USA > Indiana > LaPorte County > Michigan City > History of Michigan City, Indiana > Part 12
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Michigan City.
The plat or plan for Michigan City was laid out by Isaac C Elston in Octo- ber 1832, is situated on the southern mar- gin of Lake Michigan at the mouth of Trail creek on the North West quarter, and West half of the North East quarter of Section No. 29, in Township No. 38 North of Range 4 West.
The lots are 821/2 feet front by 165 feet back, with the exception of those fronting on Front Street, and lots No. I and 4 in block No. 5 and fronting on Wabash Street, the former are 55 feet front by 145 feet back, the latter are 721/2 feet front by 165 ft. back-Michigan and Wabash Streets are each 100 ft. wide. Washington and Franklin Streets are each 821/2 feet wide Fourth Street is 75 feet wide and all the rest are 66 ft. wide-The alleys are 15 feet wide-The streets cross each other at right angles, and bear N 20 deg. W by N 70 deg. E magnetically or N 14 deg. W by N 76 deg. E astronomically-Wabash Street is extended to the Lake-
Scale of the plot 330 ft. to the inch. State of Indiana, LaPorte County, Sct.
Before me the undersigned Recorder in and for said County Personally Came Isaac C. Elston and acknowledged the within town plat to be his own free act and Deed for the uses and purposes therein contained and expressed.
George Thomas Recorder for LaPorte County.
Recorded 17th Sept. 1833.
An addition laid off north of front street one tier of Lots Numbered from one to sixteen, designated and known by water and front street lots, being seventy feet N. & S. and 55 feet East & West. with the variation of the original town platt Water Street is fifty feet wide. North of Water street is tier of Lots Bounded by water street on the south, and Trail Creek on the North Being 821/2 feet front on Water street and ex- tending the same width to stakes stand- ing at or near trail creek the lots are numbered from one to twelve inclusive contain different lengths by the mean- ders of the creek.
State of Indiana LaPorte County, ss.
Be it remembered that on the 8th day of May A. D. 1835. Before me the un- dersigned. Notary Public in and for said county of Laporte. Personally ap- peared Isaac C. Elston. and acknowledg- ed the within additional plat of the town of Michigan City to be his voluntary act and deed. Given under my hand and seal, this 8th day of Mav A. D. 1835. I. Sherwood N. Public (seal) . Market Street first South addition.
Recorded this IIth day of May A. D. 1835.
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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN CITY
On page six the plat is drawn in heavy lines south to Market street and in light- er lines below that street, the latter ap- parently denoting the additions. The streets as laid out do not vary from El- ston's original copy now in the hands of his son except that Wabash street swerves westward north from Front street, making room for a tier of lots be- tween it and the creek, whereas in the original the margin of the stream is the east line of Wabash street. The margin of the page bears the following inscrip- tion :-
Block number thirteen in Michigan City is set apart [illegible] blic ground. A strip of ground from Samuel Miller's Lot on the creek east to Water lot No. one & Water Street Lot No. one is set apart as public grounds & Landing. Lot seven in Block 12 is set apart as a Pub- lic School House Lot four Block 9 is set apart for the use of the methodist epis- copal church to build a church upon one acre of ground on the south east corner of Section 29 is donate to a public Buryal ground.
Isaac C. Elston, Proprietor of Michigan City.
