USA > Indiana > Elkhart County > A twentieth century history and biographical record of Elkhart County, Indiana > Part 26
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The company's history dates from about May 1, 1902, when the firm of Coppes Bros. & Zook and the Nappanee Furniture Company consolidated. The latter company was engaged exclusively in manu- facturing tables and kitchen cabinets. The first named company was engaged in the sawmill business, lumber, planing mill, building mate- rial, and manufacturing boxes, and merchant millers and grain dealers. The box business, retail lumber, and planing mill business, including building materials, were turned over to another local institution on the
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consolidation, and the new company took up its present lines as enu- mnerated above.
The Union Canning Company, at Nappanee, whose president and general manager is Arthur A. Laughlin, has a plant whose capacity is 24,000 cans per day, with storage for 15,000 bushels of onions and 150 tons of cabbage. With Mr. Laughlin the stockholders are S. D. Coppes, the banker, and Hartman Bros., general merchants. Mr. Coppes is treasurer, Mr. Tobias Hartman is the vice-president.
Besides this plant the company owns 80 acres of onion land south- east of town.
The pickle industry is one which is at the present time being pushed. The west wing of the factory is 30 x 90 feet and contains eleven salt- ing vats ( with the exception of two on the outside ) each holding one thousand bushels. Aside from these, the company has a station at Syra- cuse and one at Leesburg, each station with a capacity of six thousand bushels of pickles, though the one at Syracuse is being enlarged this season un account of the increased acreage. The company began the pickle business here in 1900, at Syracuse in 1904, and at Leesburg in 1905. The Nappanee acreage is 125, Syracuse 80, and Leesburg 60. The amount paid out to the farmers here and at the other stations will be in excess of $12,000 this year.
Brown Brothers Manufacturing Company, at Nappanee, builders of all kinds of galvanized steel tanks, was established in a small way about six years ago, by J. W. Brown. The plant has been greatly en- larged since then, there are now twenty office employes besides those in the shops, and the annual value of the output at present is over thirty thousand dollars.
Gorge L. Lamb is manufacturing at Nappanee a fine line of screens, easels, music cabinets, book shelves, hat racks, umbrella holders, tabou- rettes, wall pockets, brushes, etc. His force of employes has reached a total of forty in the busy season. His business in 1904 was in excess of thirty thousand dollars, and the rapid increase during the present year has caused him to construct a large addition to his plant.
George Freese's Sons. Nappanee, are manufacturers of high grade separator butter, ice cream and artificial ice, wholesalers of fancy eggs and poultry, retailers of coal. The business was established in Elkhart by the late Hon. George Freese in 1857. The business was afterward moved to Goshen, and was brought to Nappanee in 1881. The firm has a splendid farm of 120 acres just north of town about three miles,
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on which they have blooded dairy stock of their own, where they feed a large number of hogs, and where they raise grain and food stuffs for their teamis. They operate creamery separator stations at Milford, Wakarusa, Oak Grove, Burketville, Cromwell and Jonesville. The milk is hauled to these stations by the farmers and is separated, the cream being hauled by wagon or shipped to Nappanee by rail, while the milk is returned to the farmers, who haul it home for feeding purposes. Aside from the farmers employed in hauling milk from their neighborhoods, the firm has in their employ six teams of their own, and twenty-five men.
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CHAPTER XVI. THE ELKHART COUNTY PRESS.
Trade hardly deems the busy day begun,
Till his keen eye along the sheet has run;
The blooming daughter throws her needle by
And reads her schoolmate's marriage with a sigh ;
While the grave mother puts her glasses on
And gives a tear to some old crony gone.
The preacher, too, his Sunday theme lays down,
To know what last new folly fills the town;
Lively or sad, life's meanest, mightiest things,
The fate of fighting cocks, or fighting kings. -SPRAGUE.
