USA > Indiana > Steuben County > Fremont > Program and history : a souvenir of the Fremont area centennial, 1867-1967 > Part 2
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A. B. Goodwin was the first Postmaster at Brockville. In 1838 a mail route was established from Blissfield, Michigan to Howe (Lima), In- diana. The mail was carried on horseback and passed through Brockville following the Vistula Road. After the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway was completed at Coldwater, Michigan, a tri-weekly mail route was estab- lished between Coldwater, Jamestown, Fremont, Angola, Auburn and Fort Wayne. In 1869 a railroad from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Jackson, Michigan and Saginaw was established. This rail- road was known as the Fort Wayne, Jackson and Saginaw Railroad. The depot was supposed to be 80 rods north of its present location. Erastus Farnam, being a man of some wealth agreed to furnish the lumber for the building if it was
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located at the present site. The railroad com- pany, not having much money at the time, agreed to this offer and the depot was located at the present site. Mr. Farnam owned and op- erated the grain elevator a brick building near the depot and it was his desire to have the depot near him for shipping convenience. This building is still used as a grain elevator.
Daniel Schaeffer came to Steuben County when he was 19 years old. He was born in Pennsylvania and had been apprenticed at the age of 13 to learn the bakers trade. The agree- ment had been that he was to serve 6 years to receive his board and clothes and 3 months schooling. At the expiration of his term he was to receive a suit of clothes valued at $25.00.
In 1855 he came to Fremont and opened the first bakery. Some people living in Fremont today remember the brick oven, covered with earth to retain the heat. This oven and bake shop were located on East Main Street where Viola Gould now lives. Mr. Schaeffer also manu- factured candy which he sold in his bakery, later ice cream in the summer. "Candy Dan" was well known to all the children as well as their parents.
Dr. Stewart was the first physician in the township. He had great faith in the curative powers of roots and herbs and "sich". Dr. Griffin was the second doctor and he achieved success by using Quinine for the cure of fever and ague instead of the roots and herbs. Dr. Hendricks was the third to come to Fremont to heal the sick.
Tragedy was not unknown to these settlers. A Jacob Frost, in 1840 shot himself with a rifle. His body was buried near where the depot stands today. This was the first man to be buried in the township. A tombstone was erected over
Auto Day - A Popular Event Held Annually For Many Years
the grave and stood there for many years until broken. Later the railroad bed was laid over his grave.
Probably all people in this area have heard of Silas Doty. His life was so exciting that we will devote more space to him in a special article.
The town of Fremont is growing. Beside wheat and other grains, cattle, sheep and hogs are being shipped from here to Buffalo, N.Y. Saturday was a lively day as it was "shipping day". Later fine horses were sent from here.
The installation of electric lights in 1895 and operation in 1897 made big changes in the com- munity. The light plant was located at the Pifer sawmill at the south end of Mill St. It was owned by the town and later a building to house it was built between the depot and town. Later it was sold to the Northern Indiana Public Service Co.
Parts of a log house are still in existence, al- though one would not know it from a casual look. The house is at the corner of Pleasant and North Streets.
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At one time the town boasted of two hotels, six passenger trains and 4 daily freight trains.
Since the autos have taken over the method of travel the railroad service has been dis- continued.
Our town has had some artisans too. Fred Pifer was one. Being a wood worker of great skill he is supposed to have been the originator of the double boat. His shop was located one block north of the main street on the west side of the street. His boats were so built that they would not overturn easily and still were light and strong. Later his building was moved to the main street and was used as a restaurant (north side of main east of square.)
The first pavement was laid in 1922 and was a strip of cement 20 feet wide and extended south to the railroad tracks, north of town 3 blocks, west 4 blocks and east to the railroad tracks. This strip of pavement has been widen- ed and was probably one of the greatest im- provements.
It would be impossible to relate here all of the interesting memorabilia we have found; that a sawmill was once operated by Mr. Eaton one mile and a quarter west of the depot that it was located on a creek between Eaton Lake and Marsh Lake; that some of its timbers
One of the Double Boats Invented and Built by Fred Pifer
were discovered when the Indiana Toll Road was built; that Mr. Straw operated a planing mill just south of the present lumber yard; that this mill was run by steam power and the ingenious Mr. Straw managed to manipulate the steam whistle at noon and night so that it played "Home Sweet Home".
