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 39
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95
When Obadiah Jones came from Ohio he bought the land on which Jonesboro was built, and in 1836 he laid off the town, the survey being made by his brother, Daniel Jones, using as his model the city of Day- ton in western Ohio, near their home in that state. The original Obadiah Jones' house still stands, although the Jog structure has long been incased in weather boarding, and for many years it was painted red. but the weather has given it much of its present color. Perhaps the Jonesboro school boy today does not know its history, many who have graduated into the school life being unable to point it out. and yet most old-time citizens of Jonesboro could direct the stranger to this habitation. It is now an undivided estate belonging to the heirs of the late John Zeek, and occupied at present by Mrs. Anna Scrambling. One never thinks of the house being old until he hears the story. D. W. Jones of Fort Wayne, who for several years has been an octogenarian, is now the only surviving member of the family of Obadiah Jones, al- though several grandchildren still live in Grant county. He belonged to the Society of Friends and raised a large family in that faith. Center Friends meeting was organized and for a time the meetings were held in his home. Some of his sons were prominent men of affairs, and one of them, Dr. Enoch P. (Nuck) Jones, was the family doctor when ye his- torian arrived in Jonesboro.
While the town of Jonesboro was once farm land and owned by Obadiah Jones, its wide street, now paved with briek and by many said to be the prettiest street in the county, was due to the influence of his brother, Daniel Jones, and strangers always note the width of the street when passing through the town. Daniel Jones was also a resident, and he is now survived by one daughter, Mrs. buvenia Harris, and the house in which he lived-Aunt Millie Jones' corner, since known as the lams property, is to this day a landmark in Jonesboro. The writer well re- members when Branson Jones and his mother lived there. He had a carriage shop in town, and did much custom work for Mill township
1
260
IHISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
people. While the name Jones does not appear so frequently in the annals of the town nowadays, and there are few of that original Jones family registered there, yet like Tennyson's Babbling Brook, it will go on forever, and it is a pretty custom to perpetuate the name of the foun- der in the name of the municipality he brings into existence. It must be that Mill is as rich in its pioneer legacy as any other Grant county township, and a goodly heritage is left the present generation in many well known families. Silver and gold some of them have, and honor- able ancestry.
Some of the household names in the log cabin age are: Iliatt, Hog. gatt, Adamson, Pemberton, Baldwin, Whiteneck, Ayres, Roberts, Harris, Bates, Roush, Jay, Russell, Elleman, Winslow, Smith, Dohan, Hockett. Ellis, Hill, Murdock, Intsminger, Peirce, Shideler, Ink, Ruley, Spence, Wilson, Coleman, Moreland, Broderick, Carter, Douglass, Candy, Wal- lace, Lucas, Horne, Thompson, Bell, Jones, Hollingsworth, Benbow, Brushwiller, Allen, Evans, Crowell, Coggeshall, Coppoek, Cox, Stuart, Shugart, Fort, Hullinger, Burns, Dille, Sweet, Swank, Farnsworth, Neal, Patterson, McCormick, Coates, Farber, Cook, Fankboner, Mor- row, Jennings, Reynolds, Richardson, Nottingham. Whitson, Wiley, Zeek, Jackson, Barnard, Meck, Havens, Nelson, Johnson, Carlt, Clark, LeFever, Jenkins, MeQuitty, MeCurdy, Crilley, Hanmore, Parks, Hodupp, Dailey, and just where to draw the line and cut off the modern from the pioneer names is not an easy matter, and, as in other townships, some of the original families are well represented. The has worked many changes and others are known no longer in their accustomed haunts. The name Barnard is no longer heard, and the twelve Ilodupp children are represented by one sister-truly conditions have changed since the days when every family kept a cow and the commons about the Friends church was the town pasture. There are men and women in Mill today whose ancestry lived on wild honey, corn bread and game, and who wore nothing but home-made fabrics-spun and wove every garment themselves-but nearly all that great army has answered the final roll call-have fallen by the wayside in the heat of the day, while a few have been spared until the cool of the evening, and yet so many memories come trooping by of those who no longer answer the sum- mons of the present. There are a few octogenarians in Mill -- only yesterday it seems, was the remnant of the Shugart family laid away, and truly there are but few still lingering in the haunts of men who were really identified with the unfolding of the past and development of the present in this locality. The childhood memories of some of them are far removed from their present habitations. Twice Mill has had the distinction of being the home of the oldest person in Grant county since the Octogenarian Club has been in existence, but Mrs. Eliza Marks, who was born November 15, 1813, and whose home has only recently been in Jonesboro, harks back to Ireland with her child- hood memories, and to Michigan where her aetive life was passed, and the late William Havens, who was past ninety-five, had a recollection of New Jersey dating back of his Jonesboro days.
