USA > Indiana > Lake County > Reports And Papers Of Lake County Indiana (1958-1966) > Part 11
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THE BUILDERS
In the United States, in Newburysport, Massachusetts, Timothy Palmer, was off on the right track. Palmer's answer to the long-span problem was huge squared timbers, mortized together to form wooden arches. He made his arches from the great stands of pine in New England.
In 1797, Palmer received a patent on his arched truss. Finished in 1805, his 550-foot, three-span Permanent Bridge at Philadelphia was the first known American covered bridge.
Theodore Burr, born 1771 in Toringford, Connecticut, ex- tended the arched truss construction into other parts of the country.
In 1804, Burr had his design patented. Burr's design strengthened the Palmer truss by boxing the arch in with braces and counterpieces. Because of his bridge building and four other jobs, he was driven to an early death in 1822.
Ithiel Town, in 1820, built a bridge which could be built by an average carpenter, something long awaited. Heavy planks, criss-crossed and pegged, forming diamond shapes in the open spaces, made Town's lattice truss a distinctly Ameri- can innovation.
A panel truss, which needed no arch, was designed by Stephen H. Long, in 1830. After 1840, Howe's truss cut off the popularity enjoyed by the Long trusses. Its inventor was William Howe of Spencer, Massachusetts. In the Howe truss, iron rods were used instead of upright wooden posts. Thus Howe was the first to cope with the "weak wood" in the bridge. The tightening of nuts and turnbuckles gave added strength to the bridge. Howe's design was mostly used on covered railroad bridges.
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TOOLS
The respect we have for the builders deepens when we re- member they used only hand tools in the building, from be- ginning to end. First in these tools was the broadaxe. This tool had a short handle with a broad, sharp blade. A regular axe cut down the tree, but the broadaxe was responsible for shaping it from round to square.
The adze was used on smaller logs and half finished logs. The adze was an arched blade, hung at right angles on the handle with the edge sharpened. A tall thin man was the best adzeman.
A club-like hammer was used in driving the pegs into the holes bored in the beams. This tool was called a maul.
The auger, a corkscrew-like instrument, was used in bor- ing holes. A drawknife was used in fashioning the wooden nails used.
Many kinds of saws were used in a bridge job. Rarely seen now is the pitsaw, which received its name from being used in a pit. The log was laid over the hole, with one man on the platform above, the other in the pit.
The final tool was the plane, used to give the beams a better finish and smoothness.
It is good to see states and towns concerned over covered bridges. Private capital is building new ones or restoring fine examples. Even landowners are building miniatures over their tiny creeks. An interest in old or new covered bridges can be a satisfying thing because they embrace many different sub- jects. Anyone who goes in for them will probably become better acquainted with American history and geography. Searching more deeply, he can learn something about engi- neering, carpentry, masonry, respect for the genius of an earlier day, and soon this regard warms to delight in each span for its own sake and fosters the hope that perhaps just around the next bend will be standing a covered bridge with all its nostalgic charm.
Parke County, Indiana, leads all counties in the United States with 39 covered spans. The queenpost truss is very rare in Indiana. Howe's truss is fairly common. Indiana is the home of the longest single span in the United States. It is 207 feet long, over Sugar Creek in Parke County. Its name is Jackson. The shortest public bridge is 61 feet
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Old Shelhorn, the bridge at the fairgrounds in Crown Point, was bought and moved from its original site in Green County in 1933. The A. M. Kenedy & Sons, builders, con- structed the bridge, which has since been remodeled. This family was termed by Mr. Bock as "the greatest family unit of Indiana builders." John Wheeler, of Crown Point, headed the group that purchased the bridge at a price of $20.00. It was dismantled and moved up to its present site.
West Creek Settlement By BESSIE KENNEY
This year Indiana is having a big year-long birthday party, celebrating her 150 years of Statehood. When the state was twenty-one years old Lake County was still in the process of being born, for it was not organized as such until 1837- township segments somewhat later. But people-the brave adventurous souls called pioneers-started trickling in a few years earlier.
In 1835, Robert Wilkinson and two other men came into the western edge of West Creek Township from Attica, Indi- ana. Mr. Wilkinson was so delighted with this location that he chose it for his home and started to build. The Indians gathered around in a circle laughing at the white men trying to get the heavy logs in place for the new cabin. The white men, in turn, felt it would have been more neighborly to have offered assistance instead of laughing.
