USA > Indiana > Lake County > Lake County, Indiana, from 1834 to 1872 > Part 17
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" 'When I think what his hopes were, so glowing and bright, How his life's sun arose with no clouds in the sky, Then so sudden went down in such darkness of night, Murm'ring thoughts to subdue, it seems vain that I try ! He was all things to me, there's naught ever can fill, In my wounded and bruised heart, the aching void left, Oft I strive to forget, but I think of him still,
And in anguish my heart moans, 'Bereft ! Oh ! bereft !'
"' Oh ! Amelia, remember, though poignant the grief, This one thought, that our Father permitted the blow, Our repinings should still, to our hearts bring relief, For He deals but in wisdom to mortals below. Then dispel all this gloom, look on life's brighter side. Though the pathway seems dark, light is shining beyond, With each duty performed we no ills need betide,
But sink sweetly to rest when declines the day's sun.'
" ' I feel all that you say, to its truth I attest,
And the strange cup I drink, I accept what is given, 2I
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Calmness now fills my breast, but not rest, no, not rest, I will find that alone when I find it in Heaven ! Yes, beyond the cold tide and the mists of life's ocean, Loved Brusabo awaits, standing on the dim shore, In the twilight oft, oft, he is seeming to motion
For me there to join him where are sorrows no more.'"
I place next, not as a model epithalamium, a little piece, slightly revised, written and read at the marriage of Dr. Andrew S. . Cutler and Miss Mary Jane Ball, December 16, 1869.
On a lovely prairie in the State of Ind. In a pleasant home well sheltered from the wind, Two little flowers appeared not many years ago, Growing in the sunshine and dreading not the snow.
Like the lily opening, like the rose, they grew, Showing forth alike the sweet, the pure, the true ; Like twins indeed they seemed on one rich rose stalk set, Fed by the self-same showers, by the same dew-drops wet.
Fast they grew and lovely thus growing side by side ; But lovely things and pleasant may not long abide ; The one was taken up within the gates of light, The other blooms in beauty here with us to-night.
Said I two little flowers ? Oh no, two gentle birds, Came to that prairie home, I change two little words ; One came in glowing autumn, mid October's sun ; The other in December, this the youngest one.
I know not whence they came, but I am very sure They seemed to us like doves and like the robins pure. Were they birds of passage? or were they birds of song ? One flew to Paradise ; may this one tarry long.
Did I say flowers and birds? They were my sisters dear, Who for some twenty years were seldom severed here ;
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Alike they grew in knowledge and alike in love, Were they gentle visitants sent us from above ?
They were the household pets, the youngest of our band ; (There are not " seven " to-night together here to stand ;) It has been said, the youngest never do grow old ; 'Tis sure that loving natures never need grow cold.
Joy for that flown and freed one. Perfect joy and love Are where we trust she dwells among the good above. And joy to this young bride, unmingled by earth's fear ; Though perfect joy and perfect bliss are not the dwellers here.
Yet to sister Mary and brother Andrew joy ! May life for them be bright with little to annoy. No tears are shed to-night around our household tree ; For hope, and peace, and love, go with the truly free.
The two sisters referred to above were Mary Jane and Henrietta Ball, both born at Cedar Lake, and in their childhood and youth almost inseperable companions in every occupation. The younger, HENRIETTA, consid- ered by all who knew her as being richly endowed in all the qualities and capabilities that gave promise of a noble womanhood, graduating at the Indianapolis Female In- stitute in 1861, died at Cedar Lake, January 27, 1863, being twenty-one years of age.
" MYTH AND TRUTH ; OR, PAST AND FUTURE GLORY.
" I have read the ancient stories, Fables, legends, fiction, truth ; Read of many wondrous glories, Told of nations in their youth.
" Read of Eastern pomp and splendor, Read of warriors true and bold :
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Of a noted witch of Endor, And a temple bright with gold.
"Read of peace and read of slaughter, Written in the Book of books ; Moses found by Pharaoh's daughter, Strong in faith and fair in looks.
" Of the Shepherd boy so fearless, Smiting with a sling and stone, 'Mong the warrior poets peerless, King at length on Judah's throne.
" Read of gifted prophets many, Those so grand, and true, and wise,
Unexcelled on earth by any, Seeing distant glories rise.
