USA > Indiana > Northwestern Indiana from 1800 to 1900; or, A view of our region through the nineteenth century > Part 19
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1872, in the school at Hessville ,a two-story house, there were some seventy pupils. The school declined, but still continues. Hessville still has a store. It is a station on the railroad, and several German families still there reside. The village is Lutheran.
19. Lake Station, population 100, owes its exis- tence to the Michigan Central railroad. It is there- fore nearly fifty years old, and while for a time it was one of the great shipping points of the county, when there were only three, after other roads were built it lost its early importance and having no special in- terests to promote its growth it failed to make much growth. It has a good school house with two teach- ers, it has two church buildings, one Roman Catholic and the other Protestant, and one store. Some good families reside here.
20. Miller's Station, population 80, on section 6, township 36, range 7, is a station on the Michigan Southern and Baltimore and Ohio roads, near the northeastern corner of Lake County. For many years its growth was very slow, putting up ice in the win- ter and shipping it in the summer having been its principal industry. It is one mile from Long Lake, a mile and a half from Lake Michigan, with large sand hills on the north. Of late years it has improved very much. A gravel road was made from Hobart through this village to Lake Michigan, a good church has been built and a good school house, and its in- telligent and enterprising merchant, C. F. Blank, has a large store and is prospering in his business. The village is mainly Swedish Lutheran. Some Germans, and some are Americans. All are true American citizens. Shipping sand from the large banks nearby is a profitable industry. About a mile and a half south-
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west from Miller's Station, on the road to Tolleston, are the Etna Powder Works, on section 12, where several men find employment, and where some sad explosions have taken place.
21. Tolleston, population 500 .- This is a German Lutheran town, founded about 1857, on the Michigan Central and Fort Wayne roads, is due north from Crown Point twelve miles, but the distance by a wagon road is about sixteen miles. It has two school houses, one parochial and one public, a large Lutheran church and parsonage, a number of well-built dwel- ling houses, and some good-sized business houses. In 1872 the number of families of the Tolleston com- munity was eighty, and there was paid out to the workmen there about two thousand dollars each month. The number of families is now ninety-five, by actual count.
22. Clarke in the southwest quarter of section 31, township 37, range 8, on the Grand Calumet, near- ly two miles from Lake Michigan, is a station and vil- lage on the Fort Wayne railroad, one mile north and two miles west from Tolleston. Its main industry is putting up and shipping ice. From this place some interesting relics of the past were sent to Crown Point for Lake County's semicentennial celebration in 1884. consisting of two pieces of bone, about four inches in length, taken out in 1882, with an entire human skeleton, from about two feet beneath the surface where men commenced digging a well. The Clarke of 1872, dating as a village from 1858, had that year sixteen families, with a population of about sixty. It has made very little growth since. It now has twen- ty-three famlies. Population 105.
North of Clarke one mile is a station on the Mich-
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igan Southern road called Pine. It was not mentioned among the villages of the county as like Edgemoor, on the lake shore three miles west, the resident fam- ilies are very few. At Edgemoor there is a small school, but none at Pine.
The stations Lottaville and Winfield have been named as localities that might grow into villages, and another name may be added to these, Hartsdale, on the Joliet Cut Off, a railroad crossing near the pri- vate stopping place at the Hart farm, now in the hands of Mrs. Malcolm T. Hart, a resident of Crown Point. There are at Hartsdale three dwelling houses and a hay barn, the land around the station being a part of the large Hart estate .*
There is a new station, and it may be said a village has commenced its growth, at the crossing, or south of the crossing, of the Joliet Cut Off and Nickle Plate road. It is called a Nickle Plate station and is named Glen Park. Its name indicates a Chicago origin, for Lake County people are not inclined to the name of Park. The populaton of this young town may be placed at 75. It has not, as yet, made much history.
INCORPORATED TOWNS.
Lowell-Population 1,300. History of location. According to the Claim Register, which is authority beyond question in Lake County, Samuel Halsted entered "Timber and Mill-seat," section 23, township { * Malcolm T. Hart, a son of A. N. Hart, one of the wealthiest young men of the county, one of the most gen- tlemanly and refined in his bearing, died at his home in Crown Point, November 14, 1898. Besides his wife, he left a young daughter, into whose hands there comes large estate.
