USA > Indiana > Lake County > History Of Lake County (1929) > Part 9
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Decide to Winter
On Dec. 4, 1674, he makes the following entry in his diary: "We started well to reach Portage (Little Calumet River) which was frozen half a foot thick. .. Being cabined near the Portage, two leagues up the river, we resolved to winter there on my inability to go farther."
Mr. Hager says this would take him up the Little Calumet to Indian Ridge" near Calumet Lake. From the Little to the Grand Calumet River there was a portage of about a mile. His camp must have been at or near the point where Stony Creek enters the Little Calumet River.
The next entry is made January 16th, 1675: "An Indian came and brought whortleberries and bread for the men to eat."
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FATHER MARQUETTE
On January 26th he sets down that three Illinois Indians brought two bags of corn, some dried meat, squashes and 12 beavers.
On Feb. 20th, 1675, he writes that he had time to observe the tide which comes from the Lake. He thought there was a tide in the lake, evidently, but from where his camp was located, he was looking at Calumet Lake and not Lake Mich- igan, for he was six miles up the river.
Forced to Flee
On March 28th, 1675, Father Marquette wrote in his Jour- nal: "The ice broke and choked above us. The water was so high that we had barely time to uncabin in haste, put our things on the trees and try to find a place to sleep on some hillock. ... We are going to embark to continue our route."
On March 31st he made this entry: "Having started yester- day we dragged for half an arpent (from the Little to the Grand Calumet River). The River has another outlet by which we must descend."
The Grand Calumet then flowed into the Lake at the ex- treme southern tip of Lake Michigan. Father Marquette did descend that stream and, finding himself so far east, he chose to go back to Mackinac by an unknown route along the east shore of the lake, rather than turn and go up the west side ov- er a portion of the way he had previously traveled.
On April 1st, he was still detained at the mouth of the River (The Grand Calumet) by a strong south wind. "We hope to- morrow to reach the spot where the French are, about 15 leagues from here. The French settlement was on the St. Joseph River, near Niles and was about 45 miles, or 15 leagues, from the old mouth of the Grand Calumet River.
And then the stricken Father, on April 6th, 1675, made the final entry in his journal: "The high winds and cold prevent us from proceeding. The two lakes (Michigan and Calumet) we have passed are full of bustards, geese, ducks, cranes, and other birds we do not know."
And this is the brief story of how Father Marquette came to the cross-roads of America. The story of his last journey
GARY PUBLIC LIBRARY
HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
up the east side of the lake and of his death is recorded in many old books but I have not the time to repeat it here.
Thus it was here at the cross roads of the unexplored con- tinent that the great missionary explorer penned his last entry in his journal.
From time immemorial this wonderful land at the south- ern tip of Lake Michigan has been the cross roads of the western continent. Long before the first white man came it was criss-crossed by countless trails of the red men-trails coming up from the south, and the west, and the east, crossed by other trails leading around the foot of the lake to the land of the Mascoutins in the north-west and the lands the Miamis and the Pottowatomies in the north-east and the Illini in the south-west.
Followed the Sauk Trail
These trails met and crossed and diverged here as the steamroads and highroads meet and diverage today. Across this coveted territory now embraced in the County of Lake, the old Sauk trail wore a deep gash across the prairies and through the dim forests-a trail over which the Sacs and Foxes marched from their home west of the Mississippi to help their allies, the five Nations, in their struggle with the British. The old Sauk trail is now Lincoln Highway, but it is one of the great arteries of traffic that go to make up the cross-roads of America.
Over these trails came innumerable hosts of Red Men. Fol- lowing them came Father Marquette and then the trapper, the hunter, the trader, the pioneer. The trail became the wagon road, the post road, the railroad and the motor road. Here all Indian trails converged and diverged. Here all modern highways converge and diverge. It is the cross roads of America.
We who are here today are men and women of yesterday. How little a time has elapsed since the oldest of us came to the Cross Roads of America.
Few Whites Here
When Marquette stood on this sandy beach and gazed out
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over the ice flecked lake, there were less than half a million white people in all America.
