USA > Indiana > Madison County > History of Madison County, Indiana ; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 12
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From the organization of the township to 1840, a large number of new settlers came in. Among the best known, or those who afterward became prominently identified with township affairs, were Noah Way- mire, John and Daniel Dwiggins, Henry Plummer, James and William Montgomery, James Barrow, Caleb Canaday, Dr. W. H. Ebert, Ben- jamin and Hezekiah Denny, Edmund Johnson, James French, Jonathan Reeder, John Benefiel, James M. Dehority, Hezekiah and Sterling Kid- well, Arthur Legg, Joseph and Jonathan Miller, James Tharp, Davis Wilborn, Lindsey Blue, John Hardy, Jacob French, Frank Dennis, Robin Erwin and Jeremiah Derry. Several of these pioneers held posi- tions of trust and responsibility and some of their descendants still reside in the township.
About 1839 or 1840 a small corn mill was put up on the Big Branch,
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near the point where that stream is now crossed by the Pan Handle Railroad. It was not much of a mill and was called a "wet weather corn cracker," because it could run successfully only when there was a good stage of water in the ercek. However, it made a good quality of corn meal and saved the adjacent settlers many a weary journey through the woods and over almost impassable roads to the mills at Perkinsville and Anderson, whither they had gone before the mill on the Big Branch was erected. A saw-mill was established about the same time on Pipe creek, three miles above Frankton, by Joseph and Daniel Franklin.
Elijah Dwiggins opened the first store in the township in 1837, a short distance west of Frankton. His stock of goods consisted mainly of such staples as sugar, coffee, salt, calico, etc. Money was rare on the frontier and coonskins and other peltries were made to perform, to a large extent, the functions of currency.
The first school was taught by a Mr. Perry in 1836, in a house erected for the purpose on Jacob Sigler's farm, near the present town of Frankton. Other pioncer teachers were Hezekiah Denny, Tilghman Armfield, John Ring and Joseph Sigler. The last named taught for a number of years. In 1854 he was elected county auditor and held the office for eight years. In 1912 the fifteen brick school houses in the township were valued at $40,000 and the number of teachers employed was thirteen, two houses having no school on account of a consolida- tion of districts. The amount paid in teachers' salaries was $5,474. This does not include the schools in the corporations of Elwood and Frankton.
Sometime in the summer of 1836 a Methodist church was organized at the house of Reuben Kelly. This was probably the first religious society in the township. The Frankton Christian church was formed in 1839, a Methodist Protestant congregation was organized at Elwood about the close of the Civil war in 1865, and after the discovery of natural gas several new church organizations sprang into existence.
New Madison was the first village in Pipe Creek township. It was laid out by John Chamness on December 3, 1849, and was situated on Pipe creek, about two miles above Frankton. It was also called Cham- nesstown. About two years later James Hilldrup and a man named Sanders laid out a town called Monticello, about two miles northwest of Frankton. Mr. Hilldrup opened a store there, and at one time the town boasted, besides the store, a blacksmith shop, a school house and six or seven residences. Neither of these old towns is any longer on the map.
Elwood, the second largest city in Madison county, is situated in the northwest corner of this township, at the junction of the Pan Han- dle and the Lake Erie & Western railroads. Frankton, on the Pan Handle railroad, five miles southeast of Elwood, is an incorporated town of importance. In the chapter relating to Cities and Towns may be found the history of Elwood and Frankton, together with numerous events pertaining to those sections of the township.
Four and a half miles east of Elwood on the Lake Erie & Western Railroad, is the village of Dundec. The first settler here was Riley
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Etchison, who opened a store "in the woods" in the early '50s and like Elijah Dwiggins traded staples for coonskins, ginseng, etc. His store was not on any road, but the settlers found their way through the woods and the proprietor did a thriving business. When the railroad was built past his place in the '70s, the town of Dundee, like Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin, "just growed." At first the place was called "Mudsock," on account of the character of the soil, but on December 6, 1883, Mr. Etchison filed a plat of the village with the county recorder under the name of Dundee, which name had been given to the post- office established there on December 26, 1876, with A. S. Wood as the first postmaster.
