harness shops, the Haines furniture and undertaking estab- lishment. The medical profession is represented by Drs. Page (homeo- path). Farver. Peters and Hani.
VISTULA.
York township, in the northeastern corner of the county, though settled about as soon as other parts of the county, has never developed and important center, its population of farmers and fruit growers find- ing their markets and other town advantages in Middlebury. Bristol and towns outside the county. Vistula, which is the only center in the township, and which has a population of less than a hundred people. came into existence as the result of the demand by the people of Middle- bury for a near-by station on the Lake Shore Railroad, and for some time the depot and shipping point thus established was known as Middle- bury Station. About 1851 the railroad was built through the north- western corner of the township, and. according to the story, a woodshed was placed alongside the track about half a mile west of where the Vistula depot now stands. The Middlebury people, among whom Carrington Casey was foremost in the promotion of this object. appealed. successfully, to the railroad company to establish a station where the woodshed stood, and as a result a side track and platform afforded the shippers from the south an outlet for their products without the necessity of going to Bristol or Goshen. Thenceforward, until the railroad was built to Middlebury, Vistula was practically the rail- road station for her southern neighbor. About 1854 the depot was moved to its present location, and William Billings took charge as the first station agent in its new location. As Middlebury Station the place continued to be known until a postoffice was granted. when William Caldwell, who held both offices of station agent and post- master, suggested the name of Vistula. The name probably had its origin in the old Vistula highway. The town was laid out in 1865, but has never attained to the dignity of a village.
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W. H. Greiner is postmaster at this writing. J. J. Shellenberger. who came here in 1867 and began merchandising that year, was in business until about twenty years ago, and the family is still repre- sented in the village. There is one general store. kept by B. F. Weed, and W. H. Greiner, the postmaster, has a stock of groceries and drugs. The village blacksmith is J. N. Bratton, and S. F. Raifsnider is a carpenter and contractor and has a repair shop. James L. Berry is justice of the peace. The churches are the Lutheran, with thirty or forty members, with Rev. Ziegler, of Middlebury, as their pastor, and the Christian, with over a hundred members, under the pastoral care of Rev. Hill, of Elkhart. School facilities are supplied by the ordinary district school, with about thirty pupils enrolled. The banking is done at White Pigeon and Middlebury. Mr. M. F. Corpe, a representative of one of the old Elkhart county families, is the station agent.
Among those who have been identified with this immediate vi- cinity for the longest time may be mentioned Edwin H. Corpe, who settled here about 1860: Joseph Leckner, who resided here over fifty- five years. Mrs. Mary Stroup, who now lives in Vistula and is about seventy years old, has been in the village since 1854, at which time there was only one house north of the depot and a little store, which was the extent of Vistula at the limit of her earliest remembrance.
BRISTOL.
Washington township, through which courses the swift and broad St. Joseph river, was one of the first sections of the county to attract settlers. And at the point where the Little Elkhart empties its waters into the larger stream was founded one of the first business centers in the county. Bristol, while one of the oldest towns in the county and taking just pride in its past, is at the same time one of the most pro- gressive and up-to-date of the Elkhart county centers.
In 1829 James Nicholson and his family ended their search for a pioneer home by pre-empting land on the site where Bristol now stands. These first residents were soon joined by Peter Marmen, Aaron Brown. Reuben Bronson and James Cathcart. About 1835 Samuel P. Judson. Lewis M. Alverson and Hiram Doolittle laid out and recorded the original plat of the present town of Bristol. Dr. H. H. Fowler, the first practicing physician, was also the first postmaster. Business, religion and education advanced steadily during the thirties and forties. Alverson and Doolittle were the first merchants, Miss Philossa Wheeler
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taught school in a log cabin, the first regular school house being erected in 1838, and about 1837 the Baptists and Methodists held services in the village. The water power of the St. Joseph at this point was first utilized in 1841. when a dam was constructed and several mills erected. among them a woolen mill.
" Bristol." avers the Goshen Express of March 4, 1837, " as a site for a town is not excelled by any other on the St. Joseph. It is on a beautiful plain, elevated about forty feet above the river. It bids fair to make a town."
