USA > Indiana > Lake County > Reports of the historical secretary of the Old settlers' association of Lake County, Indiana, 1891 - 1895 > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Some cold days, some little snow. March 19th a severe wind on the marsh. April a cool month. A wind storm blew down the barns of Dr. Hill, of A. Edgerton, removed a barn in Crown Point three feet north, and did some other damage.
Flowers in the woods open about April 15th, and straw- berries in blossom in April. May a wet month. The highest water for many years. June very wet. July quite dry. Late potatoes suffered for want of rain.
-
-14-
The greatest act of cruelty on record in our annals was the burning of a barn about January Ist containing eight old horses. It was confessed that fifty dollars was paid to each of three men to set fire to the barn while the horses were tied within. One had been bought for three dollars, another for two, and the others for little or nothing. Eight good horses, that had been insured, were taken off to Michigan, and these put into the barn in their stead. About one thousand dollars insurance money was obtained; but wrong was suspected. The guilty men were punished.
There were reported about 43 buildings now around Cedar Lake, going back a little way from the lake shore among them two school houses; about 39 of these having a lake front.
There were placed on exhibition this year, belonging to the Brown and Fisher families, spoons from Scotland bearing the date of 1749; also Matthew Henry's Exposition, 1793; and a horn spoon that belonged to Mr. Wm. Brown's grandmother, Martha Robertson of Scotland, used in 1796.
Three visitors were among their special friends and kind- red this summer, whose presence for a short time in the conn- ty recalled scenes and events of long years ago, and whose names as visitors to their early homes should be here recorded. These were Mr. Major Farwell, Mr. Jacob Hornor, and Mrs. Esther Taylor Benton.
The following was the Address for the year, the Associ- ation holding this anniversary, as the last was held, in the Commissioners' Room of the Court House.
I esteem it as one of the opportunities and privileges of my life to have prepared the historical oration at our .Semi- Centennial Celebration in 1884. I esteem it as a privilege which I prize to have the opportunity, in this four hundreth year since the discovery of America by Colmnbns, to prepare for our Association a formal address.
For I think that no one can take a deeper interest than I do in all things pertaining to the true interests of our county; I am sure that no one can speak to you in regard to the past. and the present with kindlier feelings; and I believe that I can see without any envy or prejudice or covetousness, all
7
-
-15 --
the excellencies and all the advantages and all the prosperity of our later citizens.
I am not yet old enough to live only in the past; but I be- lieve largely in a statement in this paragraph which I take, new and fresh, from a leading New England publication dated September first: "Local pride, if it be not allowed to degene- rate into exclusiveness and selfishness, is an excellent thing and should receive all possible encouragement. Such pride is needed for the proper development of civic or communal in- terests, and the lack of it cannot be too deeply deplored. And as local pride of the right kind is excellent, far more so is the true historic spirit. The more that a nation or town cultivates it and glories in all its past which is worth glorying in, the more promise there is that its people will do something that will win the praise.of the future."
The statement to which I referred I repeat: The more a nation or town-the same is true of a county-cultivates the TRUE HISTORIC SPIRIT "and glories in all its past which is WORTH GLORYING IN, the more promise there is that its people will do something that will win the praise of the future." I have no sympathy with that spirit which is constantly saying, This is something new; We never had anything like this, nor equal to this among us before. They who are but as of yesterday will coolly say to us who laid the foundations of society here, You never had such things here before. In regard to this kind of sentiment I do not feel very kindly; for I know we have had in our almost sixty years, things in the past, in many lines, in which, according to the language I have quoted, we may fittiugly glory. Our lowly log cabins, our puncheon floors, our homemade bedsteads, our privations of various kinds inci- dent to nearly all frontier settlement, were not things specially "worth glorying in"; but the spirit of the men, of the women, and of the children, who succeded the Indians ou this soil; their hospitality, their integrity, their cheerful acceptance of privations and hardships, their earnest, industrious, patient labor in the house, in the field, in mills and workshops, their zeal in promoting schools and societies and churches, their rapid development of the material resourses of the county
7
-16-
amid trials, hardships, discouragements, were things in which to glory. Away from markets, from, schools, from churches; from the civilization of the older regions to which they were accustomed; with few roads, no bridges, only as they made them; post offices few and far away, mails slow, letters costing twenty-five cents each; I wonder that there was so little of homesickness among our pioneer families. I think there was something in the beauty and freshness of that which poets and historians like to call primeval nature, to cheer and uplift the sonl, -- the Indians and Mound-builders had left us only some trails, some monnds, some burial places and dancing floors,
to show that they had been here before us-something I think, in being near to the God of nature in these then great . solitudes, as though this region, and it was lovely, had just proceeded from the shaping hand of God,-something that cheered the hearts of refined, cultivated, Christian wom- en who were among us even then, which made them so lighthearted as heavy burdens came upon them. They were here as builders, under God, of institutions, in a new, bright world. This was their world. Such native beanty with such a position is cheering and invigorating. They were young, and, with husbands and children with them, they could well look hopefully forward to our own and to later days.
