History of Whitley County, Indiana, Part 14

Author: Kaler, Samuel P. 1n; Maring, R. H. (Richard H.), 1859-, jt. auth
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: [Indianapolis, Ind.] : B. F. Bowen & Co.
Number of Pages: 940

USA > Indiana > Whitley County > History of Whitley County, Indiana > Part 14

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

I remember fording the Maumee river ;

an Indian took mother across in a canoe, and father waded across by the side of the oxen, and had hard work to keep the lead cattle headed across the river when they came to the place where they had to swim. He was in water up to his arms, but man- aged to get across all riglit.

We were on the road about fourteen days and had lots of mud to contend with, as the roads were new and rough. When we landed at Columbia it was about sun- down. There were two taverns in the town at that time : taverns they were called then, and if anyone used the word hotel he would not be understood. A man by the name of Long had his building where Brand's drug store now is, but it was not yet ready for business. Jake Thompson's tavern was about where the Clugston block now is and there we stayed all night.

The next morning we pulled out to our claim, two miles west of town. Father had been there the year before and entered a quarter section where Dennis Walters 110W lives. I was eight and a half years old when we came, and can remember the In- dians were here, a part of two tribes, the Pottawattamies and the Miamis. I don't remember how long they stayed after we came here, but I think about two or three years. A man by the name of French took the contract to move them west of the Mis- sissippi river.

As much as I can remember about the town of Columbia is that what is now South Main street was full of chuck hoies with a good many beech and sugar maple stumps in the way. There was one store in the place. owned by John Rhodes. Mr. Rhodes worked at the carpenter trade and his wife kept the store. We used to pick roots, such:

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as seneca snake roots and ginseng, and The Miamis were in great glee over it, and wild berries and trade them for goods. In I remember two old braves being at our place one day who were pretty well tanked up, as the saying goes, and were telling how white men were going to hang Penimo. They would go through the motions of put- ting a rope around his neck and then would jump up and give a whoop. But when the bad Indian broke out, they did not jump so high ; they said that's the way the white men do, feedum, getumfat and letumgo. They said if they had him they would tor- ture him to death in a very cruel way. regard to the seneca snake root, I don't think any of the middle-aged people of the county know anything about it, as it disap- peared a few years after we came here. More about the town: A two-story frame building, west of the public square, where the engine house now stands, was the court- house, or was used for that purpose. It was moved down on East Van Buren street and the last I knew of it, a few years ago, it was used for a dwelling. There was a jail made of square hewn logs. An interesting incident took place in this old jail one evening. There were two Indian prisoners, John Turkey and Penimo. The latter concluded he had stayed there long enough, so he piled some stove wood against the wall and set it on fire, intending to burn a hole large enough to crawl out. When the fire began to make fair progress, Tur- key became alarmed and began to gobble for help, awakening the sheriff, Simcoke. He put irons on them, but a friend gave them a file and they took their cuffs off. One evening when the sheriff went in to give them their supper, they made a spring for the door and made good their escape.

This Penimo was a Pottawattamie and he had sworn vengeance on the Miamis, say- ing he would kill the whole tribe. He did start out and killed two or three and the Miamis got so they were afraid to go to sleep in their cabins. They called on the authorities for protection and said they would give four hundred dollars to have him captured. This reward caused him to leave the neighborhood, but it was not long till he was taken prisoner down at Winamac, brought back to Columbia and put in jail.

Now I will tell of an experience we had with Indians on our farm. My brother Eli, when about four or five years old, happened to fall into the hands of two young Indians about eighteen or nineteen. He had started to follow mother to a spring that we carried water from, about a half mile south of the house. She told him to go back, but he waited till she got out of sight, then started to follow and got lost. He came out on the road that ran across from the squaw-buck road to the Warsaw road where Levi Mosh- er lived. The boys were just drunk enough to not care what they did and when he saw them he hid in some weeds. They decided to have some fun with him, so they caught him and used various means to frighten him. Finally one of them held him while the other beat him on the head with a club. He has the scars yet and could show them if he were here, but he is in Pasadena, Cal. When mother came back from the spring she asked my sister and me where Eli was and we told her he followed her to the spring. My sisters and I started out to hunt for him, but we did not find him. Father and a neighbor were stacking marsh hay down on what we called the big marsh,

