USA > Indiana > Adams County > Standard history of Adams and Wells counties, Indiana : An authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and country, Volume I > Part 5
USA > Indiana > Wells County > Standard history of Adams and Wells counties, Indiana : An authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and country, Volume I > Part 5
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
ROAD-BUILDING MATERIALS
A short distance from the right bank of each as you ascend the streams, are ridges largely composed of clay soil. Occasionally there are beds of gravel just above the rock, where the limestone abounds. These places are along the Wabash in Jefferson and Hartford town- ships; on Big Blue creek and along the St. Mary's in Washington and St. Mary's townships. Several good sand and gravel pits are found in the county, but some of them are nearly exhausted from the amount of road material used in building gravel roads before the macadamized road construction was commenced.
SOILS OF THE COUNTY
Most of the county is underlaid with rock at a depth of from fifty to seventy-five feet, except perhaps the Loblolly region. The St. Mary's region is somewhat more undulating and the river has more current than that of the Wabash. The Wabash River bottoms are more nearly a black loam than those of the St. Mary's valley, except in Hartford and French townships where they overlay a deep ledge of limestone. Generally the land along the St. Mary's is a sandy loam. The uplands usually consist of a mixed clay and marl which will grow almost any cereal or other crop produced in the middle west.
The lands of Adams County may be thus described geologically : "The soil is elay overlying the silica and calcareous upper Silurian rocks of the Niagara group, in most cases the resulting soil being from two to ten feet deep. Although fertile, it is inclined to be tena- cious, and the surface of the country being rather level the character of the land may be designated as frequently too retentious of moisture except in very dry weather." From the foregoing we can readily see the need of tiling, as have the actual cultivators of the soil. The re- sult is that the lands which were once too wet for cultivation are
CORN AND MORE CORN
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drained and comprise some of the most valuable farms in the county.
"There is no worthless land in Adams county. From the particu- lar topography and the richness of its soil and the advantages of water and drainage offered by its rivers and numerous smaller streams, it is well adapted to the various branches of agriculture. From the onion fields in the Yellow creek, Blue creek and Thompson's prairies its rich cornlands along the Wabash and St. Mary's rivers, and its other fertile and productive farms throughout the more ele- vated parts of the county, it may be placed in the front rank as one of the leading agricultural counties of the state."
TOPOGRAPHY
Union and French townships, respectively in the northeastern and western parts of the county, are characterized by a number of ponds or sinks, which are small but from three to six feet in depth. French Township, especially just east of Vera Cruz, and Wabash Township, south of the river near Ceylon, present the most distinct- ively rolling land of any sections in the county. The largest prairie tracts, which were formerly undrained swamps, are as follows: Thompson's prairie, about five miles long and from half a mile to a mile and a half in width; Grim's prairie, some three miles in length ; Blue Creek prairie, described as "a continuous chain of small, swamp prairies extending through Monroe and French townships, with here and there a sort of Beaver dam or small strip of land between them"; and Belt's and Yellow Creek prairies. The Blue Creek prairie was the last considerable portion of Adams County to be settled, as it comprised the last of the old swamp lands to be thoroughly drained. Even shortly before the Civil war it was known as the "wilds of Adams County."
The principal tributaries of the Wabash River are Indian Creek, Limberlost, Lick Run, Canoper Creek, and Dismal Run, in Wabash Township, and Six Mile Creek, Hartford Township; of St. Mary's River, Spring Run, Big Blue Creek, Twenty-seven Mile, Yellow Creek, Borum Run, Lenhart's Run, Numbers Creek, Seventeen and Mc- Knight's Run. "In Adams County," says Snow's history, "the Saint Mary's carries about three times the volume of water that is carried by the Wabash. This is caused to a certain extent by the feeder from the reservoir in Ohio supplying water-power for the mills at St. Mary's.
