USA > Indiana > Lake County > The First Hundred Years (1938) > 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 | 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
My father and his brother, Charles, sailed from London, England for the United States in May, 1836. The trip, made in a sailing vessel, took them 57 days. They said that while they were sometimes sailing toward America, often they found them- selves headed back to England. They landed in New York in August and immediately began their trip to the West. They started on this inland journey by boat through the Erie Canal and after many trials and tribulations, they finally arrived in Michigan City where they lived for one year before coming to Lake county in 1837. Bartlett Woods took the stage coach that ran between Detroit and Fort Dearborn and on March 6, got off in Lake county, Indiana where he filed a claim for land which cost him $1.25 an acre. Here is a copy of the application he made out :
Office of the Registrar of Claims
March 6, 1837
No. 620
Be it known that the annexed numbered land
Range 8 is registered to Bartlett Woods of Michigan City Town 35
Section 5 and that his claim to the same will be duly re- spected if he fully complies with all the requisitions of the Con- stitution adopted by the Union of settlers on public lands, July 4, 1836.
Signed. Solon Robinson Registrar
Bartlett's brother, Charles, made a claim for land at the same time. However, he did not keep it long. He sold it to a neigh- -
bor who lived east of him, John Collins. I often asked my father
-17-
why he did not buy more land at the price of $1.25 an acre, but he explained to me that he didn't have the $1.25.
The first ten years of life in Lake county were full of the fierce ague and chills for the new settlers. The great swarms of blackbirds who made their headquarters in the marshes of the Calumet and Kankakee rivers would swoop down on the grain fields of the settlers and it was a fight to the death to save any of the crop for the one who had planted it. My father told me about how one year he planted a twelve-acre field of corn and the birds took every bit of it except one small wagon-box full. He said that he laid down at the end of the field in despair and cried. Most of the settlers who made claims in Lake county in the early days gave up in disgust and pulled out after a short time. The only ones who did stay, my father said, were those who were so beggarly poor that they could not find a way to get out. In fact, the first twenty years of life in the region was an actual fight for existence.
On April 7, 1841, Bartlett Woods married Sarah Ann Grif- fin. They built a log house north of where the present farm house now stands. Two sons were born to this marriage before the wife died. The youngest child also died and Bartlett Woods was left alone with one small son, Edmund Bartlett Woods.
For a short time, my father left the farm and went to Chi- cago where he worked with his brother, William, who had come over from England. He tired of city life before long and came back to his Indiana farm where he built a new log house on the site of the east part of the present house.
The new home measured about 22 by 30 feet and had two stories. However, the second story was a very crude affair. The ceiling was low and the rafters were in plain view. To go up- stairs, an ordinary ladder was used. The front door, though, was really a work of art. The hinges, which were made of wood, reached the full width of the door and the boards were secured to them by wooden pegs. Pegs were used because there were no nails, the cost being too great.
With the new house completed, Bartlett Woods felt greatly the need of a housekeeper and so, one fine morning, he hitched a yoke of oxen to a heavy lumber wagon and made his way to the home of Samuel Sigler, which was about seven miles distant, near old Liverpool, which is between Gary and Hobart. Sigler had a large family of boys and girls and my father was success- ful in persuading one of the girls, Ann Eliza, to become his wife. With the ox team and lumber wagon, he brought her, bag and baggage, to his home.
And there was laid the foundations of a long drawn out
-18-
battle for life and existence that tested the better qualities of breeding and training of Ann Eliza Sigler Woods. She was of Pennsylvania Dutch lineage and had been raised in Virginia. She was from a hardy pioneer stock and had been brought up on hard work, economy and frugality, the necessary requisite for a typical pioneer wife and mother. She gave birth to eleven children, three of whom died in infancy and early childhood. The other eight she raised to successful manhood and womanhood.