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where the great sink on the Pittsburg Rail- I will go back to the year 1852. That year road is now. The boys came along to where the wheat was good. My uncle, Henry Mowrey, had out forty acres on the Curtis farm south of Larwill, which is now Press Patterson's farm. He hauled it to Fort Wayne and got forty cents a bushel for it. father and Mr. Smith were at work and talked with them a little and offered them something to drink. They went south about eighty or 100 rods, where they found Eli. It was right about where the barn now stands on the Samuel Scott farm, west of town two miles. When the lad got up after they got through with him, he happened to take the road to where father and Mr. Smith were working. When father saw him bloody from head to foot, he said that those Indians had been handling the boy, and after picking him up and taking him home, took his rifle and hunting knife and started out after the Indians. He hunted for them until eleven o'clock that night, but did not find them, and it is well that he did not, for he would have killed them or they him.

In the morning the boy was quite well and father had cooled down, but he went after them and found them about five miles south of our place, on what is now the Chris Kourt farm, where they had a big dance or dum-dum. He went up to the one he was acquainted with and as soon as he began talking the boy broke down and was very penitent, laying all the trouble to bad whis- key. Father said he would forgive him, but his companion was very sullen and could not be made to apologize or say anything. The first fellow then made a proposition to settle the matter by giving father $10 and a new Indian blanket. My brother kept the blanket until a few years ago, but finally got to using it and it went to pieces. [ could give a good many details on these Indian narratives, but will cut them short.

I saw the account Mr. Liggett gave about the wheat crop forty years ago, and

There are quite a number of birds that used to be here that are gone out and we will hear their songs no more. The quails, too, will soon be gone, if the number of bird dogs and hunters increase. It is music to the ear now to hear one lone Bob White whistling, but makes one feel sad not to hear a reply. If I could have my way there would not be any bird dogs in the state at the end of three months. I often think when I hear boys talking about hunting and how many rabbits they killed. that they don't know anything about the turkeys, pheasants, black and gray and fox squirrels we used to kill when we were boys. We paid no atten- tion to rabbits, but of course they enjoy their sport now as much as we did in the old days. JOSEPH PLETCHER.

OLD SETTLER'S STORY.

Christian Creager, who came to Cleve- land township in 1836, tells of privations pioneers endured.

Told July 16, 1905.

Among the very few earliest settlers of the county, Christian H. Creager, of Cleve- land township, lives to tell something of the early days. Peter Creager with his wife and children, Adam, Christian H., Levi. Peter, John and Lydia, left Montgomery county, Ohio, October 26, 1836, and after nineteen days of travel and privation ar- rived in Whitley county, November 15. They brought along four horses besides the two teams they drove. Also five head of

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cattle, six hogs and three dogs with two wagons and one tent. There were no matches and all fires had to be started from striking a flash on a flint stone. Wolves were very plentiful everywhere. Christian Creager's story was told to the writer, as follows :

"We built a log cabin twenty-two feet square and moved from the tent and wagons into it on Christmas day. There were six families then, in all, in Cleveland township. We brought along a full supply of garden seeds, apple seeds and peach seeds. There are still some apple trees standing that grew from those seeds. We succeeded in preparing eight acres for crops the following spring. during which time we killed twenty-eight rattlesnakes. We were obliged to go almost to Marion to a water mill on the Mississine- wa river to get any bread stuffs but our larder was easily kept filled with deer, tur- keys, pheasants and other game. We could be a little choicy as to our kind of meat. Deer would graze with the cattle and so we had plenty of venison fresh and dried; the latter we called "jerk." The cows would drink leeches from the stagnant water and this caused "bloody murrain" and this caused us to lose twenty-eight head of cat- tle in a few years.

At the first election there were three votes polled. all Democrats and no struggle about electioneering or counting votes. In- dians were very plentiful and were always friendly with us and the other settlers and we traded with them a great deal. Once we went to Syracuse to Clawson's mill and the round trip took us ten days. On our return we met about 150 Indians and they stopped us and tried to hold conversation but we could not understand. We soon

came up to their camp fire which was still burning. While we were looking around my attention was drawn to some fresh chop- ping in a large ash log. I took my axe and pried off a large slab and there was a dead papoose. The night before we landed in the township for some reason the other Indians had killed a large male member of their tribe and buried him by digging a hole deep enough to stand him up and this way they buried him, leaving him with head and shoulders above the ground. They left with him his rifle, butcher knife, tomahawk and bottle of whiskey, and built around him a log pen. These things did not long remain with their late master, but the body remained until it decayed and the head fell off. Doctor Joseph Hayes, of Collamer, picked it up and kept it until he died. His son then gave it to a doctor at Pierceton.

