USA > Indiana > Whitley County > History of Whitley County, Indiana > Part 24
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The law in relation to state roads was practically the same, except that where it was desired a state road should be located, which meant a road running through more than one county, a petition was filed with the state legislature and they appointed a com- missioner, usually more than one, to locate and lay out the same if he or they deemed it practical or advisable. If there occurred a vacancy in this board of viewers, the com- missioners of the county where the vacancy occurred, supplied the vacancy. The report
of such commissioner or board of commis- sioners must be filed and recorded in each county, and any objections or remonstrances were passed upon and adjudicated by the county commissioners in each county just as county roads were adjudicated.
There was also a township road law, applicable only to the counties of Carrol. Delaware, Clay, Madison, Warren, Clinton, Adams, Jay, Wells, Huntington, Whitley, Allen and Hancock.
It will be seen that while this law was good in Whitley, and in our neighbors to the south and east, it did not apply to Kos- ciusko on the west or Noble on the north.
There were then three township trustees and the township road law was as follows :
"That when any person or persons wish- ing to establish cartways, or any township road or to change a road in any of the town-
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ships, such person or persons, before any road can be thus established or changed, shall give notice of such application, at least twenty days preceding such application to the board of township trustees, by setting up advertisements in at least three of the most public places in the township in which such road is proposed to be located or changed, and shall also present to said board of trus- tees a petition signed by at least twelve householders of the neighborhood through which the same may run, setting forth their reasons for such location or change. And on receiving the petition the board, if they deem it expedient, shall proceed to examine the route thus proposed, and on the view and examination of the proposed road they shall, if they conceive that the public good require it, establish the same and make a record of the proceedings in the book in which the rec- ords of the township are kept, and when so recorded, shall be deemed a public highway and shall be opened and kept in repair as other roads and highways in the township are."
Thus county, state and township roads were worked alike, that is, by a regular township levy as at present and by requiring all male persons not exempt, between the ages of twenty-one and fifty years to work two days annually. The law regarding cart- ways was as follows:
"Any person for his convenience may have a cartway. not exceeding eighteen feet in breadth, laid out from or to any planta- tion, dwelling-house or public highway, on petitioning to the proper board (having ad- vertised his intentions as required by this act), which board shall cause the same to be publicly read, and if they think proper,
order a view of the same. Said cartway shall, at the discretion of said board, be re- corded and declared a common cartway for the use and convenience of the public, and shall be opened by the persons petitioning therefor. If the said cartway be laid out through any person's land objecting thereto, the damages shall be assessed as provided in case of objection to public roads and high- ways, which being paid by the persons ap- plying for such way, he may proceed to open the same agreeably to the order of said board. If the owner or owners of any land through which such cartway passes, be desirous of improving the same, he, she or they may be permitted to turn the same, on as good ground, not increasing the dis- tance more than one twentieth, on applica- tion to said board. Any person may be per- mitted by said board to hang swinging gates on said cartway, but shall keep the said gate or gates in good order and repair, under the penalty of one dollar for every offense, to be recovered before a justice of the peace of the proper county, by any person prose- cuting for the same, one moiety to the prose- cutor and the other toward keeping said way in repair."
It was provided that any person who shall be found horse-racing along or across any state, county or other public highway or bridge, or be found shooting at a mark along or across any such highway, shall. upon conviction before a justice of the peace, be fined in any sum not exceeding three dollars.
The statutes of 1843 did not in any ma- terial way make any change in the foregoing laws relating to state and county roads, but they styled what had been known as cart-
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ways, private roads, and ordered the record to be made in the county instead of the township. But one private road was ever located under this law and that was by Peter Haynes, in Thorncreek township, and the description is so indefinite that it could not be now located.
