USA > Indiana > LaPorte County > Michigan City > History of Michigan City, Indiana > Part 24
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were the sure foundations of the city, of which it might have been said, in Isaiah's words, "Thou art full of stirs, a tumultu- ous city, a joyous city."
The most modern improvement in use when Michigan City first came into be- ing was the friction match. Candles continued to furnish the artificial light for years later. Pictorial mementoes of the life of the place at that stage are not available, for the photograph was un- known and even the daguerreotype did not arrive until after 1840. It was as late as Sept. 4, 1850, that several Michi- gan City people went over to Chicago to see the first gas lighting. The period of twenty years prior to the introduction of railways passed gently and placidly by, with the daily news of marriages, births, deaths, fires, vessel arrivals, and such small gossip as the only items of local interest. Yet these twenty years, from 1833 to 1852, were full of variety not always obtainable in other cities; they had here the lake, which was the great highway between the new and the old ; the streets of the city were soon lined solidly with stores, warehouses, hotels and dwellings ; the people dressed well, quite differently in fact from the simple coon skin and home spun of the interior of the state ; many a day the inhabitants could find interest in watching the pro- cession of wagons loaded with grain for shipment, entering the city from as far south as the Wabash, or coming with grain from as far west as Joliet, to be ground into flour by the mills on Trail Creek. But they were more ambitious than most inhabitants of western towns, and in addition to the schools and churches vigorously started, they invited hither men who were leaders in all intel- lectual movements. One of the foremost of these was Daniel Webster, who in 1837 predicted the future of Michigan City, and such orators as Henry Ward
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Beecher and Wendell Phillips, such lit- erateurs as John G. Saxe and Bayard Taylor, were welcome and appreciated guests in the community. Information traveled slowly in those days, and public thought and opinion were dependent upon such sources, because the newspa- pers could not supply the larger knowl- edge possessed by such eminent men. There was no railway, no telegraph till 1847, and the mails came lumbering through the woods or across the prairies.
A large and interesting chapter might be written concerning the roads, stages and mails of the early days, did space permit. The occupation of Fort Dear- born in 1804 created the first necessity for regular communication through this region, the facilities prior to that time having been limited to such traders, missionaries or Indians as chanced to be traveling that way. With the arrival of the soldiers military lines were opened to Detroit and Fort Wayne, following the lake shore to Trail Creek, then by the trail to the old Sac trail, and by that to Detroit or diverging from it by the Dragoon trace to Fort Wayne. Soldiers and Indians were employed in the ser- vice. Chief Winamac was so engaged when he carried orders for the evacua- tion of Fort Dearborn just prior to the massacre in 1812. Private John Bemis was a regular military messenger after the re-occupation of the fort, chosen because of his strength, courage, sobriety and resourcefulness. These qualities and his experience led to his selection as a guide for Long's expedition in 1823, on which journey he camped the party at the mouth of Trail Creek. In 1832 at Fond du Lac, while serving as military guide, he slipped and fell while carrying a full keg of pork across a portage and spent a year in hospital at Fort Dear- born, after which he was discharged for disability. His trips were made on foot.
A little later the name of Louie, or French Louie, begins to appear in some of the writings. He was a regular mail- carrier eastward . from Fort Dearborn when the first settlers began to appear in LaPorte county, and he also traveled on foot and camped on Trail Creek. On one of his trips in the winter of 1831-2, made on snow-shoes, he came upon the frozen corpse of Mary Garroutte, who had perished with cold while returning to her home in Wills township after vis- iting a sick friend in St. Joseph county. The body was partially eaten by wolves when Louie found it and drove them away. Cotemporary with Louie was Victor, "a frizzly little Frenchman," who was also a foot-courier for several years and about 1833 undertook to drive a team for the new mail contractor ; not being accustomed to horses, and having a temperamental attraction toward the lady settlers who began to increase in numbers along his route, he failed in this employment and went west.
Bemis brought mail into Chicago from the east about once a month. In 1826 David McKee, a military blacksmith who had come to Fort Dearborn with Long's expedition, contracted to carry the army mail between that post and Fort Wayne and rode express until late in 1828, his route being by way of Trail Creek and Niles. He rode a pony and carried a mail pouch and camping outfit, depend- ing largely upon his rifle for subsistence. His young bride, Wealthy, a relative of Samuel Miller, sometimes accompanied him in fine weather. He had a camping place at Hoosier Slide. His trip took from ten to fourteen days.