The first white person who died in Cleve- land township was a man named Welch who was moving from Huntington to Goshen. He occupied a vacant cabin over night and took a severe case of colic and died suddenly. They made a rude coffin for him out of his wagon box and buried him directly in front of the house in South Whitley now owned by John Edwards. The first person buried in the Cleveland cemetery was Jesse Cleve- land and the first at South Whitley cemetery was Henry Parrett.

Wolves were very thick. Once father started me a little late in the afternoon to take some fresh pork to my brother-in-law, John Cunningham, about four miles from our house. There was a trail cut through and I had no trouble about finding the way but it got dark before I got there and the wolves smelling the fresh meat followed me in legions. I could see their eyes flash in

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the dark in the bushes all around me, but they did not attack me. I rode up to Cunningham's cabin and tied my horse to the corner and we hurried the meat into the house but the wolves followed and lowled around the house. We sent the three dogs out and they succeeded in driving them away for a short time, but the wolves turned on them and ran them back so fran- tically that the dogs came against the door with such violence that they broke the wood- eur latch and fell over each other rolling into the house. The wolves remained howling about the house the greater part of the night.

Wild turkey's and porcupines were very plentiful. I killed twenty-eight porcupines one season while hunting the cows and otherwise going about, without hunting them. Squirrels were so thick we had to kill them off to save our crops. I've shot eight off of one tree without going away. Once we had a squirrel hunt and a prize was given to the person who could kill the niost. Fred Pence killed 138 and took the prize. Nothing was saved of them but their hind quarters and from that day's hunt over three barrels were hauled to Fort Wayne, besides everybody had all they wanted to eat and many were wasted. One bear was killed in what is now South Whitley where the Maston & Burwell hardware store stands. It was shot by Joseph Parrett and when skinned the few settlers had all the bear meat they wanted to cat. It was a change from our regular diet and I thought it was the sweetest and best meat 1 ever ate.

The streams were fairly alive with fish and it was no trouble for any one to get all they wanted in a very short time. Streams that are now entirely dried up and plowed

over or are but small wet weather ditches then abounded with fish. There were many valuable fur animals, among which were ot- ter. I killed an otter and sold the hide for $8.50, a big sum of money for the times. Wild ducks and geese were more plentiful than tame ones now. Birds were so thick and sang so loudly about sunup that they drowned out the ring of the cow bell."

FORTY YEARS AGO-'65.

W. H. Liggett looks over files of the Post of that year and gets material for interesting article.

(Written June 20, 1905. by W. H. Liggett.)

I did not realize what a task I had set for myself when I undertook to write an article on events of forty years ago. Not because there is a lack of material to select from, but from the abundance, to select items for a short article, that would be of most interest to my readers.

What a short period of time forty years seems to the old people! What an eternity forty years seems to the young! Forty years ago Whitley county was woods. swamps, and mud-mostly mud-black sticky mud. The roads during the rainy season were something awful to travel. The forests in many parts of the county were almost untouched. The timber that stood on what are now fine farms, if stand- ing to-day would be worth more than the farms are worth with all the improvements of houses and barns, and beautiful fields. Farming, after the timber was cleared away, was no joke for several years afterward either.

Forty years ago about this time, June

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26th, the wheat crop was being eaten up on the stalk by the red milk weevil. What the weevil left was about all rotted in the stack by the excessive rains after harvest. This damaged and weevil eaten wheat, what was left of it, sold for $1.25 per bushel that fall. Flour sold in June, 1865, in Columbia City, for $7.50 per barrel. Shelled corn was worth eighty cents per bushel, ear corn was $1.00 per bushel. Oats were worth sixty cents, potatoes $1.25 and salt was worth $3.25 per barrel. On June 13th, gold was worth $1.4212.