RICHLAND TOWNSHIP
On March 4, 1834, the county commissioners issued the following order, as shown by the records of that date: "It is ordered by this board that there be a new township organized in the county of Madi- son, to be known by the name of Richland, to be bounded as follows, to wit: Beginning at the southeast corner of section 33, township 20, range 7 east; running thence east with the line dividing townships 19 and 20 north to the east line of said county; thence north with the county line to the northeast corner of township 21 and said line; thence west to the northeast corner of section 4, township 21 north, range 7 east; thence south to the place of beginning."
As thus established, Richland included all the present township bearing that name, all of Monroe except three square miles in the north- western part, the eastern half of Lafayette and a strip half a mile wide across the north end of Union. With the organization of Monroe and Lafayette townships in 1836 and a change in the north line of Union, Richland was reduced to its present area of twenty-eight and one half square miles. It is bounded on the north by Monroe township; on the east by Delaware county; on the south by the townships of Union and Anderson, and on the west by Lafayette. The name Richland was conferred on it because of the fertility of the soil. Killbuck creek enters the township near the northeast corner and flows a southwesterly direc- tion, crossing the southern boundary near the southwest corner. Just before leaving the township it received the waters of the Little Kill- buck creek, which flows southward through the western part.
When erected in March, 1834, the township was divided into three road districts and it was ordered that all elections be held at the house of Peter Ehrhart until otherwise directed by the board. At the first election Matthew Fenimore was chosen as the first justice of the peace, but soon afterward removed from the township and an election was ordered for the first Saturday in February, 1835, to select his suc- cessor.
About four years before the township was organized, or in 1830, William Curtis entered the east half of the southwest quarter of sec- tion 31, in the southwest corner, near the Killbuck creek and just west of the road now leading from Anderson to Alexandria. There he built the first log cabin ever erected for a white man's habitation in the
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township. In the fall of that year David Penisten located on section 30, directly north of Mr. Curtis. About that time the Shelbyville & Fort Wayne state road was laid out and passed through what is now Richland township. This had a tendency to encourage the settlement of territory, in which, up to that time, the Indian had held undisputed sway, and before the close of the year 1831 a number of pioneers had settled within convenient distance of the new road. Among them were John Shinkle, Joseph Brown, Isaac Jones, Adam Pence, Joseph Ben- nett, John Beal, William McClosky, Peter Keicher, J. R. Holston, Thomas Thornburg, Samuel Stephens, John Coburn, Jacob and Michael Bronnenberg, Jonathan Dillon, Christian Lower, John Hunt, Jesse Forkner, Randolph Chambers, Jacob Stover and Weems Heagy. John Parker's daughter, born in 1832, was the first white child born in the township.
In 1833 Matthew Fenimore built a saw-mill on the Killbuck creek, near the southwest corner of the township, and a little later William Curtis and James Barnes built a grist-mill near by, getting their water power from the same dam as Mr. Fenimore. After the saw-mill was abandoned Robert Adams, an Englishman, bought out Curtis & Barnes and in 1850 converted the grist-mill into a woolen factory. It was destroyed by fire in 1876.
About three miles farther up the creek, Benjamin Walker built a saw-mill soon after the settlement of that section began, and in 1840 added a carding machine. Near this mill John B. Purcell established a woolen factory, which he operated for a few years, when he sold out to Stephen Broadbent. After his death some years ago the factory was abandoned and the machinery sold piecemeal by the administrator of his estate. The old, dismantled building is still standing, but is rapidly falling to pieces. With the erection of steam mills, equipped with im- proved machinery, in various parts of the county, most of the old water power mills went out of business.
Three churches have been organized in Richland township-two of the Methodist and one of the Christian denomination. The Methodist church known as the Wesley Chapel is situated in the northwestern part, and the Asbury Methodist church is situated on the Killbuck creek in the southern part. A mile and a half east of this church is the Chambers Christian church, so called from some of the leading mem- bers of the congregation at the time it was organized in 1854. Near the Wesley Chapel, on the farm once owned by J. R. Holston, were the grounds of the Wesleyan Camp Meeting Association, where for many years camp meetings were held annually and were attended by people from all parts of the country.
