USA > Indiana > Lake County > History Of Lake County (1929) > Part 8
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Before bridges were built, ferries were sometimes operated across the rivers.
In those early days amusements were comparatively few. After a wedding a serenade of the couple always took place which was attended with much noise and a commission of some pranks. On one occasion the serenading party on the evening following the wedding carried the bride to a distant residence and the groom was carried to a residence several miles in an opposite direction. In the fall, corn husking bees were common. Sometimes taffy pulling parties were held.
Sometime during the summer of 1836 among the many travelers along the old Detroit-Chicago Trail there came by the Blake homestead a distinguished looking couple with a small boy about three years of age in their charge. They remained over night with Jacob Blake. They had come from Philadelphia and were on their way to Liverpool-a new town that had just sprung up on the banks of Deep River. A man by the name of John B. Chapman had obtained from an Indian an Indian "float" or land warrant, and had selected under the float Section 24, Township 36, Range 8 west, and had platted a tract of about one-hundred and sixty acres in extent and he and two men from Philadelphia by the name of Fredericks and Davis were promoting the projected new city of Liverpool, which was located on Deep River at the head of navigation near the junction of the Little Calumet and Deep Rivers. The distinguished travelers above mentioned turned out to be George Earle, Mrs. Earle and their son John.
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FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN HOBART
EARLY DAYS IN LAKE AND PORTER COUNTIES
Mr. Earle bought the Liverpool town-site and much sur- rounding land. The site having been located on the branch of the Chicago-Detroit road which extended westwardly through Liverpool, and westerly by way of Blue Island. Num- erous travelers and considerable traffic passed through the new town. In 1837 a stage route was established between Michigan City and Joliet which passed through Liverpool. Stores were erected. Hotels were built. A man by the name of Zuvers, an old settler, conducted one of the hotels. Mr. Earle became active in the sale of lots. It is said that a three days' sale yielded proceeds amounting to $16,000.00. One man invested $2000.00. In 1837 the assessed valuation of the lots in Liverpool was $26,440.00 which it is reputed was later considered by Solon Robinson, of Crown Point, to be too large by the three left hand figures and some insisted it was too large by the four left hand figures. Through the efforts of Mr. Earle, Liverpool was selected as the first site for the County Seat of Lake County and a court house was practically erected when a new committee appointed by the State legis- lature changed the location to Crown Point. This blow blast- ed the prospects of Liverpool, but Mr. Earle and family con- tinued to reside there for several years, after which he went up the river and located a mill-site, erected a flour mill and laid out a town and named it Hobart, in honor of his brother Hobart in England. The Earle family then moved to Hobart and remained there for several years after which George and his wife returned to Philadelphia. Just how many houses had been erected in Liverpool, I do not know, but when I was a boy I worked for a man by the name of Tom Bowers, pro- prietor of the hotel at Lake Station. It was part of my work to corral his sheep in the evening, which pastured on the land in and around the old Liverpool town-site. At this time there were about six log houses, and the old frame court-house which was covered with undressed weather boarding. The roof of the court-house not having been completed, I put the sheep into the log houses which were without floors. The court- house was located about 500 feet north of Deep River and a short distance east of the present site of Camp 133. Shortly af- terwards the old court house was put on a raft and floated down Deep River and the Calumet River to Blue Island, Illi- nois, to be used as a tavern or hotel. About the year 1870 a fire broke out near the old town site and all the buildings were
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
burned to the ground. Thus went up in smoke the last rem- nants of a town with a great ambition but without a court- house or a trading center about which to build a city.
