USA > Indiana > Lake County > History Of Lake County (1929) > Part 5
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But Mr. McCarty, having become a proprietor in place of Dr. Lilly, had laid out a town on the East shore of the Lake, which he called West Point, made desperate efforts to ob- tain the location there. It is a happy thing that he did not succeed, for as I before stated, the water of the lake could not be depended upon for use, and several wells that have since been dug, have proved to be so impregnated with some min- ral that the water is an active cathartic.
So the town would have been without a supply of that very first necessary and indispensible article-good water, which would have been a sure plea for using a little of the "critter" to modify the water, and a restoration of the county
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seat would have to be made, probably at a great loss to the county, or else the inhabitants might have drunk more whis- key than is ever drunk in Crown Point.
The county seat then was permanently located where it now is, in June 1840, by Jesse Tomlinson and Edward Moore, of Warren county, Henry Barclay of Pulaski county, Joshua Lindsey of White county, and Daniel Dale of Carroll county.
Shortly after the location the town was laid off into sev- enty-five lots, the most of them containing half an acre. There are four principal streets running north and south, one of which is 100 feet wide and the other 60 feet with cross streets of 30 feet. There is a very large common or public in the center that never can be built upon and an acre of ground devoted exclusively for the court house and public offices. Another acre is devoted to the purposes of a school, where the school now stands. The town was laid out upon 60 acres-20 of Judge Clark's and 40 of mine. The Judge gave the streets and one-half of the Common and one-half the lots and 35 acres adjoining on the east, and I gave the same number of lots and common and the court house lot and 20 acres adjoining on the west, five acres of which are laid out in lots including the school lot, which is a part of the 60 acres comprised within the town. There were many other donations for labor, money, etc., etc., and 25 acres of land-10 by Mr. Eddy and 15 by J. W. Holton. In point of fact, although Dr. Farrington, Mr. Farwell, Mr. Allman, Mr. Lamb and Mr. Holden, Mr. Sheehan, Mr. Wm. Holton, Mr. Eddy and Mr. Townly live at Crown Point they don't live within the town limits.
November 19th, 1840, the first lots were sold at auction by Mr. Geo. Earle, County Agent, Judge Clark and myself, at prices varying from $11 to $127.50 on 2, 3 and 4 years credit-one without interest. And from this time the town of Crown Point, dates its existence. I have before stated that the census of the county taken this year showed our population to be 1468. The great wheat blight occurred this summer of 1840. The whole crop was entirely lost.
The first house built in town after it had a name, was that where Capt. Smith now lives. I built it for Elder Nor- man Warriner in the spring of 1841, and he was the first minister of the Gospel settled here, and I believe in the
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
county. He was ordained at Cedar Lake, pastor of the Bap- tist church, and I look upon it as a great loss to the county, I might say disgrace; that for want of support he had to leave it. Rev. M. Brown, pastor of the Presbyterian church at Valparaiso or Mr. Warriner preached here this summer, nearly every Sabbath. Major C. Farwell built the same year -he was the first blacksmith here, and one of the first in the county-his father having settled in West Creek in 1836. Old Mrs. Farwell was undoubtedly the first white woman ever upon the ground where this town is located, for in 1833, her husband and family were endeavoring to follow the Old Sac trail from LaPorte to Hickory Creek, Ill., where a settle- ment was forming, and got astray, and spent the 4th of July, 1833, upon this ground, while a messenger went back for a pilot to extricate them from their lost situation. Think of that only 14 years ago.
In June 1841, three individuals made the first effort to form a temperance society here. Your records will show that it was carried into effect, and the celebration of Fourth of July with cold water and a picnic dinner, was the happiest one to some 300 men, women and children that I ever saw.
The first kiln of brick about here was burnt this season by Mr. Mason and Dr. Farrington. Heretofore chimneys were all built of sticks and clay, and wells had to be walled with wood. A kiln had been burnt the year before at Cedar Lake, and a small one previous to that by Ben Stolcup, but they were unfit for wells.
Brick chimneys and frame buildings now began to show an improving condition of things. Thus it is, little by little and slowly, that the improvement of a new country creeps along. In riding over the county this year we begin to dis- cover here and there a new barn and brick chimneys peering above the roofs of frame houses.
