USA > Indiana > Wabash County > History of Wabash County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 24
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"The life of the teacher outside the school has very little to do with the success grade, yet teachers are expected to live honest lives and not allow social functions, theatres, ete., to interfere with their daily preparation and take up time which should belong to the school."
SCHEDULE OF SUCCESS ITEMS
A. Teaching Power, 45 per cent.
Many items enter into this, but the principal ones are preparation of lesson, skill in presentation, and results attained.
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B. Government, 35 per cent.
The teacher's power in government is shown in the general spirit of the school, and in the attitude the pupils take toward their daily tasks, toward each other and toward the school property.
C. General Characteristics, 20 per cent.
Under this head the personality of the teacher, his professional and community interest, and all those qualities that make for the best citizenship should be considered.
COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE
Indiana, and therefore Wabash County, has a compulsory school law, approved March 14, 1913. Its chief provisions are that :
All children must attend school until they have passed their four- teenth birthdays and until they have passed the fifth grade.
Pupils who have passed the fifth grade must attend school until they are sixteen unless they are employed.
Any one wishing to employ children between fourteen and sixteen must get an employment certificate of the local superintendent. This employment certificate is given to parents upon request.
This employment certificate is kept on file by the school officials and a card is given the employer on which to notify the local superintendent when the child leaves his employ.
Teachers will be furnished blanks on which they will report truants to the attendance officer.
The same law provides for Arbor Day on the third Friday of April, "for the purpose of encouraging the planting of shade and forest trees, shrubs and vines." Further "the exercises on Arbor Day shall give due honor to the conservers of forestry, and the founders of the study and. conservation of Indiana forestry, and especially to the leading spirit of Indiana forestry conservation, Charles Warren Fairbanks."
STATE FLOWER AND STATE SONG
In his last report Superintendent Devericks also conveys the infor- mation, which falls within the requirements of the school curriculum, that the Indiana Legislature adopted the carnation as the state flower, and "On the Banks of Wabash, Far Away" (words and music by Paul Dresser ) as the State song, by aets approved in March, 1913.
The state song, so dear to thousands, is reproduced : and it is not a disagreeable way by which to conclude this chapter :
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" 'Round my Indiana homestead wave the cornfields, In the distance loom the woodlands clear and cool, Often times my tho'ts revert to scenes of childhood, Where I first received my lessons-nature's school. But one thing there is missing in the picture, Without her face it seems so incomplete,
I long to see my mother in the doorway, As she stood there years ago, her boy to greet.
Chorus.
"Oh, the moonlight's fair tonight along the Wabash, From the fields there comes the breath of new-mown hay, Through the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming, On the banks of the Wabash, far away.
"Many years have passed since I strolled by the river, Arm in arm, with sweetheart Mary by my side, It was there I tried to tell her that I loved her, It was there I begged of her to be my bride. Long years have passed since I strolled thro' the churchyard. She's sleeping there, my angel, Mary dear, I loved her, but she thought I didn't mean it, Still I'd give my future were she only here."
CHAPTER XIV
MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION
FINE WATERWAYS OF WABASH COUNTY-THE OLD-TIME KEEL-BOAT -- INDIAN TRAILS UTILIZED-NEIGHBORHOOD AND TOWNSHIP ROADS- HIGHWAYS TO THE TREATY GROUNDS-FIRST PERMANENT PUBLIC ROAD -STATE ROAD (MARION TO ELKHART )-SHACKLEMAN DESCRIBES STATE-ROAD BUILDING-ERA OF PLANK ROADS-FIRST IN WABASHI COUNTY-PLANK ROAD BETWEEN LA GRO AND NORTH MANCHESTER- PLANKS CONNECT WABASH AND GRANT COUNTIES-LIBERTY MILLS AND HUNTINGTON JOINED-GOOD ROADS MOVEMENT ALWAYS WITH US- THE TURNPIKE ERA-CONNECTING LINK: WABASH & ERIE CANAL- GRAND SYSTEM OF INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS-SMALL PARTS OF THE SCHEME COMPLETED-AFTERMATH : WIDE DISTRESS AND REPUDIATION -LAND GRANTS IN AID OF THE CANAL-COLONEL BURR AND MAJOR FISHER APPEAR-FIRST CANAL CONTRACTS IN THE COUNTY-IRISII WAAR OF AUGUST, 1835-THE CHARGE AT THE FORD-DECLINE AND DEATH OF THE CANAL-FIRST RAILROAD (THIE WABASHI) IN 1856- THE VANDALIA ROUTE-THE BIG FOUR-UNION TRACTION COMPANY OF INDIANA-FORT WAYNE & NORTHERN INDIANA TRACTION SYSTEM- TELEGRAPHI LINES-THE FIRST TELEPHONE LINE-FIRST TELEPHONE COMPANIES.