Always co-operating with and almost coincident in progress with modern civilization is the press. We can see a band of hardy pioneers hewing their way into the primeval forests, erecting their rude cabins, clearing off the timber and beginning the cultivation of the soil, becom- ing grouped into some sort of community living, with a store or trad- ing post in the midst ; the building of a church for the spiritual reviving. a school for their children; and not much later, the introduction of the printing press and the distribution of a primitive journal of local and foreign affairs. And with the first copy of the newspaper the pub- lic finds a voice through which the general opinion may be heard, the community is bound together by another tie of equal strength with the church and the school, and thereby man becomes more responsible to man and social progress is assured. It may be apropos of our subject to remark that, whereas the church and the school have as a rule, and by their very nature, had their origin and support in the community at large, the press, which we cannot set down as a factor of civilization of less importance than the church or the school, has been founded and conducted through private enterprise and private capital. And those journals which have been most successful, both from a financial point of view and as factors in promoting the general welfare, have been those which most closely identified themselves with the community as a whole, which have been most perfect weather-vanes of public senti- ment, and which have made the public interest their interest.
It is a trite remark to say that the newspaper has exerted an in- calculable influence in the upbuilding of our country, but nevertheless
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most true, and worth recalling often lest the truth be forgotten. To measure accurately the influence which the press of Elkhart county has exerted upon her history is, of course, impossible, but the count- less uses to which the political, social. business and industrial forces of the county have put the newspapers indicate to even a casual observer the importance of the press as an institution of modern society. This county as well as the entire northern section of the state has felt the intellectual stimulus of a newspaper for nearly three-quarters of a cen- tury, and from the one sheet published in all this section of country during the early thirties, and then, a few years later, to the one or two thinly nourished irregular hebdomedals issued in Elkhart county, at present twelve or fifteen are pointed to with pride by the citizens of the county as furnishing a record of general activity and progress- the best indexes of the character and resources of the people and the county.
The first northern Indiana paper to circulate in this county was the Northwestern Reviews and St. Joseph Intelligencer, published at South Bend for the first time in November, 1831. This journal is of particular interest since it was the result of the literary and mechanical enterprise of two men, J. D. and J. H. Defrees, who, the latter in par- ticular, were closely identified with the early history of Elkhart county. Says Mr. J. H. Defrees, in regard to this paper : "In the fall of 1831 J. D. Defrees and your humble speaker established a printing press in the village of South Bend, a town that had been laid off but a few months previous by Messrs. Hahn and Taylor and A. Coquillard, in St. Joseph county. From this press we issued a sheet called the North- western Pioncer, a name indicative of the fact that it was the first and only paper issued northwest of Piqua, Ohio, north of Indianapolis or west of Detroit. At this day an enterprise of this character would seem foolish ; for the red men of the woods outnumbered the pale faces almost two to one. But being full of ardor, and having selected St. Joseph county for our future home, we labored assiduously to bring it into notoriety, and you must pardon me for saying that I believe this one circumstance did more to cause immigration to flow in upon us than any- thing else save the beauty of the country."
The claim of priority made by Mr. Defrees must be qualified since we have also the statement that the Pottawcottomic and Miami Times of Logansport, established in August. 1820. was the first paper north of the Wabash. But certainly the paper of the Defrees brothers was
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among the first, and furnished the medium through which the legal and other notices were published for all the counties around, as far west as LaPorte.
Mr. Defrees, in continuing his remarks about his pioneer newspa- per enterprise, relates an anecdote which shows, among other things, the lofty character in which the press of early days was estimated, and which is worth repetition: "\ short time after we got the press in operation, about midwinter, a young man, apparently about the age of nineteen or twenty years, came into the office and remarked that after awhile he wanted to get a piece in the news, and would pay for it in maple sugar. Inquiry was made of him about the character of the article which he wished published. After considerable hesitancy and confusion he said that he intended soon to get married, and wanted, when it took place, to have it printed in the paper. Quizzing the young man awhile, and finding out that he and his intended blue-eyed com- panion lived on Elkhart prairie, we told him we made no charge for publishing news of that character, and in due time the notice was sent to us. That young man, notwithstanding that he seemed to be a little verdant in reference to rules of printers, made one of the best citizens that lived on that beautiful prairie."
On May 23, 1832, the Defrees brothers moved the office of the Pioneer to the second story of a house in South Bend, once the tavern of Mr. Lilly, and from that new location sent forth their paper under the new title of St. Joseph Beacon, and thereafter its columns had more St. Joseph county local color and less of the surrounding counties. The Beacon continued on its career at South Bend until 1834, when it was moved to White Pigeon, and already in the meantime Mr. J. H. De- frees had come to Goshen.
