USA > Indiana > Lake County > Encyclopedia of genealogy and biography of Lake County, Indiana, with a compendium of history 1834-1904 > Part 14
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Again, sometimes the rider would see not far away some of those other true tenants of the wilds, perhaps two or three prairie wolves, or one alone, seldom only one, on that apparently slow lope or gallop, which nevertheless took them through the grass and over the flower beds quite rapidly, and soon they too would be out of sight. Perhaps. again, the horseback rider would see, on some distant grass covered eminence, forty or more sandhill cranes going through some kind of evolution which the pioneers called a dance.
None of these beautiful and entertaining sights which delighted the pioneer children can the children of this generation behold. All that rich beauty and wild life from our prairies has forever gone.
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Then there were other sights not peculiar to the prairies, the bounding red-deer of the woodlands and the wild pigions in prodigious numbers, which the children of Lake can here never more see. Those pigeons, perhaps, gone forever from all our land, were, in form, in color, in motion, rich embodied beauty. The eyes of none of us will see those thousands of wild pigeons again as once they were in these woodlands, on our few grain fields, and some- times passing, by hundreds of thousands, in the sky above us.
And yet again, the children of those days saw natural streams of water. Cedar Creek and Eagle Creek, winding amid their grassy banks along narrow valleys, were then beautiful streams. They have been turned into ditches now. And so have West Creek and Turkey Creek, and other once pretty water courses, and who ever saw much beauty in a ditch? Doubtless there are children in this county now who never saw one of those ever beautiful objects in nature, a real, purling brook. And how can they appreciate such gems of poetry as this: "The noise as of a running brook in the leafy month of June, Which to the sleeping woods all night singeth a quiet tune." Instead of winding brooks, of which at Plum Grove a part of one is left, our water courses, like our roads and railroads, must now be made. as far as practicable, to go in straight lines. Utility takes the place of beauty.
There is beauty yet left on the clouds, and on the morning and evening sky. but houses and barns and orchards and shade trees and shrubbery so obstruet the views that few children now observe or have a chance to see a fair. clear sunrise gilding the prairie and the woodlands with its rich hues of ruby or of gold : or those magnificent sunsets which some of us as children were privileged to enjoy, when huge masses of vapor like distant moun- tains seemed to be piled up in the west, and the setting sun, seeming to sink down into their fleecy folds, painted on them for a time golden, or purple, or crimson hues, or violet and ruby, the richest coloring,-unless some- times, once or twice in a lifetime the same may be seen at night on the northern sky,-that nature ever presents to our view. Such sunsets as were seen in this county in the years long past no artist can paint. Such coloring
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man does not mix. But sometimes, with all the western horizon and blue sky cloudless, the sun would seem to touch the edge of the horizon, and on the line of prairie or behind a few trees, like a large red or golden globe of fire, almost too bright even then for the eye steadily to rest upon, would slowly yet soon disappear from sight, seeming to leave an open doorway into a world of dazzling glory. The rich beauty of pure, unstained light, could at such times be felt.
And there was more, much more of animated nature full of beauty then. at which there is no time now to glance. The children of the pioneer days did see what our eyes never can behold.
Even the prairie fires, too grand, too magnificent, and sometimes too de- structive. to give that sense of delight which beauty gives, were sometimes very pleasing to the eyes of childhood. Into the mouth of one of Ossian's heroes these words are put : "The columns of smoke pleased well mine eyes : I knew not then wherefore the maidens wept." And when there was no feeling of destruction children saw with delight the long lines of flame and the columns of smoke when after sweeping through the tall grass of the Kankakee Marsh the flames spread northward upon the prairie.
Truly, the children of the pioneer years saw earth and sky with little to obstruct their range of vision.
And this region was then, amid all its wild beauty a very fitting great temple in which to worship God.
