Counties of LaGrange and Noble, Indiana : historical and biographical, Part 21

Author: F.A. Battey & Co
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : Battey & Co.
Number of Pages: 976

USA > Indiana > Noble County > Counties of LaGrange and Noble, Indiana : historical and biographical > Part 21
USA > Indiana > LaGrange County > Counties of LaGrange and Noble, Indiana : historical and biographical > Part 21

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).

CHAPTER XII.

BY R. H. RERICK.

CLEARSPRING TOWNSHIP-INTRODUCTORY-TOPOGRAPHY-EARLY APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY-THE COMING OF THE PIONEER-THE SETTLER'S HOME- ROLLINGS AND RAISINGS-INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT-INCIDENTS AND STA- TISTICS-THE TEACHER AND THE PREACHER.

TN the beginning of this century, the beautiful country now covered with fertile farms and meadows and woodland, which is called Clearspring, was a terra incognita to the white man. The Indians alone roamed through its unbroken forests, hunting the game and refreshing themselves at the springs that made this locality so attractive. The country presented no peculiar advantages to the farmer, as a whole, though in the southwest there lay the eastern part of that broad and extremely fertile opening, called the Haw Patch. The remainder of the thirty-six miles was a rolling country, covered by forests of beech, oak and maple, which were to be felled before the fertile soil would yield its riches to the patient pioneer. Clearspring and Eden were at first one township, and their fitness for such a union was shown by the first set- tlement. The best lands in each township lie near the line separating them, and this fact invited settlement about the Haw Patch, while the swamps to the east and the west kept those sections backward in their development. The first settler in Clearspring was not bound down by sectional lines. He rose above township limitations. His log-house, at least, was raised precisely upon the town line, and he could bid defiance, as it was jocosely remarked after the division of the towns, to the constabulary of either. Anthony Nelson, this first settler, came into Indiana from Ohio in 1829, and located first in Elkhart County, and then came to this township and entered two eighty-acre lots in 1831, which he occupied the next year, and has ever since lived upon. Mr. Nelson is now eighty-five years of age. One of the next comers was Dr. David Rogers, who was in the township in 1833, from Wayne County, N. Y., and entered 1,280 acres of land in this township and Eden, as a speculator. He spent much time in the township, however, and for the last fifteen or eighteen years of his life resided here almost continually, collecting herbs and roots for medicine, and attending to a considerable practice as a physician. He also made a business of selling extracts, essences, etc., in the East, and traveled a great deal for that purpose. He collected his simples in all parts of the East, as well as here. He was a man of many eccentricities, and a real " naturalist." He would often spend the summer in a cave or in a slight shed, preferring to have nothing more artificial between him and the canopy of heaven. His house, a sort of adobe contrivance, was on his land in Section 22, but he lived much of the time with his neighbor, Erastus Nelson. Dr. Rogers died in 1871,

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and was buried on a little hill near his home, overlooking the Haw Patch road, where there is a fine shaft of marble bearing the inscription : "Dr. David Rogers, born June 2, 1786, died February 24, 1874, aged eighty-five years eight months and twenty-two days. He was the friend of the invalid, and gave medicine without money and without price."

He left a will dated March 7, 1868, by which he bequeathed the remain- der of his lands lying in this county, consisting of eighty acres in Clearspring and one hundred and sixty in Eden "to the Commissioners of the county of La Grange and their successors in office forever, in trust forever, for the use and benefit of the orphan poor, and for other destitute persons of said county."

Norman Sessions settled on Section 27 in 1834. He was married to Min- erva Gaines, of Eden, by Justice William McConnell, February 8, 1835. This was the first marriage in the township. His first child was, it is thought, the first born in the township and also the first one to die. It was buried in a lot then donated (1837), by Elisha Pixley, for a burying-ground. Mr. Sessions himself died at the age of thirty-two, in March, 1841.

