USA > Indiana > Lake County > Encyclopedia of genealogy and biography of Lake County, Indiana, with a compendium of history 1834-1904 > Part 13
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
136
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
There are yet other names. Mrs. Banks, two of whose sons are well known at Hobart and Crown Point; Mrs. Sykes, mother of a large family of well known sons and daughters, a woman who has but lately gone from among the living, having spent in this county a large part of a long, active, and useful life, and who like the other women named has left her impress upon this generation ; Mrs. Rhodes, wife of Jonas Rhodes, whose daughters are active women now: Mrs. Abraham Muzzall: Mrs. Henry Hayward, younger than some of the others: Mrs. Bartlett Woods; Mrs. Kenney and Mrs. Woodruff, of Orchard Grove; some from New England, some from Old England; and Mrs. Winslow, mother of A. A. Winslow, Consul to Guatemala. Mrs. J. C. Kinyon and Mrs. Henry Sanger both died in 1881.
There are yet other names. Five earnest Christian women of West Creek township for a time, who did much to make the central part of Lake Prairie, that gem of the prairie region, "bud and blossom like the rose," were Mrs. M. L. Barber. spending her latest years in Kansas, her sister, Mrs. Burhans, who closed her life in Hammond. Mrs. Little, mother of Hon. Joseph .A. Little, and Mrs. Gerrish, and Mrs. Wason; the last three from the Granite State, and all five with granite-like principle.
A little group comes in here now of women of foreign birth, who had crossed the broad Atlantic, who had much to learn in regard to language and institutions, but whose well trained children proved them to be true mothers, known years ago among us as Mrs. John Hack, Mrs. Giesen, Mrs. Dascher, Mrs Beckley. Mrs. Hack, so far as known, was the first German woman to find a home in the county. The sturdy sons and tall husband that came with her are gone, but grandchildren and great-grandchildren live at Crown Point. Mrs. Geisen is represented at Crown Point by two furniture dealers and undertakers, son and grandson. Mrs. Dascher came from the old country with a cluster of blooming, well trained girls around her, and one son. Her descendants yet live among us, and some of them are bloom- ing girls now. budding into womanhood. The descendants of Mrs. Beckley, that fervent, sensible, courteous. German Methodist woman, are somewhere
137
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
in the world, living in a way, it is to be hoped, to do her memory honor.
Here are the names of a very different group: Mrs. Calista Sherman, born in Vermont, dying in Crown Point when more than ninety-five years of age, one of our oldest women, who shared largely in the respect and esteem of the community; and connected with her may be named two daughters, Mrs. Farrington and Mrs. J. H. Luther. It is recorded of Mrs. Luther, who had no children of her own, that she was "a mother to some motherless girls, and one of our noblest women in relieving suffering hu- manity, in avoiding injurious gossip, in kindly deeds of friendship and neighborly regard." The next in this group is the name of Mrs. Rosalinda Holton, a sister of Mrs. Sherman, the youngest of thirteen children of the Smith family of Friends of Shrewsbury, Vermont, born July IS, 1795, dying in Crown Point when nearly eighty-nine years of age, at the home of Mrs. R. C. Young, where she had resided for many years. Next to her name belongs the name of her daughter, Mrs. R. Calista Young, mother of Charles H. Young, of Chicago, who has herself closed up a life not short, a life marked by large unselfishness, by untiring efforts for the good of those con- nected with her, by a steadfast Christian faith and hope. Five such women are not found in every community as were these two aged sisters and their daughters.
Other names: Mrs. Vinnedge, head of a large family, a Methodist when sixteen years of age, an earnest church member through a long life ; Mrs. Frank Fuller ( Hannah Ferguson), mother of nine children; Mrs. Sarahı R. Brown, who became the second wife of Amos Hornor; Mrs. Mary M. Mason, daughter of Henry Farmer, becoming a resident in 1836, second wife of Deacon Cyrus M. Mason; Mrs. Martin Vincent ( Mercy Pierce), married in 1837. the head of a well-known family, that is, the womanly head, the mother; Mrs. William Belshaw, born in 1824, a mem- ber of the Jones family, and who, then Miss Jones, was a teacher in two of the early log schoolhouses, one near Lowell, one near Pine Grove; Mrs. Lucy Taylor, wife of Adonijah Taylor, born in Connecticut, brought up in
138
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
Vermont, born in 1792, the mother of nine children, dying in 1869. "a highly respected and estimable Christian woman": Mrs. Ebenezer Saxton of Wig- gins Point and Merrillville, a woman who had a fearful experience with a drunken Indian in the absence of her husband, the Indian, surly and cross, threatening the death of an infant in the cradle, she at length, when the In- dian slept, pouring out the remainder of the whiskey from his jug, watching the children through that long night, relieved at last of the presence of the Indian by Dr. Palmer, who came along some time in the morning of the next day. The girls and the mothers of that day had fortitude and courage.