In these our days, much is said of art, something is taught of art. An evening lecture was given not long ago to the assembled teachers of Lake county and the subject was. Art in familiar things. And that was well. But who teaches the children to love natural beauty ? Who teaches, "There's beauty all around our paths. if but our watchful eyes could trace it mid familiar things, and through their lowly guise?" Who teaches the children now, as many pioneer children learned. amid the delightful opportunities and privileges which they enjoyed, to look through nature up to nature's God? To many of the pioneer children, in their great wilds of nature, before
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there were cities or towns, or temples for worship as made with men's hands, God was very near.
LANDSCAPES.
I am unwilling that this large volume of biographical sketches should go out among the later inhabitants of the county, (a county now containing a population of about forty thousand, many more than half of them residing in cities and towns or in villages), without some mention being made in it of our beautiful country views. And so in this chapter headed "Miscel- lany," is placed a paper concerning our landscapes.
Webster gives as his first definition of the word landscape, "A portion of land or territory which the eye can comprehend in a single view, including all the objects it contains." Of course a prairie region, a moderately level region such as is Lake county, can have nothing of the grandeur of moun- tain scenery. The writer of this has stood on the summit of the New Hamp- shire Mount Washington; has passed through Dixville Notch; has crossed the Cumberland and the Alleghany Mountains : and he knows and admires mountain scenery. But he is sure there have been beautiful views in this sand ridge and woodland, prairie and marsh region of Lake. Some of these lie will name.
Near the village of Lake Station, from the top of a large sand hill, the northward view, on a clear summer afternoon, is full of interest to a lover of natural scenery. "The eye rests upon a part of the valley of Deep River : and just beyond is the village of Lake, surrounded by hills and woods, the fans for raising water reminding one of Don Quixote's windmills, and the vegetation giving evidence of the beds of sand from which it derives its nourishment." The railroad grounds in this village are large and neat, the finest in the county, and the distance is sufficient to give to the buildings a fine effect.
From various hill tops in the north part of the county beautiful views could be enjoyed a few years ago, "the sweep of vision from these taking in a portion of Lake Michigan's blue waters, and the pines, and sand hills, and valleys of the shore.
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Some very pretty views are found along a ridge of land which separates the Turkey Creek and Deep River localities and valleys, and especially near the once Red School-house or Vincent neighborhood. Looking northward one can see the woodland ridges which run parallel with the Little Calu- met River, and southward and westward one can look over a broad area of undulating prairie, the first breadth of prairie upon which Solon Robinson and his party looked. October 31, 1834, the emotions produced by which he called "indescribable."
From this ridge also, looking across the prairie and Deep River valley, Crown Point presents, at the right time of day, a very pretty picture standing forth in the sunlight on its prairie eminences with the woodland height for a rich background. Another fine view of the town may also be obtained from an eminence near the eastern limit of the county, the distance being sufficient to give to the woodland on the west that beautiful hue of blue.
The main prairie portion of Lake county is in two divisions. The one south of Crown Point is Robinson Prairie; the one in Hanover and West Creek townships is Lake Prairie. The small ones have borne the names of Eagle Creek, Bostwick, Prairie West, and Center. On Robinson Prairie, south of Crown Point, are eminences from which one can look over some miles of prairie, then across five or six miles of Kankakee valley land, once called marsh. and at length the vision ends along a line of blue which marks the course of the Kankakee River, beyond which from no prairie height can the eye see over into Jasper and Newton counties, unless sometimes the steam from an engine may be seen far down on the Monon Railroad.
There is yet left a beautiful landscape which one beholds when coming northward from the Lowell and Hebron road. on the west side of the Eagle Creek valley, when emerging from the shrubbery and the grove, sud- denly there spreads out before one the prairie and valley courses of Deep River and Eagle Creek as once these were, and the village of Le Roy as now it is, and the open view far northward, once a green prairie in sum- mer, but now dotted over with fields, and houses, and barns, and orchards.
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But the landscape is beautiful still. and it comes so unexpectedly upon one who has not gone that way before.
LAKE PRAIRIE VIEWS.
