USA > Indiana > Elkhart County > A twentieth century history and biographical record of Elkhart County, Indiana > Part 23
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Middlebury is already connected by electric line with LaGrange, and the developments of the next few years will no doubt see all the centers of this county connected not only with each other but with the outside world.
The Winona Interurban Railway Co., co-operating with the Com- mercial Exchange of Goshen, took up the matter of building an electric line between Goshen and Warsaw, in 1903. Elkhart township voted in August. 1904, $30,000 for the construction of the road which was to pass through Waterford, New Paris, Milford and Leesburg. Active work of construction began in July, 1905, and at present writing nearly all the grading is finished. and by the first of the year the entire line will be equipped and in operation. The length of the line is twenty-four miles, the estimated cost. rolling stock, power house and equipment in- cluded, being not less than $500,000. This is an independent line, but in- creasing as it does the length of electric transportation in the county, is an important connecting link across the country between the principal trunk lines and affords the long desired communication between Goshen and
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the towns to the south. From Warsaw extension of these electric lines will eventually be carried on to Indianapolis.
The Huntington. Columbia City and Northwestern is a projected line which will doubtless be built in the near future, running from Goshen to Lake Wawassee and other centers to the southeast.
OLD BEARDSLEY MILL
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CHAPTER AV. BUSINESS, MANUFACTURING AND INDUSTRY.
Wherever a ship ploughs the sea, or a plough furrows the field; wherever a mine yields its treasure ; wherever a ship or railroad train carries freight to market; wher- ever the smoke of the furnace rises, or the clang of the loom resounds; even in the lonely garret where the seamstress plies her busy needle,-there is Industry. -JAMES A. GARFIELD.
Under this comprehensive title may be considered all those human activities which have for a basis the obsolete principle of barter and exchange, the conversion of natural or raw materials into forms suit- able for the use of mankind, and the various phases of work outside of that connected with agriculture or the professions, such as trades and mechanical pursuits.
Robinson Crusoe, after being cast upon his desert island, was com- pelled to build his own shelter, to make his own clothes, to fashion many of his implements and his household utensils. to cultivate the soil and raise and prepare all things needful for his bodily sustenance, to enact for his own guidance all his laws and rules of conduct, and be his own army for protection against the cannibals. Such a type of all-around man, jack of all trades, self-sufficient and prepared for all the uses and adversities of the world. was at one time considered the proper ideal by which each person should fashion his life. But such individualism is now seen to be exceedingly primitive, and instead of making the man more independent it really places him more abjectly in dependence upon all the humbler wants and necessities which are at the base of the higher life. Society as now organized, and in its general tendencies toward the working out of the problems of human destiny, divides into numerous occupations the work of the world, specializing it for each class of workers, and thereby leaves each of us the greater liberty to work out our real individuality.
The men and women who settled Elkhart county in the early thir- ties were in a measure Crusoes, in that most of the necessities of life, whether for eating, wearing or for performing the work of field and household, were home products. Planted in the depth of a great wilder- ness, remote from mills and often unattended by craftsmen, the men and
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women who laid here the foundations of civilized society were of neces- sity their own artisans to a very large extent, and every home was a factory. Many a farmer or farmer's son, becoming skilled in some par- ticular trade, was enabled thereby to add substantially to the family income.
