USA > Indiana > Howard County > History of Howard County, Indiana, Vol I > Part 15
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33
FIRST TRADING POINTS.
Alto was the earliest trading place in Harrison township. R. Cobb was the first merchant there ; Milos Judkins was the first shoe- maker, and William P. Judkins was the first cabinetmaker. This was in 1848, or early in 1849; and in a short time there were three stores there stocked with well-selected goods, and three cabinet shops were operating prosperously. It is also said that there was as much business done there as in Kokomo at that time. Greentown was the first trading point in Liberty township, and its beginning was largely due to the demand of the neighborhood for a conveni- ent trading point. It was laid out in 1848 on the site of an old In- dian town known as Green Village, named thus, it is said, because the Indians having cut off the timber on the site of the village. grass had grown up, making a green landscape in contrast with the dark forest all around, and the name Greentown was adopted for the white man's town. The first merchants were L. W. Bacon and his father in a double hewed log house built by them on the northeast corner of the intersection of Main and Meridian streets. They stocked their store room with a miscellaneous assortment of mer- chandise to the amount of about one thousand dollars and sold goods for two years. A little later C. O. Fry erected another store room on the southwest corner of the same street intersection. Dr. Barrett
205
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
bought an interest in Fry's store and together they continued in business for several years. These were soon followed by others and Greentown soon became an important trading point.
Jerome had its origin in much the same way. It is said of the early settlers in the vicinity of Jerome that the greater amount of trading during the early days was done at Marion, Jonesboro, Peru, Logansport and Noblesville, some of the first settlers going as far as Indianapolis for their merchandise.
Flour and meal were obtained from those places in the summer time : but during the winter seasons when the condition of the early roads precluded the possibility of travel, many families manufac- tured their own breadstuffs by hand, crushing the grain in a rude mortar made by hollowing out the top of a stump. One of those pioneers has said, "We were compelled to go to Jonesboro and Som- erset on the Mississinnewa and to points on the White river and the Wabash for grinding. It was a long, winding bush road through the woods, across the sloughs. We took mostly corn, as scarcely any wheat was raised in the county. The writer remembers riding on horseback to Somerset purposely to get flour for a house-raising. which he bought there and returned with before he slept after leav- ing town."
IN HONEY CREEK TOWNSHIP.
From a description of pioneer life in Honey Creek township we are told, "Corn must be carried fourteen miles on horseback to have it converted into meal. Two miles below Burlington was the nearest mill-the old 'Crummel mill.' Often did the pioneer go six miles farther down Big Wildcat to the 'Adams mill.' Ît required all of one day and the most part of the following night to make the trip. Doubtless a modern Honey Creek youth of twelve years would feel some timidity in undertaking such an errand through a wolf-
206
MORROW'S HISTORY
infested wilderness." The founding of the early towns and the building of the first mills were prompted more by necessity than the desire of industrial gain, and so it is said of Jerome that the chief cause which led to its founding was a general desire on the part of the community for a trading point. there being no town nearer than Jonesboro on the east and Russiaville and New London on the west. The immediate outgrowth of this demand was the establishment of a small store and a blacksmith shop in 1847, which formed the nucleus around which several families located. Soon after Hampton Brown laid out the village and named it Jerome in compliment to his son Jerome. Thomas Banks bought a lot and built a store house and became the first merchant. He stocked his room with a miscel- laneous assortment of merchandise to the value of about five hun- dred dollars and sold goods for three years, selling out to Joel and C. Murphy.
Goff & Allen erected a hewed log store building in 1853 and en- gaged in merchandising for four years, carrying a large stock valued at three thousand five hundred dollars. They sold out to Harvey Brown.
West Liberty had its origin in the erection of a large water mill near its northeastern limits ; this and a blacksmith shop led Moses Jones to plat a town site in the latter part of 1849.
FIRST BUSINESS HOUSE.
Moses Rich erected the first business house in 1850. This was a log building sixteen by twenty feet. Rich carried a stock valued at one thousand dollars, and did a good business. He carried on the business for twelve years. David Macy erected the second store building and was a prominent merchant and operated an extensive store for five years, when he closed out and left the place. Syca-
207
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
more Corners had its origin in the building of what is now the "Clover Leaf railroad" and was laid out in 1881 by O. P. Hollings- worth. Allen Quick and Frank Hoon were the first merchants, who fitted up the old frame school house for a store room soon after the building of the railroad. This is a good shipping and trading point.