" Prophets, poets, seers and sages, Shepherds, soldiers, priests and kings ; Earth still holds these deathless pages, Earth still with their record rings.
" I have read the myths and fables, That arose in ancient time, Like that tale of Augean stables, Fictions most of love and crime.
" Persian, Hindoo, Scald or Norseman, All these have their legends old ; Romans tell of two twin horsemen, Pollux, Castor, swift and bold.
" Romans tell of many a hero, Who has borne him well in fight ; Long before the bloody Nero, Rome had fabled gods of might.
" Greek and Arab lack not fable, 7 And they give us stories rare,
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Arthur's Knights and his Round Table, Scarcely with them can compare.
" Myths and legends all might perish, They are powerless on the heart ; Sacred truth the world should cherish, Never with it can it part.
" Still in future myths may linger, Will be read by students o'er,
But there points an index finger, Ever to the sacred lore ;
" Saying to earth's children ever, Listen to these words divine,
Lay aside the prophets never, Future glories soon will shine.
" Buried in the depths of ages, Lies the greatness myths declare ;
Promised on the sacred pages, Future greatness looms forth fair.
" Let earth's children read and ponder, Let them earnest workers be,
For the day dawns, see it yonder ! Soon earth's millions will be free.
"Soon will come the Latter Glory ; Ours a glory yet to be, When each fabled mythic story Sinks beneath oblivion's sea. Y. N. L."
I place last, among these selections, a little piece read at the marriage of Dr. H. H. Pratt and Miss Carrie R. Jarvis, May 15, 1872, and to them affectionately dedi- cated.
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A NEW PSALM OF LIFE.
Our life is what we make it. Then if we could only know, How to take the ebb and flow Of the mighty currents round, Bearing swiftly, without sound, To the dark unfathomed deep, It might be grand and glorious. Death is not an endless sleep.
Listen to the words, " What cheer?" Cheer to thee amid the gloom ! Cheer to thee amid the strife ! Through the many struggles here, That may lead to endless life ! Through the dark, and through the bright, Those still steadfast to the right, Whisper to each other cheer.
Ah ! 'tis not alone to breathe, Not to eat and drink alone, That make up life, something more- Things that live beyond time's shore. Life is more, yes, more than meat, More than raiment too, is life. Sit at the Great Teacher's feet, Learn the worth of toil and strife.
Yes, life is what we make it ; Our life is as we take it, Marked with brightness, love and joy, Worthless with some base alloy. And alas ! how very mean, How sad, how vainly wasted, Its sweets almost untasted, Is the life of many a queen.
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From the highest to the low, From the throne to peasant's cot, Few solve aright life's mystery, Few that share a blessed lot. For life is what we make it, And we do not make it bright ; Our life is as we take it, And we do not take it right. "
It may lead us up on high, Through the blue and lovely sky, To the gift of a white stone, To a super-human throne, To a new name written bright, And to mansions fair as light ; To the gates of endless day, Where no loved ones pass away.
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CHAPTER XI.
SKETCHES OF EARLY SETTLERS.
"MEN DIE BUT PRINCIPLES LIVE."
" Better to weave in the web of life A bright and golden filling, And to do God's will with a ready heart, And hands that are swift and willing,
Than to snap the minute, delicate threads Of our curious life asunder,
And then blame heaven for the tangled ends, And sit, and grieve and wonder."
Lord Bacon, it is said, assigns the highest meed of earthly fame to the founders of States, to those whom the Romans called conditores imperiorum. The early set- tlers of the United States, especially those world-renowned men, the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, doubtless be- long to the class and merit the fame of "Founders of States" or conditores imperiorum; but those who first pen- etrated the Western wilds, like Daniel Boone, when Ken- tucky was the " dark and bloody ground," pioneer men in their home-spun, and with their rifles, certainly deserve some of the credit and honor belonging to builders and founders. And our own early settlers, who first woke the echoes of civilization in Northwestern Indiana, who en- dured hardships, and privations, and exposures, to estab-
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lish a county and found a small republic, although not exposed to the Indian tomahawk, are nevertheless justly entitled to some meed of fame as men who truly belonged to the class of builders. Lake county was a wild when they entered it, beautiful and fertile, it is true, like pri- meval nature, but inhabited by wild animals innumerable and the lingering Pottawatomies.
