USA > Indiana > Delaware County > A twentieth century history of Delaware County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 12
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YORKTOWN.
Along the course of White river and the old State road are to be found some of the oldest towns of the county. After Smithfield and Muncie, the next deserving attention is Yorktown. Samuel Casman, the Delaware half- breed, entered the land on which most of this village is situated, and when he disposed of it to Oliver H. Smith, the latter platted a village. The site se- lected was on the west side of the river, along the State road. Another ad- vantage at the time was the proposed canal which was planned to pass through this locality. The first house is said to have been built about 1834, by Joshua Turner. In the third house erected, John Longley opened a stock of groceries, and on his removal O. H. Smith and T. J. Sample put up a store, about 1839, and were the principal merchants for some years. On the west side of the village were two taverns, one being known as the "Blue Ball Tavern," from the sign that hung suspended before it. Joseph Van Matre kept this place, which he built about 1830, and conducted it in a manner to make it famous among travelers. He and his wife lived there until they passed away, and then after standing half a century the house was torn down. The second house erected on the village site was used at various times for residence, church and schoolhouse. Thus the principal interests needful to make a village community were soon supplied. Dr. John C. Helm located there soon after the platting of the town, and Dr. Godwin was another early physician. Before Mr. Smith platted the site, a postoffice was kept by Wil- liam Jones a mile and a half west, but soon afterward it was moved to York- town. As early as 1830 the waters of Buck creek near its junction with White river had been tapped by a race, and a saw mill built. This, the first industrial enterprise, was established by William Hardwick, who about 1832 added machinery for grinding corn, and continued to operate the mill until his death. O. H. Smith got control of it and converted it into a woolen mill. A. and D. M. Yingling finally secured the property, and before the boom days of Yorktown the Yingling Woolen Mill was the principal manufactur- ing enterprise.
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DALEVILLE.
The vicinity about the White river in the extreme west side of the county has been known as a center of settlement for about seventy years. In the early thirties what was known as "the hydraulic" was begun by the state at this point. This was intended as a feeder to the Wabash canal. A dam ten feet high was constructed across the river at this point, and some of the stones and timbers were to be seen in the bed of the river as late as ten years ago. The canal was cut on the north bank of the river, extending along low hills in many places nearly a mile from the river. At the head of this canal, on the opposite side of the river from where Daleville now stands, a town said to have had two or three hundred inhabitants and known as Mount Summit grew up. The canal enterprise failed, however, and the village disintegrated. Some of the old buildings stood for over half a cen- tury, but the owner of the land, John Bronnenberg, had long since plowed across the streets that had been laid out when the village was started. In the early sixties some private capitalists proposed to make use of the dis- used channel by completing a canal to Anderson, using the water to run mills and factories. About sixty thousand dollars was expended, but constant breaks in the masonry near Chesterfield caused a final abandonment of the enterprise. Some of the masonry still stands, though the old cut is well nigh obliterated and when observed often becomes a matter of curious speculation to account for its origin.
The village of Daleville takes its name from the Dale family. Campbell Dale had entered land in that locality in 1827, and his sons platted the vil- lage. Where the principal north and south street of the village crosses the Muncie road, a two story frame building had been erected about 1845 and used for a tavern by Abraham Pugsley. One or two mercantile enterprises had been started here at an earlier date, but the town had no real permanence until the railroad was built in the early fifties.
ALBANY.
It is said that the land on which the village of Albany was later built was first located by Andrew Kennedy, in 1827. After making some improve- ments he sold to William Venard, who bought the land of the government, the date of his entry being October 3, 1832. In the following year he sub- divided the land into town lots and founded the village of Albany, which has since grown and extended its limits over a considerable part of two sections. So far as known, Albany was a site without any business enterprise for sev- eral years. Granville Hastings had opened a stock of goods in section 16 at the locality variously known as Clifton, Sharon and Zehner Mill, in 1834, and it was two years later before Uriah Pace started a little store in Albany.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
Other early merchants of the village were John Mitchell, William Krohn, Jacob Powers and the Bergdolls. Dr. Isaiah Templin was the first physician to locate there. As late as 1880 Albany had but six mercantile firms, besides the various trades and four or five physicians. The history of Albany as the progressive town next in size to Muncie in the county is contained within the last twenty-five years, for previous.to that period the interests were few and no important industries had yet been established.
