USA > Indiana > Lake County > History Of Lake County (1929) > Part 16
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"Of the social life of this infant metropolis, it is of record that "the young society of City West was not large in num- bers, but very select. Of young ladies proper, there were not more than five or six. Of young misses there were of the "first set," five. The most lovely one of these, probably the youngest, beautiful as well as lovely, bore the given name of Mary. All five were quite polished, cultivated, good-looking, dressed well, were accustomed to the refinements of life, and formed a very small but a truly city-like group of girls." There were several boys and other children in the village, but only a few boys connected with this small group of girls." There were several unmarried young men, these being employed in the hard manual labor that was going forward.
"Under these circumstances and the "first set" being so limited in number, balls and evening parties were not indulged in and there is no evidence that our city ever had a wedding. With no churches, there were no church socials or festivals; with no farmers, there were no huskings or raisings. The ten or eleven girls and young women were thus left to their own devices for amusement, and they found it in going berrying, reading on the beach, or basking in the warm sun on the banks of fine, clean sand.
"Wild fruit was in great plenty that season, from the win- tergreen berries of May, down through the list of blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, sandhill cherries and huckleberries, to the less edible haws and roseberries of late fall. Some grew on the sandy slopes and others on the flats or marshes, and after the frosts, came the nuts to be found at a
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great distance, so there was variety in the excursions. Then there were lazy hours for these young ladies to spend in gazing from the lofty brows of the sand mountains across the swelling lake at distant white sails, bound in or out of Chicago, destined soon, as they fondly believed, to be seeking City West instead.
"One day a dozen or so mounted young men rode in from Michigan City making the beach road ring with their hilarious shouts as they galloped along, and they made a brave show as they traversed the streets of the new town and inspected its progress for an hour or two before returning as they came.
"Another day, and this was July 4, 1837, was made memor- able by a visit from Daniel Webster. It was the greatest day in the entire history of all City West, the very summit of its career. Webster, the great expounder of the constitution, the influential senator, a probable candidate for the presidency at the next election, visited City West at the precise moment when he could do it the most good. Traveling eastward from Chicago in a private two-horse carriage, he was induced to turn aside and so arrange his itinerary as to breakfast at the Fort creek metropolis. A committee of leading citizens went to Chicago and brought this about. The great man arrived on schedule time, was entertained at the Morse mansion, a few prominent persons in the community being of the party, and was given ocular and documentary proof of the positive super- iority of the local estuary for harbor purposes over anything that could be found elsewhere on that part of the lake, Indiana City and Michigan City, more particularly.
"The Whigs in the community were greatly enthused by this visit, for political reasons, and all were excited because of their hope that he might view the harbor proposition as they did. After the breakfast, which was a good one, and the in- spection which was all too brief for the City Westers, the great orator made a little speech, which was non-committal, and proceeded by the beach road to Michigan City, where the brilliant Edward A. Hannegan met him, and the populace tried to give him the time of his life. He dined and spoke there and went on to Laporte, where he spoke and supped.
"The financial disaster that swept over the country in 1837 fell upon City West with a crash and hurled its projectors and supporters into the depths of ruin. Money tightened, values were depressed and debts must be paid. The proprietors of
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our hopeful little village were not men of great wealth and they exhausted themselves in their venture. They could not stock the stores, equip the hotels, complete the harbor survey, dig the Calumet canal, or proceed another step without selling more lots than there was a market for in the panic. And Daniel Webster's breakfast did not bring the anticipated ap- propriations which went "instead, increased to $30,000, to Michigan City, where Hannegan is reputed to have produced some rare good whiskey that Fourth of July.
"In the autumn, a year after the town was established, its finish was clearly seen and the inhabitants began to scatter. In 1838 all were gone. The tragedy was complete.
"In the midst of the fruit season of 1840, one of the former dwellers in City West, one who had left in 1837, returned, ar- riving with a companion at nightfall. The houses were there but the place was solitude. After calling at the abandoned Exchange hotel, they domiciled themselves in the house that pleased them best, prepared their supper and slept, and the next day they examined the deserted village more thoroughly, bathed in the lake and departed, first gathering an abundance of fruit, without seeing another human being. Later, possibly several years, Mrs. Sarah J. Stonex, then of LeRoy, in Lake County, who had known the place in its halcyon days, was one of a small party that visited the town. The adventurers went from house to house, entering such as took their fancy, and explored the great empty hotel. There was no sign any- where of any recent company.
"One night, more than half a century ago, (now about 75 yrs.) traditionally numbered as a night of wild storms, old City West, then fallen into sad dilapidation, was swept out of existence by a fire. No one saw the conflagration, or knew of it at the time, and the supposition is that a midnight stroke of lightning was the cause. By the shifting sands and the processes of nature, the last vestige of this early competitor of Chicago has long been obliterated, with the exception of the Central house, this week burned.