Mr. George Adams, whose memory of Bristol and this vicinity extends back further than that of any other man now living, furnishes many interesting items concerning the village as he first knew it in the year of 1848. At that time, says Mr. Adams, the merchants were S. B. Romaine, Owen Coffin, Salmon Fowler, William Probasco, L. P. Knight and Mr. Wheeler. H. H. Fowler, J. R. Congdon and Louis Sovereign were physicians. Horace H. Hull was postmaster, and the old schoolhouse which was then in daily use by the boys and girls is now located on the bank of the river and is used as a blacksmith shop. According to Mr. Adams, there was more business and industrial activity in Bristol at that time than at Elkhart. Wheat was brought from all directions to be ground at the mill just west of town. Mr. Adams' father kept what might be termed a " barn hotel," which was filled night after night. during the season. by farmers with their wheat wagons.
B. F. Cathcart, who came with his father James and whose home was just east of the present schoolhouse in Bristol, was a school teacher during the early days, and also entered about six hundred acres of land in this part of the county. Mr. Cathcart was a resident of Washington township for seventy years, one of the most prominent fruit growers and nurserymen of this section. In 1835, when he was a boy of about seventeen, he took a load of wheat to Constantine. Michigan. and while camping by the roadside one night he witnessed one of the awe-inspir- ing meteoric showers which characterized that year in the minds of the people better than any other occurrence.
Among the old residents of Bristol still living are Henry S. Wright and wife. Mrs. ( Rice) Wright; Isaac L. Alverson; Mrs. Michael (Nicholson) Frank. Among the oldest houses may be mentioned the first house east of the brick schoolhouse, owned by Savilla Cathcart.
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This structure is nearly seventy years old, and there are one or two others of nearly equal age. It will interest any person to know that the oldest daguerreotypist still living in the United States, Marvin Cathcart, a resident of Buchanan, Michigan, and over eighty years old, at one time had an establishment on Main street in Bristol, and no doubt there are examples of his art in numerous homes in this vicinity. He was also leader of the band in this town.
With a population between five and six hundred, excellently sitil- ated in a fine fruit growing country, with the Lake Shore Railroad furnishing adequate shipping facilities, the Bristol of to-day is more prosperous than at any time in its history and has the advantages and resources most needed for a leading residence and commercial center. Its school system is maintained at a high standard. An eight-room, brick building was completed in 1904, at a cost of fifteen thousand dollars. In addition to the regular grades there is a first-class high school, the schools being under the superintendency of J. E. Newell. Of churches there are three-the Episcopal, Rev. Brant, Presbyterian, with services every two weeks, under Rev. Good, and the Methodist. Rev. Turner. Bristol is noted as a lodge town. There is George Washington Lodge No. 325. F. & A. M., and Bristol Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star. Castle Hall No. 368 of the Knights of Pythias has eighty-four members and owns its hall. Then there are the Rathbone Sisters, the Knights of the Maccabees, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows ( Bristol Lodge No. 448), and Woodmen of the World.
Business and industry :- H. B. App, general store and agricultur- al implements. Thomas Hilbish, general store and private bank. W. W. Bickel, hardware. . \. L. Lamport, general store. L. C. Congdon, drugs. Hermance and Dussel, general store. W. M. Sullivan, furniture and undertaking. J. N. AAlbers, lumber, coal, lime, etc. Bristol Milling Company, Mr. Weller proprietor. The Garman Manufacturing Co. makes hayracks, ladders, swings, etc. There are two meat markets. two billiard halls, two saloons, one creamery, two milliners, one harness shop, three blacksmith and repair shops, one restaurant, two barber shops, two livery stables. Hotel Bristol is conducted by George Kinyon.
The physicians are F. M. Aitken, the oldest in the town, C. E. Dutrow. J. E. Barbour and Dr. Hughes. H. W. Kantz is a lawyer and also engaged in insurance and real estate business.