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THE LOBLOLLY COUNTRY
In the early settlement of Wabash and Hartford townships many beaver dams were found and some may yet be seen. Many years be- fore the permanent white settlement, the French traders and trappers nearly swept the little animals from the country by slaughtering them for their furs. The otters also paid a heavy tribute. In what is now the southwestern part of Wabash Township and the southern sections of Hartford, there was almost a continuous series of beaver dams, which were specially centered in a shallow pond near Geneva and half a dozen small lakes seven or eight miles to the southwest. This region so thickly inhabited by the fur-bearing animals, especially the pond mentioned, has the general form of an oval, or the shape of the leaf of the swamp pine, the Loblolly. Sometimes the pond, at other times the entire region, is called the Loblolly. The pond was dredged about ten years ago and much of the adjacent land was re- claimed for agricultural purposes. A number of beaver dams are still to be seen in the Loblolly region of Wabash Township. Just west of Ceylon, on the south bank of the river, is one that required a six-foot cut through the bank to drain the pond above it, and on a tributary of the Canoper Creek which comes in from the north, near the center of section 15, is the largest beaver dam in the country, 100 yards in length and 5 or 6 feet in height.
FAMOUS LIMBERLOST REGION
The Limberlost is the most widely known of the streams in Adams County which are tributary to the Wabash. Not a few of the resi- dents of the county, including even some of the older generation have an idea that the name has something to do with the variation of the volume of water carried by the bed of the stream, and which has, at times, been almost "lost." But an authentic tale accounts for the name in this wise: A boy of about fifteen living near Fort Recov- ery had acquired the name of Limber Jim, because of his suppleness, and finally this was contracted to Limber. The boy was out in the woods one day and lost his way. A man on horseback saw him and called him. Lost Limber thought the man was an Indian and took to his heels. The mounted man finally ran him down and brought the boy to his friends. Not long afterward when the creek was discovered in the neighborhood and there was a question as to what it should be called, Lost Limber, who claimed to have seen it during his adventure
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in the woods, suggested that it be named Limberlost. Although some- what vain, the boy was popular, and his suggestion was adopted.
In the early times Limberlost Creek and the Limberlost region became widely known. Limberlost was also one of the first postoffices to be established in the county, giving place to Geneva with the com- ing of the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad more than forty-five years ago. But the name was not to be lost, for Adams County's most dis- tinguished author, Mrs. Gene Stratton-Porter, laid the quaint scenes of "Freckles" and "A Girl of the Limberlost," in that unique region of the Wabash. All her stories are colorful and warm, but "Freckles," her first real romance, is richly laden with these charms of fiction. Though Freckles and the Angel are blocked out by the anthor as its chief characters, the reader finds himself charged with an ever-growing affection for the Bird Woman. Adams County is proud to have had the Bird Woman as a resident of Geneva and the Limberlost region for many years, and we believe that all will agree that her descriptions of that country, when it was among the "wilds" of the Middle West, enveloped by a weird and varied charm, are pictures of nature which have been surpassed by few American writers. With present-day drainage and the projection of good roads everywhere in the county, many of the old picturesque features of the Limberlost have been eliminated.
Freckles was a "timber guard." His boss, MeLean, was the only son of a wealthy Scotch ship-builder, who had been "ordered through Southern Canada and Michigan to purchase a consignment of tall, straight timber for masts and down into Indiana for oak beams. The young man entered these mighty forests, parts of which still lay untouched since the dawn of the morning of time. The cool, clear, pungent atmosphere was intoxicating. The intense silence, like that of a great empty cathedral, fascinated him. He gradually learned that, to the shy wood creatures that darted across his path or peeped in- quiringly from leafy ambush, he was a brother. He found himself approaching, with a feeling of reverence those majestic trees that had stood through ages of sun, wind and snow. Soon it became a dif- ficult thing to fell them. When he had filled his order and returned home, he was amazed to find that in the swamps and forests he had lost his heart, and they were calling, forever calling him." Thus MeLean was drawn to live in America and in the Limberlost, having founded a lumber company and a furniture factory in Michigan, and bought large tracts of hard-wood lands in that region. Freckles, the young orphan, was engaged to guard the valuable trees against the desperate timber thieves of the region. The great swamps were all new to him,
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a Chicago outcome. "His heart stood still every time he saw the beautiful marsh-grass begin a sinnous waving against the play of the wind, as MeLean had told him it would. He bolted a half-mile with his first boom of the bittern, and his hat lifted with every yelp of the sheitpoke.
