USA > Indiana > Lake County > Reports of the historical secretary of the Old settler and historical association of Lake County, Indiana from 1901 to 1905 > Part 4
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NOTE .- As quite certainly the first printing in Lake county was done by SOLON ROBINSON, and as on this very spot his little printing office was kept, it seems peculiarly appropriate that in this office should be found, with his home a few yards north, FRED Y. WHEELER, a great- grandson of Lake county's first printer. And before fin- ally leaving in our history the home spot of Crown Point's first settler, it may be added that another great grandson, Harold H. Wheeler, and a great granddaughter, Miss Josephine Lincoln, the one Clerk of the Circuit Court, and the other an assistant in the Clerk's office, pass this spot daily on the way from their own homes to the Court House.
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REPORT, AUGUST 24, 1904. THE 29TH ANNIVERSARY, 30TH ANNUAL MEETING.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
What is called the "grand stand" at the Fair Grounds had just been completed, and the exercises of the Associ- ation this year were held in that structure. It will seat about eight hundred, and is protected from sunshine and rain by a good roof. This was the first use of that stand. Besides the usual exercises an address was delivered by F. M. Stuppy. Esq., one of Crown Point's young lawyers; a paper was presented from Miss Ethel M. Hathaway, subject, History of West Creek Township; a paper was read by Mrs. M. J. Cutler, subject, The Fourth of July in 1848; and recitations were given by Lula Smith and Ellen Hixon, and Miss Hazel Smith and Miss Mabel Crawford.
The days and weeks and months have as usual. to those who are busy, passed swiftly along, while history has been made, changes have taken place, and joys and sorrows, toils and rest, have brought us to another anniversary day. Twenty-nine years and one month have passed since the organization of this Association in the court house, July 24, 1875. And some of us, surely a very few, who took part in the first re-union of pioneers and early settlers at the Old Fair Ground, September 25, 1875, now for the thirtieth meeting have met, but not with the pioneers. One and one only, remains to be with us on this day, one who was then the President of the Association, Mr. Wel- lington A. Clark. One by one they have passed, that no- ble band of men and women who were twenty-one years of age within our bounds in 1840, and he, who will be eighty-nine years old in one more month, is left alone
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like a majestic oak standing amid the second-growth that now covers so many of our woodland hill sides.
Grateful homage to God is surely our first duty, grati- tude fervent, that our friend still lives, that we yet live to greet this day and to greet each other, and that there are still among us those who were here before 1840, then boys and girls, or youths and maidens. Many pioneer child- ren yet remain, but all of them between sixty-four and eighty-five years of age.
Coming now to the special particulars for this report, this, our twenty-ninth year, has been like and unlike those that have gone before it, for, generally, each year has some peculiarity.
' EVENTS. The First National Bank of Dyer, capital $25,000, was opened for business October 3, 1903. Presi- dent, Henry L. Keilman, Vice President, Henry C. Bat terman, Cashier, A. W. Stommel.
Indiana Harbor, a part of East Chicago, continues to make improvements. February 20, 1904, the first trip was made by an electric car from Indiana Harbor to the central part of East Chicago, the distance being three and one-quarter miles. One of the early trips was made in eight minutes. Work also was commenced some months ago on the great canal or water way leading out from In- dian Harbor. Governor Durbin and Congressman E. D. Crumpacker were present and delivered addresses at the formal opening of the work.
May 18, 1904, the work was commenced of laying the brick street pavement around the public square in Crown Point.
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On Saturday, July 16, 1904, Mr. J. Millikan, a journal- ist for many years, editor in Crown Point of the Cosmos and then of the Register, celebrated his ninetieth birth- day anniversary. A number of the citizens of Crown Point called at his home to extend congratulations. Going back now to earlier dates are two events of a quite dif- ferent class.
October 13, 1903. Again some charred bodies or part of bodies, partly consumed in a fire early this morning at Cedar Lake, have been brought to the Geisen undertaker rooms. The fire consumed the saloon and hotel of Adam Hetzler at Cedar Lake. Those who perished in the flames were William Potter and a woman called his wife, who had been Mrs. Amanda Guernsey of Ainsworth. The other inmates of the house that night, five in number, escaped the same sad death. The loss is said to be about $2000, with no insurance.