We hope you will be stimulated to do a little research of your own while there are still people around us who can recall the tales of how it used to be in Fremont along the Vistula Road.
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FREMONT FIRE DEPT.
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FREMONT FIRE DEPARTMENT
Members of the Fremont Fire Department are noted for their speed in arriving at the scene of a fire. From hand pumping fire equipment to modern motorized equipment is the story of the Fremont Volunteer Fire Department. Do you remember the old wooden tank pumper? The pumper had to be pulled by hand to the fires and it would require four men on each side to operate. When the Model T Ford came on the market the pumper was remodeled so it could be pulled behind a car. In 1914 the first motorized piece of equipment was purchased
by the Fremont Town Board, a Model T truck with two chemical tanks. Soda and acid were mixed with water to provide pressure to force the water. In 1929 a new Model A Ford was purchased through public subscription by local businessmen and farmers. Any farmer that subscribed money would receive free fire pro- tection. This was the beginning of fire pro- tection for the rural areas around Fremont.
The year 1937 was a big year for Fremont -- city water was installed. A front end pump was
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installed and a 250 gallon water tank replaced one of the chemical tanks. One of the chemical tanks was kept in use because some people did not think a fire could be extinguished with the use of water alone. The last chemical tank left the scene in 1939 and that was the end of an era.
From then until now, new equipment has been added yearly until Fremont has one of the best organized fire departments in this area. Although the firemen are all full time workers at their occupations, they keep up to date with various kinds of fire drills locally and with the Steuben county firemen.
The Fremont area is proud of its Volunteer Fire Department.
Saga Of Silas Doty
Silas Doty - renegade, self-designed philan- thropist, frontiersman, rogue, and legend - was born in Vermont in 1800 and ended his colorful (though jaded) life in the bordering states of Michigan and Indiana, particularly Branch and Hillsdale counties in Michigan and the Willow Prairie area in Steuben County, Indiana.
He arrived in Steuben County with his family in April 1839, and rented a house near Willow Prairie. Later that same year, he pur- chased a farm north and west of this same settle- ment. During this time and among these people, Doty did his best to gain and keep their good will and, though his disreputable career as a thief continued, his reputation, as a farmer, blacksmith, and neighbor was praised - perhaps because he was well liked in the fashion of the frontier or perhaps because he was feared for his known deeds which ranged from petty thievery to murder.
Old "Sile" Doty died at Reading, Michigan of a liver ailment at about 80 years of age. He was buried in the Mundy Cemetery at Kinder- hook, Branch County, Michigan beside his wife, Sophia.
In the word of his obituary from the "Hills- dale Standard" March 14, 1876:
"Notwithstanding his many depredations of the property of others, which caused him to be an object of fear to the law-abiding citizens in the neighborhood in which he might be staying, he was not without noble traits of character and he is reported to have many times relieved the wants of the suffering, even if in doing so he was obliged to commit an act upon another which jeopardized his personal liberty. 'Death covers a multitude of sins'. Let the mantle of charity be thrown around his memory."
Compiled by Wm. Keyes
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Main Street of the Town of Ray, Located on the Indiana-Michigan State Line
HISTORY OF RAY
It has been said, Ray was a child of the Fort Wayne, Jackson and Saginaw Railroad. The em - bryo for Ray had not been conceived in mind or matter until the railroad came through in 1869. The railroad company had established a grain repository and depot there that year. Several years preceeding this, Alexander Mc- Naughton (pioneer) had purchased the land on the south side of the line between the John Duguid and Thomas Ford farms, where the railroad crosses from Indiana into Michigan. It was he who furnished the impetus for develop-
ing a trading center around the depot, grainery and post office situated there. At seventy-two years of age, Alexander McNaughton had com- pleted the platting of Ray on November 19, 1873.