In 1830 a weekly mail was established between Fort Wayne and South Bend. In 1831 there was yet no post road to Chicago and the mail was carried from Niles on horseback via Michigan City monthly; from Niles east there was a
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line of "mud-wagons" running every three weeks. In the following spring Mr. Savary of White Pigeon put on a daily line of post coaches between Niles and Tecumseh and a weekly service to Chicago was undertaken. In that year there were two mail routes opened in LaPorte county-No. 46, Niles to Chi- cago, 90 miles, weekly on horseback ; and No. 1462, Detroit to Chicago, 195 miles, three weekly four-horse stages. Bad roads prevented the successful con- (luct of the latter ; the former cost $9,369 for the year. In 1833, March, a weekly line of stages between Detroit and Chi- cago was put in operation, going on the hard sand beach west of Michigan City. The advertised time for the trip was five days. At that time the government road from Detroit to the Indian state line, by the Sac trail, was being improved and the Michigan Road was open, but the journey occupied six or even seven days more often than five.
The postal receipts at Michigan City up to March 31, 1834, amounted to $II.33, the office having been open but a few weeks with Samuel Miller as post- master. He secured a weekly horseback service to LaPorte that spring and a separate service to Twenty-mile Prairie. A direct stage line to South Bend was also begun. Citizens of Chicago and Michigan City petitioned the Postmaster General for better postal facilities and more frequent mails. In this year French Louie was thrown out of a job by the abolishment of his pony express castward from Chicago and John S. Trowbridge took a contract to haul the mails to Michigan City and Niles in a wagon. Trowbridge was afterward mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas, where he died. Louie was a little, short, stocky fellow and toward the end of his ser- vice the mails got to weighing thirty to forty pounds, which tested his capacity
severely. He had to tie the bags on his pony and walk alongside, holding them in place. It was said that "the bags 011 the horse's back spread out like wings, making the pony look like some kind of a queer bird." Postage then was 25 cents on a letter, collected usually on delivery. In 1822 there was not a house on the road between Fort Wayne and Chicago, but in 1834 it was thought to be quite thickly settled. One writer has said that the beach road from Michigan City to Chicago was just splendid when it was all right and could be traveled in six hours, but it was just horrible when it was all wrong, in dry weather, and took six days. Among the passengers from Detroit to Michigan City one day in 1834 were Lemuel Fitch and his young bride, parents of L. S. Fitch of Oakwood. In the season of 1835 Chica- go and Michigan City had an eastern mail every other day by light wagons. In "Peck's Guide to Emigrants," 1835, the following passage occurs :
"Individuals who wish to travel through the interior of Indiana, etc., will find that the most convenient, sure, eco- nomical and independent mode is on horseback. Their expenses will be from 75 cents to $1.50 per day, and they can always consult their own convenience and pleasure as to times and places. Stage fare is usually six cents per mile, in the West.
* are 371/2 cents. * Meals, at stage-houses, * Emigrants and travelers will find it to their interest always to be a little skeptical relative to statements of stage, steam and canalboat agents, to make some allowance in their own calculations for delavs, difficulties and expenses, and above all, to feel per- fectly patient and in good humor with themselves, the officers, company, and the world, even if they do not move quite as rapid and fare quite as well as they desire."
The earliest advertisements of stage lines passing through Michigan City ap-
RESIDENCE OF JOHN H. BARKER
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peared in the Chicago American in Jan- uary, 1836, as follows :
"Mail coaches between Detroit and Chicago will leave the New York House, Chicago, for Detroit, every other day, commencing Monday, Jan. II, at 5 a. m. Persons wishing seats will apply to F. Tuttle, agent, or to Mr. Johnson at the New York House."
January 23 an opposition line was an- nounced :
"Winter arrangements from Chicago to Detroit in three and one-half days. Proprietors, D. G. Jones, J. W. Brown, W. E. Boardman, R. A. Forsyth, O. Saltmarsh and S. Spafford."
August 20 Tuttle advertised the re- moval of the stage office to Dearborn street one door north of the Tremont House, with daily departures and arriv- als of comfortable stages.