"Old City West is gone. Its existence, though short, was bright and the glory of it is romantic. Its site today is a deso- late wilderness, frequented only by occasional fishermen or, as has been refuted, by some fugitive felon or band of sand dune buccaneers. The old beach road is abandoned and im-
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passable, and the old Sac trail is replaced by a labyrinth of railway lines such as the promoters who breakfasted with Webster that day, had never dreamed of in their plans for scooping commerce of the great west by means of a harbor at Fort Creek. As late as 1842, the Indiana general assembly memorialized congress in favor of a harbor at City West, but the resolution was a brief, perfuctory, unsympathetic docu- ment, especially when compared with fervent prayers the same body was sending up annually to the national legislature, and the sole response was silence. Chicago and Michigan City got the appropriations, while the two others languished and died."
A settlement somewhat southeasterly from the original site, located along the old Chicago-Detroit trail (now Dunes High- way) and just east of the present railway station called Tre- mont continued to flourish for several years, and this was generally known as City West, or New City West. A post- office was still maintained there in the early 40's under the name City West post-office, as may be seen by old letters, folded as envelopes, for neither the envelope nor the postage stamp had come into use at that time, the message sheet hav- ing been folded in the form of an envelope, bearing the name and address of the party addressed and the inscription "post- age Paid." Here for a few years a cooper-shop flourished. The hoops, or withes, for the buckets, tubs and barrels were made from hickory and oak sprouts taken from the woods. The frame school-house still standing, but used as a dwelling- house, was often known, prior to the advent of the trolley-car, as City West school. The trolley line completed in the year 1908, gave rise to new names for old places,-as Tremont, Port Chester, Mineral Springs, Oak Hill, Meadowbrook, Wil- son, Wickliff, and so on. On an old beech tree along the little stream that flowed through New City West are initials carved by boys, now old and decrepit men. A few chestnut trees grow near by the old site.
On the east bank of this stream stood a tavern in those early days. Among the families of this settlement were the Posts and the Greens, some members of the second generation of whom still survive.
At this writing scarcely a building of New City West sur- vives, but a few years ago some were still standing.
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The name Waverly as applied in recent years to the beach at the mouth of the above-mentioned little stream, called Fort Creek, has been due to the filing of a plat of a small subdi- vision by one John W. Foster away back in the summer of 1834, then in Waverly township, in La Porte County, now in Westchester township, Porter County. He named the sub- division or townsite Waverly. The land was owned by William Gassett. Valuable improvements were made, but a disastrous forest fire wiped them out. A school house and one or two residences now occupy the site. The school-house has long been known as the Waverly School-house and the road running north and south by the same has long been known as the Waverly road, and since the road led ultimately to the beach at this point, it was quite natural that the beach finally be- come known as Waverly beach to distinguish it from beaches approached by other trails.
Considerable speculation has existed concerning the exact location of Little Fort (La Petit Fort) built by the French in the days of New France, near the mouth of the stream above described as Fort Creek. I venture no opinion upon the subject. My friend, Prof. George A. Brennan, of Chicago, who has made considerable investigation of the subject, together with a study of the military maneuvers at that point says in his book, "The Wonders of the Dunes:"
"The writer has located the site of this fort on a high bluff about one-half mile from Lake Michigan as fixed on the map of the Chicago region made for General Hull in 1812."
I think no physical evidences remain.
Great as are the contrasts between City West, of 1837, and Waverly Beach, of 1929, still greater contrasts are to follow, due to improvements about to be made by the State Conser- vation Commission at this point in the new Dunes Park. In lieu of a metropolitan city with a harbor and canals, as seen by the dreamers in their dreams, posterity will inherit a great play-ground, with giant dunes bathing their feet in the surf of the sea; dark and shady dells; great amphitheaters, built by the winds and the waves; pavilions made by man, and bath- ing beaches fashioned by Nature in her varying moods, all as a refuge from the grind and grime of nearby metropolitan areas.
And thus over the ashes of old hopes, new ones rise.
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Be this the irony of fate, or the gift of the good angels of destiny ?
The little brook that prompted the project of City West and held a place on Colton's map of 1838; that took its name from an old historic French Fort, and that forged its canyon route through high hills of sand to pour its waters into the great lake, is from this eventful year 1929, by order of its new masters, doomed to approach its destination unobserved through a subterranean conduit, thus removing an ancient land-mark and its beauty to increase artificially the continuity of the strand.
Closely connected with the proposed city at the mouth of Fort Creek just described, was a projected city at the mouth of Salt Creek, that is, at the junction of Salt Creek and the Little Calumet River (then called Calumic River).
