USA > Indiana > Grant County > Centennial history of Grant County, Indiana, 1812 to 1912 : compiled from records of the Grant county historical society, archives of the county, data of personal interviews, and other authentic sources of local information > Part 35
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ing sold. No. 6 is Oakridge. No. 7 is Center. No. 8 is Antioch. No. 9 is at Independence. No. 10 has been abandoned. No. 11 is known as the Wells school. No. 12 is at Little Ridge. This school is so large that two teachers are employed. No. 13 is Radley school and No. 14 is called West Bethel. There are libraries at all the schools, and there are organs at some. The school enumeration for this township last year was 527 young people. The first graduates from the country schools of the county belonged to the class of 'S1. Those from Liberty township were Anna L. Goodwin, Nelia MeCombs, O. Hamilton, Josie E. Shugart and Flora Mart. Last year the Liberty township grad- uating class numbered twenty-eight. After graduation many of our boys and girls have taken a course at the Fairmount Academy, others have attended Marion Normal College, some have gone to Earlham, some to Purdue and other places. At the present time there is a great interest shown in agriculture in connection with the school work. Clyde Nichol- son won the first prize at the first "corn school" held at Marion in January of this year. Liberty township boys also won the fourth and ninth prizes. Jeremiah Howell and Willis Commack were among the early trustees of the township. Others who have tilled that office are Eli Goodwin, George Mason, I. R. Shingart, Enos Harvey, B. F. Albert, Dr. I. N. Seal, D. Haisley and Frank MeCabe, who is trustee at the present time.
The Quaker faith was the predominating element among the early settlers in the eastern part of the township. The Oakridge meeting of Friends was organized in 1840 or 184]. Their first church was a log one with two rooms making it possible for men and women to be separate during business sessions, as was the custom among Friends in those days. One of these rooms was used For school purposes for some time. A frame building for worship was afterward erected here and later on a brick church was built. Little Ridge meeting of Friends was organized about 1853. Their place of worship is a frame buikling, which has been remodeled. Bethel meeting of Friends was orgamzed about 1864. Their church, which is a frame one, was built abont ten years later. In those early days the Friends would sometimes worship in silence, and meeting was adjourned by those who sat at the head of the meeting shaking hands with one another. Singing was not allowed in the churches, but now there are organs at all three of the churches and some of the members are very good singers. But one other meeting of Friends has been organized since then in this township. It is known as Linwood and is located west of Radley. They have a frame church built in 1890.
The colored Methodist Episcopal church was organized in 1852. The church is called Hill's chapel. It is a frame building east of Weaver. There is a parsonage on the same lot. For many years they held camp- meeting near this church in August. These meetings were largely at- tended by white people, as well as the members of the church, but they are no longer held. The colored people organized a Wesleyan church at Weaver and erceted a frame ehnreb, but services are no longer held there. The Christian church at Center was organized in 1875. They have a frame church. There is a Methodist Episcopal church at Independence. A Christian (Newlight ) church was organized at Prine schoolhouse where services were held for several years, but they are very infrequent now. There was a Wesleyan class organized at the Howell schoolhouse in early days. At one time there was a large membership, but the meet- ings are no longer held.
About 1853 Albert Bailey opened a store at Oakridge. He also kept the first postoffice there and Jesse Carey carried the mail out from
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Jonesboro. Jeremiah Howell afterward had a store there and had charge of the mail after it was brought to Oakridge. But store and post- office were abandoned long ago. Other postoffices in the township were Hackleman, Shadesville, Weaver, Elma and Tacoma. "They had their day and ceased to be." The postoffice at Radley is the only one in the township. The postoffice at Independence is known as Rigdon and is in Green township. We regard free rural delivery as one of our greatest blessings, and welcome the coming of the daily mail.
The C. I. & E. Railroad was built through this township in 1898. It is now a part of the Pennsylvania lines. The train stops at Wright and Cole station on signal only. Wright is in the southeastern part of the township and a tile mill is located there. Cole is in the northwestern part of the township. It has a store and an elevator. Radley is near the center of the township. It has a very neat depot, an elevator, postoffice, three stores, two blacksmith shops, school and several residences. There are three voting precinets at this place. The I. O. O. F. lodge has a hall room above one of the stores, where the lodge meetings are held. Radley is a convenient shipping point for the farmers.