Mrs. Nannie W. Ames, a daughter of Rev. H. Wason. of New Eng- land descent and training. a cultivated woman, wrote the following at the time of Lake County's Semi-Centennial :
"Lake Prairie has been called the 'Gem of the county.' and certainly it well deserves the fair name. Twenty-five years ago, Professor Mills, of Wabash College, stood on a knoll on Mr. Peach's farm. and looking around till his eye met the woods that encircle the gently rolling land. said: 'I have been thirty years in the West and have been in every county in the State, and never but once have I seen so beautiful a view.' Other strangers from the East. South, and West have said the same thing." Mrs. Ames continues : "The scene has changed in this quarter of a century but has only gained in beauty. Now. as far as the eye can reach. may be seen com- fortable houses and farm buildings, orchards and shade trees, with here and there a bordering of deep green osage: while still farther in the distance the tall windmills point out the homes beyond the range of vision." This writer may be more than commonly fond of the wildness of nature, and, perhaps, partial to Lake Prairie as once it was, and so he will only add here, that he prefers the beauty of sixty years ago, which he knew so well, to the more improved beauty of the present.
Also it may be added. that from other eminences, further north than the one mentioned by Mrs. Ames, some beautiful views may be obtained, the range of vision taking in all of that rich prairie, about ten miles from north to south, bounded on the west by the West Creek woodlands. by the Cedar Creek woods on the east. on the south. five miles beyond the prairie limit, extending over groves and marshland, reaching to the long line of blue that marks the course of the Kankakee River.
LAKE COUNTY CROW ROOSTS.
The early settlers of Lake county, Indiana, found crows here, and they
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have been here ever since. They are probably more numerous now than they were in 1837, for they can now find a greater variety of food and they find it in greater abundance. The Indians no doubt helped them to some food, but the whites help them to much more.
Among our black-birds there has been seen a real white one, a true candida merula, but so far as known all our crows have been black, like those of whom that poem was written called "The Three Black Crows." The main roosting places of our erows in these latter years have been, in num- ber, two. One of these is nine miles northwest from Crown Point : the other is five miles south.
The one south is in an evergreen grove which covers an area of about four acres, set out for a wind-breaker in the center of the broad Robinson Prairie many years ago, the trees Scotch pine, Austrian pine, and some larch. This grove, the trees being very close together, makes a grand shelter for any of our birds, and the erows gather there at night by the hundreds, and have been estimated at fully one thousand.
The roosting place, northwest of Crown Point, is by the side of the Pan Handle Railroad, on land formerly owned by Mr. A. N. Hart, who would not allow the first erows that came there to be disturbed. They sought near him a quiet resting place and they found it. He allowed no shooting near them. The tract of land eame next into the possession of Mr. Malcolm T. Hart, one of the wealthy men of the county, and he followed his father's example, and the number of the trusting erows increased.
That large estate is now in the hands of Mrs. M. T. Hart and her daugh- ter. Marguerite M. Hart, and they also are friendly toward the crows. Those that come here for night shelter and rest probably number thousands. They leave in the early morning, going westward and southward and return from their Illinois foraging grounds from sunset time till quite late in the evening. Ever since the raven went out from Noah's ark the black-feathered birds of the raven and crow kinds seem to have been successful in procuring food.
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
AN OLD LANDMARK.
As the month of October. 1902, was drawing to a close an old land- mark in Crown Point began to disappear. A building on Court Street. northwest of the northwest corner of the present public square, had been standing on that spot of ground beyond the reach of memory of most of the present inhabitants of the town. The oldest locust tree of the town stood in front of it, back of it was in 1834 an Indian garden spot, and near by was then a spring of water. There, October 31. 1834, Solon Robinson and family pitched their tent. the Robinson record says. "by the side of a spring."
The next day, November 1, 1834, work commenced with axes for erect- ing a log cabin, and in four days the family left the tent and moved into what they called their new house. New it certainly was, made of the logs of trees that were standing in that grove or woodland four days before. Additions to that first cabin were evidently made in 1835. but whether any portion of the log structure which was afterwards covered with siding and which had been on that spot. in 1902, more than sixty years, contained the first pile of logs is somewhat uncertain. Perhaps the south part of the entire structure. which was removed in November, 1902, to make room for a large livery barn, was the cabin of 1834, and, if so, had been standing for sixty-eight years. Of the part that for a time was left standing, a two- story building, the lower part of logs, the upper story of frame work, no one now living can tell when it was erected. Probably not. at least not com- pleted. till after the log court house was built in 1837, certainly not till after some sawed lumber could be obtained and nails came into use. In the con- struction of Lake county's first buildings no nails were used.