The first school house was built in the fall of 1831, on what is known as the Harrison Canaday farm, near the southwest corner of the town- ship, and the first school was taught there by an Irishman, whose name appears to have been forgotten. John Treadway was one of the early teachers in this house. In 1912 the seven brick school houses of the township were valued at $20,000, and the seven teachers employed received in salaries the sum of $2,858.
Several villages have been projected at divers times in Richland
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township, but none has ever grown to any considerable proportions and most of them have entirely disappeared. The oldest of these villages was Moonville, which was laid out by Zimri Moon in 1835. It was located on section 15, about a mile and a half west of the county line and on the road later known as the Killbuck pike. During the period from 1838 to 1840, while the old Indiana Central canal was under construc- tion, Moonville did a thriving business. Among those engaged in various lines of activity there were Nathan Williams, James Trimble, Abraham Adamson, John Winslow, Samuel and Joseph Pence, James Swaar, Riley Moore, John C. Gustin and Dr. John W. Westerfield. The last named was the only resident physician. With the suspension of work on the canal Moonville began to decline and, as one old settler expresses it, finally died of "dry rot." The site it once occupied is now a farm.
About 1838 the village of Pittsborough was laid out by John Beal and others on the road leading from Anderson to Alexandria, near the western boundary, and about three miles south of the northwest corner of the township. Several lots were sold soon after the town was laid out. Among the purchasers were Nineveh Berry, William Coburn, James Carroll, Lewis Maynard, Isaac Snelson and Mrs. Martha Shinn. The records of the county commissioners' court for the March term in 1839 show that
"On petition presented and duly supported by a competent number of freeholders, it is ordered that Jeremiah Judd be allowed a license to vend groceries and liquors by the small in the town of Pittsborough, in said county, for the term of one year from date."
Local option had not been adopted anywhere, and almost every neighborhood had a place where liquors were sold, while small dis- tilleries were common. Although "Jerry" Judd's license entitled him to sell groceries, it is quite probable that most of his profits were derived from selling "liquors by the small." Pittsborough was a canal town and old settlers used to tell of the fights that occurred there among the men employed on the canal, especially upon or immediately after pay day, when they could get the inspiration for a fight at Judd's "tavern." Besides Judd's establishment, there were several stores and residences, most of them log structures common to that period. When the canal was abandoned most of the inhabitants "moved on" and Pittsborough ceased to exist.
Another canal town was Mount Pleasant, which was laid out in 1839 on section 32, near the southern border of the township, on land belong- ing to Joshua Shinkle. John Thornburg bought a lot and built a dwell- ing house, the only one ever erected in the town. Work on the canal was suspended about the time the village was laid out and Mount Pleasant was short-lived. No trace of it remains to tell the story of its existence or the ambitions of its founders.
Prosperity, situated in the southwest corner of section 18, on the Anderson & Alexandria pike, was founded by John Beal and Hiram Louder, who opened the first store there about the time the canal was being built. A postoffice was established soon after and for a time the village flourished, a fact which is probably responsible for the name. When the turnpike was built in 1858, a toll gate was placed
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at Prosperity. The death of the canal was a severe blow to the village, the discontinuance of the postoffice added to the decline, and with the inauguration of the free gravel road system even the toll gate was abolished. Three or four houses remain to tell of the good times of the bygone days, when Prosperity was a bustling little place.
STONY CREEK TOWNSHIP
The first mention of this township to be found in the public records, is in the minutes of the commissioners' court for March, 1851, when Thomas McAllister was appointed assistant appraiser of real estate, "under a law of the legislature at the last session," to appraise the lands in district No. 1, consisting of the townships of Adams, Fall Creek, Green and Stony Creek.
It is one of the western tier and is bounded on the north by Jackson township; on the east by Anderson and Fall Creek; on the south by Fall Creek and Green, and on the west by the county of Hamilton. Its area is twenty-eight square miles and it takes its name from Stony creek, which flows a southwesterly course across the northwest corner. The southern part is watered by Sand creek and its small tributaries. This creek forms an outlet for a number of neighborhood ditches in that portion of the county. Originally the township was covered with a heavy forest growth, but the ax and the saw-mill have done their deadly work and but little valuable timber is left.