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33, range 9, making his claim in August, 1835, and registering it November 26, 1836. There is added in the Claim Register, "This claim was sold to and reg- istered by J. P. Hoff, October 8, who has not complied with his contract, and therefore forfeits his claim to it." Under date of November 29, 1836, the second is : "Transferred to James M. Whitney and Mark Bur- roughs for $212." This mill-seat does not seem to have been purchased by any one at the land sale. In 1848, A. R. Nichols and some others were found by Melvin A. Halsted as holders of the locality, then belonging to a canal company, the land then probably "State Land," and an attempt had been made by A. R. Nichols to build a mill-dam. Haskins and Hal- sted purchased the mill privilege, and in the winter of 1848 had in operation a saw-mill. In 1849 brick were made and a brick house erected, into which the Halsted family entered in 1850 as occupants and owners, and for fifty years that house has been the family home, when they have been in Lowell, one oc- cupant only, M. A. Halsted himself of his family, being now left. In 1850 he went to California, ob- tained gold, returned in 1852, bought out the interest of O. E. Haskin, erected a flouring mill, and in 1853 laid out town lots and became the founder of Lowell. A small brick school house had been built in 1852, which was used also as a church. Village life had commenced. In 1856 the Baptist church was built. The structure was of brick, and was the result of the enterprise of M. A. Halsted, who was born in Rens- selaer County, New York, who became a member of the Baptist church in Dayton, Ohio, in the winter of 1840 and 1841, who was married to Miss' M. C. Fos- ter in 1842, and became a resident of Lake County in
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1845. His career has been a remarkable one, in go- ing over the country, making money and laying it out in improvements, and by the citizens of Lowell and of Lake County his name cannot be forgotten. He is an aged man now.
About 1853 J. Thorn built near the grist-mill a small hotel and also started Lowell's first store. About four years afterwards William Sigler opened a store and not long after the Viant store was built. Inhab- itants and improvements soon made Lowell a town. In 1869 and 1870 other church bulidings were erected and there are now four buildings, Baptist, Methodist Episcopal, "Christian," and Roman Catholic. Ir 1872 Lowell had the largest and best school building in the county, a commodious, two-story brick edifice, costing with the furniture, $8,000. At the same time the largest other building in the county was then to be found in Lowell, an $8,000 brick building, three stories in height, eighty feet long by fifty feet wide, designed for a factory. M. A. Halsted, then town- ship trustee, superintended the construction of both these buildings. There were then in Lowell one hun- dred and six families. There are now about three hundred. There are of school children three hundred and seventy-two.
There was a Good Templars' lodge with one hun- dred and sixty members, and a Grange of Patrons of Husbandry, with eighty members. For some years Lowell was the strongest temperance town in the county. It is located in the heart of the best farm- ing region in the county.
A few years ago a fire consumed a number of the older business houses, but the work of rebuilding commenced, and there are now solid business blocks,
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halls for different societies, and on new streets, many fine dwelling houses. It is the principal agricul- tural business town of Lake County.
Hobart, population 1,500 .- This now important town was founded by George Earle, who gave up his town of Liverpool after the final location of the coun- ty-seat at Crown Point, and built a dwelling house and erected a grist-mill and soon started village life where Hobart is now. As a town it dates from 1849. House and mill building at Hobart commenced in 1845. The dam was completed and a saw-mill com- menced work in 1846. A grist-mill soon was added, and the Earle family removed from Liverpool in 1847. Town lots were laid out in 1848.
The growth for a time was slow. In 1854 the Pittsburg and Fort Wayne railroad came through Hobart and as a railroad town it soon increased in business and population. In 1872 it contained ninety- five families, Lowell having at the same time one hun- dred and six. It has now a few more families than Lowell. As the growth of Hobart has been promoted largely by the clay industry, and that will be men- tioned in another chapter, it need not be inserted here. The churches of the town are: Methodist Episcopal, Congregational, Unitarian, German Lutheran, Swed- ish Lutheran, Roman Catholic, German Methodist Episcopal, and Swedish Methodist. There is a large school building for a graded school, the yard shaded with trees of native growth. In the north part of the town are many fine forest trees, and a quite retired street of good family residences. Besides the Fort Wayne, the "Nickel Plate" road passes through the town, and along the southern border passes the Elgin Belt Line.
