USA > Indiana > Northwestern Indiana from 1800 to 1900; or, A view of our region through the nineteenth century > Part 20
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Time was when Chicago was a haven for race "fiends," as they are called. There is something sug- gestive in this word. Four years ago two race tracks, Harlem and Hawthorne, were playing the game al- ternately and making it continuous. In addition there
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were pool-rooms down town. Then came the fight against the tracks and the pool-rooms. Finally fol- lowed the establishment of the Roby track, over the Indiana border. Here it was intended to race all the year around by a system of subordination, which gave employment to many persons in the vicinity of the track at extraordinary wages. The enmity of the Lake County (Ind.) officials was met and conquered, and for three years the Roby track and its later mates enjoyed immunity from local interference. At the Indiana tracks the foreign book-making, which was really a pool-room, was the profitable part of the busi- ness. It is only a few weeks since the Indiana courts after a prolonged litigation on the part of Gov. Matthews against the tracks, practically declared all the rights of the tracks forfeited, and they were closed.
East Chicago. Population 2,700 .- This young city like the original Chicago, has had a rapid growth. The Penman family, the first resident family, estab- lished a home here in 1888, and now the estimated population around them is 3,000. Very literally in 1888 the place was "in the woods," marshes, under- brush, sand ridges, the characteristics of quite a part of North township, were then the natural features of the locality. Now there are various industries else- where named, long streets lined with city-like build- ings, a large graded school building, and a bank, and many stores and business houses. It has water works and electric lights. Its churches are: Congrega- tional, Methodist Episcopal, German Catholic, the St. Michael's Polish Catholic, and a Swedish Lutheran church. It has quite a number of social organiza- tions, lodges and clubs, in accordance with modern
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city life. Outside of the city limits and on the Calu- met are the large Grasselli Chemical Works.
GROWTH OF LAKE COUNTY.
Owing no doubt to its position, its proximity to Chicago, and, slightly, to some natural advantages. Lake County from 1880 to 1890, according to the Census reports, made more rapid growth than any other county in all Indiana. In 1880 Lake County as to population was the seventy-first in the State, only twenty-one counties having a less number of in- habitants. In 1890 it was the thirty-fifth in popula- tion, fifty-seven having less. Its increase in popula- tion was 8,795. Its per cent of increase was 58.28. The next largest per cent was 43.76. Porter County, in the same ten years, gained in population only 825, and La Porte only 3,460, or 11.17 per cent. These two counties are next nearest to Chicago. These are somne stages of progress: In Lake County in 1840. there was no church building. There were a few log school houses. There were two or three Sunday schools. There was a Baptist church organization and perhaps three Methodist organizations. The population was 1,468. In 1870, there were twenty church buildings, ten resident pastors, forty places for religious meet- ings, thirty Sunday schools, and the population was 12,339. In 1890, there were fifty-six church buildings, thirty-nine resident ministers, forty-five Sunday schools, sixty places for Sabbath meetings, and the population was 23,838. In respect to growth, as it is a question of fact and not of opinion, Lake may be called the "banner county" of Indiana.
The following figures will show the growth of the six towns of Lake County, the population for 1880 and 1890 having been taken from the Census reports,
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and for 1900, being estimated from the public school enumeration, making allowances for the different va- rieties of population in the different towns :
1880. 1890.
1900.
Lowell
458
761
1,300
Hobart
600
I,OIO 1,500
Crown Point
1,708
1,907 2,300
Whiting
II5
1,408
2.600
East Chicago
00
1,255 3,000
Hammond
699
5,428 12,600
The number of children, on which the estimate is based, is the following: Lowell, 372; Hobart, 439; Crown Point, 700; Whiting, 640; East Chicago, 876; Hammond, 3.621. To Whiting is assigned a popula- tion of more than four times its school enumeration. To the others about three and a half times the school enumeration. And that ratio is generally too large rather than too small.
CHAPTER XX.
VILLAGES AND TOWNS OF PORTER.