A STORM. According to the East Chicago Globe, a reliable paper, on Thursday night, March 24, 1904, an un- usually severe storm visited North township. A few sentences from that journal are quoted:"
"The day was springlike, the first fine day of the sea- son. In the afternoon the sky clouded, a brisk wind blew from the southwest. The indications were for a heavy shower. About seven o'clock the rain began. This con- tinued at intervals until nearly eight o'clock when, with- out warning, the storm came upon the city with a rush and a roar that was deafening." "Out-buildings, barns, and porches, were blown down and scattered by the force of the wind." "The storm gathered in the south- west and traveled in a northeast direction." Quite an
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amount of damage to buildings is mentioned, and the ac- count proceeds: "At Indiana Harbor the damage was greatest; three persons were killed." Many buildings are named as "wrecked," "demolished," "destroyed." On the whole this storm would seem to have been the nearest to a cyclone that has yet been in the county.
SOME SALOON STATISTICS. According to the State Bureau of Statistics, there were reported for the fall of 1903, in Lake county, 269 saloons, Porter county at the same time containing only 37, and La Porte county with its two cities, only 140. In the entire state were re- ported 4,704. Lake county thus has nearly one-seven- teenth of the whole number, and may well be called the saloon county as well as the railroad county of the State. In Brown county there is none, in Ohio county 4, in Hen- dricks and Scott 5 each, in Crawford, Steuben, and Union 6 each, while Marion has 552 and Vanderburg 305. The third in number is Lake, ten counties having over 100 in cach, twenty-one counties having over 50, and twelve counties having not over 10 each. But according to pop- ulation Lake is far ahead of Marion county even, for while Marion has one saloon for every 357 persons, Lake has one for every 140 persons, making it the first county in Indiana for drinking facilities. Yet in Eagle Creek, Cedar Creek, and West Creek, in Winfield, Hanover, and Ross, there are very few drinking places; leaving the 269 saloons to be mostly where the towns and cities are, in St. Johns and Center, in Hobart, Calumet, and North.
CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS. Increasing also in number and in the same townships which contains the cities and the saloons, but not so rapidly are the churches
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and the Sunday schools. There are now in the county about seventy church buildings and about fifty Sunday Schools, although in each church edifice there is usually on each Sabbath some instruction given to the children So, if our civilization requires saloons, it most certainly requires churches and schools.
BANKS. It also requires banks and of these there are now eleven or twelve.
MARRIED SIXTY YEARS. Captain Calvin Harper, who was well known at Cedar Lake some years ago, keep- ing a sail boat on the lake, was born September 24, 1819, and so in four more weeks will be eighty-five years of age. He now lives at Hobart and is quite active and has good use of his faculties, except that his hearing is some- what impaired. He was married to Misa Underwood, a sister of Mrs. Joy and Mrs. Palmer, September 21, 1843, and so has been married more than sixty years. They have lived in Lake county almost fifty years. Fifty years will be completed next November. The three sisters are all living and one brother is yet living, the father of Mrs. Vincent of Crown Point. Such family records are worth preserving.
MASONIC JUBILEE. A noted event in the county this year among the Masonic fraternity, was the celebra- tion of the fiftieth anniversary of the existence of Lake Lodge, Number 157, F. & A. M., under a charter from the Grand Lodge of Indiana. The charter was granted May 24, 1854, so that May 24, 1904, made fifty full years of chartered lodge life. Much preparation was made for the anniversary exercises. All the Masonic lodges in the
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county were invited to join in the celebration. Between three hundred and four hundred of the members of these lodges were present. Music Hall was used as a dining room, and then transformed into a Masonic hall. The exercises of the occasion were of much interest to the fraternity. A paper was read giving the Masonic history of the Lodge for fifty years, with the Masonic statistics of the county fifty years ago and now. Perhaps that history ought to be preserved among the papers of this Historical Association. Thus far there has been a semi-centennial celebration of the settlement of the county, and a volume published containing the records of that celebration; a semi-centennial Sunday School celebration, and a volume devoted to that celebration also; and now, in May of this year, a semi-centennial Masonic celebration, has been held, and it remains to be seen in what form its history will be preserved. To obtain, record, and preserve county history, is a part of the object of this Association.
TOWNSHIP HISTORIES. Quite an interest in the schools was awakened in the winter and springtime of this year, in writing histories of the different townships to be sent to Indianapolis and then to St. Louis for exhi- bition there in the display of school work from Indiana. The pupils of the eighth grade to a large extent did the writing, and several papers from each township were fur- nished for selection. Of course only one from each town- ship could be selected, and some of them were so nearly equal in merit that it was not an easy task to decide which should be sent to St. Louis. The final decision was to be made solely on the grounds of historic merit.
