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 81
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The "last leaf" among the daughters of pioneer families who were born before coming to Aboite township was Mrs. Caroline Fel- lowes-Smith, who died only a few years ago. The oldest living survivors among the settlers' sons are William A. Hamilton, who now lives in Wayne township, and Asa Turner, whose home is on West De Wald street, Fort Wayne.
Pleasant Township
A well-named township is Pleasant, its slightly undulating surface and rich soil inviting the agriculturally minded with most alluring glances. It is one of the southern border townships of the county, lying directly south of Wayne, from which the Bluffton road passes southward through the center line. Its northeast and north- west corners formerly were irregular, the St. Mary's river cutting off the first, while the latter was augmented by a triangle seemingly purloined from Aboite. Later adjustment of territory has made it a symmetrical square. A topographical peculiarity to be noted in this township is the rise of certain streams, some of which flow to- ward the basin of the St. Mary's and find an outlet to the sea by way of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, while others, Little river and Lost creek, drain into the Wabash river and reach the Gulf of Mexico via the waters of the Mississippi. "Lost" creek is not lost, but has been caught and confined to the strait-jacket of the ditch system by which these fertile acres were drained of the surplus water which used to conceal them for a great part of the year.
The Bluffton road, in older times known as Godfrey Traee, was the second road to be surveyed through this district, an older route being the Indianapolis road, leading to the southwest. The Win- chester road also leads through Pleasant township, on the eastern side. Parallel to the Bluffton road, but half a mile to the west,
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runs the Lake Erie and Western railroad line to Muncie and Cin- cinnati. Near the southern limit of the township the railroad passes through the compact little town of Sheldon, which it helped to build by providing means of shipping the carriages once manufactured there. As if this were not enough, the interurban electric line to Bluffton and beyond in 1906 added one more traffic convenience to the township, building its tracks a rod or two east of the railroad right of way. Roads have been good through Pleasant territory from earliest settlement days, a fact which does not explain the quietude which has characterized its general development.
Settlement of Pleasant township may be said to have begun in 1832, with the advent of a Mr. Cooper, who settled with his family in the vicinity of "Green Camp" on the Bluffton road. Green Camp was a favorite spring resort of the Indians, and of traveling emi- grants later, probably on account of the cool spring which bubbled near by, providing drinking water. The first to follow the Cooper family into the fresh fields-or forests-were the Horney Robinson family, from Wayne township. Horney Robinson is the most pictur- esque character among the early citizens of Pleasant, as he perhaps had been in Wayne while he lived there. He came with his father, Thomas Robinson, and family, from Ohio in 1826. Thomas Robinson died very shortly after his arrival, and the family, of which Horney was the leading member, was about to return to Ohio, when neigh- bors persuaded them to buy land and settle in Wayne. Horney took up a tract near the south township line, cleared and improved it, and then sold it, prospecting for a year in Aboite before choosing in 1834 his permanent location in Pleasant township. The new home was situated in the northwestern part, against the south line of Wayne. The property of the George Woods family is all concen- trated along the south township line, in sections thirty-one and thirty-two. James Woods, a son, still lives, one of the oldest men in the township. While in Wayne, Horney married, in 1829, Miss Catherine, daughter of George Freshour, another Allen county pioneer. Both the Robinsons and the Freshours were ardent Metho- dists, and Horney Robinson was a powerful support to the struggling outposts of that denomination in the new settlement. He sheltered all the itinerant Methodist preachers of those days and his hospitality was boundless. At his home in Pleasant was held the first religious service in the township history, the Rev. Stephen R. Ball leading it. The first white child born in Pleasant was his son, Warren, No- vember, 1834, educated at the Methodist college in Fort Wayne and afterward a teacher in his own township. Warren Robinson eventually became a farmer, and died about 1914, at the age of eighty. The first death in Pleasant was that of Mrs. David Bay, a sister of Horney Robinson, occurring in 1841. Mr. Robinson built the first sawmill in Pleasant township, on the banks of Lost creek, drawing the power therefrom. This mill was an important and emi- nently successful undertaking, disposing of the timber produced from the forests and so situated that the lumber found ready market not only in Fort Wayne, but as far in the opposite direction as the Salamonie river in Huntington county. Thirteen children were born to the Robinsons, only five of whom outlived the parents. Mrs. Robinson died in 1864, and her husband in 1887. Pleasant town-
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ship may boast no finer all-around pioneer citizen than Horney Robinson, active in every phase of settlers' life, from felling timber, farming and milling, to hunting and trapping, which none could do better than he.
