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 76
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Mrs. Beardsley was born while her parents were still partially sheltered in the "prairie schooner" which had brought them and their furnishings to the settlement, many of these vehicles being the nearest approach to civilized luxury attainable in those days. She relates several particulars which are enlightening in the study of the development of the locality. The Indians, generally friendly, were familiar visitors at the white cabins, asking not only for food but fire water. If the settler's family had what was asked for, they gave it. Indeed, the Indian never accepted a refusal. If the cabin, as commonly happened, in Perry, at least, contained no fire water, the only way to maintain peace was to invite the Indian in, and allow him to search the premises for himself. If he found what he wanted, he took it; if not, he kept his good temper. Mrs. Beardsley has watched the prairie schooner drawn by oxen, and the saddlebags method of transportation give way in succession to the spring wagon with its span of horses, the old-fashioned "high buggy," the stage coach (acme of elegance in its day), the rail- road, with its only passenger accommodation, the "caboose," then the modern passenger trains, and now the electric cars, and the automobile-latest cry of progress-and she quaintly gauges the advance of Perry township by these epoch making changes.
Of the two churches, the Methodist and the Universalist, which flourished at Huntertown, the Methodist still thrives, but the Uni- versalist following has dwindled until the chapel has now been closed for a long time. A two room township school is located in the village. The chief street of Huntertown is the Lima road, along which the electric interurban line extends, and which within the village goes by the name of Plank street. At intervals along the street, the business of the town is strung, the lines of trade represented including : The livery and garage headquarters of J. L. McComb, and Charles S. Kruse; two general stores kept by
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McComb and Sloffer, and J. C. Runyan; two meat markets kept by R. J. Hillegass, and V. E. McComb; a restaurant and grocery managed by W B. Cole; a drug store, C. O. Bush, proprietor ; the plumbing, cemetery fixtures and lightning-rod establishment of W. J. Snyder; two dealers in agricultural implements, A. J. Baker and Samuel Hieber; two blacksmith shops, run by W. F. Snyder, and W. A. Grimme and Sons; the wagon 'smithy of N. C. Glazier; R. G. Dunlap's dry-cleaning house and two tonsorial parlors. Hunter- town is both temperate and peaceful, supporting neither saloons nor lawyers. The ailments of the town are healed by Dr. Frank Green- well, long-established and known the country 'round, and Dr. Harry Erwin, "the young doctor." Mrs. Greenwell is the daughter of W. T. Hunter, and with her daughter, Mrs. H. C. Nelson, is as well known as the doctor himself. The Huntertown State Bank, Charles Hartung, president, has very smart headquarters, above which are the Masonic lodge rooms. Visible are the little interur- ban depot, the Hatch hotel, and the postoffice. The latter serves three rural routes, is in charge of Mrs. Myra Warcup, a daughter of early citizens. Mrs. Warcup's father and mother, Stephen Thornton and Angeline Cummings, were married sixty years ago in a little cottage which still stands at the north end of the village street, and during their earlier married life lived at the hotel, which was at that time the Wamsley house, kept for a long period by Christopher Wamsley, who traveled for the Updegraff firm in Fort Wayne. The hotel is fully seventy years old, the original house from which it was enlarged being still older than that. It is well preserved and still conducted by Mrs. Mary Hatch into whose hands it passed after the proprietorship of the Wamsleys. The place is well known to the tourists who stop there for the good country dinners which are served.
Telephones are supplied to Huntertown by the Farmers' Mutual exchange, and connected with Fort Wayne by the Bell Company's lines. A little paper called the "Huntertown Echo" is published fortnightly by the Methodist minister. Huntertown has no fire department, but is organizing a volunteer company, and arrange- ments are being made to raise money for the apparatus, as fires have been frequent, though fortunately, not very disastrous. The community is very proud of its new agricultural society, the only one in the county, and strengthening rapidly. Its second cattle show will be held this year (1917), and real premiums are being offered, where only ribbons could be awarded in 1916. Fancy stock sales are conducted by the society also. Dr. Frank Greenwell is president. But the automobile that flies along Plank street without stopping, flinging the dust of Lima road all over the village porches, cannot realize the really big industry of Huntertown, which is the mammoth elevator plant of the "Huntertown Grain Elevator Com- pany." The elevator-or, rather, several which preceded it and perished by fire,-has been in existence since the early railroad days. At first it was used only for grains, but since it was taken over, in 1910, by the new company, it has been repeatedly enlarged and broadened to include the storing of lumber, cement, and all sorts of building material, as well as other agricultural products, such as potatoes-from as far away as Minnesota-and is con- stantly crowded to capacity, which, for grain, is ten thousand
ALLEN COUNTY, INDIANA 659
bushels, but like the omnibus will always hold a little more. In 1916 the capital stock was increased from eight to thirty thousand dollars. all of which is sold, and which pays from twenty to forty per cent. A milling room has been added, which grinds only for customers, and not for the trade. Dr. Greenwell is president of the company.