But the first paper to be actually published in Elkhart county was the Goshen Erpress. This came into being, it seems, as a result of the political stress of the times, and propagandism of various sorts has been the birth-cause of hundreds of journals both before and since. The Express was edited by C. L. Murray and Anthony Defrees, and a few months later the local men of influence and the supporters of the Jack- son brand of politics bought a press and instituted an opposition paper, under the editorship of Thomas H. Bassett, which was called the Goshen Democrat. The first number of the Express was issued on January 28. 1837. and the Democrat first appeared to public eye in the follow- ing September. Neither paper was self-supporting at the time, and
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lived only as a political organ and by contributions from its friends. The financial panic of that period also smote heavily the journalistic aspirants. The Express survived with difficulty for several years. Mr. C. L. Murray and A. Defrees dissolved partnership on the Express in May, 1837, and thereafter Mr. Murray was sole proprietor and edi- tor, and then the paper was under a company ownership; finally the plant was moved to Elkhart, thence, in 1845. to Kosciusko county. where it sojourned thereafter.
The Goshen Democrat not only justly claims second place in order of establishment among the newspapers of this county, but also is far and away the oldest journal from the point of continuous publication in the county and one of the oldest in the state. Its existence is prac- tically unbroken since 1837. Ebenezer Brown and Thomas H. Bassett were the men who founded and gave vitality and vigor to the enter- prise. The Democrat is almost coexistant with Goshen as a town, since the first issue appeared only a few days after the incorporation of Goshen was effected. Mr. Bassett continued as editor for about two years. when he was succeeded by Dr. E. W. H. Ellis, who published it for about eleven years. M. B. Hascall being his associate part of the time.
At the "Golden Anniversary" of the Goshen Democrat, in the issue of May 18, 1887, a commemorative editorial narrates the consecu- tive history of the paper up to that time and therewith a number of facts of general interest.
" To-day," says the article in question, "the Goshen Democrat enters upon its fiftieth year. A little history of its existence written from memory may be interesting to many of its readers and patrons. In the carly part of 1837 the late Ebenezer Brown bought out an old office in Penn Yan, New York, and shipped it to Niles, Michigan, by water and from there brought it to Goshen by wagons. Thomas H. Bassett, a brilliant but somewhat eccentric young man, was also brought here by Mr. Brown to take charge of the editorial department of the paper. It took eighteen months to complete the first volume, on ac- count of the many difficulties it had to encounter for want of sufficient support. It ran along until about 1840, when the immortal Dr. E. W. H. Ellis, one of the brightest intellects of the day, came here from South Bend and was placed at its head. He remained with it until 1850, when he was appointed state auditor and removed to Indianapolis. About 1846 Colonel M. B. Hascall was a partner with Dr. Ellis for a year or two. About 1849 W. R. Ellis (also a partner) left here and went to
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HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
South Bend, where he published an abolition paper for awhile. In 1850 the office passed into the hands of Emerick & Bouton for a time. and from them to Hon. Robert Lowry, who controlled it up to 1858, when he sold it to Earle & Heath and finally to J. T. Bennet. From 1850 to 1873 it passed through the hands of several parties, the first being the present proprietor, and then to Beane & Osborne, WV. . 1. Beane & Company, then back to Judge Lowry, and then again to the present proprietor. La Porte Heffner, Colonel M. B. Hascall, Murray & Beane, and lastly to W. A. Beane, who has been sole proprietor since 1878, and who has been intimately connected with it more years than any man living or dead. We commenced with it in 1844. and with the exception of a few years have been with it ever since, a fraction over forty-three years.
" Fifty years ago to-day we were living in Benton and was eight years old and going to school to 'Old Dantrow,' as everybody called the ' schoolmaster.' The name teacher was not yet heard, in that neck of the woods at least. Several years later we commenced our career in the office. The older men around Benton at that time have all passed away, and the boys of that day are now men far advanced in life and are such men as John W. Irwin, R. D. and E. D. Irwin, David Darr, Ira and A. C. Jackson, the Weddells, the Longacres, the Butlers, the Kiblingers. Here in Goshen were W. A. Thomas, A. L. Hubbell, Mil- ton Mercer. Joseph D. Knox, John L. Crary. H. W. Bissell, Smith Chamberlain, John L. and Abner Blue, all of whom were in the very flush of young manhood.