Mrs. Marks is now the only resident of Grant county dating back of the admission of Indiana as a state, but James D. Fort, who is next to her in age in Mill, came into the state of Kentucky the year Indiana was admitted into the Union, and he has been around Jonesboro for these many years. Other octogenarians in Mill are: Robert MeQuis- ton, A. C. Forsythe, Christian A. Swafford, Joseph Wills, Noah Harris, Jesse Johnson, Mrs. Naney Harris, Mrs. Ruth Gibson, Mrs. Christine Beek, Henry Clapper, John Adams, Elias Hicks Laneaster, Joseph W. Hill, B. B. Coleman, and Mrs. Eliza Wallace, the colored woman, whose
261
HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
age is an uncertainty, she having no record of her birth at all. Since the last meeting of the Octogenarian Club, Mrs. Elizabeth Howe, Mrs. Phoebe Dailey and John Shugart's names have been stricken from the Mill township list. It is sadly true that nearly all the men and women who came down the Mississinewa by raft when first entering the limits of Mill township have entered the haven of rest in some other elime, yet stories have been gleaned from some of them of times when all their earthly possessions were afloat, but the changes wrought from cutting away the timber and draining the land make such stories seem im- probabilities, even in the threshold yet of the twentieth century. Why, there are parts of Mill township now that remind one of the stories of rural England in their splendid improvements, and some of the families who came down the river aboard the rudest crafts, started a fine country when they ent away the thuber, and their children were born-not on farms, but in the cabins nestled away in the edges of the clearings. Some of them carried with them their artistie tem- peraments, and some of the oldest and largest evergreen trees to be found in a Sabbath day's journey are in the vicinity of Jonesboro.
It seems grotesque since the country has been drained, and the mill dams are out of the river, to speak of the Mississinewa as a navigable stream, and yet there was once a steamboat company organized in Jonesboro for the construction of river craft, and Hatboats were to be built for shipping produce to New Orleans, and it is a matter of history that a cargo of bacon was once sent down the river Dr. Levi Peirce was secretary and his son, John Peirce, still has the records of the com- pany. Mr. Peirce also has his father's township poll book when the boundary of Mill included much more territory, called Union town- ship, and there was only one voting precinct. The first store in Jones- boro was kept by Coates and Farber, but Dr. Peirce soon bought the Farber share and Coates and Peirce constituted the firm. From that day till the present, there has scarcely been a time when there was not a Peirce in business, and the Peirce family certainly holds the record, there being eight adults still living, although other Jonesboro families are almost extinet. Mrs. Mary Jane Coates Carter, a daughter of William Coates, was born January 26, 1839, and she was always said to be the oldest native of the town, although it was platted in 1836, and Mrs. Sarah Ann Peirce Baird, born October 13, 1841, was the second child in the new community, and she is now the oldest native resident of Jonesboro. Grant county had been organized just one decade when she took up her residence, and there are few residents of the county who have been here longer, Mrs. Martha Renbarger Wilson, of Monroe, who was born January 24, 1827, being the oldest native of the county, and she was born along Deer creek and perhaps in the present limits of Mill. There was a good showing of settlers in this locality when the county was organized, and if there were any "first families" recog- nized, then Mill would have some undisputed claims as to citizenship. While some of them came by river, others blazed their way through the woods and came in wagons, but in whatever manner they came they were on the ground early.
