Past and present of Fountain and Warren Counties, Indiana, Volume 1, Part 18

Author: Clifton, Thomas A., 1859-1935, ed
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Indianapolis, Ind. : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 672


USA > Indiana > Fountain County > Past and present of Fountain and Warren Counties, Indiana, Volume 1 > Part 18
USA > Indiana > Warren County > Past and present of Fountain and Warren Counties, Indiana, Volume 1 > Part 18


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 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30


The first trustees were Stephen Philpott, Nathaniel Morgan and A. J. Denman. Jacob Bruner was the first treasurer and clerk. The township has always been noted as a strong Democratic township.


TORNADO OF 1875.


On the evening of July 27, 1875, a violent storm passed over this town- ship, uprooting and twisting off trees, demolishing fences and growing crops. It was a fourth of a mile in width and came almost directly from the west. David Shoef, Abe Wilkerson, Elijah Low, David Bowman, Elijah Clore, William Tate and others suffered heavy losses by having much valuable tim- ber and growing crops destroyed. Midway in the township it lifted from the surface of the earth, and during the rest of the distance alternately lowered to and raised from the earth, leaving destruction in its track. No lives were lost and only one log house was unroofed. In Mill Creek township, however, its force was much greater, and there seven persons were killed, among them the Sowers family, every member, save a small boy, who had both legs and one arm broken. Later, he was badly gored by a cow and almost lost his life.


VILLAGE OF JACKSONVILLE.


In 1880 a writer described this place in the following language: "This is a dilapidated little village of about a dozen houses, situated about three- fourths of a mile south of the center of the township and on the north bank of Mill Creek. It was laid out in the days when General Jackson reigned with absolute power in the hearts of his political friends, and but a solitary Whig


193


FOUNTAIN AND WARREN COUNTIES, INDIANA.


· had invaded the precincts of this purely Democratic paradise. At that time a part of Mill Creek township was embraced in what is now Jackson. No adequate idea can ever be formed of the true life and real character of a people except through the medium of the little events which show their temper, cus- toms, habits of thought and lines of action. Its age, not its size, has given this town à salient history. If this is dull it is not because there is wanting a train of incidents, a mixture of the ludicrous and shocking, whose rehearsal would give a charm of fascination to the historic story."


"Let by-gones be by-gones ; if by-gones be clouded."


By common consent, in later days the name has been shortened by calling it simply "Jackville." The proprietors of this hamlet were Squire John Bow- man and his father, Henry, the former owning the west side of the range line, while the latter held the lands on the east. The father had taken the George Brown farm, as always called, in 1827 when he first came to the township. Richard Williams was the first settler on the site of the village. He came here as early as 1826, which was several years before the town was platted. George McLain was another early settler. Squire Bowman erected the first frame house in the place, and Conrad Walter's sold the first merchandise. He left and was succeeded by two brothers, John and Joseph Milligan. Squire Bow- man and Andrew Higbee also traded together for several years at this point. There have been a large number of men engaged in trade here, though their names and circumstances connected therewith have long ago been lost sight of. In. more recent days, along in the eighties and earlier, the dealers there in- cluded Noah and Charles Grimes, Bayless and Jacob Carter, Cunningham & Smith, John Murphy, David Oliver and Johnson Clore. The drug business was. carried on there thirty years ago by W. H. Spinning. A blacksmith shop and: . a chair factory, with a hotel, helped to make the completeness of the town.


The postoffice was established during the administration of Governor Wallace, and was named for him by Judge Mitchell C. Black.


(13)


..


1


CHAPTER XXIV.


RICHLAND TOWNSHIP.


By Charles R. Mckinney.


Richland township, organized January 24, 1826, is the largest township in Fountain county, extending nine miles north and south and six east and west, except two sections in the northwest corner. It therefore contains fifty-two square miles. In its native state fine forest trees stood on a large portion of its territory, especially the southern part, which was a dense forest of white oak, burr oak, black walnut, sugar and poplar, besides many other species not so valuable. Many of these trees were very large, some being from four to five feet in diameter and many cutting from five to seven ten-foot logs./ The surface is gently rolling and wlien first settled the lower lands were very. wet; ponds or small lakes were abundant and were well stocked with fish. Five streams cross the township. The Big Shawnee, in the north, Little Shawnee, Coal creek, Turkey run and Dry run. Wild game found a delightful home here. Deer, wolves, muskrats, beaver, timber squirrels, prairie chickens and wild turkeys were very plentiful. One of the ways of trapping the wild turkey was to build up a square pen of rails and cover it so they could not get out, leaving a hole at the bottom; scatter corn along the outside and into the pen .- Busily engaged eating the corn, the turkey would creep into the pen and when they once raised their heads, would never lower them and thus remain until released.


