USA > Indiana > Lake County > History Of Lake County (1929) > Part 7
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Nearly every farm owner and nearly every renter now owns an automobile.
74
MERRILLVILLE
Prices of farm products, owing to the great world war now on, have gone up to extremes: butter, 65 cents per pound; eggs, 55 cents per dozen; poultry 30 cents per pound, and cows $100 and upwards. Common labor is $3 to $5 per day.
Some of the old Indian land-marks are still here and may be seen. Some of the old trails are still visible.
The first Sunday school in Merrillville was about 1850. I attended one there in 1851, and was given a class of 8 boys, only one of whom is now alive.
When the Civil War broke out I heard my country's call, and leaving my wife and two small children to wage the battle of life at home, I enlisted in Company H, 99th Indiana volun- teers, for three years, during which time our younger child, a boy, was taken by death. At the end of three years I re- turned with the marks of war-fare upon me. I then worked three years under a boss-carpenter, and continued the trade for twenty-three years building and repairing houses in Ross township.
In 1865 I was elected township assessor, which office I held for nine years. I served also as justice of the peace. After twenty-three years at the carpenter trade I took a position as travelling salesman for the Salter Medicine Company, of Three Oaks, Michigan, which job I held for thirteen years, having traveled over almost the entire state of Indiana.
My first presidential vote was cast for Abraham Lincoln, for his first term, and I have been a staunch republican ever since, and expect to live and die in Merrillville.
I am glad to say that the citizenship of Merrillville has not degenerated in the past seventy years, and rather believe that the morals have improved, and that a better class of citi- zens has sprung up. Some of the settlers came to this county as early as 1834 and 1835. I have heard the earlier settlers say that a few had settled at Cedar Lake in the 30's, and when Henry Wells came to their little group one afternoon, they, wishing to show the very best of hospitality to the new comers that they possibly could, gave this man a coon's leg and showed him the fire-place, where he could get his supper. And after supper the kind hostess showed him a tree-top where he could sleep. It was the best they had, and old uncle Henry felt thankful to think he had so good a place to sleep as a tree-top. (Probably a fallen tree-top .- Ed.)
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
Mrs. Barton and I celebrated our golden wedding anniver- sary September 2, 1908, with many friends in attendance- some from Culver, Indiana, some from Cleveland, Ohio, some from Lincoln, Nebraska, and some from Wisconsin, forty guests in all. At 3 p. m. W. E. Vilmer, of Crown Point, ap- peared with his long range gun, and took aim and fired at the party on the lawn. No one was hurt, but all wanted a picture. The writer responded to the toast: "Fifty years. How time does fly !" One stanza of which is as follows :
"It is fifty years since Martha and I Plighted our troth, joined hand and heart, Which made us one till death us part. The road we travelled has been long, Beset with pleasure, mirth and song, While here and there along the way, The clouds have come, but not to stay."
76
Early Days in Lake and Porter Counties
BY DARUS P. BLAKE
In order that my opportunity for observation and for learn- ing authentic reminiscences of those who knew the facts may fully appear, I will, as a sort of preface to this account of early days in eastern Lake County and western Porter Coun- ty, begin with a few remarks on my forebears and their settle- ment in the above mentioned locality.
My grandfather, Jacob Blake, with his family, left Jackson County, Ohio, about the first of October, 1833, and started with a wagon drawn by horses to what was then known as the "far west." Many prospective settlers were moving west- ward in this fashion, and so the Blake family joined with oth- ers in a sort of caravan crossing the new and unimproved country, but probably having no very definite location as to the goal. After a period of about ten days they reached Ft. Wayne, which then consisted of a few houses, a tavern, a store and black-smith shop. Their hotel bill for supper, bed and breakfast was twenty-five cents. A barrel of whisky stood in the corner of the main room of the tavern and after the patron had paid his bill he could go to the barrel and help himself to a cup of whiskey, which then cost about eleven cents a gallon.