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SPECIAL ITEMS. Freight trains on the new road have gone through Merrillville to Griffith, and Griffith has been incorporated as a town. It has some new pros- pect of growth.
The ice harvest last winter was of unusual length, con- tinuing for many weeks. The ice houses were filled and much good ice was left to thaw out in the springtime as in the early years before any ice was cut on our lakes and streams.
Water Valley has of late become quite a pleasure re- sort.
Crown Point still continues to be quite a horse market. John Muzzall & Son have this year bought and sold more than four hundred horses, shipping to various points, and the regular monthly horse-sale days are well attended.
The work of laying stone and mortar for the Commer- cial Bank building was commenced last week.
Quite an amount of stock has been subscribed for a third bank in Crown Point.
According to the Hobart reporter of the Crown Point Register, sixty-three automobiles passed through Hobart on Saturday, August 6, 1904, on the way to the St. Louis Fair.
The telephone system of communication is now very general over the county and outside of the county. In the official telephone directory of the Crown Point Com- pany for June 10, 1904, the number may be found of 1304 .. Numbers 1302, 1303, and 1304, are for the ranches, so called, of Barringer Brown, Oscar Dinwiddie, and John Brown,
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Among items of historic interest lately gathered is the following: Among the names of those entering claims in the year 1836, appears the name of "Mercy Perry, widow." Mrs. Perry was the mother of the first wife of Mr. Charles Marvin, a resident then of what became Hanover town- ship, near the present village of Brunswick. Mrs. Perry was with the Marvin family for a short time. There was a little disagreement about claims between two of the early settlers in that neighborhood about which Mrs. Perry learned, and as she was riding out one day she found there was some unclaimed land lying between the two claims of the disagreeing claimants, and she said she would herself lay claim to that and so make peace be- tween her two neighbors. Her name therefore as a claim- ant went upon the Claim Register. Mrs. Perry returned to Lockport, in Illinois. Her daughter, Mrs. Marvin, lived on the Hanover farm for a few years. Her health failed. She went to her mother's home at Lockport to recover, but she there died and there her body was buried. So when Mr. Marvin himself died his body was taken to Lockport and buried where was reposing the dust of his first wife. The Marvin family cemetery was there; but the Fuller family cemetery is here. And here was the appropriate place for the sleeping dust of the second Mrs. Marvin to be laid away to rest, as was done August 4. 1904. The claimants and the land-holders of that once American settlement extending for several miles along the Illinois State line have now passed away. There are two quite well kept burial places along that narrow strip of land between the State line and West Creek.
Cf the several accidents in the year now past, two are
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here recorded. The one was death by lightning. Arnold Kearn, a youth about seventeen years of age, a son of Henry Kearn, on a farm east of Hobart, was one Monday morning in the fields driving three horses attached to a disc harrow, when a thunder shower came up and the lightning struck and killed the two outside horses and the boy, leaving the central horse unharmed.
The other was death by drowning. I copy from, I think, the Whiting News: Friday afternoon, June 24, 1904, while Andrew Sach, a little ten-year-old boy was fishing from the Front Street pier, his hat blew into the lake, and in his excitement he toppled off into the water. There was no aid at hand, and the cruel waves drew him down to his death.
Among the visitors of this summer to their old home places was Mrs. Esther A. Carl, now of Wamego, Potto- watomie county, Kansas, who was the youngest member of the Cedar Lake Edgerton family of 1836. She took back with her to Kansas, Mrs. Carl. (the aged mother of Mrs. William Taylor, and others in the county,) who is now about ninety-one years of age, nearly blind and quite hard of hearing. Mrs. Carl is the grandmother of Mrs. Edgar C. Wheeler, who is herself a grandmother. So that five generations of that line are now living.
NEW BUILDINGS. This record cannot give in any detail the building of this year in the three cities, of our county. in which that part of East Chicago known as In- diana Harbor takes the lead, nor make much mention of the new buildings in Hobart and Lowell.
In Lowell, as an agricultural town, the growth is very healthy and substantial.