The native beanty of our region is no creation of the im- agination. The light that shone here was not a "light that never shone on sea or land," but something real and enchant- ing. We who as pioneer children saw the prairies in those early days, the tall grass, the polor plant, the beds of phlox, the various bright autumn flowers of rich hues that painters make, with the life and also the solitude of the prairies; and then the grand antumu fires, the frightened grouse and deer and wolves :- may be very sure that not in this land, on the regons of the West, until we come among the mountains grand, has more beanty been spread before your eyes.
Four hundred years ago this autumn Columbus discover- ed America. Two hundred and seventy two years ago this coming December the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.
"When the sea around was black with storme,
And white the shore with snow."
1
1
-17-
Sixty years ago, in 1832, the Indian title to most of our land was here extinguished. It was the year when Gladstone entered the British Parliament.
Says a good writer, in reviewing briefly the condition of Europe, "Just sixty years ago Mr. Gladstone made his entry into Parliament as the Tory member for Newark. The other day, for the fourth time as leader of the Liberal party, he be- came prime minister of the British Empire. * *
Within these sixty years not only the politics of Mr. Gladstone but the face of the world has changed. Continents have been opened and nations created, while thrones have crumbled, and old social orders have been swept away.
* The Europe of 1892 has little in common with the Europe of sixty years ago."
The years that have seen and made such changes over all the civilized world have seen our region change from Indian occupancy to the Lake county of to-day. I have suggested some things connected with our past in which we may fitting- ly glory. We have made roads and bridges; we have built school houses and churches; we have established towus and villages, (and residing in these are more than one half of our inhabitants;) we have well cultivated farms; we send off milk and butter and hay, and horses and cattle, and hogs and poul- try; We have become the most rapidly growing county in In- diana; and we have made a good reputation in different lines of effort. We have attained to a fair, but surely not yet a per- fect, state of civilization. Sixty years ago only Indians here. To day with about twenty-five thousand inhabitants, fifteen thousand in our thirty-three towns and villages, ten thousand on farms, we are a prosperous, growing, comparatively happy, and I hope useful, portion of the great common-wealth of In- diana.
-18- REPORT. AUGUST 19, 1893. -
At The Fair Ground.
-0 ------ HE many blessings that we are enjoying on this, our eigh- teenth anniversary, call for greatful acknowledgments of the kindness of the protecting Power whose prori- dence arranges all. The same weeks and months have passed over us in Lake county that have passed over the land and the world, as the year 1892 of the Christian Era came to a close and the year 1893 hasalready so much of it gone; but "the . times" that have passed over us have been vastly different from the times which some have experienced in different parts of the world. While famine and pestilence and exile and great commotions have been the experiences of many; and war clouds have been darkening over communities and nationali- ties, we have had peace, plenty, and prosperity. We should be grateful that our government is not like those of the Cen- tral and South American States, that we are not members of a state so feeble as Siam, that our institutions are better even and more stable than those of powerful France, that our free insti- tutions have given to us so much "bone and sinew and vital- ity." Even the singular financial embarrassmentsof the coun- try have to no great extent affected our business enterprises.
The doors of two of our banks have been closed, the Com- mercial Bank at Lowell and the National Bank at Hammond, yet the losses to depositors have been slight compared with what many have sustained in the citiesof the land. The wheat, the hay, and the oat crops have been quite good; the com no doubt will be ent short by the unusual dry weather which in common with large areas of the country we have experienced. Potatoes are likely again to have a high price; and fruit of most varieties has been far from abundant. The summer, ex- cept that it has not promoted so much as usual the growth of vegetation, has been quite delightful. But few very hot days and very few sultry nights, no violent storms, northerly winds
5
-19-
prevailing largely and cool nights. Scarcely a drop of rain through the long period of haying and harvesting. Indeed no general rain over the county since Saturday Jne 10th. I do not know when, for the mere enjoyment of the weather, for building, or travel, or recreation, we have had a more delightful summer. And well have the builders in Crown Point improv- ed it, where an unusual number of dwelling houses has been erected.