By a perusal of the foregoing, it will be seen that the law creating township roads was a special enactment, applying to only thirteen counties, among which was Whitley. The laws of 1843 repealed this township road law. The year following, that is, 18.44, four township roads were recorded in the commissioners' records of the county. There were cases began before the repeal of the township law, the proceedings being had before the township trustees and record then being made in the county as township roads.
Under the new constitution, the statutes of 1852 did not consider roads running in more than one county state roads, and did not provide for viewers appointed by the state legislature. It also slightly amended and changed the county road law and en- acted a new township road law operative all over the state.
In case of roads running in more than one county, it provided that if twenty-four or more freeholders of any county should petition for a road running in more than one county, the petition should first be filed in that county and the auditor should for- ward a copy to the auditor of each and every county through which said road was to pass, and these auditors must place this before the commissioners at their next session. If the commissioners of the county where filed found that the law had been complied with as to notice, etc., they shall appoint one com-
missioner and notify the other counties of the time and place to begin the work, and the commissioners of each county should appoint one commissioner or viewer. Substantially the same proceedings were then had as to laying off county roads, and when the road was established each county took care of its own part and each paid its share of the lo- cation expenses.
The changes in the law regarding roads in one county were only as to the manner of legal procedure and did not differ much from. the former law.
The township law provided that any per- son may have a highway laid out or a change of a highway in any township, on the peti- tion therefor of twelve freeholders residing in said township, six of whom must reside in the immediate neighborhood of such pro- posed highway or change. The petition must go to the three township trustees, and notice must have been given for twenty days by posting up notices at three or more public places in the vicinity. The trustees after passing on the sufficiency of the petition and notice, and finding them according to law, appointed three viewers, and did not view the road themselves as under the former law. These viewers must be disinterested residents of the township. The township clerk issned his precept to said viewers as the auditor in county roads and they must be notified by a constable, as viewers in county roads are notified by the sheriff. When said viewers made their report to the trustees, if a majority of the persons affected remonstrate, the petition must be dismissed ; but if only one person remonstrated a new set of viewers must be appointed.
The manner of adjudication was similar
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to the action by county boards, but any person aggrieved at the final adjudication might appeal to the county commissioners, when the case became a county one. This statute also provided that viewers should state the width of road, but in no case should a township road be less than twenty-five feet or a county road less than thirty feet. This statute also provided that if a road laid out should not be opened up and used within six years, it should cease to be a road, and that all public highways which had been or might hereafter be used as such, should be deemed highways. The changes in the laws since 1852 have not been fundamental, ex- cept that as township business became more and more simplified until but one trustee did all the township business ; the township road law was years ago repealed.
About the same provisions were incorpo- rated in the township road law of 1852 as were in the former one, as to swinging gates and penalty for not keeping them in proper order.
The Indiana Legislature in 1836 entered upon an extravagant era of internal im- provements under the caption of "An act for a general system of internal improve- ments," and authorized the governor to ap- prove a board of six persons to carry out the work. The White Water Canal. The Central Canal to commence at some point on the Wabash Erie Canal between Fort Wayne and Logansport and run to Muncie. An extension of the Wabash Erie Canal from the mouth of the Tippecanoe river to Terre Haute. A railroad from Madison through Columbus, Indianapolis and Craw- fordsville to Lafayette. A macadamized turnpike from New Albany through Green-
ville, Paoli and Mount Pleasant to Vin- cennes. A canal if practicable, and if not. a railroad from Fort Wayne by way of Goshen, South Bend and La Porte to Mich- igan City. Had these things all been carried out, the state would have been bankrupted. But a small part of the work was ever built.