Independence was laid out in 1851. It is partly in Liberty and Green townships in Grant county and extends into two townships in Madison county. The Methodist Episcopal church, schoolhouse, one store and several residences are in Liberty township. Haekleman has one store, a blacksmith shop and a few residences.
Weaver is the gathering place of the colored people. It has one store, a blacksmith shop, a nice school building, a church near-by and a burial ground for the colored people. There are three other burial grounds in the township, one at Oakridge, one at Little Ridge and a small one on the old homestead of James Scott.
Our people shared in the general prosperity brought about through the discovery of natural gas. The first well in the township was drilled about 1888. Nearly all of the farmers leased their land and received a yearly rental in addition to free gas for fuel. The Chicago Gas Company leased many aeres of land and located a pumping station south of Oakridge. In the time of the oil boom there were a few oil wells developed in the southeastern part of the township, but they belong to the past. Only a few families now have gas for fuel, and as wood is not plentiful, coal is used extensively for fuel.
Wire fences are taking the place of the old rail ones, timber is dis- appearing and the birds do not find the same familiar haunts as of oldl. But the musical call of "Bob White" is still a joy of the summer. Up- to-date machinery is used by the farmers and the farms show improve- ment in different degrees. Many of the homes have modern conveniences. The telephone is at our command. The old well-sweep has given way to the wind-pump, and the piano has taken the place of the spinning wheel. We feel a certain pride in our achievements, yet we realize that Walt Whitman's test of greatness applies to a township as well as a nation, and we modestly write that our greatness lies in the strength. nobleness and purity of our good men and women -- no matter where you find them. In the language of Ruskin, "He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords of kings of the earth-they, and they only."
233
HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY XXXIII. MONROE TOWNSHIP IN HISTORY
By Joshua Strange
Saturday, March 27, 1909, was Monroe Township day in the Grant County Historical Society, and the entertainment features were a voral solo by Miss Ada Wall and a reading by Mrs. Atilla Farr Collett. There were a number of citizens who had never attended a meeting of the society who came out to hear the following sketch :
The organization of Grant county into townships was made at the first term of the commissioner's court held in Grant county, September 6, 1831, and the first was Wabash township and the second named Pleas- ant and the remainder of the county was called Union township from 1831 to 1834. The north half of Monroe township was in and formed part of Pleasant and the south half was in Union township.
At the March term in 1834 of the commissioner's court, Center township was formed and it comprised a part of Monroe township and in September of the same year the township of Jefferson was formed and it included the south tier of sections of which is now a part of Monroe.
In March, 1836, Madison township, now Monroe, was formed from the eastern part of Center and a mile strip off the north of JJefferson and by adding one mile on to the west of Jefferson from I'nion township gave Jefferson its present boundary. I say this incidentally in order to show how Monroe got its boundaries on the south and part of the west.
In 1837 Washington township was divided and the township of Monroe was formed of the territory of Van Buren, and in 1839 the name was changed (of congressional township 25) to Van Buren township.
In 1835 in a rearrangement of some of the townships the name of Madison township was changed to Monroe. I have now reached the name of the subject of my sketch. In nineteen years after birth it seems to have taken on some marital relations, and the history will have to come under the title of Madison-Monroe township.
The township of Monroe comprises all of township 24 north, range 9 east. The surface of the land is generally level. In dividing the town- ship from the northwest corner to the southwest corner, fairly divides the township into two classes, the southwest of the imaginary line being more undulating and of a lime-clay soil, timber, more generally white oak, than on the northeast of the line, or northeast part of the town- ship of which the soil was interspersed with a large amount of black, rich, fertile soil ; timber-white and burr oak, ash, grey, blue and swamp, hickory flats, chin, sugar and beech ridges and some chmaps of walnut.
Creeks and branches had but little, and in many places no chammels, and the native state generally level and wet, and some places extremely marshy, especially in section 10. was known as the big mire, where stock would wander in search of early spring grasses and frequently would mire down, their legs going straight down to their bodies in the miry inek of which the depth is unknown. Fifty years ago I helped D. B. Pierce pull a cow out of this big mire; at that time I mind well of us pushing a pole fully a rod long straight down in the muck.