In 1834, John Sprout settled at first with Anthony Nelson upon the line, but afterward moved upon Section 19, where he died in 1878. Nathan Bishop of North Carolina, sometimes called the first settler, came April 12, 1834, with his young son Robert, and nephew, Robert H., and entered upon land in Sec- tion 22. Nathan Bishop, a Free-Will Baptist, was the first preacher in the township. He held service at his home for many years, and organized a soci- ety which met there, but gradually died out. In addition to this work, Mr. Bishop preached at various places throughout the town. He died March 3, 1850. His eldest son Robert, who was born in 1799, still lives on the old farm. In the early days he was the only blacksmith in the town, and, with his father, built and worked the first tannery in that vicinity. James Gordon, a son-in-law of Nathan Bishop, came with him and had the honor of sowing the first wheat in Clearspring, on Section 28, and of being the first mason. Amos Newhouse, with his son John, settled on Section 32, in the spring of 1835, and began clearing the large farm, which he occupied until his death in 1875. He was a native of Virginia, and is remembered as a quiet and industrious man. A half mile from Mr. Newhouse's estate lies the farm upon the county line, which John S. Gibson, after living at the Haw Patch a short time, occupied in the same year, and at this date still lives to enjoy.

. Elijah Pixley was another settler of 1835, from Union County, Ind., and began here his farming life upon Section 28, where he lived until his death in 1874. Upon his land were located the first schoolhouse, the first burying- ground and the first church in the township. His sons Edward and James Pixley have since been residents of Clearspring. The year 1836 was the time of increased immigration, and many of the best citizens coming that year were able, at the time of the Centennial celebration of the nation, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of their settlement. Among these was Charles Roy, who

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came with his family upon his land in Section 22, near the center of the town- ship, on the 20th of June. Mr. Roy has always been an energetic man, and has made valuable improvements. He was the first to raise fruit to any great extent, and early had a nursery of 700 trees, and an orchard of ten acres. He was also one of the first to raise mint and distill the oil, and came to do an extensive business in this line. Simeon Crosby came from New York and set- tled in the west half of Section 34, but died in 1839, three years after his arrival. A daughter, Sarah Crosby, was one of the first married in the town- ship, then a part of Eden, being married to John Hubbard, September 12, 1836, by Rev. James Latta.

Nicholas Lowe and wife came from Maryland and settled on Section 29, where he came to possess 300 acres of land upon which he and his son, Rev. Thomas H. Lowe, now reside. Ernestus Schermerhorn, of Syracuse, N. Y., was in the township at this time, and bought land in the northeast, but did not settle until 1839. He died forty years later, February 8, 1876. Willard Hervey came in this year, at first to the home of Simeon Crosby, whose daugh- ter he married in 1839. This lady, when Miss Sebrina Crosby, had taught school in Amasa Durand's house, north of La Grange. It is told of her, as an instance of what the pioneer girls had to endure, that at one time, when living at home, and her father dangerously ill and without any remedy or doc- tor near, she walked through the forests the whole distance to Lima, about fifteen miles, to bring Dr. Jewett, the nearest physician. Most of the journey, an Indian trail was the only road, and at one point she had to cross Buck Creek, which was swollen with floods, and only partially bridged with logs. But she pulled off her shoes, and jumping from log to log, made the passage safely and brought the doctor to her father. In 1836, October 3, William Dallas, of Ohio, settled in Section 26, on the present land of Norton Kinnison. He had with him his sister aud fourteen motherless children, of whom, Samuel, Lorenzo, George, Joseph and Levi are now well-to-do citizens of the township. His home was near the Elkhart River, near where it emerges from a group of lakes, of which the most eastern lie partly in the township. These four bod- ies of water, the largest of which is called Dallas Lake, are the only ones in Clearspring, and occupy but about three hundred acres. Mr. Dallas at once began to utilize the water-power of the river, and in 1837 built a grist-mill near his home. This was a considerable undertaking for a man in his circum- stances, and in such a remote place. But his perseverance carried it through, and it was soon completed and ready to grind the grists of the few farmers for miles around. Before this time the wheat had been carried to Goshen, Ontario or Van Buren. "Uncle Billy's corn-cracker," as it was called, was of a very primitive and simple construction. The building, built of whitewood logs, was so low that the man who put the grain in the hopper had to make a humble passage beneath the rafters. There were no castings about the mill; all was wood except the mill-stones, and of these there were but one pair, and

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the millstone shaft, a flat bar of iron. A bolt only was necessary and that was soon supplied, but there were no cog-wheels or belting, and consequently this had to be revolved at first by hand, a process which required a good deal of muscle. Sometimes the patrons of the mill were called on to assist in this , operation. The mill had a capacity for grinding about fifty bushels in twenty- four hours, but never was called on for such an extraordinary business. To this mill men came with their grain from the whole neighborhood (and neigh- borhoods were large in those days) in ox carts, on horseback, afoot or in canoes. It was an accommodating institution, run by one of the most accommodating men that ever blessed a new community with his presence.