In 1865 Alex Hall was revenue collector for this district. Everybody who, after de- ducting $600 and taxes and insurance, had an income above these deductions, paid five per cent income tax. A large number of farmers and others who had made more than a living were called upon by Mr. Hall and asked to donate something to the govern- ment in the way of income tax. The list published at the time (August 2d) contains some interesting reading, perhaps I will give the list later on. Almost all whose names were on that list are now dead. About the largest item on the list was opposite the name of a farmer in Cleveland township. The question that was most discussed by the papers forty years ago was negro equal- ity and negro suffrage. It was feared, it seems, that the negro would supersede the white man, marry all the pretty girls and run things generally. The expected didn't happen, of course, and I for one am glad it didn't. It surely would have mixed things up considerably if the white women had all married negroes and the white men been compelled to marry Chinese and Indians. Whitley county was represented in the legis-

lature by A. J. Douglas, who wrote very entertaining letters to the Post concerning the doings of the wise men who sat in the legislative halls with him. Many of the men who made history in our county were in the prime of life in 1865. I. B. McDonald and E. Zimmerman edited the Post.

I have not now at hand the name of the editor of the Republican, the organ of the Republican party in 1865.

The names of those who were the lead- ing citizens of the county at this time can be seen better perhaps by giving the pro- gram for the Fourth of July celebration in Columbia City. The celebration was held in Shinneman's grove. The program shows the following :

President of the day, Jolin S. Cotton: vice presidents, A. M. Trumbull and B. A. Cleveland; chaplains, Revs. Hutchison and Wells : orators, A. J. Douglas and . I. Y. Hooper : committee on toasts, James S Col- lins, E. Zimmerman and Simon H. Wunder- lich ; marshals, I. B. McDonald, Charles Ruch, William Y. Wells ; finance committee, F. H. Foust, William Walters, Alexander Hall, Mathias Slessman and Dr. C. C. Sutton.

At the June session of the county com- missioners there were five applications for license to sell whiskey, only one of which was granted. This reduced the number of saloons in Columbia City to five, two in Fiddler's Green, as across the river was then called, and three on this side of the river. It seems we are a more thirsty lot now in Columbia City than the people of forty years ago, as we have nine saloons, I think, where we can quench our thirst, and then there is Blue river also.

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The year of 1865 was full of memorable events. There was a call for 300,000 sol- diers early in the year. On April Ist, Sheri- dan won a victory at Five Forks ; April 3d. Richmond was occupied by the Union army ; April 6th, Sheridan routed Lee's forces; April 9th, Lee surrendered to Grant at Ap- pomattox : April 14th, Lincoln was assassi- nated by Booth; April 19th, Lincoln's funeral at Washington city; April 26th, General Johnston surrendered and about this date Jeff Davis was captured. In May, William Bowles and Horsey. who had been convicted of conspiracy by a military court, were sentenced to hang. The day fixed was May 19th. The order for their execution was signed by Gen. Alvin P. Hovey, who was several years after elected governor of the state. Alto- gether 1865 was a stirring year. The south was in ruins and the north was filled with the returning soldiers. There was much bitter feeling everywhere and Whitley county had its full share.

Forty years ago the charges of corrup- tion in "high places" were as fiercely made as they are today. Grant and Lincoln and Sherman and the United States senators were belittled and called all kinds of names, and if one believed the half that was said about these inen they were a bad lot.

Grant was shamefully abused while com- manding the army, but it was nothing com- pared to the abuse heaped upon him during his candidacy for President and after his election. It takes forty years before a man's greatness is recognized.

Every movement made by the govern- ment to reconstruct the southern states or punish the murderers of Union soldiers was

severely criticized. How the government succeeded at all with all the opposition and obstruction placed in its way, is beyond un- derstanding. The tariff, the money ques- tions, the rights of the south and a hun- dred other questions, big and little, kept the country in a state of unrest, that to one who lived through it all makes the disturb- ances in Russia at this time look like "thirty cents" in comparison.

Great Britain's illy-concealed hostility to the north during the war, now that the war was over, claimed a good deal of atten- tion during the closing months of 1865. All during the war of the Rebellion, England had permitted cruisers to be built and fitted out in her ship yards, to run the blockade and prey upon our commerce. France was not much behind England in her hostility to the north. The only friend in the old world we had at that gloomy period was Russia. We have as a people paid Russia back with interest for her friendship then, by turning our backs on her and openly sympathizing with Japan. All you have to do to make an enemy of a man is to befriend him when he is in trouble. Nations are like men in this respect. It is a wonderful thing what changes can take place in ten years.

