USA > Indiana > Miami County > History of Miami County, Indiana : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 14
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As early as 1838 Rev. George Pope, a Baptist minister, visited the
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pioneer settlements in what is now Allen township and held services at the dwellings of some of the settlers. The following year another Baptist preacher by the name of Kendall visited this part of the county. About the same time Rev. William Williams, Methodist minister, began holding meetings at the home of Anderson Wilkinson, where the first regular religious society of that faith was organized in 1840. The Pleasant Hill Methodist church, about three and a half miles north- east of Macy, was organized at an early date. A Methodist church was established at Five Corners in 1860 and the Christian church at Macy was founded in 1868. (See Chapter XVII for a full account of the churches of the county.)
Much of the land in Allen township is of such a character that artificial drainage is necessary to bring it to a high state of cultivation. Prior to 1895 some twenty-two miles of ditch had been opened in the township at a cost of nearly $30,000. Since then several of the early ditches have been deepened and a number of new ones constructed. Among these are the Mill creek, or Taylor ditch, which begins near Macy and runs from there into Perry township and then to Mill creek in Fulton county. It is about twelve miles in length and its total cost, when completed, will be about $12,000. The Weaver & Davis ditch begins near Wagoner and runs into Fulton county; the Weesau ditch starts in Perry township, runs through part of Allen and then into Union; the Whitmore ditch begins near Birmingham and runs to Mud lake, and the Huffman ditch runs west from Macy. By the opening of these drains the land has been greatly improved in character and the crops of the Allen township farmers have been correspondingly in- creased in value. The township has only about seven miles of improved highway, but petitions are pending for the construction of nearly twenty miles of gravel road in January, 1914.
Macy, located a little southwest of the center of the township, is the principal town. Near the southern border is the little village of Bir- mingham, and in the northwest corner is the village of Wagoner. These three places are stations on the Lake Erie & Western Railroad, which traverses the township in a northwesterly direction and affords fairly good transportation facilities to the people of the township. The old village of Five Corners, near the western border, was once a prosper- ous trading center, but it has disappeared from the map.
BUTLER TOWNSHIP
Butler township is one of the eastern tier. It is bounded on the north by the Wabash river, which separates it from the townships of Erie and Peru; on the east by Wabash county ; on the south by Harri- Vol. I-8
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son township, and on the west by the township of Washington. The Mississinewa river enters the township near the middle of the eastern border and flows in a northwesterly direction to the Wabash river, and the southern part of the township is drained and watered by the Big Pipe creek and its tributaries. The area of the township is a little over thirty square miles.
Before the white man came to Miami county, the territory now com- prising Butler township was the favorite hunting grounds of the Miami Indians. When the treaty was made with representatives of the United States government, by which the Indians relinquished their title to the lands, several individual reservations were established within the pres-
SCENE ON THE MISSISSINEWA
ent limits of the township. Francis Godfroy's reservation, No. 9, occu- pied the triangle in the forks of the Mississinewa and the Wabash ; east of this was the reservation granted to the wife of Benjamin; along the eastern border, directly south of the Mississinewa, was the reserva- tion of Ozahshinquah and her sister, daughters of Frances Slocum; south of Godfroy's reservation was that of Osandiah; along the west- ern border of the township and just south of the Mississinewa was the reservation of Wappapincha, and immediately east of it was Tahkon- ong's reservation. All these lands are now in the possession of white men and have been brought to a high state of cultivation.
Some of the most picturesque and romantic scenery in Miami county is in Butler township. The "Pillared Rocks" and the "Cliffs" of the
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Mississinewa and the rugged bluffs along that stream are among the beauty spots of Indiana. In the southern part of the township the surface is generally level, with undulations here and there. The soil in this section is a black loam that yields abundant crops. Along the river bottoms the soil is fertile and some of the most productive corn- fields in the county are to be found in the Wabash and Mississinewa valleys in Butler township. .