SETTLEMENT.


In 1824, Aaron Hetfield, a young man of southern New York, built him a flat-boat on which he and his family, with all his earthly possessions, floated down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers to the mouth of the Wabash. Propelling this primitive craft by means of pike-poles, he ascended the river to Portland, where he landed, and erected a log house on the banks of Little Shawnee, where now stands the village of Newtown. Near by was a village of four or five hundred Indians. Other settlers arrived the next year, including Thomas Ogle and family, David Ogle, Joseph Hibbs, Nathan Cooper and their families, all of whom settled near by, while Jacob Hawk and Nathan Neal settled in the southwestern part of the township. The Beedles, Abraham, Isaac and Aaron


FOUNTAIN AND WARREN COUNTIES, INDIANA. 195


T., settled on Coal creek in the eastern part of the township. William Mc- Clure, Alexander Logan and Samuel Archer settled along Coal creek in 1826. Mr. Archer was probably the first justice of the peace in the township; he was also a practical surveyor and a good business man. In 1827 Peter Shultz, William Kiff, Aaron Insley, James Stafford, Jackson King and other's settled in this township. Thus from year to year the population was increased by good worthy citizens from Ohio and other Eastern states, who began breaking the prairies with ox-teams hitched to wooden mold-board plows. Their ivin- ters were spent in splitting rails, with which they fenced their fields. Many fine oak and walnut trees were worked into rails. Much time was spent by those who settled in the timber, clearing their farms, and many trees ivere burned in large log heaps that would now be worth much money.


Aaron Hetfield laid out Newtown in 1830. The following year an agent was sent with government authority to remove the Indians and also a tribe of eight hundred situated six miles northeast, at Shawnee Mound, to the Indian reservation at Fort Wayne. The Indians were stubborn and neither persuasion nor threats availed to induce them to leave their favorite hunting grounds. Not wishing to resort to force, the agent resigned his connection to Mr. Het- field, because of his friendly relations with the Indians. Mr. Hetfield had little trouble to induce his copper colored brothers and neighbors to consent to the plan, but the Shawnee tribe was quite a different proposition. Taking the chief of his village with him, he visited the Shawnee chief and laid before him the plan. The old chief filled his "pipes of peace" and for two long hours they sat and smoked in perfect silence. At its close the chief bade his white brother to come again one week from that day and then his final answer would be given. At the close of the week a favorable answer was given, and he at once made march. Lewis Hetfield, son of the pioneer, then a child of nine years, loved in after years to tell of his own experience, of how he was allowed to accompany the Indians for a few miles. He remembered, he said, how they took two long poles and fastened one on each side of the pony ; then taking a strip of bark they wove it back and forth between the poles and, covering it with skins, formed baskets on which their papooses, as well as cooking uten- sils and bedding, were bestowed. A lasting impression was made on the boy's mind by seeing some of the swarthy babies roll off from their rude cradles and being tossed back by their mothers, who walked behind.


The Indians having been removed, tlie country settled up rapidly. Merry- hearted children and youths throng the streets of this thriving village, gaining an education in their splendidly equipped schools, with never a thought of the retreating host of red men who once owned and occupied this very ground.


1


;


196


FOUNTAIN AND WARREN COUNTIES, INDIANA.


nor- yet of the "advance guard of civilization," which played so important a part in paving the way to the advantages which they now enjoy.


In 1834 a Mr. Martin, who owned the east half of the west half of sec- tion 9, two and a half miles southeast of Newtown, erected a building in New- town and bought and packed pork. Aaron Hetfield went his security ; the pork was shipped on a flat-boat to New Orleans and there sold. When Mr. Martin returned he reported that he had been robbed and Mr. Hetfield was left to pay ten thousand dollars, which forced him to sell his property and take over, as part payment, the Martin farm, to which he moved. This farm he sold to P. T. Mckinney in 1837 and went to Illinois, where he subsequently died.