Huntertown has an actual population of about two hundred and fifty wide-awake individuals, and has all the materials of growth, in spite of which the census shows but slight increase from time to time. Perhaps the new "community spirit" has not yet been breathed into its nostrils.
Between the Huntertown neighborhood and the Eel River line is located the fresh air camp of the Anti-tuberculosis League of Fort Wayne, known as "Fort Recovery," while well to the south of this, in portions of sections thirty and thirty-one of Perry, and section thirty-six of Eel River township, lies the new tract pur- chased by the county for a county infirmary to which, before long, the county dependents will be removed.
For picturesqueness and unique topographical features no part of Allen county equals Perry township. "Dutch Ridge," the high- est point in Allen county, is a part of the Wabash-Aboite moraine, which, near the bend of Cedar creek in the vicinity of Gloyd's mill, lies more than one hundred feet above the creek which runs through a deep gorge cut through the moraine near its highest altitude. The sides and the gorge, steep and precipitous, are of great beauty, clothed with trees and vegetation of wild variety. A wagon road in very good condition leads through the gorge, which abounds in attraction to the artist or the tourist, and should be better known and more visited than it ever has been. The whole vicinity is pic- turesque in the extreme, Gloyd's mill the successor, on the same site, of the Vandolah mill, itself being worth a trip in that direction. There are cold springs of mineral water in the neighborhood, which offer considerable advantage as a place of summer sojourn.
Cedar Creek Township
Something of mystery pertains to the region set apart in 1837 as Cedar Creek township. Watered by a confluence of small streams which find outlet in the St. Joseph river, it embraces, topographic- ally, a basin the position of which evidently made it more attract- ive to earlier visitors than those who finally made it their home. Long before the methods and habits of the ancient mound builders became popular knowledge, the earliest adventurers were impressed with the idea of former human occupation of this locality, and set- tlers were rewarded for their open-mindedness on this score by the discovery, from time to time, of traces of French missionaries- and other things not French. There is very good evidence of the region having been, at some remote period, the home of mound builders also, a distinction in which Cedar Creek township is unique in the county ; a few fragments of the skeleton of a supposed masto- don, found on the farm of Peter Notestine, including a three inch tooth or so, a cross of beech wood and an inscription in French upon a beech tree, both bearing the date 1772, unite with other evidence to attract the interest and excite the imagination. Wonder as to
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what all these widely different relics of the past may mean gives free rein to fancy. Romances weave themselves, from the gossamer threads of conjecture, jeweled here and there with prehistoric frag- ments. The inscription and the beechen cross both proclaim the nature of the French invasion, which the bits of log chain, the cin- ders and other buried evidences of a primitive forge do not disprove. But what drove the peaceful invaders away ? What hopes of return did the burial of those relics indicate ? If we who walk through treeless avenues of trade, floored with asphalt, and lighted by the flare of electricity, feel the blood stir with the mystery of these things, what must William Muller and John Pring have felt, who took them from the cool damp earth of the forest primeval? Or, in 1850, when an April windstorm had thrown an ancient linn tree, and honest John Pring found imbedded in its wood a sword, while neigh- bor Muller turned up a cannon ball with his plowshare the same week, what a contradiction of all previous impressions those sinister relics must have seemed. Did cross or sword prevail in that region ? We will never know, but the fancy does not picture them approach- ing the aborigines hand in hand.