In the early summer much building was done in Ham- mond and East Chicago, and Lowell and Hobart have also been improving. A large amount of building has been going on at Whiting, a town soon to become a city, that hasfelt but slightly the financial situation of the country. In Whiting are now three church buildings, one Congregational, one Catholic, one Lutheran; East Chicago has four; in Hammond there are eleven; making now in the county sixty-one. And of these, more than half, thirty-one, are in that part of the county, north of townships 35, (in North 19, in Calumet 2, in Hobart 10,) where a few years ago there was bnt one.
These church buildings of the county will seat probably, on an average, 250 each, thus affording accommodations for 15.000 people, as many as ever attend church at one time in Lake county. To accommodate our 7833 children we have 116 school buildings, and 165 teachers to give instruction.
Many miles of railroad have this year been constructed, the Fort Wayne track being completed from East Chicago to the main line and the Wabash having now a road across the county, giving five roads and a branch road north of the Nick- el Plate. I think the whole number of miles is now 260. In number of miles of railroad our county is still first in the State. A few special buildings should be mentioned: Dr. Gerrish's fine office building at Lowell; the Sigler hotel at Cedar Lake on Cedar Point bluff, the front 100 feet long and 52 feet deep, and the back part 65 feet by 30, three stories high, 93 rooms, furnished with water and gas, the whole costing abont $16.000; the large brick school house erected at LeRoy; and a large, a massive structure, to cost forty or fifty thousand dollars now in process of erection at Hammond, to be completed, if possi-
1
.
-20-
ble, this fall and expected to be the finest public school build- ing in northwestern Indiana, built by North township.
Lake county is represented in the World's Fair, in the Manufacturers Building by Lowell and Hobart, by reveral of our public schools in the Educational Exhibit, and sixteen publications, large and small, are in the Indiana Exhibit from Lake county, fifteen by T. H. Ball and one by J Underwood.
The Memorial Records for this year are few.
1. Mrs. Belshaw, born Ang. 6, 1824, coming into this county about 1844, then Miss Jones, teaching for a time in the log school house near the present town of Lowell and in the log school house near the present Pine Grove, married to Mr. Wm. Belshaw of Pine Grove, an early resident in the coun- ty, the mother of three sons and three daughters, died in her home at Lowell Tuesday evening, Feb. 28, 1893, in the 69th year of her age. She was a member for some years, until it disbanded, of the West Creek Baptist church.
2. Mr. Richard Fancher, one of the oldest inhabitants of the county, who selected his claim here in 1831, who became a resident here in March, 1835, giving name to the Fair Ground lake, born Nov: 10, 1799, died of old age one month agoto-day, July 19, 1893, being nearly 94 years of age. There are none living, that were men, that were pioneers here before him, and he is the last one to leave us of those whose names are found as actual settlers in 1835. There are some living who were children then, some who were members of those very early pioneer families, but none who were heads of families then. He was the last. He had been in the county for fifty-eight years.
-
3. Died at 3 A. M., Saturday, July 29, 1893, at his home in Kankakee, Ill., Mr. Edwin B. Warriner, son of Hon. Lewis Warriner, who was a settler at Cedar Lake in 1837. Edwin B. Warriner removed to Kankakee county in the fall of 1855, and was for many years one of the active, useful, business men of Kankakee. Imay take, in this report, the liberty to say he was my one life long friend. We were born in the same town in Massachusetts in the same winter, we came to Cedar Lake the same year, and have exemplified as nearly as seems
1
-21-
to be here possible the truth of the old Latin saying, True friendship is everduring-Vera amicitia est sempiterna.
I saw his form laid away to rest. He sleeps in a spacious, . well kept city cemetery, where his kindred can look upon his last resting place; but the earth forms of his mother, of his young sister, and of his brother, are somewhere in that hill side not far south from the summer residence built by Mrs. Biggs, on the east side of the Lake of Red Cedars, and no hu- man being can tell where. Some of us have not done all that we could have done in preserving from desecration and obliv- ion the resting places of our pioneer dead.
WEATHER RECORD. 1892 --- 1893.