"The first store was built by Archibald and Robert McNaughton, Sr. and was located on the south east corner of the square; the little old store still stands (1932) just north of H. D. Lint's store. The first schoolhouse was located right near where the new one still stands and
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Lidy Handy Duguid was one of the first school teachers; prior to this time, Edith Fulton Mc- Naughton taught a select school in the building just south and east of the depot. The first frame schoolhouse was a one-roomed building and fac- ed the south; the road at that time did not ex- tend farther north than the schoolhouse and all was woods just north of it. The building is now a residence in Ray. The new school house was completed in 1917, culminating a long effort. The Rev. D. C. Jack (Convenanter minister) finished the enterprise and it was called "The House That Jack Built." The First M. E. Church was built in 1902. The first meat market was located where the post office now stands, and was operated by D. H. and Abb Paul. The first post office was in the first meat market."
The whole story of the development of the town after 1869 would require more space than can be provided here. The 1870's saw the first
Early Rural Mail Carrier
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Ray Undertaker
stores, the Bennett House (hotel), and homes for retiring pioneers and others constructed. The Covenanters erected their new church there in 1876 . .. during the '80's and '90's better store buildings and more dwellings plus a frame schoolhouse were built. The store buildings made of brick and tile on the southeast side were built during the first decade of the 1900s. By 1917 Ray had achieved its full growth. E. B. McNaughton says of this period, "Ray was a prospering little business town with two churches, a fine schoolbuilding, a post office with two rural mail routes, a depot, three grocery stores, a good bank, a large drygoods business with anything you needed, a millinery shop, a hardware and implement store (the largest in the couty), meat market, the largest elevator business in the county, a large lumber yard, a good physician, a barber, an undertaker, a harness maker, blacksmith shop, window frame factory and garage. Busses were meeting six passenger trains a day to carry people to
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L.S AND
M.S. DEPOT RAY IND.
Railroad Played An Important Part In Growth of Ray
Clear Lake. There were four freights through each day also.
H. D. Lint remembers, "Nothing beats a good brass band - and Ray had one. Local and long distance calls could be made through the telephone exchange. Mail was hauled from Ray to Coldwater before and after 1900. A section gang maintaining the tracks between Angola and Montgomery worked out of Ray. One of the best baseball teams of the area with Lou Fox pitching (either right or left handed) con- sidered the town its home. Stockbuyers shipped several carloads of cattle and hogs away each
week; timber buyers did a prospering business too. Lord's Commercial Cigars were manufac- tured in the village. You could get dressed up in your 'Sunday Best' and have your picture taken at Sylvia Hillard's photography gallery in the corner of the old hardware building."
The era just related marked the end of an epoch. Truly, it was her "Golden Age."
The bank and hardware were to disappear from Ray's main street in the 1920s. However, there were businesses operating in the building until the great fire of Ray in 1929 ... when
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the drugstore, hardware and bank were burned to the ground. This was a very disastrous day for the village. The post office was miraculously saved; it has been of great service and good for the community throughout the years. When the depression of the 1930s was in full bloom, quite a few buildings and houses were sold and moved from Ray; this was a sad spectacle. The depot, lumber yard, the department store, and many dwellings were taken away.
Even with the many vicissitudes the town experienced, as just related, the citizenry carried on.
Drill Unit at Ray
And now ... Ray is approaching her hund- redth birthday. From within a radius of sev- eral miles, the people still patronize the post office, stores, elevator and businesses as they have through the years. The old Covenanter Church is now a Community Church and very active in the area.
All of us who have spent a part of our lives within the limits of the little town hold a very warm feeling for her. She deserves a Centennial birthday party when the time comes!
Lee S. Duguid
Hillard's Photo Gallery, Ray
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Early Merchandise Delivery Was Made By Peddler's Wagons Like the One Shown Above
ROSE HARTWICK THORPE
Rose Hartwick Thorpe, who wrote "Cur- few Must Not Ring Tonight" lived in Fremont, one block south of the main street, in the building formerly occupied by The Fremont Eagle. During the era of high school literary societies (in Fremont, the Albions and Emer- sonians) the students were required to recite, memorize and even compose literary selections. Her poem about the times of Cromwell in Eng- land was a favorite selections.