Bristol has many nice residences, several substantial business
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blocks, has a mile of cement sidewalk on Main street, and evidences of civic pride are apparent everywhere. . \ hook and ladder apparatus and chemical engine afford protection against fire, the water being drawn from cisterns. The members of the present town board are H. W. Dussel, president, Albert Stamp and Arthur Triggs. Clyde Hilbish is treasurer and L. . \. Congdon clerk. The marshal is Arthur Semple. L. J. Greenan is postmaster. Bristol is the center for four rural delivery routes, two of which were established in June, 1904.
Upon the range of hills which extends through Washington town- ship are to be found some of the finest nurseries and most extensive vineyards in the state. Fruit-raising in each year becoming more of a regular industry in this part of the county, and naturally Bristol is the shipping point for all this class of product. Mr. George Milburn (see sketch elsewhere) has a fine farm on the hills to the south of town, and his average cherry crop is 2500 cases, of apples two to three thousand bushels, 800 bushels of pears, a thousand bushels of peaches, large quantity of plums, and other fruit. Mr. A. Y. Cathcart estimates that in a full season two hundred thousand cases of small fruits, peaches, etc., are shipped at the Bristol depot, all of which is, of course, in addition to the home consumption. Some of the prominent fruit growers besides Mr. Milburn are S. W. Pease, Joseph Garver, J. L. Judson, J. F. Cathcart, J. S. Letherman, George A. Fisher, Samuel Kreider, A. Y. Cathcart. Melons are another fruit grown in large quantities in the light sandy soil of this vicinity. Mr. Pease has had as high as twenty acres in this crop. Mr. George Roth is one of the principal stock dealers of the town, and Mr. B. B. Knapp buys and ships large quantities of wool. Huckleberries are a favorite fruit crop with some, and about four thousand cases are each season loaded on the train at Bristol.
The township of Jefferson, though one of the richest in the county from an agricultural standpoint, has several country churches and its quota of schoolhouses, but no community center that could be dignified with the name of town. Two reasons might be given for this-first, the proximity of Goshen on the south and Elkhart on the west, the two largest centers in the county, not to mention Bristol on the north and Middlebury on the east, as a result of which geographical situation Jefferson township is surrounded with towns and in easy access of them all and thus never felt the need of a center of her own; and second,
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the township has not lain in the direct path of railroad building. Elsewhere are mentioned those who were identified with the first settle- ment of this township.
WATERFORD MILLS.
Naturally much of the history of Elkhart township is the history of Goshen, and is told in other connections. Since the city of Goshen is assigned a special chapter in this history, it remains for us here to consider the only other center in the township-the village of Water- ford, or Waterford Mills as it was known in the United States Postal Guide until the postoffice was discontinued.
When the rural delivery system supplanted the Waterford Mills postoffice about a year ago, the postoffice department practically initiated the last act in the drama which will end in Waterford's losing its identity and being completely merged with the city of which it even now is almost a part. The changing lights and shadows which characterize human life find their counterpart in the history of this village, and it is with a feeling hardly less than reverence that one stands in this now decadent community and looks upon the scenes of a once fruitful industry and prosperous commerce. With its pulses of industry long stilled and the heart of its productive activity plucked away by its greater rival, Waterford for many years has been like a plant whose sustenance is sucked away by the great tree at whose roots it stands. From supporting, through its industries, a considerable popu- lation of its own, as was the case within the memory of many men yet living, Waterford now furnishes its small numerical strength to the business and industrial activity of Goshen. Indeed, a beaten path leads north from the village into the city, frequented night and morn- ing by those whose daily toil brings them from the village to the larger center. And, despite the optimism prevailing among some of the Waterford people who anticipate the time when the village will return to her own and once more be a power and chief factor in commerce and industry, it would seem that the direction progress has taken can never be countervailed and that Waterford must be known more for the glory of her past than for her importance in the present. With a knowledge of what has been and beholding the little that remains, one feels, with the poet, that " A\ great life has passed into the tomb, and there awaits the requiem of the winter's snows."