A portion of this township was once known as the "Dismal." It was a tract of land, several miles in extent, heavily timbered, with a dense growth of underbrush that gave it a dismal and forbidding appearance. Wild animals found a certain security in this wilderness and for many years the "Dismal" was a favorite hunting ground, not only for the pioneers, but there is also a tradition that the Indian tribes as far north as the Wabash river came here on hunting expeditions before the advent of the white man. Human skeletons and Indian relics found in this part of the county bear out the tradition. But the "Dismal" is no longer a place with which to frighten timid children. The dense forest has been cut away, the land drained, and where once the savage Indian pursued the wild beast are some of the most productive farms in the county.
The first white settlement in the township was made near the present village of Fishersburg, in 1823, when Thomas Busby, George Reddick, John Anderson, Benjamin Fisher, the Studleys and a few others settled along Stony creek in that locality. Benjamin Fisher was killed by the Indians while felling a tree near where the village of Strawtown, Hamilton county, now stands, and his widow afterward became the wife of Benoni Freel, who is credited with having built the first log cabin in what is now Jackson township.
Among those who settled in the township during the decade begin- ning with 1823, were Henry Shetterly and John Fisher, both from Ohio. The former came in 1828 and the latter in 1831. Other early settlers were James and Jesse Gwinn, W. A. Aldred, Peter Ellis, New- ton Webb, Isaac Milburn, Noah Huntzinger and Arbuckle Nelson.
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The Gwinns came about 1835 and settled on section 23, about two miles northeast of Fishersburg, where members of the family still live. They were from Virginia, where one of their ancestors settled in colonial times and took up a large tract of land. By some means this land passed out of the control of the Gwinn family and later was leased to a coal company. When rich deposits of coal were found, suit was filed to recover the land and after five years of litigation the case was decided in the summer of 1913 in favor of the Gwinn heirs, giving them pos- session of 440 acres of coal lands, valued at $50,000. The Gwinns of Stony Creek township shared in this good fortune.
The first death in the township was that of George Shetterly, about 1830, and the first marriage was between Samnel Shetterly and Jane Freel on July 8, 1834. She was a daughter of Benoni Freel, the pioneer, and the ceremony was performed by Ancil Beach, a deacon in the Methodist church.
The first road opened through the township was the one from Pen- dleton to Strawtown, which was laid out in 1832. In 1865 that portion between Pendleton and Fishersburg became a toll road known as the
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HARVESTING SCENE NEAR LAPEL
Pendleton & Fishersburg turnpike and remained thus until purchased by the county and made a free gravel road in 1888. There are now nearly fifty miles of public highway in the township, and one line of railroad (the Central Indiana), which crosses the eastern boundary about a mile south of the northeast corner and runs a southwesterly direction past Lapel, leaving the township about half a mile south of Fishersburg.
About 1835 a log school house, the first in the township, was built near Stony creek, a short distance southeast of Fishersburg. Three years later it passed into the hands of a man named Rogers, who con- verted it into a blacksmith shop, which it is claimed was the first in the township. With the introduction of the free school system, better buildings were erected for educational purposes, and in 1912 there were nine school houses, all of brick, valued at $12,000. The nine teachers employed in the public schools during the year 1912-13 received $4,324 in salaries.
Of the churches in Stony Creek township, the Methodists organized a society at Fishersburg about 1838, the Baptists formed a congrega-
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
tion there in 1843, the Forest Chapel Christian church, in the south- eastern part, was founded in 1860, and the Methodists, Friends and United Brethren have churches in Lapel.
Fishersburg, near the western boundary, and Lapel, about a mile southeast of Fishersburg, are the only towns of importance. The lat- ter is incorporated. Shortly after the completion of the Central Indiana railroad through the township a postoffice called Bruin was established at Graber's Station on March 6, 1878, with Marion Graber as post- master. A few days later another postoffice was established at John- son's Crossing, about one mile east of Graber's Station, with John J. Johnson as postmaster. Both these offices have since been discon- tinued and the people who once received mail there are now supplied by rural carrier.