Many a time I recall watching my mother spin and hearing the hum of that old spinning wheel as it twisted the yarn. When the spindle got full, it would be wound onto the reel. Then I would take it from the reel and hold it in my hands while my mother would wind it into a ball ready to use in knitting socks, stockings, mittens, caps and scarves. Our mittens for every day were covered with denim cloth so that they would wear longer. The making of all the clothes for the family with only a needle was a task that would try the mettle of the stoutest heart. But in our home, it was done with neatness and dispatch.
Patching was one of Mother's strong points. If she had material for the patches that were the same color as the garment, the job would be fine. But very often, that would not be the case and the patched garment would look like Joseph's coat of many colors. Mother would go into the rye field and gather rye straw for making hats. The straw would be braided together in a flat braid three-quarters of an inch wide. The braids, she would sew together in the shape of a hat. The course straw would be used in every day hats while the finer straw would be saved for Sunday hats.
During the early stages of this game, Mother did her cook- ing over an open fire place in which there was a crane. This crane, embedded in one side of the fireplace, would swing out so that she could put the pot or baking kettle on it and then would swing back over the flame. Mother had a record of baking up one barrel of flour a month. She was raised in Virginia and so she had to have her corn meal. As soon as the early corn showed signs of ripening, we boys would have to go to the field, gather the ripest of it, and bring it to the house where it would be dried quickly before the fire. Then it would be shelled and taken to the mill to be ground into new corn meal. Mother never seemed to tire of corn bread but Father refused to eat it when he could get wheat bread. He said he had had to eat his fill of that when he couldn't get anything else.
The big fire place was on the east side of the house and the chimney was made of sticks of wood laid up in a square and plastered with clay mud. When the chimney got old and dry,
-19-
the mud plaster would fall off and the wood sticks would catch on fire. A big pole, kept handy for just such occasions, would be used to push the chimney off and away from the house so that it would not catch on fire. Then a new chimney would have to be built.
The big fire place made lots of wood ashes and an ash leech was always in readiness. It was constructed after this fashion. A trough was built at the botton in such a way that the lye would be delivered at a lower point to be caught by boards set up on their ends in this trough. These boards were five or six feet high and flared outward so that, at the top, the leech was five or six feet wide. The wood ashes would be stored in this leech until it was full when water would be poured over it in great quantities. Then the lye would begin to run out of the lower trough.
All the refuse grease from butchering and cooking was saved up. This grease and lye, in the right amounts, were put into a large kettle and cooked together. The result would be a barrel of fine, soft soap which was in general use for washing clothes and cleaning.
Our beds were something quite unusual. They stood in the corners of the big house so that the walls could support two of the sides while the other two were supported by a single leg. The frame had knobs on it which were used to space the bed cords. These cords were stretched two ways across the bed and drawn tight. The beds were made up with a straw and a feather tick. The straw tick would be emptied and refilled anually just after the grain was threshed. The straw in them would get so broken up during the year that, toward threshing time, they af- forded the sleeper very little comfort.
Mother always kept a large flock of geese and several times a year, she would have them all driven into a pen and proceed to pluck the feathers out of them to use in her feather beds and pil- lows. There was just the right way of holding the goose in order to keep it from biting you. The head of the goose was placed under its wing and held firmly there while the poor thing had its feathers pulled out. It was no small job as those of you who have even tried to pluck a dead goose for a Christmas dinner must know.
The straw ticks were so dusty and so everlastingly breaking up into small bits that mother wanted something different. So she had us boys jerk the ears off the corn stalks, husk them, and then strip the husks into fine shreds. This was used to fill the straw ticks. We mostly did that job on the long winter evenings and I can distinctly remember that I thought I would rather sleep on straw ticks than to have to work the corn husks into
-20-
shape. I have slept with a feather bed under me and one over me but that was not at home. Feather beds were not so bad to cover with in the cold weather, but, in the summer, they were horrible.
Hospitals for the sick were practically unknown in those days. When anyone was sick, we would send for Dr. Palmer, who would come and tell you to stick out your tongue. He would scrape it with his finger nail-it was not always clean-and then give you some calomel and blue mass for most everything but the ague. For that, he prescribed big doses of quinine. The peo- ple of Hobart and vicinity were so accustomed to having the ague that they made quinine a part of their regular diet.
