The pictorial history of Fort Wayne, Indiana : a review of two centuries of occupation of the region about the head of the Maumee River, Vol. I, Part 74

Author: Griswold, B. J. (Bert Joseph), 1873-1927; Taylor, Samuel R., Mrs. The story of the townships of Allen County
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Chicago : R.O. Law Co.
Number of Pages: 760


USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > The pictorial history of Fort Wayne, Indiana : a review of two centuries of occupation of the region about the head of the Maumee River, Vol. I > Part 74


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Broderick, Dennis Keefe, Jeremiah Harrington, John McCarthy, John Tillman, George Snyder and Mr. Berry. The first tavern was built by Henry Castleman, on the Ridge road, as soon as that throughfare was opened for travel. The Castleman inn offered as good entertainment for the traveler as any tavern of the new' country, and though Mine Host Castleman is said to have charged his guests accordingly, his house was always well patronized, and his business profitable. During this period Henry Castleman and Aretas Powers are related to have brought to the market at Fort Wayne a single home-made sled loaded with forty saddles of veni- son. At Mr. Castleman's door are laid the untimely deaths of 1,678 deer; while of bears, his killings only stopped at twenty-three ! Some idea of the ease with which a good marksman could bring down his game in those days, may be gained from a published statement of Mr. Castleman's, who said he had counted as many as forty-five deer in one drove, on Little prairie. Another easy method of hunting deer was to float in pirogues silently down the Maumee river, in which many of the animals took refuge from the tormenting mosquitos, their protruding heads forming just so many targets for the crafty huntsman's rifle.


John Tillman, the son of a Scottish father and a German mother, came to section twenty-six Jefferson township in 1840, from Pennsylvania. He bought a tract of dense forest land from the government, and settled there, his steady industry winning sub- stantial reward. A year after his arrival he married Miss Sarah, daughter of Henry and Rachel Castleman, and reared a family of four, two daughters and two sons, one of whom, John L., left the farm to become a business man of Monroeville. In January, 1842, Alanson Whitney married Miss Elmira Cool, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Cool, settlers of Adams county from New York. There were, at the time of this marriage, but three houses on the road between the Whitney home and New Haven. In 1850 Alanson Whitney opened the first store in the township, his initial stock-in- trade being (we hate to record this, but perhaps Alanson was only "giving the public what it wanted !") a barrel of whiskey and a keg of tobacco. However, the story hastens to tell the reader that this stock was soon expanded to include a large invoice of general mer-


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chandise. The Harpers, of Jefferson township, seem to be of old hickory stock, noted for their longevity. John Harper, the father of William Harper, who was a settler of 1836, died at the age of eighty-four; John Hunter, Edward Harper's maternal grandfather, and Rebecca McMullin Hunter, the grandmother, withstood the assaults of time until they were eighty-two and ninety-two, respect- ively. William himself was born in Tyrone county, Ireland, in 1810, and came to America in 1831, settling down in Jefferson township, 1836. While in Pennsylvania he married Miss Mary Hunter, and they added to the population of their new home four daughters and eight sons. Four of the latter entered the army, leaving the fifth, Edward, to bear the responsibilities of next eldest son of the house. Edward Harper made a successful farmer him- self, but with a natural aptitude for construction, he became also a well-known and equally successful amateur builder. He married, in 1883, Miss Martha A. Shull. Though a Republican in a strongly Democratic township, he has been held in such high esteem as to be twice elected to the position of trustee, and his executive ability in that office has left a fine record of public service.


Oehmig Bird had become a land owner of Jefferson township at some date previous to 1854, for we find that in that year the first free school house was built on a piece of his farm. This was the beginning of a systematic building of district schools each year until there were ten schools in the township. In 1880 the school enrollment is set down as 523, which is unusual, for it exceeds the 1915 school enumeration of the township. There may also have been unusual conditions to account for what seems almost a dis- crepancy, for. we find at the same time, and as late as the eighties, a remarkably low per cent of attendance, one of Edward Harper's achievements as trustee being recited as raising the average at- tendance from 31 to 38 per cent. Whatever may be the explanation of these figures, the statement of the present condition in Jefferson educational affairs can be of more value at this point than later. The figures are: School enumeration, 1915, 447; public school en- rollment, 214; parochial school enrollment, 127; public school houses, 9; teachers employed, 9; days taught, 160; average attend- ance, 170; estimated value of school buildings (public), $30,000; teachers' salaries, $4,112.00; "upkeep expense," $1,037.77; per capita expense of education, $24.06; graduated from eighth grade, June, 1916, 17; Library, 1,504 volumes.


