USA > Indiana > Lake County > Lake County, Indiana, from 1834 to 1872 > Part 6
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22
Benjamin McCarty, who, with his brother-in-law, had laid out the town of Valparaiso, which became the county seat of Porter county, was desirous of also giving a county seat to Lake. He had purchased the Lilley place, on the northeast side of Cedar Lake, had laid out a town called West Point, and was now a competitor with Solon Robinson for the honor and privilege of the loca- tion. The commissioners came into Lake in June. Offers of comparatively large donations were made by the friends of each locality. The commissioners rode around, looked over the ground, canvassed the claims and offers of the competitors, and finally selected Lake Court House as the proper place for the county seat.
7
86
LAKE COUNTY.
.
Town Lots, in number seventy-five, were soon afterwards laid out upon sixty acres of land in Section 8, twenty acres belonging to Judge Clark and forty to Solon Rob- inson.
A large public square was laid out and donated, upon which no buildings are ever to be erected, and an acre of ground was set apart exclusively for a court house and public offices. Another acre was given for school pur- poses. If I understand the old record correctly, the two proprietors also donated one-half of the lots laid out, and Judge Clark gave, in addition, thirty-five acres adjoin- ing on the east ; Solon Robinson also gave twenty acres on the west. Also Russel Eddy gave ten acres and J. W. Holton fifteen acres. Other donations were also made in money and labor. These donations, of course, went to the public or the county ; and George Earle of Liverpool was appointed County Agent. He and the two proprietors met to name the new town.
" I have a name to propose," said the County Agent.
" So have I," said Solon Robinson.
" What is your name ? "
" Crown Point."
"And that also is mine."
So, although Judge Clark did not at first quite fancy the name, it was soon adopted, having been suggested, per- haps, as in contrast with the West Point at Cedar Lake, and containing, it may be, a concealed allusion to Solon Robinson's well known title of Squatter-king. As such, his place should have the crown. Thus, although cer- tainly named after the Crown Point in New York, wheth- er named in honor of it is not so certain. The Agent
87
GROWTH, 1840-1849-
and the proprietors sold the first lots at auction Nov. 19th, 1840. The prices ranged from $11.00 to $127.50 a lot, on two, three, and four years credit, the first year with- out interest.
The United States census, taken this year by Lewis Warriner, showed the population of the county to be 1468.
During this summer occurred "the great wheat blight." The whole crop, it was said, was entirely lost. Not a favorable beginning for growth.
This summer also, S. Robinson and Dr. Palmer ob- tained from the East some Berkshire pigs, the first in the county. E. S. McCarty, at Cedar Lake, put up and burnt the first kiln of brick.
Political excitement was running quite high this sum- mer, as a presidential election was coming on. Says Lossing, " The contest was very exciting, and was char- acterized by demoralizing proceedings hitherto unknown in the United States." It was the "log cabin " and " hard cider " campaign. A large political gathering took place at the Tippecanoe battle-ground. To this S. Robinson, Leonard Cutler, and some other zealous Whigs of that day, went down, across the country, with, I think, a four horse team and flying colors. They had the credit of going and returning without becoming de- moralized. They at least claimed that credit. The majority of our citizens of that day were Democrats and in favor of Martin Van Buren.
In the spring of 1843, the scarlet fever, in a very malig- nant form, visited Crown Point. In six weeks there were eight deaths. Until this time, from 1834 to 1843, the inhabitants here had felt no necessity for selecting a
88
LAKE COUNTY.
public burial ground. In March the old cemetery was opened. Eight burials soon took place. Solon Robin- son makes this record : "And while our feelings were yet tender we promised that the ground should be fenced and improved. Perhaps our children, when they lay us there, will make the same promise and keep it as well." Not quite correct as a prediction, but too true in its spirit. None fenced, none improved that spot. A second location was selected for burial purposes. That proved unsatisfactory, and the "children " propose to transfer the remains of their dead to a third location, the Crown Point New Cemetery, already becoming a village of the dead. I have no record to make in this volume in regard to my fellow-citizens of Lake that is to me so saddening as that which I place here, which is, that many of them are so negligent in respect to protecting and keeping sacred the resting-places once set apart for the repose of the dead. I return to the events of the year.