The Mayflower had landed the Pilgrim Fathers on Ply- mouth Rock only 55 years before. Jamestown was a strug- gling settlement near the Virginia seaboard. Boston was only 45 years old. The declaration of Independence was written 101 years after Marquette came to Gary-land, the Cross Roads of America.
Napoleon met his waterloo 139 years after Marquette visit- ed this region. The Eastern Shore of the Western continent was fringed with a few white settlements. The French held Canada and claimed everything from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi, including the Great Lakes. The Spaniards oc- cupied Florida and everything west to the Pacific Ocean.
Over this cross-roads of America have floated the flags of five nations-the Calumet of the Pottawatomies, the flag of Spain, France and Great Britain, and finally the stars and stripes, the symbol of the glorious republic in which we live.
LaSalle, Joliet, DeTonti, DeSoto and Cortez, were soldiers of fortune. They sought to carve with their swords great empires out of the western hemisphere for France and for Spain. There is no spot in America today where the flags of Spain or France stand for anything but international court- esy.
LaSalle and Joliet and DeSoto and Cortez were soldiers of fortune and the empires they created with their swords dis- solved like the mists of the morn. Marquette was a soldier of the King whose Kingdom is everlasting.
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Aims and Objects of Old Settlers' Association
BY FRANK B. PATTEE
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Old Settler and Historical As- sociation and Friends :
I have been requested to deliver a short address on the aims and objects of this association. The objects of the association, as set forth in the articles adopted in 1903, can be readily di- vided into five and be considered separately as such.
FIRST: To collect and preserve pioneer relics of various kinds. It is true that we have many arrow heads, stone axes, beds, pieces of Indian pottery and other durable small articles left by the aborigines. These are always looked upon with great interest by each succeeding generation. What a wealth of information touching the habits and customs of these prim- itive children of yesterday has been forever lost, however, by failure to keep together the articles of dress, shelter, and working implements used by the Indian. Photography, too, is sadly dearth of specimens of the Red Men. There is, per- haps, sufficient excuse for all this in the knowledge we have of the real hardships of our pioneer ancestors. What mental pictures of these ancient people we could form, however, if only we could have their pictures and articles of all kinds used by them for our museums. It is needless to say a museum should be provided and that all that remains of interest should be carefully collected and preserved.
As the last of the Red Men were gradually withdrawing from the region of this country which was along in 1830 to 1840-the pioneer white families began coming in and settl- ing the country. We find about as great a scarcity of the relics of these first settlers as we do of the Indians. What a wealth of information is forever lost to us and to succeed- ing generations due to the inability of these first comers to save and turn over to us articles of adornment, education, and of workaday life generally of those times. All this, too, runs back less than one hundred years, or the span of a long life- time. The time has come, and now is, when the people of
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Lake County should save every article of antiquity native to the people of this county's past. If necessary we should call upon the spirit of old King Tut to build us a tomb to store them in. When we realize how fast the environments, habits, customs, and ways of living of man change we, too, should set apart, from time to time, articles of interest for per- manent preservation. In another hundred years, and much less time than that, they will be objects of real interest to the gen- erations to follow. A chain can be wrought to connect an- tiquity with posterity and the sooner it is linked up the beter.
SECOND: To collect and preserve the history of the coun- ty. We are very much more fortunate in having a rather com- plete and reliable account of early Lake County. There are several histories which, when taken together, give one a good idea of the early life of the county. How they came strug- gling through the marshes, fording the streams, skirting the forests and scouting their enemies in prairie schooners filled and crowded with all manner of living requirements drawn by oxen. Traveling by day and camping in the solitude by night. Burned brown by the sun and hardened by the rigors of the kind of lives they had to lead in the widerness. How they strug- gled and conquered in subduing the unworked prairie lands or timbered lands as the choice of location might require. Verily these men and women were heroes, heroines and conquerors. Their descendants were reared and educated in the severe schools of nature with but little more. It is really wonderful how much education these first generations of natives were able to, and did, acquire. Acquire, too, is the right term. They got very little otherwise. I, for one, am thankful beyond measure for, and am indeed very proud of, our ancestry. I tell you, one and all, that the best we have is what we got from them-character. The set jaw, the settled honest con- viction, the will to do and die, if need be, in the doing of it; these were the dominating qualities of these earlier genera- tions of Americans. These men conversed with ancestry who stood by Washington at Valley Forge, and told them of the surrender of the British at York Town. Their own parents helped win the war of 1812 and were patriots. When the voice of Lincoln stirred men's hearts and souls they listened and squared their hearts and wills with the truth proclaimed and when the great Civil War broke out the young men of Lake County were for the Union to the backbone. They
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volunteered by hundreds-as many as could go-and went into the valley of the great decision for America. They fought, many died, but the rest won in the arena of right against might. Today we like the stuff these men were made of. The women, too, who bore them and taught and loved them were every bit as brave and patriotic as they were. If our history of Lake County is weak and incomplete in any particular it is in failing to tell more than it does of how great a part our county played in the Federal Army in the Civil War.