Glacial markings are quite apparent in the Cedar Creek local- ity, being easily recognizable by the educated eye. The St. Joseph river flows from northeast to southwest, joined a little to the south- west of Cedarville by Cedar creek (the titular stream), through the central portion of the township, and furnished transportation facilities to the early settlers as well as drainage and the less mar- ketable, but none the less valuable, asset of beauty. Once opened to settlement, Cedar Creek, with its varied but productive soil, rapidly attracted a pioneer population, but its remoteness had kept it isolated until 1833, when a solitary settler named Wood (the tradi- tion does not accuse him of taking a wife to that lonely spot) spent the winter in a cabin on the St. Joseph, patiently longing for the spring. The Jacob Notestine family, who had made their start in Fort Wayne, where their ability and quality as settlers gave them open sesame had they preferred that path to fortune, chose rather the rural life, with the peaceful victories of the woodman's axe, and the tang of new-felled timber, and the subsequent subjugation of the soil to civilizing vegetation. Accordingly, in the spring so fervently wished for by the homesick Mr. Wood, the Notestines secured a flat boat whereon they loaded their household goods, ' and the family, root and branch, and were poled up the St. Joseph river to the mouth of Cedar creek. Then was the winter of the lonely Mr. Wood's discontent made glorious summer, indeed. Without waiting to cast one lingering look behind, he embarked with his few possessions, and the flat boat bore him back whence he came, leaving the Notestines in undisputed possession of the virgin territory of Cedar Creek.
However, it was but a few weeks until John Manning, with his family, including two sons, William and Amos, made good neighbors for them, and life began to move through the forests other than that of its furred, feathered and scaly denizens, though these were uncomfortably numerous. In 1836 William Muller, a native of Germany, trained to the baker's trade and a novice at farming of any character, deserted the kneading trough and the oven, shoul- dered an axe and the few goods most necessary and, having located
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a spot for a home in Cedar Creek, proceeded to hew his way to it from Beckett's Branch, through the tangled thickets of the forest. His eighty acres were at once attacked with zeal, and the erstwhile baker of loaves soon became an expert splitter of fence rails. The clearing grew apace, and a log cabin went up, eleven by twelve feet in dimensions. William kept bachelor's hall that winter but did not neglect to make friends of his neighbors when time permitted, though wolves were so numerous that evening visits were risky unless one went armed with a pitchfork, while even an occasional bear urged a closer acquaintance upon the indiscreet woodsman. But from all these perils he escaped unharmed, and when he went back to Cincinnati the next April to bring "home" his bride, Miss Mary Ann Kansen, it was not to utter loneliness that she came. True, there were the privations of a settler's life, but there was hope to combat them with; and the "baker's dozen" of little ones who came one by one to share the little cabin with them in the years that followed must have banished loneliness even if they brought in care and anxiety. One can fancy the father's axe hewing more logs to build a wing to the cabin before many seasons rolled around, and picture how great a day that was for them all when they moved "out of the old house, into the new," as prosperity rewarded their struggles.
Jacob Notestine kept up that reputation for sterling worth which he with his sons had gained in their four years at Fort Wayne. Of all who gathered in the township, no family did better service to the community than he and his stalwart sons. Fairly schooled and a skillful blacksmith, he was eminently fit for the life to which he brought his vigorous middle age, and easily ranks as Cedar Creek's "grand old man." Many descendants still honor the Note- stine name in township and county. John Manning's sons, after assisting their father to clear his farm in Cedar Creek, located farms for themselves in Eel River township. Soon after William Muller, in 1836, followed Charles C. Nettlehorst and his wife, Helena, with their three children-also from Germany. They reached Fort
Wayne by means of a flat boat trip down the St. Joseph river, nearly a week taken up in a trip of only sixty miles, owing to the blockade of driftwood in the river. Houses were so infrequent along the way that the little family tented at night, lighting the darkness by a sputtering lamp contrived of a piece of salt pork and a split stick set into the ground. Arrived at last at their destination Mr. Nettle- horst courageously began work upon his eighty acres of wood- land. Previously accustomed only to indoor work, the building of his cabin and the subsequent laborious clearing were too severe for his limited strength. He fell a victim to malaria, and died three years after their arrival, August 11th, 1839. Helena and the lad Louis, but thirteen years old, were left to do battle with the wild- erness for the five younger children. It seemed an unequal contest, but Helena possessed considerable financial talent, and while bear- ing her part in the struggle was a great help to the boy in bearing his. In spite of the burden prematurely laid upon his young shoulders, they prospered, slowly. Louis married Miss Marian Ziegler and reared a family of six, filled township offices, and made his mother's declining years comfortable and happy. Treasured from boyhood, he always kept sacredly his father's memorandum
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book and violin, the latter a long mute evidence of the refinements that came to the remotest outposts with their pioneer owners.