During the hard, hungry winter, he went back south for supplies. He brought back a load of provisions drawn by oxen. His son came with him. Long overdue, they reached the end of this difficult journey in the black of night, with only West Creek separating them from their home. However, the creek was swollen and impossible to cross with the load. Wilkinson turned the oxen loose, left his son to sleep in the wagon, strapped some corn meal on his head and swam the creek so that his hungry family could have food. Again he felt the lack of neighborliness and understanding when the Indians refused to loan him some canoes to bring the rest of the food and his son across the creek. He had to resort to a small dugout. It was two weeks before he could get the wagon across.
Other settlers that came to this choice spot were John Kitchel, G. L. Foster, Nehemiah Hayden, Heman Spalding,
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Bethuel Hathaway, Wellington A. Clark, Hiram Dodge, Peter Hathaway, and their families.
Farmers all, this group grew into a community almost at once. Wilkenson was not only the first settler, but also, the first postmaster, opening an office in his home in 1839 or 1840, and later he became the first probate judge of Lake County.
The West Creek postoffice was continuous until 1882. Wilkenson had it until 1855, then Major Torrey was in charge for a few years. Then Ed Farley moved it into his home, be- ing postmaster until 1869. Joshua Spalding bought the Far- ley farm and took over the running of the postoffice until he moved to Orchard Grove in 1882. Mail came from La Porte, through Hebron, by horseback. The postoffice was discon- tinued for a number of years. In 1899 or 1900 Charles Bailey opened an office in the old Bailey homestead-calling it the "Lanthus" Postoffice, for the lanthus trees in the yard. This office was in existence only a year before rural free delivery was started from Lowell.
The religious life of these people was a foremost thought. Circuit riders from La Porte were able only to get to the West Creek community about once in six or eight weeks. Stephan Jones and H. B. Beers were the first two recorded. Green, Wheeler, Posy, Forbes, and D. Crumpacker followed. Rever- end Cozad was in charge of the work when the first building for public worship in the county was erected-namely, the West Creek Methodist Church in 1843. Homes served as places of worship before that. Besides the early settlers al- ready named, the John Fishers, Cooper Brookses, and the Adam Hamiltons were all active church workers. The build- ing, last used, was built in 1869. A cemetery plot was estab- lished beside the church-a beautiful spot kept up by the West Creek Cemetery Association, formed in 1913.
Schools, of course, were of prime interest to this progres- sive community. Schools were held in homes before a build- ing was available. Their first schoolhouse was built of un- hewn logs in 1838 near the Torrey bridge. There were benches for the children to sit upon and a long board in front of them to write upon. The schoolhouse stood ten years, then school was held in private homes until 1854 when a frame schoolhouse was built. Sometimes school was held in the church. Mrs. Martin Wood remembered teaching, in 1845, in the first church.
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The Torrey bridge, which crosses West Creek west of the Lake Prairie Church, was a very important link with the out- side world, promoting trade between east and west-Indiana and Illinois. It was built by Nehemiah Hayden for $400.00 and was named for the Torrey family that lived nearby.
West Creek settlement was the nucleus that started the history and growth of West Creek Township.
In the 1850s several families settled in what was to be- come widely known as the "Gem of the County" because of its loveliness and fertile soil. Professor Mills, of Wabash Col- lege, visited the Peach family and declared: "I have been thirty years in the West and have been in every county of the state, and never but once have I seen so beautiful a view." Today it is known as Lake Prairie. The people that settled this area were known as the New Hampshire group. Some of the families were: Brannons, Moreys, Garrishes, Ameses, Peachs, Baughmans, Plummers, Ritters, Wasons, Burhans, Fosters-and many others. They also established their church, school, and cemetery. The church was Presbyterian-estab- lished in 1856 with 12 members. Rev. Hiram Wason was its first pastor. An early school teacher, mentioned as outstand- ing, was Mary J. Ball-later Mrs. Cutler. Mr. Peach, who died in 1858, had the first grave in the "Old Yankee Burying Ground"-today, Lake Prairie cemetery.
Now West Creek settlement and Lake Prairie are blended into one and are indistinguishable.
