USA > Indiana > Lake County > Lake County, Indiana, from 1834 to 1872 > Part 12
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FACTS AND FIGURES.
there are five others, engaged in part in secular pursuits, to earn the necessaries of life, who may also be counted as laborers in the wide harvest field of which our domain forms a little part. Fifteen laborers in this " vineyard " ought to be able to secure a high state of cultivation. It will appear from the figures elsewhere given that one-fifth of the inhabitants of Lake county are Catholic, one- eleventh are Lutherans, and that, including these, one- half of the families are believers in what may be called orthodox Christianity.
Among the twelve hundred and fifty families making up the other half of our population, there are some Uni- versalists, some Spiritualists, some Sceptics, some with no fixed religious belief ; and among these families are some -I record it because believing it to be true, and that one truth will not suffer in consequence of another truth ; and I record it also, believing intensely in pure Christi- anity, and disgusted thoroughly with some wicked things done professedly in the name of Christ, and professedly for his cause-among these non-evangelical families are some of the kindest, most obliging, most reliable, and best disposed of our citizens. How many, this record will not disclose.
Hoping to be able to give honor to whom honor, and praise to whom praise is due, and having had some large opportunities for ascertaining character, I make this re- cord for the sake of justice, and truth, and for the sug- gestions which it may call forth. And I suppose it to be saying much for our evangelization to repeat, that one- half of the families of Lake are believers in one revealed religion, and in one inspired book ; a book of whose
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LAKE COUNTY.
teachings, Bonar, of England, one of the best Christian poets of our day, has said :
" More durable they stand, Than the eternal hills ; Far sweeter and more musical Than music of earth's rills.
" Fairer in their fair hues,
Than the fresh flowers of earth,
More fragrant than the fragrant climes Where odors have their birth."
PHYSICIANS AT CROWN POINT.
The earliest regular physician in the county was Dr. H. D. Palmer, who settled north of Solon Robinson's lo- cation, in the winter of 1836. An irregular practitioner, Dr. Joseph F. Greene, settled soon after near Cedar Lake, practiced several years in that locality, was a great hunter and trapper, and died about 1847. Those resid- ing at the county seat are the following : W. F. Farring- ton, 1840-'56 ; Andrew Stone, - '46 ; -- Cunning- ham, -; H. Pettibone, 1847; Wm. E.Vilmer, 1853-'61 ; A. J. Pratt, 1854; -- Finney, 1855-'58 ; J. Higgins, 1859 ; S. R. Pratt, 1860-'63 ; C. Groman, 1861-'63 ; O. Poppe, June, 1870.
DENTISTS. O. H. Wilcox, 1864-'71 ; D. T. Quackenbush, 1871 ; G. E. Eastman, 1872.
Dr. J. Higgins went into the army as surgeon in 1861. At first he was connected with a United States regiment, but that becoming disorganized he received the position of surgeon of the 12th Cavalry, Illinois Volunteers. He remained in the service, a great part of the time as
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FACTS AND FIGURES.
brigade surgeon, or in general hospitals at Chicago and Washington City, until 1865, early in which year he re- sumed practice at Crown Point. As an experienced, operative surgeon, he stands at the head of the ranks among the physicians of the county. Dr. Samuel R. Pratt also served as army surgeon ; first in the 87th Reg- iment Indiana Volunteers, resigning on account of ill health; and afterward in the 12th Cavalry, remaining with this regiment until its return at the close of the war. He then located at Hebron, where as practicing physi- cian, he still resides. Dr. Otto Poppe is a homœopathist, an intelligent, courteous German, comparatively young, but acquiring quite a practice.
Two physicians have died here, Drs. Farrington, and Wilmer. One resided here for a short time, Dr. Brow- nell, and removed to the neighborhood of Plum Grove, and died not many months ago.
The resident physicians are now four, all of whom for the last year or two have made their professional visits in two-horse covered carriages.
Dr. Bliss, a retired physician, also resides in town, keeping a drug store, and occasionally visiting, profes- sionally, his particular friends.