We have abundance of proof that the patriotic spirit of our pioneer ancestry is not dying out in Lake County. When the Spanish American War broke out the boys and men of Lake County were willing and ready to answer any call that our then beloved president William Mckinley might make. Had the call come the response from old Lake County would have doubled her quota.
Then, too, the World War finally involved our country and made necessary a great exodus of our young men to foreign fields to do battle for the life of democracy. In this great struggle the patriotic spirit shown by Lake County, as a whole, and all of its people regardless of age or sex, was in full keeping with its earlier history. Never can we forget the meatless, wheatless and gasless days; the work of the Red Cross and the departure of the boys for their various canton- ments to enter training. Under the stars of early morning or at the solitary hour of midnight they gathered and entrained with set jaws and courageous heart to face the hideous hell- holes of Belgium and France to die if need be. It took more courage to face this than any other call to arms ever issued by our country, but the boys responded without hesitation. The history of the part Lake County took in this war has not been touched as yet, I believe. Who will take up this task? It should be done.
THIRD: To cherish the memory of old settlers. This is a subject we can all engage in. We have all enjoyed the kindly companionship and fraternal fellowship of many of our oldest living citizens of this county. To those of you assembled here today we extend greetings and good fellowship. Meet one another and relate old experiences. Measure age with age and show your elderly companions and comrades on life's homeward journey that you are not one whit older today than
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you were fifty years ago. Memory knows no such thing as old age. The house we live in gets dilapidated, hinges get rusty, walls wrinkle and crack and the shingles fall off the roof or grow gray with the ravages of time but the real life, the true life within never gets old. We all know that when the sun goes down it does so to make possible the glorious coming of a new morning. So it is with what we call life.
We should not close this subject without alluding to the multitude of our old settlers whose mortal remains sleep where the quails sing through these autumn days. A stroll through any of our cities of the dead will lead one's thoughts back to the days when acquaintances of our better days used to greet us with their smiles. May we never forget those who have gone on before us. Although they have passed into the sunset land and we keenly feel their loss here, yet in that not very distant time, we, too, will be called to that distant realm and they will be first to greet us there. There are positively no by-roads-we are all journeying toward the golden strand and we might as well look with hope and faith to the realization of that last scene.
FOURTH: Keep alive the pioneer spirit among descen- dants. When the early settlers came they came determined to transform a wild and waste region into an agricultural and industrial country. They threw their energy and lives and that of their families and descendants into this work and made rapid progress in reclaiming and improving the country. They worked long days and labored with strong arm and brawn in overcoming every obstacle. Their tools were crude and difficult to work with and they had no machinery. In spite of these handicaps they did more than to make a living, they made substantial progress. The spirit of work and of constructive development has not, as I believe, kept pace, in modern times, with that of the pioneers. In those days men vied with each other during long working hours to see who could do the most. Today they insist upon short hours, in- dulge in very little if any rivalry to see who can do most, and drop their work at the stroke of the clock. This tendency re- flects a marked slowing down, too, of our constructive growth and development. The men of today and the generation of tomorrow can draw a good lesson, here, from our pioneer an- cestors. One of the traits that marks the man of real success
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
is a love for work. Such a man will willingly work overtime to accomplish the work he is in. Then, too, this tendency is not limited to manual labor alone but extends pretty generally throughout all pursuits and walks of life. We need more of that good old time morality, hospitality, respect for and obe- dience to law and regard for and devotion to religion. The path of real happiness and real success in life does not lead to the pleasure resort, the tourists camp, or the amusement hall though these and other attractions are absorbing the time and vitality of far too many of our younger generation. We need a healthy and vigorous revival of the spirit of real hon- est downright work among our people. We need work and recreation, too, but in proper proportions. Perhaps the only way we can keep alive this pioneer spirit among our descen- dants is to create wholesome public sentiment for it and keep up the agitation for it until the pendulum swings back as it usually does under our form of government and ways of liv- ing. Let us have more and better work and more and better re- sults. Although we probably do more and better work now than ever before for man's welfare still about ninety percent of all our expenditure of human effort and energy is half wasted through inefficiency. Efficiency should-in the work of the world-be the rule whereas it is still the exception. There is plenty of room and an abundance of opportunity for attain- ment in life's work for the boy of today and the man of to- morrow. The world needs efficiency and wants it; what is more it is going to have it.