.Nature has been good to man in manifold ways, and none of her gifts to him have been greater than that of free waterways by which he may penetrate forests, circumvent mountains, make discoveries of strange lands and communicate with his kindred, as well as cooperate with his associates in distant countries. In many ways this is Nature's first and greatest gift to man, although, compared to later and more developed means of transportation and communication, the primitive waterway coursed by primitive craft is crude and cumbersome.
FINE WATERWAYS OF WABASH COUNTY
The territory embraced in what is now Wabash County is extremely fortunate in the extent and distribution of its waterways. Through
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its central section flows the broad Wabash, the Eel River favors its northern portions, and the Mississinewa, the southern, with smaller streams making a fine network of all the intervening lands. With such prodigality of waterways, there has never been any excuse for man or beast becoming really lonesome or dry within the limits of Wabash County.
It was the Wabash, the great central waterway, which drew the French discoverers of the country into this interior country, and for a century the long boats of adventurers, priests and voyagers from both New France and old, plowed its waters. The Miamis and Pottawa- tomies, with their weaker kindred, also shared the noble waterway, sometimes peaceably in their small, light canoes; at other times in long war-boats, gaudy with blood-like trappings.
English and American traders eame next, and finally the settled populace. To the American pioneers the streams were surely a god- send. The tide toward Wabash County set in with some strength in 1835, and up to that year the land surface showed virtually no ways of travel except Indian trails and a few neighborhood roads cut through the woods.
THE OLD-TIME KEEL-BOAT
When it became necessary for the first settlers to start for the Lower Wabash for provisions, the outlook was not of the most cheer- ful. To go down with a team of oxen and bring home staple products from LaFayette or below, over almost bottomless roads at some seasons of the year, the journey usually consuming two weeks, was certainly not a bright prospect. Often these inconveniences of transportation were overcome by the use of the keel-boat.
The old-fashioned keel-boat, in such common use on the Wabash and other large streams in the county was from 40 to 50 feet long and from 8 to 12 feet wide. It had a flat bottom and broad keel, with wide gangways on either side, along which the poleman walked to keep the boat in motion, especially in going up-stream. The space between the gangways was usually covered to protect the cargo. There were from two to six polemen on a side, according to the weight of the cargo and the strength of the current. The polemen took their posi- tion at the forward end of the boat, with their backs to the bow, set their piked poles in the bottom of the stream, braced themselves, and as the boat moved forward they walked along the gangways in the opposite direction. Upon reaching the end of the gangway they drew their poles from the river bottom and returned to their first position,
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repeating until the voyage was finished. These boats frequently carried several tons of lading, and made good time.
INDIAN TRAILS UTILIZED
Before the government and township roads commenced to be sur- veyed, the old Indian trails, which usually kept pretty close to the course of the streams, were largely utilized by white travelers and the scattered settlers. The principal trail in the Wabash country was between Ke-ki-onga-a, the principal town of the Miamis at the juneture of the St. Mary's and the St. Joseph's rivers ( Fort Wayne) and O-sah's Village, at the mouth of the Mississinewa.
NEIGHBORHOOD AND TOWNSHIP ROADS
This leading Indian trail was generally used by the early settlers for single-horse or foot travel, but as settlers commenced to locate in neighborhoods they got together and agreed upon certain roads which would be to the mutual advantage and sociability. First, the proposed line of road would be "blazed out" along the tree trunks, and then ent out sufficiently so as to allow wagons and other vehicles to pass. Such avenues of communication were called "neighborhood roads."
Then, as the necessities of enlarged travel demanded roads of greater width and better construction, other and additional improve- ments were made, equal to the requirements of the times. Township roads were blazed, cut out and improved for the accommodations of neighborhoods extended over a larger area, along such routes as were best adapted to the wants of those resident therein. At first these roads were kept in repair by the mutually appropriated labor of the neighbors interested in keeping them in "passable condition."