About 1840, a colony of French immigrants began to gather in Jefferson township, near the center, forming a settlement known as "New France" or the "French Settlement." The land they took was largely swamp, but they have made it equal to the best in Allen county. Roussey, Reuille, Pepe, Grosjean, Girardot, and Dupeyron are prominent names among this group and their resi- dence in the township dates as far back as when there were no roads in their part of Jefferson, and the winter wolves howled around their doors at night. The neat tiny village of Besancon has grown up about the Catholic church founded in 1851, by Father Bessonies, who first held service in the house of Joseph Dodane, and afterward upon the donation of four acres of land to Bishop de St. Palais, by Gideon Dickerson, erected a neat church, naming it "St. Louis." Father Julian Benoit followed Father Bessonies, until 1864, and was


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held in great esteem by the people of the settlement upon whose walls his picture is still seen. About 1870, under the pastoral care of Father Adam, a French refugee, the name of Besancon was ap- plied to the settlement, in remembrance of the city in France from which a majority of the colony emigrated to America. The new church, built before 1875, was paid for in a unique way. Each family was asked to donate a calf, and to raise it to the age of three years; the proceeds from the public sale of the young animals thus provided, netted the sum of three thousand dollars. A school was built in 1900, and under the title St. Joseph's, and taught by Sisters of St. Agnes, accommodates Catholic children from all over the township and beyond.


Lumbering industries were the foundation, in the early fifties, of the now quiet little village of Maples. Mr. Lewis S. Maples came to the place in 1852, to take charge of a sawmill engine. The Pennsylvania road furnished convenient transportation, and the mill flourished, while other lumber working factories sprang up. In August, 1853, Oehmig Bird and J. Bowser platted a village and considerable business was engaged in. The various phases of manufacture received the attention and capital of many men from elsewhere in the county, the Fitch brothers, Williams, Olds, Roberts, Bohyer and Cary, all had a hand in them and during that time the village of Maples was not so quiet a place, after all. Frequent conflagrations and rebuildings must have varied the monotony to quite a degree, threatening the extinction of the town on each oc- casion. Lewis S. Maples at last came to own once more all the lumber industry in the town, and with its gradual wane, and his retirement to a farm, a Sabbath stillness hovers over the village which bears his name, except in the vicinity of the railroad, which now employs all of the labor of the town. The town now has two hundred inhabitants, supports one Protestant Methodist church, and is the site of one public school. It has one resident physician, one grain elevator, one well-drilling firm, one blacksmith shop, two general stores, and will soon be well rid of its one saloon. Tele- phones are supplied from the Monroeville and New Haven ex- changes. Good macadamized roads lead in and out of Maples, and the railroad employs about thirty men who live in the town. One of the largest farms in the county is adjacent to the village, owned by J. W. Nail and employing several persons. Maples still has an independent postoffice. The first postoffice in the township was estab- lished, in 1850, at the house of Socrates Bacon, but it was so much more to the inclination of the settlers to go to New Haven, that the office was soon abandoned. R. F. D. routes from New Haven and Monroeville now reach every part of the township except the Maples vicinity.


"Nail's," "Tillman's," "Zulu" and "Oakton" are travel points on the various roads running through the township.


The Catholic Cemetery is situated in the northwestern part of Jefferson township, and there is also a German Lutheran church edifice in that vicinity. Among the French descendants resident in the township the Girardot family has multiplied remarkably, and the Gladieux name is about equally numerous. Amiel Gladieux, of late Sheriff of Allen county, is a member of the Gladieux of Jefferson.


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Eel River Township


"Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands Were trampled by a hurrying crowd, And fiery hearts and armed hands Encountered in a battle cloud."-Bryant.