The most important trading center in the northern part of Lake County in the early days was Lake Station. It was the first railroad station in Lake County. It sprang up when the Michigan Central Railroad entered the County in 1852. The Michigan Central Railroad Company had purchased the right of way of the Northern Indiana Railroad Company which had been laid out between Michigan City and Joliet. The point of junction of these two right of ways was at a point called Lake Station. The Northern Indiana had been graded between this point and Joliet and partly graded be- tween Lake Station and Michigan City. The Michigan Central Railroad Company finished that branch between Lake Sta- tion and Joliet, commonly known as the Joliet Cut Off, and also completed the main line to Chicago. The first building in Lake Station was a small railroad station. The next was a hotel built by Paul and Ed. Saunders which still stands at the old location and which is still in use. The next building was the old Saunders residence, built on the corner now diagonally across from the garage. Another house was built by John Kappleman who ran a saloon there for many years. To this point the early merchants of Lake County caused their goods to be shipped. Here the Michigan Central Railroad Company erected a grain elevator and farmers throughout the region brought their grain here to market. My father, Perry Blake, was for many years a buyer of grain at Lake Station. He purchased for firms in Michigan City and Chi- cago. Sometimes it took several days to unload the wheat brought in by the farmers. The first church built there was built by the Catholic denomination and there was a cemetery adjacent to the church. The church has long fallen into dis- use but the cemetery is occasionally used for burial of mem- bers of old families. Even after the church was discontinued for service, Adam Baumaster went up into the church each morning at six o'clock and rang the bell. After the advent of the City of Gary, Lake Station became ambitious and changed her name to East Gary.
In those days we often went up through what we called the Sand Knobs to Lake Michigan Beach. A saw mill or two
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EARLY DAYS IN LAKE AND PORTER COUNTIES
was located over there in the Knobs north of the Blake homestead. We never heard of any Dunes in those days. excepting the value of the timber the property was considered worthless. Many persons declined to pay taxes on the Knobs. I remember that after I had became a man and married, a gentleman from Ohio who was the owner of a tract of land embracing about one-hundred and sixty acres in the north- west corner of Porter County, came out and hired me to drive him over to see the land. I took him over and showed it to him. He looked at it and asked if I was sure that was the land, and I told him I was. We drove back and when I told him my charges were $4.00 he asked me if I would take the land for the bill, but I told him I would rather have the $4.00. Within the tract now known as Ogden Dunes, my old friend Tom Stearns, now deceased, owned a tract of eighty acres. One day Tom came over to my place to buy two pigs at $2.00 a piece, he said he did not have the money to pay for them, but would give me the eighty acres for them. I told him to take the pigs home with him and pay me for them when he could get the money. This land sold a few years ago for about $800.00 per acre. Now I cannot raise enough pigs in ten years to purchase even a fifty foot lot in those subdivisions in the Knobs.
It takes a pretty good prophet to fore-tell, long in advance, the events and conditions of the Calumet Region.
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Indian Trails, Towns and Mounds In Lake County
BY ARMANIS F. KNOTTS
(From original article in Gary Evening Post, Aug. 27 1918)
The most noted Indiana trail of Lake county was of course the Old Sauk.
It was so called because at the time, Michigan, northern Indiana and northern Illinois were being settled the Sauks or Sacs were using it most.
The Sauks (Sacs) had been the allies of the English in the Revolutionary war and the war of 1812 and for their services the English gave them an annuity. And for this annuity (in goods) they had to go to Malden, across and a little down the river from Detroit. In a treaty with the Sauks the United States government agreed to give them, for land cessions, an annuity, in goods of $600 per year, at Detroit. The Sauks then lived principally at Rock Island, Ill., and in order to get their annuities they had to go, men, women, children, dogs and ponies from Rock Island to Detroit each year.
They followed the great trans-continental trail that reached from the Atlantic to the Pacific, that had been used by the Indians for thousands of years. To the eastward it forked, one branch going south and the other north of Lake Erie, and the north branch forked again, one crossing into New York and the other northeast into Canada.
To the west it forked. The one going southwest became known as the Santa Fe trail, the one to the northwest the Oregon trail.
The portion between Rock Island and Detroit became known as the Sauk Trail. It is now known through Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties as the Lincoln Highway. It entered Lake county at Dyer, followed for a while the old Glenwood beach of old "Lake Chicago," of glacial times, passed through Scher- erville, Merrillville and Woodville (or Wood's Mill) and on to the east.
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INDIAN TRAILS, TOWNS AND MOUNDS
The Lincoln Highway follows it quite closely, but at many places one can see where the old trail has been diverted from where it went around a pond or swamp. The white man graded across, and he has ever been trying to eliminate the beautiful curves.