PHYSICIANS AT LOWELL.
At the head of this list I place one of the oldest prac- ticing physicians of this region, Dr. J. A. WOOD, who settled in Porter county, in June, 1837, and extended his rides into Lake, and removed to West Point, Cedar Lake, in the winter of 1840. In 1842 he removed to Center Prairie, and in 1847 to Lowell. He was, for eighteen months, Regimental Surgeon in the 12th Indiana Cav-
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LAKE COUNTY.
alry. Was much of the time in hospitals in positions above his nominal rank in the service. He built his pres- ent residence in the suburbs of Lowell in 1862.
Dr. John Farrington ; Dr. John Hunt, 1855-'57. He returned to La Porte county and died. Dr. S. B. Yeo- man, 1856. Died at Lowell, January, 1864. Dr. A. A. Gerrish, 1865 ; Dr. S. B. Taylor, 1865-'69. Removed to Nebraska. Dr. E. R. Bacon, 1866 ; Dr. J. E. Davis, 1870.
PHYSICIANS AT BRUNSWICK.
M. Hoffman, 1857-'59; C. Schlemm ; - Walensky ; C. Schlemm ; H. Volke, 1865 ; C. Groman, 1865.
AT HOBART.
Dr. P. P. Gordon, 1866; Dr. H. Castle, 1872.
AT DEEP RIVER.
Dr. Vincent, 1871.
AT DYER.
Dr. S. W. Johns.
LAWYERS AT CROWN POINT.
A. McDonald, date of location, 1839 ; Martin Wood, 1848; E. Griffin. 1857 ; Charles N. Morton, 1858; James B. Turner, 1861 ; T. Cleveland, 1863 ; E. C. Field, April, 1865; Job Barnard, May, 1867; T. J. Wood, 1867 ; W. T. Horine, 1870; - McCarthy, 1870 ; T. S. Fancher, . 1871; James H. Ball, 1871; Milton Barnard, 1872; J. W. Youche, 1872.
The first of these lawyers, Alexander McDonald, was an early settler in the south part of the county. Remov- ing to Crown Point, in 1839, and entering upon the prac- tice of law, he became the most eminent lawyer of the county, was a representative four or five terms at Indian-
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FACTS AND FIGURES.
apolis, and in the midst of a prosperous legal career, died in 1869.
The fifth, James B. Turner, was a son of Judge Sam- uel Turner, an old settler. He was a refined and courte- ous gentleman, of prepossessing personal ·appearance, a member of the Presbyterian Church, and an exemplary Christian lawyer. Leaving his practice at Crown Point, he went, with M. A. Halsted, to the South, at the close of the war, for the purpose of engaging in the cultivation of cotton, and died there in 1866. His remains were brought to his home, at Crown Point, for burial.
Charles N. Morton, and - McCarthy, remained here but a short time. The others are still members of the: Lake County Bar.
The names of a few lawyers who were here for a short time are omitted in the above record, among them Hewitt, in 1848, and perhaps 1849, and George Glossner, a partner for a few months of this year with T. S. Fan- cher ; also A. G. Hardesty, and J. B. Peterson, residents * for a few months of this summer, at the county seat.
An idea of our growth in some directions may be ob- tained from the following contrast :
A post office, as has been mentioned, was established at Crown Point under the name of Lake C. H., in 1836. The receipts of the office from March to October were $15. The next quarter the receipts were $8.87. Third quarter $21.49. In 1837 a weekly mail was brought from La Porte. The contract was taken at $450 for the year. Quarter ending June 30, the receipts were, $26.92 ; Sep- tember 30, $43.50; December 31, $38.20; March 31, 1838, $51.33 ; June 30, $51.39. This last was the largest
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amount received in one quarter while Solon Robinson was postmaster. This one office then supplied the county, and each letter taken out cost twenty-five cents if com- ing from any great distance.