Vermont was laid oct in 1849 by Milton Hadley, who had obtained a part of float section No. 7. He appears to have been a man of considerable enterprise and ambition and in platting Ver- mont he laid out a very pretentious town, with a public square and a large number of town lots clustered around the square. A white oak tree standing on the bluff of Wild Cat was the starting point for the survey of this future metropolis of Howard county. The town plat suggests that he considered his town site so superior to any other that possibly others would appreciate it and thus would be influenced to change to the town he had planned. This hope, if hope it was, was disappointed, and after a brief and feeble exist- tence the town ceased to be and its site is now cultivated fields and the white oak doubtless, ere this, like the town whose sentinel it was, has disappeared. Charles Ellison was the first merchant of this town, carrying on a grocery store and a dramshop. His dram- shop was the resort of the tough characters of the surrounding country and gained for the place a bad reputation. Benjamin Jack- son and John Colescott were other early merchants. After the building of the Clover Leaf railroad, to the north of the old town, a station and trading point was established on the railroad a short dis- tance northwest of it.
LAID OUT NEW LONDON.
New London was laid out in 1845 by John Lamb and Reuben Edgerton. At that time there were three houses, or cabins, in the
208
MORROW'S HISTORY
town. Jonathan Hawarth was at that time engaged in the sale of dry goods and groceries. He was succeeded by Isaac Ramsey. Soon after the organization Richard Nixon came to the town and engaged in the mercantile business. He remained there many years.
Fairfield was laid out in 1849 by John J. Stephens in anticipa- tion of the building of the I. & P. Railroad, which had been sur- veyed through that point some time previously. On the completion of the railroad the place became a prominent shipping point and had a reputation of being one of the best shipping points and markets on the line between Peru and Indianapolis for a number of years ; but because of the building of the Pan Handle railroad on the east, and the improvement of the highways leading into Kokomo, much of the trade has been diverted to other points.
Bundy & Johnson were the first merchants in a little house west of the railroad. They did a fair business on a stock valued at $500. Overman & Stout started the second store. They erected a small storeroom just northeast of the railroad. After two years their stock was closed out. Thompson & Evans did the largest mercan- tile business of any firm in Fairfield. Their storeroom was on the west side of the railroad and on the south side of the street. They also operated the large warehouse and elevator erected by Evans & Fortner.
THE FIRST WAREHOUSE.
The first warehouse was built by Bundy & Robinson and was in the south part of town and on the west side of the railroad tracks. Tampico was laid out in 1852 by Ephraim Trabue. Spencer Latty was the first merchant. Terre Hall was also laid out in 1852 by Asa Parker. Cable & Osborne were the first merchants, dealing in a miscellaneous assortment of articles. Both towns were the out- growth of the location and building of the P., C. & St. L. Rail-
209
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
road and both had, in course of time, the accessories-blacksmith shops and sawmills.
Cassville was laid out in 1848 by William and Nathan Stanley. Its origin was the survey for the construction of the I. & P. Rail- road, and after the building of the railroad for a time had quite a reputation as a trading point. The first stock of goods was brought to the place by John and David Evans, who erected a good frame storehouse near the railroad and did a good business for four years and then sold out to Samuel Martindale.
Poplar Grove was first settled in 1847 by Caleb Coate and the merchants were Coate & Morris, who conducted a dry goods and grocery store.
These various trading points have been continued to the pres- ent time, with two or three exceptions, and outside of Russiaville and Greentown have just about held their own. A few points have been added as Plevna and Phlox and Guy in the east, and Kappa, Ridgeway and West Middleton in the west end.
Russiaville and Greentown, in the opposite ends of the county, are flourishing and growing towns.
SAWMILLS BECOMING SCARCE.
Reference has already been made to the lumber industry of the county. In the years that are past the great sawdust piles in fre- quently recurring intervals bore silent witness to the fact that here had been a sawmill. Since the exhaustion of the timber these mills are few in number and are found at the towns. It is therefore con- sidered not worth while to make further reference to them.