Two only are living who were residents in Crown Point in 1837, and they were then girls too young to know about the building of the Robinson home or the log court house. Three are yet living, who may have seen those buildings in 1837. Mr. William A. Taylor, Mr. Nathan Wood, and Mr. J. Kenney; and one other is living. the writer of this, who was in what is now Crown Point, five or six times in 1837. He probably knows as much
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about the buildings of that year as any one now living. But whenever built, this oldest house in Crown Point when 1902 closed, some part of the tenement as it was November 5. 1902. dating back to 1835. possibly to 1834. it has an interesting history. And as the home of the founder of Crown Point that history should be preserved.
At this home spot, quite certainly not inside of the log walls, was organized "The Squatters' Union of Lake County." the first action here of American citizens in exercising their right of governing themselves. The record which is beyond question as to its accuracy says. this was done "at a meeting of a majority of the citizens of Lake county held at the house of Solon Robinson on the fourth of July. 1836." The record says at the house. but it does not say in the house. and one who was present said the meeting was in the open air, in the grove.
In 1837 this home was opened several times by its hospitable owners for religious worship, probably the first dwelling thus used in Crown Point. among the first thus used in all of Lake county.
This building was for many years the bright home of the Robinson family, where were born Dr. L. G. Bedell. now a noted physician of Chicago, and her brother Charles, and where with these an older brother and sister spent the sunny years of childhood and of youth: and where sometimes for visiting, sometimes for dancing, would meet the youth and beauty of Crown Point. They who still dance among the young ladies of Crown Point dance in larger rooms now and not on puncheon floors.
Marriages and changes took place and the next of our historic families to make that house a bright living home was a member of the Holton family, Mrs. Calista Young, where her son Charles Young. now of Chicago, grew up to manhood; where, in 1884. her aged mother died, and in the same year, after a residence in Crown Point of about five years, her mother's sis- ter's son. Mr. Clement Brown: and where Solon Robinson, with his Florida wife. made a short sojourn on his last visit to Crown Point.
After Mrs. Young went to Indianapolis to live with her son, then Deputy
-
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Secretary of State, one more representative of one of our historic families found there a home, Mr. William Clark, a grandson of Judge William Clark, the Clark family having been intimately associated with the Robinson family in the pioneer days. Mrs. William Clark opened a millinery store in the log building, which was then becoming old. Some tenants occasionally occupied it afterwards.
Thus it has gone through its changes. An inviting home place for one connected family for more than half a century : at last furnishing an office room for Mr. J. S. Holton in a part of the year 1902. Before that year closed the south part. the logs eighteen feet long (in one room of which this writer, then a youth, remembers to have slept as one of the guests of the Robinson family), was all removed, the north part. the logs also eighteen feet long, and apparently all solid, then left standing.
One only is known to be living who was in the log cabin of 1834, and she was too young to know much difference between a cabin or a palace. It was enough for her that it was home.
The next record for this page is: March 2. 1903. Monday. To-day the remaining portion of the Robinson house was removed to make way for the printing office soon to be erected on this spot by J. J. Wheeler, whose wife is a granddaughter of the old log house builder. And so the spot where for many years was a pioneer home, where ministers of the Gospel have preached, where young people have often met, where births and deaths have been, is soon to be, probably for many years to come, the home of journalism, the abode of printing presses, and the day home for those who do type setting and press work, and who thus will help to enrich with printed thought thousands of living homes. But for the historic page, few would know. in the years that are expected to come. that in this locality was erected one of Lake county's earliest log cabins.
1843. A GOLDEN WEDDING. 1893. Fifty years, as we forward look.
Seem as years slow moving and long ;
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Fifty years, as we backward look, From grayhaired age to childhood's song, Seem only as yesterdays gone far by.