Mrs. Caroline Muzzall was the important person around our neighborhood when a new baby was expected. When it was time for the baby to come, we children would be told that we could go over to Mrs. Muzzall's and spend the night and she would come to our house and stay all night. When we would go back home the next day, we would find we had a new brother or sister. There was not as much fuss and feathers made over the occasion then as now but they seemed to get along just as well. If any family was too sick to wait on themselves, the neighbors would take turns sitting up with the sick ones and waiting on them. Several of these neighbors proved themselves to be really good nurses and were much in demand in several serious cases of sick- ness among us. They were friends indeed to friends in need.
But the young children, with their cholera infantum and summer complaints, were hard on the mothers. Illnesses that might easily be handled by a doctor now, often proved fatal in those early days. Diphtheria and scarlet fever would have ter- rible runs in some communities and at times would nearly wipe out whole families.
You may gather from what has been said that there was nothing but work for the early settlers. There was plenty of work and the early settlers kept at it pretty regularly but they did have fun and sociabilities. There were the two next neighbors on the west Henry and Alfred Hayward. The Muzzalls were on the east. Then, taking a wider circle, we include Thomas T. Hay- ward, Thomas Hayward, Isaac and Wheeler Pierce, Jonas Rhoades, Dr. Palmer and many others. Neighbors were real neighbors in those days of work, business and pleasure. As far as worldly pos- sessions were concerned, they were all on the same basis. What pleasures we had, we got from our associations with one another. The joys and sorrows of anyone were thus of community interest. Neighbors would run into one another's houses any time of the day or night. It was not a bridge game or a dainty lunch that
-21-
occupied the social time of those early settlers but cider and apples (after the growing season of the fruit) pop corn and plenty of conversation. They did not have a machine to do the talking in those days and I think people thought more and clearer than they do now. If they had an opinion, they were not afraid to ex- press it. When some of them could not put enough expression in words, they would use their fists to carry home their argument. My father was very determined in the way of words, but he never had a fist fight. His brother, Charles, however, who settled at Woods' Mill and kept a country store there, seemed to have more of the old Norseman in him. He loved to fight. He and Abra- ham Muzzall would get together at a saloon, get well primed, and then clean it out. Then they would go from one saloon to an- other and clean them all up.
Charles Woods had a son, Harry, who was a chip off the old block. Though he was under age, Henry got into the Army during the Civil War and they made a drummer boy out of him. After the war, he drifted into one thing and then another and finally became a barber on Canal street in Chicago. He was generally able to take care of himself in any kind of rough and tumble fight. On one of his sprees, he boarded a freight and land- ed in Columbus, Nebraska. Being pretty dry, he went into a saloon and ordered a drink.
As the bartender set it up, a big bully took it and said, after drinking it down, "This is the way we do in Columbus."
"You do, hey", said Hank, as he ordered another drink.
When the bartender placed it on the bar, the bully again went to pick it up to drink. This time, Hank knocked him down and they had a fight for their lives. Hank licked him.
This bully had been browbeating everybody around town for some time. The people there felt so grateful to Hank for licking him that they took up a collection and set Hank up in the barber business there. He later married a woman who declared that she was a descendant of the great Indian chief, King Philip, had two children, and made a good citizen. He spent the rest of his: life in Columbus.
There was hardly a Sunday that went by in those early days but that the neighbors would get together and have a good big dinner and lots of talk. These early folk would not order their dinner at some hotel or have the maid get it up. The woman of the house where the dinner was to be would have a pig killed or- dress some chickens. She would lay the foundations for the dinner. But the company would come early and the women would bring along their aprons and help get the meal on the table. With the clatter of the dishes their tongues seemed to be running at
-22-
both ends. It was a busy time, but I believe they had more real happiness then than we do now. With all the good help, it didn't take long to wash up the dishes for they did not own so many then. You may be sure, they had plenty to eat of good, whole- some food. At our house, we had a long pine table but did not have enough chairs to go around it so on one side, we had a long bench on which the young folks used to sit.
