USA > Indiana > Lake County > Encyclopedia of genealogy and biography of Lake County, Indiana, with a compendium of history 1834-1904 > Part 12
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JEREMIAH WIGGINS was an early settler where is now Merrillville, but the exact date of his settlement seems not to be known. He gave name to the woodland where he made his claim, which for some time was known as Wiggins' Point. Southwest from it, across the prairie, was Brown's Point, and at the south, across the prairie about five miles distant from Wiggins' Point, there grew up in the edge of the woodland, Crown Point.
J. Wiggins probably came in 1836. In 1837 his claim passed into the hands of E. Saxton. He was with Mr. Saxton in 1838 and soon disappears
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from any of the county records. He seems to have been a lone man without mnich connection with any one, but that he was living in 1838 is abundantly certain.
TAYLOR, EDGERTON, PALMER .- In 1836 a quite large family connection commenced a settlement on the east side of the Red Cedar Lake where were then many cedar trees. The head of this family was OBADIAH TAYLOR, born in Massachusetts, who removed to New York, afterward to Pennsylvania, and came at last to Lake county, an aged man, where he died in 1839.
A son, ADONIJAH TAYLOR, born in New York in 1792, was one of these early settlers; HORACE TAYLOR, another son, born in 1801, was also one of this group: HORACE EDGERTON, a son-in-law, having lived for some years in Pennsylvania. was a third of these men; each of these having several chil- dren, and all, with the family of Mrs. Miranda Stillson, a daughter of Obadialı Taylor. and the family of JAMES PALMER, a son-in-law, born in Connecticut, a soldier in the War of 1812, but coming later than the others into this county, forming the large Cedar Lake and then Creston community. These who have been named, active and useful in their day, have passed away. and some of their children, as Albert Taylor, Obadiah Taylor, Amos Edger- ton and Alfred Edgerton, have grown old in this county and followed their fathers into the unseen world. Also DeWitt Clinton Taylor, born in 1826. died some years ago, not very aged then. But there remain grandchildren and great-grandchildren, members sufficient in these lines to hand these names down to other generations. Those who have gone will be remembered by what they have done. Of New England stock, they were not idlers in the world's great workshop.
Many family lines have been traced back for several generations by the inhabitants of this county. Among others is the line of WISE or WEISE.
Before 1750. the date not known, the ancestors of the present Wise family came to Pennsylvania. John George Weise and his wife, Mrs. Eve Weise. were living in that State in Philadelphia county, where was born, December 23, 1751, a son, Adam Weise. For a given name his parents could go no
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further back in the world's history. The family were members of the Evan- gelical Lutheran church.
Adam Weise was married February 2, 1772, to Margaret Elizabeth Win- gard. February 1, 1799, he was commissioned by the Governor Justice of the Peace, one sentence in the rather lengthy and peculiar commission being "To have and to hold this Commission, and the Office hereby granted unto you the said Adam Wise so long as you shall behave yourself well." As "he remained in office," so the record says, "thirty-four years, or until his death in 1833." it is evident that he did behave himself well.
It appears also that the Governor gave to his name at that time the English form which most of the family have since retained. Adam Wise was. when he died, October 5, 1833, in the eighty-second year of his age, and had eleven children, sixty-three grandchildren, and one hundred and thirty-three great-grandchildren, and it is claimed that his descendants are now in nearly every state of the Union. The Wise family is not one to become extinct.
JACOB WISE, a grandson of this Adam Wise, a son of John George Wise, became a citizen of this county in 1849. His father, John George Wise, died at his home in Winfield township in 1859. Jolin George was born in 1786. He had six sons. Jacob Wise, the Lake county settler, was born January 20, 1817. In his Winfield home he was a farmer, a brick- maker, a teacher of vocal music, a township Trustee, a very useful, upright, valuable citizen. He spent his last years as a retired farmer in Crown Point, he and his wife both interested in the Association of Old Settlers, in the meet- ings of the North Street Baptist church, near which church building was his home, and in the general good of society. He died November 9, 1895, about eighty years of age, and his wife died in March. 1904, a very kindly, noble woman. Many children and grandchildren are living.
FULLER .- Another large family must have some mention here. JAMES FULLER, with more means than many of the early settlers liad, came to the county about 1840. He had nine sons and one daughter, perhaps more than one. The daughter was married to Abram Nichols.