In the spring of 1842, Mr. Wells built his large tavern house in Crown Point, and opened a store in one end of it, (and a very bad whiskey shop in the other. I cannot say that this im- proved the morals of the place. Certain it is, it has been the ruin of the owner.)
This year we had the benefit of the first grist mill in the county, built by Mr. Wood, at his saw mill on Deep River and put in operation the past fall by Charles Wilson and who
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has since built a wind mill on Horse Prairie. I speak it prophetically that the time will soon come when there will be one of the recently patented centrifugal wind mills in every neighborhood in this county.
This year a frame school house was built in Crown Point, which was the first respectable one in the county, and I fear that the same remark is still too true; for a decent provision for schools has hardly been yet made in any district in the county.
And I don't mean to be understood that the Crown Point school house is at all worthy the name of a decent one for the place; for it is not.
Although it is better than the little old black log cabin which was in use previous to the building of this one, this is entirely too small for a community of such good christians as this is, for verily they keep that part of the law and of scripture, which commands them to "multiply" and the earth is "replenished;" with a most rapid increase of children; whose best inheritance would be a good education. But they cannot obtain it here, unless parents will give them an op- portunity to acquire it in a school house where there is more opportunity to expand, than in a room 15 by 20, with 50 child- ren packed around a red hot stove. I hope that in the next edition of this history, I shall be able to say that in the year 1847 the people determined to have a school house in Crown Point, which would be a credit to them, and in the eyes of a stranger, add much to the respectability of the place.
The winter of 1842-3 it was said, would long be remembered. How long has it been? How many of you now can remember it? But few I venture to say, for such is the treachery of man's memory. Yet this was "the hard winter." The winter in which people had to dig out of the snow the neglected straw and strip off the hay covering of old sheds and stables to feed the cattle to help them eke out an existence, until grass should grow. A period that many of them failed to see, for every resource of feed utterly failed their owners, and the poor brutes actually starved to death; and that too in a country where any quantity of grass can be had for the mowing and where thousands of tons of wheat straw are annually burned "to get it out of the way." The distress of that winter was not confined to this county-it was universal through all this
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
region of the Northwest. The winter commenced the middle of November and one of our citizens was frozen to death on the Grand Prairie, Nov. 17, 1842. This was William Wells, a very steady, sober and stout healthy man. Snow continued very late, for here we had good sleighing into April. And usually we have but very little in March, or as for that matter, but little during the winter.
In March, 1843, the burying ground at Crown Point was first opened. The scarlet fever in a very malignant form paid us a sad visit. A child of Major C. Farwell was the first ten- ant of the ground. It is an evidence of the healthiness of our location, that from the fall of 1834 to the spring of 1843, we had no occasion for a public burying ground. But in six weeks of this fatal spring we made eight graves there. And while our feelings were yet tender, we promised that the ground should be fenced and improved-perhaps our children, when they lay us there will make the same promise and keep it as well.
This summer we made an exchange of resident preachers at Crown Point. Mr. Warriner moved to Illinois and Mr. Allman moved here from Michigan. He is of the Episcopal Methodist and is a native of England. And what is much to his credit, he did not come here to tax the community with his support as a preacher, for he was soon found to be a very good tailor who could fit us, the wolves, with sheeps cloth- ing. The Presbyterian church of Crown Point was organized this year. Elias Bryant and Cyrus M. Mason elected elders. Rev. Mr. Brown of Valparaiso still officiating one-third the time as pastor. Two churches were built in the county this year-the Methodist church of West Creek and the German Roman Catholic,-but I think neither of them is yet finished. The latter has a bell.
The sale of Canal Lands lying in this county was held at Delphi in November of this year.
Considerable numbers of sheep from Ohio were introduced into the county this year, a business that has been increasing ever since.
The bounty upon the killing of prairie wolves, has tended to thin off this pest of sheep-growing, so that people begin to venture pretty largely into the business.