Those lands, in the main, have been reclaimed and are farmed in grain, corn mostly, every year. In section 15, there were two of those miry marshes, which were open lakes at some time and very deep. The writer drilled an oil well in one about one hundred feet from the edge and the rotten vegetation was fifty feet deep to the solid dirt. The mmek when dry will burn and at a dry time about 1860, the big mire, spoken of in section 10, got on fire from a woods fire, which these days were
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HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
very frequent, and burned out fifteen acres, burning all the timber out by the roots. The land was covered with chn and ash up to two feet in diameter and burning the muck from three to five Feet deep. No ordi- nary shower of rain had any effect on the fire. It raged until the late fall rains filled it with water.
Near one of those quagmires in section 15 is a beautiful round knoll which was used as a burying ground by the prehistoric race, who buried their dead by building a mound of dirt on them. The mounds seemed to have been of different sizes. There are several still plainly detined, one about four feet high and perhaps twenty-five feet in diameter at the base and shaped like a cone. From this mound the writer gathered frag- ments of bones of arms, legs, fingers, and toe bones, patella and teeth, which are on exhibition at the city library, mounted on blocks of wood about six inches square. From the amount of Indian darts and toma- hawks Found in this locality it surely was a great hunting ground in the ancient days of the first settlers. At this time I will mention another epoch in the history of this locality on Lugar creek, of which the above mentioned places were parts of the headwaters of Lugar creek.
In section 8, on the farm of George Strange, about the year of 1880, in making staves of large oaks on some of the inner bolts were engrav- ings of the form of the duck, a whale and other indistinguishable char- acters, an ax hacks, and where bullets were ent out, one hundred and fifty growths from the surface, each growth representing a year, mak- ing to this date about one hundred and eighty years from the date of the skillful carving supposedly done by French trappers, as an old beaver trap was plowed ont of a beaver dam within a half mile of those marked trees. As to the carvings, if it was done by white men from the char- acter of the engravings made on the fresh sap on barked trees, they had been in touch with the Creek Indians, as it was their enstom when leaving a place or departing from their village for a distant hunt to paint on barked trees the image of a snake, eagle or something to guard the position until the warriors would return. The similarity of the man- ner of which the oak staves are marked, which shows it to have been done on the sap of the trees after the bark had been removed when the sap was up. shows that it must have been done perhaps with some kind of paint as even the imprint of the tail feathers of the picture of the duek are in the wood.
The stave bolts and trap the writer has in his possession are evi- dence of the many interesting things of the prehistorie age of the locality, now a small subdivision of which at one time was known only as a great body of flat land, that the sun came from somewhere, and came up near the same place, in about regular intervals. These antiquated times of our blessed land upon which we have our homes is a wonder- ment to our mind and mystifies our thought to look upon those mounds, the graves, in a graveyard, on a beautiful knoll, besides the onee bean- tiful lake, which nature has now transformed into a fertile soil and made a forest over the graves of the unknown dead.
To this once sacred spot in the contines of the writer's subject are, as it were, hieroglyphics written on the earth's surface that conveyed 10 us the only history where, if in detail, would make volumes, and in our mind's eye we look back and see our predecessors an obliterated race. So in a sense we can look as far back in our imagination as we can forward in our faith to things everlasting.
When those monnds were built is unknown. The historie mound at Mound City, West Virginia, that was discovered in 1770, was ninety feet high and nine hundred feet in ciremmference, and on the summit. was a giant oak, six centuries old. In 1838 there was an exeavation
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through the center of it, and two skeletons were found in a rudely con- structed vault of round timbers and loose stones. One of the skeletons was surrounded by six hundred ivory beads and an ivory ornament six inches in length. With another skeleton there were copper rings and plates of mica ; also carvings on stones of unknown characters. } drop this serap of history to throw more light on the history of our township.