The autumn of 1892 very pleasant. No general frost un- til the full moon in October and then not a hard one. Leaves kept green and flowers were blooming till October. Many In- dian summer days. Small horse flies quite abundant in Nov- ember. Not much fall rain. First week in November cloudy and wet. Nov. 7, 20 degrees F. Dec. 25, quite cold. Two inches of snow. Dec. 26, Monday 8 to 12 degrees below zero. For some days zero weather. Dec. 29, ice at Cedar Lake elev- en inches. Dec. 30 and 31 milder. Jan. 1, 1893, quite mild. Monday colder. Tuesday, Jan. 3, mercury below zero. A good ice harvest. Jan. 6, below zero. Jan. 10, 10 below zero. At zero or below all day. Some four inches of snow, poor sleighing. Jan. 11. Wednesday. Zero. Snowing. A fine- flaked snow from S. E. Steady snow fall all day. Wind at evening about east. Flakes larger. At 4 P. M. 7 degrees. Prospect good for sleighing now. Jan. 13. 4 degrees below zero at S A. M. At noon 2 below. . Jan. 15. 14 degrees below at. 8. A. M. 4 degrees below at noon. Jan. 16 & 17at 8o'clock 10 degrees below. It grew warmer. Jan. 24, a driving S. E. snow storm. Snow in the woods a foot deep. Jan. 28, com- menced "January thaw." Feb. 4, 6 degrees below zero. Feb. 5 & 6, rain. Turned to snow. Feb. 7. 10 degrees below in the early morning. Cold! W. wind. S, roads very icy. 9, snow
-
-- 22 ---
falling. Feb. 16. At 7, 22 degrees. Pleasant winter weather. Sleighing quite good till Feb. 25. A thaw. Feb. 28. A cold west wind stopped the thaw: The snow had been running off in streams, Monday 27, get the sleighing was good nearly all the way from Lansing to Hobart, 15 miles. Sleighing this winter good, as there was an icy crust under the snow for weeks and little or no blockade caused by drifts. In March some cold weather, some snow, some rain. March 22, an "equinoc- tial" rain nearly all day. 23, a wet day, morning foggy, mer- cury 46 degrees. ' 27, roads very muddy. April opened with pleasant spring weather, farmers sowing oats, and, April 5th, roads dusty. April 7, dry, ground in excellent condition for work, mercury above summer heat, vegetation putting forth rapidly. April 10 & 11 showers in the night. 17, woods abound in wild flowers. April 19, rain in the night. fierce S. E. wind. 20, rain. 21, rainy, wind S. Some snow, some rain, and wet weather till May. May 1. Qnite pleasant. Worlds' Fair opened. 5, ground keeps very wet. May 10, mercury has again reached summer heat. May 11, Thursday. After- noon a heavy rain fall. The Besor overflowed its banks east of Main street, covered to quite a depth all the north end of East street, reaching to the Friedrich barn, flowing over the sidewalk on Goldsboro street, the highest water in Crown Point of the year. May 15, cherry and pear blossoms opening, also peach. Dandelions in blossom. May 16 summer weather commenced. June 10, a heavy rain fall at Shelby and gener- ally over the county. The lightning struck the hotel ice house and burned it to the ground. This the last general rain for nine weeks. July 16, a shower at Crown Point and at Ham- moud but no rain at Highland and a sprinkle only at Griffith. Mercury some days of this dry weather above 100 degrees F., but generally cool nights, vortherly winds prevailing.
This the World's Fair summer.
-23- .
REPORT. AUGUST 18, 1894.
E held our last anniversary amid the golden opportuni- ties, which were afforded so easily, to us of Lake coun- ty, for seeing the wonders of nature and art, the won- ders achieved by the skill of man, and the vegetable, the min- eral, the animal productions called into existence by the pow- er of God, displayed in such magnificence and beauty at the noted Columbus Exposition which was held in Jackson Park. The hundreds of thousands continued to cross our borders on the long and crowded trains until the Fair gates were closed in the early autumn. We cannot reasonably expect that again as many human beings will pass across our county limits in a single month as there were crossing it back and forth in Sep- tember of 1893.
That noted year closed. And we come together for an- other anniversary, having passed now the first decade in our second half century of occupancy. We date our settlement in 1834. We held our first semi-centennial in 1884. And already it is 1894. The Nineteenth century is rapidly rushing to an end. Not all who were active citizens one year ago are living now; but we who remain, and the new generation of the sons and daughters of Lake who are crowding on, have abundant cause this day for devout gratitude to God.