What quaint conceit was responsible for the name bestowed upon the little river that winds through the extreme northwest of the county may only be conjectured, but the name is appropriately applied to Eel River township since the stream finds its source there. Blue Grass Creek also begins in the northwestern part, and flowing south joins Eel river to the southwest of Heller's Corners ; but modern drainage has reconstructed this stream and its pretty name is lost in a series of ditches bearing their petitioners' names. Willow Creek, which drains the northeastern portion, then meanders eastward, eventually emptying into Cedar Creek, has likewise been assisted, but not so ruinously as Blue Grass-for it retains its name, in places. However, the hand of the white settler does really "improve," and often serves to develop hidden natural beauties. This is true of Eel River township, in which red man nor white man could have foreseen certain features of the present landscape through the dense timber which clothed it a hundred years ago. Allen County holds no prettier sight, today, than the meeting of the ways at "Old" Heller's Corners-nor is the new Heller's Corners far behind it in attraction.


The first white settlers to enter the Eel River territory after the departure of the Indians were William Kellison and his brother, and Joseph Crowe, from Darke County, Ohio. The Kellison broth- ers, coming in 1828, had erected cabins and set to work clearing land on what long afterward became widely known as the Gieseking farm. Lonely and isolated, and at that period probably obliged to hunt and trap for most of their food, they did not make rapid prog- ress at their clearing, and were quite ready, when Adam Hull and family arrived in 1830, to sell out their "deadenings" to him, and betake themselves farther west. Adam Hull was of true pioneer material-not the merely adventurous spirit, but the hardy giant who delights to pit his strength against opposing circumstance and subdue it to his will,-the type of man who invariably becomes a leader in his world. That he became well known throughout the county was a matter of course. The rough sports which character- ized those days when the pioneers met in the market town witnessed many a good-natured wrestling bout in which Adam Hull proved unconquerable. One of Mr. Hull's first moves after settling was to build a much needed bridge across Eel river, the first bridge to span that stream. He exacted a reasonable toll from those who crossed it, to which quite unreasonable objection was sometimes made by travelers who wished to enjoy its convenience. Perhaps Mr. Hull's prowess at personal encounter was an invisible safeguard, for, in spite of this grumbling, "Horatio held the bridge!" At the same time, his cabin (mayhap enlarged) became a shelter to many homeseekers westward bound, so, the student of early history may be assured, it was no lack of generosity or human kindliness which demanded a trifling toll for the useful bridge which carried so many


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"safe across." The Hulls gave shelter when it was at the risk of their own family that they gave it. The first death which oc- curred in the township was that of a wayfarer who slept in the cabin, was seized with illness in the night, and died as morning came. Nameless he came to their door, and nameless they buried him, in the old burying ground on the south side of Eel river.


Shortly after this pitiful event, a west-bound family stopped at the Hull cabin for shelter, their children having developed scarlet fever. The extremely contagious nature of the disease was not fully realized at that date, nevertheless, it is an evidence of the Good Samaritan spirit of the first settler's family that room was made in that crowded log cabin home for the suffering children, two of whom died there, and were buried with the wayfaring stranger in that strange new land.


When the final land survey was made a few years after settling it was determined that the Hull cabin was "over the line," a situa- tion which Mr. Hull promptly remedied by buying the next forty acres, thus saving his home.


Peter Heller, recorded in 1833, was the first sharer of the neigh- borhood with the Hulls. During the year following quite a colony had gathered to the south of the Goshen road, and in 1834, with these neighbors to help, Mr. Hull cut a road through from Heller's Corners east to the township line, -the first highway in Eel River. This road, not being regularly surveyed, was subjected to many changes as time passed, so that but few traces of it are embodied in the re-located highway of today-but it served its purpose then, none the less. At the Christmas season, in 1833, 'Squire DuBois had been called from Fort Wayne to the Hulls' home, to officiate at the marriage of Miss Barbara Hull to Isaac Tibbits, there being no local "squire" as yet, in Eel River. This was the first wedding in the settlement.


The year 1834 brought more sturdy pioneer stock to the settle- ment. Joseph and John R. Johnston and John Valentine, settling respectively on sections 21, 28 and 33, had arrived by mid-June of that year. 1836 witnessed another inrush of settlers, this time in the eastern portion, in the Lima road vicinity, John P. Shoaff, who in later years became successively Justice, Trustee, and State Represen- tative, being one of this group. Up to 1840 at least, as far as known, Eel River township recruited its pioneer population from Ohio entirely, those who came with Mr. Shoaff being F. C. Freeman, Samuel Hillegass, Samuel Shryock, Benjamin Mason, Joseph Jones, Henry Bossler and Samuel Kniss. Others had drifted in singly, and by April of 1834 the population justified the setting apart of the township. The first election was held duly, with Mr. Hull and Mr. Bond in the field as candidates for the office of Justice. The votes were counted, and a tie was announced. To avoid the expense of a second election, both candidates consented to have the ballots placed in a hat, and well shaken, the election judge then to draw at random the lucky name. This was done, and Mr. Hull won, duly qualifying as first Justice of Eel River. Previous to this, Mr. Hull had been appointed postmaster, a position he continued to hold until his death in 1837. After the election of 1836, Abram Taylor, father of John M. Taylor, came to the Hull neighborhood, while William Anderson settled in the southeast. William F. Mooney