The first Methodist meeting in Mill was held in the home of William Bates in 1832, and the next year the Quakers held a meeting in the cabin of Obadiah Jones, and before the end of 1833 they built the first church in the township. Shortly afterward Bethel Methodist church was built, and the Old Bethel burial ground still marks its location. The first school house was built in 1833 in Jonesboro, near the site of the Friends church, when the town was laid out on a "hog's back." between the Mis- sissinewa and Back creek. Jonesboro was always dry when other towns
262
HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
were "stuck in the mud." Deer creek, Back creek, Walnut creek and Horseman or Brush creek are other Mill township streams, all emptying into the Mississinewa. Even Brush creek, which joins Back vreck just before it reaches the river, once turned the wheel of a woolen mill, and it requires some stretch of the imagination to take all that into the av. count nowadays. There has been a revolution of industrial conditions in "this neck o' the woods." Mill is one of the smaller townships -- the one that breaks the regularity in the Grant county checkerboard and makes it a baker's dozen with two strips two miles wide belonging in the geographical survey to Center and Fairmount, Sixth street in JJones boro being the line of the township were it again thrown back to the original and Mill eliminated from history. The facilities for water power recognized by the settlers gave the township its name, and, like Jefferson, Center and Pleasant, the river divides it into separate com- munities, pioneers of Jonesboro always saying "over the river" when referring to the east end of the township. While there is considerable rural wealth and some excellent farms, study of the Grant county map shows fewer unbroken quarter sections of land perhaps than in any other township, but parts of Mill will rank with any locality from the stand- point of soil or improvements. There are both first and second bottom land farms. and the stories of England may be duplicated in writing of rural conditions.
While Mill has always ranked high in agriculture, and the township received its name on account of water power early utilized in mannfac- turing, there has been a distinct evohition in the manufacturing process, and with transportation facilities unsurpassed. Mill is certainly fortu- nately situated. Time was when the men of Jonesboro sought employ- ment in Pemberton's woolen mill, Whiteneck's tannery and the Coage- shall nursery meant something to the community. There was a saw mill as early as 1840 on Walnut creek, and there are still traces of the old mill race that wrecked the fortunes of the men who promoted it in order to manufacture flour in the community. The settlers could not go on hauling their grinding from Richmond and while there were no subsidies voted, they did use their capital and their labor in bringing about different industrial conditions. Robert Wilson once operated a ferry, and in securing the necessary license he agreed to have enough boais in operation to accommodate the travel-a similar agreement I suppose to that entered into by the Indiana Union Traction Company in operating its cars, and yet Mill township citizens know what it means to hang to the straps, and perhaps this ferry had a similar rush of busi- ness. Pioneers have often related stories of crossing the Mississinowa by ferry. Pemberton's carding mill was at the Rock Dam, and when Whiteneck's tan house was in operation-and I remember the build- ing that stood near the river bank long ago-the simple life prevailed in Jonesboro. People did not want what they could not have, but the carding mill and tan yard are not even memories now to the majority of local residents. The cows ran on the commons then, and nearly every family had a brood sow and put up their own winter meat. "Backward, turn backward, oh Time in your flight-make me a child again-" ah, how many would entertain that thought for one moment, taking into account the hardships of the pioneers.
When in 1867 the first railroad came through Grant county and Noah Harris caught the spirit of Obadiah Jones and sought to perpetu- ate the family name in the town that sprang up on his land by calling it Harrisburg, all went well-East Jonesboro, really with no post office there until in 1892, when the Pennsylvania Railway Company, operat- ing through the Gas City Land Company, took a hand in local indns-
263
HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
trial conditions, and Harrisburg became known as Gas City in the post office directory. While Mr. Harris still lives and natural gas has sun its course as a manufacturing asset, there are some who would rather say Harrisburg now than Gas City, the latter term a misnomer, but the l'aet remains that the quietude of the country was broken by the stirring ae- tivities of this land company, and the business complexion of the entire community was changed. There were rapid strides in growth and in change of population, hut the present-day citizens are familiar with it all. While the river separates Jonesboro and Gas City, the Twin Cities have many interests in common, and along in the boom days people came from everywhere until there was a cosmopolitan population on both sides of the river. There are still a few families who have seen people come and go for almost three-quarters of a century, and while for a few years there was mushroom growth, its character has been changed and there is now a staple population on both sides of the river.