A few sheep had been kept in the county for some years, but this season considerable numbers were brought in from Ohio, and this commenced to be quite a wool- growing region. The wheat crop of this year was poor. In November the sale of "Canal Lands" lying in this county took place at Delphi.
Two church buildings were erected, the Methodist Church at West Creek, near the Torrey bridge, and the Catholic chapel on Prairie West. Rev. N. Warriner, the resident Baptist pastor, moved to Illinois, and Rev. M. Allman, a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal church, settled, during the summer, in Crown Point.
89
GROWTH. 1840-1849.
The Presbyterian church at Crown Point was this year organized. Elias Bryant and Cyrus M. Mason were elected elders, Rev. Mr. Brown of Valparaiso the acting pastor.
From a diary the following extracts are taken : " Sep- tember 16th. This morning Mr. Sherman was found dead, killed by a fall from a wagon." Also, same day, " James Farwell died."
" 22nd. To-day have attended the funeral of Mr. Adonijah Taylor, who died yesterday."
July 8th is recorded. "Camp meeting commenced."
This meeting was doubtless held on Cedar Point, where, in a beautiful spot on the east side of Cedar Lake, a commodious camp-ground had been arranged. Inter- esting meetings were here held for a few seasons ; and then such meetings, except among the German Metho- dists west of Cedar Lake, ceased to be, in our borders.
Of the events of 1844 I find little to record on this page. The wheat crop was much injured by rust, many fields were not " worth cutting." The average price of wheat for a period of years, now, did not exceed sixty cents a bushel. The average distance for hauling it was not less than forty miles, the market place being Chica- The price of other productions was proportionately go.
low. It is, therefore, no wonder that many settlers, who had borrowed money at the land sale at exorbitant rates of interest, failed to make payments, and that so many acres of Lake county lands went into the hands of small capitalists at La Porte. The wonder rather is, that during this period the county improved at all. Many settlers, who had toiled resolutely on their claims, who
90
LAKE COUNTY.
had stood firmly with their fellow-squatters in asserting a preemption right, feeling how fully the speculators' grasp was upon them, abandoned their places and sought other homes in the more distant West. There is evidence from the assessment records, and from the lists of grand and petit jurors, and from the records of plaintiffs and defendants in the circuit court, that one half or more of the early settlers passed out of the county during the decade which is included in this chapter.
In the summer of 1845 the wheat crop was very good, the corn crop was good ; large quantities of butter were now made for sale, and considerable cheese. The grist mill of Wilson & Saunders, on Deep River, was this year put in operation, and a large mill was erected outside of the county, at Momence.
Two church buildings were commenced at Crown Point, the old Methodist church and the present Presby- terian, neither one being complete until the following year.
On the fourth of May of this year was opened the Ce- dar Lake Sunday School, a school held continuously for a number of years, back to which may he traced many influences for good, connected with which was the first mission school of the county, held at Mrs. Farwell's over West Creek, and the associations around which scat- tered groups of the dead and the living will never forget.
Another diary record : July 25th, "Lewis F. Warri- riner died to-day, at 6.00 p. m., at Dr. Wood's, after an illness of about twelve days." He was a son of Lewis Warriner, who, as representative of the county at Indi- anapolis, was so fully and favorably known, and was one
91
GROWTH.
of the noblest young men in the community or the coun- ty. His death was, by those who knew him, deeply de- plored. Sometime before the same neighborhood had lost a very promising young man, Franklin Edgerton; and near where the remains of these are resting was buried, May 19th, 1839, the body of a youth, George Taylor; but so sadly has that little mound on the east side of Cedar Lake been neglected that none can now point out these graves. The first settlers on that east side found enclosures or pens of logs marking the Pot- tawatomie graves in the sand ridge above the northeast- ern beach. To those some of their boys set fire, and now Indian's burial-place and White man's burial-place there are about alike neglected and forgotten.
In the spring of 1846 Rev. Wm. Townley settled at Crown Point as the first resident pastor of the Presbyte- rian Church.
The summer of 1846 was one of uncommon calamities. It was very dry and very hot. Sickness was almost uni- versal. There were few to relieve the wants of the sick or to administer medicine. Fields of grain wasted, uncut or unstacked. Much of the wheat raised was badly shrunk; and half the potato crop was destroyed by a disease call- ed the rot. The fall that followed was very favorable for cutting wild grass, and the succeeding winter was mild, so that cattle did not suffer for want of food. Thus often are calamities followed by mercies. The wind is tem- pered to the shorn lamb.