"We would delight to see the long roll of employes, compositors, devils and other 'operatives' that have been connected in one way or another since 1844. From memory we recall a few of them, as fol- lows: Charlie Dunbar, J. S. Castle, Albert West. Alfred Wheeler, N. C. Devine. Scott, Washington Lightfoot, Henry K. Thomas, John Cook, William Stancliff. C. W. Stevens, Horace Harper. Wesley Crary, Thomas and Gardner Bouton, General Reuben Williams, Grove Ben- nett. W. C. and J. A. Blaine. William Coffin. H. W. Smith, Everett Abbott, Henry Furness, William McCoy, D. G. Lowry. Theodore Moore. Ben. Hattle, Napoleon Heefner, Guy Malcom, H. S. Fassett, E. M. Herr. James H. Banning, Am. Shilling, Joe Mikesell. Frank and Harris Murray, William Jernegan. R. D. Jillson, Milo D. Chamberlain, Eugene Martin, W. H. Norton, Luther Waterson, Frank Rudy, W. W. Scher- ling. D. H. Wood. C. E. Beane, W. A. Shamory, Vallandingham, Ran-
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HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
dall. Joseph Waugh. L. H. Thompson, Fred Hascall, Aaron Williams, Thomas B. Starr, E. L. Barlow, Flemming, Frank W. Beane. J. A. Beane, Samuel Connell, Rollin Detrees, Sam Brenneman, Ed Black- man, John Devor, Lewis Carpenter, Casper Hett, Frank Pierce, Elmer McDowell, Charles Safford, John S. McDowell, Lafayette Byron, Fred Adams and Warren Hohn."
With the death of the venerable editor and publisher. W. A. Beane, in 1893, the Democrat passed under the control of his son, Joseph A. Beane, who had been connected with the practical work and manage- ment of the paper since 1880, and who has since maintained the Demo- crat at the high standard set by his father. At the time of his assum- ing control the Democrat was a weekly, as it had been during all its previous history. From 1893 to 1897 Mr. Beane served his fellow citizens as postmaster, at the same time directing his journal, and in De- cember, 1807, he established the Daily Democrat, at that time the third daily in the city. A few years later the Daily Times was purchased by the New's, and about coincident with that consolidation the Democrat came out as a semi-weekly, and has so continued.
The mechanical equipment of the Democrat is high class and mod- ern in every particular. A linotype machine, procured at an expense of several thousand dollars, with one operator, performs the work which formerly busied a half dozen compositors. Power presses, a complete job department and all things needed for expeditious work maintain the Democrat in its leading position among the newspapers of the county and state. The editorial force of the Democrat consists of the following : J. A. Beane, editor and publisher: W. V. Fink, city editor ; Will S. Davis and C. E. Kettring, reporters. Charles E. Smith is foreman of the press rooms and D. Afton Letherman is linotype oper- ator.
The Goshen News-Times, under this title, has existed only since the consolidation in 1902 of the Goshen Times and the Goshen Notes. The News-Times is owned by a stock company. O. W. Kinnison is president of the company, O. M. Kinnison, vice-president and circula- tion manager, and Martin Starr is manager and editor. The city editor is B. G. Whitehead, assisted by Frederick W. Morrice and Claude Cor- nell as reporters. Fred Menhert is foreman of the bindery, the foreman of the press room is Chester Leas, foreman of the job department is Harry Lyons, and newspaper foreman Mose Cotherman. The entire force necessary to collect news, to edit the different departments, to
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HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY
manage the business, to circulate the issues, and to perform the mechan- cal work, contains the names of thirty persons. The News-Times is not only one of the foremost papers of northern Indiana from the point of view of subscription list and general equipment, but exerts a potent influence in public and business affairs. Its editor, Martin V. Starr, is one of the clean-cut. enterprising business men of Goshen, and it is due to his executive and organizing ability that this journal has ex- perienced such rapid and substantial progress in all its departments.
The mechanical equipment of the New's-Times has kept pace with the best improvements in the modern art of newspaper printing. That wonderful invention, the linotype, is a feature of this establishment and puts in type all the ordinary news matter. Then there are full sets of all kinds of movable types. Seven presses, three job presses, one pony press, and three large cylinder presses, are almost constantly rumbling in the effort to turn out the large bulk of printed matter used in the daily and semi-weekly editions of the paper and for business purposes. The bindery department, the only one in Goshen, is one of the best in this section of the state. Gas and steam power are employed for power.