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In Crown Point the dwelling houses of Mr. Walter L. Allman and Mr. Jay Crawford mentioned in last year's report were finished up in excellent style, and no million- . aire would seem to need a more luxurious and completely arranged home than the present home of W. L. Allman. The Secretary with all of his family having taken dinner in that home not long ago, he has personal knowledge of its completeness in its finishing and furnishing. Other good dwelling houses have been built in Crown Point within the year, among them the home of Mr. Frank Henderlong on Main street, and the probability is that these all, along with Mr. Jay Crawford's, are well furnished. Two generations, sixty years, have made a great differ- ence in the appearance of the homes of Lake county both inside and out. There is probably no more real comfort now than then.
MORE STONE ROAD. To the 175 miles of stone and gravel road in the county there has been added this year in St. Johns township, not yet all finished, 61% more miles, making in all 180 miles of good, improved road- bed: These additions comprise three short, important, separate roads. The first is from Schererville to the Griffith stone road. Distance nearly one mile. The sec- ond is from Schererville, northwest and then north, to the North township line and the road running to High- land. Distance about two miles and a half. The third leads from Dyer to the Center and St. Johns stone road at Newman corners, between three and four miles.
The oldest person now residing in Crown Point is Mrs. Caswell, the mother of Commander Caswell, of the John Wheeler Post, She is of the Mitchell line, her early an-
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cestors coming from Europe and settling in New Hamp- shire, then removing into Maine, her father a soldier in the war of the Revolution and of 1812. She was born April 4, 1808, and for the last fifteen years has been an invalid. She sees and hears quite well, but has no power to move herself from her chair. She is not the only help- less invalid in our town, and their presence among us and the care they receive year after year proves that we are not a heathen, but a Christian community. :
GENEALOGIES. Many families of our county are becoming interested in their ancestral lines, and as facts are gathered it is found that the number increases of the known descendants of soldiers of the Revolution. Besides the mother of Mr. Caswell. who has just been mentioned, Mrs. Caswell, of the Woman's Relief Corps, is of patri- otic blood, a descendant of Captain John Hall, a soldier of the Revolution.
How many there are, descendants of such soldiers, has not been ascertained. Besides descendants of soldiers, we have also some descendants of a noted martyr, of that John Rogers who was the first to suffer when the fires of Smithfield were kindled in the reign of Queen Mary of England.
NECROLOGIC REPORT. I. John Hayden, one of the fourteen children of the pioneer, Nehemiah Hayden, this family coming into West Creek township in 1837, was born in Knox county, Ohio, October 13, 1835, and died at his home in Lowell, October 6, 1903, nearly 68 years of age. Six of his own eight children are living, and five of his brothers and two of his sisters, and the de-
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scendants of N. Hayden the pioneer are now many and noted in Lake county.
NOTE. The readers of Lake County 1872 may have wondered that of so large a family as that of N. Hayden, a pioneer of 1837 according to the Claim Register, so little record was made. But the readers of that book know little of the difficulties amid which the material was gath- ered, and of that south-western part of the county the author was not so well acquainted as he afterwards be- came. Aware of his want of knowledge he sent out pub- lic requests for information. Of those early residents one furnished full information in regard to himself, thus se- curing a quite lengthy notice. A prominent pioneer of Cedar Creek said, after the book was printed, that he saw the request but did not think the work would amount to anything, so he sent no information, which he regretted when too late.
2. Thomas George, who had worked in the copper mines of Lake Superior for sixteen years, who was born November 15, 1823, a resident for more than forty years in South East Grove, died at his home in Leroy, October 31, 1903, nearly 80 years of age. Mrs. Ann George, his wife, to whom he was married in March 1848, is one of the few women among us who lived with one husband over fifty-five full years.
3. Henry R. Ward, born March 13, 1827. died at his home in Crown Point, November 3, 1903. He was 76 years of age last March. He was an early settler in Winfield having come into Lake county in 1850. He had been a Justice of the Peace and County Commissioner, and had resided in Crown Point for several years,
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4. Mrs. Mary Ann Saxton, born in England, county Kent, November 10, 1828, one of fifteen children, sister of Stephen Mummery of Hobart, wife of Noble Saxton of Merrillville, died December 11, 1903, 75 years of age.
5. Died on Monday morning carly. December 14, 1903, at the home of her daughter Mrs. E. Latcham in Crown Point, Mrs. Wilhelmena Raasch, mother of Paul E. Raasch of Crown Point, in the eightieth year of her age. She was born May 20, 1824, and had lived in this county many years. Her husband, William Raasch, died January 24, 1903.