Baillytown is not the name of a locality where American pioneers settled, as is Waverly, and as is Tassinong, but is the name given, probably by the earliest settlers, to a French and Indian trading post. It is claimed that in 1822, Joseph Bailly, a French fur buyer, who was in connection with Alexander Rob- inson in 1809 in the fur trade, opened a store and es- tablished a trading post on the Calumet River, four or five miles from the mouth of Fort Creek. His wife was an Ottowa Indian woman. They had four daughters and one son. The son died in 1827 when ten years of age, and at this time it is thought that the bereaved father erected a Roman Catholic chapel. At this locality Indians gathered to sell fur and pur- chase goods.
In 1837 there was here quite a cluster of cabins, a building then understood to be a chapel, store rooms and out rooms for the family, and also for the Indi- ans who staid for days, perhaps sometimes for weeks. Considerable parties of them, on their ponies, would leave this place in the summer of 1837, pass through City West, go somewhere, the children of City West could only guess where, and return.
Joseph Bailly made money, and it is said that in
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1834 he had some lots laid out in due city form so as to build up a town. But no American inhabitants came, the Indians that were there could not make a city, and in a few years the trader himself died. Some of the daughters married, but members of the family continued to reside there and the name yet remains.
CITY WEST.
Note .- This sketch was read some years ago at one of the anniversary meetings of the Lake County Old Settlers' Association, by T. H. Ball, the title then being "My First Home in the West, or Old City West." As written for that occasion it is quite dif- ferent in form from what it would be if written now for this work. But the author hopes that no apology is really needed for inserting it here in its full form as it was then written and read.
The village, for it was more than a hamlet, that bore this significant name, among the earliest of those commenced in the county of Porter, is recognized as having had a very short existence.
Before proceeding to give what may now be rescued from oblivion of its actual history, I may be allowed to notice this question which some might ask, Why try to preserve any history of a place that was so short- lived? As planned for a large Lake Michigan city, it proved to be a failure and not a success. Let then, the oblivion which it merits cover all its history. Or the question may be stated thus: Of what use so far as the objects of history are concerned can the records of this short-lived village be? The first question or the first form of the inquiry, may be answered by another question. Why do wealthy families, and sometimes families not abounding in wealth, often
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place in their burial grounds a costly slab or marble monument on which is engraved the name, perhaps the date also of the birth and of the death, of some little infant? An answer to this question will suggest an answer to the other. The "little cottage girl" whom the poet Wordsworth met, herself but "eight years old," immortalized in his beautiful little poem, held as firmly to her relationship to her dead brother and sister as to her living ones. And surely no local history can be complete which treats of white man's occupancy ; that does not give some account of at- tempted colonies and settlements and villages and towns and cities, as well as of those that succeeded and are in existence now. The pupils in our schools who have learned of Plymouth and of Boston Bay colonies in New England history, but who know nothing of Weston's Colony, commenced "in the suni- mer when nature laughed and the hillsides were gay with flowers, and the air sweet with the songs of birds," as a chronicler has said, giving the contrast between it and old Plymouth,-these have missed one of the grandest lessons taught by those old colonial settlements.
And those who have had no means of examining the records of the Spanish attempt to found a colony in Virginia, on the Rappahannock called the first European settlement in Virginia, made in the fall and winter of 1570, have missed one grand mental picture, which would have shown them Melendez, "the founder of Saint Augustine, the butcher of Ribault, the chosen commander of the Invincible Armada, as he stood sur- rounded by his grim warriors, planting the standard of Spain on the banks of the Potomac."
But the question in its other form suggests the in-
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quiry, What are the real objects, the purposes, for which human history is, or ought to be written? Is it not largely to teach lessons, to impart instruction, to furnish warnings, to offer encouragements, to stimulate to new and praiseworthy undertakings, and to furnish some guide that may secure others against failure? And, if so, the history of failures as well as of successes may be equally valuable. Chicago, Indi- ana City, City West, Michigan City, all started some fifty years ago (when this was written) with the hope of becoming large, lake shore cities, great marts of trade, with fine harbors, abundance of shipping, large warehouses, centers of commerce where would be bought and sold large amounts of costly merchan- dise. One succeeded, beyond, doubtless, the most sanguine hopes of its founders. Two failed entirely and are not. The fourth succeeded, slowly for a time, but at length reasonably well.