In 1865 the army had been disbanded and the soldiers had come home. The bit- terness of the fearful strife was fresh in every one's mind. There were old scores and old grudges to settle, and a wound still smarting with pain had not time to heal. The epithets "negro lover." "copperhead." "black abolitionist." "traitor," and so on, were frecly used in the papers of both sides. which kept up for a time an ugly feeling all over the country. Ten years later, in 1875.

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these epithets were losing much of their force. The war spirit was dying out. The ill feeling only broke out during the cam- paign years. The war editors were replaced by younger men. The passions of the people were cooling off. The fires of hate had died out to a few embers and a good many ashes. These ashes were blown about a good deal during the campaign years and got into the

eyes and down the necks of the stump speak- ers, which caused them to rear up and paw the air.

There are so many things one could refer to which took place from 1865 to 1875 that it is hard to find a stopping place; but every- thing must come to an end and so must this article, and why not now ?

W. H. LIGGETT.

CANALS AND RAILROADS OF WHITLEY COUNTY.

BY S. P. KALER.

As these words are written, the people of Whitley county are much interested in the proposed building of two interurban railways through Columbia City and Whit- ley county. The one from Huntington to Columbia City, thence north-west through the county and on to Goshen. The other from Fort Wayne to Warsaw, paralleling the Pennsylvania railway and through the intervening towns. For the first named road subsidies have been voted. The peo- ple are skeptical and impatient of the de- lay. That they may know the vicissitudes through which other railroads and the canal were constructed across the county we have made this narrative unnecessarily full.

THE WABASH ERIE CANAL.

Long before the dawn of history, during the formative period of the earth's surface, that part of the world now lying between the headwaters of the Maumee at Fort Wayne and the Wabash valley to the south, through which a little less than three-quarters of a century ago the Wabash and Erie canal was

dug; it was occupied by a stream which carried the united waters of Maumee lake, St. Joseph and St. Mary's rivers into the Wabash river below Huntington. This prehistoric Wabash Erie river was thirty miles long, from one to six miles wide, cov- ering a part of Whitley county to the south- east and from sixty to one hundred feet deep. Little River is but a reminder of its powerful parent that was once comparable to the Niagara and Detroit rivers of to-day. There was Blue river, the large stream of this region. Eel river now, and for nearly three centuries, the most important of the two streams, was then a part of the valley with uncut channel.

In the earliest historic times, Fort Wayne was the gateway from the Great Lakes to the vast interior. From Erie, red and white men came down the Maumee to Fort Wayne, thence by a short land route either to the Wabash or to Eel river and away into the unknown.

Though George Washington never visited this region. his far-seeing vision was of an artificial waterway connecting Lake

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Erie with the Ohio river. Himself one of the foremost engineers of the day, he sought all possible information from explorers and others, believing that in the future such a canal would be ent either via the route finally selected or by the way of one of the more western streams, Blue river or Eel river, from Fort Wayne.

In the summer of 1824. in a little out kitchen to the residence of David Burr, in Fort Wayne, Judge Hanna mentioned to Burr his vision of such a canal. Strange, but the other had witnessed the same water- way in his day dreams. Then and there was the foundation laid broad and deep in two master minds. They then and there decided the canal must be excavated. The: consulted, they thought, they planned and overcame, but it was almost twenty years thereafter that their hopes were fully realized. They opened correspondence with the Indiana representatives and senators in congress and secured their favor, influence and co-operation. These efforts resulted in 1827 in a grant by congress to the state of Indiana of each alternate section of land for six miles on each side of the proposed line, through its whole length, in the con- struction of the canal. Strange indeed, but a powerful opposition to the acceptance of this grant by the state was organized in some parts, and Judge Hanna was elected to the legislature as the special champion of the canal policy. The contest was long and bitter, but resulted in the acceptance of the grant. A thousand dollars was appropriated to purchase the necessary engineering in- struments and procure the survey and lo- cation of the summit level. Judge Hanna On Washington's birthday. 1832, a pub- went to New York and purchased the in- lic meeting was called in Fort Wayne.

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History of Whitley County, Indiana, Part 14

Author: Kaler, Samuel P. 1n; Maring, R. H. (Richard H.), 1859-, jt. auth Publication date: 1907 Publisher: [Indianapolis, Ind.] : B. F. Bowen & Co. Number of Pages: 940

Author: Kaler, Samuel P. 1n; Maring, R. H. (Richard H.), 1859-, jt. auth
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: [Indianapolis, Ind.] : B. F. Bowen & Co.
Number of Pages: 940