At the later period the roads were kept in repair pursuant to regulations established by law, when the labor was distributed among all the male inhabitants of the district between the ages of twenty-one and fifty, who were able bodied. This labor was performed under the supervision of a man designated "supervisor of roads, " the time required being two days in each year, unless additional road duty was imposed- when the impassable condition of the roads made it obligatory. The regulations prescribed for opening and keeping in repair public roads and highways were especially strict in the details of their operation.
HIGHWAYS TO THE TREATY GROUNDS
The first publie roads constructed in Wabash County were those built under the direction of General Tipton, the Indian agent, for the Vol. 1-13
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transportation of goods to the treaty grounds at Wabash, in 1826. For this purpose, it is said that a fair roadway was cut out as far south as Anderson, Madison County. A second was from Huntington, to the northeast, to which point the goods were brought down the Wabash from Fort Wayne. These roads, however, were considered of a tem- porary nature, the usefulness of which would be largely exhausted with the passing of the treaty proceedings.
FIRST PERMANENT PUBLIC ROAD ,
Perhaps the first permanent public road was that built in 1828 from Logansport, along the Valley of the Wabash through what is. now Wabash County to Huntington. The territory through which it passed was then under the jurisdiction of Carroll County, and its board of commissioners ordered that it run along the Wabash, "by way of John McGregor's to Champion Helvy's, at the point where the Sal- amonie River enters the Wabash." Daniel Bell, Samuel MeClure and Samuel Taber were appointed the viewers of this forty-foot thorough- fare, and it was opened and improved as directed. Traces of this pioneer publie road remained for years after the railroads were no longer new, one of its sections plainly traceable being in the northern portion of the Fair Grounds, near the old Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad west of the City of Wabash.
STATE ROAD (MARION TO ELKHART)
The next important road put through Wabash County was the state road from Marion to Elkhart, a much-needed north and south high- way. The legislative acts providing for it were passed in 1832, and before the end of the following year a road twenty-five feet wide was cleared for travel. Samuel McClure, of Grant County, had been ap- pointed official viewer, but there is a dispute among local historians, which is rather immaterial, as to whether the McClures (father and son), or the Kellers, actually built the road. It is sufficient that it was well constructed, as roads went in those days, and proved itself useful.
SHACKLEMAN DESCRIBES STATE-ROAD BUILDING
In deseribing his journey through this country in 1836, Mr. Shackle- man says : "I will further say that a State road had also been recently surveyed, running from Marion through Wabash, and thence to the Chippewa Village on the Tippecanoe River. This road passed near the
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cabin of Mr. Grant, and from the site of the 'wolf trap' direct to Wabash, with some slight changes afterward made, down Treaty Creek, and is now known as Ashland Pike. From Wabash northwest, it still retains the name of the Chippewa Road.
"The next year (1837) another State road was surveyed from Marion to La Gro, and probably farther. After entering into the flat lands at the south line of Wabash County, the surveyor was directed to run a straight air line from a point in the county line to the mouth of the Salamonie River, which he did, and it was recorded on the sur- veyor's plat; but when the time came and the contracts were let and the work begun, it was found that the line of the road as surveyed ran at all points of the compass. It was so crooked that Judge Jesse D. Scott and Hon. William T. Ross volunteered their services, and after three of four days of hard labor in staking and blazing and straighten- ing the road, it assumed its present bearings and was afterward known as the Marion & La Gro Plank Road.
"It was afterward ascertained that a keg of whiskey coming into the hands of the surveying party near Josina Creek, had so affected the magnetic bearings of the compass as to render it ahnost useless the balance of the distance. The importance of this road to the neighbor- hood, passing as it did right by the doors of Elihu Garrison and Jesse D. Scott, was thought to be of sufficient consequence to justify these parties in laying ont a new town. Accordingly, on the 29th of Sep- tember, 1937, they surveyed the Town of America."
It is probable that these state roads, with the less-used treaty ground lines, were the only publie highways in Wabash County, when it was organized civilly in 1835.