"The first afternoon that he found his wires down and he was compelled to plunge knee deep into the black swamp-muck to restring them, he became so ill from fear and nervousness that he could scarcely control his shaking hand to do the work. With every step he felt that he would miss secure footing and be swallowed up in that clinging sea of blackness. In dumb agony he plunged along, elinging to the posts and trees until he had finished restringing and testing the wire. He had consumed much time. Night closed in. The Limberlost stirred gently, then shook herself, growled and awoke about him. There seemed to be a great owl hooting from every hollow tree and a little one screeching from every knot-hole. The bellowing of monster bull- frogs was not sufficiently deafening to shut out the wailing of whip- poor-wills that seemed to come from every bush. Night-hawks swept past him with their shivery ery and bats struck his face. A prowling wildcat missed its catch and screamed with rage. A lost fox bayed incessantly for its mate. *
* * His heart seemed to be in his mouth when his first rattler disputed the trail with him, but he mus- tered courage and let drive at it with his club. After its head had been crushed, he mastered the Irishman's inborn repugnance to snakes sufficiently to cut off its rattles. With the mastery of his first snake, his greatest fear of them was gone. Then he began to realize that with the abundance of food in the swamp, flesh hunters would not come out on the trail and attack him; and he had his revolver for defense if they did. He soon learned to laugh at the big floppy birds that made horrible noises. One day, watching from behind a tree, he saw a crane solemnly performing a few measures of a belated nuptial song- and-dance with his mate. Realizing that it was intended in tender- ness, no matter how it appeared, the lonely, starved heart of the boy went out to them in sympathy. When, day after day, the only thing that relieved his utter loneliness was the companionship of the birds and beasts of the swamp, it was the most natural thing in the world that Freckles should turn to them for friendship." And so he did, and so tamed all the wild birds of the swamp that they became known to his friends as Freckles' Chickens. That was the work of winter. "When the first breath of spring touched the Limberlost, and the snow receded from it; when the calkins began to bloom; when there came a hint of green to the trees, bushes and swale; when the rushes Vol. I-2
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lifted their heads, and the pulse of the newly resurrected season beat strong in the heart of nature, something new stirred in the breast of the boy. * * *
"About the bridge spanning Sleepy Snake Creek, the swale spread wide, the timber largely dropped away, and the willows, rushes, marsh-grass and splendid wild flowers grew abundantly. Here lazy, big, black water-snakes, for which the creek was named, sunned on the bushes, wild ducks and grebe chattered, cranes and herons fished, and musk-rats plowed the banks in queer, rolling furrows. Where the creek entered the swamp was a place of unusual beauty. The water spread out in darksome, mossy, green pools. Water-plants and lilies grew abundantly, throwing up great, rank, rich green leaves. Nowhere else in the Limberlost could be found a frog-chorus to equal that at the mouth of the creek. The drumming and piping went on in never-ending orchestral effect, and the full chorus rang to its ac- companiment throughout the season."
Freckles made a wonderful garden in the Limberlost swamp, to which he retired for rest and to read about his beloved birds and ani- mals and which he called the Cathedral. There the Angel first found him. But the Boss' gang commenced to cut away the trees for the Grand Rapids furniture factory, as they were instructed to do. One day Freckles said to the Angel: "The gang got there a little after moon and took out the tree, but I must tell you, and you must tell the Bird Woman, that there's no doubt but they will be coming back."
"Oh, what a shame!" cried the Angel. "They'll clear out roads, cut down the beautiful trees and tear up everything. They'll drive away the birds and spoil the Cathedral. When they have done their worst, then all these mills about here will follow in and take out the cheap timber. Then the land owners will dig a few ditches, build some fires, and in two summers more the Limberlost will be in corn and potatoes."
They looked at each other and groaned despairingly in unison.
"You like it, too," said Freckles.
"Yes," said the Angel, "I love it. Your room is a little piece right out of the heart of Fairyland, and the Cathedral is God's work, not yours. You only found it and opened the door after he had it completed. The birds, flowers and vines are all so lovely. The Bird Woman says it is really a fact that the mallows, foxfire, iris and lilies are larger and of richer coloring there than about the rest of the country. She says it is because of the rich loam and muck. I hate seeing the swamp torn up, and to you it will seem like losing your best friend; won't it ?"
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"Something like," said Freckles. "Still, I've the Limberlost in me heart, so that all of it will be real to me while I live, no matter what they do to it."