The summer of 1834 brought many more settlers than the Robin- sons before the leaves fell. Edward Kennark, born in Ireland, and Thomas Bradbury were two of these. The Bradbury and Kennark hewn-log houses were the first of the kind in the neighborhood, but their advantage over the round log style of architecture was so apparent that other settlers hastened to imitate. Kennark's land was near the center line of the township. William Watson, who came later in the year 1834, chose a site near that of Horney Robin- son, who subsequently purchased a portion of it from him. Mr. Watson cleared only ten acres and then decided to settle north of Fort Wayne, in Washington. Another settler of 1834 was John Whetton, who spent the remainder of his life there. Little is told of his first years in the township, until 1843. James and Margaret (Ramsey) Cunnison, with their infant daughter Isabelle, born on shipboard on the way to America from Dundee, Scotland, reached Fort Wayne in 1833. They settled in Wayne, where Isabelle died at the age of four, and where two boys were born, who were orphaned by the death of Mr. Cunnison in 1843. After Robert Cunnison's death Mrs. Cunnison married John Whetton and brought her two little boys to Pleasant township to grow up. Robert, the eldest, died in 1880, the victim of an accident, leaving a wife and six young children. James Cunnison inherited the Whetton homestead farm, on which he is still living. In 1866, he married Miss Mary, daughter of William Dalman. He has been a successful man, and is a large property owner, both in Pleasant and in Fort Wayne. Mr. Whetton died in 1861. He was one of the fourteen voters who organized the township.
Slow at the first, settlement in Pleasant began to come rapidly towards the close of the thirties. In the early days, the land seems to have been the sport of speculators, who bought tracts with no intention of settling, held them for a term of years, selling out at a profit. This process may account for the lack of that enthusiasm here which was so conspicuous in the settlement of other townships. Nevertheless the inrush of settlers was extraordinary for a term, as the reputation of the district spread. Among the early arrivals were George Woods, Nicholas Harber, Jacob Smith, Andrew and John Orrin, Ethelbert Sutton, Alexander Stonebrook, Cornelius Ferrell, Henry Castile, Asa and Noah Linscott, Henry and George Mercer, William Henry, Nicholas Rice, Thomas Swank, Zaccheus Clark, Henry Hall, Carroll Taylor, Jacob Kimmel, and four Parkers, Nathan, Washington, Wellington and Thomas. Asa Miller and his four sons, Christian, Joseph, John and Andrew, from Alsace, settled in 1841-the first to take up land on the old Indian reservation in the northeastern part of the township. A majority of these were previous arrivals to 1842, but all could not have been voters, who had settled at the time the township organization was effected. Thomas Greer, who brought his family to Pleasant in 1842, was one of the group of voters, the others being, beside John Whetton, Abraham Lutz, at whose house the election was held, David Hill,
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Samuel Fogwell, Jacob Kinwell, John Nicodemus, Thomas Brad- bury, Edward Kennark, Mr. Cooper, Enos Mooney, Benjamin Swett, Hugh O'Hara, and Horney Robinson. George Woods, who came about 1838, nor Jacob Smith, who is believed to have come with him, both bringing families, do not appear in the list. They may not have been naturalized. Descendants of both families are well known citizens of Pleasant township still, living on the original farms their fathers cleared. Caleb M. Preble did not come to Pleas- ant until 1848, and then by way of the canal, to Fort Wayne. His son, Darius Preble, was ten years old at the time. Charles M. Preble, a grandson, living in Fort Wayne, is now the only representative of the name. Edward Kennark's son John was the second child to be born in Pleasant, the date being 1837. In the winter of 1840 occurred the first wedding in the settlement, at the house of James Campbell, his daughter Rachel becoming the wife of Dennis Dunn. The ceremony was performed by Rev. Jacob Colcazar, of the Metho- dist church. It was twelve years before Pleasant township witnessed another wedding! The year 1852 recorded two such events, however, the new homes then started being those of Andrew Aug and Sarah Parker, and Edwin Bart and Miss Amanda Orrin. Early burials were made on the farm of Horney Robinson, although the plot was not established as a cemetery. The nearest gristmill to the settle- ment was that on the St. Mary's in Wayne, but with good roads, Pleasant township settlers found this as convenient as necessary. A well-known settler, the date of whose arrival has escaped his descendants' memory, was Noah Somers, who walked from his former home, in Virginia, to the eastern edge of Pleasant township in search of a new location for his trade as cooper. He settled in section twenty-five, where he farmed, cleared, and plied his trade of making sugar barrels, finding the material on his own land. Since then, five generations of Somers have risen in Pleasant township, the two now resident there being a great grandson, Mr. Harley Somers, of the Sheldon Bank, and his five-year-old boy. The name of Dalman is prominent in township history, beginning in 1833, when John and Mary Dalman, born in England, settled near the border of Wayne township, on Little river. Their home was, at that time, the only one on the section line between the reservation and the Wabash river. Edwin Dalman, their eldest son, in 1842, married Mary, the daughter of John and Jane McNair, natives of Ireland, who settled in Wayne in 1837. Edward's eldest son, John Dalman, served nine years as trustee of Pleasant township, and was twice elected Treasurer of Allen county. This is a remarkable career for a man who was denied, by circumstance, any education except his mother's teaching of the three R's, until he was a grown man. Pleasant was so prosperous that it appears strange that school advantages should not have been within reach ; but the need of ditch- ing was perhaps the chief difficulty, making it impossible for pupils to attend, in some parts. For there were schools, just the same in Pleasant as elsewhere, the first school being situated near the center of the township, and taught by an elderly German, named Koch, and supported by subscription. However, John Dalman went to school just as soon as he had the chance, and accomplished much in a short time. Mrs. Dalman was Miss Eliza Ake. William Dalman also
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served the township as trustee. William and Mary Dafforn, of Warwickshire, England, came late, in 1855, but they made such good Americans and Hoosiers that Pleasant township may keep their memories green. Be it remembered that they gave their son, William, jr., to serve the country of their adoption all through the Civil War, after which he settled down to farming in Pleasant, with a Pleasant township girl for his wife.
