USA > Indiana > Fountain County > Past and present of Fountain and Warren Counties, Indiana, Volume 1 > Part 28
USA > Indiana > Warren County > Past and present of Fountain and Warren Counties, Indiana, Volume 1 > Part 28
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In the autumn of 1012 the prices quoted by home deal- top : When 89 cents; oats, 28; corn, 65; hay. $12 per ton: apples, St.00 per byla 1; potatoes, 75 cents; hogs, $9.00 per hundred weight. cutle. Store per load of weight : coffee, 2010 jo cents per pound ; silgar. 7 cute ; lettel. 23 com. cons. TS cents per dozen ; gasoline, per gall 3, 25 cents, kunne oil, 20 10. the 1) : bleached mislim, per yard, to cents (good grade): pripis. ; com. mails, 3 cents per pound.
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Further information
" contandotions mast os kept strictly private and confidential."
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Hering. . Ine ! ! !:
cela de todos da we a half of the portinternet quarter of action 23, Col. Bly A rouge & by William B. Bailey. March . 1932.
. Je Je Sted April 16. 1833, In Isade Bains, our section 2. town- dip 23. range 8, of the east side of Pine crock.
Independence Batted October 5. 1832. by %. Cicolt, in town ship 22. range ; west, on what was known as Z. Cicott's Reserve. State Line City, platted June 29, 1857, on section 18. for ship so, range 10 west, by Robert Casement.
Marchlied, platted (survey executed) May 32 1957. 0 00 township 21 Lange 9
Johnsowolle, plitted by Jole R. Johnson, Sr., on .cobol 31. 1. 309 21, range 9 west, July 8, 1874
Hedrick, platted on section 36, township 22, mange to me. I. P. G. Vinith and G. W. Compten, July 31, 188 1.
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flor inei to give valuable infor en regarding. Too much is sent the down to date.
- paypal. in consideration that it del on y Und kannver hal i land of eight lots each, and a ny arol gie mhs acre , and four bal blocks, etthe tain- bag for do. - parere Paid out on the east fraction of the southwest quarter of it then gt, tolluship 22 north, range 7 west. Perren Kent was the surveyor. Enoch Fariner boarded the surveyors. The board ordered this survey in May, 1828, and ordered that on August 5. 1828, a certain portion of the county lots should be sold at auction, one-fourth of the purchase money to be paid in advance and the remainder in three semi-annual installments. The ale came off as advertised, and free whisky was furnished for the occasion. at county expense. Lots sold from ten to twenty dollars apiece. If any bill- ings were ever created there no one now knows anything of it -- there probably was no heute there. The following January the county son w. .. . the Legislature, remove I to Williamsport, and that sounded the death well toall the hopes entertained by Enoch Farmer and his friends. The land revente back to its original owners and "Warrenton" only is known to the deep delver into the early annals of the county. Its exact location was diethy northwest across the Wabash from the town of Attica.
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This sul- quently became the In-iness portion of the town. The first public sale of loss. occurred August 6, 1820. John Scaman was crier of this site. The North addition was laid out by Thomas B. Clark, courty agent.
Isaac Martin sold the first goods in the town, ree ting hi license for saint in July, 1820, paying ten dollars for the same He carried a six-lig. dred-dollar stock of general merchandise. The proprietor of the town, Wil !- jan Harison, also renched 1 & licence for selling lique to the general pel- lic. Martin only remained a part of two years. James Coming have sit. about the next to come into the new town. Very curly, he contantice today corn for slogano con flat-boats down to New Orleans He had to his cin- play a young ned nerad Sanford Con, who later became a welldone ! and historical writer. He taught school here and copied record in the county seat of Warren comity. Dr. J. H. Bueli . is the pi mero pela ire Other carly settlers in this town were Thomas Gilbert, A illian Harrington
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FOUNTAIN AND WARRIN COURTOIS, ISTINA
"Will!" Wilson and Russell were wrong the first. It was a duly occurrence
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hned and fifty in 1x50. The printed wa ged parti a los ist erie out : Her ade bei river land although the leger lived in Williamsport, the
Hack was carly , bar red by the pen de in AVilliaby ad and steps were taken to serva de construction of a cut-off conal for the ad of die gier, which is treate Iin the chapter on railroads and canals i des work.