The proprietor was not permitted to reach this point in his enterprise without interruption, for some objection was raised to the issuance of patents to en- trors at the Crawfordsville sales of lands in the "new purchase" in the fall of 1830, and the senate adopted a resolution in the January following attempting to clothe the president with power to withhold their patents. President Jackson replied February 3 in a special message ques- tioning the right of the president, even with such authorization, to take the ac- tion desired by the senate and holding that a purchaser for a fair and valuable consideration acquired a vested right in the land declared upon. This view ulti- mately prevailed but no patents were is- sued on the objectionable entries until years after. The shadow cast upon El-
ston's purchase was not dark enough to preclude him from proceeding with the sales of lots and in 1833 he was much occupied in that work. His procedure was to give purchasers contracts or bonds for the lots he sold and to make the deeds later at Crawfordsville, where his wife could join in them. She was not at Michigan City at any time during the sales, as far as is now known. The dates of the recorded deeds, therefore, do not inform us as to the order or dates of sales. It seems very probable that the major erected a cabin on the town site, in addition to the Miller cabin, in the autumn of 1832 to serve as his residence and office. Road Commissioner Polke's dwelling was on the Tippecanoe river and there is no indication that he ever had a cabin on Trail creek. In addition to the direct evidence of Judge Andrew that there was one and of Robert White that there were two log houses there in October, 1832, we have two items of further testimony bearing on the sub- ject. Abiezer Jessup and Moses S. Wright are the witnesses, who tell what they heard and have always understood from their acquaintance of those times. Mr. Jessup came to this county in 1830 at the age of nine years ; he says that at his first view of Michigan City it con- sisted of one cabin then in course of con- struction, and that was in the summer of 1832; Orr was encamped there then. Mr. Wright was brought to the vicinity of Pinhook in 1832 when but five years old and he says there were at that time two houses in Michigan City.
Taking all the evidence and the prob- abilities the truth seems to be that when the winter of 1832 closed in there, two rude log shacks on the site of the new town on the south bank of the creek at the bend near Hoosier Slide, were occupied by Miller and Orr, and that the only other lot Major Elston had then disposed of was the one given to
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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN CITY
General Orr. At the legislature that winter the Michigan road was again a prominent subject for consideration, an- other was the projected harbor and still another was the state boundary dispute, while several proposed roads and canals affecting Elston's interests on the lake were deliberated upon. In congress the harbor and one or two canal schemes were thought about and the disputed Crawfordsville sales titles came up. Two members of congress (Jonathan McCarty and John Carr) and several members of the legislature received Michigan City lots that year and one member of the leg- islature, Edward A. Hannegan, who next vear was the first congressman for whom Michigan City people voted, was among them. All of this illustrates the wide in- terest that was then felt in the practical- ly vacant plat that was expected to be- come the commercial port of the lake in Indiana, and which, as General Pack- ard has said, presented an aspect of "only sand hills and swamps." "Hoosier Slide," he continued, "towered up many feet higher than now, while below it and around about there was only glistening sand, and further back, across the creek that passed through the woods, and which was still the abode of wild beasts, a low, wet, swampy tract of country oc- cupied all the locality. It would have been discouraging enough only for the prospect that a city would one day arise there in spite of adverse circumstances, and a harbor that should be to Indiana what the harbor at Chicago is now to Illi- nois. Animated by this belief, settlers rapidly arrived, filled with the spirit of enterprise, and commenced the work of improvement."
Town life in Michigan City began in 1833 and during that year great progress was made. Major Elston was a shrewd and active promoter ; Samuel Miller, his agent, and John Egbert, his partner in a way, were effective assistants. The
county north of the ten-mile or Indian boundary line had been surveyed be- tween June 17, 1829, and April 4, 1830, and the Michigan road lands between September 18, 1831, and January 10, 1832, and the survey of the remainder of the county began March 9, 1833, and continued until January 20, 1835. Set- tlers were coming into the county rapidly to take up these lands thus made avail- able and a great many travelers were passing through, all of whom were fair prospects for solicitation to invest. Ma- jor Elston gave away some lots for promised improvements and he fostered commercial enterprise in the new town. In that period the law required store and tavern keepers to be licensed by the coun- ty commissioners, but it appears that this requirement was not rigidly adhered to for a number of such establishments were opened and not licensed until after they had been in operation some time. The first that was issued for Michigan City was authorized by the following en- try of September 2, 1833, in order book A, page 59, of the commissioners :---
"Ordered by the Board that a License issue to Elijah Casteel to keep a Grocery in Michigan City in Laporte County -- Rates Ten Dollars."
This is also the earliest mention of Michigan City in the commissioners' records. The store was on lot three of block four, opposite the Miller cabin. store and warehouse on the creek. Cas- teel came that year from Delaware coun- ty, where he was a pioneer settler, and remained only about two years, for in 1835 he set up a sawmill and a home where Chesterton is now. The next men- tion of the town before the commission- ers was two days later, on the fourth, when Michigan township, including what became Coolspring township March 9, 1836, was carved out of New Durham, the order for which concluded as fol- lows :-
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"Ordered that there be an election held in Michigan Township at the house of Joseph C. Orr in Michigan City for the purpose of electing a Justice of the Peace in said Township to be held on the Fourth Saturday of September A. D. 1833. Also the above named Joseph C. Orr is appointed Inspector of Elections in said Township until the next annual election for Township elections, the place described to hold the above election is where all Elections will be held for said Township."