This year has been no ordinary year, although vastly un- like the last. Over all our land it has been a year of uncer- tainty, of unrest, of some conflict; and, to some extent, in all these we of Lake county have shared. There have been the remarkable inactivity of the American Congress, the great stag- nation in mining and manufactures, the Pullman boycott, the
-
-
-
-- 24 --
Debbs' strikes, the miners' strikes, the assassination of the re- tired French president, and a war commenced between the two great powers of Eastern Asia, China and Japan. In our nar- row limits we have felt but little change from these events which have made this year memorable; but in the north part of the county for a time the civil officers were unable to main- tain law and order, and United States Troops and some eight hundred state militia upheld the law and secured railroad transportation and the passage of the mails in the city of Ham- . mond, quelling disturbances also in East Chicago and Whit- ing. For a time in Crown - Point, on both roads, no trains could go through to Chicago, and passenger trains Jay by here for many hours, reminding ns of the scenes during our great snow blockade. The tents of the soldiers, the soldiers them- selves on guard duty, the presence of the soldiers with their arms in various places, the guard around the Erie station, the gatling gun on the platform, caused Hammond to appear for a number of days as a city under martial law. It was in our county a new experience to have almost a regiment of soldiers under arms to preserve order, and to be able to reach the Erie station passenger room only as one passed the sentry and the corporal of the guard. We may well hope that such times will not often come. No mail, no travel, no daily papers, no intercourse with Chicago. Some of the Crown Point grocery- men had supplies brought out from Chicago by teams as was customary before railroads were built. Happily this condi- tion of things did not last long. The President of the United States exercised his anthority, the governors of Indiana and Illinois asserted theirs, troops poured into Chicago, and the gathering of mohs, the lawlessness, the destruction of proper- ty, the impossibility of moving trains in or out of the city ceas ed. Notwithstanding the uncertainty in the commercial and manufacturing worlds, work has gone forward in the county and some improvements have been made. The large public school building at Hammond. after some delay in the fall, was at length completed, and was dedicated with quite imposing exercises Friday evening, March 2, 1894. The following is a copy of the
-
1
-25 --
PROGRAMME.
PIANO SOLO-La Baladine, - Lysberg Op. 51
1. £ MRS. L. A. LAWRENCE.
2. PRAYER, :
REV. A. H. DELONG.
MESDAMES HOLTON, MANCHEE,
3. QUARTET, - MESSRS ELY, GRIFFIN.
4. PRESENTATION OF KEYS OF BUILDING,
DR. W. W. MERRILL, Trustee.
5. RESPONSE, SUP'T W. C. BELMAN.
6. SOLO-"The Song that Reached My Heart." Jordan. MRS. S. H. MANCHEE.
7, DEDICATORY ADDRESS,
DR. W. L. BRYAN, State University
8. HYMN, AMERICA. AUDIENCE, LED BY K. O. T. M. BAND.
9. BENEDICTION, REV. S. W. PHELPS.
MISS FAY POTTER, PIANIST.
The building committee were: "T. Hammond, H. M. Godfrey, Fred Mott, J. Rimbach, K. H. Bell, Adam Ebert, P. Reiley, and W'm. Kleihege Sr."
At Hammond the electric railway has been onward to Whiting and to South Chicago or Colehour, so that this sum- mer passengers could go into Chicago from Hammond on the electric aud elevated roads on the payment of four fares. Some building but not very much has been done in North township.
In the south part of the county a fine school building. large and church-like in its appearance has been erected at Plum Grove.
At Shelby a school building forty four feet long has been built this summer, but not yet completed. At Creston also a large and good school house is in process of erection, to be ready for use this fall.
1
-26-
At Lowell quite a little improvement has been made in grading up the principal business street, and in the erection or completing of a large business building, the John Hack block, just west of the bank. commenced last fall. This is one of the best in the county, called by some the very best. It is eighty feet long and fity-three wide. Mr. Lynch, now oc- cupying the principal store room, had "a grand opening." There were given away forty gallons of lemonade and one hundred and seventy-five fans, to each lady present one. Mr. John B. Wilkinson, a son of Judge Wilkinson who settled in March, 1835, and is therefore the earliest resident left in the county except Mr. Thomas Clark, built this spring and sum- mer a nice residence house just north of Mr. C. F. Nelson ou the township line. The foundation for a hotel has been laid in Lowell and other buildings have been constructed. The Methodists have made a great improvement in their church building.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.