One of the regular drivers on the mail route between Detroit and in Chicago in the early days was James Adams, who in January, 1837, made the record trip by horse power over that 284-mile road. As an incident of the Patriots' War in Canada he was sent to Chicago after sol- diers for the defense of Detroit. Gov- ernor Mason arranged for the vehicle, a good sleigh, and General Brady loaned the messenger a pair of good fur gloves. He left at 4 p. m. under instructions to push through in twenty-four hours if possible, regardless of horseflesh. The relays were ten to fifteen miles apart an:1 at each one he took the best horse in the stable and dashed on without delay for food or water. At 4 p. m. the next day he changed horses at Michigan City and flew down the Chicago road leaving the citizens gaping and wondering why there should be such urgent public need of haste, and at 8 he reached Chicago, twen- ty-eight hours from the starting point. He delivered his message to Captain Jamison at the fort, who at once secured all the available vehicles in town and rushed the desired troops to Detroit over
the Michigan City road. Adams was afterward a prominent citizen of Lake county.
In this year, by a contract taken by John H. Bradley of LaPorte, a regular weekly service between Michigan City and Indianapolis by way of LaPorte, Plymouth, Chippeway and Logansport, was established. Mails were then run- ning daily between Indianapolis and South Bend, through Plymouth, and be - tween Michigan City and LaPorte. By connecting LaPorte with Plymouth it was hoped that a daily service would eventually be given on that route, which was ultimately brought about. Mr. Bradley sublet to Erastus Ingersol of Marshall county, for $350 a year, that part of his contract between LaPorte and Chippewa to commence May 9, 1837. The original contract is owned by the LaPorte County Historical society. Sprague & Teall, a Michigan City for- warding and merchandising firm of great prominence, purchased the Chicago- Michigan City division of the stage line and operated it successfully during sev- cral years.
For several months in 1840 the Indi- anapolis newspapers displayed in the quaint type of that period illustrated with cuts of index prizes and Concord coaches, the following advertisement :
U. S. MAIL,
For Loganport, LaPorte, Michigan City, Chicago, South Bend and Detroit,
Those lines are now in full operation, having been fitted up in a style that is not surpassed for speed and comfort by any line of stages in the West, with Troy coaches and good teams. Great care has been taken to select careful and
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experienced drivers. Every exertion will be made by the proprietors to make this line worthy of public patronage.
WINTER ARRANGEMENTS Time of Staging.
Leaves Indianapolis as usual on Mon- days, Wednesdays, and Fridays, imme- diately after the arrival of the Madison Mail-say 3 o'clock a. m. ; arrives at Lo- gansport next evening : third day reach Plymouth, and fourth day LaPorte, where they meet a daily stage (morning and evening) to Michigan City, which connects with daily lines from Chicago and Detroit.
During the winter this whole distance from Indianapolis to LaPorte will be run over in four days instead of three.
Office at Jordan's, Indianapolis. Office at Crumley's, Logansport.
T. SQUIER, ₹
For J. T. DOUGLASS & Co. January 3, 1840.
A glimpse of travel at this period is afforded by a letter written by Joseph Lomax to Wilbur F. Story and publish- ed in the LaPorte Herald, which the two gentlemen owned and edited. The Den- ocratic state convention of 1840 con- vened January 8 and Mr. Lomax was a delegate. In company with half a dozen political friends, W. W. Taylor of Mich- igan City being one of them, they left LaPorte in a sleigh "after that impor- tant hour vulgarly denominated dinner- time" on New Year's day. The weather and sleighing were fine. After sunset "we prowled our way into the village of Plymouth ;" at noon next day Rochester was reached and late at night Logans- port. Thence early the next morning they proceeded on foot, occasionally rid- ing on log sleds or market carts. At noon January 7, after a journey of a week, they arrived at the capital, having made better time than the stage.
By a new arrangement becoming
effective April 3, 1843, Michigan City received a service which gave three stages a week for Chicago and Detroit, the line being owned and managed by Miller & Co. In the advertisements at this time a favorite phrase was: "Good coaches, with steady, moral, and careful drivers and the best of horses."