A few more names, for this is a grand list, including the names of many who were among the excellent of the earth. Mrs. McCarty, wife of Judge Benjamin McCarty, the mother of six sons and two daughters, was not only an early settler in Lake county but in Porter and La Porte, having a home in the latter county in 1832, 1833. and 1834. She was not young when coming into Lake county, some of her sons were young men, her daughters were young women, intelligent and cultivated all, and at Creston. in a little private cemetery her dust reposes.
Mrs. Belshaw, an English Baptist, a mother of sons and daughters, also came from La Porte county, in middle age, to become an early resident in Lake. Hers was for a time a bright home. But death came, and her young daughter, eighteen years of age, was taken away from earth, and she with many of the large family found another home in the then distant Oregon, where one of her sons, who had married Candace McCarty, became a noted wheat raiser in that great wheat state. Other members of the Belshaw family yet remain in Lake county, and her name belongs of right among our worthy mothers and grandmothers.
In a different part of the county, in the woodland north of Hanover Center, where was a great resort for deer, was the first home of another worthy woman, a Presbyterian church member. Mrs. Hackley. She was the mother of Mrs. W. A. Clark and Mrs. Pettibone, of Crown Point, and at
139
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
length she and her husband had their residence at Crown Point with Mrs. Clark.
Other names are: Mrs. Robbins, of Brunswick and Lowell, both of whose sons fell as members of the Union Army; Mrs. Dudley Merrill, of Merrillville: Mrs. Krost, of Crown Point, the mother of four sons and two daughters ; Mrs. Sohl, of Hammond, an early resident in the old North township, before Hammond was: Mrs. Payne, Mrs. Foley, Mrs. Stringham, the earliest residents on Center Prairie, who did not long remain, but who helped to start civilization before their husbands removed: Mrs. Jones, a later resident than they, mother of Perry Jones, born in October, 1804, who lived among us to be almost ninety-six years old. One of our very aged women. "She retained her faculties well, enjoyed reading, and in her re- lations in life was an estimable woman."
Mrs. Allman, the wife of Rev. M. Allman, spending many useful years in Crown Point, closed her days in Michigan.
Mrs. Mary Hill, mother of Dr. Hill, of Creston, and of Mrs. Henry Surprise, a motherly woman indeed, of rare patience and untiring love, lived to complete eighty-four years of life.
Mrs. Gibson, an early resident of the old North township of the county, closed her life in Chicago, eighty-seven years of age.
The name of Underwood is prominent in Lake county and Mrs. Under- wood's name must be recorded here. She was the mother of five daughters, three of whom are yet living: Mrs. Harper and Mrs. Joy, of Hobart, and Mrs. Palmer, of Hebron. She was also the mother of several sons, of whom one is living east of Merrillville. She died many years ago at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Palmer, wife of Dr. Palmer, and was over ninety years of age.
Three Later Residents, Not Pioneers.
Another of our excellent women was Mrs. Reuben Fancher, who was in girlhood and young womanhood Mary Elizabeth Hawkins. She was born in Genoa, Cayuga county, New York, March 4. 1835. She was baptized
140
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
February 17, 1856. and became a member of the Methodist Episcopal church September 28. 1856. She spent several years of life in Buffalo, and was active there in Sunday-school work, having charge of a mission class num- bering from fifty to one hundred members, which she taught for several years, thus gaining much experience in that grand work.
August 17: 1859, she was married in Buffalo to Reuben Fancher, and they soon after came as permanent residents to Lake county, Indiana. She became before long a teacher in the Methodist Sunday-school, and her Chris- tian character and rich experience in that work made her a very valuable teacher to whom that school is largely indebted for the good done in the past. She was in Buffalo and Crown Point engaged in that work for about twenty-five years. She kept a diary as some others in the county have done. January 11, 1897, when nearly sixty-two years of age, she passed from earth, leaving two daughters to follow in her footsteps and do good.