Now in entering into tradition and written history of Madison-Monroe township, which contains thirty-six sections or thirty-six square miles, the geological strata on the surface were in the main a black loam soil from two inches to three or four feet deep. Second strata is a yellow clay subsoil and some depth of a blue cast, to a depth of From sixty to eighty feet to a strata of sand and gravel, mostly quicksand, which extends to the limestone, from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and eighty feet with the exception where the quicksand reaches a depth of four hundred and twenty feet from the surface to the shale, which has been termed by oil and gas operators as the deep dive, or "sow belly." From all indications it was at one time a deep river varying in width from three to four miles with the indications of almost perpendicular walls of limestone from one hundred and twenty to nearly two hundred feet high. The south line of this deep river enters the township near the center of section 19, and passes in a northwesterly direction through sections 18, 11, 10, 3, 4 and 5, leaving the township near the northwest corner of section 5. The uniform depth is about four hundred and twenty feet from the surface and widens and narrows in places and it has been traced over half across the state from the east line in a north westerly direction.
The shale lies at a depth over the township of about four hundred and twenty feet and has a very distinguishable equality in thickness of about six hundred feet and lies on what is known as the Trenton rock, which throughont the township is honeycombed or fissured with a very com- pact, hard covering on the surface from four feet to sometimes twenty feet thick. Under that is the gas and oil bearing strata, thickness depend- ing on the elevation or depression of the surface of Trenton rock, in which at a depth of from thirty to fifty feet is the salt sand or salt water strata.
The township was an unbroken forest with the marks of a cyclone in the southern portion in sections 26, 27. 28, 35 and 36. In section 28 it seemed to have been more terrific, as it bad uprooted most of the large timbers, as the native woods showed by the old logs and heaps of dirt lifted up by the mass of roots and the timber was thrown in circles as if done by a whirlwind. It was a rare time that you would find a tree that withstood the devastating power of that hurricane. In section 28 one mammoth oak stood out alone and the writer in looking over the track of the storm, while in the forest, measured that tree and three fret from the ground it measured twenty-one feet around and was at least sixty feet to a limb, but it showed that it had been stubbed by the storm.
The writer got the following information regarding the date of the hurricane as being between the time the soldiers went to Fort Wayne in 1812 and their return in 1813 and that it took them three days to reopen their road through the track of this hurricane. Afterwards it became a great pigeon roost and in taking up land some, in their minds, believed that the fertility of the soil would be extraordinary on account of the exerement of the pigeons 1 have not the date of the opening of the Indianapolis and Fort Wayne state road. It was the first road or highway in the township, and entered the township near the south- west corner of section 19, and went in a northeastern direction through
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sections 18, 7 and 5 and left the township about sixty rods cast of the northwest corner of seetion 4. This road perhaps was traveled for the entry of most, if not all, of the lands of the township.
There was another oll angling road that passed through the town- ship south of the center, one mile, and being almost a dircet line from Marion to Hartford City and extending through to Richmond, up into Ohio, but not eut out west further than the old state road in section 18, and was traveled a great deal in any early day, passing through see- tions 36, 25, 26, 21, 20, 19 and 18. Another of the pioneer roads was the old Cumberland and Warren road, passing through the cast tier of sections which was one of the main roads for travelers.
The Fort Wayne and Indianapolis road crossed the Marion and Hartford City road near the southwest corner of section 18, and the Cumberland and Warren road crossed the Marion and Hartford City road near the northwest corner of section 36. Those roads are now all abandoned, with few distinguishing marks left to show they ever existed, except the Cumberland and Marion road.
When the lands were taken up and settlements formed, then other by-roads were opened through the forest connecting settlements, and in some instances blazed paths from house to house, of which many times the hickory bark flambean was used at night to guide us through the woods, by going from one blazed tree or sapling to the other, to keep from losing our way in the wood-land that abounded with wild deer, turkey, pheasants, squirrel, black and gray bears, wolves, foxes and once in a while an otter, raccoon, opossum, poreupine, wildeat and minx. Perhaps there is not a gray or black squirrel in the township at this time and at one time they were the most abundant of any game, but in their stead are a few fox and piny squirrels. The only game at present is quails and rabbits. The first imported game came to the township February, 1909, two dozen Russian pheasants. They were turned loose on sections 16 and 20 on Thompson and Leonard farms.