EATON.
Eaton, whose chief claim to fame outside its own county lies in its being the pioneer gas town of Indiana, had its origin as a center of population in a milling enterprise that was located on the river in what is now the south edge of town. This mill, the first in the township and one of the first in the county, was built by Francis Harris in the early thirties ; some eight or nine years later was sold to the firm of Carter and Johnson, who discarded some of the primitive features of the grist machinery and put up a combination saw and grist mill. The Carter brothers, Charles and George, later owned and controlled the property, and in time a new flouring mill and saw mill succeeded the earlier plants, the Carter mill becoming one of the industrial landmarks of Eaton and the north side of the county.
In the vicinity of this mill, previous to 1870, some four or five families had grouped their homes. The Younts, Young and Carmichael families were the principal ones thus distinguished as pioneer residents of the community which has since grown into the town of Eaton. In 1870 the Fort Wayne, Muncie and Cincinnati Railroad was completed through this point, and al- most immediately population and the general village interests .began to in- crease. A census was taken in May, 1873, at which time 158 persons lived in the locality, and as a result of this census and the expressed desires of the people a petition was presented to the county commissioners asking that this community be incorporated as a town. July 5, 1873, the vote taken in ac- cordance with the instructions from the commissioners showed that 28 were in favor of incorporation and none against it. Eaton was incorporated Sep- tember 10, 1873, the first town in the county beside the county seat to acquire this form of local government. The first officers chosen to administer the affairs of the town corporation, at an election September 20, 1873, were : Adam Foorman, Wilson Martin, Nathan Baisinger, trustees ; John Foorman, clerk, treasurer and assessor.
GRANVILLE.
Granville, in section 31 of Niles township and on the south bank of the Mississinewa, is one of the oldest villages in the county. It is the successor of Georgetown, which was located a short distance further up the river, Price Thomas having hewed the logs for the first house on that site in 1833.
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This village enterprise failed, however, and a more vigorous community grew up where John Gregory divided a part of his land into town lots in 1836 and founded Granville. To this point it is said the inhabitants of Georgetown floated their houses down the river and erected them again on the new village site. James A. Maddy was the first merchant at the place, though he sold goods for Wilson Stanley, the owner. This store was opened in 1836, and was located in a log house on the banks of the river. David Shideler was also a merchant here. For many years Granville kept pretty well on a par with its neighbors, Eaton and Albany, but the railroad changed conditions and gave the latter insuperable advantages that the quiet river village could never overcome ..
WHEELING AND NEW CORNER.
Washington township contains several sites of population centers that have undergone many fluctuations in the course of history. Outside of the recorder's office, very few people have any practical knowledge of the site once known as Elizabethtown, which was situated on the north bank of the Mississinewa river in section 12. Joseph Wilson, the original proprietor of the town, platted the site because it was believed to be the central location and the natural selection for the county seat of a county which was to be formed from part of Delaware and the land situated to the north. The name was given in honor of Elizabeth Wilson, whose grandson is Mark Powers, of Gaston. A village was started, merchants and blacksmiths and other mechanics located there, town lots brought fancy prices, and during the thirties Elizabethtown had more importance than some of the present- day towns that were not then on the map. But the boundaries of Black- ford county, when formed in 1839, did not even include Elizabethtown. This humiliation was more than the natural vigor of the town could endure, and in a few years little remained to mark the site of this ambitious enterprise.