ERA OF PLANK ROADS
It was chiefly through the township authorities that the roads of the county were extended, improved and maintained for the succeed- ing fifteen years, when the era of plank roads commenced. The move- ment spread from New York all over the western country. A general state law was passed by the Indiana Legislature authorizing the con- struction of such roads and providing for the formation of promoting companies, in January, 1849.
FIRST IN WABASH COUNTY
The initial movement in Wabash County was made by the Wabash & Eel River Plank Road Company, organized February 21, 1850, with
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a capital stock of $6,000. The proposed line commenced at the north end of Cass Street, City of Wabash, and extended in a northwesterly direction along the Rochester Road through the northern part of Noble Township into Paw Paw, to the Town of Roann-ten miles in all. Most of the line was completed, and it was much better than the average dirt road of those days.
Not long after the survey and location of this first plank road in Wabash County, the Wabash & Mount Vernon Plank Road was built from the City of Wabash directly south to Mount Vernon, Waltz Town- ship, a distance of 91/5 miles. It was used for several years and yielded a fair revenue to the owners of the capital stoek, supplying the means of easy transportation of farm products to the principal market in Wabash.
PLANK ROAD BETWEEN LA GRO AND NORTH MANCHESTER
A more important line was the La Gro & North Manchester Plank Road covering the twelve miles between these important points. In the early '50s, when it completed, La Gro was one of the busiest places on the Wabash & Erie Canal. It was recognized as a commercial center for the shipment of farm products and offered, through the agency of the plank road, more than ordinary facilities to North Manchester, Liberty Mills and vicinity for safe and convenient trade exchanges. This was a great improvement over the old dirt road between the two places. As stated years afterward by a North Manchester newspaper man: "It was a hard day's drive to take twenty bushels of wheat to La Gro; but the increasing demands of trade made better means of intercourse with commercial centers a prime necessity, and the con- sequence was a plank road built to La Gro, about the year 1850, which so facilitated the transportation of commercial products that one team could do the work of four under the old state of affairs."
PLANKS CONNECT WABASH AND GRANT COUNTIES
The La Gro, Marion & Jonesboro Plank Road was designed to con- neet these important trade centers of Wabash and Grant counties. It passed south through La Gro and Liberty townships, touching Ameri- ca on its way but running to the east of La Fontaine. The entire line to Jonesboro, in Grant County, was thirteen miles long, and, although not completed throughout, was sufficiently improved as to facilitate materially the exchange of farm products and merchandise.
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LIBERTY MILLS AND HUNTINGTON JOINED
Largely through the enterprise of Judge Comstock, a substantial plank road was built between Liberty Mills and Huntington in 1850-51. It was called the Huntington & Liberty Mills Plank Road and opened up quite a territory for the products of the Comstock mills-flour, saw, woolen, etc. The controlling company was capitalized at $25,000, most of the stock being taken in Huntington County. The road continued in successful operation for many years, and the major portion of its bed was finally appropriated by the Huntington & Liberty Mills Gravel Road Company.
GOOD ROADS MOVEMENT ALWAYS WITH US
But dirt ways, plank roads and gravel roads, all eventually gave way, in the main, to railroads, although many square miles of Wabash County still depend upon the last named for social intercourse and the support of the household. The automobile is also to be taken into account in these days. Hence, the Good Road Movement, which has remained a vital issue up to this very day.
THIE TURNPIKE ERA
The turnpike era may be said to have come in force during the early '70s, and the roads were generally built southward from the Wabash River to Somerset, La Fontaine, Dora, New Holland and Lin- colnville. Like the plank roads, tolls were charged upon them, the money thus received going to the construction and operating company as a return for the capital invested. Taxes were also assessed on the lands lying near the turnpikes to assist in paying the cost of con- struction. Aside from the very inadequate system of turnpikes in opera- tion within Wabash County, at this period, its principal avenues of transportation and communication were as follows: Wabash & Erie Canal, seventeen miles; Toledo, Wabash & Western Railroad, seventeen miles; Cincinnati, Wabash & Michigan Railroad, twenty-eight miles; Detroit, Eel River & Illinois Railroad, sixteen miles.