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and Uriah Chase took up residence in 1837 and between 1837 and 1840 were added with their families, R. D. Baird, the three Bennetts, Solomon, Caleb and John, John Hathaway, Mr. Schilling, John R. Mayo and William Madden.


On Mr. Mayo's land, in 1837 was built the cabin known as the "Hickory schoolhouse"-it being constructed chiefly of hickory logs-in which the first term of school was taught. The name of that first teacher is forgotten, but John M. Taylor, once Treasurer of Allen county, was a pupil there.


Peter Heller, who succeeded Adam Hull in the postoffice, re- moved that institution to his own home, and from the soubriquet the office thus gained the locality, the rural metropolis of Eel River took its name "Heller's Corners." A village designed to be called "Kraco" or Cracon was platted in 1835 by Asa Miller, on land which lay on both sides of the Lake township boundary. Its main street was to be not 32 feet narrow, like some city streets, but 132 feet broad. In the center of the plot Mr. Miller reserved a circular park to bear his name. What a pity so amiable a conception should have failed to materialize !


Henry Bossler was a skillful blacksmith, and his forge, the first in Eel River, was set up soon after he arrived in 1836. Joseph Jones, who occupied the farm which afterward became the prop- erty of Charles Hanna, brought the first stock of general merchan- dise to the township, and opened trade in his own house. About 1852, a sawmill was built on the Eel river, by Smith and Diffender- fer, which supplied lumber for the frame houses that began to supplant the log cabins. Its business was of a local character, how- ever, and local needs once supplied, custom fell off gradually, and the mill was allowed to decay in idleness. Peter Heller built a steam grist mill near the same site, in 1855, and for several years operated it successfully, but it was at last destroyed by fire, and not rebuilt. Except for the railroad which cuts across the north- western corner of the township, the quiet of Eel River township is not broken by any sound of steam save that of harvest engines, but its painted landscape is everywhere astir with rural life, and its ribbon-like roads are beloved of the automobile whether visiting or resident there.


Adam Hull, jr., was a pioneer figure worthy of preservation. A young man nearing twenty years of age when he came to the township with his father, he worked shoulder to shoulder with him, earning his own way to independence. Like his father, he was a born pioneer, and the long struggle by which his original capital of "a five franc piece, a fiddle and a gun" was converted into solid prosperity was thoroughly enjoyed by him. He was married in 1836, to Miss Elizabeth Crowe, but whether before or after the election of April that year, when Mr. Hull, sr., was made Justice and the younger Adam elected Constable over what are now three counties, we do not know. But he bought a government tract, cleared it, and built a log cabin on it before he took his young wife to live upon it. Elizabeth Hull died early, but left a son, the third "Adam." Her husband was married again, in 1845, to Miss Hester Ann Strean, and seven sons and daughters survived him. At the time of his death he had for some time been the oldest township settler living.