Other settlements kept arising in the township. North Hayden was named for the Nehemiah Hayden family who settled there. Today it is a railroad station, grain elevator, a small recreation area at a man-made lake, a few houses, and a lumberyard. Other businesses are creeping in on the fringe. It may be swallowed up by Lowell in a very few years.
There was the village of Belshaw, so named for W. E. Belshaw who owned all the land there in the early days. Dur- ing its life it has had a railroad station, two stores, a black- smith shop, a hardware store, an elevator, a lumberyard, a Methodist church, an upholstery shop, a barber, a dance hall, an apartment building, also a school a bit west, and about twenty homes or more. The lumberyard, apartment house, and the homes are all that mark the place today. We find the Littles, Baileys, Belshaws, etc., settling all the way to Schnei- der, of which we had the history about three years ago.
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The west part of Lowell is in West Creek Township; also the little town of Creston which still has her Methodist church and cemetery, her post office, a lumberyard, and other busi- nesses that are moving in. The residential area is increasing.
References used: Northwest Indiana, Ball; Lake County (1834), Ball; Lowell Centennial Book; "Records of Mrs. Cass Scritchfield"; "Letter from Mrs. Martin Wood," owned by Earl Bailey; History of Lowell Methodist Church; A Histori- cal Report of Lake County, (1872) ; History of Lake County, Volume XI.
A Chronicle of West Creek Township (From the Middle 1930s to November, 1959) By MERRITT D. METZ
The writer has resided in Lake County forty-seven years and on a farm in West Creek Township for twenty-one years. Prior to coming west he spent twenty-one years on a farm in New York state. By profession, he is a lawyer.
His ancestor, Ludwick Metz, bought about 380 acres of land from the sons of William Penn for about eighty cents an acre in 1734. It was located in the forested Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The growth was oak, elm, beech, maple, ash and walnut trees. My acquaintance with that man's efforts to clear the land for cultivation in comparison with the accounts heard about the early settlers of West Creek Township appears that the methods of converting virgin soil and timberland had not changed much in the hundred years that elapsed until the first settlers of West Creek undertook the same task in the 1830s and the '40s. He is appalled when he considers the hard work that confronted the settlers in Pennsylvania in 1734 and also the same kind of hard work that met the settlers of Lake County in 1834.
The history before 1934 has been recorded by competent observers, one of whom is Jesse Little. This is found in the centennial edition of the reports of the Old Settler's and His- torical Association of that date, page 127. His genial per- sonality and wide sympathy appears in every line of what he wrote. It was my privilege to have but one conversation and visit with that estimable gentleman. That was over 20 years ago and it left a lasting impression.
The settlement of the township began in the 1830s and
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from that time forward it was and still is predominantly agri- cultural. The names of the early settlers are still prominent in the township.
LOCATION AND TERRAIN
Largest of the townships in the county, its area is over sixty square miles. Twelve miles long, from north to south, it is five miles wide from east to west. Originally an exclu- sive farming area it is now crossed by two highly-traveled highways: U. S. 41 from north to south and Indiana 2 from east to west.
It is one of the "Creek" townships, so-called because all three end in the word creek. To fix the location in the reader's mind it is easy to recall that West Creek is the western-most, Eagle Creek, beginning with "E," the eastern-most, and Cedar Creek, the center one of the three, is between the other two.
They all have their feet washed and sometimes their ankles covered with the waters of the Kankakee River.
The soil of the township is of two distinct soil types. The northern part, of about eight miles, lies rather high and the underlay is glacial drift, pushed there by the glaciers that cen- turies ago gouged out Lake Michigan and piled the soil to the south. The southern-most four miles is composed of what were once the marshlands of the Kankakee River.
A watershed crosses a few short miles to the north and all the rain that falls finds its way into the waters of the Kan- kakee and on to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. A creek, called West Creek, traverses from north to south. Heavy rainfall sometimes causes overflow of the south part.
Under an enabling act of the Indiana Legislature and in order to participate with the Department of U. S. Agriculture which had been granted authority and appropriations by Con- gress to work toward the conservation of the soil of America, a soil conservation district was formed, about 1940, with a board of trustees consisting of Henry Paarlberg, J. Holton Brown, Seth Little, Harvey Busselberg, and Lawrence Wirtz. With various changes this board, at present, has as its mem- bers Leon L. Bailey, Frank Huppenthal, Glen Corbin, Eugene Huseman and Gaylord Patchett.