Settlers came thick and fast from 1836 on. Peter Sullivan and John Rogers, both natives of Ireland but late of Pennsylvania, ar- rived arm in arm, in 1836. Congenial friends always, they proved to be as good citizens as they were comrades. John Baker and William Berry came about the same time. They did good work at their clearings, but eventually went farther west, Mr. Berry's farm passing to Christian Schlatter. Moses Sivotts, who began as a set- tler in St. Joseph township, came to Cedar Creek in 1838, cleared a new farm and resided thereon until his death, being buried in its soil. Mrs. Sebastian Schlatter later became owner of that farm. Between 1837 and 1840, among the settlers, permanent for the great- er number, who made their appearance were Aaron Paff, who mar- ried, in 1838, Miss Mary A. Reater, who, the old chronicle states, was a Baptist, while her husband was a Presbyterian. Happily, these differences were abrogated in a becoming manner, both of the worthy pair uniting with the Methodist Episcopal church, in which communion they devoutly reared their eleven children. Other pioneers of this date were Joseph and William Shields, John Hack- ley, William Bowser, John Hagan, Henry Updyke, Abraham Fulker- son, Harmon Lydecker, Joseph Silvers and John B. Blue.
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The two latter men were elected Justices at the first township election, while Thomas Wilson was chosen for Constable. The total vote was twelve. The first road was surveyed through the town- ship as far as Jacob Notestine's farm in 1834, and completed within a few years. This was the road secured by Christian Parker, of St. Joseph. James Vandolah, famous early mill builder, erected a sawmill in 1839, to which was added an arrangement for grist milling. Corn was first planted in Cedar Creek by Jacob Notestine and John Manning, and in the autumn of the same year (1834) each sowed wheat. Mary, daughter of Peter Notestine, was born in autumn 1834, but died before the snow fell,-the first white birth and also the first death in the settlement. The first orchard was set out by Jacob Notestine in 1836, Johnny Appleseed bringing the trees. This orchard was still in flourishing, productive condition after fifty years had passed. Miss Martha A. Notestine and Nelson Grubb were principals in the first township wedding. John Mann- ing was appointed first postmaster, and his deputy was John B. Blue, the office being kept at Mr. Blue's store. It was a point on the mail route from Fort Wayne to northeastern Ohio and southern Michigan. The carriers were Jeremiah Bowen and his sons Mason and Marvin. At the site of Hamilton,-or Leo as it is now called,- Stout Price set up his blacksmith forge in 1840,. finding himself a few years later "the village blacksmith." Samuel Cassaday became his partner, and afterward his successor in the 'smithy.
Cedarville was the first town to be promulgated in the town- ship, being platted in 1838 by the Ewings of Fort Wayne and Cass county, and a firm of Connecticut prospectors. Situated in the forks of the St. Joseph river and Cedar creek, it seemed at that time to have a fair chance of growth, but after the platting of Hamilton, its attractions as a center waned, and in 1880 the census gave it credit for only 113 inhabitants, a number which in 1900 had dwindled to fifty, against a population of five hundred at Leo.
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ALLEN COUNTY, INDIANA
The postoffice, established at Leo on account of its more central loca- tion, was probably the circumstance favoring the later town, which did not come into existence until 1849. John Dever, manager of the first regular boat line plying up and down the St. Joseph river, established a wagon shop at Leo in 1852, and soon after opened a store, and being a capable and successful man, aided the village in attracting population. He was one of its most striking and popular figures, and even captured the township vote, on one occasion, though he was a Republican while the township was strongly Democratic. The Leo Flouring Mill was the industry which received the attention of his latest years.