Among my early recollections is our annual Fourth of July celebration at the old Fair grounds in Crown Point. The woman was considered fortunate who could have early new potatoes and spring chickens for this dinner. The whole county gathered for the event. We had a rousing speech on the beauties of Independ- ence and on a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Always, the Declaration of Independence had to be read and some patriotic songs sung. At dinner time, table cloths were laid on the ground which was covered from end to end with grass so that it made one continuous table for the whole gathering. They might have said "One big family". A great part of the people who lived in Lake county at that time were acquainted with one another so that it was a really special time all around.
Christmas and New Year's Day were the occasions for big family and neighborhood gatherings. For dinner, the families who entertained would have turkey or goose or ducks or chicken, cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes. Father always wanted an English plum pudding which was a big affair of batter with a lot of raisins and dried currants in it. All this was put into a cloth and boiled in a pot. It was cut into slices when done and served with a rich sauce on it. This plum pudding, after the other numerous things, was a real test for a good stomach.
At times, some of our meals would be very simple and plain. After Mother got her new corn meal, some of our suppers would be merely corn meal mush and milk. I have known some of our neighbors to use cream instead of the milk which made a fine dish.
My older brothers and sisters went to school in the old log school house one quarter mile east of our house. I never went there regularly but only as a visitor sometimes with the older ones. I remember the school as a rather low structure with a front door and a few windows. Do not think that there were any desks. There were only long rough benches with holes bored in the heavy planks for the legs to project. It was a very simple building and room to be the seat of learning. If we could have photographs of the outside and inside, we could better see the marked contrast to some of our modern school buildings in Lake county.
-23-
I have heard my folks tell about a great religious meeting in the log schoolhouse. A couple of young men were creating a great deal of excitement in the neighborhood by preaching that the end of the world was coming. They read that part of the Scripture which said that when a big battle was being fought. on the River Euphrates, the end of the world would be here. My father heard of the big time they were having at these meetings. so he attended one of them. These preachers worked up the natives to a great pitch of excitement and then asked them to- testify. My father took the opportunity to tell these preachers that they were impostors and that there was not a word of truth in what they had been saying. The river Euphrates, he told them, was a thousand miles from where the present battle was going on. He added a lot more that made them uncomfortable. He told the preachers and the folk gathered there many more uncomplimentary things which dampened their ardor and broke up the meeting.
Father, having been raised in a town in England, was never capable of doing manual labor of the country like native born Americans. They were good at building log houses and making shakes as the big shingles were called. These were about four feet. long and six or seven inches wide. However, if any of the neigh- bors wanted a contract drawn up, notes made out or wills written, they would come to Father to have it done. So when he wanted help, the neighbors were always willing and anxious to be of assistance to him. However, he split rails and did some hard. work. He told of being up in the north woods one spring day when a flock of deer came near him and stood looking at him.
Father used to relate another one of his funny experiences; of the early days. The early settlers always kept a flock of sheep for their wool and mutton. At one time, the old buck in. our flock got very impolite with the women. When they would get in his vicinity, he would bowl them over. Father decided to. show Mr. Buck that he could not do that sort of thing so he dressed up like a woman and went out with a stick and he and the buck had a round or two. But before long, the buck got the best of battle on him and Father came tearing into the house with the buck following him closely. The buck, it seemed, was. hard to educate and Father's training had not been in that line.
At another time, Father tells that a man walked into the house without knocking or in any way getting permission while the family was eating an early breakfast.
"Shall I eat before I wash or wash before I eat," the stranger asked. Father told him that he had better wash be -- fore he ate.