In this year, 1872, the following is the record of Crown Point post office, Z. P. Farley, postmaster :
There was received for money orders, issued from Jan- uary Ist to July Ist, 1872, $9,075.81. There was paid out on money orders drawn on this office during the same time, $2,892.81, the balance, $6,183, being remitted to Chicago. The amount received for stamps sold du- ring the six months ending July Ist, was $576.36. The number of mails received at this office each week, 28; number of mails sent out, 28.
Another contrast is furnished by the assessment re- cords. The first assessment, made after the organization in 1837, includes 8,726 acres of land valued at $77,787, the tax upon it amounting to $894. There were 226 polls and 23 over age, making 249 assessed for taxation. The personal property tax, at high rates of valuation, amounted to $521 ; poll tax, $282.50; total tax, $1,697. The assessment of 1846 shows 600 persons assessed ; 54,421 acres, valued at $78,792; personal property as- sessed, at very low rates of valuation, $95,849; tax upon all, $2.754.
In 1871 the number of acres assessed was 293,614, valued at $2,342, 155 ; personal property, $723,160 ; num- ber of polls, 1,796 ; tax, $53,358.66 ; railroad valuation, $548,040 ; tax on railroad property, $6,263.51. The tax of 1837 was brought up by high valuations, and by in-
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FACTS AND FIGURES.
cluding 409 town lots in Liverpool assessed at $26,440, to $2,002, equaling more than two-thirds the tax of 1846.
It was ascertained, a fact which shows how unsettled that first squatter population was, that of the 249 first assessed 80 only remained in the county ten years after- wards; 27 had died ; " so that" says he who then counted up the number, " 142 have rolled on in that irresistible wave of western emigration that never will cease till it meets the resisting wave of the western ocean, which will cause the mighty tide to react upon itself until all the mountain sides and fertile plains of Mexico and Oregon are teeming with the Anglo-Saxon race."
And still a third contrast appears in the number of voters, and in the census returns of number of inhabi- tants. At the first election, which was held in March, 1837, 78 votes were polled. At the presidential election in 1844, votes 325 ; in 1868, 2,336. The estimated popu- lation in 1837 was 1,245.
In 1840 the United States census was taken by Lewis Warriner, of Cedar Lake. Population then, 1,468; in 1850, 3,991; in 1860, 9,145; in 1870 it reached 12,339 ; increase between 1840 and 1850, 2,523; between 1850 and 1860, 5,154; between 1860 and 1870, 3,194.
A fourth contrast appears in the amount of produc- tions. A sufficient amount of food for home consumption was raised probably in the summer of 1838. In 1840 sales of produce may be said to have commenced. The first articles for market were grain and pork. As pro- ductions increased, and facilities for transportation were provided, we added to the grain and pork, butter, cheese, honey, potatoes, wool, poultry, eggs ; horses, cattle, and hay.
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LAKE COUNTY.
The value of each of these now marketed in a year, I am sorry to be unable to give ; but the following figures end facts will aid in forming an estimate : One dealer, H. C. Beckman, of Hanover Township, village of Bruns- wick, has bought in a single day, in the regular course of trade, thirty-seven hundred eggs, and about three hun- · dred pounds of butter. In five months of this year he bought 5,600 dozen, and his amount for the year may be placed at 8,000 dozen. Amount of butter taken in during the year, 10,000 pounds.
The butter and egg trade of Lowell for a year is in dollars, $12,000; that of H. C. Beckman, about $3,000 ; A. D. Palmer, about $1,000 ; Crown Point, about $12,000 ; other places, probably $22,000 ; total, $50,000.
During the past year there have been shipped from this county, as near as can be ascertained, 160,000 bushels of corn; 360,000 bushels of oats; 2,200 tons of hay. Of pork, a large amount ; the figures I cannot obtain ; and many cattle have been sold for beef.
Some seventy horses were this summer taken to the New England markets. Many more went to Chicago. Total valuation of products sent out of the county, $300,000.
In manufactures also something is done. The wagon- making business at one shop in Crown Point, the shop owned by J. Hack, gives constant employment to eight workmen, and turns off in a year some fifty wagons, ten or twelve carriages and buggies, besides doing quite an amount of repair. Other shops at Crown Point and Low- ell do a fair amount of work.