William McCormick, one of the pioneer settlers of the township, about 1833 purchased land in the northeast corner of section 14 and later laid out a village there. One of the oldest roads in the county is Wheeling ave- nue, as it is now called, leading from Muncie to this point, and this highway was the first regular mail route to this part of the county. The mail was carried by horseback as far as Logansport, and later a hack service was in- stalled and continued in use until the railroad was built a few years ago. William McCormick's house was the first postoffice, which went by the name of Cranberry postoffice until it was changed to Wheeling.
New Corner, which is now the enterprising Gaston, but which at an even earlier date was known as Snagtown, dates back to February, 1855, when David L. Jones laid the first plat on part of the northeast quarter of section 33. This village necessarily had little prosperity beyond the rural
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hamlet stage until the coming of the railroad many years after the laying of the plat.
NEW BURLINGTON.
The road between Muncie and Richmond, one of the earliest and most traveled highways of the county, passed through Perry township, along the line of the New Burlington pike. Houses of entertainment, taverns or inns as they were called, were numerous along this route, and occasionally a village grew up around such a house. Also, merchants found the traffic of the highway to their advantage, and country stores offered their wares to the passing public at short intervals. Where the road crosses section 8 of Perry township, George Ribble had platted a village in the thirties, and at that point was located the first postoffice of the township, John Newcomb of- fered the first stock of goods for sale in 1838, and a year or so later Charles Mansfield opened a tavern that became popular and much frequented by travelers along the road. Mansfield soon succeeded to the merchandise stock, and some time later sold all to John Kyger. Benjamin Pugh was the first postmaster, Dr. S. V. Jump and George W. Shroyer being his successors, the latter having been the principal merchant for many years. These sum up the chief interests of New Burlington during its early history.
With the building of the railroad through Perry township, New Burling- ton lost most of its prestige. About two miles west was located a little sta- tion known as Medford, the postoffice being called Phillips.
Another center of Perry township is Mount Pleasant, in the southwest corner, which consisted largely of a group of homes about the United Brethren church, and made no pretensions to commercial or industrial enter- prise.
Monroe Township Centers.
After the building of the railroad through the center of this township a station was established about the center of the township and named Mc- Cowan's, which has come to be known best as Cowan. Charles McCowan, after whom it was named, was one of the carly settlers of the township, and a man of remarkable industry, as a result of which he accumulated a com- petence, and at his death gave six thousand dollars for the building of a church and graded school building at McCowan's station. Around these institutions a village community was formed, a postoffice was established, and within a few years there were two stores, two saw mills, a tile factory, and the usual interests of such a place.
For a number of years a postoffice called Macedonia was kept at a store in the southeast corner of section 14, but in November, 1890, it was discontinued because no one would perform the duties of the office. After- ward the people of this vicinity got their mail at Luray, and Macedonia practically ceased to exist.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
Oakville is another community that was grouped about a railroad sta- tion. It was a little community with one store and postoffice in 1880.
Richwood postoffice on the west side of the township belongs in the list of those little communities that existed chiefly because of the postoffice and have ceased to be since the rural route superseded the postoffice.
ROYERTON.
Royerton dates back to about 1870, when John Royer divided forty acres of land into town lots, reserving sites for schoolhouse and church. He already had a store and postoffice at that point, and with the impetus of the railroad the commercial interests and one or two mills were maintained.
SHIDELER.
About the same time Isaac Shideler, who had been active in promoting the first railroad from Fort Wayne and had then given land for depot site at the north edge of Hamilton township, revived the town of Shideler, and with the building of a depot the village may be said to have begun. Mr. Shideler was proprietor of the store and the postmaster at this point.
Other Centers.