The family then headed for South Bend, to reach which place required a period of three days. They camped about three miles north of South Bend, about the place where Notre Dame University now stands, to visit with a party by the name of Blake who had also formerly come from Jackson County, Ohio. South Bend at this time was a primitive settle- ment consisting of a few houses. The family remained here a few days-long enough to put up for their host a small house built of hewed logs. Like other settlers of those days, Jacob Blake carried with him as a part of his moveable possessions a broad-axe and an ordinary axe. The latter for chopping wood and cutting down trees, and the former for hewing logs for use in the building of cabins. While the family were camped here, there occurred that memorable phenomenon of nature known as "the falling of the stars" in 1833.
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
Having finished their visit here they proceeded on their way westward looking for some suitable unpre-empted home- site. As they journeyed other members of the caravan kept dropping out from time to time as vacant and satisfactory locations were reached, until Jacob Blake and his family were the only family left of what was a large party in the early stages of the journey. They passed through Laporte in La- porte County and on westward through that County, for at that time Laporte County embraced the territory now includ- ed in Lake and Porter Counties. Finally one evening near the close of October as they were looking for a suitable camping site for the night, they reached a newly built log cabin along the old main traveled road on the banks of a small stream which they supposed was occupied by some recent settler. Here they decided to stop for the night. After having stopped they went to the cabin and found that it was not occupied and not wholly finished, the roof not being completed. On the following morning Jacob inquired of an Indian about the ownership of the cabin and learned that the original builder and owner of the cabin-a man by the name of Taylor-had deserted the cabin after the death of his wife. The place looked good to Jacob Blake, and the family being tired, they decided to discontinue their journey in search of a home and locate and occupy this deserted unfinished log cabin.
The United States Government Land Office having then been located at Winamac, Mr. Blake went to Winamac and "entered" this tract (now in the northwest quarter of section fifteen, township thirty-six north, range seven west) in his own name, returned and completed the house and the Blake family lived there thereafter for about forty years. The original log house built of hewed timbers was afterwards sided or weather-boarded on the outside and sheathed on the inside, thus making the walls nearly two feet thick. The old house thus altered still stands there in good state of preservation on the north side of the main traveled road running east from Lake Station, now East Gary about three quarters of a mile east of the Lake and Porter County line and about one-quarter of a mile west of my present residence. In passing the old homestead you will notice a large Cottonwood tree about sev- en feet in diameter standing in the front yard. That tree was planted by my father, Perry Blake, when it was a mere "switch" which he had plowed up in a nearby field. Here my
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father, Perry Blake, who was eight years of age when his father and family made the narrated journey from Ohio, grew to manhood, owned an adjacent tract and spent the remainder of his life, as did his father Jacob. Here I was born, Decem- ber 30, 1850.
It will therefore be noted that Jacob Blake was the first settler, or among the first settlers, of what afterwards became and now is, Portage Township in Porter County, but which then was, as above mentioned, in the western and unsettled portion of Laporte County.
From my grand-father and my grand-mother and from my father and my mother, whose maiden name was Clarinda Cleveland, I learned many things about the early settlements in the locality above described; besides, I have resided on a part of the early Blake holdings all my life.
About the time of the settlement of Jacob Blake, or shortly afterward, other settlers came into that locality, among them being William and Walker McCool, who settled about three miles east of the Blake settlement. Other early settlers were Robert Harrison, Henry Stoddard, William and John Bull. Also five brothers named, John, Jacob, Edward, Josephus and Milton Wolf. Also Putnam Robins, Hubbard Peak, Harris A. Smith and William Holmes. The first sett- lers that I can remember were George Earle who came from Philadelphia and first settled at the place which is now called Camp 133 north of the present station of Liverpool; also, three brothers named Sol, Amos and John Zuvers. Jonas Rhodes settled about the point which is now 42nd street, 2 blocks east of Broadway in Gary. He first built and occupied a log house for a number of years, and then with his own hands burnt the bricks and with his own hands put up a fine two story brick house.
In passing it may be noted that the first white settler in Porter County was Joseph Bailly, usually called "Bayee", who settled about two miles northwest of Chesterton on the banks of the Calumet River, at which place he established a trading post for trading with the Indians; and at which place he bought up a large amount of land. Indians came as far as fifty miles to sell their furs to him. For furs he exchanged with the Indians numerous things, guns, knives, trinkets and highly colored shawls and blankets which were in demand by Indian men and Indian women.