Next to shelter and foodstuffs clothing was the issue of paramount importance to the hardy pioneers, and in the division of labor this indus- try was left to the women. Every cabin was flanked by its patch of flax, and the planter who did not possess a few sheep had to trade with his neighbor for wool. From these raw materials the old-fashioned housewife was expected to produce clothing for the family and linen for the bed and table. The full grown flax was pulled up and spread out on the ground to rot in the ram and dew, after which it was thoroughly broken, by the older boys, if there were any, with the vigorous use of the flax-brake, then put through a softening process called "skutch- ing." and a separating process known as "hacking." which left ready for the spinstress two fabrics, tow and thread fiber. By the use of the little spinning wheel, proficiency in the handling of which was for the girls a test of advancing womanhood, the fiber, or lint, was made into a fine, strong tliread called warp and the tow into a coarser thread used as filling. These were woven together on a hand loom, and from the tow- linen produced was made the summer wear for the family, the females usually preferring to color theirs with homemade dyestuff to suit their taste, while the less pretentious menfolks were satisfied to take it as it came from the loom. When the wool was brought in, the good mother and her daughters shaped it into convenient rolls by the aid of a pair of hand-cards provided for that purpose and spun on the big wheel into yarn filling ( sometimes used for knitting stockings, mittens and com- forters), which, when woven with the linen warp, made the "linsey- woolsey" of the good old days, or, if woven with cotton warp, resulted in the fabric know as "jeans." The former, suitably dyed, was in general use as a strong, warm and handsome texture for feminine ap- parel, and the latter, colored with butternut juice, was tailored by the women for the men's wear.
For footwear the wandering cobbler who traveled from house to house was relied upon to fashion boots and shoes from the home-tanned hides, or moccasins were procured from the Indians. Occasionally the shoemaker would not get around until after snowfall and many a venerable grandsire can tell of going barefooted to his chores with
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snow on the ground. \ well prepared coonskin made a very warm and equally unsightly cap. Coonskins also formed a kind of currency of the woods, the pelt being considered as good as gold and accepted in exchange for all kinds of commodities. Properly selected rye straws were woven by the women into bonnets for themselves and hats for their masters. The women also fashioned for themselves curiously wrought sunbonnets of brightly colored goods shaped over pasteboard strips with fluted and ruffled capes falling behind over the shoulders. The manufacture of quilts gave opportunities for social gatherings when there were neighbors close enough to get back home before chore time, and the quilting ranked along with the huskings, logrollings and house- raisings among the primitive society functions of early days. The industries of the homestead did not include the preservation of fruits and vegetables, save to a small extent by drying, but meats were pre- served in various ways; lye-hominy was a regular institution, and some other food articles were occasionally laid by for winter, thus formning the beginnings of the packing and canning industries of later times.
Prior to the advent of cabinet-makers the settlers perforce included that trade among their accomplishments, and made their own beds, tables, cupboards and chairs. For bedsteads an oak butt about eight feet long and of sufficient diameter was split into rails and posts, a shorter log was split up for slats, and the pieces selected were dressed down with the drawknife and fitted together with the axe. Two rails were used for each side and three for each end, the rounded ends of the slats being driven into anger holes in the rails, and the four high corner posts were tied together at the top with strong cords from which cur- tains might be suspended if desired. In the more fortunate homes a feather bed surmounted the "straw tick," and with plenty of "kiver," such a lodgment was comfortable on the coldest winter night. With equal skill a table was constructed by pinning two thin oak clapboards. smoothed with a sharp ax on the upper side. to cross pieces set on four strong legs, the surface of the table being about four feet by six. Of general similarity thoughi different in details is the outfit described as making up the housekeeping suite with which the newly wedded Jacob Weybright and Eva Hess, the first young couple of Goshen to be mar- ried, began their wedded life. Their outfit consisted of five chairs, and the table was made from a dry-goods box. The bedstead consisted of two poles stuck in the log-wall and supported by crotchied sticks
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resting on the floor. Cords were used instead of slats, and upon the cords thin bark was placed and then came the bedding.
Such homely processes constituted the beginnings of industrial activity in Elkhart county. as elsewhere, and continued necessarily until the mills came into existence and mechanics appeared and roads were opened to the trade centers; indeed they could be observed more or less for many years in the remoter districts, and puncheon floors and split- slab benches were used in schools after they had disappeared from the homes.
Inasmuch as every man had to be his own mechanic and carpenter during the first years, it is the more difficult to determine upon the in- dividual who should be honored in history as being the first regular follower of such a trade. Nor can the locality in which such a man plied his art be any more accurately settled. According to the best in- formation Jacob T. Cripe was the first mechanic in Elkhart township to follow his trade as a means of livelihood.