In 1847 there were in the county seven post-offices. A mail carried twice a week from LaPorte to Joliet supplied Crown Point office. A mail was carried once a week from
92
LAKE COUNTY.
West Creek to Valparaiso and from West Creek to City West.
In connection with the mail from LaPorte to Joliet occurred the incident of Solon Robinson's killing the bear. The mail carrier then was John Church, of Prairie West. He came in with the mail one day and report ed that a black bear was on the Soc Trail in advance of himself, and that he had, with his horse, actually driven him into the suburbs of the village. Solon Rob- inson, the post master, in the words of my informant, " hooted at it." Like the Indian on first hearing about railroads and telegraphs, he " poohed " it. Nevertheless, ·soon after -- distributing that mail was not a lengthy task -he took up his trusty rifle and went out. Sure enough, he soon encountered bruin, fired away at him, and soon the villagers learned of the death of their new visitant, the tired black bear.
In this same year, of seven post offices, there were five saw mills in operation, Earle's, Dustin's, and Woods, on Deep River ; McCarty's on Cedar Creek, and Foley's where it is now. There were three of earlier date, then dilapidated : Miller's, Dustin's old one, and Walton's, on Turkey Creek. Two others had been commenced, one on Plum, the other on Cedar Creek.
There were then two grist mills, Wood's, which for a time supplied both Lake and Porter counties, and Wilson and Saunders'. George Earle was then erecting the third, the mill at Hobart. There were in the county about fifty frame houses ; five church buildings, four of which have been mentioned, and the fifth a Methodist church at Hickory Point; two brick dwelling-houses, the first one
1
GROWTH. 1840-1849. 93
erected in 1844; and four or five stores. Two of these were at Crown Point, kept by H. S. Pelton and Wm. Alton ; one at Pleasant Grove, one at Wood's mill, one at St. Johns. There were five resident local Methodist preachers, one circuit preacher, and one Presbyterian minister. A Catholic missionary visited the church on Prairie West. There were two attorneys, six or seven physicians, and fifteen justices of the peace.
There were two, only, open drinking shops in our bor- ders. Crown Point then contained about thirty families, two churches, two stores, one hotel, one small school- house, four physicians, three ministers, the two lawyers, of course, and several mechanics. Its population was about one hundred and fifty. There was then no other place that could well be called a village. In this the log cabins were still standing. I have given the first county officers, those of 1837.
The officers ten years afterwards, or in 1847, were the following :
Henry Wells, Sheriff; H. D. Palmer, Associate Judge; Hervey Ball, Probate Judge; D. K. Pettibone, Clerk ; Joseph Jackson, Auditor ; Major Allman, Recorder ; Wm. C. Farrington, Treasurer ; Alex. McDonald, Assessor ; S. T. Green, H. S. Pelton, and Robert Wilkinson, Commis- sioners.
I have passed over, in the order of events, the part taken by our citizens in the Mexican War, and insert it here, as a fitting close for this chapter.
This war, it may be remembered, was declared May ȚIth, 1846, and the President was authorized to raise fifty thousand volunteers. After the victories of the Rio
8
94
LAKE COUNTY.
Grande, "everywhere the young men of America were now ready," says Mrs. Willard, to push for the " Halls of the Montezumas."
The military spirit of Capt. Joseph P. Smith was at once aroused. The drum and the fife were heard in Crown Point. Volunteers were soon enlisted, and in four counties a company was raised. Some twenty-five or thirty of these were from Lake. The Independent Mili- tary Company, which had been organized at Crown Point in 1840-41, under Capt. Smith, which had done military duty on celebration days and acted on other occasions, furnished most of these volunteers.
Their chief officer, Joseph P. Smith, an excellent man of business, had been captain of the Monroe Blues, called, in their day, one of the finest companies in the city of New York. Before the volunteers left, one of the com- pany, Cornelius Cook, died suddenly at Crown Point, in 1846, and was buried with military honors. The gather- ing of people was very large, as this was the first military funeral in the county. In 1847 these volunteers joined the army in Mexico. They were not in battle. They served as guards. They were six months at Monterey. They returned in the fall of 1848, "all there were left of them." Forty-seven out of the one company died by sickness on the fatal route and amid the burning heats. One who experienced the sufferings of that march and the exposures of that guard duty, our well-known towns- man, Capt. Alfred Fry, returned to meet the yet sterner conflict of the War of the Rebellion, and to endure and survive the suffering of the Libby prison. He knows what it means to sustain the honor of his country's flag.