Three or four years later, Mr. Dallas built a saw-mill near by, which, after his death, was run by Van Kirk until the dam broke, about 1851. " Uncle Billy " Dallas, as he was familiarly called, died many years ago (in 1847), but his many virtues still live in the memory of the old settlers.

Others, who came in 1836, are James Haviland, who built the first barn ; Henderson Potts, the first disciple of Crispin; N. P. Osborn and David Ray.

We have named those who were here by 1836, and, by common consent, are called the "old settlers"-at least the earliest settlers. Among them, however, should be included Hawley Peck, born in Connecticut in 1810, who bought eighty acres in Clearspring in 1836, but did not come until 1838, when he concluded to settle here, and bought 160 acres more, and in 1844 commenced improvements upon it. He has done much for the advancement of the town- ship, and his large family of sons and daughters (now grown to manhood and womanhood) are among the best people of the county. Charles S. Sperling, now eighty-nine years of age, the oldest man in the township, settled, in 1843, upon Section 4.

After 1836, the immigration proceeded rapidly, and the many settlers since then we cannot name except as they were connected with the events of the general history of the township.

As the tide of population came in, the price of land rose, and the low price of $1.25 that the Government asked was increased to $3 or $4 in 1836 and to $8 or $10 two years later. With this change, the price of products decreased ; but in the earliest years the contrast with the present was not very marked. Wheat then was worth $1 per bushel; corn, 50 cents; oats, 37 cents; butter, 37} cents; soft soap, 37 cents per gallon ; hogs, $10 to $14; cows, $30.

The Indians were removed before 1840 and the white men left in undis- turbed possession. The Pottawatomies were, however, not in any way trouble- some to the pioneers. There were a great many of them in the township, es- pecially in the south, where they had a camping-ground on a high ridge, now known as the "Hogback." They were agriculturists in a small way, and raised corn on low ground near the ridge. But they were very conservative in their farming. One year a party of them planted corn on the farm of Anthony Nelson and were very much opposed to his plowing and harrowing the ground;

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but, when he came to mark out the patch in rows, their disgust was unbounded. The chief Kookoosh, however, was wise enough to respect the pale face's little eccentricities in farming and kept his men at work, and they succeeded in rais- ing a very good crop. Another old chief was one of those few red men who justify the poet's account of "Lo, the poor Indian !" He seemed to see "God in the clouds and hear him in the wind," and at every meal, before he would partake of any food, he would invoke the blessing of the Great Spirit. The Indians were always ready for a trade with the pioneers, and would exchange venison, cranberries, moccasins and trinkets for vegetables and whatever the white men had to spare. A famous spring on the farm of Charles Roy, known as Clearspring, whence the township derived its name, was a great resort for the Indians, and there were many other springs, such as Indian Spring, south of the first named, which their trails passed.

In March, 1837, the Commissioners set off from Eden Township the terri- tory now known as Clearspring, and ordered an election at Elijah Pixley's, on the first Monday of April. In accordance with this, some fifteen or twenty voters met at the appointed place, and proceeded to vote for township officers. The records cannot be found, and, consequently, a full list is impossible, but it is believed that the first Trustees were Ernestus Schermerhorn, Willard Hervey and Elijah Pixley, and the first Justices, William F. Beavers and Norman Ses- sions. N. P. Osborn was chosen Clerk, and received $3 for his year's service. The Trustees were paid $2.25 each for the first year. Beavers was soon after, June 23, married to Mary J. Cummins, of this township.

The Justices since then, as far as the county records show, have been : William Harding, 1839-49; John Strang, 1843-48; Hawley Peck, 1848-51 : William D. Sloan, 1849-50; William H. H. Aldrich, 1850-52; John Strang, 1851-55; Nathan P. Osburn, 1852-56; William Price, 1856-60; John L. Strang, 1860-64; William Yarwood, 1865-73; Orvin Kent, 1867-71; Wil- lard Hervey, 1871-75; James Chandler, 1873-77; Thomas H. Low, 1875- 79; James Chandler, 1877-81; Norman Babcock, 1879. The records of the township were kept on papers or memorandum books until 1844, when the Trustees made an appropriation for record books and for copy- ing old records. But the records, notwithstanding this provision, are not to be found for any earlier year than 1842. The place of election was then still at the house of Elijah Pixley. The spring election of that year resulted in the choice of Elijah Osborn, William Dallas and John Strang, as Trustees ; N. P. Osborn, Clerk, and Anson Lewis and Caleb Strang, Constables. At that time, there were three Trustees. In 1845, William Dallas, William Harding and Benjamin Chandler were elected; in 1846, Chandler, Charles Roy and Amos Newhouse ; in 1848, Chandler, Roy and E. Osborn ; in 1850, William Baxter, Charles Roy and John Kitchen ; in 1852, Baxter, Kitchen and W. D. Sloan ; in 1854, Charles G. Doty, Erastus Nelson and John Tumbleson. At the spring election of next year, but one Trustee was elected, and this has since been the

Chris Hurley CLEAR SPRING TP.