The other class of mills, for grinding flour and meal, instead of going out of use have much increased their usefulness. Many of those early mills, with their simple and meager beginnings, have
14
210
MORROW'S HISTORY
gone on from one improvement to another until they are now up-to- date and prosperous mills; while the decaying and falling frame- work and the abandoned millraces mark the places where others were busy in a former generation, and it is deemed worth while to note these beginnings and to rehearse a history of that which is past but remains to the present.
The Stonebraker mill, after sixty years, still does business at the old stand and is one of the best-known objects in the county. The mills and the various milling industries in the vicinity of New London, which were dependent upon the water power of Honey creek, have long since ceased to exist. The past sixty years have witnessed a wonderful shrinkage in the water supplies of the county.
SOME OF THE FIRST MILLS.
At Russiaville the first gristmill was built out of logs on Squir- rel creek, near the present site of the cemetery, and was a mere corn cracker and was operated by water power.
In 1852 Martin Burton built the first flouring mill in Russiaville. At first it was a water power mill, but in a few years was changed to a steam mill. In 1870 it was destroyed by fire, but was rebuilt and has been improved until it is up-to-date and a good industry.
The first gristmill in Harrison township was built by James Brooks just south of Alto in 1848. It was a small corn-cracker and wheat mill. A part of the old frame is still standing and a por- tion of the millrace is yet in existence. In 1850 Samuel Stratton erected a gristmill in connection with his sawmill on Little Wild Cat northwest of the site of West Middleton.
THE WEST MIDDLETON STEAM FLOURING MILL.
Early in 1882 Samuel and Joseph Stratton and Amos C. and John Ratcliff formed a company and began the erection of a steam
211
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
flouring mill at West Middleton. It is a brick building, built upon a heavy stone foundation. The body of the building is thirty-six by forty-eight feet and is four stories high. It is provided with a very complete outfit for handling and cleaning wheat and making flour and cornmeal. The original cost was ten thousand dollars, and it had a capacity for seveny-five barrels per day.
The first mill in Taylor township was a handmill for grinding corn and was built and owned by Nathan C. Beals, who lived about one mile northeast of the site of Fairfield. This mill he made out of two boulders taken from his farm in Section 20. The lower stone was fixed, and the upper stone was revolved on a pivot inserted in the lower stone. There was a wooden pin or post inserted in the outer edge of the upper stone, by which it was turned. The meal- hoop was made of the inside bark of a shell-bark hickory tree and sewed together with leather wood bark. The mill was fed by a boy, who threw in a few kernels at a time. It is said the grinding on this mill was rather tedious, and yet it served the milling pur- pose of the neighborhood.
The Fairfield Steam Flouring Mill was built in the year 1858 by Joseph Haskett. The building is a frame and is two and a half stories high. New machinery has been added from time to time. keeping it fully up-to-date in milling processes. It has a good repu- tation and does good work. It has a capacity of one hundred bar- rels of flour per day of twenty-four hours.
Reuben Hawkins, of Union township, built the first mill in the eastern part of the county. He settled on Lilly creek, about a mile northeast of Jerome, in 1844, and soon after built his mill. He manufactured the buhrs for the mill out of two large boulders near the mill site. The mill was operated by water power and ground very slowly, but made a very fair article of meal. Hawkins attached a turning lathe and, being an expert workman in wood,
212
MORROW'S HISTORY
soon had all the work he could do, making tables, stands, chairs and various other articles of furniture, which he sold to the settlers of the adjacent country.
James Lancaster also had a small mill on Lilly creek just north- west of Jerome, which was a rude affair, operated by hand with some help from the water of the creek. The proprietor took half of the grain for toll.
In 1847 the Brown brothers erected a water mill on Big Wild Cat, just south of Jerome. It was a combination mill ; that is, it did both grinding and sawing and was thus operated until 1860, when it was torn down and the machinery used in the construction of a new mill on the same location. It has a grinding capacity of one hundred bushels of grain a day.
Moses Jones, of West Liberty, erected a large water mill just northeast of the village in 1849. This was a large three-story building with two runs of buhrs and a saw attached. It was an' excellent water mill and was operated until 1862, when it was com- pletely destroyed by fire.