I trust that I need no further apology for placing in this form the following particulars in regard to a "city" that was but is not. 'Troja fuit," was written of an ancient town.
In the year 1836 four men,-Morse,-Hobart, -- Bigelow, and L. Bradley, adventurers in the better sense of that word, having some means at their com- mand, selected the mouth of Fort Creek in Porter County on the shore of Lake Michigan, about ten miles west from Michigan City, and about the same distance from Indiana City in Lake County, as an inviting place for founding a city that might com- pete with the then young Chicago and the still younger Michigan City in securing the yet undevel- oped commerce of Lake Michigan. Of loaded freight trains on railroads they seem to have scarcely dreamed.
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The selection was not badly made. The sand bluffs along that portion of the beach were large and grand. Fort Creek entered the lake along a bed nearly paral- lel for a little way with the lake shore. It was not a large stream of water, but it was not far southward to the Calumet River which it was designed to connect with Fort Creek by means of a canal. Actual sur- veys and soundings made in 1837 indicated that the natural advantages for a harbor were superior there to the locality chosen for Michigan City. In the fall of 1836 and the winter following quite a portion of land was laid out in city lots, Hervey Ball from Massachu- setts looking for a location in the West, acting as surveyor and civil engineer. A saw-mill was erected by one of the company, probably Morse, a dam hav- ing been placed across the creek, buildings were erected, the large pine trees that grew on the bluffs, and other varieties of timber growing on the level and lowland, furnishing an abundance of good lum- ber, and village life in that winter commenced.
When the spring of 1837 opened the place began to grow rapidly as a new western town. Commodious and quite costly houses were erected ; a large building was put up for a store and warehouse; hotels were built ready for being opened to accommodate the travelling public ; a survey for a harbor was made, and an appropriation from Congress was expected to en- able the proprictors to perform the needful work; and everything for a time promised an abundant success. The saw-mill furnished a good supply of lumber and the carpenters were busy putting the lumber into the form of houses.
There came from Massachusetts in the spring the two families of Hervey Ball and Amsi L. Ainsworth,
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VILLAGES AND TOWNS OF PORTER.
other families came in, and quite a little community was formed. How many families there were in all cannot now be ascertained; but the following names are preserved in memory : Ainsworth, Bigelow, Brad- ley, Ball, Chisleu, Ellis, Hobart, Morse, Muzzall, Sweet, Wheeler, and four other families at least are remembered whose names cannot be recalled. There were several unmarried young men, and in all there must have been some sixteen, possibly twenty, fam- ilies .*
It is astonishing through how much one may live in a short period of time. The writer of this spent here some seven months of the year 1837, visiting occasion- ally the beautiful wilds around the Red Cedar Lake where was afterwards his western home; but here he took his first and ever to be remembered lessons in hunting ; here he learned the grandeur of Lake Michi- gan in its native wildness and its varied moods ; here he first learned the meaning of the solitudes of na- ture; here he learned something of Indian life, see- ing the travelling parties almost every week on their ponies, going to and from the neighboring Bailly- town, and visiting at their wigwams the hunting parties that came from Green Bay in their large, birch- bark canoes, and camped for weeks near the growing village; here he and others formed acquaintances destined to exert an influence through life; here he first saw an Indian burial place and saw Indians mourning over their buried dead ; here he learned the
* Of that family bearing the name of Muzzall, having come from England through Canada, descendants are now living in Crown Point and Merrillville; and of those young men one is now living in Hammond, L. W. Thompson, born in 1814, and at the date of this note, November, 1899, eighty-five years of age.
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intense sadness and loneliness of death in a pioneer settlement and the loneliness of a pioneer burial in the wilderness; and here he learned how colonies were planted in American wilds. Those months seen now like years of ordinary life.
Some incidents besides those named may also be mentioned. Gardens were made in May and some of the families obtained their supply of potatoes from the lake shore, at the mouth of the creek. Some lake sloop had evidently been storm-tossed, perhaps, for a time, stranded. And there was deposited for the benefit of the inhabitants a part of the cargo in the form of sound and good Irish potatoes.