As was stated above, the canal mentioned in the plat or draw- ing of City West was to extend through the little valley com- prising the hinterland of the Dunes, on over westerly to the mouth of Salt Creek. Two adventurous promoters named Lam- son and Chittenden platted a parcel of land just south and west of the mouth of Salt Creek containing some 200 acres, with Salt Creek as the western boundary of the subdivision, comprising some 73 blocks and hundreds of lots, with a public square in the center of the town-site. The plat or drawing representing this subdivision, signed by Silas Lamson and Austin Chittenden, was filed in the office of the Recorder of Porter County, May 13, 1837. Having imbibed the spirit of the times and knowing the psychological value of names, notwith- standing that as has been said "a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet" and thinking in terms of cities and not villages, they did not name the town site Lamsonville nor Chittendale, but called it Manchester. These promoters were residents of La Porte County. No doubt their hopes ran high. They were at the head of navigation on the Little Calumet River, then having a much larger volume of water than at present. The Chicago-Detroit road had been deflected so as to pass through the parcel selected as a townsite and across the marsh on a bridge commonly called Long Bridge. The site was high and dry and commanding. It overlooked the valley stretching out below. The Chicago-Detroit road was then an interstate artery with a probable future, for railroads were
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MANCHESTER
PORTER COUNTY INDIANA
Description : The Northwest quarter and the West one half of the Northeast quarter of Section & Townshipza North, Ronge & West
Lots ore 4 rods by d :- Alleys are | rod undey- Streets are 66 feet wide, except Chicago, Frank, and Canal Streets which are 99 feet, and (Dash- ington Street which is and feet ;- Creat 13 3 rod's wide :- All lots South of Peoria Street are fractional as indicated.
Levd out by Pustin Chittenden af Siles Samazon
Recorded May 1318A.0. 1827 C. Spurlock - Recorder By: den Piewell - Deputy
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DREAM CITIES OF THE CALUMET
then little known even in the east and wholly unknown in the west. Would not transportation always be conducted by wag- ons? Therefore would not the Detroit-Chicago road be perm- anent and a highly-travelled thoroughfare? The canal was to allow boats to pass through the proposed harbor at City West. A fairly good farming country lay to the south, and the dunes on the north were largely covered with white pine tim- ber; so why could not a city be built here? By comparison it had many advantages which other locations lacked. Some evi- dence of the fact that a canal was to be extended between City West and Manchester and was fully contemplated may be obtained by the examination of the plats. The plat at City West called for canals and the plat of Manchester contains a street named "Canal Street" and the plat of Athens, just south of Manchester, contained a designated canal extending north and south along the west bank of Salt Creek.
But of greater force is a copy of a letter in the hands of the writer, written by Alexis Bailly and Mary Bailly as ad- ministrators of the Estate of Joseph Bailly, deceased, bearing date August 25, 1836, addressed to Jacob Bigelow of Michigan City, who, it will be remembered, was one of the chief pro- moters of City West and the signatory to the plat of that town- site which was filed, which letter is as follows:
Colimque, August 25th, 1836
"Sir:
Agreeable to the promise made the other day we the administratrix and myself as Administrator on the Es- tate of Jos. Bailly, deceased will, which please to look upon as, submit two propositions independent of the partial understanding entered into on the 23rd inst. either of which said propositions if acceded to will annul the minutes of that day.
1st. We will sell the qr. of Sect. 13 near City West on the following terms, say six thousand dollars to be paid as follows, two thousand dollars Cash down two thousand dollars nine months from the date of the first payment and two thousand dollars nine months from the last, bearing interest at the rate of six per cent until paid, you will also obligate yourself to give to said estate free of charge Six choice Lots in City West, and to make a Canal
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in a specific time to run along the marsh up to the Junc- tion of Salt Creek with the Calimic paying to said estate for whatever lands or material you may want of said es- tate to effect the project in contemplation at a fair val- uation.
2nd. We are willing to make a sale of the quarter of Section 13 near City West without any further condition for the sum of Eight thousand dollars, paid as follows, four thousand dollars cash down, two thousand dollars one year from the date of the first payment and two thousand dollars one year from the date of the last pay- ment, bearing interest at the rate of six per cent until paid, and six choice lots as above stated.
Should you prefer to either of the above propositions the partial contract already entered into, Mr. John H. Whistler whom Mr. Bailly has appointed his attorney will sign for him any contract, the basis of which will be the minutes taken on the 23rd inst.
Respectfully yours,
Mary Bailly, Admintrx. Alex Bailly, Adminstr."
Jacob Bigelow, Esq.
Michigan City.
A few lots only in the subdivision were sold. Few, if any, buildings had been erected, although the construction of a mill was evidently contemplated to be run by power obtained from the water of Salt Creek, then a stream of considerable volume.