In the year 1875 William Jessup moved a steam flouring mill from Kokomo to West Liberty. It has since been remodeled and improved so that it is a modern, well-equipped mill and regarded as a good acquisition for that community.
A COMBINATION MILL.
The first mill in Liberty township was erected by Luther Segraves and stood about one mile south of Greentown on Big Wild Cat. This was a combination mill, sawing lumber and grind- ing grain, as the customer desired. This mill did a good business and was in operation until about the year 1863.
William Lindley erected a sawmill in the southern part of the township, on Big Wild Cat, and, in 1850, sold it to a man by the
213
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
name of Dorman. Five years later Dorman built an addition to the original building, put in two runs of buhrs and added steam power and did a very good business. This was known as the Dor- man Mill.
The Greentown roller flouring mills were built and began busi- ness in 1889. They are thirty-two by forty-two feet in dimension, with all needed outbuildings, and are built of brick. They have a daily capacity of seventy barrels of flour. The proprietors of the mill deal in flour, meal, feed, and grain of all kinds.
In 1842 Joshua Barnett commenced a milldam across Wild Cat, in the southeast corner of Ervin township. He finished this dam in 1843 and built a sawmill with corn-cracker attachment in 1846. This mill was conveyed to Moses Cromwell, who converted it into a gristmill, and it became known as the Cromwell mill.
In 1847 Robert Coate built a combined saw and gristmill at Poplar Grove. So great was the demand for lumber from this mill he ran it day and night, weekday and Sunday.
WATER MILL FLOUR POPULAR.
William Grant built a gristmill on Big Wild Cat, near the pres- ent location of the Critchlow Brothers' slaughter pens, in 1847, and a little later he built a sawmill near the gristmill. These events were the cause of great rejoicing among the inhabitants of the young county seat, who were thus afforded opportunity of getting both breadstuff and building material almost right at home.
This mill was transferred to Moses Cromwell, who, leaving the mill at the boundary line, came and operated it by water power very successfully for several years.
Those water-power mills ground rather slowly, and as the mill- ers did not do an exchange business, but tolled each man's grist
214
MORROW'S HISTORY
and ground it for him, often compelling him to wait quite awhile for his "grinding," especially if there were others in ahead of him. The writer remembers as a boy taking grain to the mill to be ground, going as early in the day as he could, taking a lunch and fishing outfit and spending the day fishing in the millrace while the grist was being ground. It was an experience not altogether bad.
The good housewives of the elder day thought at least that the flour ground at the old-time water-power mills was better than the flour made at the steam mills.
The first steam flouring mill at Kokomo was the Leas mill, built nearly fifty years ago across the railroad and opposite the Lake Erie Elevator. Worley Leas was, for many years, the proprietor. In later years it was known as the Howard Flouring Mills. The last proprietors were Darnall & Dawson. Lately it has been discon- tinued.
The second mill was the Spring Mills, built at the southeast corner of Jefferson street and Indiana avenue, by George W. Hocker more than forty years since.
Its present proprietor is C. M. Barlow, who has had charge of it for fifteen or twenty years.
Mr. Barlow also does an extensive feed and grain business through the L. E. & W. and P., C. & St. L. elevators.
The third mill was erected in the fall of 1896 and is known as the Clover Leaf Mills, and is a twenty-five barrel daily mill. It is a modern roller merchant and gristmill. L. W. Smith is the pro- prietor.
HAS UNDERGONE A CHANGE.
The milling business has undergone a great change in the past sixty years.
Formerly the mills ground each man's grist separately and for the owner taking toll before grinding. That necessitated every cus-
215
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
tomer waiting at the mill for his grinding or else returning horne and going back another time for the flour and bran. Later they began an exchange business, weighing the grain and giving a given number of pounds of flour and bran for each bushel of wheat. At this time most men sell their grain and buy flour and feed as needed ; and the miller buys the grain, manufactures it into flour, meal and feed and sells it to the trade.
TANNERIES.
In the early history of the county there were numerous tan- neries. All the towns and villages and many country communities had its shoemaker or shoemakers. Almost every family did its shoe repairing.