The following is one of the resolutions adopted by Lake Lodge, of which her husband and son were members: "Resolved, That by her death Crown Point has been deprived of a highly respected Christian woman, whose character was beautiful, sincere, and pure, and whose home influence merited the emulation of all." Signed, James C. Gibbs, Edward A. Krost. Herman J. Lehman, Committee.
Mrs. Lydia F. Flint, a member in girlhood of the large Smith family, was born July 16, 1825, in Franklin county, New York. She was married in Delaware county, Ohio, August 5, 1846, to William Flint. A son, James, was born December 15, 1847. In the fall of 1859 the family came into Lake county, Indiana, where in 1862 her husband and son both died. leaving her a childless widow. She died May 22, 1903. having had a home for thirty years with her sister. Mrs. C. N. Morton. With no descendants to perpetuate her name and cherish her memory, as a good and true Chris- tian woman, her name deserves a place among our honored women.
A third one of these later residents was Mrs. Hart, wife of .1. N. Hart, of Dyer, mother of Malcolm and Milton Hart and Mrs. Biggs. of
141
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
Crown Point, the family coming from Philadelphia about 1855, and settling on the State Line at Dyer, while that part of the county was still quite new and wild. Mrs. Hart was not a frontier woman. Accustomed to the life of a city, she was retiring in hier habits, and did not feel the necessity that women who had very young children did feel to enter very actively into the work of building up society around her. To her three sons and one daughter she gave much care, and to her diligent training they were much indebted. She had a strong native sense of justice, wishing to see all per- sons treated justly, without partiality. She loved beauty, and, brought up as she had been, she prized the true refinements of life.
She spent the later years of her life at Crown Point, where she had an elegant residence built to suit her taste for beauty in architecture, now the residence of Mrs. Malcolm Hart. While not so widely known as were many other mothers the name of Mrs. A. N. Hart ( one son and her one daughter, Mrs. F. N. Biggs, and some intimate friends yet living to cherish her memory) will stand here to represent a very cultivated, refined. and worthy woman.
"Aunt Susan."
The next name to be recorded here is the name of a very motherly woman, who was not herself a mother, who was never married, but of whom, as doing a mother's part, it may truthfully be said, that many would rise up to do her honor. Susan Patterson Turner was born in Pennsylvania, February 27, 1813. Her father's family were genuine pioneers. As the oldest child and the only daughter of the family of Samuel Turner of Eagle Creek, she was left in charge of the household through the winter of 1838. while the father and mother returned to La Porte county to find a more com- fortable winter abode. She and her brothers passed safely and well through the privations of that winter; and when, in 1871. her aged mother died, the care of the household, in which she as an only daughter had large experience, devolved very fully upon her. To her brothers' children, who delighted to visit the old homestead, she was Aunt Susan, and as years came on, and her
142
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
motherly capabilities and excellent qualities continued to be brought out she was known as "Aunt Susan" by a large community who highly appre- ciated her nobility of character. She died July 24, 1899.
Mrs. Higgins, coming into Lake county as Diantha Tremper in 1844, was born near Niagara Falls in 1824. She became well acquainted with the families of the early settlers in both Lake and Porter counties. In 1847 she was married to Dr. J. Higgins, who in 1859 settled as a physician in Crown Point. In the earlier years of her life in Crown Point she was an active woman in the life around her. She trained up carefully her only child, now Mrs. Youche, and her one grandson, but in later years impaired health kept her more closely in her home. As a Christian woman her examples and influence were for good on those around her. She died in 1895. In a printed memorial of her it was said: "A woman broad-minded, not taking narrow views in the great interests of humanity, cherishing warmly the domestic virtues, she will have a right to be remembered as one of those connected with our many pioneer women who have finished up their threescore years and ten of life, and have passed on before to the rest and the activities of the unseen world."
And here may be added the names of faithful mothers who have lately passed from among us, Mrs. Jacob Wise and Mrs. Seymour Patton, both quite aged women, faithful to duties in their generation, both members of well known and substantial families. Grouped with these also may be the name of Mrs. James Patton, of Winfield, the mother of Mrs. Vansciver, of Crown Point.