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Names of sons and number of their children :- Oliver Fuller, four sons four daughters. James Fuller, one son. Aaron Fuller, six children. Archi- bald Fuller, four sons and four daughters. Frank Fuller, two sons and seven daughters. Benjamin Fuller, one son and two daughters. Richard Fuller, five sons and six daughters. Woodbury Fuller, two sons. John M. Fuller. five sons and three daughters. In all fifty-six.
Three of the nine sons named above are now living in the county. How many descendants there are now of James Fuller of 1840 has not been reck- oned up. The great-grandchildren would make of themselves alone quite a group.
Brief Records.
The following are names of worthy citizens who did their parts well in making Lake county what now it is, but of whom there is very little to place on this page as memorials. The first one to be named might have well said, in the words of Dr. Bonar's "Everlasting Memorial," a very different poem from Tennyson's "In Memoriam" :
"So let my living be. so be my dying :
So let my name lie. unblazoned unknown : Unpraised and unmissed. I shall still be remembered. Yes-but remembered by what I have done."
AUGUSTINE HUMPHREY settled on Eagle Creek Prairie. now Palmer, as early as 1837. probably in 1836. He was from New England, he and his wife both devoted and very useful members of the Presbyterian church, his children intellectual and well brought up, his oldest son, Henry Humphrey. graduating at the University of Michigan in 1851, and at Princeton Theo- logical Seminary in 1860, but dying in a few years, other sons following soon to the unseen world, and then the noble, Christian mother, and, except one daughter-in-law. he was left before many years quite alone in life. He was county Commissioner in 1847 and again in 1856. His family genealogic rec- ord went back to the Norman Conquest, through, according to the family tradition, the old Duke Horton of England, but no copy of it was brought to this county. He died many years ago, the last of his household except the
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daughter-in-law's family who removed to Colorado, and the burial of his body was one of the most lonely burials ever in this county. In that world, where such a spirit as his would go, there is no lack of life and love.
Another of these names is JOHN L. WORLEY, born in Indiana April 28. 1820, settling in Lake county in 1839, President for nine years of the Lake County Sabbath School Convention, residing south of Lowell, an active church member, who lived to be over eighty years of age.
Another name is that of WILLIAM SANDERS, of West Creek township, whose name was given to one of the cemeteries of that township, the oldest member of the Association of Old Settlers, who died October 16, 1898, nearly ninety-seven years of age.
And yet another name is HIRAM H. SCRITCHFIELD, another settler from the State of Kentucky probably, as his wife was born near Lexington, Ken- tucky, January 4, 1812, and he was born in 1811. They were married in 1832. and were the parents of fourteen children. A few years ago their living descendants numbered eighty-two, and would now quite certainly number more than a hundred.
The last name in this group is that of DAVID MCKNIGHT. He was the father of six sons and three daughters. His first settlement was at Hickory Point in 1845. About 1864 the family removed to the neighborhood of LeRoy. Four of the sons went into the Union Army and two of them re- turned. The father went to the West some years ago and there died. The family in church relations were what is now called Reformed Presbyterians, valuable members of any community. A son, a daughter, and grandchildren are still in the county working on the side of virtue and righteousness.
That some other names might have properly been placed upon this list is certain. There are limitations to all human efforts. There are physical im- possibilities, mental impossibilities, and moral impossibilities, and to reach perfection in this line of writing may well be called a mental impossibility. No one could give of our most worthy early settlers a perfect list. Some names are added here of those whom a few may yet remember. Daniel May. Peleg
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S. Mason. William Hodson, Robert Wilkinson, of Deep River, James West- brook, Jonathan Brown, Royal Benton, Edmund Brown, Jabez Rhoades, David Gibson, Jacob Mendenhall, S. J. Cady, Horace Wood, John Russell, Peyton Russell, William Myrick, Jesse Pierce, David Pierce, these last two, accord- ing to the Claim Register in December, 1834, and in 1836, Jacob Van Volken- burg, John J. Van Volkenburg, and M. Pierce, from the State of New York. Lorenzo D. Holmes became a resident about 1838 and died at Ross in 1883.
Buildings as well as men disappear. About this time three old landmarks in Crown Point were removed. The first Methodist church building was taken down in the fall of 1882. It stood on East street. The Crown Point bakery was taken down in July, 1883. The first Baptist church building, which was also on East street, was taken down in August, 1883.
And so with these twenty-one added names and the mention of three old buildings this memorial chapter ends.
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CHAPTER IV.
NAMES OF WOMEN OF WHOM HONORABLE MENTION SHOULD BE MADE.