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PERRY TOWNSHIP


Much might be said of the quality of the "Ohio" colony which peopled Eel River township. Certainly there could not have been found a more evenly sterling set of citizens than the personnel of this group of pioneers. Not one of them is there of whom some fine thing cannot be said. They did not come armed with wealth to fight their battles. The only capital any of them brought with them was a few slow-saved hundreds, and most of them came with only the riches of clean health and stout hearts, fortunate if to these they could add a yoke of oxen, a table and a half dozen wooden chairs, and the necessary implements of their trades. Quaint, amusing and pathetic are the mementoes of the log cabin days that descendants still treasure, and around which the great- grandchildren might build again the romances of their fore-bears, -Adam Hull's old Virginia rifle, Adam's, Jr., tax receipts (the un- broken accumulation of more than sixty years), the old clock of Grandfather Hyndman, and a host of things rude and homely, perhaps, but priceless to those who appreciate to what scenes they must have been mute witnesses. Little is told of the early schools except indirectly. Yet they must have been fully up to the pioneer mark, for we find in following the life story of different pioneer families, the names of such early teachers as Elijah Robinson, Mary T. Smith, George W. Doane, G. W. Hutchell, and Miss Nancy Griswold who were thorough enough to turn out good teachers of their own training, as in the case of David, son of John R. Johnston. The intermediate history of school development need not be told. At the present date, Eel River is abreast of the times, with nine school houses, aggregating $16,000 in value, and a school year of 150 days taught. Recent school enumeration gives the township three hundred and fifty-one, while the school enrollment is two hundred and fifteen, with an average daily attendance of one hun- dred and seventy-seven pupils. Twenty-one pupils were graduated from the Eighth grade in 1916. The township and school library began the year with 884 volumes, to which were added 113 volumes during the year. Without going into detailed financial statement, three items may be included here, the year 1915-16 being taken as a basis: For teachers' salaries, $3,774.00; for general "upkeep" expenses, $809.94; cost of education per capita, $21.32. There are no high schools in the township, nor parochial schools.


Eel River settlers were characterized by a general and genuine observance of religion chiefly as expressed in the denominations represented in the church edifices which have dotted the district for many years. The Methodist Episcopal, the Wesleyan Methodist, the Baptist and the German Baptist, also the Church of God, have all had strong following, locally, the Wesleyan Chapel congrega- tion growing out of a group formerly affiliated with the United Brethren, who have also arrived at the strength of an independent congregation. The Methodist Episcopal is the oldest organization in the township, dating from 1834.


Perry Township


Monarchs of all they surveyed were Charles Weeks and William Caswell for the first three years of their pioneership in the township of Perry. Belonging to that early group of settlers who invaded


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the forests of Adams township in 1823, their experience had made them bold enough to go farther still and to brave the lack of human society for the pursuit of the furred and feathered denizens of Perry. Both men were famous hunters, yet industrious axemen, and their farms were well cleared. Mr. Caswell, a Canadian, was perhaps the hardier and more aggressive of the two, but the team work of these friends was excellent. They were joined in 1833 by Thomas and Ephraim H. Dunten, and the latter's son, Horace F., with their families. The Duntens did not allow the underbrush to lie long in their path to pioneer prosperity. Horace built the first hewn log house the summer following his arrival, and Ephraim H. Dunten, Jr., who came in the fall, was but a few months later in building the first store room of the settlement, on a spot which is now a town lot in Huntertown. To this frame build- ing he brought goods from Toledo, by way of canal as far as Fort Wayne, and thence to the woodland market place by wagon, thus establishing a business which endured far beyond real pioneer days, being carried on by his sons after him. The Lima road was opened about the same time, and as it immediately became a popu- lar route for travel and pioneer traffic, this same Mr. Dunten set up a temporary tavern beside it, near the future village. Guests poured in, and the genial host found it necessary, within a few years, to build a more commodious hostelry. A brick kiln, set up about this time, seems to have been the only unsuccessful venture this man ever made. He fell a victim to the cholera epidemic in 1854. Thomas Dunten, the uncle, left a beautiful farm home in New York, and undertook the hardships of pioneer life in Indiana, in the hope of providing equally good fortunes for each of his children. He was a generous and self-sacrificing father and neighbor, bearing his share and more of the difficulties of the first few winters. At a time when the corn supply was so short that it became necessary to make a seven days' trip by ox-team to bring grain from settlements farther north, Mr. Dunten was the first to go, though it involved sleeping at night in the forest, as there was no other shelter by the way. His children were given the best education obtainable under the circumstances, and were capable of making the most of what they received. His daughter Lucinda afterward became a successful teacher in the county schools. She was a pupil in a school taught by Ebenezer Ayres, claimed to be the first term taught in Perry township. Mr. Dunten and wife were both born in Vermont. Horace F. Dunten, only twenty years of age when he entered his first forty acres, proceeded at once to en- large his holdings by the labor of his hands, earning sixteen dollars per month at canal work, and ten dollars per month when canal work closed for the winters. A quiet, steadfast and industrious citizen, his services to the community may be estimated to some extent by the circumstance that of his ten children, eight became teachers. Thomas Dunten and Horace together selected the site of the cemetery near Huntertown. Toward the end of Horace Dunten's life he was known as the oldest living settler of the town- ship, having survived all his generation. Dunten is still a very prominent name in Perry township.




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