The first tan yard was run here by Mr. Hetfield soon after he came into the township; later he sold to Peter Shultz, who operated it until about 1843. Jacob Haas operated another tannery for many years and sold to Mr. Newell about 1868; he closed up the business about 1880'and removed to Oregon.


The early settlers were not willing that their children should grow up in ignorance. Small schools were organized in each community, where enough children made it possible. The first school house erected in the village of Newtown was made of logs and stood midway between where the Methodist Episcopal church now stands and the Little Shawnee. P. T. Mckinney (father of the writer) taught this school in 1833 and in later years wrote the following letter to the Attica Ledger, describing the school houses of that day :


"Trees were cut and logged off the length they wanted to build the house, the logs being about a foot and a half thick. Some men cut the logs and others with their teams snaked them to the place they wanted to build the house. The house was raised by placing one log on top of another, notching .. the ends so that they would fit closely together. While the raising was going . on, some would rive the boards called clapboards, with which to cover it. The boards were put on and held to their places by placing heavy poles on them called 'weight poles.' At one end of the house four or five logs would be cut out at the bottom for a fire-place, which was about six feet wide. The chimney was built of what was called 'cat and clay,' which was made by taking mud or mortar and mixing it up with chaff or straw, and placing this mud mixture between small sticks split like lath, one on top of the other, until the chimney. was high enough. The back wall and jams were made sometimes of this same material and sometimes of flat stones. The door was made by , cutting off as many logs as was necessary to permit a man to walk upright. The house was lighted by cutting out a log, or parts of two logs, the length


197


FOUNTAIN AND WARREN COUNTIES, INDIANA.


desired, on two sides of the house about five feet high. In this opening were fastened little sticks about eight inches apart and the opening was covered with paper pasted or glued to the sticks and the logs above and below. The paper was then greased to make it more nearly transparent. These were our windows, and on a dark day it was dark enough! The writing desk, if it .might have so dignified a name, was a wide plank or puncheon, fastened to the wall under the paper window, by putting a two-inch pin in the logs and placing this plank on them. Our seats were mostly slabs, or a flat rail with legs or pins in them, called benches, without backs or supports of any kind. Sitting on the soft side of one of these benches was the best seat the scholars. had all day. The floors were made of puncheons (logs split in halves) extend- ing across the building, flat side up and hewed smooth. Children were taught their A B C's by having them pasted on a paddle, such as farmers use to clean their plows with. The writer well remembers his A B C paddle."


Such were the pioneer school houses of this township. Later the town- ship was divided into sixteen districts and a respectable frame building erected in each. In 1873 Samuel Low, trustee, erected, in Newtown, a four- roomed brick building, at a cost of six thousand dollars. One-third was raised by subscription. This marked an advanced position in the way of edu- cation and paved the way for greater things. In 1903, with Charles Palin as trustee, a new and larger building was erected with a view to the centralizing of the township schools. By the first of January, 1904, the new building was completed, a beautiful two-story brick structure, containing seven assembly rooms, two recitation rooms and a library, with wide halls and stairways. The building was heated by a furnace, and its total cost was twenty thousand dollars. Six teachers were employed and the rural children were transported to and from school in hacks. The attendance was about two hundred. This fine building burned on December 30th, just one year after its completion. The origin of the fire has always been a mystery. Mr. Palin, however, a short time before, had placed an insurance of twelve thousand dollars on the prop- erty. The school work was continued the rest of the school year in halls and vacant rooms, às best they could. Samuel Rice, the new trustec, at once began preparing to erect another building on the same plan as the one destroyed, and by October the new building was ready for occupancy .


In 1894 William Wright, then trustee, erected a very substantial brick school house at Mellott. It was at that time amply large enough to accom- modate all the pupils. Mr. Wright, however, showed his wisdom in con- structing the building with a view of adding to it. This step was found neces-


198


FOUNTAIN AND WARREN COUNTIES, INDIANA.


sary in 1906, when Mr. Rice was trustec. The completed building is a large brick structure of nine, possibly ten, rooms, beautifully located at the south end of town. Through the efforts of Mr. Wagner, present trustee, these schools accommodate all the pupils in the township, those from a distance being conveyed in sixteen hacks, eight running to Newtown and eight to Mel- lott. In 1911 these schools were made commissioned high schools, thus pre- paring pupils to enter college. From the little log school house, with a few pupils of all grades, to the large, commodious, beautiful and well equipped steam-heated buildings, where all the pupils of the township are trained for life's activities, under the management of sixteen well qualified teachers, marks a wonderful progress in the educational history of this township. The Newtown school was one of the first "centralized" schools in all Indiana.