if Thamsport became an incorporated your in March. Bag, when the pois tion had reached five hundred and fifty-gen. The plus set contiene -poker of then as the "Side-cut Cty." It was very prosperous, The trade con- mg frem as far north as the Kankakee river and from far over the fertile prairies ot Whois. The surveying of the Law . Drie, Wabash & St. Louis rail bad in June. 1853, gave another impetus to the growth of the town, the count, ou misiones de nhatin five hundred dollar ward the money of th .. road. The commercial interests of the town were excellent. Late in the forties the packing and shipping of pork and gram assumed great proportions James Goodwine packed three thousand logs in a single year. He also bought large amounts of grain, as did George King an. hiers. Early in the fifties. Kent, Hitchens & Dickinson and Cessna & War muilt three large grain ele- vators and pork warehouses. For a number of years these firms shipped a quarter of a million bushels of grain, mostly wheat, oats and corn. The side- cut canal was finished about 1852, and then Williamsport took on another lease of life. Slaughter yards were built and in full blast. Some seasons eleven thousand hogy were killed and packed. Often five or six canal boats were being loaded to the water's edge at this point. The Commercial, then pub- lished here, noted the fast in 1852 that, although the toll on the sak eut canal was only the fraction of a cent per hundred weight of pork or bu hel of grain, a total toll of over one hundred dollars was received in one week. During the winter of 1853-54 there were over seven thousand three hundred hogs packed in Williamsport. Wheat was then worth one dollar and twenty f cents: corn thirty-eight cents; oats, twenty-seven cents; salt, three dollars a
FOUNTAIN AND WADRESS DUS CE
barrel, and butter, fifteen com a pound, They were they chegdy, and stores one drug store, our hands me and the sigery cont factory way for many years a leading branch of the adle imp. of Runsport The paling te de kan del uray cooper
The holding of the mathopi at dem can gol gi. 1
1 Harness interests to drift to thất mit ton of the plat 1 ... Town." the prove business center of de rigea. c. north of the Wabash railroad. The rathotel was buff al of go. com Kent laid out the first town lot in the how to 's contact the coming of the an highway, for river and canal grande was dosta vilo; the food residents in the new part of topp weg weert Platila, Charles Pagan William Fox, and H. D. Thomas, Bem & Hudba fo ci grd home business up town and in one year shipped to , bolo & sed tex the metal bushels of prain. Eighty-seven teams vare er mel on one doy salting for their then to unl .d. The new town grew and he Allegati jota decas ad today one visits it to locate old land marks and rice with curiosity the founder fish stoffer ! long ago importare business blocks and the old court house site. while i've remains sereal old-time bully bault heures which stand out as monuments of a former glory which has long since passed into silent existence. The Wabash flows peacefully on in its course toward the sea, but no longer is heard the shrill whistle of steamer and packet, neither the splash of the boat man's car. Time has harvested all that was once great and promising at the "Old Town" of Williamsport.
INCORPORATION OF WILLIAMSPORT.
The town was first incorporated in 185 1. as a "town," but : died out in 1856 and remained unincorporated for a number of years, but finally was revived and is still among the incorporated places of this county. It has paved streets, water works and electric lighting plants. The water works were estab lished in 1898 by the Falls Water and Light Company, a corporation, and they soon sold to the Williamsport Water and Light Company, and they to the town of Williamsport December 30, 1898. Bonds were issued and they are now all paid off, except four thousand dollars, the last of which is due in 1928 at the interest of six per cent. The system employs both direct and standepipe pressure ; has a high stand-pipe and two deep wells furnishing the fine-t of pure, cold water. One of these wells is one hundred and ninety feet and the
FOUNTAIN AND WARNER COFATHER ISDIESES
other one hundred and fifty seven feet deep. \ five coming in appenpeito the trustees a volunteer company in most kiemes. there nam ant allogo ! the amount of twenty-five dollars each per year in water of light. for a Service they may role The chiefof the Hut medio Low Jackson and F. R. Miller, unoes; C. f. Bock, free ar and dek: \ Long, superintendent of the water and light plant . 1. 6. 1. Il marchal Tl town & how about to erect a fine come Up amping station, weat the stand pipe For many your this town was known & the ring of Rocks," on seoul of the rocky ledge upon which a portion of it funds, and especially on accom : of the lime rock through which runs pretty little Dry creek, which presents along its banks some of the finest seartery in Inlaura. Right in the heart of town, back of the present water works and light plant, within a stone's thre. of Main street, this stream tumbles into an abyss fully eighty feet. The stream is not fed is springs, hen is dry west of the sea ca, except in time of rain or melting ice and snow, when it runs a full free current and produces a wolf derful waterfall at this point. The fails are bidden within a canyon skirted with mative fintber, and one knows nothing of its existence mitil it suddenly biras into vien. No attempt has yet been made to park and otherwise in- prove this beauty-spot, but it is under consideration now.