Since for a generation past the center of the population of the United States has been in Indiana, and Grant is one of the strong manufactur-
HIGH SCHOOLS IN GAS CITY
ing connties, and Mill is centrally located, then the Twin Cities are ver- tainly in the center of things They are in the heart of the manufacturing and consuming world, and the payroll in the Twin City factories means the distribution of a great deal of money every month. In fact, Mill township has its share in all material blessings vouchsafed a God-fear- ing people, and its natural resources are unsurpassed in Grant county. . The smoke of many factories indicates the busy life, and rapid transit places the people in quick communication with all the world. In so many respects Grant is the banner county, and Mill township. Jones- boro and Gas City are in the center of things. Of course, there was a new impetus to affairs in Mill when Gas City sprang from the hamlet of Harrisburg, and the tax duplicate For 1909 shows more than $1.000.000 taxable property. The roads originally blazed along the high points have nearly all been thrown to the section lines, and today there is very little unimproved roadway in the township. The frame school houses have all disappeared, and all the district schools are maintained, while in many townships consolidation has been necessary. In an educational way Mill has always been abreast of the time, and in the Twin Cities
1
264
HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
there are two excellent high schools, and time was when more teachers came from Mill than any other township. The old red school house in Jonesboro turned out its full quota, and there have been men of all pro- fessions except perhaps law, who belonged to the soil in Mill. The min- istry, medicine and teaching force will compare with any other locality, and there are native preachers whose voices have been heard around the world, and physicians whose counsel was much desired-men whose advice had much to do with the hardihood of the pioneers facing the conditions in the wilderness along the Mississinewa. Just count on your fingers the Jonesboro doctors who have enjoyed more than a local reputation and practice.
The name of "Bill" Owens was always linked with the school-day memories of many families, and when there was only one post office and Harrisburg citizens came across the river for their mail, Jonesboro al- ways had its contingent of well-informed citizens, and later when Gas City came on the seene there was another coterie of progressive people, and an intelligent community has always Hourished on both sides of the Mississinewa. While Jonesboro has pursued the even tenor of its way, it has witnessed a cosmopolitan population come and go, and it has been unnecessary to go away in order to see the world. There are not now so many persons of foreign birth as when Gas City was first on the map of Grant county. To illustrate the point, when the Catholic church was organized in Gas City there were so many foreign-born citizens, that a foreign name, St. Genevieve, was given it, but it is a different popula- tion now and Holy Family is the name on the corner-stone of the new church edifice The church as well as the school had its place m the hearts of the pioneers, and there was Quaker with a strong tincture of Abolition in the rural population. The church denominations today are well represented, and except the Catholic and Episcopalian churches all have flourished from the early history of the country. With the coming of new families in the boom days, society was greatly changed, and There came a day when few residents could say they know every man, woman and child in the township. While people came from everywhere to Gas City, many of them went away as mysteriously as they came, and now a more settled population lives there, and it may be safely urged that local citizenry measures up to the high standard of other communities.
No township in Grant county has had more capital invested in fac- tories than Mill, and there are some good manufacturing plants on both sides of the river. There have not been many casualties from lire, vet some losses have been sustained and owing to the operation of the trusts, other factories have been dismantled or removed to other territories. It would be interesting to consult the assessor's books and make a list of local industries, but away back in history, when water mills and water wheels were reckoned with, the people were just as happy, and a genera- tion ago all the inhabitants depended on the Fankboner flouring mill and in a flood of memories one thinks of the Smalls and of the toll the miller always took, and the fat hogs always seen there, and then the pie- ture changes-rapid transit and the mill site almost forgotten, and while in reminiscent mood one longs for the stillness unbroken by the shrill factory whistle. That greatest of all historians, Ridpath, takes one back to the dawn of history, long before the pyramids of Egypt were built, and he tells us of American patriotism and religious liberty to the dawn of yesterday. Yet when delving into the past history of many localities, we do not find the necessary information forthcoming, and if an histori- cal society had been organized when some who are now in their graves were active citizens, so much valuable data could have been obtained from them. The newspapers of today are doing more for the future
265
HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
historian than in the past, when they were only issued once a week, and their files will be consulted to advantage. The regret is that "word of month" was not transferred to the printed page while the pioneers were more numerous in the commity. It has been hundreds of years since there was a pioneer in England, and in time America will become an older nation.