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While Hobart is a pleasant and a prosperous town and some of its inhabitants are good, Christian people, it is not noted for any careful observance of the Christian Sabbath. Its record rather is for a non-ob- servance of that day religiously. A fair illustration is the following, taken from a published notice of a game of baseball to be played at Hobart by the Naval Re- serves of Chicago at 2:30 p. m., admission rates, 15 cents for men, but the advertisement says : "This will be ladies' day and they will be admitted to the grounds free." The game to be on "Sunday," the word well displayed, "May 20, 1900." It is to be hoped that the ladies, the real ladies of Hobart, did not feel highly complimented by this advertisement. Public notice has this year been given that the owners of Monon Park, which for many summers has been a place for constant Sabbath desecration, have discontinued Sun- day excursions. And even in Paris, it has been pub- lished, the strictly American part of the Exposition of 1900 is not to be opened on Sunday. By the observ- ance of this day, or by its open desecration, it is read- ily shown what nations, towns, and familes are.
We make our own history. Hobart is not the only one of our towns whose historic record, on the ob- servance of Sunday, in regard to both business and amusment, is not highly creditable ; but some of these towns are particular to hold their ball games, to which they also invite the young ladies, on Saturdays and not on Sundays. That Epworth League and Chris- tian Endeavor girls would go out on Sundays to bail games is not to be supposed.
Whiting, population 2,600 .- In 1889 some land was bought according to report, for $1,000 an acre, and some nine hundred men were employed in erecting
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what, it was claimed, would be the largest oil refinery in the land, the number of brick to be required in its construction was estimated at 20,000,000. This was the beginning of the work of the Standard Oil Company in Lake County. In 1890 about seventy-five votes were cast in what is now the town of Whiting. In 1900 nearly 1,500 votes are cast. The town was in- corporated in 1895.
At Whiting there are five churches, St. John's Lutheran, Epworth Methodist Episcopal, Plymouth Congregational, Sacred Heart Catholic, St. Paul's German Evangelical. There are of lodges eleven va- rieties, lettered or named thus: Golden Star D. of R., K. and L. of H., A. O. U. W., I. O. O. F., K. of P., A. O. H., K. O. T. M., C. K. of St. John Com. No. 241., Rathbone Sisters, Whiting Lodge No. 613. F. and A. M., and Daugh- ters of Liberty .*
The oil refining business has brought in many in- habitants and the growth of the town has been re- markable. Its location is on quite level land, along the first low ridge of sand that here skirts the beach of Lake Michigan. Westward to South Chicago are no large sand hills ; nor any eastward for a number of miles. Southward also the land is quite level to East Chicago and to the Calumet. Southeastward the town touches Berry Lake, which is not large, and southwestward Lake George. The growth is mainly westward, between 119th street of Chicago and Lake Michigan. Some local estimates place the population at 6,000.
Crown Point, population 2,300 .- When "Lake .
* Whiting News, February 3, 1900.
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County," 1872, was written, evidence was found that William Butler, in June or July of 1834, made four claims where is now the town of Crown Point, one for himself, one for his brother, E. P. Butler, one for George Wells, and one for Theodore Wells. Also that he had some logs put up for the bodies of two or more cabins. He made claims but no settlement. On the last day of October, 1834, Solon Robinson, with his family, reached the same locality, made a claim the next day, and had a log cabin ready for occupancy very soon. He was greeted the day after his arrival by Henry Wells and Luman A. Fowler, and they, in two or three days, bought claims, and "two log cabin bodies built by one Huntley," (these are Solon Rob- inson's own words), on the south half of section S, paying for these claims $50. That these were two of William Butler's claims seems to be certain, and he must have employed Huntley to pile up the logs ready for roofing. Soon, on this section 8, was a ham- let ; for in mid-winter some other families came from Jennings County, from which Solon Robinson also came, and united with him in founding a town. These hamlet families, on sections 5 and 8, were : The Robin- son family, seven in number, three of them young men, members of the family for the winter; the Clark family, also seven in number; and the two Holton families, also numbering seven.