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
In these days of cement roads, high powered automobiles running sixty miles an hour, telephones, radios, aeroplanes, ocean flights and tall sky scrapers twenty to forty stories in height, it is difficult for us to go back in imagination to the days when roads were merely trails cut through the woods, without regard to section lines, and log houses were built in rude fashion from the unhewn logs, some without floors, many without windows. Some had white cloth instead of glass; and all without nails and without boards. The contrast is so great that it overtaxes our imagination.
The first work of the original settler was the building of a cabin or a house. The building material was the trees grow- ing in the woods. The tools were an ordinary axe, a broad- axe, a saw, an auger, a froe, and a hammer. All men could use these tools. Trees were cut down and then hewed with a broad-axe. Shingles, called "Clapboards and Shakes," were made from red oak timber cut into lengths of about three to four feet and split along the grain by the use of an instru- ment called a "froe", and driven with a maul. Door frames were hewed out of timbers and joined to the jambs by pins driven into auger holes. Floors were made of split logs with the flat side made smooth with the broad-axe and turned up- wards. Such a floor was called a "puncheon" floor. Many cabins had only the naked terra firma for a floor. The walls were put together by notching at the ends to keep them in place. The doors were made of split timbers, were hung on wooden hinges, locked with wooden locks. A latchstring was hung on the outside of the door during the day and was with- drawn at night, thus locking the door. Nails were seldom used, but if used they were such as had been made by a local black- smith. There having been no saw mill, boards were no part of the original house.
When my father moved into his own house after his mar- riage, he had a "puncheon" floor. Afterwards when he de- cided to put in a floor made of boards, he went to Avery, Mich- igan, ten miles east of New Buffalo, or about sixty miles dis- tant for boards-white pine flooring.
In those early days men wore clothes made of buckskin and homespun. I remember going to the home of Benjamin Cris- man, about two miles east of our place. In Mr. Crisman's family were several boys with whom I remained over night.
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EARLY DAYS IN LAKE AND PORTER COUNTIES
On the following morning after a very cold night, two of the boys who had buckskin breeches, found they were frozen to such an extent that they had to take them downstairs to the fire and thaw them out. I wore homespun until I started to go out with girls. The girls in those days wore checked flannel homespun-skirts and petticoats all of the same material. My father raised sheep, and the wool was clipped in the spring of the year and then sent to a "Carding Mill" west of Valpar- aiso at a point which is now on the Lincoln Highway at the place where there is a so-called "boiling spring." After hav- ing been carded it was brought home, and spun into yarn by mother on her spinning wheel. It was then taken to a weaver who resided south of the place now called Wheeler and woven into cloth. Mother then cut and made suits and clothes for seven of us. We had no sewing machine and everything was sewed by hand. Carpets in those days were woven by hand. I was a pretty good sized boy before I ever saw a manufac- tured carpet. We saved all rags and wove them into carpets.
Shoes for the family were not purchased at stores, but we had what is called "the neighborhood shoemaker" who went from family to family and took the measurements of the feet of the members of the family for shoes, and the shoes were made right in the homes. These shoes were made from cow- hides that had been tanned. These journeymen shoemakers us- ually came but once a year, mostly in the fall, and both girls and boys wore home-made shoes with common-sense heels.
The Blake family first had to get their flour from Michigan City; and sometimes they went to Kingsbury. Father would take a sack containing two bushels of wheat and throw it over a horse and jump on and take it to the mill and wait for his turn to have the wheat ground. He sometimes had to stay two or three days in order to have it ground and when it was ground he returned with the flour, bran and "shorts." Later a mill was erected on Salt Creek, southeast of what is now McCool. This mill was built ninety years ago. The next flour mill was built at Hobart by George Earle and about the same time one was built on Deep River by John Wood and the place was long known as Wood's Mill, but is now called Deep River. There was not another mill east of the state line. We usually took the wheat to the mill for one year's supply. We were allowed forty pounds of flour, twelve pounds of bran and eight pounds of "shorts" for each bushel. We brought the
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
bran and "shorts" back, and part of the flour, and got credit for the balance of the flour; and went back at intervals as we needed it to get the remainder of the flour.