Pursuant to the order an election took place September 28 and this return of the names of the twenty voters and of the result was made :-
"Elijah Casteel, Willis Hughes, James Laughlin, George Olinger, Joseph C. Orr, James Knaggs, I. C. Elston, Wm. Conant, J. Bartholomew, Amos Dyer, Squire Clark, Eliakim Ashton, Samuel Masterson, Peter Ritter, Silas Gregory, B. Sims, James Waddle, Gilbert Bald- win, Caleb Nichols, Samuel Olinger. Of these votes James M. Scott received eight, and Samuel Olinger, twelve. The election was held at the house of Joseph C. Orr, who was the Inspector; and James Laughlin and Willis Hughes were Judges."
At that time there were not to exceed three settlers in the township, as it then stood, outside of Michigan City, and they did not vote: so the list just given may be regarded as comprising all of the adult male inhabitants on that day with possibly two or three exceptions. Both candidates were prominent and both wanted the office, and an effort was put forth to secure a full vote. Samuel Miller was absent for some reason. The electoral test in those primitive days was not strictly according to statute-any one who remained long enough to pay his board by the week was a resident and when he bought a lot, entered business or got a job he was a permanent inhab- itant and qualified to vote, hold office and petition the powers. Concerning
most of these first citizens little is left in the records.
Quite a number of buildings were be- ing constructed in the town, several mills were under way on the Trail creek mill seats, and the north end of the Michigan road was receiving its finishing touches, all which, with some minor improve- ments, required the presence of mechan- ics and laborers, some of whom felt qual- ified to vote while others did not. Oth- er citizens arrived in that year too late for the election. The earliest skilled craftsman of whom we have knowledge was Thompson W. Francis, the first car- penter in the county to work regularly at the trade. Francis arrived March 16, 1833, and, as he afterwards said, "found there Samuel Miller and Joseph C. Orr." These were then the two inhabitants of the place and the new-comer made the third, for he became a permanent resi- dent. Orr, he said, recalling those early days in after life, "lived first in a log house which stood on the present [1876] site of Ames & Holliday's drug store, which he used for a sort of hotel, and where many a traveler found rest and refreshment, though the surroundings were somewhat rude." Mr. Francis was born near Lexington, Kentucky, in 1815. Later he lived near Cincinnati, whence, in the early part of 1832, he came to Michigan City, a lad of seventeen but, well-grown and independent. Finding no prospect of immediate employment there he went at once to LaPorte and after working there on some of the first buildings he went in the fall to St. Jo- seph and in the next spring to Michigan City, where he spent the remainder of his life and died April 17, 1880. He was a carpenter, builder, architect and contractor, and he constructed the first frame house, the first hotel, school and church, and many of the pioneer build- ings in the city. Young Francis was a man of strong and positive character, ac-
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tive and progressive, and he made his mark in those days when things were be- ginning here. His age explains his fail- ure to vote and do jury service at first, but as soon as he was qualified he dis- charged all the duties of citizenship. He was a whig and then an ardent repub- lican while he lived. As soon as he came of age he entered the nearest available government land, in section 22, and re- ceived deeds to lots that he had already acquired on the east side of Pine street at the corner of Fourth, two lots, and at
Michigan City at various jobs during six years and then married and settled down on a farm in Kankakee township, where he lived a long and active life. Henry Hageman lived near the town and was employed during that first season, after which he removed to Waverly, in Porter county, where he married a sister of W. H. Gossett, of Gossett's mills. There was a blacksmith shop in the town as early as October of this year, but the name of the proprietor seems to have been lost in oblivion.
FROM CLOCK TOWER-LOOKING WEST
the corner of Michigan, one half a lot. One of his three surviving sons, Harry H., founded the Despatch.