There is certainly as much beautiful scenery along the Mississinewa in Mill as in any locality, and the Rock dam is a real nature park if only it were accessible to the public. The civic spirit is in evidence and there are many beauty spots scattered about. In Gas City a downtown breathing space has recently been developed, and in time it will take on the dignity of a park. The man who plants a tree is a benefactor, and all Grant county a park is the spirit of sections of Mill. The ever- greens in many door yards indicate the fact that the early settlers had well defined notions of landscape beauty. Some of the pioneers had the future in mind and mayhap "builded better than they knew." There is considerable architectural beauty in both town and country, and the Twin Cities now have improved streets with water and lighting systems, and the citizens enjoy all the advantages of the larger eenters, owing to the transportation facilities. The vicissitudes of the early settlers were very much the same in the different communities, and they used to talk ahont the "Railroad" store in Jonesboro, and the historian well remem- hers the unfinished grade that was abandoned and later used by another construction company. "Old Brindle" and " Redside" had their place in Jonesboro history, and the town's ambition to become the site of the temple of justice was never quite lost sight of until early in the '70s when the Strawton road became the Marion and Liberty pike, the city of Marion appropriating $5,000 for that purpose, which certainly proved an excellent investment. After this avenue to the southwest was opened up to Marion the eat slowly died in Jonesboro, and today the school boy will tell you he never heard anything about it. When the railroad scheme failed and the town lost the trade from the southwest, there was an exodus of several prominent families from the banks of the Missis- sinewa to the Wildcat, and for that reason the Kokomo city directory contains a number of well-known Grant county names. Jay & Bell had a store and Jay had a packing house, but the want of shipping facilities caused them to seek other location, and now Jonesboro is as well served as Howard county's capital.
The Bible says: "The poor ye have always with you, " but there is no local significance to "over the hills to the poor house," since " Saint's Rest" is a county institution. For several years the county poor have been sheltered in Mill, and the county farm is among the pretty land- scapes of the township. Three "war time" brick houses south of Jones- boro are still Jandmarks of the community, but the Jonesboro-Fairmount turnpike, with its toll gates of a generation ago, is little traveled now. owing to steam and electric transportation, and yet it was once the stage coach route to Anderson. The writer has seen the stage filled with pas- sengers and carrying the United States mail into Jonesboro. In war times there were stations along the "Ender Ground Railway" in Mill, and as a child one little boy used to wonder about them. llis maternal ancestry maintained one of the depots, and there was always an air of mystery about it. Not so many years ago there was cord wood piled along the railway tracks, and every day they took on wood as well as water, but all that is changed and now coal is used exclusively. " Four- foot wood" used to be collateral in many households, and many a farmer has traded it for groceries. I remember well when we all went to Harris- burg to see the first passenger train in the autumn of 1867, and now per-
266
HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
haps there is no citizen of the township who has never enjoyed an exeur- sion aboard the railroad train.
A short time ago G. A. H. Shideler, who dates back to Jonesboro for his childhood recollections said: "Find me at mother's" was a sign he remembered, and the story connected with it is that the simple hfe prevailed in the town. When the late Dr. E. M. Whitson was rebuild- ing his home it became necessary for him to establish different quarters in which to meet his patients for a while, and instead of saying: "Call at the residence of Mrs. Sallie Whitson," he took it for granted that everybody knew, and that simple sign was sufficient. Mr. Shideler admitted that he knew, and that others had no difficulty with the sign, and he longed for the days again when everybody knew and had such kindly interest in their fellows. While other seenes recu- to the memory of some, there are others who hark back to Jonesboro, and a few years ago a friend used to say : "Now that all happened in Jonesboro ?" when he heard certain reminiscences, and we are content with past memories. li was always a good community, and there is no other spot quite like the old stamping ground. In the day when the Mississinewa gives up its dead there will be many Mill township homes remembered, since the river has often exacted tribute and is closely linked with local history. There are heart-rending stories yet fresh in memory, and the lives of some of the citizens have been turbulent as the stream that has robbed them of friends and relatives. The Mississinewa tells its own tale to many listening ears and aching hearts, and the story of Mill township, Jones- Foro and Gas City is but partly told, but time and space are the barriers to further detail. As a man thinketh in his heart so it is with him, and none forget the place of their birth who began their earthly pilgrimage in the township named for the many excellent mill sites along the Mississinewa.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.