Unfortunately, but probably in keeping with the mode of the promoters of that day, a mortgage had been executed as against the land subdivided as the town site which was held by Hervey Ball of Lake County, who had extended credit to the promoters signed an indemnity or a guaranty contract concerning the payment of the price of grain purchased or to be purchased by the promoters. The blighting effect of the panic of 1837, as above described, was over the land. The debt remained unpaid; the mortgage was foreclosed to satisfy a debt of some fourteen hundred dollars and the land was sold under the hammer, and another dream failed to come true.
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The Hedstrom Road, now in process of being graded and connecting with the Dunes Highway just east of Wilson, passes through this old subdivision.
At this juncture it is well to bear in mind that in those days of '36 and '37 there were four or five villages in the race for commercial supremacy along the southerly end of Lake Mich- igan, with the chances of success pretty evenly distributed. I quote the following from Mr. Timothy Ball, then a small boy in this county, taken from one of his historical books:
"This was the era of western speculation, and four little places on Lake Michigan were about this time strug- gling for existence. These were Chicago, Indiana City, City West and Michigan City. The first was in Illinois, the second in Lake County, the third in Porter, the fourth in LaPorte. To them might well be added the fifth-Liver- pool on the Calumet. I have no hesitation in saying that no ordinary foresight of man could then, or did then, see much difference in their chances for success."
But there is still a tale of another ambition-another dream to found a town or city. Joseph Bailly, a Frenchman engaged in the fur-trade in the region of the great lakes, was the first white man to settle in the Calumet district. He came in 1822. For ten years he was the only white settler in this land of the Indians. He was diligent in business, and acquired many sec- tions of land. He too had at least a modest ambition to found a town that should bear his name. He prepared a plat bearing date December 14, 1833, entitled "Town of Bailly." The site was located on the north bank of the Calumet, in the south- east corner of section 28, T. 37 N., R. 6 W. He laid it out "four square," with blocks, lots, streets and alleys. He honored his family in the naming of the streets. One he called LeFevre, after the name of his French-Indian wife, at the time of their marriage; others were named respectively Rose, Ellen, Esther and Hortensia, after the names of his daughters. One he named Jackson (doubtless for the President of the United States), and one Napoleon, (in honor of the French hero.) Streets running at right angles to the fore- going bore the names of the great lakes: Michigan, Superior, Huron, Ontario, Erie and St. Clair. He had a form of warranty deed printed especially for use in the sale of lots
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in this subdivision, with notarial certificate attached, leaving only blank spaces for the name of grantee and a description of the lots sold in the "Town of Bailly." There were prospects of a railroad and a canal. He negotiated a contract of agency with one Daniel G. Garnsey for the sale of lots. A few lots were sold. But in 1835 death called the first pioneer of the Calumet region, and the deeds, plat and the books of account which he had carefully and neatly prepared in his native tongue, for forty years, were all laid aside. No more lots were sold. But a Bailytown still remains as the name of a settlement on the land once owned by Mr. Bailly, on the old Detroit-Chicago trail. And thus ended, tragically, hopes doubtless once fond- ly cherished.
But this great industrial region was to be favored not only with a Liverpool and a Manchester, but with a Sheffield. Several years after City West, Liverpool and Manchester had become subjects of memory and of history, in the 40s and 50s of the last century, an adventurous civil engineer who thought he saw in the Calumet region a land of great promise, who by name was Geo. W. Clark, purchased some 15,000 acres of land in the northwestern part of Lake County, extending from the Illinois and Indiana State line eastward for several miles, on which are now located in whole or in part, the cities of Ham- mond, East Chicago, including Indiana Harbor, Gary and the settlements of Pine, Clark and Buffington. Land was then selling at $1.25 per acre. Upon his death in 1866 a part of his interest went to Caroline M. Forsyth, wife of Jacob Forsyth, who likewise had great faith in the region.
In the early 70s some bankers formed a syndicate and pur- chased from the Forsyths about 8000 acres for the purpose of building an industrial city which was to be named Sheffield. The Forsyths were to receive something over $450,000.00 for the land located around Wolf Lake. About $80,000.00 was spent by the new company in improvements, principally by the erection of a very large frame hotel, still remembered by many, at what is now the junction of Sheffield Avenue and Indianapolis Boulevard. The hotel was finished in 1874, but the panic of '73 with its disastrous depression was now on, and like many another adventure of that day, the promoters were unable to complete the purchase of the land, and it re- verted to the Forsyths. The plat or drawing of the proposed
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JOSEPH BAILLY PROPRIETOR
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DREAM CITIES OF THE CALUMET
city which was to have been located east of Wolf Lake, was filed in the office of the Recorder of Lake County on the 20th of March, 1874.
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