An important institution in connection with the News-Times is the bookstore, which takes up most of the ground floor of the News-Times building. Everything in the book line can be found on its shelves and an extensive line of stationery and stationer's supplies are carried in stock. The picture department is an attractive feature and a choice dis- play of art novelties are carried. The wall paper and picture framing departments are in the hands of capable men and careful attention is given to orders. All of the periodicals can be found here and it is. in truth, a Twentieth Century bookstore.
The history of the Goshen News, up to the time of its consolida- tion, was thus given in an historical edition of that paper in 1901 :
From a struggling weekly in 1882, the News Printing Com- pany has grown to its present splendid proportions. The company now publishes a daily, mid-weekly and weekly, besides conducting a large job printing establishment, book bindery and bookstore. Modern ma- chinery is in nse in all of the departments and from a force of two in 1882, an increase has been made to twenty employes at the present time.
February 9. 1882, the first number of The Goshen Weekly News was issued, the name having been changed from The Independent. In size it was a six column quarto, being the largest paper in the county at that time. The plant which forms the nucleus of the present large
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establishment had had quite a history prior to the time when The Notes was first issued from the press. J. P. Prickett started the first paper with the original outfit in January, 1875, at Syracuse and it was known as the Syracuse Enterprise, an eight column folio. Thos. A. Starr, the founder of The News, was employed in the mechanical department of the paper. Within a few months the plant was moved to Milford, by F. J. McAlpine, who had secured the ownership. The name of the paper was changed to The Independent. In 1876. Geo. T. Ager and (). A. Rhine, both of Goshen, purchased the plant and moved the office to this city, where it was continued as the Goshen Independent. After four years spent in Ohio in the newspaper business, Mr. Starr returned to Goslien in 1882 and purchased the plant on which he had worked in previous years and this formed the nucleus of the present large plant. The same old hand press, the same old type and furniture, that had done duty down at Syracuse, printed the first copy of The News. . \ steam power press, new type and furniture were at once added to the plant and within six months the circulation had shown a remarkable increase. Prior to the time of starting the Daily News, the circulation of the weekly had reached nearly 2,500.
Coming from Hicksville, Ohio, in 1883, where he had disposed of his interest in a thriving weekly, Mr. M. V. Starr, the present editor and manager of the News Printing Company, purchased an interest in the business with his brother and on December 10, 1883, the Goshen Daily News made its initial how to the public and for eighteen years has been working for the advancement of the city. In 1884. the build- ing which The New's now occupies was erected and with the business office a small stock of goods and stationery was installed. Within a short time the job printing establishment of Starr Bros. was purchased and embodied in the newspaper plant. In 1886, an addition to the building was erected and a book bindery was installed. Two years later a further addition to the building was made, to the alley in the rear. and the building is now 166 feet in depth. . As the business increased more machinery was added from year to year. In December, 1894, a Thorne type-setting machine was installed and at present the plant is modern in every respect. The Mid-Weekly was launched this same year. 1894. The mechanical part includes three cylinder presses, job- bers, folding machines, and a full complement of type and furniture necessary in the conduct of the large business which The News enjoys. The building is heated by steam and lighted by
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electricity. The editorial rooms are arranged with the idea of time- saving and are very convenient. The bindery is located on the second floor and modern machinery is in use in that department.
The history of the Goshen Times, the other component member of the consolidation, is thus given :
The Goshen Times was founded in 1855. E. W. Metcalf, the first proprietor, sold his interest to Dr. E. W. H. Ellis and C. W. Stevens. Copeland and Cole secured the plant in June, 1862, and in November, 1863, Cole was succeeded by H. W. Smith. William M. Starr pur- chased the paper in 1867. \ half interest was purchased by Dr. Henry J. Beyerle in 1877, and Mr. Starr retired in 1880, Dr. Beyerle becom- ing sole owner. Associated with him in later years were his two sons, A. R. and L. H., and finally the paper was transferred to Lincoln H. Beverle. The Times issued a daily in 1882, but suspended in a few weeks, and was revived August 17, 1886. In September, 1899, W. H. Ragan and W. S. Gard purchased the Times plant, Mr. Gard retiring in November, 1900.
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