Martin Wilhelm is credited with being the first white man to locate within the limits of the township. In 1839 he brought his family from Pennsylvania and entered a tract of land a little southeast of the village of Peoria. After living here for about a year, he sold his farm to Isaac Litzenberger and moved to another about two miles southwest of Pe- oria. Soon after the advent of Mr. Wilhelm came Benjamin Barnes, James and Thomas Clayton and Hugh Banks. Barnes settled a short distance west of where Peoria now stands, but afterward sold his land there to Frederick Wilds and established a new farm north of the Mis- sissinewa. Some years later, Barnes, his brother and two other men were drowned in the Wabash river while engaged in rafting logs. Thomas Clayton was a son-in-law of Benjamin Barnes and settled on a tract of land adjoining that entered by his father-in-law. He remained a resident of the township until his death, some years after the Civil war. James Clayton located a claim on the north bank of the Missis- sinewa, opposite the site of the village of Peoria, but did not live long enough to enjoy the full rewards of his labors in his new home, as he died about six years after coming to the township. Hugh Banks re- mained in Miami county but a short time, when he removed to Wabash county.
When the sale of canal lands was held at Peru on October 5, 1840, there was a flood of immigrants to the Wabash valley. Many of the newcomers were unable to purchase lands to their liking in the canal strip, but they entered government land and became residents of the county. Among those who settled in Butler township in this year were John and Isaac Litzenberger, James Beard, Moses Falk, Samuel Rob- ertson and the Hahns-Benjamin, John and David. As stated above, Isaac Litzenberger bought the farm of Martin Wilhelm, and John lo- cated upon the land where the village of Peoria was afterward laid out. Moses Falk established a trading house at that point and for a few years carried on a thriving business with the Indians.
In the summer of 1841 Joseph Votaw settled in the northeastern part of the township, on land that he had previously purchased. His first dwelling there has been described as "a hastily improvised structure, resembling in its make up, an Indian wigwam covered with a tent cloth,
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the construction of which required the united labors of himself and wife for about two or three hours." Mr. Votaw was an industrious man and soon had a cabin ready for his family. He opened a black- smith shop-the first in Butler township-soon after his arrival and carried on a successful business in that vocation for many years.
As early as 1836 Jonah Sullivan made a tour through the Miami country and selected a tract of land in section 3, near the Wabash county line and about a mile and half north of Peoria, as his Indiana home. In 1840 he purchased the tract and went back to his native state of Ohio, where he married the girl of his choice and the next year brought his young wife to the unbroken forest in the valley of the Mississinewa. His brother came with him as an assistant and when they arrived at their destination a number of Indians gathered to witness the unload- ing of the household goods from the wagon. The sight of these natives caused the young man considerable anxiety for the safety of the party, and as soon as a tent was pitched he hurried away in search of a civilized community, leaving Jonah and his wife to fight their battle alone. Mr. Sullivan's first work was to dig a well, after which he erected a hewed log house, a story and a half high, that for many years was pointed out as the best residence in that portion of the county.
Others who located in the township in 1841 were Isaac Deeter, Wil- liam Parks and Rev. Joseph Davis. The last named was a Baptist min- ister, who had visited Miami county at intervals for several years before he became a permanent resident. During the next decade a number of new settlers came into the township. Among them were Edmund Wright, Michael Bradley, Jacob Heffley, Adam Fansler, John David- son, Jonathan Johnson, William Cipher, Samuel Ramsey, Zachariah Wallick, Henry Watts, David and William Miller, Jeptha and James Long, Thomas Keyes, Joseph Werhle, John and Solomon Fegley, Thomas Timmons, Benjamin Wellick, John King and the Fenimores. By 1850 every part of the township was settled by a thrifty and indus- trious class of pioneers.
Shortly after the treaty of 1826, the government built a mill on the prairie east of Chief Godfroy's to grind corn for the Miamis according to the treaty provisions. About 1843 Isaac and John Litzenberger built a sawmill near the site of Peoria. A little later a run of corn buhrs was added, which had a daily capacity of about fifty bushels. Some two years later Matthew Fenimore built a sawmill near the present town of Santa Fe. In 1847 he built a grist mill near by and carried on a suc- cessful business until the mill was destroyed by fire about 1877. It was rebuilt, but its operations were confined to custom work. The Litzen- berger mill at Peoria was sold after a few years to Dr. John C. Helm,
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who developed it into a large flour mill. This mill was also destroyed by fire, but was rebuilt by Joseph Stewart, who bought the site. At various periods in the history of the township sawmills have been estab- lished at different places and the demands of commerce have practically consumed the valuable timber that once covered the greater part of the surface.