The average distance for the raisers of grain in this county
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to haul it to market, being not less than 40 miles, it is found that nothing but wheat will bear the expense of hauling, and that at best poorly pays the farmer for his labor ; for the aver- age price in Chicago, for a series of years, does not exceed 60 cents a bushel. The crop was nearly destroyed the past winter of 1842-3 and again in the summer of 1844 many fields were so injured with rust as not to be worth cutting.
In addition to the loss from rust, it was so wet in the har- vest of 1844, that teams could hardly get about in the harvest field, on account of the softness of the ground, occasioned by great rains.
But the summer was quite healthy, and the winter of 1844- 5 one of most unusual mildness. It was also one in which death visited many families severely. The complaint was termed the lung or winter fever. I have arrived now at that point where I must mention that fact in my history-the erection of the first church building in Crown Point.
In the summer of 1845 that beautiful structure which is such an ornament to our town, the Methodist church of Crown Point was erected, but not completely finished off as it is now, until the following season. And to keep pace with it (a snail's pace is easily kept,) the foundation of that commodiously fin- ished structure, the Presbyterian church was laid.
But romance apart: are these church buildings now in the condition that they should have arrived at, even at a snail's pace in two years?
Is it creditable to the character of this community as a civilized people, to say nothing of their duty as a religious one, that they continue to meet for worship in this dirty old log house, that is not only too small, too dirty, inconvenient and unhealthy, but a dishonor to the God herein worshipped ?
I hope a future historian will be able to write, that "in 1847 two neatly finished churches in Crown Point were completed, and from that time ever forward, we were called to the hour and house of prayer by the sound of a sweet toned village bell."
The accommodation of the people of the county was greatly increased this year, in getting grain made into bread stuff, by the mill of Wilson & Saunders on Deep River below Wood's (and as he thinks not quite far enough below), and by a
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
large mill erected at the upper rapids of the Kankakee, about ten miles west of our west line.
The crop of wheat this year was a very good one, as was also the crop of corn. Large quantities of butter were made for sale in Lake county this year, and considerable quantities of cheese.
The winter of '45-6, though not as mild as the last, was not at all severe. It may be worthwhile to record the price of land at this place for comparison with the past and future. I sold ten acres of land adjoining Crown Point on the West in a state of nature for $20 an acre, cash, Dec. 1845.
In the spring of 1846, Rev. Wm. Townley settled in Crown Point as pastor over the Presbyterian church; (the building for the use of this church was raised and enclosed this season and pointed the first spire to Heaven from the county seat of Lake county). Mr. George Earle started his saw mill this spring on Deep River.
The summer of '46 was very dry and very long continued hot weather, and consequently there was more sickness than ever before in any one season. Many fields of grain wasted uncut or unstacked, because the owner could not himself save it, or procure any of his neighbors when all were equally sick, to save it for him. Much of the wheat this year was badly shrunk, and that universal calamity, the potato rot, destroyed half of that crop. Corn was good, as usually it is.
Owing to the universal sickness, it was supposed that there would be a great scarcity of hay for the winter of '46-7, but the season for cutting wild hay continued very late in the fall, and the winter proved so mild that not much scarcity has been felt, although the spring is extremely backward and grass affords but poor feed at this time.
I have now brought a slight sketch of the history of Lake county down to the present time; and have only a few general remarks to make and then I have done my task. I cannot give the exact number of inhabitants in the county, but think, as before stated, it cannot be less than 3,000.
I have stated some of the disadvantages the early settlers labored under in regard to mails and post offices. Now there are seven post offices in the county. A mail, twice a week from LaPorte to Joliet, supplies the county seat. There is a mail through the south part of the county, from Valparaiso once
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a week to West Creek and another from West Creek to City West. There are five saw mills in operation in the county, to-wit: Earle's, Dustin's and Wood's on Deep River; Mc- Carty's on Cedar Creek and Foley's on a branch of Cedar Creek. (There are three dilapidated ones, to-wit: Miller's and Dustin's old mills on Deep River, and Walton's on Turkey Creek, the last about being repaired.)
There have also been two other beginnings of mills, one on Plum Creek and one on Cedar Creek.