Thus there were twenty-one in all, forming a community by then- selves, three married men and four married women, one a widow, five young men and two young ladies, four boys and three girls, manhood and womanhood, young men, maidens, and little children, the proper variety for a colony or a young city. Additional fam- ilies soon came in 1835 and 1836, and in 1837 was
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erected a log building for a court house and the place, now called Lake Court House, was becoming a vil- lage. Its history is lengthy, and a few points only can be given. It had a new store, a hotel, a postoffice, and in 1840 it became the county-seat. Its name was now changed to Crown Point. Slowly but steadily one improvement followed another. Brick were made in 1841, and the stick and clay chimneys began to dis- appear. A physician, a lawyer, and a minister came ; new stores were opened; and schools and churches were organized and buildings for their use erected. By the year 1850 Crown Point had become a town, but an inland town, where quite a large trade in some lines was carried on, it continued to be, for fifteen more years, increasing slowly in population, feeling something of the influence of the railroad life that was crowding growth elsewhere, but enjoying not much of its advantages. At length, in 1865, a railroad came, and lines of iron rails and of telegraphic wires connected it with the busy, outside world. A new stage of growth commenced. New schools were opened, additional business houses started up, in June, 1868, the town was incorporated, in 1869 a fire company was organized, and large business blocks of brick and stone and mortar soon appeared. In one of these, erected in 1873, was Cheshire Hall, now called Music Hall. Of this Mrs. Belle Wheeler, wife of the editor of the Lake County Star, a granddaugh- ter of Solon Robinson, wrote, as part of a semi-cen- tennial paper for 1884: "It has been the scene of many happy gatherings, and its audiences have lis- tened to some of the finest lectures of these times, the most notable of which were those given under the auspices of the Lecture Club, of which Mrs. J.
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W. Youche was secretary, and from whose books we glean the following : There were given lec- tures by Prof. Swing, Rev. Dr. Thomas, Will Carleton, Phoebe Cousins, Fanny McCartney, Rev. Mercer, Gen. Kilpatrick, Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. An- thony, Dr. Brook Herford, Benj. F. Taylor, Mrs. Dunn, a series of five lectures by James K. Applebee, reading by Laura K. Dainty, entertainments by the Hutchinson family, and others." "From its platform we have also often heard our own home talent, Rev. Mr. Ball, Judge Field, and many others."
After the brick blocks and society halls came banks, and electric lights, and telephones, and water- works, and paved streets, and a street-sweeper, and the different indications of having reached city life. In Crown Point the first Masonic lodge, Lake Lodge, No. 157, commenced with six members, dispensation dated November II, 1853, charter May 24, 1854. Now there are lodges of Odd Fellows, of Independent Or- der of Foresters of America, Modern Woodmen of America, Knights of Pythias, Knights of Tented Mac- cabees, Catholic Order of Foresters, Daughters of Rebecca, Eastern Star, National Union; also John Wheeler Post of G. A. R., and a Womans' Relief Corps. Also not secret a Womans' Study Club, a Pleasure Club, a Housekeepers' Club a Girls' Club a Musical Club, a Commercial Club, a Shooting Club, two or three missionary societies, a W. C. T. U., an Epworth League Chapter, and a Christian Endeavor Society. The life of Crown Point as a railroad town began in the spring of 1865, when freight and passen- ger trains passed through to Chicago. One of the new sights then on the streets was a dray, Crown
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Point's first dray. This was a regular, two-wheel, one- horse, city dray, such as were common then and had been for many years in the cities. It was owned and driven by Robert Wood, who had lately returned from the army, and was looking out for business. He was kind, accommodating, and reliable; his vehicle could be seen somewhere on the street during business hours, and for convenience in moving many articles of freight that one-horse dray has not since been equaled. After a time it gave place to the large dray wagons drawn by two horses. In the spring of 1869 another new sight appeared. Velocipedes, the forerunners of the bicycles, began to be seen on the streets of Crown Point. After them the bicycles came, such strange vehicles as at first they seemed to be, of which hundreds have probably been used in these latter years by men and women, by girls and boys. Postmasters at Crown Point since 1836, from the Lake Count Star: Solon Robinson, Henry D. Pal- mer, H. S. Pelton, J. P. Smith, D. K. Pettibone, Major Allman, Charles E. Allman, J. H. Luther, Joseph Jackson, Henry Wells, W. G. McGlashon, George Willey, Z. P. Farley, H. J. Shoulters, W. T. Horine, J. P. Merrill, J. J. Wheeler, A. A. Maynard, F. E. Farley. Nineteen incumbents in sixty-three years. The father of the present postmaster and his grand- father, Joseph Jackson, both held the office before him. The churches of Crown Point are: Presbyte- rian, Methodist Episcopal, "Reformed" or Evangeli- cal, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Free Methodist, Ger- man Methodist Episcopal, and German Evangelical. Also a society of "Believers" occupying a hall. Com- mencing town life about the same time as did the coun- ty-seat of Jasper, only thirty-six miles away as a crow
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flies, but separated for many years by an impassable river and marslı, Crown Point and Rensselaer have kept along in growth quite well together, Crown Point enjoying railroad facilities several years before Rensselaer and so having now a more city-like appear- ance, and this year, according to the figures given by the school superintendent of Jasper, Crown Point has a few more children of school age, yet one hunderd more of inhabitants has been assigned to Rensselaer. It is claimed that Crown Point has more miles of paved streets than any other town of its size in Indi- ana. Like Rensselaer Crown Point has some quite wealthy citizens, and like its southern sister county- seat, many talented lawyers, and citizens who have gained honors in political life; among thiese, two former State senators, Hon. J. W. Youche and Hon. J. Kopelke, and a former congressman, Hon. Thomas J. Wood.