Rose Hartwick Thorpe was born in Mis- hawaka, Indiana July 18, 1850. She graduated from the high school in Litchfield, Michigan in 1868. In 1883, one year after she wrote "Cur- few Must Not Ring Tonight" she received an Honorary degree from Hillsdale College Hills- dale, Michigan. She also wrote many other poems and stories and some pamphlets. Accord- ing to "Who's Who" she lived her latter years in San Diego, California.
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CLEAR LAKE
Hazenhurst, Clear Lake, Ind.
Clear Lake is the smallest township in the county; it borders the states of Michigan and Ohio. A lake is situated in the center of the township, and because of the clarity of the water, it was named Clear Lake by the Indians.
The first settler of Clear Lake Township was John Russell, coming in March, 1836. Using his covered wagon for shelter, he later built a log cabin in the woods the following summer. The township settled rapidly; religious services were held at the house of Levi Douglass, in 1838, by a Mr. Swiger, an exhorter of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The first preach- ing was by an itinerant Methodist preacher.
A school house, built by Ariah Beach, at Harris Corners, was the beginning of formal ed- ucation in 1843. Harris Corners is the junc- tion of Road 1 and Road 120. Four elementary schools were located at one time in Clear Lake township.
AST SIDE-CLEAR LAKE, IND.
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Grave Marker of Chief Red Jacket
At a picnic held at Clear Lake, July 4, 1858, a terrible accident occurred in which eleven persons were drowned. This was caused by carelessness on the part of the man in charge of the boat.
In the years about 1880, two hotels-the
Clear Lake House and Island House-were pop- ular pleasure resorts.
Many tribes of Indians roamed the country- side at one time. And near the Hazenhurst Hotel is buried Chief Red Jacket.
A grave marker, broken and paint stained was found some years ago when some excavat- ing was being done near the Hazenhurst Hotel. Lest it be forever lost the late, Mrs. Dorothy Borton Merrill took care of it and later gave it to Mr. F. B. McNaughton of Fremont for safe keeping. To those who cherish Indian lore this is indeed a wonderful piece of evidence that Chief Red Jacket lived and died in the Clear Lake area.
The marker, of wood, bears the following inscription: Chief Red Jacket, Warrior chief of the Baw Beese Indians, June 30, 1833." Accord- ing to the story of an eye witness, Chief Red Jacket and a party of his braves were encamped on what is known as North Point, where they were surprised by a band of Wyoming Indians and were massacred and a few days after, the body of Red Jacket was brought to this place for burial on June 30, 1833."
Brown School Bus - Clear Lake
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THE VISTULA ROAD
Excerpts from "The Road to the West" by Maurice McClew
Compiled by Dorothea Houser
The air of an early October morning was warm and balmy in northern Indiana in 1839. From the forest could be heard the chatter of scurrying squirrels, as they scampered to and fro. The foliage of the great trees was beginning to take on the autumnal colors, and the con- trasting colors were like a painted fairyland, to the two travelers riding westward on a road, the Vistula in the extreme northeastern part of the state.
The first look would have told you that they were father and son. The country thru which they rode was a succession of low hills, stretches of level lowlands, and swamps thickly grown with tall grass and willows. The road itself was crooked and narrow, avoiding where possible the swamps and hills that obstructed its course, and rarely opened into the clearing of a pioneer. Except where broken by swampy ground or the small clearing of a settler, on every side stood the great forest as it had exist- ed for centuries.
The younger traveler gazing with awe, asked of his companion, "What did the inn- keeper at Toledo give as the name of this road?" This father said it was called "The Vistula, in Indiana."
"I believe there is one of the lakes he said we would see" pointing north. Thru the fringe of the trees, and about half a mile distant glisten- ed the waters a lake, calm and placid in the
sunlight. "The fellow said it was thirty miles from the Indiana line to Mongoquinon," "We can't reach Monoquinon tonight then" replied the young man.