The Limberlost in autumn: "The Limberlost was now arrayed like the Queen of Sheba in all her glory. The first frosts of autumn had bejeweled her crown in flashing topaz, ruby and emerald. About her feet trailed the purple of her garments and in her hand was her golden scepter. Everything was at full tide. It seemed as if nothing could grow lovelier, and it was all standing still a few weeks, waiting coming destruction. The swamp was palpitant with life. Every pair of birds that had flocked to it in the spring was now multiplied by from two to ten. The young were tame from Freckles' tri-parenthood, and so plump and sleek that they were quite as beautiful as their elders, even if in many cases they lacked their brilliant plumage. It was the same story of inerease everywhere. There were chubby little ground hogs seudding along the trail. There were eunning baby coons and opossums peeping from hollow logs and trees. Young muskrats fol- lowed their parents across the lagoons. If you could come across a family of foxes that had not yet dishanded, and see the young playing with a wild duek's carcass that their mother had brought, and note the pride and satisfaction in her eyes as she lay at one side guarding them, it would be a picture not to be forgotten. Freckles never tired of studying the devotion of a fox-mother to her babies. To him, whose early life had been so embittered by continual proof of neg- leet and cruelty in human parents toward their children, the love of these furred and feathered folk of the Limberlost was even more of a miraele than to the Bird Woman and the Angel. The Angel was wild about the baby rabbits and squirrels. She had carried several of the squirrel and bunny babies home, and had the conservatory littered with them. Iler care of them was perfect. She was learning her natural history from nature, and was getting much healthful exercise. To her, they were the most interesting of all, but the Bird Woman pre- ferred the birds, with a elose second in the butterflies.
"Brown butterfly time had come. The outer edge of the swale was filled with milkweed and other plants beloved of them, and the air was golden with the flashing satin wings of the monarch. viceroy and argargynnis. They outnumbered those of any other color three to one.
"Among the birds, it really seemed as if the little yellow fellows were in the preponderance. At least, they were until the red-winged blackbirds and bobolinks, that had nested on the uplands, suddenly saw in the swamp the garden of the Lord and came swarming by hundreds
.
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to feast and adventure upon it these last few weeks before migration. Never was there a finer feast spread for the birds. The grasses were filled with seeds; so too, were weeds of every variety. Fall berries were ripe. Wild grapes and black haws were ready. Bugs were creeping everywhere. The muck was yeasty with worms. Insects filled the air. Nature made glorious pause for holiday before her next change."
In these and other pictures, drawn by Gene Stratton-Porter, much of the natural history of the Limberlost region, as well as of Southern Adams County, is depicted. The expressed dread of Freckles and the Angel that Improvements would march over it and blot out all but the utilitarian has largely come to pass, but with many still living the old Limberlost is yet fresh in the heart and memory and, with the aid of the gifted author's pen, can never be completely effaced.
AGRICULTURAL AND LIVE STOCK ORGANIZATIONS
The first movement of the agriculturists of Adams County to organ- ize themselves for mutual benefit, as well as social co-operation, was on the 28th of December, 1852, when the first County Agricultural Society was formed at Decatur, with Samuel S. Mickle, as president ; George A. Dent, vice president; David Studabaker, secretary; John McConnell, treasurer, and William G. Spencer, librarian. At that time the chief efforts of the farmers appear to have been directed to- ward the improvement of the orchard products and the cattle, hogs and sheep of the county. The expenses of the organization were met by the membership fees of $1.00 and the license fees collected from circuses and other shows which exhibited on the grounds southeast of Decatur. The early fairs of the old society were successful and the enterprise made substantial progress until it struck the snag of Civil war times, when it was discontinued altogether. In 1875 the twenty- acre tract in the southeastern part of Decatur was leased to Emanuel Woods and others, who built a race track, fenced the grounds and erected the necessary buildings to revive the county fair on a more extended scale than it had been previously conducted.
The result was the formation of the second organization known as the Adams County Agricultural Association, with the following offi- cers : Emanuel Woods, president; John W. Rout, secretary; Daniel Weldy, treasurer; John Rupright, Henry Fuelling, A. J. Teeple, Timothy Coffee and Richard Winans, directors. In September, 1875, the first fair was held on these improved grounds. But the associa- tion did not flourish, as its activities seemed to gradually be turned
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more into the channel of horse-raeing than an exposition of the eoun- ty's resources in agricultural lines. The fairs of 1885 and 1886 were held by private enterprise, and about 1889 the last fair was held on the old grounds.