It is thought that Frank Litzenberger, a son of Isaac and Sarah Litzenberger, was the first white child born in Butler township. He was born in 1841, and the same year the first marriage in the township was solemnized, when Nancy White became the wife of James Wilhelm. Joel Davis, Joseph Votaw and Job Morris erected the first frame dwell- ings in the township and the first orchard was planted by Jonah Sulli- van, who obtained his trees from the nursery of Matthias Moyer, in Richland township. The first religious services were held at the home of James Beard by Rev. Mr. Beloit, a Methodist minister, in 1841.
Butler township was established as a separate political division on September 1, 1841, when the county commissioners fixed the following boundaries : "Commencing at a point where the north line of Town- ship 26 north, Range 5 east, intersects the line between Miami and Wabash counties; thence west on the line dividing Townships 26 and 27 north to the northwest corner of Township 26, Range 5; thence south with the said township line to the southwest corner of said Township 26, Range 5; thence east with the south line of said, township to the boundary line between Miami and Wabash counties; thence north with said boundary line to the place of beginning, being all of Township 26, Range 5, which lies in Miami county."
That portion of the township lying north of the northern line of Township 26 was at that time all included in the Indian reservations. After these reservations passed into the possession of white men they were added to Butler township and the northern boundary was ex- tended to the Wabash river.
The first school in Butler was taught in 1842, in a log house on the farm of one of the Longs, but the name of the first teacher has been lost. In 1843 a log schoolhouse was built near the Clayton cemetery, in the northeastern part of the township, and Jacob Elliott taught the first school here in the fall of that year. The following year Margaret Mackey, a native of Ohio and a woman of fine attainments, taught a term in this house. In 1913 there were ten brick schoolhouses in the township, 237 pupils were enrolled in the several districts and ten teachers were employed. The amount paid in teachers' salaries during the school year of 1912-13 was $3,843.75. This township is introducing the "consolidated school system," and at the close of the year 1913 a
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new building was being erected at a cost of $15,000 to accommodate the consolidated districts. With the completion of this building the school property of the township will be worth about $25,000.
The only railroad in the township is the Chesapeake & Ohio, which enters the township from the south, near the village of Santa Fe, and runs across the southwest corner. Santa Fe and Peoria are the only villages in the township.
CLAY TOWNSHIP
Clay is one of the four townships that form the southern tier. It was organized on March 3, 1846, and was named for Henry Clay, the eminent orator and statesman, of Kentucky. Its form is that of a rec- tangle, being four miles wide from east to west and six miles in length from north to south, and having an area of twenty-four square miles, or 15,360 acres. On the north it is bounded by Washington township; on the east by Harrison; on the south by Howard county, and on the west by the township of Deer Creek. Big Pipe creek flows across the northeast corner and through the center is Deer creek, which flows in a westerly direction across the township. The latter, with its tributaries, affords drainage and water for live stock for a large part of the town- ship and also serves as an outlet for numerous ditches and tile drains that have added materially to the cultivation of the soil. The surface is generally level, except along the streams, and the soil is a black loam that is unsurpassed for fertility when properly drained. Originally, the township was covered with a heavy growth of valuable timber, in- cluding black walnut, poplar, maple, ash, oak, beech and some other varieties of trees, but the clearing of farms and the manufacture of lumber have made such inroads upon the native forest that but little timber of value remains.
This township was one of the last in the county to be settled. In 1844 Henry Daggy located on Nigger creek, near the east line of the township, and he is credited with being the first white man to establish a permanent residence within its borders. A little later Otis Fish set- tled in the northern part of the township and lived there until about 1851, when he removed to one of the western states. In the spring of 1845 John Smith removed from one of the settlements on the Eel river and entered a tract of land near McGrawsville. Abel House, Andrew Woolpert, Eli Butler, Benjamin Fish (a brother of Otis), William Biggs, Caleb Adams and Nathaniel Bunn all located in the township in the . year 1845. Eli Butler achieved a wide reputation as a hunter and was considered one of the best marksmen with the rifle that ever lived in Miami county. William Biggs held the office of justice of the peace for
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more than thirty years and was one of the representative and influential citizens of Clay during the early years of its history.