Mothers of Many Children.
Among the mothers of large Lake county families must be placed, first, the name of Mrs. Flint, of Southeast Grove. Among the first settlers of that beautiful Grove were the members of this noted Methodist family. One daughter was the first wife of James H. Luther, one became the wife of Rev. D. Crumpacker, and one, the eighth child, Olive L., was the wife of Rev. Robert Hyde. There were, in all, fifteen children, and Mrs. Hyde en-
143
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
joyed tlie distinction of having seven brothers and sisters older and seven younger than herself. Mrs. Hyde died in Chicago. September 3. 1901, about seventy-five years of age. Of her mother, Mrs. Flint, not much is now known, but it is enough for this record that she brought up so large a family on firm religious principles, fitting them for stations of usefulness and honor.
As the second among these mothers may be placed the name of Mrs. Scritchfield, of Creston, the mother of thirteen children, having very many grandchildren and great-grandchildren yet living.
The third of these mothers is Mrs. Julius Demmon, in girlhood Nancy Wilcox, member of a pioneer family, married in 1850, the mother of six sons, and six daughters, and who in less than fifty years had sixty-one living grandchildren in Lake county.
The attentive reader has noticed that many of the earlier mothers had from six to eiglit or ten children, and it was a pleasant thing to find in those cabin homes wide-awake boys, and cheerful, lively girls. Each of those large homes was a little world of itself. Home then was more like the old patriarchal times than is much of what is called home life now. Some be- lieve it was richer, purer, better than now.
A place must be found on this roll of honor for the name of Mrs. Samuel Turner, of Eagle Creek, who was Jane Dinwiddie, born January 19, 1783, a woman of Scotch-Irish blood, of Scotch Presbyterian principle, who was married to Samuel Turner at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in February, 1810. and with him came to a choice location on Eagle Creek, in Lake county, in 1838, becoming a permanent resident in 1839, thien fifty-six years of age. Not many now live who knew her in the home circle, but her like- ness in the "Dinwiddie Clan Records" shows her to have been an estimable woman, and her grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Iowa and In- diana show that through her they inherited the blessing of having been "well born," a privilege to which it has been said all children have a right.
The very close observer may notice that the first woman whose name
144
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
is on this list was born January 15, 1783, and that the last one was born January 19, 1783, both born in the year that gave peace after the Ameri- can Revolution. They were our oldest pioneers. For the most part the women, as well as the men, who came to share privations here and lay foundations were rather young, or in the prime of life.
It is claimed as a saying of Napoleon Bonaparte, that what France mnost needed was mothers. That the mothers have much to do with what the children are and what they became is a well accepted fact. Mothers that were mothers had homes in Lake county two generations ago. And the names of at least some of them have been placed upon these pages.
They could make bread and butter and cheese; they could wash and iron; they could sew and knit and spin wool into yarn, and some of them could weave that yarn into cloth ; they had spinning wheels and looms ; they could mold and dip candles; they could cut out garments and make them up; they could keep domestics, girls and women to help them in their work, having no trouble in trying to reduce them to the position of "servants," for they gave them seats at the family table and places around the fireside, treating them as they would wish their own daughters to be treated; they were mothers indeed, and looked well after all the wants of their households, carrying out well in their living the instructions given to women, and imi- tating well the model placed before women, in the Bible.
They were not what is called in this day "society women"; they were not members of any Clubs or of Secret Orders; they knew nothing of mod- ern "functions." They made visits and had dinners together and some- times suppers ; they had apple-paring bees, and quilting bees, and donation parties ; they had much social life, attending camp-meetings and associations and other religious meetings. They were largely keepers at home, yet were they sociable, friendly, hospitable. Such were our mothers and grand- mothers, the early settlers here sixty years ago. And when the time came for a thousand of the sons of Lake to go forth, from eighteen hundred homes, containing about nine thousand people, to join the mighty American Army
145
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
in fighting for the life of the nation, this thousand went from homes where there were mothers with loyal as well as loving hearts.
Of our little army of noble pioneer women, probably three or four hun- dred in number, there are living descendants now in the county to carry out in the life of this generation the rich results of their influence and their virtues.