Before the days of the rural free delivery a great many centers, named and located on the map, had little else to distinguish them or give them im- portance except the postoffice. As long as there was reason for the exist- ence of a postoffice, to which the people of the surrounding neighborhood would regularly come for their mail, the same place would offer attractions for a country store and blacksmith shop and perhaps thus become the nucleus of a larger center. With the discontinuance of postoffices of this class by the rural free delivery, a great many of these centers are disappearing, and deserve mention largely because they existed in the past. A list of such places follows :
Culbertson's Corner, in southwest part, and Cologne Postoffice in the northwest corner, respectively, of Washington township.
In Salem township are Tabor, once a postoffice and site of a church and school community (a familiar name was "Sockum"). Crossroads, near the south line of the township, had some commercial distinction in early years, a store having been opened there about 1832, though it failed of success, and in 1838 the Moffett brothers opened another.
In Harrison township is the little place called Bethel, or, more recently, Stout, from the name of the merchant for a long time located at that point, Isaac Stout. This is on the south side of section 20, and not far away was the placed named Harrison, designed as a village by Job Garner, who con- ducted the first merchandising enterprise of the township at that point.
CHAPTER XII.
MUNCIE.
In Center township, the White river, after pursuing a sinuous course from its head waters in Randolph county, makes a broad bend that marks the northernmost limit of its course, from that point following a generally southwest direction until it meets with the Wabash in southwestern Indiana. From this bend it is only a few miles over the watershed to the great Wabash valley, the waters of the Mississinewa and those of White river diverging at this point, not to mingle within the same banks until they have flowed several hundred miles in widely separate paths. On the north side of the bend the land begins an almost abrupt ascent toward the high ground of the watershed. On the south, half encircled by the river, lies the large bot- tom which the current has overrun many times in the history of the stream and has finally made into an alluvial plain.
Three quarters of a century ago, the region thus described was, accord- ing to current testimony, one vast hazel thicket, among which rose many varieties of forest growth, the beech and oak, the dogwood and hackberry, while along the river were many areas of marshland with its own peculiar growth. It was nature's wilderness, and probably only a few winding trails penetrated its density and indicated the passage of wild denizen or human beings. By treaty with the general government, probably the St. Mary's treaty of 1818, a tract containing 672 acres, lying on both sides of the river at the bend, was reserved and at the time of which we are now writing was held by a Delaware Indian, a widow, named Rebecca Hackley; hence was called the Hackley Reserve .* So far as known, the land had been put to
" In 1901 the C. I. & E. Railroad sought by condemnation a right-of-way across White river, which the Whitely Land Company had refused to grant. The attorneys for the railroad, in course of the proceedings, introduced a very unexpected and novel plen that the land company did not own the river bed, offering in support of this con- tention the following bit of history, going back to the very beginning of Muncie:
Quoting an article from the treaty of 1819-"To Rebecca Hackley, a half- blooded Miami Indian, is granted one section of land, to be located at Munseytown, on White river, so that it shall extend on both sides to include 320 acres of the prairie, in the bend of White river, where the bend assumes the shape of a horseshoe." .
The Indian woman, with superstition characteristic of her race, refused to ac- cept that part of the land covered by water, bence the plea of the attorneys for the railroad that " . in pursuance of said treaty (above mentioned) 320 acres of land lying south of said river was surveyed . and 320 acres of land lying north was likewise surveyed; that in the survey of said land the river was excluded. That, including said river, there is now 672 acres in said section of land. That
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
no use, although there may have been a little patch of ground where the widow Hackley or other members of her household cultivated some Indian corn and vegetables. To describe the situation of this reserve by modern landmarks: Its southeast corner was near Washington and Elm streets; the southwest corner is now in the river near the old dug road nearly north of the Jefferson school; the northeast and northwest corners being one mile north of the two corners mentioned, the tract being parts of sections 3, 4, 9 and 10. The south line of the reserve passes through the center of the court house.