No formal school was opened in 1837, but some of the children carried on their studies in their homes. No Sabbath meetings were held, and when the little community assembled to bury their few dead, in a lone spot, selected for that purpose, there was no minister in attendance to speak of the great hopes of the future. Yet some were there who knew those great hopes and who were accustomed to pray. They were not heathen burials. On a sand knoll, between the village and the lake, on the bank of the creek, there was an Indian burial ground of some size, the marks or inscriptions on the head-boards seeming to have been painted with Indian puccoon root. Here the villagers did not bury; this sacred spot they did not disturb. Near this, in the summer and fall, some Indian encampments were held; the Indians being quiet, peaceable hunting parties, one party at least having come down Lake Michigan from Green Bay, if the information imparted to the villagers was cor- rect.
One day there came from Michigan City along the
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VILLAGES AND TOWNS OF PORTER.
beach of the lake a party of boys, white boys, on their ponies, who rode around City West in quite gallant style, showing off themselves and their ponies, ap- pearing to be members of the wealthier families of that lake town. Where they dined that day cannot be recorded, but in the afternoon they returned to their own city and the streets of City West were again quiet. A ride of twenty miles along the beautiful sandy beach must have been an enjoyable experience for stylish boys well mounted on ponies. There was quite a number of these city boys, and some of them may yet be living. Frequently the Indian parties came on good ponies from Bailly-town, men, women and children, passing along the west street of the vil- lage, then going by their burial place to the lake shore, sometimes going eastward to the city, sometimes west- ward. In a few days they would return. To the white women and children the squaws and pappooses on the ponies were always objects of much interest.
The young society of City West was not large in numbers. but very select. Of young ladies proper there were not more than five or six. Of young misses there were, of the "first set," five. Three of these are now living,* having been very active and influential women in their spheres of life, one in Illinois, one in Indiana, and one in Alabama, all now about sixty years of age.
The most lovely one of these, probably the young- est, beautiful as well as lovely, bore the given name of Mary. All five were quite polished, cultivated, good- looking, dressed well, were accustomed to the refine-
* "Now" means when this sketch was read at the Old Settlers' Association.
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ments of life, and formed a very small, but a truly city-like group of girls. There were several boys and other children in the village, but only a few boys connected with this small group of girls.
One morning the usual quiet life of the commit- nity was broken by the announcement that Daniel Webster was about to enter City West in a two- horse carriage, having turned aside from the stage road to visit our little growing city. Of course the Whig portion of the community was quite excited. A good breakfast was prepared at the Morse resi- dence; and after breakfast, as the citizens, men and boys, had gathered near the house-girls did not go out in those days as they do now-the great "ex- pounder of the Constitution" came out to be intro- duced to the inhabitants of City West. There he stood before us, the great lawyer, statesman, and orator, tall in form, massive in intellect, the man of whom we had heard and read, but whom we had not expected to see standing upon our sandy soil. He soon took his seat again in the coach and passed out from us on to Michigan City. A few more reminiscences.
Three varieties of wild fruit were found that year at City West. These were, winter green berries, so abundant in May, so fragrant, so delicious; huckle- berries, blue and black, low bush and high bush, growing on the flats and on the high sand hills, that overlooked so many miles of that blue lake, ripening from the Ist of July till frost came, ready to be gath- ered by the quart or by the bushel; and the sand-hill cherries, as we named them, ripening in August, not so abundant, but a good, edible fruit. Gathering ber- ries for their own use formed a healthful and pleasant occupation for the women and children in that ever
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VILLAGES AND TOWNS OF PORTER.
memorable summer. Toward the cool of the evening, as the sun would be, apparently going down into the lake, these women and children found a delightful walk on the hard, smooth, clean sand of the wave- washed beach, from the mouth of the creek westward. And the little children and the young misses took de- light in running barefooted in the very edge of the dancing waves, avoiding the large ones, letting the ripples flow over their white feet and ankles. (Little girls' dresses came to their ankles then. They did not stop as now, at the knees). At other times they would visit the great "blow-outs," climbing up and running down in that which was so soft and yielding, in which they could play, on which they could recline, and have on hands and face and clothes no stain. What could be cleaner, except the water, than that white and black Lake Michigan sand! Some, who loved the magnificence of nature, would climb to the very top of some of those high bluffs and look out upon the broad expanse of water, sometimes seeing the white sail of a distant vessel, and enjoying the grandeur of that wide sweep of lake and shore line, that satisfied the range of the keenest vision.