UNION TOWNSHIP
Union is the smallest civil township in Madison county, though when created in 1830 it embraced a much larger territory than at present. The order for its erection was issued by the board of county commis- sioners on May 3, 1830, and in the records for that date it appears as follows:
"Ordered by the board that there a new township be laid off from Anderson township, beginning at the corner of section 23, township 19, range 8; thence north to the north corner of the county ;- thence west three miles to the northwest corner of section 4, township 22; thence south to the southwest corner of section 12, township 19, range 8; thence east to the place of beginning, to be known and designated by the name of Union."
The commissioners' clerk evidently made two mistakes in entering this order in the records. First, the northwest corner of section 4, township 22, is in Grant county, one mile north of the Madison county line. It is probable that the northwest corner of section 9 or the southwest cor- ner of section 4 was intended, as those two corners join on the county line just three miles west of the northeast corner of the county. Sec- ond, to run a line from that point south to the southwest corner of section 12, township 19, range 8, would be a geographical impossibility, for the reason that section 12 lies in Delaware county, the southwest corner of it being one mile east of Chesterfield and two miles due north of the starting point. Transposing the figures gives section 21, which was doubtless the one meant, the southwest corner of that section being exactly three miles west of the "place of beginning."
As at first organized, with the boundaries as above indicated, Union township was twenty-one miles long from north to south and three miles wide from east to west. The organization of Richland, Monroe and Van Buren absorbed all the northern part-in fact all of the town- ship except nine square miles of the southern end. Subsequently six square miles were added on the south, carrying the southern boundary down to the line separating townships 18 and 19, and the northern boundary was fixed at the middle of sections 33, 34 and 35 of township 20, giving Union its present area of nineteen and one-half square miles.
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It is bounded on the north by Richland township; on the east by Del- aware county ; on the south by Adams township, and on the west by the townships of Anderson and Richland.
In the original order for the organization of the township it was specified that the first election should be held on the second Saturday in June, 1830, at the house of Thomas Vananda, in the town of West Union (now Chesterfield), for one justice of the peace. At the August term the commissioners appointed William Bodle constable for the new township.
It is claimed by some that the township was named on account of its being situated opposite the point where the counties of Henry, Delaware and Madison form a "union," but in view of the great extent of territory included at the beginning, it is more than likely that the name was adopted out of regard for the Federal Union of states.
The White river enters the township from Delaware county about a mile and a half south of the northeast corner and flows westward for
AN EARLY DWELLING IN UNION TOWNSHIP
two miles, when it turns southward and crosses the western boundary a little south of the center. Its principal tributaries in Union are the Turkey creek from the north and Mill creek from the south, both of which empty into the river near Chesterfield. Sly Fork, an affluent of Fall creek, flows southward in the southeastern portion. The sur- face is generally level, except along the White river, where there are some bluffs and hills. On the south side of this stream in Union town- ship, half a mile east of the western border, are the celebrated mounds described in Chapter II.
When the first white men came to this part of the county they found the ground covered with a dense forest, consisting of black walnut, oak, hickory, ash, poplar, beech, and other varieties of trees, but most of the valuable timber has disappeared. The soil is fertile, much of it being a black, sandy loam with clay subsoil and well adapted to agricultural
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purposes. The county infirmary is in this township, about half a mile west of Chesterfield.
William Dilts, who came from Montgomery county, Ohio, in March, 1821, and settled on the east side of Mill creek, is credited with being the first white man to erect a cabin in what is now Union township. Here he dwelt for about three years, when, being without sufficient means to enter the land, the place he had selected for a home was en- tered from under him by Joshua Baxter. Mr. Dilts then went to Del- aware county, but in 1829 he returned and entered 160 acres just east of where he had first located. Upon this tract he built a double log house, which he opened as a hotel, the first in that part of the county. In 1835 he erected a brick house, the first of its kind in the township, near the log house. This building was also conducted as a hotel for many years.
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