At Merrillville the old trail left the present highway about a quarter of a mile west of the center of the town, went along the edge of the high ground to the southeast crossing the north and south road about a quarter of a mile south of the Lincoln Highway and then kept on southeast to Wiggin's Point, about one-half mile southeast of the center of Merrill- ville, and thence east about three quarters of a mile, where it rejoins the highway. This divergence was made by the early settlers to the north of the trail to bring the road, then much traveled by emigrants to the west, past their houses and lands.
Wiggins' Point was named after Jere Wiggins, who came along the old trail from the east, in an early day (1834) and built his hut in the point, where evidences of it may yet be seen.
At Wiggins' Point the old Mus-qua-ack-bis (Lake of the Red Cedar) trail crossed the Sauk trail. It came from the old Chicago-Vincennes or Hubbard trail crossing of the Kan- kakee about a mile east of Momence, Ill., north-easterly to the north end of the Red Cedar Lake, thence to Crown Point, thence to Wiggins' Point; (Merrillville) and thence on north- easterly to the Deep river crossing at Liverpool, where it joined the Calumet-Beach trail.
Between Crown Point and the first jog in the road south of Merrillville it followed the general direction of the road northeast and southwest, omitting the angle jogs. At the first turn in the road south of Merrillville it left the highway to the northeast for Wiggins' Point. LaSalle followed this trail on his return from the Illinois country in March, 1680, from Cedar lake to Deep river and on to the east as he, more than likely, did several times afterwards in his trips afoot to and from the Illinois. That portion of this trail and that portion of the Calumet beach trail and the Tolleston beach, or Dunes trail followed by LaSalle on his first trip, will here- after be known as the LaSalle trail.
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
The Pottowattomi trail came with the Cedar lake trail from the crossing of Kankakee near Momence northeasterly to a little west of the state line where it diverged and followed the edge of the Kankakee marsh, on the edge of the Valparaiso morain more easterly. It went about two miles south of Lowell through Orchard Grove, thence easterly. Before it reaches the Porter county line it forked, the northerly branch going northeasterly to a point about a mile east of Valparaiso where there was an Indian town, where it joined the old Sauk trail. The south branch went on east to an Indian town about two miles southeast of Hebron. Hebron was formerly called Indian Town.
The Calumet Beach trail was along the edge of the ridge south of the Calumet marsh, practically where Ridge road now is, from the state line to about one-half mile east of Broadway where it left the present highway and went along the ridge next to the marsh or lowland to Liverpool and thence easterly through East Gary and on to Baileytown and Trail Creek (Michigan City).
The Tolleston beach or Dunes trail entered the state from the west, south of Hammond and followed the southerly ridges as near the Calumet marsh as practical to Michigan City. Where there is a long ridge paralleling the marsh you will readily find the old trail on the portion near the marsh. Where ridges projected into the marsh or where to follow the edge of the ridge around, or where the ridges are frequently broken up by the encroachment of the marsh the trail would leave the edge of the marsh and follow the low dry lands through the dunes. This trail can yet be plainly seen in many places especially between Gary and Michigan City. The old road extending from Hessville west to Dalton and River- dale, Ill., follows the trail quite closely.
The Calumet river trail came from west of the state line along about the route followed by the Michigan Central rail- « road west of Hammond. At Hammond it bore nearer the river than the Michigan Central and followed the ridges near the river to the mouth of the river at Miller, where it joined the Lake Shore trail.
The Lake Shore trail followed the lake shore, especially west of the old mouth of the river at Miller. East of that, it fol-
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INDIAN TRAILS, TOWNS AND MOUNDS
lowed the lake shore, or the first valley just south of the lake shore. It may yet easily be traced from the now dead end of the river easterly through the dunes. This secondary trail near the lake shore, was only used during bad weather. East of "Fort Creek," now Sand or Dune creek, at Mt. Tom, the Dunes trail was used a great deal more than it was further west.