The broom factory of T. Fisher sends to Chicago yearly a large amount of brooms.
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FACTS AND FIGURES.
A fifth contrast, that exhibits one law of growth, is in the amount of land held by single individuals. The squatters allowed to one individual only two hundred acres. Many actual settlers entered only eighty or one hundred. The following table presents a view for 1872 of a few
LARGE LAND HOLDERS.
Of these some are non-residents. A. N. Hart, a resi- dent at Dyer, but doing business in Chicago, holds some 15,000 acres. Estimated value of his estate, $500,000.
NON-RESIDENTS.
Dorsey & Cline, 10,000 or 12,000 acres ; -- Forsyth, about 8,000 ; G. W. Cass, 9,577 ; J. B. Niles, about 1,800 ; Dr. Hittle, 1,200 ; D. C. Scofield, about 1,000.
RESIDENTS.
Estate of J. W. Dinwiddie, about 3,500 ; Wellington A. Clark, 1,320.
The value of the real estate of the county may be put down at $10,000,000. This would give, to each family, if equally divided, $4,000. But, as elsewhere in the world, property is here unequally divided. A few fami- lies hold real estate in round numbers, in the following amounts : A. N. Hart, $500,000; Mrs. M. J. Dinwid- die, $125,000.
NON-RESIDENTS.
Gen. Cass, $150,000 ; - Forsyth, $250,000; Dorsey & Cline, $150,000 ; total, $1, 175,000.
It thus appears that ten families own about one-sixth of the area of the county, and that six families own more than one-tenth, in value, of the real estate of the county.
Another great contrast appears in examining the dis- trict schools, the buildings, the teachers, the wages or
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LAKE COUNTY.
salary paid, and the mode of licensing the teachers. In 1847 Solon Robinson wrote, referring back to 1841 : "This year a frame school house was built in Crown Point, which was the first respectable one in the county, and I fear that the same remark is still too true; for a decent provision for schools has hardly yet been made in any district of the county. And I don't mean to be un- derstood that the Crown Point school house is at all worthy the name of a decent one for the place, for it is not; although it is better than the little old blank log cabin which was in use previous to the building of this one." Now, if the writer of the above could look over the county, and see the eighty-four neat and commodi- ous school houses, attend a teachers' examination, and an institute, and visit some of the schools when in ses- sion, he would find a very marked improvement. The days of the log school houses and the oiled paper win- dows in Lake county are past.
One more contrast may be presented. The registering of claims ceased in 1837 ; about five hundred names are attached to the Constitution of the Squatters' Union, some of these however were in what became Poter county ; and of our five hundred square miles of surface, one hundred sections in the north part were considered for several years to be unfit for cultivation and almost worthless, and seventy-five more lay in the Kankakee marsh; yet, when I first looked over the county as a boy, in 1837, the large prairie region, of some two hundred and fifty square miles, was almost unbroken by fence or furrow. The smoke of no cabin curled upward over the open prairie, no domestic animal was seen at any distance
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FACTS AND FIGURES.
from the groves and the woodland, all life except the wild life was confined to the sheltering shade of the oak and the hickory trees. But now, in the very centre of our largest prairies are farm houses, and gardens, and orchards, and the large pasture grounds of twenty years ago are all enclosed by fence or hedge. The droves of cattle first pressed outward over the green savannahs and man followed. The cattle destroyed the polar plants, and the prairie dock, and the immense beds of flowers, and cropped to the earth the grass that once grew so tall. The wild prairie beauty long since departed. Time was when we could roam these wilds along many and many a mile; the grass tall, waving, and trackless; the phlox of different colors, as elegant and as luxuriant as in East- ern cultivated garden beds, in almost boundless profus- ion; the other bright-colored native flowers abundant in July, and August, and September ; the tall polar plant, with its sunflower stalk from five to seven feet in height, and its clusters of yellow blossoms, and its bottom leaves two and three feet in height, forming a continuous suc- cession of rich forest-like herbage of bright yellow and green ; every now and then scaring up the grouse, the quick, thundering sound of whose wings would startle both horse and rider; occasionally coming near to a wolf and sending him away on a low and not rapid lope ; and again seeing at a distance the tall sand-hill cranes, and sometimes even a herd of bounding deer. But now all is changed except the contour of the ground. Lake Prairie was nearly all enclosed, no range left for stock, in 1870. The prairie, northeast of Crown Point, was so fenced up, as to make the road a continuous lane, in 1871.