NOTE .- In presenting and recording under this heading the names of quite a number of pioneer women, and appending, as I propose to do, to some of them special statements, I am well aware that some fault may be found with this otherwise interesting and important chapter. For I expect that some one will say, after looking over all these names, "The name of iny mother (or grandmother) is not here, and she too was entitled to an honorable mention. Why is not her name on this list?" I have considered this criticism, this question, and have endeavored to weigh it well. Of course my reply to the question would be, Because the name of that mother or that grandmother was not in the range of my knowledge, or did not come to mind in my effort to recall the names of our pioneers; certainly not because it was intentionally omitted. So now I ask myself: Shall I omit entirely this list of names of so many of our noble mothers and grand- mothers because I cannot make it a full and perfect list? And I answer, No. I will get what help I can; I will do the best I can; (surely no one without the personal knowledge which I possess could begin to do as well as this will be done) ; and then I will trust to the good sense of our citizens, trusting that very little fault will be found. T. H. B.
Mrs. Harriet Warner Holton is the first name recorded here. She came into the county in February, 1835, with her son W. A. W. Holton, a daughter, and with William Clark and family, from Jennings county, Indiana. She was born in Hardwick, Massachusetts, January 15, 1783, a daughter of General Warner. She commenced her active life as a teacher in the town of Westminster. She married a young lawyer, Alexander Holton, about 1804, and leaving New England in 1816 for what then were true Western wilds, in March, 1817, they settled at Vevay in the new State of Indiana, four years after Vevay had been laid out as a town. In 1820 the Holton family removed to Vernon, in Jennings county, where Mrs. Hol- ton again became a teacher. In 1823 her husband died leaving her with two sons and one daughter. In the early winter of 1834 tidings came to Vernon 9
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from Solon Robinson concerning the beautiful prairie region he had found far up in the northwest corner of the State, and the Clark and Holton families determined to join him there. They started in midwinter with ox teams. The weather in February, 1835, was severely cold, but they came through, crossing the Kankakee Marsh with their ox teams on the ice.
In some respects Mrs. Holton was the most remarkable woman ever in Lake county. She was Lake county's first teacher. Her mother lived to be about ninety-four years of age. She had seven sisters in New England and all died of old age, two while sitting in their chairs. All the eight were members of the Presbyterian church. Mrs. Holton, a true Indiana pioneer, at Vevay and Vernon and in the county of Lake, lived on, active in church and Sunday-school and social life till old age came upon her. She died October 17, 1879, then nearly ninety-seven years of age. From a record in "The Sunday Schools of Lake" the following sentence is taken: "Such a woman, in such a long life, the daughter of an army leader, with her native intelligence, her New England training, her granite-like, Presbyterian prin- ciple, hier devotion, her meekness, her love, must in various ways have ac- complished no little good."
The second name to be placed on this list is that of Mrs. Maria Rob- inson, wife of Solon Robinson, the first white woman to live where is now Crown Point. She came to the spring that was, to the grove or woodland that still is, the last day of October, 1834. She was born November 16, 1799, near Philadelphia. She was married in Cincinnati, May 12, 1828, to Solon Robinson, and in a few years they became residents in Jennings county, Indiana. In 1834 she came with her husband, one assistant, and two small children, in a wagon drawn by oxen, to the spot where they settled November 1, 1834. She was not an ordinary woman, although very differ- ent in training and character from Mrs. Holton. She had much "executive ability ;" she is described by one who knew her well as "always cheerful and vivacious," attending to the needs of the sick and the poor, aiding, as her means permitted, churches and Sunday schools and benevolent organizations.
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She died February 18, 1872. Two daughters are now living, one of whom, Dr. L. G. Bedell, is now a noted physician of Chicago. Her older daughter, Mrs. Strait, who has children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, now lives in Crown Point, the oldest resident and only original resident of the town.
Two names should follow here on this list of worthy pioneer women, but of whom little by this writer is known, Mrs. Childers, the wife of Thomas Childers, the first white woman, so far as known, after Mrs. Will- iam Ross, to settle in the county, and Mrs. Clark, wife of Judge William Clark, who came to Lake Court House in February, 1835, which was then known, as the guide boards on the trails testified, simply as Solon Robin- son's. Mrs. Clark had sons in her household, two of whom, Thomas Clark and Alexander Clark, were for many years active citizens in Lake county.