In the spring of 1900 the Decatur Driving Association was organ- ized to meet the wishes of horsemen who, for many years, had so labored as to make the city one of the recognized live stock eenters (in their line) in the country. Grounds were leased at what is now known as Steele's park, a race track completed and suitable buildings erected for stabling the horses. In October, 1901, a very successful three days' horse fair was held at the grounds prepared for it.
HOGS FATTENING FOR MARKET
At a meeting of the Farmers' Mutual Benefit Association held at Monroe, on October 23, 1901, a committee was appointed, consist- ing of Jonathan Fleming, George W. Gladden and Lemuel Heading- ton, to draft articles of association for another agricultural society and to report the same at the next November meeting. That was done and the committee then commeneed to look around for fair grounds. The Board of County Commissioners refused to sell the old fair grounds, but an election for directors to conduct a county fair in 1903 was held through the ageney of the Deeatur Demoerat. The following were selected : Frank Berger, Frank Gideon, Lewis Fruehte, Joshua Bright, Michael Miller, George Tricker, David Dailey, J. S. Beatty, Peter Ashbaucher, Jonas Neuenschwander, L. O. Bears, Mar-
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tin H. Herr and Peter Kinney. The organization became known as the Adams County Fair Association, and in July, 1903, Willard Steele proposed to lease to the directors named his 115-acre farm just east of Decatur for a county fair ; also agreeing that, under certain conditions, he would erect the necessary buildings to conduct the same. . In the following September the Farmers' Fair was held near Steele, Blue Creek Township. The fair of 1904 was as well attended as the one named.
In June of 1904 the Adams County Horsemen's Association was organized with Willard Steele, Henry Kohn, Davis Dailey, August Bly, Sampson Pillars, James Bell, V. D. Bell, George W. Martz, J. H. Beatty, Calvin Teeters, M. L. Smith, Dan Beery, David Eckrote, John S. Peterson, S. W. Hale and J. B. Rice as directors. As stated in its by-laws, the purposes of the association were "to encourage the breeding, training and use of trotting, pacing and running horses." Its first officers were: Abe Boch, president : Elmer Johnson, secre- tary ; J. M. Miller, treasurer; and J. B. Rice, S. W. Hale, Willard Steele, Dan Beery and J. S. Peterson, board of managers. The horse fairs and races held both in 1904 and 1905 drew a good attendance and commensurate receipts.
The Farmers' Institutes of Adams County have been in operation since 1897. They have from the first accomplished splendid work in educating the farmer, through both the non-resident instructors and local talent. The details of their activities are so familiar that it really seems superfluous to give space to them here. The farmer of today finds in them his best advisers, his most helpful friends and, altogether, his wisest mentor, in affairs agricultural, social and intel- lectual.
The Adams County Farmers' Institute was formally organized in July, 1901, and the officers selected were: George Tricker, presi- dent ; Martin L. Smith, vice president ; Thomas H. Harris, secretary and Rudolph H. Schugg, treasurer. The present management com- prises : Charles E. Magley, president ; J. O. Tricker, secretary-treas- urer.
Of late years the farmer has also found a coworker for his best interests in the county agent, the official representative of the Federal Department of Agriculture. While representing Uncle Sam he is in thorough co-operation with the Farmers' Institutes of the county, and comes to them backed by the great machinery of the Nation as a worker specially trained to assist them. He is often a university grad- uate (as is the case with the present agent of Adams County), thor- oughly versed in the latest development affecting the growth and pro-
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tection of erops, the raising of live stock, and the later-day conservation of every vegetable and animal product of the farm. His activities have been well set forth in John F. Snow's "Ilistory of Educational Development."
The Great Northern Indiana Fair was organized in 1904, and its headquarters were at Steele Park. Several fairs were held there before the property was taken over by the Adams County Fair Asso- ciation, since which the grounds have been greatly improved. They have been laid ont into substantial drives and walks, beautiful flower beds, groups of ornamental shrubbery and artificial lakes. Electric lights and an abundance of pure city water add to the modern features of the park.
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