THE GAS WELL ENTERPRISE.
In the eighties, when gas wells were being discovered so frequently in Indiana, the citizens of Williamsport organized a stock company for the pur- pose of sinking a deep well with the hope that a flow of natural gas might be struck, and while it was not successful as a gas well, the following will tell the story of the use to which the well was finally put. In 1880 the Republican remarked: "The total depth of the gas well at this place is one thousand five hundred forty-four feet, and at that depth a bountiful sup- ply of sea water, or salt water, was found, in smell resciabling the filtered waters of a Chinese buying ground! The contractors pulled out last week and have moved their tools and machinery. Before leaving they introduced a plug into the well at a depth of one thousand three hundred feet which completely shuts off the salt water, leaving the clear, fresh water above for use. The town council has purchased the drive pipe and will proceed as soon as possible to utilize the water for drinking and fire purposes. The well, if the water is thus utilized, will, after all, prove a good investment. as the property loss at a single fire would probably be much greater than il that
FOUNTAIN AND WARRES CENT! !
thrown From hydrant , would fully jus ty the openthings. Long we gas we' domich mal send forth floor."
Wil passport ofice was established tin tin Warren county exploiter 2. 1820. The Following Trave served as po-tweeters from that late to this: Jan Girmingham rest.), September 28, 1800: lingh M. KMS. January 6. 1834 : R. A. Chandler, August 31. 1835, William Vissna, October 11. 18 10. B. H. Boyd, July 6, 1852: Lewi, Haines, June 21, 1853; Il. J. Parker, July 20, 1854: Deloss Warten, September 27. 1855: J. M. Rhodefer. July 9, 1856: B. S. Wheeler, March 12, 4863; Elisha Hitchens, March 20, 1873: J. ... Hait m. December 23, 1885: J. H. Stephenson. December 23. 188g: frederick Holtz. December 13. 1893; J. D. Chamber, February 16, 1868; H. D. Jaj- ings, February 1 1900; Elmer E. MeKiurie, January 20, 1910. 'The office is now of the third class and the law year's business, aside from money orders issned, amounted to three thousand nine hundred dollars There are three rural free delivery routes extending our from this office.
The lodge and churches and schools of Williamsport have been treated in sep tte chapters, hence will not be presented in this on mection.
There are no mills or factories extensive enough to be classed as great in lustries. The city is within the heart of an excellent farming community and, being the county seat. is the central trading point for all this portion of Warren county. It is one of the most picturesque little cities in the state, nature having done much for its site -- both the old and new part of the city- and many elegant homes are seen here and there, showing wealth, refinement and enterprise equal to much larger cities. It is to be regretted that the numerous small factories the city had forty and fifty years ago, such as flour and saw mills and woolen factories, plow and wagon works and iron foundry. could not have been maintained until this date, but these things change loca tions with the change of time, and now the bulk of manufacturing is being carried on in the large centers of trade and commerce.
A LEAF FROM THE PAGES OF EARLY DAYS.
Away back in 1853-almost sixty years ago-Enos Canutt, then the editor of the Wabash Commercial of Williamsport, had an editorial in which he was in dead earnest when he said :
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"Williamsport is pretty well situated on the west land ai the Wale h river in the vicinity of beautiful. itinthe moment amples pring, which are being visited by phoneundsiever gas, o ideal count at Warren county, one of the most futile in I don't be dog to mi he o al five hundred thousand facial of corn, diffon se tachty thousand ben no hogy for the market and home consumption, beides og, code of wery Feir Imate forma, in the white western world and is well applied tode water cooling, fore, one hardware store, The process and provision stores, he Ble. three large warehouses which an dum murstensile beste fa gud stati mil and the usual number of nedrun & hope to con pound 1 . the number of inhabitants. With the advantages of navigation on the Wabash & Brie canal and the river, and as nature has a Heated the locality as to command the trade of an extensive country, we are no town in the valley of the Wabash that presents equal advantages to genes wishing to locate in a healthy place."
Among the curiosities in way of business cards oal mer sianes standing advertisements, as four! in the files of the Wabash Commercial during the years of the early fifties, the following are samples "New Grocery AND PROVISIONS .- The undersigned has established himsen in the above busit is in the store-room recently occupied by Samuel Landon, on Main street, im- mediately under the Commercial office, where may be found at all times amongst other things -- Coffee, tea, sugar, molasses, rice. fish, tobacco, tar, cheese, pepper, spice, ginger. salarotos, nails, candles, soup; also pure liquors of all kinds at wholesale and retail, for medicinal purposes only. Carry flour, corn meal and potatoes constantly, and sell at the market prices, besides many other articles too numerons to mention. Anyone wishing to purchase family groceries are invited to call.