NARROW GAUGE RAILROAD.


The Narrow Gauge railroad (now the Clover Leaf line) was constructed in 1882. . This road gave birth to the town of Mellott which became an in- corporated place in 1900 and now has a population of 372.


Newtown was incorporated in 1911 with a population of 350. The Mel- lott Bank was organized in 1901 and the Newtown Bank in 1964.


LIVE STOCK AND AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION.


The Richland Township Live Stock and Agricultural Association was organized in 1886 and for over twenty years held a successful annual fair, but was finally abandoned.


PUBLIC ROADS.


The mud roads of the early days were at times almost impassable, and became a great hindrance to progress. The first gravel road was built through this township on the range line in 1882. This road was built by taxation at a cost of from twelve to fifteen hundred dollars per mile, the requirements being that after grading, the gravel should be twelve feet wide and twelve inches deep at the sides and eighteen inches in the center. Since that was built the farmers have, by donation and by increased taxation, graveled nearly every road in the township. There are six miles of stone road, under the present "three mile" road law.


The Newtown telephone system was organized in 1899 and some time later the Mellott system.


1


199


FOUNTAIN AND WARREN COUNTIES, INDIANA.


THE CHURCHIES.


Richland township has eight prosperous churches : Shawnee chapel, United Brethren, on the north, organized 1871. Center chapel, organized in 1842. The Christian church at Coal Creek cemetery, organized 1871. The Christian church at Mellott, which was located there soon after the founding of the place, and the Disciples church of Mellott, organized about 1900. Newtown has three churches, all of which were formed at an early day, Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian, and all have recently erected large, com- modious buildings.


Marvelous has been the development of the township, all within the life- time of one of its first settlers, the late Lewis Hetfield, who was brought here when a child by his father. Josh Billings once said, "Life is like a game of cards; it is not so much in playing a full hand as in playing a poor hand well." To the pioneers we owe a debt of gratitude, for they truly played their part well, and certainly they "builded better than they know."


.


WARREN COUNTY, INDIANA


CHAPTER I.


GENERAL NATURAL FEATURES.


The entire county is within the valley of the Wabash, which river forms the southeastern boundary. The largest tributary of the Wabash is Big Pine creek, that enters the county in Adams township from the north, then flows southwesterly across Pine township, thence southeasterly through Liberty, emptying into the Wabash river at Attica. Little Pine creek flows from the north through Medina township and the eastern part of Warren. Kickapoo creek rises in Medina, flows across southeastern Adams and across western Warren. Mud Pine creek drains all the western territory of Pine township and Eastern prairie, and joins Big Pine creek near the northern line of Liberty. Rock creek takes its rise in Liberty and flows southward, forming the bound- ary between Washington and Pike townships. Redwood creek rises in Jordan, traverses the townships of Steuben and Pike and reaches the Wabash with a southeasterly course. Opossum run rises in Steuben township, flows south- east across Kent and Wabash. Jordan creek drains southern Prairie and northern Jordan townships and flows southwest into the Vermillion river, in Illinois. Gopher creek drains western Kent and the greater portion of Mound, uniting with the Wabash in Vermillion county. Other lesser streams are Fall creek, Dry creek, Little creek, Coal run, Hall's Branch, Salt's run, West Kickapoo creek and Chesapeake run.


State Geologist John Collet, in his report made in the seventies, had the following to say concerning the topographical features of Warren county :


"The topographical features of Warren county are agreeably varied. The western and northern parts, embracing more than half its arca, present a broad stretch of Grand Prairie. The surface is undulating, or generally rolling, and offers ample facilities for drainage, without any or but little waste lands ; while from the tops of any of the slight knolls or prairie ridges the eye is de- lighted with miles of corn fields or leagues of blue grass pasture and meadow land, diversified with island groves or their partings of timber. Adjoining


202


FOUNTAIN AND WARREN COUNTIES, INDIANA.


the prairie region to the south and cast is a high belt of rolling or hilly land, that descends gently to the abrupt bluffs which the Wabash and the creeks that flow into it have cut down through the underlying coal measures, con- glomerate sand rocks, and deep into the subcarboniferous formation. The soil of this belt is mostly yellowish clay, imported by rivers anciently flowing at this level. It is rich in tree food, and was originally clothed in a dense forest of oak, hickory, ash, walnut, poplar, beech, maple and other large trees, beech and sugar trees predominating on the reddish clay soils, and oaks on drift clays or sandy soils. The bluffs along the Wabash river and the princi- pal creeks are from eight to one hundred and fifty feet in height, and are of romantic boldness. The tops of several stations are crowned with pines and cedars, and the sides are generally curtained with living walls of conglomerate or subcarboniferous sand rocks.