The cutting of millstones was a very useful art during those years, and the first man known to have followed that line of work was John Inks, who made stones for the Rock Run and Elkhart mills.
In an agricultural community the blacksmith shop occupies a place of only less importance than the village store, and oftentimes the cross- roads blacksmith shop has been the nucleus around which has grown up a thrifty town. It was only in the year 1890 that the first blacksmith of Goshen passed to his final reward. Ile was then ninety-three years old. He had also been the first millwright in this part of the county. His daughter. Mrs. Mary G. Hale, has in her possession the first piece of furniture made in Goshen, in the shape of a cradle made of cherry wood. The maker of this cradle was Henry Rector, who is annalled as the first cabinet-maker to appear at Goshen.
In Middlebury the first blacksmith shop was kept by a man named Hawkins, and the first wagon maker of that town was Daniel C. Bishop. Spinning wheels, which have been above indicated as forming a very necessary part of the pioneer household, were manufactured by Fred- erick Harriman, who was the first settler at New Paris and erected a shop there for his trade.
Trades and occupations seemingly diverse were often pursued by one man. For instance. David Ebi, one of the early settlers of York township, was not only the first carpenter and joiner of that neighbor-
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hood, but also attended to the duties of undertaker. When the fever and ague were so prevalent in the autumns of 1837 and 1838 Mr. Ebi was once taxed with orders for three coffins in the same day.
The carpenter was naturally a very important personage in the industrial worki of that day, even though houses were not built on very elaborate plans. Among the men whose skill and professions entitled them to the name of carpenter during the thirties was James Beck, of Goshen, concerning whom the following anecdote will be of interest : " James Beck, the second sheriff of the county. was a carpenter and secured the contract for building the first Methodist meeting house. The structure was a square frame affair and when it came to the roof Beck built it as steep as possible. This made some of the members of the church quite angry, as they claimed that the roof destroyed the architectural beauty, if it had any, of the building. Beck was a very liberal man and had placed his name on the subscription list for $25, a very large sum in those days. In the settlement the trustees decided to dock Beck $25 on his contract for disfiguring the roof. He good- naturedly consented to the reduction, but when it came to paying his subscription he stated that he would not let the trustees outdo him in liberality and would throw off his subscription."
The milling industry played such an important part in the early history of Elkhart county, and still forms such a large source of mann- facturing wealth, that it is very consistent with the general purpose of our history to quote at length from an article written by Mr. J. P. Hawks and read before a meeting of the Historical Society. As a member of the Hawks family which holds the premier position in mill- ing circles of the county, so comprehensive are his knowledge and per- sonal experience in all matters forming the subject of his address that his historical article covers many facts of interest outside of this par- ticular connection, and it is a privilege to be able to afford our readers so much compact information.