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rule. The Trustees since have been : Schuyler Nelson, 1855 ; John Kitchen, Sr., 1859; Schuyler Nelson, 1862; John Kitchen, Sr., 1863; Joel Mil- ler, 1864; Christopher Hooley, 1865 ; Erastus Nelson, 1870; John Green- awalt, 1876; John Price, 1880. Among the early Clerks were W. H. H. Aldridge, in 1846; William H. Price, 1850, who still lives in the township with his son, the present Trustee, and Richard Green, a popular, but rather eccentric old settler, who for many years constituted the " Anti- Masonic party " in the county. The place of election was in 1842 removed to the house of Nathan Bishop; in 1845, to Charles Roy's, and about 1854 to the Bishop Schoolhouse.

At the taking of the 1880 census, the returns for the township show that the following-named persons, residents thereof, were of the age set opposite their names, the object being to show those who had attained the age of seventy-five or over, viz .: Robert Bishop, seventy-nine; Sarah Misner, seventy-five; Eliza Parks, seventy five ; Samuel Smith, seventy-five ; Benjamin Wortinger, seventy-five; Charles S. Sperling, eighty-eight.

In 1846, Hawley Peck began the growing of mint and manufacture of oil, which became quite an industry in the township. The oil was canned and shipped to the East, or sold to buyers who would collect it, and found a ready sale at prices varying from $1.25 to $5 per pound. Several persons engaged in mint raising, Charles Roy and Erastus Nelson being among the earliest and most extensive growers. The annual production varied in value between $5,000 and $10,000, until within the last few years, when the industry has been discontinued.

Before 1850, there was serious talk of running the road now called the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Air Line, through the southern part of the township. A line was surveyed, and there were positive assurances of the building of the road through Clearspring, which induced the hope of a speedy rise in the value of real estate, and the growth of a flourishing town on the site of "Slabtown." Years after, when the road was finally built, the superior persuasive powers of the land-owners of the little village of Kendallville led the engineers to adopt a more southern route, and Clearspring's first hope of being on an east-and-west iron line was blasted. But it was through no fault of the early settlers, who did their best to secure the road, and were at one time positively assured of it.

As there has never been a village in the township, the business history is very light. The first store was kept by the Cummings family, south of " Slab- town," upon the Eden town line, and Timothy Hudson, Jr., afterward kept a store at his house in Clearspring, in connection with the saw-mill and tannery. The first brick yard was on Harrison Smith's land, on "Jordan street," and two are now in operation, by B. F. Ditman and Henry J. Ulmer.

In 1873, there were two granges of the Patrons of Husbandry organized in the township. One, the Clearspring Grange, met at Pixley's Schoolhouse,

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and had at one time forty members. The Worthy Master was John Gillette, and Secretary, Ira Ford. The Dallas Grange met at Curl's ; Ichabod Jones was the first presiding officer. These associations survived until 1880. This movement met with greater encouragement in this township and Eden than in any other part of the county.

The numerous narrow trails of the Indians were the first roads of the settlers, but steps were soon taken to make highways. Anthony Nelson was at one time notified of his appointment as Road Supervisor, and promptly mus- tered his forces and went to work, camping out nights until his job was com- pleted. His road district extended from Lima to Ligonier. Elijah Pixley was one of the earliest Supervisors, and built the road running east from Sycamore Corners in 1835-36. Orvin Kent, not at that time a permanent resident in the township, but who later became one of the most influential men of Clearspring, was that year upon his land, and was called upon to assist on this road. This was the first road in the township, and formed part of the Haw Patch, or Ligonier road.

In 1842, the township was divided into four road districts, which increased to eleven in 1846, and now number fifteen. The roads are generally good ones, and kept in excellent condition. In 1872, there was an excellent prospect for the building of the Chicago & Canada Southern road through the south of the township. It was, in fact, a sure thing. But the panic of 1873 came, and Clearspring is still without a railroad.