Some time in the year 1846 Thomas Murden settled near the village of McGrawsville and in after years won a reputation as one of the suc- cessful teachers of the township. Others who located in Clay in that year and the year following were the Humrickhouses (father and son), John Hoover, Christian Livingood, John Roller, John Wilkinson, Cyrus Marquiss, Joseph Kessler, Thomas Kellison, Morris Littlejohn, John and James Tracy, Harrison Dixon, John Clymer, Riley Martin, Ben- jamin Webb, James Finney and Isaac Mooney.
After the land sale in 1847 nearly all the land in Clay township was taken up and cleared rapidly. Among those who came shortly after that sale were Isaac Harter, Samuel Livingood, William Wilkinson, Jacob Beaver, Moses Ward, Samuel Edwards, Matthew Bowen, David Arm- strong, Levi Clymer, William Hicks, Morgan Williams, Andrew Kerska- don, John Condo, Jacob and Hezekiah Crutt, Daniel Petty, Cornelius Platz, John James, Asel Griffey, Abner Pisel and James Shahan. Near the west line of the township Richard Webster entered a tract of land in 1848, where a little later he opened a brick yard and made the first brick in the township.
Among the early settlers was a man named William McClure, who is said to have been a man of fine social qualities but not very enterpris- ing. He lived chiefly by hunting and selling whisky surreptitiously to his neighbors and the few Indians that remained in that locality.
The first election in Clay township was held at the residence of John Wilkinson in April, 1846, only a few weeks after the erection of the township by the county commissioners. John Lucas served as inspector at that election, when John Hicks, Simeon Farlow and John Clymer were elected trustees; William Biggs, justice of the peace; and Samuel Wiley, constable.
Not long after the organization of the township sawmills were estab- lished by James Highland and a man named Hill. Highland's mill was located near the present village of Waupecong. About 1877 a large steam sawmill was brought into the township by the firm of Macy, Darby & Smith. This mill had a capacity of some 15,000 feet of lumber daily and did a successful business for several years. While the timber was plentiful a number of sawmills were operated in different parts of the township, but after the valuable trees were all manufactured into lumber the business was no longer profitable and nearly all the mills were either dismantled or removed to other localities. Probably the first grist mill was that connected with the sawmill of Yoder & Miller, near Waupecong, which was started about 1849. It could grind only
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
corn and Saturday was "grinding day." This mill was destroyed by fire about 1858 and in 1860 a stock company was organized at Waupe- cong for the purpose of erecting a flour mill at that point. The mill was built a year or two later and was operated with varying success for a few years, when the machinery was sold and taken away and the building was subsequently demolished. The manufacture of drain tile was an important industry until the farms were thoroughly drained, after which the business fell off to only a fraction of its former pro- portions. One of the first tile factories in Clay was that of William Rhein, in the northern part of the township. It was established in 1878 and a little later James L. Kling started a tile factory in the southern portion, where he did a successful business in that line for several years. In the early eighties A. J. Phelps began the manufacture of cheese in connection with his dairy farm.
Martha, daughter of Andrew and Naomi Woolpert, who was born in 1845, was the first white child born within the present limits of Clay township. The first marriage was that of Lewis Reese and Catherine Love, in the early fall of 1846. Later in the same year was solemnized the marriage of William Love and Jemima Smith. Henry Daggy, who was the first actual settler, died in the year 1845 and his death was probably the first in the township. The first religious services were held at the home of Henry Daggy, a little while before his death, and were conducted by Rev. J. R. Davis, a Methodist minister. An account of the various religious denominations in the township will be found in the chapter devoted to church history.
From the best sources of information available, it is learned that the first school was taught in 1843 by Elias Hobaugh, in a log school house on what was then known as the Hostetler farm. In 1850 a second school house was built on the Lewis Hoover farm, where the first teacher was Thomas Murden. In 1913 there were four brick and six frame school houses in Clay township, valued at $10,600. During the school year of 1912-13 there were 276 pupils enrolled and ten teachers were employed in the public schools, the amount paid in teachers' salaries having been $3,792.