" I will first speak," says Mr. Hawks, "of the first mill buildings. It is a question whether Goshen or Elkhart should have the honor of having the first mill. But the best authority that I have found says that the first mill was built by Mr. Carpenter on Rock Run, near the northwest corner of our beautiful Oakridge cemetery, in 1830 or 1831. and the second on Christiana creek, across the St. Joe from the Elkhart. and third the McConnell mill, situated near the present site of the Big Four freight office. The fourth was the Waterford mill, built by Elias
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Baker in 1834, and then followed the Bainter mill and the mill on Solo- mon's creek and the Darr mill in Benton and others. I have since read in an obituary of a Mr. Inks, that he built a corneracker on Solomon's creek, the first in the county. Mr. Israel Hess says the Elkhart mill was the first. It would be highly interesting if we could have photo- graphs of these several mills, but that was before the days of photog- raphy. I think the first three of these buildings were all built of logs, as were most of the dwellings of those days. I think the Baker mill was the first frame mill building in this county and for many counties adjoining. It was nearly square, about thirty by thirty feet, two stories, with a high hip roof, which gave some extra garret room over part of the house and much used for some purposes. The Carpenter mill. I think, had but one small run of stone and without bolts, and only used for grinding corn. Of the other two mills I have no knowledge as to their outfit, but most likely it was very meager. About the Waterford mill I can be more specific in description of outfit and working. My father, Cephas Hawks, Sr., bought this mill of Mr. Baker in 1835. It then had two runs of stones ; one run was a regular made burr for wheat. and the other made from the natural stone, commonly called nigger heads, and was used only for grinding corn. I think these stones were made by the Mr. Inks above spoken of. It had one bolting reel, about twelve or fourteen feet long and covered with three grades of bolting cloth, the first four or five feet being very fine for getting the superfine flour; the next section coarser for common flour; the third still coarser to catch middlings and shorts, while the bran was thrown out at the end of the bolt. This bolt was hung in the lower story, close under the stones, and the meal dropped into a short wooden trough, which carried it into the head of the bolt. In those days corn meal was never bolted at the mill, and hence the necessity of a corn meal sieve in the outfit of every well regulated family. Custom so increased that the second year after some grand improvements were made in the old mill. Another run of wheat burrs were put in, the bolting capacity was increased and moved up into the garret, elevators were made for carrying the meal up into the bolts, etc., etc. But, oh, the labor that was necessary to do the work of that mill. Every bushel of grain had to be shouldered and carried three or four times, first from the wagon into the mill, then shouldered again to pour into the hoppers and again when ground, and lastly from the mill to the wagon. What wheat we bought for making flour for sale must be taken first to the platform scales, then up one and
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sometimes two pair of stairs to the bin. Having established a reputa- tion for making the best flour in the county, our custom was very large and wide-spread, reaching from the state line on the north to the Wa- bash on the south, and embraced all of Elkhart, Noble, LaGrange, Kosci- usko and parts of Whitley, Marshall and St. Joe counties. Of course, coming so far, they must bring large grists, and came prepared with provisions and horse feed to wait until it could be ground, which was sometimes a tedious waiting of two or three days. A strict watch was kept that they were not cheated in their turn, and it often required much diplomacy to keep the peace among them. It often looked about the yard like an army encamped, or a camp meeting, so many teams in waiting. A unique feature of that old mill was the ten by twelve foot square room in one corner, called the office. Its furnishing was a large old-fashioned parlor cook-stove, having a large oven over the fire pot for baking, and a hole and lid on top for boiling the tea kettle. A wide board bench around three sides, with a small rough board desk nailed up on cleats in one corner, constituted the furnishings of that room. These benches, with a bag of bran for a mattress and an overcoat or a bunch of bags for a pillow, furnished beds for many waiting customers. On cold nights that little room would be filled with customers or village loungers, and heated up to about one hundred degrees, with the flat top of the old stove covered with corn. Many a jolly evening was spent eating scorched. not popped, corn, telling stories, cracking jokes and cracking nuts, all of which were very plenty in those days. And such a looking place was that room! The floor was inches deep with flour paste mixed with tobacco juice, crumbs of bread and meat from the customers' lunch, and with popcorn and nut shells. Oh, it was a beauty !
" One unique character who came about four times a year from the Haw Patch, with his big prairie-schooner wagon and his four large, fat horses, himself sitting proudly erect on his wheel or saddle horse, hold- ing his one line in his left hand and his black-snake whip in his right hand, was Mr. McDavitt. You could hear the crack of that whip and the word of command to that team, calling each horse by name, for a quarter of a mile. Never were horses under better command. He could turn a corner, wheel a circle, cramp and back to the mill door to the very dot and never miss. He would sometimes, while waiting, hitch up just to give us exhibitions of driving, and would always draw a crowd.