John Elam, father of the present John W. Elam of Valparaiso, ran the stage line on one division between Michigan City and Logansport for several years in the fifties. Eason Wilcox, for many years an honored resident of Hebron. Porter county, drove the first stage be- tween Michigan City and Valparaiso direct at the same period, and Milo War- ner then operated lines between the two places by way of LaPorte. As the coun- try grew there came to be more and more profit in the mail contracts on the stage lines and competition in the bid- ding was fierce. In May, 1858, there were forty bids for single routes in northwestern Indiana. McCracken. Webb, Seaton & Co., had come into con- trol of many lines and on that date secur - ed a large number of contracts, one of which was for a daily service by hack between Michigan City and LaPorte for $297 a year.
When General James Wilkinson seut his scouts from where Lafayette is now into the Indian country in 1791, probably. the first white Americans to enter Ia- Porte county, they followed an Indian trail almost due north, crossing the Kan- kakee at the foot of English Lake, where there was a French trading post, and proceeding to Trail Creek, where they turned by the eastern trail to Niles. In May, 1810, the same route was followed by a messenger sent from Vincennes by Governor Harrison to treat with the Pot- tawattomies for friendship. In May. 1828, when Joe Truckee, the experienced half-breed guide, conducted the Michi-
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gan Road commissioners to the lake on their first expedition, he chose the same route, and the first preliminary survey they made for the road, started June 12, 1828, at the mouth of Trail Creek, fo !- lowed very closely upon that old trail, crossing the Kankakee at the foot of English Lake in the thirty-second mile from the starting-point. The field-notes mention "an old Indian trading estab- lished" at the crossing.
On pages 66 and 70 of this book it is stated that the route followed by the survey just mentioned was that of the old Yellow River trail to Logansport. That statement was made on the author- ity of previous writers but since it was put in print the present author has ex- amined the original field notes in the state auditor's office and finds that the facts are as here given. The first line run for the road was west of the line subsequently chosen in its entire dis- tance from the lake to Indianapolis. The original route was used after the Michi- gan Road commissioners abandoned it. General Joseph Orr and Peter White both moved their families into LaPorte county on that road in 1832 and the An- drew steam sawmill at LaPorte was brought that way the same year. The trading post was then still in operation and Michael Cadieux was the owner of it.
The Michigan Road, as has been al- ready stated, grew out of an Indian treaty of 1826. Prior to that, in 1821, the same tribes, in a treaty at Chicago, gave the government the right to make and use a road to Chicago from Detroit and Fort Wayne. This road through Michigan City was never improved by the govern- ment below the Indian state line, but it was in use as a foot path and to some extent for horses. Even as early Octo- ber, 1817, Samuel A. Storrow, judge ad- vocate general of the army, traversed it
on horseback, and there are records of several such journeys prior to 1830, though Mark Beaubien in 1826 and Jerry Church in 1830 said there was no road at Michigan City them.
It was recognized that highways were essential to development and as soon as the choice of a lake harbor to be im- proved had been made steps were taken to connect the spot with the interior by other lines than the Michigan Road, which was the first to be authorized and opened. The Western Gazetteer for 1817 had said of the Riviere du Chemin that it had forty miles of navigable water (for canoes), and that there was in use a portage of four miles connecting it with the Little Kennomic (Calumet), and this impression was a further inducement to get land communication to it. Thus it came about that before the county was erected or the Indian title to the land was extinguished the state legislature authorized the survey of a road from Lafayette to the mouth of Trail Creek and appointed Lismund Bayes of Lafay- ette as the commissioner. This was Feb- ruary 10, 1831, and the road as contem- plated was to cross the Kankakee at the lower end of English Lake and come north through Tassinong. But this route could be of slight convenience, being too far west of the settlements, so the county commissioners appropriated $400 to aid in the survey of a road to the south located on the Yellow River trail. An Indian ferry had been established at. the Kankakee on that trail a year or two earlier and this year John Dunn took the ferry and built a bridge in its place as soon as Andrew Burnside, acting for the county, laid out the road that way, which he did in May and June. The Black Hawk scare in May emphasized the mili- tary necessity for the immediate con- struction of highways and from that time forward the county commissioners
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were very busy in road matters, receiv- ing numerous petitions and appointing many viewers. January 1, 1833, Andrew Burnside was directed by the legislature to locate a road from Trail Creek to Yel- low River by way of LaPorte, which he accordingly did, and his map and field notes may be seen in the county audi- tor's office, together with his bill for $120.50. In the meantime the Lafayette road of 1831 was under way and it was desirable to give LaPorte and Michigan City a connection by means of that, so, March 4, 1833, a petition was filed with the county commissioners for a way to lead from about Door Village "to the forks of Trail Creek at the point where the Lafayette road crosses said creek." Viewers were appointed and on their re- port, May 20, the construction was or- dered.