Three surveys of the Fort Wayne-Mich- igan City route were made, all three through Whitley county, but the meager record left does not allow us to state with any certain- ity just where the lines ran. However, one was substantially along the Goshen and Fort Wayne road, through present Churu- busco; one ran near the present town of Collins, and the other nearer Columbia City. Two of them crossed Thorncreek township. Had this canal or railroad been built, the history of Whitley county might have been entirely different. The state roads through the county were the Fort Wayne and Gosh- en, through Churubusco. The next was the Fort Wayne and Yellow River and from Columbia City east is practically the Colum- bia City and Fort Wayne road east on Van Buren street. Yellow River, the western ob- jective point, was in Elkhart county. The next was the Goshen and Huntington Road practically as it runs today through the coun- ty. The next was called Fort Wayne and La Gro road, but is substantially the Fort Wayne, Columbia City and Warsaw road of today. The next was the Logansport and Sparta road: but little of it was built and it cannot be traced to-day. Then the Lima and Huntington road, which is practically the Columbia City Line Street road to Hunt- ington, and lastly was the Fort Wayne and Oswego state road, practically the north- west road from Columbia City to Etna.
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These state roads were not so important as we might think, as may be seen by the foregoing narrative. They were only roads in more than one county. An attempt to follow the location and changes of the coun- ty and township roads of the county would only lead to tiresome confusion.
The soil of Whitley county, with its early swamps and streams, made the road problem a great difficulty. It is often said that the first forty years of road-work went for naught and that the highways were no better in 1878 than in 1838. True it is that for forty years the difficulties were great, corduroying swampy places, draining highways and cutting hills so vehicles could get over the roads at all, and we were a long time getting roads. Our people became quite restless over the road situation in the seventies. Huntington county had built two gravel roads from the city of Huntington to the Whitley county line.
In October. 1878. a meeting was called at the Whitley county courthouse to con- sider the graveling of the road from Colum- bia City to meet the Huntington gravel road at the county line. The estimated cost seemed appalling and taxpayers shrank from it, and old residents declared there was no gravel in the county with which to build roads and the purpose of the meeting went for naught, but the agitation went on. The legislature at its January session, 1881. changed the old method of working out property road tax, and the two days by each poll, into paying all in cash. Instead of working two or more days each person liable to poll tax was required to pay two dollars in cash, and all road tax must be paid in cash. The supervisor system was abolished
and a road superintendent elected for each township who had entire charge of all road work.
The law went into effect June 1, 1881, but superintendents were not elected until the first Monday in April, 1882. The change caused a balling up of road matters, and the superintendents having no road poll work and but little money, could do but little work. The winter of 1881 and 1882 was an open one, and the roads became for sev- eral months practically impassable. Travel was almost abandoned, and when spring came the highways, full of holes and wash- outs, got but little repair from the superin- tendents and a spirit of utter disgust was everywhere apparent. The legislature at its session in January, 1883. quickly repealed the road superintendent and cash payment law, going back to the old system of working out poll and property tax under direction of supervisors, and the township trustees had a good big cash fund, in addition to the work in 1883. They now began work on the roads as it had never been done before.
At the June term. 1883, of the commis- sioners' court, two petitions were filed for the building of turnpikes or gravel roads. both in Cleveland township, and practically from South Whitley to the Huntington county line. One the old Goshen and Hunt- ington state road and the other the Claysville road. For the Claysville road, William H. Lancaster, George Kaler and Alvin H. King of Richland township, were appointed view- ers and made their report at the September term. 1883. Total length of road five and seven hundred and seventy-five five thousand two hundred and eightieths (775-5280) miles; width of road twenty-four feet ;
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width of gravel twelve feet, average depth of gravel ten inches; estimated cost fifteen thousand three hundred and forty- five dollars and eighty cents. The report was accepted and on the 29th day of Sep- tember, the contract was let to Matter & Mc- Donald for eleven thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars. It was completed and ac- cepted September 29, 1884.
James H. Shaw, Frederick Nei and Richard M. Paige were appointed viewers for the Goshen road, and they reported at the September term, 1883. Length of road, five and three thousand one hundre five thou- sand two hundred and eightieths (5 3100- 5280) miles. Same roadbed as the Clays- ville road, and an estimated cost of sixteen thousand one hundred and twenty-seven dol- lars and fifty cents. The contract was let to Wilson T. Taylor and Jeremiah Stiver for twelve thousand five hundred dollars, and was completed and accepted September 23, 1884. An allowance was also made for extra work of six hundred and sixty-four
dollars and sixty cents. There were two thousand three hundred dollars of donated subscriptions by the citizens in and about South Whitley.