"The soil is usually sandy, largely mixed with decayed leaves and other vegetable matter, and is in effect a rich garden mold. At an elevation of from sixty to ninety feet near the channel of the river are found wide areas of the more ancient alluvial formation, as the Mound prairie, in the southern portion of the county, and the 'Barrens,' south of Williamsport and southwest of Independence. The soil of this formation is generally warm, black loam, but sometimes sand or colder clays predominate. It is underlaid by gravel, sand of the rounded fragments of sand stone, and from the wide range of the deposit, extending miles on either side of the river, and from the great depth and uniformity of the material, we may date back the ages of these terraces to the time when they served as flood plains of the Wabash, then a mighty river miles in width, which poured, in a broad channel vexed with numerous islands of comglomerate sand rock, the surplus waters of Lake Erie to the sea.


"Still higher, reaching up to the most elevated point in the county, and full two hundred feet above the bed of the Wabash river, are found the oldest alluvium terraces and banks of modified drift gravels and sand, as at Walnut Grove, in Prairie township. These signalize the infancy of the river when an insignificant and currentless stream with uncertain course, the Wabash, tra- versing all the region for thirty to forty miles on either side, sometimes flowing around through Illinois, sought by the line of the least resistance the easiest pathway to the mouth of the valley of the continent.


BOWLDERS.


"The bowlder drift next succeeds in age. This formation is well de- veloped in the west and northern parts of the county and, in fact, underlies all


.


FOUNTAIN AND WARREN COUNTIES, INDIANA. 203


the Grand Prairie district. It consists of tenacious gray and blue clays, ob- scurely laminated, and holding a considerable proportion of worn and polished pebbles and bowlders. Some of the latter are specimens of the Devonian and Silurian rocks in northern Indiana and Illinois, but a larger proportion are metamorphic or transition rocks from the neighboring country of Lake Su- perior, or from still more arctic regions. The bowlders and coarse gravel are scattered from near the top down to within five to twenty feet of the bottom of the drift, for these clays were in a soft and oozy condition, and the heavy granite would naturally sink some distance. As a consequence, where bowl- ders are found on the surface, we may safely conclude that erosive action had carried away the finer matrix, leaving bare the heavy rocks. These, in return, by their number, are a measure of the amount of denudation. Partings of quicksands and thin layers of stone fragments from neighboring strata are found located at large intervals through the formation, showing that for short spaces during the drift period the great ice-bearing stream from the north was obstructed or overpowered by currents from the east or from the west, thus mingling with the northern drift fragmentary materials from Indiana, Illi- nois and Iowa. Near the base of the drift and resting on a broken and irregular floor of coal measure rocks, is generally found a bed of potter's clay, inter- mixed with quicksand and black muck. A marked bed of this latter was found in sinking the West Lebanon shaft. From the soil here discovered were taken a large number of roots of trees, shrubs and plants of pre-glacial age."


THE MOUND BUILDERS.


. The race known as Mound Builders is certainly pre-historic, and most of the articles and books that have been written on this ancient people have been mere conjecture, and the putting together of certain facts and arriving at certain conclusions; whether these were correct or incorrect no one will probably ever know. They existed, they labored as tillers of the soil, and had implements far in advance of those found among the North American In- dians, and were idolatrous and worshiped the lower animals, as is seen by the images they left behind them. Some authorities claim they were the ancestors of the Indians, and that the lapse of several thousand years will account for the divergence in habit and osseous structure, while other's insist that they were a distinct race of people, and that the lapse of the probable time between the lives of the two races will not account for such divergence. All agree, how- ever, that the Mound Builder, whoever he was and wherever he might have originated, was an agriculturist and cultivated the soil with rudely made in-




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.