"II. J. PARKER."
(April 13, 1853.)
A book store advertisement runs thus: "B. Il. Boxp & Co. dealer in school books, Rays, Smiths, Davies and several other Arithmetics, Ohney's Mitchells, Morse and Smith's Geographies; Kurkman's and Smiths Gram- mars and many other school books."
A dry goods firm had the following: "Dress goods, Domesticks, Brown muslains. Bleached muslains, Bed ticks, Apron checks, Summer goods; twenty sacks prime Reio Coffre: 25 barrels extra N. O. sugar; 20 barrels
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MIT WYTHER AND WARGEW 6000 910. 1
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way of Molim por ir 18% atried the following notice in the Peter Meg BARER and CONFECTIONER, Williamsport. In- das wi! .a. 1 k.com momis on hand Bread, and cakes of different Finds, advers chees, Rafting, candies, nuts, beer and cider. All of these in best quality and to which I invite dre patronage of this town and country. Choice calor- and pica can be hal for Chitu and New Years. "September 28. 1853.
Boyd & Company, book dealers, come out with a new notice saying : "Websters Dictionary- unabridged; Rolla History dick's Conn lete works, josephus, Clark's Commentaries on the Holy Semptires, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Napoleon Dyna dy (hies andl fa pilar work !. "
. notice appeared in the crit atal ochann of the Commercial in February, 1854, showing the shitments of packed pork which reads thus: "Number of hogs packed at Williamsport for the packing season. 7.300; Attica, 6,000; Covington, 3,500; Perryville, 5,600."
WEST LEBANON.
This town being among the inland towns, and at an early day far from the water-ways and isolated from the outside world, did not have as interest- ing a history as the river towns, and its early events have largely been lost sight of with the passing of the decades. It was, however, one of the first towns in the county to be laid off, but for many years did not have to exceed a score of families within its borders. It dates its platting from September, 1830, when Ebenezer Purviance, John G. Jemison and Andrew Fleming laid out the town, on portions of sections 13 and 24, township 21. range 9 West.
Sixty-four lots of the usual size were surveyed out and staked off. Outlot B was donated for a 1. ceting house, as was also lot C. The cemetery was provided by setting apart out-lot D. Mr. Jemison had. however, opere! a small store in the autumn of 1829 on the site of the old town, with a stock of about eight hundred dollars. The early merchants included Thomas R.
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Vanmeter, in 1831, Andrew Fleming in 1831. Nathan Horner in 1835. 1500 & Forshay in 1830, and William Tam worth, who had little el e than lighter In 1837 L. D. Northrup connect of selling foods and in 1830 Janes M. Den. and Conover & Shaw opened good stores. William Book in 18 pr began sell- ing liquors and groceries. Before the town had begun to run down, until 1843. there was not a store in the place. Later in the Forties it began to revive. John Mich was the first man to engage in bu iness after the revival of the place badeset in. During the fall of 1846 and spring of 1847 the well- known firm of Warren & Purviance brought in a large general stock of mer- chandise. A little later Dr. J. Fleming became connected with the commercial interests of the place. At this date Lebanon contained one hundred and hay population. James Rhodifer was the postmaster, carly in the fifties, when the new part of town began to grow.
Train service was established on the Wabash railroad in 1856, and the station was established one mile north from the original town site. Five acres of land were donated for side tracks, etc., which cost the citizens two hundred and twenty-four dollars. John Roark built the first house at the new town site, about 1855, and in it opened a shoe shop. Charles and Henry Last. James Stevens, George Carithers, Elijah Fleming, John Ross, Cornelius Fleming. John Lowe and a few more constituted the first settlement there. Cornelius Fleming sold goods there in 1857. Dr. Richardson sold the first drugs of the place.