Taking possession, for the generations of the future, of five hundred square miles of surface, they at once began to build for the benefit of posterity. Law and order, and material comforts; and social, and intellectual, and religious institutions, rapidly grew up under their fos- tering care. Few of them now remain among us, and no full sketches can here be given even of those most dis- tinguished in our earliest annals. For a notice of some. however, I possess more ample material than I do con- cerning others ; and in the brief sketches that follow I hope to do none injustice.
SOLON ROBINSON.
The readers of these chapters have already become somewhat familiar with the name written above. Al- though not quite the first settler, yet of right, the first sketch should be of him whose name is so fully inter- woven with our early records. From 1834 to 1851, Solon Robinson was intimately identified with the interests of Lake. A native of Connecticut, he spent some years in the southern part of Indiana. Removing with a young family into this beautiful wild, away from civilized man, he was active in forming the Squatters' Union; was the first recorder of claims; after the organization of the county was elected clerk ; was clerk and general manager
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of the board of commissioners; at his house the first courts were held; and by means of his situation, his op- portunities, his intelligence, his capabilities, and his tal- ent, he to so great an extent controlled the affairs of the settlers that he gained the title of "Squatter King of Lake." I am not aware that he was disposed to be arbi- trary, or despotic, or overbearing ;- he was himself, then, 1 but a squatter among squatters, and although soon by means of his pen he began to shape for himself a new line of life ; he was affable, familiar, plain, hospitable, kind and accommodating ;- but he doubtless liked to wield influence, and was then entering upon a career that gained for him no little celebrity. Practically, he was not much of a farmer. His garden spot, where the Indians had raised maize, formed the common garden of the summer of 1835 of the four families of the settle- ment ; and although he in common with them "broke up" the prairie sod and commenced making farms, his official duties and merchandising soon engrossed his time, and that Indian garden spot became his principal sphere of actual farming operations. Yet he took an interest in agriculture and commenced writing for the Cultivator. The first article which I find, on a somewhat careful ex- amination of some bound volumes, is dated Lake C. H., July 12, 1837. It is headed, " Nutmeg Potatoes-Lake . Superior Corn." It speaks of sending " prairie flower seeds," is short, and reads like the communication of a new correspondent. A longer communication is in a succeeding number, dated August 29, which contains a proposition to increase the circulation of the Cultivator, and the proposition is accompanied with a five dollar
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subscription for gratuitous distribution. In 1838 and 1839 other communications followed. In 1840, I find twelve ; in 1841, fifteen ; in 1842, seven ; in 1843, five ; Cultivator communications.
In 1843 Solon Robinson was removed from the office of postmaster, which he had for so long a time held. As he expressed it, see Cultivator, " in the operations of Ty- lerism I have lately lost the franking privilege"; and he assigns this as a reason for not writing so many letters as formerly. He feared his friends would not consider them worth the postage. Letters cost in those days, and were not generally prepaid. He says : "For the same reason my communications to the numerous agricultural papers will be less frequent than formerly." For what other papers he wrote I am not informed. These contributions to the Cultivator are on a variety of topics of interest to farmers, and some of them are sketches of life in the West at that early period ; and some of them are addressed to "Western Emigrants." In one of these he says well, "An able general selects a small portion of a large army for pioneers because of the peculiar fitness of that small part for that arduous and important service. It is my opinion that a much smaller portion of the community are fit for pioneers in settling a new country." He there- fore does not advise everybody to come West.
These various articles, by their style and from their locality, secured many readers, gained for their author much celebrity, and made his name familiar in very many farmer homes. They secured for him also many corres- pondents.
As early as March, 1838, he made the proposal to form
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an "American Society of Agriculture." This subject he agitated considerably, and in April, 1841, he wrote “ an address to the farmers of the United States," which went out through the columns of the Cultivator. In April, of the same year, he wrote to the editors of the Cultivator the following :
"I now have in contemplation to make an extensive agricultural tour during the coming summer, and it would be a great pleasure to me, and I have reason to believe it would be equally so to some of your readers, to form a personal acquaintance with them as far as practicable ; and as I shall ' take notes,' and you will ' print them,' it may also conduce to our mutual improvement. I have, therefore, thought proper to make this public announce- ment of my intentions and route."