Of the several tanneries it may be mentioned that just east of New London there was a good tannery ; that the Judkin brothers, of Alto, had a small tannery on the north bank of Little Wild Cat just north of Mt. Zion church, which they later on moved nearer their places of business at Alto, one of them being a shoemaker and the other a cabinet- maker. Barnhart Learner was then a resident of the township and a shoemaker also. It is said that Francis Galway was the first tanner at Jerome, starting a tannery in 1847. The enterprise proved very remunerative to the proprietor, who operated it successfully for twelve years. In 1859 it was purchased by John Willitts, who ran it for four years and was then allowed to go down. Joshua Galway started a tanyard at Vermont in the year 1850 and kept it up five or six years. It proved a paying venture.
Early residents of Kokomo remember that in very early times a tannery was commenced just west of the log jail. The exact date of the beginning and by whom started are forgotten. This much
216
MORROW'S HISTORY
is authentic history, that the Cains came into possession of it in 1867, forty-one years ago, and that of all the tanyards of the county it is the sole survivor. The Cains have operated it in connec- tion with their harness making business during all these inter- vening years.
TRAVELING SHOEMAKERS.
These early residents further say that in the early times there were traveling shoemakers, who went from house to house and made shoes and boots for the families, boarding and living with the family while making the family stock of boots and shoes. That was the protective principle in active operation : home-grown hides, home tanneries and home-made boots and shoes.
Those whose memory goes back half a century will recall that there were then many good-bearing apple orchards; that the fruit was of superior excellence; that the Vandever Pippin, Yellow Bell- flower, Maiden Blush, Golden Russet and Early Harvest varieties were the leading kinds; and as they recall these facts will wonder where those early orchards in a country so new came from, and will be interested in these notes. Charles Harmon and J. W. Heaton planted apple orchards at an early date. Harmon went to Williams' nursery, at Indianapolis, taking several days for the trip, and bought one hundred trees. Heaton bought forty trees of a tree peddler from Clinton county and set them out in a deadening from which the logs had not yet been removed. John Heaton planted the first nursery in Liberty township about two miles southwest of Green- town, near the site of Richville church, and many of the early orchards were started from this nursery.
THE FIRST NURSERY.
It is said that Joseph Brown, of Union township, had the first nursery in the county, starting it from stock brought from Rich-
217
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
mond in 1850. The first orchards in Union township were set out in 1846 by Jesse Lancaster and Charles P. Baldwin, on the Far- rington and Galway farms joining Jerome on the east. The trees were carried from Fairmount, in Grant county, on horseback. Lan- caster carried fifty-five trees and Baldwin thirty-five. They were tied in bundles, each having two bundles fastened togetlier, a bun- dle on each side of the horse and the tops reaching backwards. In this way they threaded their way through the forest along a wagon trace, and there was along that way a distance of ten miles with- out a house.
The pioneers of the county seemed to have been impressed that this was a good fruit country and they began early to plant orchards, and these citations are but a few examples of how the early settlers secured orchards. Within a few years there were nurseries in various parts of the county, enabling the farmers to secure nursery stock conveniently and at little cost. Howard county has never grown apples in such quantities as to have large quantities for export, but usually has had plenty for home consumption.
The county could become a good apple-growing district if enough interest and care should be given the industry. Her other products are sufficiently profitable to call attention from this busi- ness.
TRAPPING AND HUNTING.
Trapping and hunting may not be said to have been a regular industry of the county, but yet there have been a few trappers and hunters who were quite successful in this business in the early years of its settlement, and the great majority of the early settlers supple- mented their efforts to feed and clothe themselves and families by hunting. Of the early pioneers who engaged in trapping. "Uncle Jim" Brooks, of Harrison township, was probably chief. James, at
218
MORROW'S HISTORY
the age of twenty-seven, and his father left Hamilton county in the fall of 1838 and followed an Indian trail through to the reserve and camped with a party of land hunters south of the present site of New London. In a few days they built some bark wigwams on Little Honey creek and trapped during the winter. The products of their toil were the skins of seventy otter. During the summer of 1839 they caught one hundred and forty coons on Shaw's prairie. In the fall of 1840 they built some bark huts on the land afterwards owned my Foster, near Kokomo, and trapped above the town exten- sively. They caught a great many coons and wildcats. It being very cold, they frequently found coons frozen in the snow. One evening the father, returning from up the creek, found a frozen tur- key, but before he bot home dropped it near a button bush pond near where the courthouse now stands.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.