Waterford being one of the oldest communities in the county, it
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is of course impossible to learn its early history from any person still living, and the facts concerning its settlement and first steps of progress are taken from the former chronicles and records. The village was well called Waterford " Mills," for it was around its milling industries that its life centered, and with the disappearance of the last factories some thirty-five years ago came the final period of decline for the village. The part of section 28 on which the village grew up was originally owned by Judge Elias Baker, who in 1833 put up his own log cabin and on the river bank erected a grist mill, which was the first of the productive industries which sought this location. Already, several families had settled in this neighborhood, for Waterford lies on the wonderful Elkhart prairie, which perhaps attracted the eyes of inore settlers than any other portion of the county. Rev. Azel Sparklin, the pioneer Methodist preacher, had a farm on the east and Major Jolin W. Violett's land lay to the north.
But the family whose interests most completely identified them with the early history of Waterford was that founded here in the thirties by Cephas Hawks, Sr., who bought the Baker mill in June, 1836, and in the following year his son. Cephas, Jr., took possession and began the operation of a mill. The milling firm of C. Hawks and Sons was the corner stone of Waterford's material prosperity for many years. In 1838 David Ballentine, who also had an interest in the mill, and the senior and junior Cephas Hawks laid out the village of Waterford. The Hawkses also had a store, and the old building in which they did busi- ness is still standing, on the south side of the road near the bridge. On the completion of the dam and canal at Goshen, in 1868, the mill was moved away, and only a few stones mark the site of that once thriving in- dustry. The oldest residents, whose memories go back fifty years, re- member when there was a sawmill, a factory for the making of pump- stocks, and, on the west side of the river and south of the present bridge. was a woolen factory, and, north of the bridge, a distillery, a dye and fulling works, and a factory for the manufacture of rakes and forks. With such a nucleus of industries it can be readily imagined what a thriving place Waterford was in those days. The old dam across the river was just south of the present bridge. The Hawkses did most of the mercantile as well as milling business, but William Baker had a store and tavern and William Planter a store and pump shop. Farmers from a distance of many miles and from all directions came here to get their wheat ground and their corn "cracked," and of course bought here
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what other supplies they needed at the same time. It seems that no postoffice was established until 1854, S. D. Lombard being first post- master. From this it is evident, at even this early date, the people had been accustomed to getting their mail at Goshen. For some time the postoffice was discontinued, being re-established in 1865, and in 1904 was finally abolished by order of the postal authorities. Mr. John Lower has the honor of having served as the last postmaster.
At the present time Waterford has one store, whose proprietor is Arthur Womer; also a blacksmith shop of intermittent activity ; a wagon repair shop. Shortly after the factories were moved to Goshen, the consummation for which the Waterfordians had so long and devoutly wished was attained-but too late. The Big Four Railroad was built through, and established a station, but there was nothing to ship, for which reason the road has been regarded as at least a doubtful advan- tage. Waterford was never incorporated, its present population is per- haps one hundred and fifty souls, and, situated only three miles from the court house at Goshen and only a mile from the end of the street-car line, it is, for all practical purposes, an integral part of the larger city. The Warsaw electric line, which, from all indications, will soon be con- structed, will pass through the village and will, no doubt, cause a re- newed activity along some lines. But whether Waterford will some day become one of the choicest residence suburbs of Goshen and will be a seat of manufacturing industries, is not within the province of this history to say.
Just to the north of Waterford, and, seemingly, interposed as one of nature's bulwarks against the aggressions of restless humanity and its structures of brick and wood, stands a grove of stately oaks, the remains of the primeval forest which covered all this part of the country at the time the first settlers came to Elkhart prairie. This grove is in fact one of the most conspicuous features in this part of the county, although its general denotement to the present generation is that of regret that the vast areas of magnificent forests, of which this is such an insignificant sample, were so ruthlessly overwhelmed and destroyed by the early set- tlers. This forest preserve, containing perhaps fifty acres, was set aside years ago and has always been kept intact by the Violett family, in whose possession it still remains. The grove has long been a favorite resort for picnicers, and until a few years ago the street car line had an extension out to it and a pavilion was maintained for pleasure-seekers.
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