The first gravel road was built by a stock company in 1873 from Arcana (by Monroe) west to the river at the now iron bridge, and was a toll road, making only three miles of improved roads in the township. There is now forty miles of improved roads by grading and graveling.
Joseph Imgar was the first settler. He came in 1831, and settled in section 7 and sold his claim to Dr. William MeKinley in 1836, and then entered and conveyed it. John and Barney, and George, their father, came in 1832. Their chief occupation was hunting.
George Stout built the first house in 1836 in section 18 on the Fort Wayne and Indianapolis road, between the Wilson ford, where A. Wilson lived on the Mississinewa where the Fort Wayne and Indianapolis road crossed it, and Warren, and, in fact, was by the travelers known and called a stopping place and used as a country inn, and almost everybody stopped there when going to enter their lands. The chief luggage carried was the saddle laden with silver thrown across the saddle, generally behind the seat, or rather a sub-saddle used for strapping things on behind the saddle, and in removing the saddle all would come off to- gether. The long split-tail, heavy, gray fulled cloth raincoat with a shoulder cape was the main equipment of the travelers and when not worn was rolled and strapped to the back appendage of the saddle. The saddle bags were made of leather in the shape of boxes, one on each end of a strap of leather about two feet long and six inches wide, which, thrown across the saddle, was the full equipment of travelers in Monroe township that called at the George Stout log cabin inn, and were glad to enjoy the hospitalities it provided, with a few temporary things arranged over the floor for bed, with feet to the fire to enjoy a
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night's shumber. In the cabin the first ‹lection was held in 1838, and Silas Parks was the first justice of the peace. Edwin Brown was the second justice of the peace, elceted in 1839.
I here give a more fully tabulated statement of the first settlers and date of their settling in their new homes in a wilderness, to-wit: Andrew Patterson settled at Farmington in October, 1835; Silas Park settled in 1835; John daeks settled in 1836; Josiah Roberts settled in 1836; Moses Adamson settled in 1836; Green B. Jaeks settled in 1836; Daniel Dwiggins settled in 1836 and built the first steam sawmill in the town- ship; Ben Hilhnan, in 1836; Paul Roberts, in 1836; William Harrison settled in 1836, and was one of the school teachers; Robert Marshall, in 1836; Mark Gage settled in 1841; Joel Long, in 1838; Jesse Oren, in 1841; Charles Atkison, in 1828; Phillip Cole, in 1837; George W. Leou- ard. in 1837; Stephen Studevent, in 1838; Sanruel Hodson, in 1841; George Phillips, in 1839; Israel Jenkins, in 1840; John B. Palmer, in 1837; James Bird, in 1837; Edwin Brown, in 1837; William Mitchell, in 1837; William Long, in 1841, and cleared forty aeres for forty aeres; James Wilson, in 1844; James Haines, in 1848; Samuel R. Thompson, in 1842; George Strange settled in 1841 on the land entered by his father in 1836, and resides on the same spot where he built his cabin in 1841, and now lives in the third house he has erected in the same yard, and he and his wife, the writer's father and mother, enjoy the distinction of being the only pioneer couple now hving and the longest married couple in the county, having been married sixty-nine years the thirteenth of last February, 1909, George Strange being eighty-nine the twelfth day of November, 1908, and Lydia eighty-nine on September 18, 1908. Levi Lunday settled in 1840; Simon Goodykoontz settled in 18-16; Jacob Goodykoontz. in 1839; Absolom Thompson settled in 1846; dames Hults, in 1842; George W. Hulis, in 1838; T. J. Hulis, in 1842; John Wicker- sham, in 1839; James bundy, 1840; Joel Green, in 1840; Abner Wicker- sham, in 1840; David Wall, in 1840; Daniel C. Keever, in 1840: Sephas Atkinson, in 1840; John Simons, in 1838; Thomas Smith, in 1845; James Gillespie, in 1838: Garrett Bird, in 1837; George Kessinger, in 1837; Mathias Stotler in 1840; Henry Smith in 1846; Zimri Leonard is the oldest citizen living in the township that was born in it. He was born July 6, 1838, and lives on the farm where he was born over seventy years ago.
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