In 1866, a company was organized and incorporated with a capital of six thousand dollars, to build a large steam flouring mill. There were twenty- three stockholders in this company, who incorporated uniler the title of West Lebanon Mill Company. The mill was a frame structure, three stories high and forty by fifty feet. It contained three run of stones and did excellent work. Two years later it was sold to Bowers & Burline, and not long there- after was buined down. A large warehouse for handling grain was erected at a cost of two thousand five hundred dollars by Dr. Fleming in 1857. Large quantities of grain were bought in the carly history of the place. Morgan Davis bought thousands of bushels annually for a Lafayette firm. For a number of years George Lanh manufactured his own castings for a pump which he patented. It was not until 1869 that the new town was in- corporated and named West Lebanon. The name was changed by a vote of the citizens. The first trustees were elected in September, 1869; and they were R. Preble. F. Ross, J. Ward, J. Brown and F. Spinning. S. J. Smith was marshal. P. W. Fleming was treasurer and assessor and W. Y. Fleming was clerk. In 1870-72 when the subject of a new court house was up to the
FOUNTAIN AND WARREN COUNTIES, INDIANA.
citizens of Warren county, West Lebanon applied for the location of the county seat. Her claims were strong enough to have the matter postponed for more than a year. Her location was more central, and had the citizens of the vicinity been as liberal and enterprising as at Williamsport it would have doubtless have been the county seat today. The population of West Lebanon in 1810 was but about fifteen families- not to exceed twenty. In 1850 it reached 150 persons; in 1800 it had about 300; in 1870 it stood 500 and in 1880, nearly 700, while in 1900 it had dropped to 088 and the last federal census, that of igto, gives it but 648.
INDEPENDENCE.
This interesting place was laid out by that enterprising trader and won- derful adventurer, Zachariah Cicott, who was also the first white settler in the county. The date of this town platting was October, 1832, when ninety-one town lots were surveyed off by Perren Kent, on the "Cicott Reserve," in town- ship 22, range 7 west. It is doubtful whether there were any others there when the platting was made than Cicott, but it has been claimed by some that a few had lived there before the date of town platting. Probably the first settler after Cicott was Abraham Howery, who came in 1832 and opened a liquor establishment, paying five dollars' county license. Then came Doctor Lyon, and immediately afterwards David Moffitt appeared, and he built the first frame house in Independence and at once commenced the manufacture of hats for men's wear. From that time on the village grew rapidly. Moffit was also a great hunter and trapper and while he never neglected his business for it, yet he was able to take his gun and traps and secure the lion's share of game and pelts. He made his hats from wool which he purchased from the few pioneers who raised sheep. He generally carried two or three hundred hats in stock, mostly of the backwoods styles. In a few years Independence grew to be a town of much promise in the Wabash valley district. Towns along large water courses had a decided advantage in those early days and almost all commercial transactions were had there. In 1833 Jacob Hanes commenced to sell both wet and dry groceries and Joseph Hanes soon became a partner with him. James Hemphill began merchandising in 1835. The first brick house was built in 1834-35 by William Farmer, who made his own brick. Soon after this, Shoup & Tate began packing hogs. They bought many hundred during the winter months, packed them in barrels that were made at the town, or near by, and shipped them down the Wabash in flat- boats, usually as far as New Orleans, where the boats and cargo were sold.
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after which the boatinen returned by steamboat. Other later and more exten sive dealers in pork and grain were James Hemphill and Newton Morgan The latter, in the forties, packed two thousand hogs, and others as many, making more than 52,000 hugs bought and picked into birrel pork. There being no railroads, the river was a scene of rafts, flat-boats and steamers day in and day out. From 1835 to 1845 Independence was one of the best trading points along the Wabash river. From twenty to sixty thousand bushels of grain were shipped annually. The population in 1840 was about 350; in 18.1 .. about 400, and the town today ( 1912) has about 300 population. \ carding mill was added to the industries of the village late in the thirties. This was the work of Isaac Bunnell, who also had a corn cracker. Farmers carried their wool there to be carded into rolls and their corn to be made into mcal. Henderson & Boxley erected a distillery a half mile below town, and there commenced to make the best brands of rectified spirits in 1835. After the first year or two they consumed two hundred bushels of corn daily in their distillery. On the opposite side of the river, in Fountain county, there were three more distilleries and one consumed five hundred bushels of corn daily. It was estimated at that time that within a radius of a few miles of Indepen- dence there were consumed daily one thousand bushels of grain equal to three hundred and sixty-five thousand annually. Everybody drank whisky in those days, it being thought necessary to insure good health; it stood on every mantel and side-board and drove the heat out in summer and the cold out in winter. That was, however, pure, unadulterated whisky, which produced less bad effects than the vile decoctions of later years. Not a hotel or tavern opened its doors without its bar. This immense demand for liquor made the distilling business one of much importance and suited the farmer well. Fred Rittenour built a large flouring mill in 1846, but it was burned soon after its completion. He did a large business for about three years. The coopering trade was also, along with the distilling and pork-packing industries, a very important one.
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