The first plasterer at Michigan City, and in the county, was George Seffens, who was also a boy of few years but much enterprise at that time. Another precocious youth of that year was Jesse Blake, born in 1814, who landed in Michigan City with his entire earthly possessions wrapped in a small pack and with fifty-five cents in his pocket after slowly working his way westward from his home in New York. He worked in
Gallatin Ashton, a native of New York, reached Michigan City in 1833, having just attained his majority, com- ing by invitation of the people to teach a school, the first in the place. This young man was the youngest of fourteen sons born in New York to Thomas Ashton, a sol- dier of the war of 1812, and he became a prominent business man of Michigan City. He left the vocation of teaching to embark in merchandising with his brother, Eliakim, after which he traveled extensively selling the Fair-
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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN CITY
bank scales. He died in 1864. In the same year of his arrival there came also Simon Ritter, of Cayuga county, New York, who bought land and lots and lived in the town to a great age. In his family was a daughter, Elizabeth, in whom Gallatin became so greatly inter- ested that he made her his wife. She died in 1852, having been the mother of nine children, of whom Lyman B. Ashton, a citizen of the present day, is one. The location of Gallatin Ashton's primitive school is not known to the writer. It has been noted that Major Elston donated for a Methodist church a lot on the west side of Pine street just south of Second. In this year he gave to Rev. James Armstrong for a home the west half of the lot at the southeast cor- ner of Pine and Michigan streets. Mr, Armstrong was the pioneer minister of his denomination to settle in the county and his home was at Door Village. He preached at Michigan City on severat occasions in 1833 and 1834, in which latter year he died, and it is not improb- able that the major sought by the gift to induce him to locate in the new town as a center for his very extensive mis- sionary district. Elston faithfully com- pleted the gift by deeding the half lot to Armstrong's heirs, but none of the family ever occupied it.
Many of the original inhabitants of the growing little hamlet were young and so far the only family to be mentioned is that of Joseph C. Orr. The fact that there was a school started in that year shows the presence of children. The third family to arrive, according to the report, was that of Samuel Flint, which came in October. In the family was a little daughter of five years who married W. F. Miller and lived many years in the city. Mr. Flint bought property and was one of the substantial people of the
place. In the same month came George R. Selkirk, but he was a farmer by occu- pation and soon bought land in what is now Coolspring township where he lived long and died. Another whose residence was of short duration was James Mosse. who came in 1833 or the next year from Canada and built a very modest little cabin on the creek bank where the Franklin street dock now is. He was a ship carpenter by trade. Leaving his little family in the cabin he went to Chi- cago in search of work, caught the chol- era there and died. His widow lived in Michigan City many years and his daughter Ella was a teacher in the city schools until she married Lyman B. Ash- ton.
It is now evident that the year 1833 was a prosperous one for the infant vil- lage and its proprietor. There is no means of knowing how many lots he sold each year, for many of them were disposed of on contracts, some of which were satisfied by deeds and others were abrogated for failure to pay. The deeds were executed as the terms were met, in some cases several years after the sale, and in some cases the contracts were as- signed by the original purchasers. One lot was conveyed in 1832, another in the next year, fifty-one in 1834 and twice that many in 1835. In 1836 Major El- ston closed out to a land company form- ed for the purpose, and that year he is- sued deeds for thirty lots, the next for twenty-five, and the next for nine. In 1839 he issued the final warranty deed, those executed by him afterwards being quit claims to perfect titles. Meantime. commencing in 1834, a very large busi- ness was done in the sale of Michigan City lots by others than the major ; the county recorder was never without an in- strument of conveyance for such prop- erty to transcribe.
CHAPTER NINE.
Growth of the Village.
Speaking of Michigan City the Indi- ana Gazetteer for 1833 said :-
"Several families have already set- tled there; improvements are rapidly. progressing ; and it is believed that the advantages of the situation, the salubri- ty of the climate, and the fertility of the adjoining lands must insure its rapid improvement. It affords the best Har- bour on the Lake within the bounds of the state."