6. Mrs. Sykes, born in Pennsylvania, April 10, 1819, the mother of twelve children, whose sons are well known in the county, died at Hobart at the home of her son Wil- liam Sykes, December 24, 1903, in the 85th year of her age. Six sons and two daughters, twenty-nine grandchildren and nine great grandchildren remain to imitate the vir- tues and cherish the memory of a noble woman.
7. Oliver W. Merrill, oldest son of Dudley Merrill of Merrillville, died at the home of his brother, C. L. Mer- rill January 10, 1904, nearly 63 years of age. He was born in Lake county, February 1, 1841, the oldest of five chil- dren, four sons and one daughter, of whom C. L. Merrill is the only survivor. Like a few elderly men who have lived in the county and like some who are now living, O. W. Merrill was never married.
8. Mrs. Content Vosburg died at her home in Lowell February 6, 1904, age 92 years and 9 months. One of the oldest residents in the county. Born May 6, 1811, mar- ried in 1840.
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9. James McKinney, a noble hearted son and brother, and friend, after a long season of suffering and of sur- gical operations, died at his home at Palmer, on Sunday, February 14, 1904, being about 45 years of age. He and his mother and sisters were interested attendants of the meetings of this Association. He is now one of those who will come no more.
10. Mrs. Adah M. Baker, a daughter of Mr. J. S. Hol- ton, born in Crown Point, September 14, 1867, the mother of four children, died very unexpectedly to her kindred, on Tuesday morning, February 16, 1904, 36 years of age.
II. Mrs. H. Van Hollen, the last of the Cedar Lake pio- neers, died at her home a half mile northwest from Armour, February 21, 1904. She was born October 11, 1816, and was over 87 years of age. She came with her husband, Henry Von Hollen, to the Cedar Lake neighborhood in 1838, and for sixty years occupied one home, a quiet, do- mestic, retiring, and quite wealthy woman. She outlived all who were her contemporaries in that part of the coun- ty, leaving only the younger members of three families to represent a life of large activity and effort that had in the past for many years been there.
12. James Doak, Vice President of this Association, was for many years a farmer northwest of South East Grove, and for several years past a farmer some two miles northeast of Crown Point on Deep River. He at length moved into Crown Point where he died quite sud- denly of paralysis. February 23, 1904, about 78 years of age. He was owner of the old Fair Ground and of other town property. He was one of the elders of the Crown
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Point Presbyterian church, and the last one of their aged men.
13. Mrs. Jacob Wise, in childhood Maria Diddie, was born in Pennsylvania in 1819, was married in 1843, came to Winfield township in 1849, where she died March 9, 1904, nearly 85 years of age. Six children are living and twenty-four grandchildren. The Wise family, of whom but few are in Lake county, form one of the large fami- lies of this country, the great-grandfather of Henry M. Wise of Crown Point, having when he died in 1833, one hundred and thirty-three great-grandchildren, and their descendants are said to be now in very many states.
14. Mrs. Amasa Edgerton died March 13, 1904. Age-
15. Dr. John Higgins, born in New York, May 29, 1822, a descendant of Richard Higgins a Pilgrim of 1621, and of Simon Sackett a Puritan of 1632, who settled at Crown Point as a physician in 1859, died at his home in Crown Point, April 7, 1904, nearly 82 years of age, leaving in the luxurious family home a daughter and grandson. He was the last survivor of the earlier physicians of Crown Point, Dr. Pratt passing away in 1893, and Dr. Harvey Pettibone in 1898.
16. Mrs. Seymour Patton, who was in childhood Sarah Bieber, a member of an early settler family, died on Sun- day morning, May 8, 1904. She had lived 74 years and 6 months. She left a son and three daughters and her hus- band to continue on in performing the duties of life, du- ties which she had nobly discharged.
17. James Cooper, father of Frank E. Cooper, County Superintendent of Public Schools, and of Mrs. Albert
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Bacon of South Chicago, a resident in Lake county for about fifty years, died at his home in Crown Point, Sunday morning, July 3, 1904, having passed the age of 80 years.
18. Mrs. Eliza L. Marvin, the second wife of Charles Marvin of West Creek, a daughter of H. S. Fuller, was born in Northville, in the then Territory of Michigan, August 13, 1828. Becoming a resident of Lake county as one of her father's family about 1849; in 1851, December 6th, she was married to Charles Marvin, a pioneer in Han- over township of 1836, and died at her home in West Creek township on Sunday, July 31, 1904, nearly 76 years of age. Like others named she took a large interest in these annual meetings, and our loss this year of such members is very large.
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