Other active pioneer women whose names belong on this page were Mrs. Henry Wells, the mother of Mrs. Susan Clark, of Rodman Wells and Homer Wells; Mrs. Richard Fancher, one of the first Presbyterian women in Crown Point, the mother of Mrs. Nicholson, Mrs. Clingan, and Mrs. Harry Church, and the mother who brought up such daughters certainly deserves to be remembered; Mrs. Russel Eddy, who became a very active Presbyterian woman, a leader for many years in that church; Mrs. Luman A. Fowler, one of the few resolute pioneer women, who came as a young wife in December of 1835 to Solon Robinson's hamlet, born in Madison county, New York, in October, 1816, married October 18, 1835, her maiden name Eliza Cochran, and who, as mother and grandmother led in Crown Point a long and useful life; and one more name, that of Mrs. Henry Farmer, coming with her husband from Bartholomew county in 1836, whose daughters became wives of well known citizens, completes this group. To nearly all the women yet named Crown Point as now it is owes very much.
Another group of our noble pioneer women, of whom Lake county had a goodly number (and few of their names have ever until now been on a printed page), were these, not grouped in alphabetical order, but as
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they are associated in the mind of the writer: Mrs. Richard Church, Mrs. Leonard Cutler, Mrs. Rockwell, Mrs. Darling Church, mother of Edwin Church, a grocer for many years at Crown Point. Mrs. Bothwell. Mrs. Owens. Mrs. Benjamin Farley, Mrs. N. Hayden, an active Sunday-school woman in the West Creek neighborhood, active also in the same work. Mrs. Spalding, mother of J. P. Spalding. Mrs. Fisher, and Mrs. Cooper Brooks : also in the same neighborhood, Mrs. Peter Hathaway, the mother of Silas, Abram, and Bethuel Hathaway. Mrs. Lyman Foster, Mrs. Jackson; in an- other neighborhood, Mrs. Fuller, mother of Mrs. Marvin, Mrs. Blayney, Mrs. Graves, all interested in Sunday-school and church work, also Mrs. Gordinier, who with only one hand accomplished the work done by ordinary women with two hands, Mrs. George Willey, mother of Mrs. J. Fisher, of Crown Point, Mrs. James Farwell, the first white woman known to have set foot on the site of Crown Point, who with her family camped there July 4, 1833, a more than ordinary woman from Vermont, the mother of six sons and one daughter, that daughter becoming the wife of Thomas Clark and the mother of Mrs. Oliver Wheeler, the grandmother of Miss May Brown. of Crown Point: Mrs. Mercy Perry, mother of the first Mrs. Marvin, and Mrs. Solomon Burns. East of there was a small group of 1837 and 1838. the first Mrs. Henry Sasse, Mrs. Herlitz, Mrs. Van Hollen, these by birth Germans and Lutheran by training. and Mrs. Jane A. H. Ball. Mrs. Ball was from Massachusetts, the only daughter of Dr. Timothy Horton of West Springfield, had been educated in the best schools of Hart- ford. Connecticut, and began as early as 1838 to teach in the small neigh- borhood, pupils coming from Prairie West, three miles away. As early as 1840 she commenced a boarding and academic school, the first in the county, which continued in some form for many years. She had brought from her father's home quite a chest of medicines and some surgical instru- ments, which she thought would be needed, and she soon became. not in name, but in fact, the physician and dentist of the neighborhood, her den- tistry, however, extending no further than extracting and cleaning teeth.
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For extracting teeth and for medicine she took some pay, but not any for her time, and she was called from home sometimes in the night as well as in the day. Besides being the first academic teacher, she also was the first who might be called a woman physician of the county. Her own seven children were all educated and two sons and one daughter yet live to cher- ish her memory.
In another group are placed the following names: Mrs. John Wood. also from Massachusetts, a cousin of the noted missionary, Mrs. Sarah B. Judson, born October 13. 1802, married November 16, 1824, the mother of eight children, the oldest of whom, Nathan Wood, is yet living at Wood- vale, and dying September 27, 1873. A fine granite monument, about fifteen feet in height. marks the burial place, on which is inscribed, "A true. faith- ful, loving wife; a kind and affectionate mother; ever toiling for the good of all; and this is her memorial." Mrs. Wood was another of those superior New England women, like Mrs. Holton and Mrs. Farwell of Vermont, and others who are yet to be named, with native endowments and a Puritanic training. which fit their possessors so well for frontier life and for laying the right foundations for an enduring civilization. The comfort and hos- pitality of her home were not excelled by any in those early years. She was one of our unselfish women, and well does her memorial say. "toiling for the good of all."
In this group. though living in another part of the county, may be fittingly named Mrs. Augustine Humphrey, one of the very early residents on Eagle Creek Prairie, now called Palmer. She was also from New England and besides caring for her children and attending to home duties she was much interested in church work, a devoted Presbyterian woman.