FIRST TURNPIKES, OR GRAVEL ROADS
The earlier pikes, or gravel roads constructed in the county were those built wholly or in part upon the right-of-way granted to the plank road companies of 1850 and later. Perhaps the first of these
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was the Wabash & Mount Vernon, which followed the old plank road, and at a somewhat later date were built the Wabash & Ashland, from the City of Wabash to La Fontaine, each about ten miles in length. The New Holland & Wabash was also an early turnpike, subjeet to tolls, as was the La Gro, Dora & Township Line Road along the margin of Salamonie River.
The pioneer turnpikes were constructed and operated under the legislative original act of March 6, 1865, which authorized the board of county commissioners to "organize turnpike companies when three- fifths of the persons representing the real estate within preseribed limits petition for the same, and levy a tax for its construction and pro- vide for the same to be free."
Other acts were passed within the succeeding decade, all of which were substantially repealed by that of 1875, and the measure approved March 24, 1879, with the foregoing, laid the foundation of the free turn- pike, or gravel road system now in force. Under its provisions, the board of county commissioners was constituted a board of turnpike direc- tors, directors, under whose management and control all the free turn- pikes in the county should be exclusively vested; the county was divided into three districts, as nearly equal in the number of miles of free turn- pikes and conveniently located as would be practicable. Each director had the personal supervision of one of such districts, subject to the rules of the board.
TOLL ROADS AND FREE TURNPIKES
Among the best known toll roads was the Wabash & La Gro Pike which traversed the eastern portion of Noble Township, not far from the route of the Wabash River, and through La Gro Township, to its ter- minus; Treaty Creek & Wa-ca-co-nah Pike, the greater portion of which was in Noble Township near the stream from which it takes its name, 'and Wabash & Mill Creek Pike, extending from Wabash in a south- easterly direction through Noble Township across Mill Creek.
In the early '80s, after the inauguration of the free turnpike system, road construction in Wabash County became quite active. The follow- ing are the turnpikes built during this period: Chippewa Free, Roann & Chippewa, Minnick, Mount, Laketon, Manchester, Mail Trace, Walnut Tree, Dora, Huntington & County Line, Hanging Rock and La Fontaine & Range Line.
CONNECTING LINKS WABASHI & ERIE CANAL
Before we fairly enter the era of modern transportation, how- ever, there is a most important connecting link to be supplied between
ToFon to
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the early and the late means of transportation, which have been so instrumental in developing the resources of the Wabash Valley and in contributing to the comfort and happiness of its people. For many years the Wabash & Erie Canal was the most prosperous artificial waterway west of New York, and continued in use for nearly twenty years after the first railroad entered the City of Wabash.
The Wabash & Erie Canal was but a small part of the great scheme of internal improvements projected by the Indiana legislators in 1836. It was an intricate and ingenious combination of waterways and rail- ways, but about fifty years ahead of the financial abilities of the commonwealth. Out of the collapsed scheme about the only part to emerge in fair form was the Wabash & Erie Canal.
That the reader may realize its relation to the general plan, as con- ceived by the Indiana Legislature, the following is presented from Smith's "History of Indiana": "In the year 1827 the Federal Gov- erment gave to Indiana a large grant of land to aid in the construction of a canal to connect Lake Erie with the Wabash River. To build such a canal would necessitate an entry into the borders of the State of Ohio, and a portion of the grant made by the General Government was surrendered to Ohio on the condition that she would construct the canal from the eastern boundary line of Indiana to the lake. This canal was to extend from the eastern State line to some point on the lower Wabash, where that stream might be navigable, or to Evansville, where the Ohio River might be reached.
"The State at once began work upon the eanal. It was commenced under the administration of Governor Noble. In 1832, thirty-two miles of this canal were placed under contract. Governor Noble addressed a communication to the governor of Ohio requesting him to call the attention of the legislature of that State to the subject of the extension of the canal from the Indiana line through the territory of Ohio to the lakes. The Ohio governor laid the matter before the legislature of his State, and resolutions were adopted by that body that if Ohio should ultimately decline to undertake the completion of the work in her borders, the land would be turned over to Indiana for the purpose of sale, that the work might be done under the supervision of Indiana.
"In 1834 Governor Noble, in urging the work of improvement, in one of his messages to the legislature said: 'With a view of engaging in the work of internal improvements the propriety of adopting a general plan or system having reference to the several portions of the State and the connection of one to the other, naturally suggests itself. No work should be commenced but such as would be of acknowledged
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public utility, and when complete, would form a branch of some general system.'
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