FIFTH: Keep up close friendly relations. The very nature of the solitary family life; the desolation of primitive sur- roundings; the distances between homes and settlements and the difficulties of travel made visits between near settlers fre- quent and their sympathy and affection for each other un- usually close. They could and did help each other as much as possible. Tender ties of companionship and friendship re- sulted and a universal spirit of hospitality dominated the do- mestic lives of our pioneers. This quality in life is rewarded with an overflowing cup of real pleasure too. We can pro- fit greatly by the examples of this christian quality so grac- iously practiced by them. We need to learn of them to enable us to keep up these close friendly relations as of old. We have so many friends who do so much for us in this day and age that we never stop to take time to thank them for what they
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do or to even recognize many of the kindly deeds done for our welfare. We get up in the morning to find that the newsboy has brought us the paper and the milk man the fresh milk for breakfast; we call up the grocer to send over our order, and the ice man drops in with his burden for us. We go out into the highway and are protected at a dozen crossings by flag men, the policeman helps us at the street intersection ; we turn a hundred ways every day where we are given a helping hand of someone to help us along life's journey. We are helped, so much in so many ways by our friends these days that we get so accustomed to it that we fail to appreciate, as we should, who our friends really are. How much are we giving of our effort and energy as our contribution to the sum total of what is being done for the good of our fellows? It is the object and business of this association to keep alive this spirit of friendship in our relations with others. Let us take stock of our blessings received at the hands of our friends and let us see to it that we do a good turn to the other fellow occasionally as well. There is nothing in all the world that brings a richer reward than the doing of a kindly deed. Courtesies and little common kindnesses sprinkled through the affairs of the day are like perfume that scents the air or flowers that brighten the wayside. We can live without them but we can live more abundantly by making them part of our lives. Friends in deed were the old folks of long, long ago. We hold them in esteem for what they did in the days of yore.
In conclusion let me say that the principal object of this association is idealistic. But this is only another way of say- ing that the principal object of this association is to develop in the people of Lake County true Americanism. It is true that in her daily life America is covered somewhat deeply with the veneer of materialism but touch her at the heart and she is a true worshipper of ideals. The ideals for which Washington, Webster, Marshall, Lincoln, Mckinley and Roose- velt stood are written across the breastplate of America in letters of gold. If, then, these ideals have formed the soul of America's citizenship we should know where these men got their inspiration. Acquaint yourselves with their lives and you find them committing to memory the ten com- mandments and absorbing the ideas and ideals of the man of old who frequented the shore of the sea of Galilee amazing
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fishermen with the power and worth of his ideas. The char- acter of this man is burned into her heart and soul so deeply that America stands out conspicuously and alone as the cham- pion of righteousness in her relations with all mankind. This spirit and these ideals have always come to the surface in the lives and deeds of the men and women of our county in every emergency. We can display no safer signal light to guide the way of succeeding generations than to hold aloft and keep ever in sight the ideals that guided our forefathers. At her best America exacts nothing less. The boy or girl of today who would be representative of the America of tomorrow can do so only, if at all, by discovering and following her ideals. God and the foreigner of understanding who comes to gain citizen- ship with us, only know what a blessing the privilege of being an American really is. May the Lake County of the future be what she has always been, truly American.