I am not claiming for any of them, those named and those not named, great brilliancy of intellect, fascinating social endowments, or remarkable talents, but I do claim that so long as there is a county of Lake, so long the influence of our noble women will endure.
That women have done a large work in the county in promoting educa- tion is beyond any question. A deep and lasting impression on education and literature, in this county and outside of its borders, was made by the school carried on for so many years by Mrs. J. A. H. Ball. And from the day that Miss Ursula Ann Jackson, of West Creek, commenced to teach a public school in Pleasant Grove the first Monday of May, 1838, until this present time, women, and even quite young girls, have done a large part of the teaching in the public schools. Rev. Mr. Townley, who conducted a large school in Crown Point from about 1848 till 1856, speaking of his school which furnished many teachers for the public schools, stated in November, 1852, that he had had up to that time nearly five hundred scholars, and that not five young men had gone out as teachers. In later years teach- ers have received higher wages and more young men have accordingly been willing to engage in teaching. The women in all these years have been prominent in church work, in temperance work, in mission work; and when the time came in 1861 and in the following years to provide relief and com- forts for sick and suffering soldiers, then the homekeeping women imme- diately formed aid societies and sent relief to the hospitals and camps. Two of their number, of pioneer families, Mrs. Sarah Robinson and Miss Eliza- beth Hodson, went forth from their homes in Lake to the hospitals at Mem- phis, and there helped to care for the sick, the wounded, the dying. It is
10
146
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
no more than justice, it is not courtesy, that the names, the deeds, the memorials, of our pioneer women should find some room and place along with the memorials of their husbands and their sons.
Lake county has been represented by one Christian missionary in dis- tant India. Mrs. Annie Morgan, a daughter of Judge Turner of Crown Point, a member in her childhood of the Crown Point Presbyterian Sunday school, becoming a Baptist and having been married to Rev. Freeman Mor- gan, a Baptist minister, left her native land with him in October, 1879, bound for Southern Asia, and there both entered upon mission work among the Telugus.
LAKE COUNTY MISCELLANY. By T. H. Ball. THE PIONEER CHILDREN AND NATURE.
Each generation has, to some extent, privileges, opportunities, and ad- vantages, not bestowed, in the same degree, on other generations.
In this short paper the writer proposes to notice the superior advantages which the pioneer children enjoyed in beholding natural beauty, and so, if their opportunities were improved. in securing the two great benefits to he derived from the cultivation of a love for nature, the refinement of the dis- position, and the increase of the means of happiness.
That a true love for natural beauty, as seen on the earth and in the sky. is refining and may increase largely life's enjoyment, will be taken at present as granted. The proofs, if needed, are to be found abundantly in human observation and experience. And so, realizing and recognizing that some beautiful landscape views may yet be seen in this county, especially in the southern townships, some beauties peculiar to the pioneer times will now be named.
First of all among these were the wild prairies, the prairies with their native vegetation and their native inhabitants. Before a furrow had been turned, a shrub or tree planted, a house or fence constructed, in the spring and early summer the carpet of green grass, with a few early flowers scattered
147
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
here and there, was charming to the eye; but when the warm summer came, with its ever glorious sunshine. and the polar plant, which the children called rosin-weed, attained the height of six or seven feet, the grass then thick and tall, the beds of phlox, as rich as in an Eastern garden, covering large areas, the meadow lilies open to the sunshine, the broad leaves of the prairie dock having attained full growth, and rich colored, true prairie flowers in great abundance, of many varieties, open on every side,-then was the beauty of the prairie enchanting. There were no real weeds till man's plowshare turned over the prairie sod, and richer in color, greater in variety, more abundant even to profusion the flowers became as the summer approached the golden autumn. Then, as one would be riding on horseback amid the green verdure and tall polar plants, for roads and buggies were not then, and only a few venturesome children went out any distance on foot into the wilder- ness of beauty that lay in its bewildering extent of area before them: here and there would suddenly start up, as from under the very feet of the horse, the pinnated grouse, the chickens of the prairie, the true denizens of all this prairie region, and both horse and rider would be startled as one after another, in quick succession, from ten to twenty of those beautiful wild fowis would fly up on every side and sail away and soon sink down out of sight in that abundant verdure, amid which for many and many a summer their progenitors had been so secure. In that thick, rank, tall vegetation, no eye was likely to see them.
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.