95
GROWTH.
Peace had again spread over a rapidly growing coun- try. The telegraph had been invented, and a few thou- sand miles of railroad, mostly in Ohio, had been built since 1840. 1849 came and closed over Lake county, slowly and surely growing, her people cultivating the arts of peace, but waiting, as it were, for a new impulse and new facilities to rouse up her sons and to develop more rapidly her resources.
96
LAKE COUNTY.
CHAPTER V.
NEW GROWTH.
1850-1859.
As this decade opened, and the year advanced which closed the first half of the Nineteenth Century, a new element of growth, of expansion, and of progress was found among the northern sand hills of Lake. This was the Michigan Central Railroad track, making its way from Detroit, having crossed the peninsula of Michigan, over marsh and sand bank and morass; at length leaving the land and laid on piles in the edge of Lake Michigan ; and entering at last the young, growing city, known by the Indian name Chicago. This railroad was completed in 1850.
A station was located on Deep River, south of the Calumet, and named LAKE; the steam whistle was heard for the first time where had been the scream of the eagle and the sharp notes of water fowl; and the people of the county soon ascertained that they were in close connec- tion, by rail and wire communication, with the Atlantic seaboard.
It was the beginning of a new era, the era of western railroads. One track had entered Chicago, if it was by water ; and others were soon to follow. Up to this time every bushel of grain, every pound of butter, and cheese, and pork, all the produce of every kind not consumed at home, must reach the Chicago market by the slow trans- portation of ox and horse teams, and along a road, if road it should be called, where the water would often be, upon
97
NEW GROWTH.
the Blue Island Sag, two or three feet in depth, and where it was needful sometimes to "double teams " when each team consisted of two or three yoke of stout oxen. And along the same road and by the same method of convey- ance was until then transported every foot of lumber, and pound of nails, and every article of merchandise pur- chased in the city.
What profitable business farming was in those days may be readily learned by a little calculation. At the least, three days' time would be required for man and team, worth three dollars a day, or nine dollars. Two nights' expenses, on the road, worth or costing some two dollars. A single team might take thirty bushels of wheat. This would bring fifteen dollars; thus leaving four dollars to pay for the raising. Here is an actual and not a supposed
case: J. W. Dinwiddie, a better calculator and man- ager than whom few farmers that knew him would claim to be, undertook farming before the days of steam power in the West. He hauled wheat to Chicago, paid the expenses, and had when he reached home, five dollars less than when he started for the market. He gave up farming, sold out, and went to Illinois to work upon the canal. But in 1852 he was again to be found among the farmers of the county, and the operations he conducted afterwards until the time of his death, show that a new era, even in farming, had commenced.
After the opening of business at Lake Station, a daily hack line was started, running between Crown Point and Lake Station, and passing through Centerville. This soon carried a daily mail. By means of this first rail- road some facilities were afforded for sending off produce
98
LAKE COUNTY.
and bringing in merchandise. A second was soon after constructed-the Michigan Southern.
The Joliet Cut Off was built in 1854, giving us the stations of Ross and Dyer. The latter at once became the most important shipping point in our bounds.
The Fort Wayne railroad was completed in 1858. Hobart began to grow, and Crown Point was within twelve miles of a station, which then became its shipping point. A hack line was established and continued for a short time between Ross and Crown Point; but Hobart remained until 1865 the principal railroad station for the county seat and for the inhabitants of the eastern part of the county. Dyer continued to be an excellent ship- ping point for produce, and for lumber, and goods, until the same period; and up to the present time ships largely for the inhabitants of St. Johns and Hanover Townships.
Increased facilities for transportation enabled the farming community to realize more for their produce and obtain building materials more easily than in former years, and improved buildings, and fences, and barns, and stables, were the result.
The population of the county during these years con- tinually increased.