The first school in the town was held in a little log house on Charles Roy's land, southwest of Clearspring, in the fall of 1839. The teacher was Miss Anna Maria Crosby (daughter of Simeon C.), who married Samuel Dallas in 1841. The pioneer schoolma'am then, dressed in homespun linsey-woolsey, teaching in a log house, twelve feet square, for $1.25 per week, was in great contrast, as to her surroundings and facilities, with the teacher of modern days in the comfortable buildings which dot the township over. But in earnest teaching and real success in their work, the first school teachers need fear nothing from a contrast with the modern "educator." The text-books which the boys and girls of that day used were mainly Webster's Speller, the New Testament and the Old English Reader. This log building, which has now disappeared, had been Mr. Roy's first house, and besides serving as an educa- tional institution, also afforded a temporary shelter for many poor pioneers until they could build log cabins of their own. In 1840, two schoolhouses were built of logs, one at Hervey's Corners, by Willard Hervey, and the other at Hiram Taylor's, and the township was divided into two school districts. The first teacher at the Hervey Schoolhouse was Joseph Miller. The building of schoolhouses, at this early day, by levies of school tax, was too slow a method, and in 1855 the citizens were granted the privilege of building and repairing schoolhouses with the right of having credit for the same on their subsequent taxes. Soon after, one district agreed, as the record runs, " nem. con. to build

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a hewed log house, 18x20." In 1841, the township, divided by sections, in- cluded only seven districts, but the schools were not crowded, as the enumera- tion four years later shows but fifty-two school children in the township. One of the earliest schoolhouses was Pixley's, about 1850, on Section 28, and was built by that neighborhood. The old log house was replaced by a frame in 1861. In 1856, the house at Hiram Taylor's was rebuilt. In 1849, Orvin Kent deeded land for the site of the Sycamore Schoolhouse, so called on account of a tall Sycamore at the corners ; this school district was formed through the efforts of Orvin Kent and others, and includes territory in Eden and Clear- spring. A new schoolhouse was built further east in 1870; on the same section stands the Walnut Schoolhouse, with the Walnuts still there, built in 1861. The "Jordan " Schoolhouse, built in 1860, and the Wertinger, in 1863, are still in use. A log schoolhouse was erected on Nathan Bishop's land, on the east line of Section 22, in 1850, which has since disappeared, being replaced by the Sloan house in 1860, a short distance north. Near this schoolhouse lies the old burying-ground, started before 1850, now known as Sloan's. The Hackenburg or Red Schoolhouse, dates back to 1865, and Harris' to about the same year. The first brick schoolhouse was the Chandler, built in 1877. Another one has just been completed, in the same quarter, called Streeter's, which takes the place of the old Curl Schoolhouse, which was first built about 1841. According to the latest statistics, the township has 351 pupils, who are instructed in twelve schoolhouses. The average length of school is 140 days. The revenue of last year was $4,969.67, and the value of school build- ings is $5,000.

The earliest preacher, Nathan Bishop, has already been spoken of. The first society to be organized in the township was one of the Methodist Episco- pal Church, which held its meetings at Swank's house, over the line in Noble County. Among the members of this little congregation were Elijah Pixley, Mark Kinnison, Mrs. Ruth Ray and Henderson Potts. Rev. James Latta, of the Haw Patch, was the organizer. The famous itinerants, Posey and Allen, had preached here before the society was formed, and paved the way for it. This society soon died out, and was succeeded in that neighborhood by a Meth- odist Protestant Church, meeting at Hervey's (or Ray's) Schoolhouse. The first quarterly meeting was held here February 15, 1845, when Willard Hervey was licensed as an exhorter. Rev. Beardsley was the pastor in charge at this time, and this was one of the societies in the Goshen Circuit. A church of the same denomination was organized at the Taylor Schoolhouse in 1851. There was also a Methodist society meeting at John Hammond's on the Clay town line, which was preached to by William Connelly and James Latta.

Of late years, an Amish organization has been formed in the northwest part of the township, which has its meetings by appointment at convenient places among its members. The church of the "Best Endeavor " is one of the most recent religious organizations. This somewhat familiar title attaches

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Counties of LaGrange and Noble, Indiana : historical and biographical, Part 21

Author: F.A. Battey & Co Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago : Battey & Co. Number of Pages: 976

Author: F.A. Battey & Co
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : Battey & Co.
Number of Pages: 976