Michigan City's busy year was 1834. The town grew rapidly, farm products came in beyond all expectation, lake traffic was heavy and the harbor and lighthouse questions were being pressed at Indianapolis and Washington. In January congress was asked to inquire into the expediency of making Michigan City a port of entry and a resolution to that effect, out of which nothing came, was adopted. The urgent need of more roads was readily apparent. On Febru- ary I the legislature empowered John M. Lemon and others to build a toll bridge across the Kankakee on the Yellow River state road where the Dunn bridge was and also appointed Elisha Neweil a commissioner to locate a state highway from Michigan City east and west par- allel with the lake shore to the north and west state boundaries. March 3 free- holders of both cities prayed for another road, to pass south of "Storey Lake," connecting Michigan City and LaPorte, and viewers were appointed, whose re- port was approved and the road was or-'
dered May 5. In April the lake shore state road was reported and in Septem- ber and November it was advanced through the legal requirements. Daniel McLeaming and Elisha Newell were the surveyors and Samuel Miller was ap- pointed to represent the county, his pay to be $100. At the November term Samuel Miller, Samuel Olinger and Nathan Johnson were designated as viewers of a road from Michigan City to Door Village.
February 6, 1836, the governor signed an act authorizing Samuel Miller, John McCormick, Benjamin Reynolds, A. W. Harrison, Herman Lawson, Randolph S. Ford, Samuel Grimes, John Taylor, Da- vid Burr and William Teale, most of whom lived in Michigan City, to bridge the Kankakee on the Lafayette state road and to charge toll. The next day another legislative act authorized a relo- cation of a part of the road to suit the purposes of the bridge. The structure built pursuant to this act was burned in 1840. Nathan Johnson, the founder and owner of Waterford, was appointed road supervisor for Michigan township in 1835, to succeed David Sprague, remov- ed, and his report for that year shows the names of 72 persons liable to road work at that time. He collected $71.50 and paid $16.00 for a plow.
The strong movement for railways be- gan at this time, along with the state's misguided plunge in internal improve- ments. The legislature memorialized congress for a grant of land for a rail- way from Muncietown and Fort Wayne to Michigan City, and granted a charter for the Frankfort, Delphi and Michigan Railroad and Turnpike Co., with Samuel Miller, Jeremiah Bartholomew and Hiram Todd as the Michigan City incor- porators, the road or pike to terminate at Michigan City. Congress, at the in- stance of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, ex-
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pressed January 28, 1835, had author- ized a survey to be made for a railway from Maumee Bay to the rapids of the Illinois, for building which it was pro- posed that a grant of five sections of land per mile be made. John B. Bailly, assistant civil engineer to the topograph- ical bureau, did the work in the summer and fall of 1835 and reported January 14, 1836. His line was from Toledo, via South Bend, Michigan City and the mouth of the Kankakee to the terminal. This was the projected road which was incorporated February 7, 1835, as the Buffalo and Mississippi railroad, de -- scribed in a former chapter. The report went very fully into a description of the country he passed through, including an extended scientific discussion of the origin and cause of sand dunes on the lake and a consideration of the agricul- tural conditions which must make Mich- igan City great. Of the city itself he said :
Lake Michigan will be the common highway of an immense country. It ap- peared manifest that the road would be more generally useful if it touched this lake. Michigan City being the only point on the southeast corner of the lake where a harbor can be constructed was neces- sarily the nearest point for the line to approach the lake. Michigan City has several hundred inhabitants in it and is increasing rapidly. It is supported by a rich country back, and from the fact of its being the only point on the lake, in Indiana , where a harbor can be construc- ted, it will necessarily be the depot of a great deal of business. *
* * Trail * Creek has cut a gap in the ridge [of sand hills] probably half a mile wide, afford- ing a good opening to the lake for the town. I might remark of the country back of the ridge, that it is for the most part oak openings; but on the flats of Trail Creek there are groves of as fine timber as is found anywhere along the line : white pine timber occurs here of an excellent quality, affording an abundant supply for building. Immediately back,
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