In 1850 two brothers, Thomas and William Fisher, be- coming residents, started, at South East Grove, a broom factory. This was about the commencement of indus- trial interests aside from farming. Something in the wagon making business had previously been done at the shop of Major Farwell, in Crown Point. At this broom factory one thousand a week were sometimes made, or
-
99
NEW GROWTH.
fifty thousand a year during the more busy years. The proprietors both raised and bought the broom corn brush which they worked up. In harvest time they sometimes had as many as thirty-two hands at dinner. The brooms sold in Chicago at seventy-five cents a dozen. Work was carried on in the Grove till 1859, when they removed the factory on to the farm now known as the Hews place. Here in one year one hun- dred and eight acres of broom corn were raised, and then worked up into brooms. This, if not a large busi- ness for the East, was something in the new West.
In 1852 Joseph Hack bought out the shop of Major Farwell and commenced, with blacksmithing and wagon- making, which has now become quite an important item in our productive mechanical toil.
In 1850 or '51, James Hunt came into the county from La Porte; in 1852 Marshall M. Barber, and in 1853 Peter Burhans and Samuel Burhans. These all settled near together, south and a little west of Lowell, near the marsh, and being intelligent and enterprising men, were a great addition to the farming interests in that neigh- borhood.
In 1855 the "New Hampshire Settlement " on Lake Prairie, was commenced. Ten families, natives of New England, soon established themselves south of the center of that beautiful prairie, bringing their Eastern habits with them, organizing, in 1856, an Independent Presbyte- rian Church, erecting a school-house and sustaining an excellent school, and making that prairie wild, which for long years had blossomed abundantly, bring forth the rich fruits of a Christian civilization. The labors of the first
100
LAKE COUNTY.
spiritual husbandman among them, Rev. H. Wason, be- coming pastor in 1857, were richly rewarded by a spirit- ual growth and increase; and a new Sabbath School and church-going center was recognized as having sprung vigorously up. Most of the early improvements con- nected with the founding and growth of Lowell belong to these ten years.
M. A. Halsted, one of the most enterprising men among all our citizens, laid out the town of Lowell, built a saw mill, a grist mill, and with some help from others, a brick meeting house ; and was to a great extent the center of all the business life that during these years was growing at that place. The town plat, as recorded, bears date May 13, 1853, and bears the signature Melvin A. Halsted. A brick school-house was soon erected, in which for a time religious meetings were held; and the old religious centers of Pleasant Grove and West Creek were, as to their interests, soon transferred to Lowell, where a Bap- tist, a Methodist, and a Christian church, began to hold regular meetings.
A tavern, stores, and various shops came along in their natural order, as the supply for a demand created; and a steady town growth commenced. While the northern villages were built up by railroads, Lowell, the only busi- ness center in the southern townships, grew up by means of its water power and its men. Among these were Wm. Sigler, a son of an old settler, who engaged in merchan- dising, and carried on a large trade, and J. Thorn. The' two brothers, Henry and Harvey Austin, came during this period, settling on a farm just out of Lowell, and added a new force in intelligence, and social, business, and moral
IOI
NEW GROWTH.
enterprise, to those who were laying the foundation of business and social life. One of them was for many years the energetic and successful superintendent of the Lowell'Union Sabbath School. The other returned, after a short residence here, to the State of Michigan. South and West of these two brothers, and near Henry and William Belshaw, and not far from the two Burhans fam- ilies, Amos Brannon and James Brannon purchased Canal Lands and began farming; the date of entry of the former being 1847, of the latter 1851. These, like the others just named, proved to be solid, prosperous, reliable men, of sterling worth in a community.
In Hobart Township a number of new families found homes ; but the growth of the village of Hobart, for some years after the opening of the Fort Wayne Road, was slow. It seemed to lack that class of men who finally came in and helped to make it what it now is.
In North Township Joseph Hess settled in 1850, and built up the village of Hessville, of which he is the prin- cipal man and the money maker.
In 1856 A. N. Hart, from Philadelphia, entering a large amount of swamp land, made his home at Dyer. In the second city of the Union he had been a book publisher and business man, and bringing with him capital and business talent, he became to the interests at Dyer a great acquisition. To his capital and energy that place owes no little of its celebrity and growth.
Over West Creek the Klaas family settled in 1850, the pioneer of a number of German families. In 1856 H. C. Beckman, a thorough business man, a successful merchant, late county commissioner, settled in Hanover. The Krin-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.