It was now proven that there was plenty of gravel in Cleveland township and in al- most all other parts of the county. These were the only roads ever built in the county under the free turnpike law. They were pretty expensive to the people along the line, but they got good roads quickly and the county is bound to keep them up for all time to come, by a levy over the entire coun- ty for the purpose.
Then trustees and supervisors began to stir themselves and the graveling of the roads began in earnest with tax levies to the legal limit
The work has gone steadily and rapidly on, until to-day nearly, if not all the main roads are graveled, and side ones are rapidly catching up. The question of poor roads in Whtley county is about solved, which wili be a relief to the citizens.
HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN WHITLEY COUNTY.
BY GEORGE H. TAPY.
The history of education in Whitley county is the story of a struggling people rising from infancy to approaching man- hood. Most of it is the common story of the hardships of the pioneers. But long be- fore the county was organized, before the actual appearance of the "log cabin," the "puncheon floor" and the "oiled-paper win- dow," the county came into an inheritance that has proven its educational wealth. Whether the fathers "builded wiser than they knew" or were gifted with the vision of
the Prophets it remains true that while yet the Red Man roved unmolested through the forests wise men in Indiana were agitating the question of schools and colleges, and statesmen were laying deep the foundations of one of the greatest school systems in the world. Education in Indiana was early felt to be one of the corner-stones of a republic- an form of government.
In May, 1785, congress passed an act providing for the survey of the Northwest Territory. In 1787 the famous ordinance
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was passed to which we trace the origin of our school system. It provided that the territory should be divided into townships six miles square, each township to be sub- divided into thirty-six sections one mile square. It also provided that section six- teen in each township be set apart for the maintenance of the public schools. In 1816 when Indiana was admitted to the Union as a state the provision for the section of land in each township was reaffirmed and the con- stitution declaring its faith in "Knowledge and learning, generally diffused through a community, being essential to the preserva- tion of a free government." further provided for the establishment of a system of schools consisting of a gradation of common schools, county seminaries and a state uni- versity.
When on the seventh day of May, 1838, Whitley became a separate county it at once entered into a rich inheritance of school of- fices. In 1818 the general assembly of In- diana enacted a law making it the duty of the Governor to appoint a seminary trustee whose duty it was to accumulate and invest funds arising from exemption moneys and fines and looking to the establishment of a seminary in each county that should receive pupils from the common school and admit them to the university. In May, 1839, the county commissioners appointed Henry Swi- hart seminary trustee, who thus became the first school official in the county. In 1840 he was reappointed and summoned to appear before the commissioners and file a sworn statement of the condition of the school funds of the county. The report shows that he had received the sum of $15.121/2 from Abraham Clark, who had previously been
appointed for Huntington County, a perma- nent fund to remain inviolate for school purposes. Later Richard Collins became the seminary trustee; and when in 1852 the legislature ordered the sale of all county seminaries "with all their properties, real and personal," the funds became a part of the common school fund of the state. Whit- ley county never established a seminary un- der the provisions of the law.