A trail left the Cedar Lake trail about a mile northeast of Merrillville and bore more easterly where it was joined by another, a minor trail that left the old Sauk trail west of Woodville. It crossed Deep river about two miles southwest of Hobart, where there was an Indian town, and a mound, and where the first real settler in Lake county located in 1833, and where Wm. Ross settled in 1834, after whom Ross town- ship, then constituting the whole of Lake county was named. The present Ross township was named after the town of Ross which in turn was named after another man. From this crossing the trail went on northeasterly past four mounds in the southeast corner of section 32, southeast of Hobart, and then on into Porter County.
This crossing of Deep River was a better crossing than the Liverpool crossing and it was near this crossing that some years ago the remains of 35 old guns were dug up. More than likely these guns were hidden there by the Spanish ex- pedition that went from St. Louis to Fort St. Joseph on the St. Joseph river, at Niles, Mich. The fort was captured Feb. 12, 1781. The Spanish flag waved over it for one day and then, after taking all they could carry, the fort was burned and the expedition returned by land and more than likely crossed Deep river at this point and left some of their sur- plus guns. Upon this technical conquest the Spanish claimed from the English at the close of the Revolutionary war the territory northwest of the Wabash. Spain failed in this de- mand, however, and the territory was turned over to the United States as having been conquered by George Rogers Clark.
There were many minor trails but the above were the prin- cipal ones.
It is very interesting to study the location of these old trails, and where they led, and to note how they always followed
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
the easiest, best and shortest way from point to point.
The early county commissioners, almost always instructed the road viewers to locate the road on the shortest and best route from point to point and the viewers usually followed, quite closely, the old Indian trails.
The Indian towns were never located immediately upon a principal trail. It would be too conspicuous to an enemy. Indian towns were not permanent. They usually changed with the seasons. They many times followed hunting parties and war parties, and were readily abandoned in case of an inva- sion by an enemy. They even moved towns to get away from mosquitoes.
Notwithstanding this lack of permanency, they had favorite locations. At these favorite places they usually had cemeteries or mounds. Mounds were burial places, but the Indians had many modes of burial.
The summer homes or town-sites of Indians in this county were Cedar Lake, Fancher Lake (Crown Point), Wood's Mill, south and southwest of Hobart, East Gary, on the Creek near Dyer and in the high groves near the Kankakee marshes along Eagle Creek, Cedar Creek and West Creek.
Their winter homes were on the islands in the Kankakee and on the ridges along the Calumet. One was on the north side of the road near the little lake about a mile east of East Gary, where their mounds may still be seen. Another was on a high ridge about where the car works are at Hammond. When this land was cleared, bushels of chips and spoiled ar- row heads were found in piles and scattered around.
There are mounds yet to be seen at the north and south end of Cedar Lake, and one on the west side; three in the southwest corner of the county near the Kankakee river; two or three along the edge of the morain south and east of Orchard Grove; one southwest of Hobart; others southeast of Hobart, east of Merrillville; several along the edge of the morain, and some on the high places, formerly islands, in the Kankakee marsh have been destroyed.
There was a noted Indian cemetery on the bank of Deep river about one half mile northeast of Wood's Mill, one just east of Merrillville and some minor ones at other places.
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INDIANA TRAILS, TOWNS AND MOUNDS
To know where these trails, mounds, cemeteries and town- sites were, would add infinitely to auto trips in the county. To definitely locate them requires long and diligent search, in government surveyor's notes, in books of early travel, in histories and by counselling with old settlers.
This I have been doing for years, and I am now preparing a map showing them as far as can be known. I am anxious to receive any and all information possible upon the subject.
Along the old trails came our early settlers. Thus Ross came along the old Sauk trail to settle southwest of Hobart; Wiggins to settle Wiggins' point. Solon Robinson left the Sauk trail at Wiggins' Point and went on the Cedar Lake trail to another point, and the Balls on further to Cedar Lake. Many of the early settlers from south of the Wabash crossed the Kankakee at the crossing near Momence, and then came along the trails into our county.
Let us collect what remains of the history of the early Americans and record it for future Americans and the world.
(Editorial Note :- There was also a trail that diverged from the Mo- mence-Cedar Lake trail at a point several miles southwest of Lowell and passed about one-half mile east of Creston in a winding course east of the lake to Fancher Lake in the Lake County Fair Grounds. We assume that the writer of the above article in his use of the name Woodville meant Wood's Mill, or Deep River as the place is known today.)