At the time of the first settlement in 1833, and for some- time thereafter, if you wished to mail a letter, buy a pound of coffee or any other small article for the house, you had to drive to Michigan City, twenty-five miles away or to Chicago forty-five miles away. In going to Chicago you had to go around by Blue Island to avoid the Calumet River and the Calumet Marshes. No postage stamps were in use then. You were told the amount of the postage and paid it and the letter was marked "postage paid."
The nearest neighbor the Blakes had was several miles away. When a new settler came those who had come before him would usually go and welcome him by taking something for his table and would help him build a house, which took only a day or two. Sometimes the house was completed in one day. The roofs were covered with shakes or clapboards as above mentioned.
In those days there was a little Indian Village at the place now called Garyton, and there was also another Indian town or village on a high hill on the east side of what was after- wards known as Lake Station, now East Gary, between the present sub-station of the Electric Railroad and the present town hall. In those early days it was nothing to see one- hundred Indians in a day. The Indians were of the Pottawa- tomie Tribe, and Jacob Blake learned to speak the Pottawa- tomie language fluently and it was a great help to him. He and they became friendly and became good neighbors. No white man was ever injured by an Indian in that locality. There was an Indian cemetery east of Lake Station at the west end of the marsh along the present county line between Lake and Porter counties, and just north of the present high- way, leading eastward from Lake Station, now East Gary. I remember seeing Indians in that neighborhood as late as 1869. They lived in the vicinity of Liverpool and Glen Park and were engaged largely in hunting and trapping wild animals. Later on I remember that Indians came from Wisconsin into that locality about the time that huckleberries ripened. They would gather huckleberries and sell them in Chicago; and they often remained in that locality until cranberries became ripe
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EARLY DAYS IN LAKE AND PORTER COUNTIES
(about the last of September). Cranberries then grew in those long marshes in the sand hills as far east as Baileytown and on both sides of what is now the Dunes highway. Azariah Freeman owned a Cranberry farm a little south and west of what is now Wickliffe and a little south of what is now the Dunes highway, which he let out on the shares to pickers, from which farm or cranberry marsh he sometimes got three- hundred bushels a year as his share and three-hundred bush- els for a man by the name of Rodman who picked them. I hauled these berries for Mr. Freeman to Valparaiso for sev- eral seasons. The prices ranged, according to supply, from fifty cents to $2.50 per bushel. These cranberries grew in a soil of wet moss and after the community became settled fires broke out during summer seasons and destroyed them.
Game in those days was abundant. There was no lack of meat, for deer was as plentiful then as cattle are now. Turkey and other varities of wild games abounded in great numbers. Wolves were also common.
Cooper-shops were scattered around throughout the County, at which tubs, barrels and buckets were made. For hoops they used hickory withes, and when they became scarce white oak was used, but the oak broke more easily. Each neighbor- hood would have its cooper-shop. A man by the name of D. H. Hopkins had a Cooper-Shop at Chesterton for many years. He also ran a store there. His daughter married Attorney William Johnston; now deceased, and his son became a physi- cian at Chesterton.
The first school that my father attended after he came to Porter County was located south and west of Wheeler, six miles away. He walked back and forth each day. The roads were often dirty and muddy. He attended only two winter terms. There was but one term of three months each year, which was held during the winter season. The first school house that was established in my neighborhood was about one and one-half miles away, built in 1857. The school house was 10 ft. x 12 ft., built of logs, and a man by the name of Milo Burge taught there. This was about one mile east and one-half mile south of my homestead. My father took a con- tract to put up a school house exactly where my house now stands. This was about 1860 and the building was built with the agreement that whenever it would be abandoned for school
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
purposes the property was to belong to father. Afterwards a frame school house was built about one-half mile south of my place.