He then names the places through which he will pass, and individuals upon whom he expects to call, along quite a route of travel. That trip he took. The Octo- ber Cultivator contains the following editorial :
"It gives us great pleasure to state that our friend Solon Robinson, Esq., the zealous and able promoter of industry, and the original projector of a National Agri- cultural Society, has safely arrived at Washington, and that on the fourth of September a meeting was held in the Hall of the Patent Office, at which the incipient steps for the formation of such a society were taken." After giving proceedings they add : " We here gladly insert the remarks of Mr. Robinson, accompanying and explaining the report of the proceedings, in preference to anything we could add ourselves in enforcing the propriety and necessity of such an organization. It is indeed proba-
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ble that before this sheet goes to the press, Mr. Robinson will have been among us ; and we cannot doubt his re- ception among his agricultural friends in the east and north, will be such as to convince him that they will not be behind those of any portion of the Union, in a cor- dial support to his great undertaking."
It thus appears that the credit of forming a National Agricultural Society belongs to the County of Lake. Those "remarks " that. followed are too lengthy to be here given.
To his neighbors and acquaintances, here, it was quite entertaining to see how distinguished and popular their fellow citizen had become abroad, and especially when they looked upon his little farm in the garden and knew that practically he was not a farmer at all. They had not fully learned that the pen was "mightier than the sword," or even then the heavy plows which they followed, and the scythes and the cradles which they swung.
Solon Robinson returned home to Crown Point; staid a little longer among us ; represented our State in a large convention at Chicago among such men as Tom Corwin, Horace Greeley, and other notables of the land, in about 1845 ; made a tour, as a Western agricultural writer, through the Southern States; and made a visit to New York. He found a position that seemed to suit him bet- ter than holding office in Lake County. He left his family here, a wife, two sons, and two daughters; made to Judge Turner, of Crown Point, a deed of his real estate in Lake and La Porte Counties for the benefit of his wife; and they separated by mutual agreement.
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He took a position in connection with the New York Tribune.
His life in New York it is not a part of my present task to give. It is sufficient on this to say that his moral prin- ciples were not of the Puritanical school, and that the man who would abandon such a woman as was Mrs. Ma- ria Robinson could not be expected afterwards to lead a very exemplary life.
HIS LITERARY PRODUCTIONS.
The first of these, so far as here known, was a story of Indian and border life, called "The Will." The scene was laid, on the Indian side, at Cedar Lake, other inci- dents transpired in the bounds of the county. It is quite an interesting story. The next was called, "The Last of the Buffaloes." This I have not read. These two were written and published while he was residing at Crown Point. After he became established at New York he published, in book form, " Hot Corn," "Green Moun- tain Girls," and "A Dime a Day, or Economy of Living Well ; " also a story in the Weekly Tribune called, “ Me- won-i-toc," the scene of which was laid in Lake County. He also edited a large work of some four or five hun- dred pages, called " Farmers' Encyclopædia."
In or about 1868 he left the Tribune office and made his home at Jacksonville, Florida. He is understood to be in easy circumstances, even what here we would call wealthy, having an income of some four or five thousand dollars a year.
In person he is rather tall, spare, dignified ; accustomed to the ways of society. His hair was white thirty-five years ago, and it has not grown dark since. His age is
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sixty-eight. Although the pen has been his special instru- ment, and that to which in a great degree he owes his celebrity and position and wealth; yet he can speak easily and readily ; and has evidently possessed a shrewd and cultivated intellect ; cultivated not by the learning and drill of the schools, but by thought and effort in actual life.
In one article to Western Emigrants he says : "Hap- piness and not wealth should be the aim of all, though no man should allow himself to be happy without he is doing some good in the world-promoting the happiness of his fellow creatures as well as himself."
In closing up his last address to the Lake County Tem- perance Society, in the year 1847, Solon Robinson gave utterance to the following words :
"And as for myself I will ask no prouder monument to my fame than to be assured that the members of this society will stand as mourners around my grave, and, pointing to the lifeless form beneath the falling sods, shall truly say, 'There lies a brother who in this life had an ardent desire to promote the happiness of his fellow creatures. May his historian be able to record that in the latter years of his life he was eminently successful in this.'"