The Methodist church was naturally the first to organize in this township. A class was formed with the assistance of Rev. Stephen R. Ball in 1835. House-to-house meetings were held until 1844, when the first log chapel was built, Horney Robinson donating the land. This was replaced in 1866 by a frame building given the name of Brenton chapel. Subsequent developments in the township dis- persed this congregation to other church centers, and the chapel was abandoned. The United Brethren organized in 1854 at the house of John Miller, where they met until 1859, when they built a log chapel, which accommodated their sixteen members for a while. In 1868 they erected "Liberty Chapel" in section seven, near the Lafayette line. Their church at Five Points is a vigorous growing body of well towards one hundred and fifty members. "Union Chapel," standing on the east side of the Bluffton road, at the Wayne township line, was built by citizens of both townships, for meetings of all denominations not otherwise housed. It was dedi- cated in 1874 by Rev. Frank Robinson, Methodist, of Fort Wayne, and Rev. Mr. Berman, of the Christian church in Wells county. The church of St. Aloysius, Catholic, situated on the Bluffton road east of the village of Sheldon, was organized in 1858 under Father Jacob Mayer, with substantial support from the Miller and Harber families. The church was built the following year, and still stands, having been kept with excellent care, and improved from time to time. A parochial school was opened in 1876, and is attended by an increas- ing number of pupils. About one-third of the population of Pleas- ant township is connected with St. Aloysius' parish. The German Lutherans organized very early, also, their first place of meeting being a tiny log chapel, the ruins of which may still be seen. Their present church edifice stands in the center of section thirty-five, in the southeast angle of the old "Indian Survey," to which enough land has been added to "square" the lot. This church maintains a parochial school attended by from sixty to seventy pupils. An English Lutheran church stands at Five Points, which after a falling off in membership, is once more growing. The Disciples also built a chapel in the eastern part, in section twenty-four. There was, for a time, a following of the Universalist church, but this seems to have disappeared.
The village of Sheldon dates from about 1869, when Andrew J. Taylor, in preparation for the manufacture of carriages on his land, laid off a part of it in a town plat, along the tracks of the Lake Erie and Western railroad, then lately built, and passing under the name of "the Muncie." Arranging with the railroad company for a side track convenience, the village was named Sheldon in honor of the railroad superintendent of that day. The carriage business developed with almost spectacular rapidity, and the village grew apace, though no other industry save those incidental to the popula-
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tion located there at that time. The carriages were sold largely by the auction method, which often brought as many as a thousand buyers to the scene. Mr. Taylor's sons all worked at carriage- making during this period, and business success brought wealth. The Methodists built a large church there, which still flourishes. As time went on, a worse than ordinary type of drinking saloons began to multiply in the village, and the place become a rendezvous for the tough element of the country round. Mr. Taylor, a kind man by temperament, and an indulgent father, did not control his sons in the old-fashioned way, nor did the sons develop the business ability of the father. As Mr. Taylor advanced in years, and his health broke, mismanagement and irresponsible dealing wrecked the carriage industry, and Sheldon was left with little but its saloons in the way of business. There were, it is said, ten of these places, and as a natural result, Sheldon was the scene of frequent murderous brawls and unsafe to visit at nearly every hour of the day. Yet it had business possibilities, situated in so productive and wealthy a township, which had so much industry to its credit. The late James Mitchell, the editor of the Fort Wayne "Dispatch," was inclined to disbelieve the ill reports sent in by his Sheldon correspondent, and went there to investigate on one occasion-which proved suf- ficient. The editor after expressing, aloud, his belief that Sheldon had been slandered, was himself assaulted eleven times on the way to the old depot (a distance of a furlong), thrown to the ground and battered well. However, the better element arose in its might about ten years ago, and threw off the shackles which bound it. A "dry" Sheldon took new lease of life, and began to grow of its own initia- tive, without the aid of any spectacular industry. The Sheldon Drain Tile company has an extensive plant with three mammoth kilns, the product of which is in constant demand. Two large ele- vators have been built, handling all sorts of produce, grain, hay, posts, etc., also coal, and building materials. One of these is