At present its main project is the construction of earth- works to control the waters of West Creek and retain them for slow runoff until they can be carried away by the Kankakee
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without flood conditions. Since this watershed also carries water from the state of Illinois there is the necessity of co- operation with the officials of that state. There is agreement among the officials concerned but some disparity in the laws has made progress slower than would be the case if the whole watershed lay in Indiana. It is proposed to control the waters falling from St. John south.
Much of the land was originally prairieland with some wooded portions. Jesse Little told me that what is now the north intersection of 2 and 41 was marked by a single tree and all around it for several miles was treeless prairieland.
For nearly one hundred years after its first settlement the land of the township was given over exclusively to farm- ing except for the south portion at the edge of which was a hunting lodge constructed by some English remittancemen. Here men from far and wide found refreshment and pleasure in hunting and other sports. This place had the name of "Cumberland Lodge." My father, born 1860, visited the county thirty years ago and on having the place pointed out to him, struck his knee and said, "By golly, when Edward VII was the Prince of Wales he visited America and the account of his travels told how he was a visitor at Cumberland Lodge." As King of England his title was "Edward VII by the grace of God, King of Great Britain and Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India." Quite a title when he had it and it was all those things but the attrition of two great wars has greatly reduced it in our time.
Farming in 1934 and now, a period of twenty-five years, has experienced more changes than in the twenty-five preced- ing centuries. Tillage of soil then was by horse-drawn ploughs; power machinery is the method now. The crops raised are: corn, wheat, oats, soybeans and hay. Soybeans is now a major crop.
The hay, which used to be cut and raked by horse-drawn machinery, is now done by tractors; a pick-up baler follows the windrow and a wagon behind, with a man on it, takes it to the barn where it is put in the mow by an elevator.
Formerly the oats and wheat were cut with a self-binder and shocked, then threshed with a grain separator. It is now cut with a combine, dumped in a truck and carried to the ele- vator. If the farmer wants to save the straw for bedding, he rakes and bales it into a stack. Beans are harvested with a
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combine.
The corn was picked by hand. A team pulled the wagon through the field. A man, on foot, went down the rows grasp- ing an ear with his left hand, in his right hand was a husking pin, and with a quick grip he pulled off the husk, twisted the ear from the stalk and threw it at the bang board and it dropped down into the wagon box. A good man in a good field could husk 100 bushels a day. From the field the wagon was pulled alongside the crib, the end gate was let down and a man was there to shovel the corn into the crib.
In the fall husking contests were popular events. The last one, to my knowledge, occurred in the early 1940s on the farm of William Bruce, now owned by his son Garold. A doz- en or more contestants entered. At the crack of a pistol they each started. At the end of an hour the wagons were driven to the scales where each one was weighed. Judges and ref- erees looked over the field, to determine the cleanness of the work, and, also, over the corn to see how much husks were left on the ears. Many young persons in high school or in college have never witnessed such an event.
Now the corn is gathered by a corn picker, alongside which, or behind, is pulled a wagon. One or two-row pickers pluck the corn and it is taken to the crib where a hoist lifts the front end of the wagon dumping the corn into a hopper to carry it up into the crib. Sometimes this is shortened by pulling a sheller into the field where the cobs are left in a pile and later burned. The corn is, at once, taken to the elevator or bin on the farm. Sometimes if the corn is too high in moisture it is taken to a drying machine which blows heated air through the grain to reduce the moisture content to the point where it will keep without spoilage. A corn combine, which picks and shells the corn in one operation leaving the husks, cobs and stalks on the field to be grazed by animals and later turned under by the plow, is the latest method.
Another method, that is coming into use, is to store it in a silo and feed it out with an unloading device which distributes the grain into a feed trough from which it is consumed by the animals. In fact, corn production and use is now at the point where the only time that corn is handled, by human hands, is in taking it from the seed bag and dumping it into the hopper of a corn planter. The whole process is symbolic of the change- over from hand to machine work in filling the shelves of the nation's foodstores.