There are two grist mills, Wood's and Wilson & Saunders, (three run of stone) Mr. Earle is also engaged at the present time in building another, which will have from 2 to 4 run. There are about fifty frame houses at this time in the county, five churches, i.e. one Roman Catholic church on Prairie West, one Methodist Episcopal at lower bridge of West Creek, one ditto at Hickory Point, one ditto in Crown Point, the three first so far completed as to be in constant use. One Presbyterian at Crown Point. There are two brick dwelling houses, two public offices of brick, and several small out buildings of brick at Crown Point. These are the only ones in the county, The first one of these was built in the fall of 1844. There are some 4 or 5 stores in the county, i.e. H. S. Pelton and Wm. Alton, at Crown Point, Mr. Taylor at Pleasant Grove, a small stock at Wood's Mill and another in the German settlement over west. The majority of the inhabitants are Yorkers and Yonkers. There are about 100 families of Germans, some 15 or 20 families of Irish and about a dozen of English. There are 6 or 7 physicians in the county that depend on their practice for a living. There are 5 local preachers of the Methodist church and one circuit or mission preacher, residing in the county ; and one Presbyterian. The Catholic church is visited by a missionary at short intervals. There are two attorneys, with scarcely practice enough to support one. The county officers in April, 1847, are Henry Wells, Sheriff ; H. D. Palmer, Associate Judge and one vacancy. Hervey Ball, Probate Judge; D. K. Pettibone, Clerk; Joseph Jackson, County Audi- tor; Major Allman, Recorder; Wm. C. Farington, Treasurer; Alex McDonald, Assessor. S. T. Green, H. S. Pelton and Robt. Wilkinson, County Commissioners. There are 15 Jus- tices of the Peace in the county, (some of whom do not have a dozen cases a year, while the number upon the docket sup- posed to be much the largest of any one in the county, from
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
April 1st, 1846, to April 1, '47, numbered only one hundred, among which there is only one judgment and fine for a breach of the peace.) Our jail has been tenantless for years. (There are only two open and notorious drinking shops in the county, though the vile body and soul destroying poison is peddled out by some half dozen road-side tavern keepers and at two stores in the county ; one of the owners of which, however, has lately met with such a change of heart as we hope will induce him to quit the wicked traffic, particularly filling the pint bottles of notorious drunkards.)
The county seat is the only village in Lake county. It contains about 30 families, 2 church buildings, 2 stores, 1 tavern, 2 convenient public offices, 1 school house, and the usual quota of mechanics, as carpenters, masons, wagon mak- ers, blacksmiths, tailors, shoemakers, 4 doctors and 3 preach- ers.
The town is located upon a piece of gently undulating prairie along the eastern border of a grove of oak and hickory, which together with the growing shade trees that have been planted and a goodly number of fruit trees, gives the town in summer a cool and pleasant appearance. And when seen in a clear morning as you approach from the northeast, where the view extends six or seven miles across the prairie, the scene is such as I have never seen exceeded.
I have a few remarks upon the face of the country, to show its general appearance and quality of soil and capability of sustaining a dense population, and then I will close.
There are about 100 sections of land in the north part of the county which are in a great measure unfit for cultivation, one half entirely so, without great expense of draining. The land is a continued succession of sand ridges and marshes; those ridges in the northwest part, low and narrow, con- forming with the bend of the Lake Shore, and originally covered with a valuable growth of pine and cedar, which has been nearly all stript off to build up Chicago.
In the northeast the sand hills are very abrupt and have yet some good pine timber, though very difficult to obtain.
As we recede from the Lake shore, the sand ridges grow broader and at intervals, less marshy, until they finally unite with the prairie, as we see north of Turkey Creek and along the Hickory Creek road.
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After leaving the pine, the greater part of the timber is scrubby black oak, with here and there a little white oak; on Deep River southeast of Liverpool there is some excellent white oak timber. On the Calumic, towards the Illinois line, there are a few hundred acres of tolerably good prairie, and also in Town. 35, Range 8, North of Turkey Creek; and with this exception, there is no prairie other than marsh prairie until we get south of that creek. Then upon a line running south in Range 8 between the Crown Point timber and School Grove, we should pass over continuous prairie, where an un- broken furrow when I came here could have been plowed more than 15 miles to the Kankakee marsh; which embraces all the south part of the county and contains about 75 sections; though not much of marsh, for there are many islands and large tracts of swamp timber that is very valuable, though it can only be obtained in the winter. There are also many spots of excellent dry land that might be cultivated if they could be got at. Indeed the time may come when the entire marsh may be put under cultivation ; for it is a fact that the govern- ment of Holland are now engaged in pumping by steam, the water out of a lake that is 13 feet deep on an average of near- ly as large as half of Lake county, for the purpose of cultivat- ing its bed. How much less work it would be to bring the whole Kankakee marsh into cultivation, than it is to pump dry such a lake and keep continually pumping afterwards to keep it dry?