Yesterday ! Yesterday! How the days fly !
Fifty full years have passed away since that marriage ceremony took place in the northwestern home of the Cedar Lake community whose golden anniversary brings us together to-day.
It will be fitting for me, a youth at Cedar Lake then, an inhabitant here now, and having for many years been giving some close attention to the times that go over us, to the history which we are making, to the changes which every year brings, to place before you. among the thoughts of this hour, some facts connected with that locality and the half century now past.
Then, fifty years ago, in this northwestern corner of Indiana, across which so many thousands have this year passed, this year of 1893, going in crowded cars to reach the White City, settlements, homes, institutions, as established by descendants of Europeans, were not only comparatively but actually new. Nine years had seen quite a number of families making homes in the woodlands on lands which the Pottawatomie Indians had but lately vacated.
In 1843 we had in all Lake county about as many inhabitants as are now in St. John township alone, or about sixteen or seventeen hundred ; we had a few schoolhouses, mostly built of logs : there was a Catholic chapel on the Hack place and a Methodist church building in the Hayden and Hathaway neighborhood; there were three or four postoffices; there were a few stores, a few frame buildings, and one piano.
Pioneer families had erected cabins and made homes from the border of the Kankakee marsh northward, in the edge of what became known as the West Creek woods, extending to the head waters of that little stream known as West Creek. Landmarks along that line of settlements were the pioneer homes that bore the names of Torrey, Wilkinson. Wiles, Bond, Hornor, and Greene. That West Creek stream was just called little, but it formed, be-
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cause of the wide marshy valley through which it flowed and the quick- sands along its course, an impassable barrier between the families on the west side and those on the cast. As a necessity for travel the Torrey bridge was built, and afterward the bridge on the road running west from Cedar Lake.
Of about a dozen pioneer families forming the Cedar Lake neighbor- hood of the west side of the lake, already, in 1843, some had returned to the Wabash, some had gone westward to the new frontier .- it was becoming too thickly settled for them,-and some had changed their localities. Of these the Greene family, consisting of Dr. Josepli Greene, the early physician of the neighborhood and an expert deer hunter, Sylvester Greene and his wife and children, and a young brother, Edward Greene, had left their home near the head waters of the eastern branch of West Creek, and had settled on the north bank of Cedar Lake; and in their place had come into the woodland, to a cabin home, ROSWELL HACKLEY, then in middle age, with his wife, his son, Edwin, and two daughters, then entering womanhood, Miss Mary and Miss Eliza, healthy, vigorous, enterprising, entering heartily into the few varieties of social life which were enjoyed by that little neighbor- hood of resolute pioneers.
At that time the West Creek woods were alive with deer, beautiful American red deer, browsing in the winter and then lying down on their . snowy beds in the rich, sheltered hazel copses, finding water in those ever flowing springs that helped to feed the marshy stream, and in the summer enjoying the fine pasture range of twelve miles of woodland valleys and ravines, of sunny glades and sheltered nooks. Fifty years ago those woods were beautiful, well fitted to be the home of the red deer, the squirrels, the rabbits, and the quails, or of wood nymphs and fairies of the older days. At that time also, while all our native wild game was abundant, civilization was advancing and the conveniences of life were on the increase. Oxen were still largely used as domestic animals, and sometimes the ox teams would convey the families to the places of Sabbath worship. Carriages, cov- ered buggies, or buggies without covers, were few indeed.
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The members of the Ball and Hackley families would sometimes go up to Crown Point to church together, the place of meeting being then and for years afterwards the log court house.
The winter of 1842 and 1843 was a severe one and was called the "hard winter." It commenced in the middle of November and on the eighth of the next May cattle barely found sufficient grass on which to live. Many had perished for want of food.
In the spring of 1843 the scarlet fever in a malignant form visited Crown Point, and for the first time the inhabitants found it needful to select a place for the burial of their dead.
Fifty years, therefore, takes us far back in our life upon this soil as a civilized community of white settlers.
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