95
Father Marquette
BY TOM CANNON
When Father Marquette came to the cross roads of Amer- ica 251 years ago and camped for several days at the mouth of the Grand Calumet River within an arrow-throw of where we are gathered today, he made this last entry in his diary:
"The high winds and cold prevent us from proceeding. The two lakes (Wolf and Calumet) by which we have passed are full of bustards, geese, ducks, cranes and other birds that we do not know. We have just met the surgeon, with an In- dian, going up with a canoe load of furs, but the cold being too severe for men who have to drag their canoes through the water, he has just made a cache of his beaver and goes to the village where the surgeon lives tomorrow."
It was on this day, April 6th, 1675, that Marquette made his last entry in his journal. He was a dying man. His faith- ful Indians placed him upon a litter and proceeded upon the long and painful journey around the Southern end of Lake Michigan and up the eastern shore to a point near where Lud- ington, Mich., is now located and there he died on May 18th, 1675.
Thus briefly, Father Marquette closes the long list of entries made in his diary, during his two expeditions to the Indian Country of the Mississippi and Illinois, ending with his arrival at the mouth of the Grand Calumet River.
Found In Quebec
The diary of the great Missionary explorer was discovered about 1830 in the Hotel Dieu at Quebec, establishing the nar- rative of Marquette as written and published by Thevenot. This diary of 37 pages of manuscript was found essentially the same as the published narrative by Thevenot and by com- paring it with the Parish records made by Marquette at Bouch- erville in 1668, their authorship was established.
With these records were 23 pages more of manuscript and
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FATHER MARQUETTE
a map in the same handwriting, giving an unfinished account of Marquette's last trip to the Illinois.
The two journeys of Father Marquette, the first down the Mississippi River to the mouth of the Arkansas, and the sec- ond in which he proceeded no farther than the Calumet River, turning his feet eastward around the southern end of Lake Michigan in order to reach the French settlements before he died, are set forth in intimate detail in a paper prepared and read by Albert D. Hager before the Chicago Historical Society in June, 1880.
Paper is Preserved
The Hager paper, together with authenticated copies of Father Marquette's diary, are preserved in the archives of the Chicago Historical Society, clearly disproving the claims that Father Marquette spent the last winter of his journey on the Chicago River.
In this necessarily brief review of the journeyings of Father Marquette and his arrival at the mouth of the Grand Calumet River I can do little more than present a chronologi- cal summary of the same.
He was born in Picardy, France, and came to America in 1668. The first entry made by him on the Parish records of Boucherville, Canada, was on May 20th, 1668, and a photo- graphic copy of the entry is preserved in the Chicago Histor- ical Museum.
He established a number of missions around the head of the lakes, the last one at Green Bay, from which place he made a voyage down the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers to the mouth of the Arkansas River where after determining that the Mississippi River did not flow into the Pacific, he returned to Green Bay on the last of September 1673, having in four and one half months traveled a distance of 2,767 miles.
On October 25, 1674, he started on his last and final jour- ney, his purposes being to visit the Illinois Indians at their village on the Illinois River. He was overtaken by illness when he reached the Calumet River near Blue Island and went into winter camp.
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
Camped On Gary Beach
In March 1675, finding himself at the portals of death, he started back to the French settlements in upper Michigan. He came down the Grand Calumet River which then followed eastward and emptied into the Lake which now is Gary Beach, arriving at the mouth of the River on March 31st, 1675. He remained here at least seven days since his last entry was made on April 6th.
Father Marquette's dairy contains a full account of his trip from Green Bay, following the Western Shore of Lake Michigan. He left Green Bay on October 25th, 1674, and made camp at a number of points on the west shore of Lake Michigan, and on November 21st he writes that he was de- tained three days at the mouth of the Chicago River. He had hard work to get out of the river, he wrote in his diary on November 27th. He continues by saying :
"Having made about three leagues (seven and one fourth miles) we found the Indians, and also met three Indians who had come to the village."
Marquette and his party were detained there by the wind the remainder of the month. He does not speak of being at the mouth of a river. There is none after leaving Chicago for a distance of twelve miles when the Calumet River is reached.
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