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LAKE COUNTY.
And this year, 1872, with the long lines of wire and board fence erected by Judge Niles, and others, sees the broad southern portion of Robinson's Prairie nearly all enclosed. The appearance of the prairie of 1872 is vastly unlike that of 1834. Farms and neat residences dot it all over now. It was in its native wildness and beauty then. A sweeping prairie fire can be seen no more. The prairie hens find few places in which to make their nests, and are almost destroyed; the wolves have few mounds left in whose sides to make their dens. The timid deer has become a stranger to its old haunts and would not know its once safe retreats. The wild fowls in the spring and fall still darken our waters, but they rear their young amid the surroundings of other regions now. Among our northern sand hills is heard nearly every hour the steam whistle; across our prairies there courses rapidly and frequently the iron-horse; on the Kankakee islands and in the marsh itself settlements are now made; and soon the engines will be running and drawing their ponderous burdens through that once al- most impenetrable morass that skirts our southern bor- der. No wonder the wild geese and swan seek other summer haunts where they may rest in solitude and hear no screams except their own.
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INCIDENT AND ITEMS.
CHAPTER X.
INCIDENTS AND ITEMS.
In this chapter and under the above heading will be found a variety of facts that have found no place for in- sertion elsewhere, and yet seem to me worthy of record as carrying out the design of this work. Some of them are of special, and I trust most of them will prove to be of general interest. In the first sketch will be found a notice of one of our relics of the past.
CEDAR LAKE-1670 OR 1680.
Two hundred years ago! Who lived around those waters then? Who admired the summer and autumn beauty which nature has lavished so richly there? Who can tell anything of that dim past ? The mementoes of that age are silent. They are the water and the sands upon the shore, the unchanged banks, the ancient oaks, the pebbles, and the few old rocks. From one of these ma- jestic oaks a different memento and witness has been obtained.
THE NAIL.
It is called a nail, but for what it was made, or how, or by whom used, what human witness can testify ? None. Surely none. It was found some twenty years ago in or
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near the heart of an oak, outside of which were layers of wood one hundred and seventy. According to the method of calculation employed by woodmen, about two hundred years ago this small instrument of steel, now in the possession of Mrs. M. J. Cutler, at Kankakee, found a lodging place in that then young oak. It is about one inch and a quarter in length. The shaft is round, about the size of the large end of a clay pipe stem. The head on the top is flat and very smooth, and, besides this sur- face, it has twelve small plain sides, each smooth and well wrought. The point end is not a point, but has an edge like an axe. It is supposed to be of European workman- ship, but the hands that made it, unquestionably human hands and skillful hands, have long since been dust, and the shop where it was made has probably long ago ceased to be a European workshop. But how came it at Cedar Lake two hundred years ago? Did not Indians then roam through these woods, catch fish in the waters, pad- dle their canoes over the lake, and pitch their wigwams. on its banks? It was only fifty years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Had articles of English man- ufacture gone westward then a thousand miles? Had this identical piece of steel indeed come over in the May Flower, coming at length into the hands of descendants of the Puritans, who, some two hundred years after that landing sought a home in the free, wild West? It might. have been so. Perhaps Indian women used it to cut holes in the deer hides and buffalo robes, in which to place the sinews or strips of bark with which they sewed together the coverings of their wigwams, the skins that formed their couches, the mantles for their winter cover-
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INCIDENTS AND ITEMS.