In 1833 a law was enacted providing for a county commissioner of education, three township trustees and three trustees for each school district. It became the duty of the school commissioner to take charge of the congressional township funds in his county, to make sales of the lands belonging there- to, and to hold in trust the funds of the lo- cal corporations. His duties were entirely financial in their nature and he was not con- cerned about the actual problems of teach- ing. In August, 1839, Andrew Compton was elected the first school commissioner in Whitley county. On November 19, 1841. he made the first sale of school lands. An eighty-acre tract belonging to the sixteenth section in Union township was sold to James Pringle at $3.75 per acre. During this and the few succeeding years the school lands were rapidly sold. In August, 1845. James B. Edwards was elected to the office and served one term, Henry Hanna succeed- ing him in 1847. Mr. Hanna served until 1850, when the office was abolished and its duties transferred to the county auditor. November 19. 1853, exactly twelve years after the first sale, the last quarter section of school lands was sold from the sixteenth sec- tion in Smith township to Berlin Myers for the consideration of $4.00 an acre. The
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total sales of all these lands amounted to $17,258.60, or a trifle less than three dollars per acre. This congressional fund still re- mains the same .- a part of the perpetual common school fund "which may be in- creased, but shall never be diminished." The value of these lands at present leads one to speculate upon what the congressional town- ship funds might have been had the lands remained unsold to the present day ; but it is gratifying to reflect that our fathers gave us a foundation for our public school in a fund, though small when compared with the millions in educational endowments today. yet permanent and untainted by dishonesty and the odor of Standard Oil.
Naturally the first schools of the county were conducted in the most primitive way. In this educational beginning when it was said, "Let there be light." the creative proc- ess was not instantaneous. Where the first struggling settlements appeared there slowly rose the "little log cabin" where the true. terms. In 1841 William Widup taught a
"brisk wielder of the birch and rule" taught the elements of "reading, writing and ci- phering." The story is familiar to all. The wall of the log hut lifting its roof barely high enough to admit the master rod and all, the puncheon floor and seat, the holes cut into the logs for window and door, the wide- mouthed fireplace with stick-and-mud chim- ney. the slab upheld by pegs that made the writing desk against the wall, forms a pic- ture that often before has been painted and is yet vivid in the reader's mind.
Such a cabin was erected in the fall of 1837 on the north bank of Eel river just below the place where the State street bridge now spans the river in the town of South Whitley, and there David Parrett the fol-
lowing winter taught the first school in the county. Ten pupils made up the enrollment and the term lasted probably four months, tuition paid entirely by subscription. He was succeeded by Miss Elma Thompson. who in her turn gave place to Sarah Sluves.
The following year the early pioneers elsewhere in the county made their first feeble but heroic efforts to have school. John Strain taught school in Smith township in his own log house, and Stephen Martin also taught a few months in his own house in Troy township. The first house in this township was built at Grant's Corners and Miss Clarissa Blanchard taught in it the first term. The same year Rufus D. Kinney taught the first school in Etna township in a house built for that purpose. In 1839 the first school in Union township was opened two miles northeast of the center, and Mrs. Cornelia Bonestel, a widow who had come west from New York, taught for several school in Thorncreek township in the Egolf district, and Charles Hughes the same year opened a school at Bethel. The following year Jesse Case taught the first school in Washington Township south of the center: and when in 1845 Mrs. B. F. Davis became the first teacher in Jefferson township near the place commonly known as Saturn settle- ments dotted the valleys of the county ev- erywhere and the little schoolhouse where teacher and preacher held forth followed hard upon the trail of the pioneer. In 1847 the first brick schoolhouse in the county was built in Columbia City on lot 3, block 25, original plat.
In 1837 in addition to all the officers named above and with but little modification
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of their duties the circuit court was author- ized to appoint annually three examiners whose duty it should be "to certify the branches of learning each applicant was qualified to teach." During the next decade no changes were made in the school system when in 1847 Caleb Mills of Wabash Col- lege, the greatest educational statesman In- diana has produced, published in the "Indi- ana School Journal" his famous message ad- dressed to the general assembly and signed "One of the People." He gave his views freely and forcibly, criticising the governor and other officials of the state for their want of interest in educational matters, and point- ed out the need of efficient state and county supervision of schools. As a consequence a law was enacted in 1849 that abolished the office of school commissioner, retained the three examiners in each county and the three township trustees, but substituted one trus- tee in each district instead of three.
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