The great quantity of marshy land in the north and south parts of the county, are not certainly what we would desire, but the central part contains besides the marshy extremities that I have described, between 300 and 400 sections of most excellent arable land, about three quarters of which is prairie, mostly of a soil of black clay loam with a trace of beach sand, lying upon a substratum of exceedingly compact hard yellow clay, from 4 to 40 feet deep; under which we invariably find coarse, clean beach sand, in which we get clear sweet water.
The timber is mostly white oak, with black oak, burr oak and hickory, and the land more clayey than prairie.
Much of the timber near the Kankakee is swamp ash. There is one island of very fine sugar maple near the southwest corner. The timber upon the islands in the marsh grows tall and straight, but upon the upland, it is generally short, and scattering; the annual burning prevents undergrowth.
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
The soil in its native state produces first rate wheat, but it is probably more liable to winter kill, than upon more sandy land; though it seems now that the last winter has killed the crop upon all kinds of land. In fact it is very uncertain crop in this county. It also produces well in oats, spring wheat, corn, buckwheat, potatoes, turnips and all kinds of garden vines and vegetables; and certainly no county can show a finer growth of fruit trees.
Of wild fruits, there is a most abundant supply of cran- berries, and many of the sand ridges north of Turkey Creek are covered with whortle-berries, strawberries, blackberries, plums and crab-apples also abound.
Of wild game, deer are tolerably plenty; but the feathered tribe, such as geese, brant, ducks, swans, sandhill-cranes and prairie-hens, must be seen to believe what quantities exist here. The only noxious animals are prairie wolves, which were so abundant and bold when I first settled here that they would almost steal a fellow's supper from his plate. (In fact, I knew one instance where some men were camping just where Mr. Eddy's house now stands, and while they were ly- ing with their feet to the fire, one of the varmints crept up and stole a quarter of venison that was roasting upon a stick stuck in the ground; but before he could get off with his hot supper, one of the men raised up in his bed and his rifle being within reach, he shot him dead.
But they have now gotten well learnt that white folks do not hold the wolf's life sacred, (as the Indians used to). There has been one bear seen and killed in the county since its first settlement.
Of reptiles, the massasauga rattle snake is the only very troublesome one, and I don't know of but one death occasioned by the bite of one of them, since the settlement of the county; this was a son of Elias Bryant. It is also said that a snake bite was the remote cause of the death of Mrs. Van Valken- burgh.
Of troublesome insects, the flies that torment our horses and cattle now are enough to make any reasonable man thank- ful that he was not born a horse.
Although I have never found the place in the county where mosquitoes are very plenty I am often reminded by the few that I do find here and there of the anecdote of the man on the
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1833 - 1847
bank of the Mississippi river, who seemed to be very busy with both hands brushing away for life, was inquired of by a traveler if mosquitoes were not troublesome there; who replied "No," brushing them off his face at the same time with both hands, "No, not very, but just down below they are thick as hell." It is much the case here-although nobody owns the spot where they are, they are very thick just down below.
You have now patiently followed me step by step and seen the progress of the settlement of this county from the com- mencement up to the spring of 1847. What a change, what a wonderful change in 12 years-who can realize it, and yet the change in the next 12 years will be still greater? Can you realize that? No, no, no.
I am aware that much that I have here said to you is un- interesting, because you say, "why I knew that before," but let me assure you that if these leaves could be sealed up for one hundred years, and then opened and read to an audience in this town, that, little merit as they possess, they would excite the most profound interest in all who should hear. And it is not impossible but that they might be now read with interest, a thousand miles from here.
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