The only railroad in the township is a line of the Pennsylvania system-usually called the Pan Handle-which crosses the northern part in a northwesterly direction. McGrawsville, on the line between Clay and Harrison townships, and Loree, about three miles west of McGrawsville, are stations on this road. The principal village in Clay is Waupecong, which is situated in the southern part, just a mile north of the Howard county line.
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DEER CREEK TOWNSHIP
This township occupies the southwest corner of the county and has an area of twenty-four square miles, being four miles in extent from east to west and six miles from north to south. It is bounded on the north by Pipe Creek township; on the east by Clay; on the south by Howard county, and on the west by the county of Cass. It was estab- lished, with its present boundaries and dimensions, by order of the county commissioners on September 1, 1847, and was named after the stream that flows a westerly course through the center of the township. Deer creek and South Deer creek, with their tributaries, afford a fairly good water supply and drainage system for the township, though the natural drainage has been supplemented by the construction of more than twenty miles of ditches and tile drains.
The soil in this part of the county is a black loam, of great depth and exceedingly fertile, and in no part of the county are larger crops of corn, wheat, oats and hay raised than in Deer Creek township. When the first white men came to this region they found a heavy growth of black walnut, hickory, oak, poplar, ash, maple and other varieties of valuable timber. Much of this was wantonly destroyed by the pioneers in opening their farms to cultivation, and it is no exaggeration to state that, in many instances, if this timber could be replaced at the present time it would be worth more than the land upon which it grew.
Deer Creek township lay in the heart of the "Big Reserve" of the Miami Indians and was not surveyed and opened to settlement as early as some other portions of the county. The land was not put upon the market until 1847, though a few adventurous white men had made set- tlements within the present limits of the township prior to that time. The earliest settlers of whom there is any authentic record were David Hoffman, Richard Miller and Thomas Pearson, who came about the year 1844. Hoffman settled near the northeast corner of the township; Miller about a mile west of the present village of Miami, and Pearson about a mile west of Miller. During the year 1845 several persons joined the three original pioneers. Among them were James McCrary, James Davis, David Armstrong, Jesse Julian, Joseph McConnell, D. C. Jenkins, James Adamson, Richard Webster, Austin Herrell and Wil- liam McConnell. David Armstrong and Richard Webster afterward removed to Clay township, and James McCrary remained but a short time.
In 1846 Oliver Sandifur, Isaac Herrell, Sylvester Tumlin, J. D. Lari- mer, Frazee and George Swinford, John Hicks, William Mahon, Allen Busby, William Swinford and a few others established homes in differ- ent parts of the township.
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Immediately after the lands were opened to settlement there was a tide of immigration to the southern part of Miami county and during the years of 1847 and 1848 about one hundred patents were granted by the government to tracts in Deer Creek township. Among those who entered lands in those two years were: John B. and B. F. Brown, Joseph A. Burr, Isaac Burroughs, John Beesly, Emery and William Daggett, John and Leonard Dixon, James Avelin, Oliver and James Jenness, Adolphus Runnells, James Adams, Lewis N. Snodderly, Wil- liam Marrow, Christopher Carter, Samuel and Thomas Martindale, John Hinchman, James S. Davenport, Nathan Piles, Zebedee Wright, Joseph Graves, John and Samuel Truax, George Pontius, Thomas A. Long, Thomas Woodrick, Jesse Gettinger, George Spray, Simeon Farlow, Arthur Compton, James Lewis, Archibald Chittick, Daniel Russell, James Fettis, John Keever, and most of those who had selected lands before they were opened for entry.
The first mill in the township was a small "corn cracker," which was built by Adolphus Runnells on Deer creek in the western part. Here the first election for township officers was held a few weeks after the township was erected by the county commissioners. D. C. Jenkins was chosen justice of the peace; Austin Herrell, Lewis Snodderly and Thomas Pearson, trustees; W. H. Miller, clerk; Daniel Ellis, treasurer.
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