-24
An acquaintance of father's folks in England had a way- ward son by the name of Thomas George Measham. The boy was abstruperous and hard to manage so his family sent him to sea. But the navy did not seem to put the finishing touches on the boy that an aristocratic family demanded so he came to America to my father who was to be his guardian and look after him. He was given an allowance of sixty dollars a month. The boy was in the habit of drinking and coming in late nights. In our house, the doors leading upstairs and down into the cellar were side by side. When he went to go upstairs to bed one night, Thomas George happened to get the wrong door and fell into the cellar. My mother had a lot of milk and cream standing down there on boards which were resting on wooden horses. He floundered over these, spilling the milk and cream over himself and over the floor. The whiskey and milk were pretty well mixed but it cut short the next churning.
Measham finally married a woman who lived on the Ridge road near the present town of Highland. He had a gray horse called Cicero which he rode around the country. When his wife would get sick, he would ride to Merrillville to get Dr. Arnold. The horse on the gallop and the red-faced, red-bearded Thomas George bouncing a foot from the saddle at every jump together cut a great figure along the country roads. The last I knew of him, he was a sort of man Friday to Judge Fields in Crown Point.
In the early days, even after fighting droughts and floods, blackbirds and crows, the farmers would have a little more grain than they would need for their stock. So a number of them would get together, load up their lumber wagons with grain and start for Chicago. There were more mire holes than there were roads along the way. Sometimes, when the wagons would get stuck, the farmers would double up their ox teams and pull each other out. Sometimes, it was so bad in the mire that they would have to unload their bags of grain and carry them ahead to better ground, get the wagons out of the muck and then load them up again. On one of these trips to Chicago, the oxen of a neighbor got very thirsty and when the yoke saw the Calumet river, they broke for the water, wagon and all. The oxen got their drink all right but not without causing a lot of hard work to get the load out and back on hard land again. The expense of the trip was about as much as the load would bring, leaving a little over for a pair of cow hide boots, a little calico and some brown sugar. That was all that load of grain and four to six days work would represent.
In those days, we did not have any CWA, WPA or Indiana State Highway commission. When there was any road building
-25-
done, the neighbors would get together and fix up a piece. The old road across the Katy marsh, northwest of Ross, was made passable by cutting down trees, hauling them into the marsh over the ice, and placing them side by side where the road was to be. In the summer time, the neighbors dug ditches on both sides of the logs and covered the logs with the dirt. I traveled over that road sixty years ago and felt the heavy wagon bounce from log to log. I waded into that marsh west of the log road and gathered goose eggs from a nest in a muskrat house where now are fine market garden lands. From the eggs I found, I raised wild geese.
In the very early days, the tallow candle or the rag dip was the only source of light in the house. But on one of Father's trips to Chicago, he brought back a wonderful contrivance called a kerosene lamp. It was done up very carefully in a box. When he brought it home, he set it on the floor and all of us youngsters gathered around to see this marvelous thing. The kerosene lamp was going to revolutionize the light question, Father said, and it did because it gave much better light than the tallow candle. But would we not hate to have to go back to the kerosene lamp now?
At one time, Father had a span of mules he wanted to sell but they were so wild and frisky that everybody was afraid of them. He finally got them into Chicago and had a lumber man look at them. The only question the lumber man asked was, "Will they go?"
"You bet they will," Father told him, and the sale was made.
I used to drive cattle from our farm to the Union Stock Yards in Chicago when there was no such city as Hammond. Where Hammond now stands there were small scrub oaks on the higher lands and wire grass in the marshes. Mr. Sohl lived on the south side of the river and the Hohman family just north of the river on Hohman Street. There must have been other families living in that region because there was a small school house on the south side of the river.
The roads at that time were nothing more than narrow sand paths between the bushes. On the first day of our trip to the stock yards, we would try to reach the 63rd Street Farmers' home. The next morning, we would go on across the prairie to the yards. I recall my first experience in driving cattle to the stock yards. I felt that it was a very important job and ran with the cattle all day. The next morning, when I got out of bed, it seemed my legs wouldn't carry me. But I finally got them limber- ed up.
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.