ing. And perhaps some toil-worn mother, or young maiden learning the simple domestic handicraft that . would fit her for the duties of a wife to a red warrior in the Red Cedar haunts, placed the instrument in the bark of a sapling, near the door of the wigwam, that it might be out of reach of the little boys eager to use and appro- priate articles as rare as this must have there been; and, in the hurry of a sudden departure, when the tents were struck, and ponies loaded, this little instrument was for- gotten. And having crossed the ocean, and penetrated a thousand miles into the deep American wilds, nature reclaimed its own, and not the earth but the wood, cov- ered it from human eyes, took it out from the range of human hands. Perhaps! But who can tell its story ? It has no tongue to speak ; but it says white man made, European tools probably fashioned, hammer, and anvil, and forge gave it form. And the tree says, about two hundred years !
But again ; perhaps white man's hands not only fash- ioned this instrument but also put it into the young oak. Perhaps a white man looked upon the lake of the Red Cedars within sixty years after the landing on Plymouth Rock. What says authentic history ? A Genoese navi- gator, in Spanish vessels, discovered in 1492 the New World. An English explorer, a Cabot, in 1499, sailed along the North American coast. A Spanish settlement was first made in 1565. A permanent English settlement was commenced in 1607. The Dutch first settled on American soil in 1614. New England settlements began in 1620. But the English remained along the Atlantic coast. The Spanish kept along the Gulf and up the Mis-
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LAKE COUNTY.
sissippi. The Northwest seems to have been first explored by the French. By them Detroit was commenced in 1670, some two hundred years ago.
Two distinguished names of those then exploring Western wilds are La Salle and Hennepin. Louis Hen- nepin was a Franciscan. His name may be found in the records of events in Europe in the seventeenth century. He came to America. He joined La Salle's expedition, which set forth in 1679. The voyagers passed through lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, to the mouth of the St. Joseph's river. They ascended that river in canoes to the portage. They carried these across five or six miles to the Kankakee. They passed down that river, and down the Iroquois, to the Illinois, and to the place, or near the place, now called Peoria. La Salle returned to Fort Frontenac for supplies. He instructed Henne- pin to explore. In February, 1680, Hennepin set out in a canoe on a voyage of discovery. He followed the Illi- nois to its mouth, ascended the Mississippi to the falls of St. Anthony, upon which he was the first European to look, reaching this point April 30, 1680. He traveled for some hundred and eighty miles along a river which he called, in honor of his patron, St. Francis, and visited the Sioux Indians. Remained about three months, ac- cording to his account a captive. He met then a party of Frenchmen who came by way of Lake Superior, re- turned with them to Canada, sailed from Quebec to France, and published, in 1683, an account of La Salle's expedition and his own explorations.
According to the calculations made it was about the time of this expedition, under La Salle, that our nail was
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INCIDENTS AND ITEMS.
placed in the young oak. But it does not appear that Hennepin saw Cedar Lake. He made a circuit around it, but his recorded route passed no nearer than some fifteen miles. Let us turn to La Salle. He left at or near Peoria to return to Erie, and Niagara, and Fort Frontenac. Did he return up the Kankakee? Or did he vary his route a little northward, arriving at the head of Cedar Lake, camping on that height for a night, and first among white men did he look upon that sheet of water? Or if not he, some others of those roving Frenchmen may have reached that spot in their expedi- tions, a spot from whence one might journey to Lake Erie through woods, almost continuous woods, and to the Mis- sissippi without coming under the shadow of a tree, over a pathless prairie. The hand of a Frenchman evidently may have inserted this instrument of steel into the grow- ing oak. But for what? Was it left by accident, or left by design ? Was it intended as a signal for some other explorer, as a memento, as a token of some kind, to in- form a brother of some mystic order, that another had there stood, or suffered, or sorrowed? Did its thirteen faces speak a language ? Conjecture alone remains. Re- corded history says nothing that will offer an explanation. It may tell of useful work, of weeks and months of toil- some wanderings, of bloodshed, of massacre, of a human life going out there in sight of the blue water two hun- dred years ago.
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