Old Trails and Old Roads
The first road or trail used between Michigan City and Ft. Dearborn, afterwards named Chicago, appears to have been along the Beach of Lake Michigan. Afterwards, about the year 1831, a road used as a mail-route was located about a mile south of Lake Michigan beach, commonly known as the Detroit-Chicago road. This road followed the course now used as the Dunes Highway between Michigan City and Bailey- town. At this point the road crossed the marsh to the foot of sand hills and ran westerly near what is now Wilson or Dune Park Station and on westerly to the points now known as Wickliffe, Miller and Aetna, and thru what is now the City of Gary about 14th or 15th Avenues and on westerly south of the Michigan Central Railroad. Sometime afterwards, when the settlement had been made at Liverpool, the road was extended from Baileytown westerly across the marsh at a point just below the mouth of Salt Creek and on south westerly, north of the place now known as Crisman, and on westerly across the stream known as Willow Creek, and near what is now known as East Gary, crossing Deep River at the point now known as Camp 133, and on southerly and westerly along what is now commonly known as Ridge Road and on wester- ly by way of Blue Island.
Traveling on this old road was by means of wagons, stage coaches and ox-teams. These wagons used in those days were the old "linchpin variety" with strap-iron for skeins on the spindles. It being impossible for travelers to go more than a few miles in a day, places for lodging commonly known as taverns were established along this road. These taverns were usually built of logs and were a story and one-half in height. A ladder was used to go from the first floor into the second story or attic. The travelers generally slept on the upper floor.
The first tavern west of Michigan City was commonly known as Ward's Tavern being about five miles west of Mich- igan City. This tavern has held some interest for me because it was at this place that my father became acquainted with
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EARLY DAYS IN LAKE AND PORTER COUNTIES
my mother, whom he married in 1848, whose grand-father was Moses Cleveland, the founder of the City of Cleveland, on Lake Erie.
The next tavern west of Ward's Tavern was a tavern on the banks of Fort Creek, or Sand Creek, at old City West. My father usually took me with him when he went to Mich- igan City. We generally went in a buggy and went through old City West. At that time there were remaining about six or eight houses including a cooper-shop. There had been more houses but they were sold and moved away as the "bubble" burst. Joe Harris moved one of the houses down to Wheeler, which he continued to own for forty years. For a time this tavern was kept by a man by the name of Green.
The next one further west was one at what is now known as Bailey-town. Further west came one operated by a man by the name of Butler. Butler Tavern was where the Chi- cago-Detroit road crossed the little Calumet River near what was then known as Long Bridge. Long Bridge was just be- low the mouth of Salt Creek, built of logs and heavy timbers laid on log piers and was many rods in length.
Farther west was the tavern usually known as "The Old Maid's Tavern." This tavern was built by a man by the name of William Holmes who died shortly after he built the tavern. The tavern was located in Section 10, Township 36 north, Range 7 west, along the old Chicago-Detroit trail just east of the point where the trail crossed Willow Creek. The tavern become known as Old Maid's Tavern because after the death of Mr. Holmes his widow and her two maiden sisters whose sur-name was Ruger conducted the tavern.
There was also a tavern about a mile west of what is now Wilson or Dune Park Station, just west of what is now Camp Erbe. This hotel had an unsavory reputation.
I have been told by John Beaubien who was a relative of Mark Beaubien of Chicago, and who resided for a time along the beach north of what is now Miller Station, near the marsh of the Grand Calumet River, that there was a tavern there, but I passed by that place more than sixty-five years ago and there was none there at that time. What has some- times since been thought to have been a light house near the mouth of the Grand Calumet River was merely a Weather
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
observation tower built by the Government. Other boys and myself often climbed that tower. I should judge this tower was about seventy-five feet high, built on a high hill which could be seen for many miles around.
Another tavern, known as the Gibson Tavern, kept by Thomas and Maria Gibson along the Chicago-Detroit Road was located near the point where 14th Avenue crosses Mad- ison Street in Gary.
The Brass Tavern was located on the four corners just east of what is now Munster. I remember passing the Brass Tav- ern when it was old and dilapidated, but it still had the Brass Tavern sign hanging on it. My father stopped there many times as he went to and from Chicago.
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