In July Charles Butler was passing through to Chicago and he stopped over night at the Orr tavern, of which he said :-- "It was a small log house, with a single room, which answered the pur- pose of sitting-room, eating-room and sleeping-room. In this twelve persons lodged, in beds and on the floor, includ- ing, of course, the host and his wife." In October Charles Cleaver spent a night in one of the taverns, he did not say which, and he wrote :- "The buildings consisted of one small brick tavern, a frame one opposite, a blacksmith shop, and half a dozen houses, built in, on,
above and below the sand. *
*
It
then contained probably about fifty in- habitants." This is the only mention of a brick building then existing that the writer has found. Isaac Hoover came to the county in 1842 and says, in a bio- graphical sketch in the Daniels history, that there was not then a brick house in the county. Of course he meant dwelling houses, for the court house, two or three churches and several business buildings of brick were then to be found.
James V. Hopkins made brick near Springville in 1833. Samuel Flint had a brick yard close to Michigan City in 1834, and there is in existence a petition of citizens asking the county commis- sioners to provide the township with an- other justice of the peace in that year for the reason that 'Squire Flint, then a justice, intended to give his time to the manufacture of brick. Old bills pre- served in the auditor's office show that brick was used in the first county build- ing, before the brick court house was erected, and as the bills state that shin- gles and other material came from Lake Michigan it is fair to suppose that the brick did also. It is not impossible, therefore, that there was a brick tavern at Michigan City in 1833, but Robert White, who saw the place then, says there was not.
Samuel Flint's daughter, Mrs. W. F. Miller, said of the arrival of the family in October, 1833, when she was five years old, that "there was then but one frame building in the town, erected, it is said, by Samuel B. Webster; and Mr. Flint erected the second one for a dwel- ling house. The presence of Indians was no unusual event, but they were friendly, and Mrs. Miller remembers having often played with them as a child. The two or three dwelling houses were located in the woods, and sugar was made from the maple trees surrounding them. There were no streets yet opened, and only foot paths led from house to house." George R. Selkirk arrived at about the same
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time and he said :- "At this time there was only an old Indian trail connected Michigan City and LaPorte, but the Michigan road had been laid out, and the laborers were then at work upon it. Until this was completed there was no road into the city, and the only com- munication with the world was out over the waters of the lake, by means of the occasional arrival and departure of a vessel. Vessels of the ordinary size could not reach the wharf, but were obliged to anchor out in the lake at some distance, and land merchandise by means of lighters." Concerning the first frame house, referred to by Mrs. Miller, Sam- uel B. Webster said that he reached Michigan City, at the age of twenty-one, in 1833; that Major Elston proposed to give him a lot if he would build a house on it, and he accepted the offer and started the first frame house ever erect- ed in the place. Before it was complet- ed he received a liberal offer for it, and sold out and returned to his father, James Webster, in Pleasant township. The next spring he came back to Michi- gan City and went into business for him- self in a store, and the next year he ac- quired a farm in Kankakee township and moved there, where he passed the remainder of his life.
One of the material elements in Mich- igan City's success in the days of her incipiency, before the anticipations of harbor improvement were realized, was the capacity of Trail creek for furnish- ing motive power for machinery. A newspaper writer of that period said :- "The advantages which this place pos- sesses are manifold. Contiguous to us are the fertile and beautiful prairies with an adequate number of delightful groves as well as an endless variety of the finest forest timber, and all these interspersed with streams which afford mill seats ample in capacity and numbers for all purposes." The opportunity thus pre-
sented was seized upon as early as in 1833 and a complete history of the Trail creek mills would fill a large chapter ; they brought much business and many people to the little village at the mouth of the stream, where the dust from the mills floated out on the bosom of the lake.
These Trail creek enterprises contribu- ted greatly to the prosperity of Michigan City at the outset, as did some others along the Galien river farther away, and they helped to realize the expectation voiced in the Indiana Gazetteer for 1849, which said :- "In the northern portion of Indiana there is sufficient water power and inexhaustible beds of bog iron ore, so that whenever labor for agri- culture ceases to be in demand it will be employed in manufactures. Wheat is made into flour at home, and South Bend and Michigan City expect soon to rival Madison, which leads the state in manufacturing." "The alterations in la- bor conditions," remarks Rev. Daniels, "thus forecasted have not yet been such as to bring the bog iron ore forward con- spicuously, but Michigan City, under the impetus of her splendid manufac- tures, is more than twice as large as Madison." The Gazetteer cited count- ed thirteen flouring mills in the county in that year, "some of them merchant mills and among the best in the state."
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