At a turn in the road, a half mile farther on beside a stream, an Indian camp was seen and three half naked Indian children fled to the protection of their mothers who merely glanced at the white men. Everywhere around the lodges of deer skin could be seen the plenty of the autumnal season, a wild turkey and two or three wild geese, hanging from the limb of a tree. Baskets nearby were filled with wild fruits and nuts gathered from the surrounding region.
The travelers did not pause for their pro- gress was slow, and the sun was at its heighth, when next they rode into a settlement of four or five log cabins built in an opening in the forest beside the road.
Seeing a man standing at the gate of the enclosed ground of one cabin, the young man began a conversation. "Can you please tell me the name of this settlement, and the distance to Mongoquinon?" "Yes, sir, this place is called Brockville (Fremont) and Mongoquinon (Howe) is nigh onto twenty miles west from here."
"If possible we would like to get our horses fed, and something to eat for ourselves" said the young man. The answer was, "Old Tillotson has considerable hay mash. Tie your beasts under that tree, and the water's over there at the windlass. Mari'l get you something to eat, just sit a spell."
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During a substantial meal they learned from their host that Brockville had been settled by New York people about three years before, and that a larger settlement would be found fifteen miles west on the same road. He told them they would find a place to stop for the night, before reaching the other settlement, at a double log cabin called the "Vistula Tavern". The owner making special provision for keeping the travelers, chance brought to its door.
To his wife, entering the room he said "I've just been telling them they would get a bed and grub at Carlow's and she nodded, saying "its about time for the coon-skin Preacher". Turn- ing to the two strangers she said "the coon skin Preacher is a Methodist who rides around and preaches. He lives in Fort Wayne, fifty miles south of here. You don't have any newspapers with you, do you?" The travelers answered by getting a bundle of newspapers from their saddlebags. She thanked them, and carefully laid them on the mantle of the fireplace.
Their host showed them the road they were to follow, and they again entered the forest headed for Mongoquinon. As the two men rode slowly westward from Brockville, they entered more rugged and rough country. The road they had been traveling followed the northern rim of a low valley. Below in the basin of the valley, thru a break in the forest could be seen, the silvery waters of a small lake, a winding stream flowed from this lake (Lake George). They traveled on thru an expanse of marshland south-westward into the distant lakes. Towering over them rose a hill almost mountainous in size, crowned with trees, whose foliage was of almost unbelievably varied colors, standing in contrast to the blue of the sky above and the lakes below.
During the afternoon journey they had passed the homes of pioneers in small clearings, then after ascending a hill on the road, they came out on a stretch of level land, seeing the double log cabin that answered the description of the Vistula Tavern. The clearing where the cabin stood, was larger than any since leaving the Ohio State-line. The tavern itself was com- posed of two large log cabins, set end to end, enormous stone fireplaces at each end, a picket fence, where Hollyhocks had been blooming earlier. A huge Elm tree in the rear shaded a well and its crude wooden windlass. Farther back was a log stable and stacks of wild hay. To the east and south could be seen the waters of an- other lake (James) and the high hill seen earlier in the afternoon.
They introduced themselves to the father and his son, who stood near the fence. When invited in for supper by the inn-keeper the travelers found themselves in the general living room of the family. At one end was the stone fireplace with its roaring blaze, throwing sha- dows around the room; an iron kettle with a cloud of steam, singing and puffing a merry accompaniment to the crackling flames. Logs of firewood stacked near the fireplace were only a little rougher than the furniture. In one corner stood the spinning wheel, and the center of the room was dominated by a table fashioned from rough hewn oak. Suspended over the fire- place was the huntsmans rifle, and from the ceiling hug rows of Indian corn. From the walls bunches of herbs filled the room with their fragrance.
The one long shelf held the few pewter dishes, brightly scoured and reflecting the light from the fireplace and the candles on the table.
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A rough cut of Henry Clay was the only picture, but across the room stood an enormous clock, and on each side of it was a miscellaneous collection of Indian relics, rude benches served as chairs, and were drawn up beside the table. The foods presented were substantial and plenti- ful.
The conversation was filled with talk on the politics of the country and the administra- tion of Van Buren. Many years later he was to see this rough, but strong and honest people become a great factor in the political principals of a great nation.
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