Mrs. Woodbridge was yet another of these well trained New England- ers, an early resident also at Palmer, the wife of Rev. George A. Wood- bridge, and near neighbor to Mrs. Humphrey, the two families being con- nected by ties of kindred as well as by a common religious faith. At their homes was Presbyterian preaching by Rev. J. C. Brown and by Rev. W.
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Townley. After some years the Woodbridge family removed to Ross and here Mrs. Woodbridge became the Superintendent of the Sunday school. An active, truly noble, intelligent, Christian woman, she spent part of her later years of life, sometimes with her son at Ross, sometimes in Joliet. She lived on. a pleasant and peaceful life allotted to her, until August, 1902, having reached eighty-eight years of age.
The name of Mrs. Nancy Agnew may be placed by itself here as be- longing to a resolute, earnest woman. A sister of those Bryants who found, and bore back to her in Porter county for burial, the body of her husband who perished from exhaustion and exposure in the stormy night hours of April 4, 1835, she did not yield to her bitter trial, but soon came herself to the new settlement, and on the settler Register for that year stands among the claimants the name Nancy Agnew, widow. To her son, born not long after her husband's death, she gave his father's name, David Agnew.
Mrs. Margaret Pearce, who was Margaret Jane Dinwiddie, sister of J. W. Dinwiddie, of Plum Grove. manifested some of her heroic qualities in her girlhood in her experiences with the Indians, then living near her cabin home. Two of the young Indians about her own age were sometimes quite annoying. One day. seizing an opportunity to frighten her at least, they sprang up and threatened her with their tomahawks. Instead of cry- ing out, as they perhaps expected, or turning pale with fright, she simply stood still and laughed at them. Ashamed, it may be they became, at the idea of injuring that bold, defenseless, laughing white girl, and let her pass on unharmed. Well they knew that a blow inflicted upon her would bring upon themselves swift punishment. She was married in 1840 to Michael Pearce, and was the mother of ten children. She was born June 5. 1818, and died in 1894. She was a worthy member of the United Pres- byterian church, and exemplified many excellent qualities besides courage in her long home life in Eagle Creek township. A good likeness of this excellent woman, who was of Scotch-Irish descent, is to be found in the Dinwiddie Clan Records.
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The name of Mrs. Margaret Jeanette Dinwiddie comes next on this page. A member of the Perkins family, she was born near Rome, New York, May 5. 1818, was married to J. W. Dinwiddie August 19, 1844, and died March 15, 1888. She was one of the true and successful Sunday- school workers of the county. Educated at Rome, New York, accustomed to teaching, an experienced teacher, for about twenty-five years she carried on with some others the Plum Grove school, herself generally the Super- intendent. To her more than to any other one woman in the county the County organization for twenty-five years was indebted for its success. She was a member of the first Baptist church in Lake county and a member of the North Street Baptist church in Crown Point at the time of her death. In the "Lake of the Red Cedars," and in the "Sunday Schools of Lake," may be found her memorials.
Some names are again grouped. Mrs. Sarah Beadle, Mrs. Sarah Wells, Mrs. Sarah Childers, these three Sarahs with their husbands and with J. L. Worley, were the constituent members of the first church in the county called "Christian" or Disciple church with no other designation. This church is located now at Lowell, where there are three Christian churches, one Roman Catholic, one Presbyterian, one Methodist. The Methodist pio- neer women were: Mrs. E. W. Bryant, Mrs. Ephraim Cleveland, Mrs. Kitchel, Mrs. Taylor, mother of Mrs. S. G. Wood, Mrs. Wood, wife of Dr. James A. Wood, Mrs. Viant, women all of character and note.
Other women among early and active and useful residents in the county were, Mrs. Wallace, born in Vermont, the mother of Mrs. W. Brown, of Crown Point, Mrs. Brown, of Southeast Grove, mother of John Brown and W. B. Brown, Mrs. Crawford, mother of Mrs. Matt. Brown, and Mrs. E. Hixon, Mrs. McCann, of Plum Grove, and Mrs. Hale, Mrs. E. M. Rob- ertson, mother of Mrs. O. Dinwiddie, Mrs. "Ruth Barney, widow," whose name stands thus as a claimant on the Register for the year 1836, Mrs. Sig- ler, the mother of several sons, Mrs. Servis, mother of O. V. Servis, and Mrs. George Earle. Some of these women were Presbyterians, most of them in fact, Methodists and Baptists being also represented.
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