The first school house built in the Cedar Creek district was the usual log structure, erected in 1837, and centrally located, but so near the swamp that no roads approached it, and few children lived near enough to attend it. The first election is said to have been held there, but it is probable that it was merely attempted, as half of the voters were reported to be unable to find the place. Both as voting place and school it was equally a failure, no school ever having been taught there, and the abandoned cabin finally went to decay. The elections are said to have been held at the house of John Manning for a time, but information as to where the first term of school was really taught is not at hand. School his- tory in this township is so meagre that it might be suspected the early educational advantages were equally meagre, if it were not for what is told in personal biography. In 1857, however, it is certain that free schools were established on the same basis as else- where, and that since then the township has kept the educational pace without faltering.
Cedar Creek township owns an unusually large number of religious denominations. The first religious meeting, held at Jacob Notestine's, was conducted by a Methodist Episcopal clergyman, both Methodist and United Brethren joining in it. These two de- nominations organized separately at about the same time, in 1845, and after moving about with the tide of settlement for a number of years are at this time settled, the Methodists maintaining churches at both Leo and Cedarville, and the United Brethren owning a fine church edifice at Cedarville. The Mennonites organized in 1852, and built a church near Leo. The German Baptists became numer- ous enough to organize many years ago, and to purchase a meeting house of their own. The Apostolic Christian church was organized with but two members, one of whom used to preach a sermon to the other. However, the "two or three" who thus "gathered to- gether" multiplied long ago to a congregation large enough to build a church for themselves, near Leo. The Catholic Mission, at Leo, is one of the oldest outposts of that church in the county, a French exile, Father Adam, having first ministered to the Catholics in the district, according to traditions. The name first applied to the con- gregation was St. Bonifacius, but this has long been changed for "St. Leo's." The church edifice at Leo was built by Fathers Benoit and Faller, in 1856, and the pastoral residence by Father Zumbuelte in 1870. Cemetery grounds were donated in 1863 by. Peter Sulli- van. The church is maintained as a mission, the ministrations being made by the pastor of St. Vincent's. A parochial school was kept up for some years, but has recently been discontinued.
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The public school status is best told in the recent statistics. The latest school enumeration reported 411 entitled to school advan- tages in the township. The public school enrollment is 274; high schools, 43; total number of teachers, 13; days taught, high and grade schools, 160; average attendance in grade schools, 223; high school, 37.9; number of schoolhouses, 9; estimated value, $50,000.00; commissioned high schools, 1; high school graduates, 1916, 8; grade school graduates, 21; library, 1,907 volumes ; total teachers' salaries, high and grades, $7,978.57; total "upkeep", $2,022.36; per capita expense of education, high school, $85.18; grade schools, $17.95. The school at Leo, both high and grade, is taught in the same building, the 1917 high school enrollment being forty-five, a slight increase over that of 1916. It is a commissioned high school and is on the same basis as any other school in the county. Special courses in the Leo school are Agriculture and Domestic Science, in both of which a high grade of work is being done.
Grabill, Indiana, the newest town in the county, lies on the township line, but belongs more properly to Cedar Creek than to Springfield, and its present status (since it has no pioneer his- tory) belongs here. Grabill sprang into being when the Wabash railroad was built from New Haven to Detroit, and for the short period since it opened its eyes has made a remarkable growth. It has a population of four hundred, and its own system of schools, which include none but the public school of eight grades. Two churches are supported there, the Missionary church, and the De- fenseless Mennonite congregation. The professions are represented by N. J. Shook, M. D., and M. H. Hostetter, M D., and O K. Hilty, D. D. S. It has a flouring mill, a sawmill, the Witmer Grain Com- pany, the B. E. Disler Lumber Company and the Grabill Lumber Company ; also the Review Publishing Co., in the way of industries, a good hotel run on the American plan, a local telephone exchange, the "New Home," and a solid financial institution embodied in the Grabill State Bank, capital $25,000, deposits over $200,000. The business houses of the town are: The People's Store, general mer- chandise; "The Fair," a department store; the Wann and Smith and the Hursh garages; H. Souder and Sons, harness; A. Neuen- schwander and Co., implements; V. W. Hartley and Co., hardware; the Grabill Drug Co., Mary Yoder, drugs and confectionery; Ira Fuhrman, barber; Phil Brown, meat market; C. Boger, livery and sales, and A. Conrad, livery. E. C. Martz is the postmaster.
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