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Hay is a vanishing crop. A beginning is made in its use for silage. It is picked up by a chopper and blown into a covered wagon, then it is taken to the silo like the corn. Corn and sorghum produce more tons of animal nutrients to the acre which is a volume that the farmers are all working for.
Pasture fields are going out. The animals tramp down much of what is grown. Where the droppings fall the grass is uneaten. This is waste on a large scale in the farmer's mind and so he is going over to crops which he gets with a forage harvester and feeds in a dry lot. This takes out fences and makes the former fence rows produce; they were once a haven for birds, woodchucks, and a bower for weeds.
Weeds, which were removed with a hoe or a cultivator, now respond to chemical sprays which have come into larger use and whole fields can be denuded in one quick operation. These chemical sprays are now used experimentally to hasten and increase the growth of various crops. Time will prove the value of the experiments.
In the '30s many farms in the township maintained a herd of five to twenty-five cows. Now there are fewer but much larger herds. More and more farmers resent being "tied to a cow's tail," as the milking herds require milking twice a day with no lay-off any day of the year. Consequently, the farmer employs two men who alternate Sunday duty and thus there is a one-day vacation every two weeks.
The cows are now milked by machine and the milk is poured into an oblong electric steel tank. In some cases the milk is run directly from the cows' udders into a pipeline which discharges it into the tank. Every other day a bulk truck empties the tank and carries it to market. Farmers who produced milk in 1939 were: Otto Schweitzer, Nick Cum- mings, and Myron Keeney & Son, with purebred Holsteins; Garold Bruce, with grade Holsteins; N. E. Leep, with pure- bred Brown Swiss; and Dr. Wooldridge (G. W.) and son Ernst.
A farmer used to keep a few sows to farrow twice a year, now he has 200 or more if he continues. Another change in method is to buy feeder pigs at 40-lbs. weight and up and feed them to market weight. These are usually bought at a "pig hatchery," which is a place where a farmer spends all of his time with farrowing sows, then raises the "piglets" in a place with controlled heat and sanitary conditions until they are a month or six weeks old before putting them on the market.
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Sheep growing is another vanishing product-task. Jo- seph Abraham, John Bailey, Harold Sutton, Charles McKin- ney, and I are the only farmers who have flocks of sheep. Occasionally, western lambs are bought, at 60-lbs. weight or up, and fed to around 100 pounds before sending them to mar- ket-in Chicago or elsewhere.
Quite a few farmers do "beef raising" on a varied scale. Some raise the animals, others buy "young feeders." These are kept until they have reached a "sale weight." James E. Little and Sons have a herd of purebred Angus; the Hubers have purebred Herefords; both have entered their stock in competition at fairs and "animal shows." Many prizes have been won.
Charles W. Mckinney had a fine orchard which no longer yielded a profit so he had all of the trees bulldozed out this fall (1959). Thirty-five acres of such ground was planted to tomatoes with rich returns. Mexican labor is employed to gather the crop.
Harvey E. Taylor has made a great name in poultry and egg production. "Taylor Cross" was the name that he bred; he had as many as 10,000 birds, which were in demand in many markets. The business was discontinued after his death in 1957.
BUSINESS OPERATIONS AND LOCATIONS
In 1934, Floyd Vinnedge had a store of general merchan- dise and the United States Postoffice in the same building at Creston. It continues.
The R.C.A. relay station, at Creston, has been removed.
"The Gleaners and Farmers Elevator," at North Hayden, has grown.
A lunchroom was built at the corner of Indiana No. 2 and U. S. No. 41; now there are three-and better ones.
There was an elevator and lumberyard at Belshaw. These grew and continue under the ownership of Fred Dahl.
At Schneider there were restaurants, service stations, the postoffice, grocery stores, and a Farmer's Elevator. To the north was the Stratton Grain Company Elevator.
In 1959, there are four elevators. In volume of business done in West Creek Township, they constitute the greater
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part of it.
"Gleaners and Farmers," organized in North Hayden in 1912 as a coal sales business, was designated principally the "Gleaners." It had a capitalization of $8,000.00; a year later there was an increase of $7,000.00. They began the construc- tion of a grain elevator. The original directors were: E. O. Sutton, Cyrus Hayden, William Bruce, Otto Dahl, and John Lindemer.
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