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OLD AUDUBON HOTEL, LAKE STATION (Now East Gary)
Lake Station
BY ARTHUR E. PATTERSON
In the year 1851 the Michigan Central Railroad was com- pleted through the Northern part of Lake County, commonly called the Calumet Region. The railroad closely followed the old Indian Trail, aiming to hit the points that looked promis- ing for a "Town Site" that would prove a drawing-card for the company. It so happened that on the Northeastern quar- ter of Section Seventeen (17), Township Thirty-six (36), Range (7), the Indians had a terminal point from which two trails led to Chicago,-one along the Calumet region, the oth- er Westerly through Joliet to Chicago. Geo. Earle and family from the East located near a Fur-Trading point at Liverpool in the early thirties. This Geo. Earle being quite a land-owner at the Lake Station location, and observing this Indian term- inal point situated on the new railroad and stage-line, and also between the Little Calumet and scenic Deep River, not only making it one of the most beautiful spots along the In- dian trail, but in the center of the farming district of the nearby towns, realized its value, and as he was ever ready to take a chance on a new town he at once plotted over and had recorded on April 1st, 1852, the town-site of Lake Station. The Michigan Central people also were not slow to take a chance, and at once erected a large, beautiful two-story depot in the eastern part of which was the freight, express and telegraph offices, and the balance of the depot was used for an eating- house, with a large dining-room for the accommodation of passengers, and all trains were ordered to stop for meals. South, adjoining the depot grounds, was the beautiful little park, which the railroad people took great pride in, keeping it neat and clean and well supplied with benches and large swings. Many grand picnics were had in this park by picnic parties from the Chicago and Joliet divisions, and the ticket sales always netted a nice profit for the company.
Edward Saunders observing the need of a large hotel built the Audubon. The Michigan Central built two plank walks from the Depot to the hotel. This hotel was well patronized and soon became as well known as the "Old Gibson Inn,"
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which was only five miles west. The Audubon Hotel is still standing, an old land mark on the corner of Main and Broad- way streets. The Railroad company made this station a di- vision point and located their railroad repair shops here on Block One (1) just west of the depot. This gave employment to a large number of men, which started the boom. A grain elevator was erected, where at times could be seen between twenty-five and thirty teams waiting their turn to unload. This waiting called for feed-barns and two large barns were built and a feed-yard on the block south of the hotel. The railroad company built a live stock chute and a large freight house; a siding and track scales were put in for the weighing of grain, live stock, etc. This station proved to be in the center of a good grain and live stock district, and the banner game and fur-bearing region; also the vicinity of the rich berry grounds-Valparaiso, Crown Point, Hobart and nearby towns kept the roads humming to Lake Station, so that not only large shipments of grain, hay and live stock, but also vegetables and poultry by the car-load were shipped to Chi- cago and other points. Then in 1854 the Joliet and Northern Indiana Railroad was built to Joliet. Thus for a number of years while the Lake Shore, the Michigan Central and the Joliet and Northern Indiana Railroads had the transporta- tion field in Northern Lake County, Old Lake Station held the name of being the most important shipping point in Lake County. With two good railroads, the Michigan and the Joliet and Northern Indiana, a stage mail-route to Peoria, a daily stage line to Crown Point and river navigation via the Deep and Calumet rivers to Chicago, the "outlook" was good, and the town began to grow until it had six general merchandise stores, one notion store, one shoe and repair store, two meat markets, two saloons, one cheese factory, one match factory, two blacksmith-shops, one wagon-shop, one good hotel, the Au- dubon, two boarding houses, a large railroad repair shop, a Union Protestant Church, a Catholic Church, and a frame school house and a post office. A post office was established October 21st, 1851, with Edward Saunders as first postmaster. While Lake Station was booming opportunity which in real- ity, was the Pullman Palace Car Company, took a knock at "Old Lake Station," but the land owners and Geo. M. Pullman failing to agree on the land terms caused Mr. Pullman to go further west and locate and build the town that now bears the
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