Scattered and dead as most of the members of that society now are, and far away from this region as he who uttered these words now resides, himself an aged man, it is not probable any of these associates will aid in lay- ing his lifeless form away to rest. And I fear, if rumor be true, that in these " latter years," he, like too many of us, has forgotten sometimes the happiness of his fel-
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low creatures in the pursuit and enjoyment of merely selfish gratifications. But well, evidently, has Solon Rob- inson known how, and for what, men ought to live. The Perfect Records will show at the last whether he has achieved an eminent success.
GEORGE EARLE.
The town of Liverpool, so noted in our early history, was on an Indian reservation, or on land selected under an Indian float. In the Recorder's Office is a copy of the patent, signed by Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, June 16, 1836, conveying to John B. Chap- man Section 24, Township 36, Range 8, being 603.60 acres, in accordance with the third article of the treaty made on the Tippecanoe River with the chiefs and warriors of the Pottawatomies in 1832. The town plat as recorded bears the date January 30, 1836. In this town George Earle, from the City of Philadelphia, a native of Fal- mouth, England, became a resident in the year 1836. Prominent as he soon became among the settlers, he was not himself a squatter. He was at first agent for the proprietors of the town, he was afterwards County Agent, and purchasing one interest after another, he became owner of a large tract of land. Section 18, T. 36, R. 7, was bought by John B. Chapman, one of the original proprietors of Liverpool, for $800, of Re-re-mo-sau, or Parish, also written Parrish, as the deed says, "once a chief but now an Indian of the Pottawatomies." So near as I have ascertained some ten or twelve sections of land came at length into the hands of the County Agent. Across this land railroads were at length built. The
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towns of Lake and Hobart were laid out and grew up upon it, and the owner became wealthy.
A personal friend, yet at the same time a rival of Solon Robinson for the location of the county seat, gaining it at first and losing the location afterward, his agency in the naming of the permanent county seat and sale of the lots has been already mentioned. After the question of location was finally settled the proprietor of Liverpool continued to improve that place. It was claimed to be the head of navigation on the river, and a large boat was built in 1840-'41 to carry produce to Chicago and to open inland commerce. The navigation proved diffi- cult. The boat was taken in 1841 by horse-power to Chicago, was remodeled into a schooner, and, while making a voyage, was wrecked near Michigan City. The time had not then come for the boat navigation of our marshy rivers. Finding that Liverpool was not likely to become a city, its proprietor in the spring of 1845 com- menced building mills at Hobart, distant some three miles. The dam and saw mill were completed in 1846, a grist mill was soon in operation, and the family removed to that place in 1847. The town was laid out in 1848.
In 1854 the proprietor of Liverpool, and Lake, and Ho- bart, returned to Philadelphia, leaving his son, John Earle, to manage the property interests in the county.
The resemblances and the contrasts between Solon Robinson and George Earle are somewhat singular and marked. Both remained some sixteen or seventeen years in this county. One founded a town and secured the county seat ; the other obtained the county seat but lost it, and laid out and established other towns. The one
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retired to New York; the other to Philadelphia. The one, well as he knew the lands of the county, invested but little in land, and left here the owner of none, de- pending for his future fortune upon his talent and his pen; the other made selections of land that proved profitable investments, and retired to use the pencil and the brush, to draw architect's plans and place forms of beauty on canvas. The one seems carefully to avoid re- visiting the scenes of his settler days; the other frequently returns to his former home in his railroad town. Both had talent and intelligence, both have now the reputation of possessing ample means; but their early training, na- tive tastes, and circumstances in life, have led to differ- ent results. In 1855 George Earle revisited his native place in England. He made a second visit in 1865, and a third in 1868. While there he caused to be erected a home for the poor and aged of the town of Falmouth, at a cost of $30,000, and made a donation of it to the town. Fond of architecture and painting, he in his home at Philadelphia, sometimes made architectural de- signs, combining profit with pleasure; and in leisure hours painted a number of pictures which have been placed upon the walls of the art-gallery which he erected at Hobart in 1858. He made a visit of several weeks during this summer, at the residence of his son, and will probably soon revisit the shores of England. He is tall in person, dignified and courteous in manners, manifest- ing the bearing of an American and English gentleman.
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