While the first land entries were being made in the south and south- eastern parts of the county, Goldsmith C. Gilbert (whose career has been sketched) was trading with the Indians on the Mississinewa. The story goes that his store was burned down by a drunken Indian, who had been excited to riotous conduct by the Gilbert brand of whiskey, and with the money collected as damages from the tribe because of this outrage Mr. Gilbert shortly afterward purchased from the widow Hackley the reserve on White river. Like several other notable purchases "in American history, the amount originally paid for this land ($960), though it was higher than the price paid for government land, bears small proportion to its present value.
This sale was transacted about 1825, and about the same time two cabins were built in a clearing where is now the court house square. One of these Mr. Gilbert used for a residence, and the other for a trading post. Thus trade was the starting point of Muncie. At one end of the historical vista we see the trader's cabin, set in a little open space among the trees and hazel brush; its rough log walls sheltering and protecting a miscellaneous stock of the necessities of pioneer life; while idling about were some Indian bucks, buying so much as their purse or credit permitted or exchanging the results of hunting and trapping for the few staples and the liquor that civ- ilization had taught them to appreciate. A varied panorama intervenes between this primitive view and the present. At the other end a thousand interests are crowded together to represent the products of a twentieth cen- tury civilization. Near the site of the old trading post is the stone court house; on all sides are stores and dwellings, each one a splendid structure as compared with the old log cabin and every one constructed long after the old store had been demolished. All around, homes, factories, schools, and churches, along paved streets and avenues, occupy the ground then thicketed with hazel and other wild vegetation. A lonely cabin in the wil-
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plaintiff is informed that and believes that the Indians would not receive a river or water for land ceded to them, and that they did not do so; that the United States has never received any consideration for the land constituting the bed and banks of mid river; thnt it has never parted with its title thereto, unless by the treaty and sur- veys aforesaid, and unless said grant carried title to the thread of the stream."
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derness at the bend of the river: a city of brick and stone and wood, where thousands of people live and unite their industry and social activities-is it possible to conceive a greater contrast ?
The county institutions are a prize eagerly sought by various localities when a new county is organized. Other conditions being equal, the county seat will easily surpass all other centers in a county, and it is probable that in the country at large the county seats are usually the principal towns in their respective counties. For this reason, in the history of many counties we are treated with the spectacle of a lively county-seat fight, wherein two or more towns, each aspiring for the honor, contend for the prize with the inducements of money, the arts of politics, and even, as has been known, with the harsher means of open warfare.
The location of the county seat of Delaware county on land donated by G. C. Gilbert, Lemuel Jackson and William Brown has been described in the civil history of the county. Muncie has never had an important rival for this honor, and has continued the home of the county government for eighty years. With the establishment of the county seat at this point, and the donation of some fifty acres of land for the site of the town and county institutions, the history of Muncie may be said to have really begun. Besides being the center of the civil government, it quickly became the commercial center, where the residents of the outlying country resorted to obtain their supplies of provisions, to have implements repaired and horses shod, to get an occasional letter or paper, and also hear and discuss the current local news and politics.
Unfortunately, there is little contemporary information regarding Mun- cie's early history. For the most part it is necessary to rely on reminiscences of men who were here at the time, but who, at the time of recording their memories, had to look back over a long period of years, during which many details dropped away and the exact succession of events was often lost.
Muncie in 1837.
The earliest description that we have of Muncie is one that appeared in the first issue of the Muncictonian in 1837.
Muncietown-The seat of justice of Delaware county, situated on the south bank of White river, on an elevation of about thirty feet above the bed of the river. It was laid out in 1827, by four different proprietors, in the form of an oblong square. The four principal streets are sixty feet wide, the others forty-five, all crossing each other at right angles. It con- tains, at present 320 inhabitants, a postoffice, a printing office, four physi- cians, six mercantile stores, three taverns, three groceries, one grist mill, one saw mill. one distillery, one carding machine, one cabinet-maker's shop, two tailors, two hatters, one shoemaker, six house joiners, one bricklayer, and plasterer, two chair makers, two tanners, two blacksmiths, one gun-
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