Hammond, population 12,000 .- This growing young city was known in 1872 as the State Line Slaughter House. The sand ridges and marshes of that part of Lake County did not attract pioneer fam- ilies. In 1851 the Hohman family settled on the north side of the Calumet where is now North Hammond, and on the south side, probably soon after, the Soll family, consisting then of William Sohl, his wife, Mrs. Louisa T. Sohl, and some children. The third settler was J. Drecker, about 1858. Then came the Dutcher, Clayman, Booth, Miller, Goodman, Olendorf, and Wolf families, and some short time before 1872, about 1869, a company of men from the East opened there a slaughter house. Of this company George H. Ham- mond of Detroit was the capitalist, and when the place became a village, in 1873, his name was given to
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it. In 1872 there was one store, and also there was a boarding house for workmen. Eighteen men were at that time employed, and three or four car loads of beef were sent off each day for the Boston market. What a city Hammond would in a few years become was not then foreseen, and, as being then almost out of the civilized world, there was no effort made to set an exemplary example, and for quite a little time the slaughter house work went on, seven days in the week, no Sunday being observed, no Sabbath being kept. But as growth soon began, a village started, and then a town grew up, and schools, and Sunday schools, and churches came rapidly into existence, and customs and manners changed. In 1879, Porter B. Towle, from Massachusetts, came to the new town of Hammond, and he re-organized the village Sun- day school that was commenced as early as 1872, he gave literary and moral lectures, and in connection with a few others, especially one of his brothers, started cottage prayer meetings, and gave a new tone to the Hammond society. Hammond grew and kept growing, at first slowly, afterward rapidly ; Sun- day schools, churches, and societies were organized, and now, counting it thirty years of age, it takes good rank with the two large places of northwestern Indi- ana, Michigan City and La Porte, which have had nearly seventy years in which to grow.
Hammond now has fifteen churches, counting a Jewish or Hebrew congregation as one, and a church is not necessarily Christian. These are: Methodist Episcopal, Congregational, three Roman Catholic, one of these German, one Irish, and one Polander, Ger- man Methodist, German Reformed, two Baptist, "Christian," Presbyterian, Episcopalian, two Luth-
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eran, and one Hebrew, called "Anshey Agudos Achim." Of social organizations, lodges and asso- ciations, there are in Hammond thirty-one making with the churches and Sunday schools sixty or more different gatherings of various kinds for Hammond's increasing thousands. Of these thousands, as will be seen in the chapter on industries, more than three thousand are persons employed in the five leading manufacturing and business interests of Hammond. In the city are some good business blocks, some sub -. stantial church buildings of brick and stone, some well-constructed school buildings. It has two banks, paved streets as a matter of course for a city joining Chicago, water works, an artesian well and also water from Lake Michigan, and two electric railways, one leading to East Chicago and Whiting, the other to Roby and South Chicago. Its industries will be men- tioned in another chapter. It is still the home of M. M. Towle, one of the principal founders of the town, a man of large enterprise, of Porter B. Towle, editor of a daily paper, and in it resides Hon. C. F. Griffin, formerly secretary of state of Indiana. Just outside of Hammond, that is, lying north of Wolf Lake, is Roby, the noted, or perhaps, notorious, race course, The following extracts from a Chicago paper, con- necting Chicago and Roby history together, will be all that is needful to give of a portion of history not creditable to either Hammond or Lake County. The date of the extract is August, 1896:
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