But this pleasantly situated little town never be- came a city only in name. It was two or three years too late in starting. The financial crash of 1837, that swept over the country, did not spare even this little place. Congress made no appropriation for a harbor, although Daniel Webster had taken breakfast there. It would take money to stock the large store house with goods, money to dig the contemplated canal from the Calumet to the lake, money to make a city. And the proprietors were not millionaires. They had built fine dwelling houses, they had spent thousands
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of dollars, they had secured nothing that would bring in an income. They must give up their enterprise. The crash had come. They began to scatter. Before 1837 had ended some sought new beginnings else- where. Others followed the same example in 1838. Some went further west, some found homes in La Porte County, some in Lake, engaging in various pursuits, some went further from the lake into Porter County ; and in 1839 few if any were left in the once promising and pleasant little city.
In 1840, in company with a young friend, I visited the place, mainly to obtain wild fruit. We went from the Red Cedar Lake. Toward nightfall we drove into the village. The houses were there but no inhabitants. We called at the large Exchange hotel, but no one came to welcome us or attend to our wants. We had come prepared for that. We had our choice not only of rooms but of houses for that night. We chose a house, prepared our supper, and arranged our lodg- ing place. We had no fear of being disturbed that night. The next day we gathered our fruit, bathed in Lake Michigan, and went out from that solitude, and returned to our homes.
The next that we heard about the unfortunate City West was a report that a fire had swept over it and that all the houses had gone into ashes It failed to become a city for the lack of men and means, mainly for the want of money. But for the needs of those years it was too near to Michigan City. There was then no need for a harbor between Chicago and Mich- igan City. Now there is one between, and there will probably yet be two. But for a new City West there seems to be no hope. The early City West has gone. Its years were few; its life was brief and bright, for
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some very bright; its decline and its end soon came ; and from it we may learn to be careful how and where we expend, in founding cities, any large amount of means. Had the amounts expended in 1836 and 1837 been laid out where is Chicago now, some of those that were children in the young City West might have been millionaires in Chicago before now. Circum- stances combine to make some rich and to leave others stranded on the sands of poverty. And those circumstances cannot by the most sagacious always be foreseen.
Young city on the lake shore ; Thou art gone forever more; Yet thy homes were fair and bright, Seen in childhood's rosy light.
WAVERLY. In the year 1834, John I. Foster, an ear- ly settler in the north part of Porter County, laid out a tract of land into town lots and gave to the town which he hoped to see, the name of Waverly. A few families, connected by the ties of blood and marriage, built log cabins on some of these lots and soon there was a little cluster of six houses. These were the families of Jacob Beck, John I. Foster, and William Gossett, whose wives were sisters, also of William Frame, and the families of Sparks, Warnick, and Mc- Coy, two of these sons-in-law. Six connected families, founded the young town.
It was on the Calumet, about one mile and a half above Baillytown, a name to which the earliest settlers gave, as near as might be, the French pronunciation. It was nearly four miles from the mouth of Fort Creek on the lake shore. Thomas' saw-mill was near, at about the present Chesterton; but the authority is
:
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good for stating that the houses of Waverly were all of logs. No business appeared in prospect ; the in- habitants did not hear the whistles of the coming age of steam; they must get food from the earth; and so the families went further south into the county, open- ed farms, built mills, and Waverly ceased to be. In 1837 it had the appearance of an old, almost of a de- serted village. According to records concerning an election ordered to be held in what became Porter County, the order issuing from the La Porte County commissioners, this was already quite a noted place carly in 1835, for in March of that year the election was to be held "at the town of Waverly."
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