" So much for the old mill. The time had come when it would
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not meet the growing demands of the country, and some time in the '4os, I think in '47. a new mill was planned and built, larger and more complete. In size about forty by sixty feet, and five stories high, with five runs of the best burrs that could be found, with the then newest machinery and conveniences, such as elevators for both wheat and meal, larger bolting capacities for both merchant and custom work, and screen and smutter for cleaning wheat ( for up to that time the wheat was ground just as it came from the farmer's fanning mill), large scales, a hopper to empty into from the wagon and a drop for the wheat from the scales to the elevator, so that much of the hard lifting required in the old mill was obviated in the new. The capacity of each run of burrs was increased one-half or more by new water wheels, iron shafting and cog wheels, letter and more perfect boxing, bearings, etc. So that the capacity of the new mill was sufficient to serve all of our greatly in- creased custom work and turn out about fifty barrels of flour per day of merchant work. This was a big thing in those days, whereas the Goshen Milling Company can now make five hundred barrels per day. and yet I will here say that ordinarily and on an average the net profits of the fifty barrels per day mill in the '50s was equal to or better than that of the five hundred barrel mill in the 'gos. The reasons are: Less expense and more profits. While we did much of the work ourselves and our own labor was never reckoned, 1 might mention here, how- ever. that the mill stuff, bran and shorts, is much more valuable to-day tan then. Farmers had plenty of cheap corn to feed and would not buy mill feed. The bran we sold what we could at three cents per bushel or one dollar for a wagon load, and the bigger loads they took the better we liked it. We fed all we could ourselves, and shoveled hundreds of bushels into the tail race to feed the fish or be carried down into the St. Joe.
" Transportation was a great item in those early days. Only two ways were open to us. The one was by teams, and that was the every- day, year-around way, and the other was by arking down the river. which we could only do in the spring and fall or after heavy rains when the river was high. Our main markets were Chicago, Michigan City. St. Joseph and Fort Wayne. When the roads were bad, as they were most of the time, a good team could only haul ten barrels of flour, and it took eight days for a trip to Chicago, four or five to Michigan City or St. Joe or Fort Wayne. Our plan was to load from five to ten teams and start from the mill early in the morning. One of us (for we were
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many in those days ) with our own team headed the train and led the van, and we would go to the market we thought the best, sell the best we could, buy whatever we could that we needed in our trade at home. mostly salt, coffee and muslin, and giving each team a light load of these things, hasten back home with what money was left to invest in more wheat. These teams we used to pay from one dollar to one dollar and forty cents per day, according as the roads and weather might be. Of course on such wages the men could not afford to buy anything on the trip but stabling, hay and lodging. All carried their dinner boxes for themselves and grain for the horses. There was so much of this work to do that men who were able to own a team made this their business and supported their families in this way.
" But the arking in the time of it was the much more exciting. more rapid and much cheaper way of getting our produce off to market. These arks were made of two timbers, which we called gunnels, hewn out in the woods or sawed in the mill, about six or eight inches thick. eighteen to twenty-four inches wide, as we could find the logs to make them, and from twenty to thirty feet long, planked on the bottom with two-inch plank, corked and pitched till water tight. Each one of these would carry from one hundred to one hundred and fifty barrels of flour. and two and sometimes three of these cribs, as they were called, were lashed together and called an ark, with a long, heavy oar at each end to steer it with. Captain A. C. Manning, who afterward became the popular sheriff of our county, was a very efficient man to float these expensive and valuable laden arks down the Elkhart into and down to St. Joseph. Others, whose names I have forgotten, used to run these arks for us. It took about six men, with the captain, to man an ark. one with the captain on the hind oar, two on the front oar and two for extra work, such as pushing with poles to keep it off of breakers and in eddy waters to accelerate the speed, and care for the stuff. We had three dams to jump and many bridges to go under, and these were often dangerous places, for to hit a bent of the bridge meant either a bent taken out or the breaking of the ark, and in either case it was a. heavy loss. So also in going over a dam, sometimes the sections of the ark. or cribs as we called them, would break apart or would dip water. The Niles bridge was about the most dangerous place on the trip, and here we once had a bad break and lost and damaged many barrels of flour. Usually one of our folks went with these expeditions to care for and make sales, and your humble writer, though then but a boy and being
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