the Sheldon Equity Union, a local company, E. A. Smith, manager, while the other is the "Farmers'," owned by the Standard Milling com- pany, of Clarksburg, Virginia, the manager being E. H. Smith. Neither plant does any milling. The Sheldon State Bank was or- ganized several years ago, and has a capital of $25,000.00, while its deposits run to nearly two hundred thousand dollars. Charles True, of Marion township, is president, and Harley Somers, of Shel- don, is the cashier. The bank has very neat, substantial head- quarters. The American Express company has an office in the village, at the, interurban depot building. Sheldon has not yet attained beauty, but that may come. The "Sheldon" hotel and a restaurant, kept by John Gray, are minor features. The town is in healthy condition, has a good blacksmith shop, operated by Ambrose Freyburger, a representative of the old Freyburger family of Pleas- ant township, a general hardware store kept by Mr. McCoy, and two "general" stores kept by John Williams and J. E. Miller. There is no garage at Sheldon, though a large barn belonging to Alfred M. Worley sometimes shelters the unfortunate. Mr. Worley is a large buyer of stock, but maintains no stable at Sheldon. Dr. Shortt has the health of Sheldon's two hundred and fifty citizens in charge. A chief summer product of the Sheldon vicinity is strawberries,
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which are raised here in larger quantities than anywhere else in the county, the quality being considered.
Sheldon postoffice, in charge of Miss Lona Mayer, serves two rural routes, and also carries the mail to and from Zanesville for the railroad service. The carriers are Alfred M. Woods and Lumley Swain, both representing old Pleasant township families. Sheldon has no central telephone exchange, but borrows its lines from Zanes- ville, Ossian, "Nine Mile" and Poe-which is apparently "turn about," for Sheldon is said to have done to Poe what Hoagland did to Middletown, though with less ruinous effect. "Yoder" is a name which has been thrust upon the town of Sheldon by the railroads, though without other authority than themselves, but it applies only to the stations. Sheldon is the legal name, and Sheldon it will remain. Ferguson is a station farther north, where the Ferguson mill was located. Fairview Methodist church is said to be drawing many neighboring Methodists into its congregation, which is in vigorous growth at present. The largest of the Pleasant township school buildings is "No. 8," located in Sheldon. It has two rooms and is modern in plan.
The public school report of the year 1915-16 will give a fair idea of the educational affairs of the township, always remembering that the population increases, but that the large Catholic and Lutheran parochial schools draw a large proportion of the school enumeration thenceward. The parochial enrollment of that year was 107, and that of the public schools two hundred and twenty, while the school enumeration was 433. Ten teachers are engaged in the nine public schools. The school year is one hundred and fifty days, with an average attendance of only ninety-three, or 42 per cent of the enrollment, which seems unaccountably low-but this is a problem with which Pleasant township has always been vexed. Eleven pupils finished the eighth grade in June, 1916. Teachers' salaries amount to $4,717.50, and the upkeep expenses for the same time were $1,364.95. The cost per capita is $27.64. The value of the nine buildings is estimated at $22,000.00, and the libraries aggregate 1,362 volumes.
The largest landowner in Pleasant township is Conrad Thiele, now nearly ninety years of age, but with faculties remarkably pre- served, and gifted with exceptional memory. He is still in active rural business. Since the Little River ditch was finished, thirty years ago, Pleasant township also has benefited by the drainage, its once flooded expanses becoming the finest of farm land. Altogether this rural township is possessed of very solid wealth.
Lafayette Township
Lafayette township, latest of all the territory of Allen county, to be entered, on account of its remoteness and the absence of any traffic route, except the old Indianapolis road, which was not avail- able to the earliest comers, is possibly for that reason less advanced in some respects than the older township corporations. The magnif- icent timber with which it was once clothed in one unbroken stretch of forest has gone the way of all the forests. Perhaps as many of the giant oaks, beeches and poplars as were used for any purpose-
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including fuel-were wasted, in the first few years, in grim despera- tion; not so much for the lack of a market, but for the lack of thoroughfares by which the markets could be reached. There was no choice. Trees, once felled, were more of an obstruction than if they were standing, and destruction by burning was the only feas- ible method of disposing of the wealth of timber that blocked its own progress. Wood enough to keep a whole generation of Allen county families warm went up in blue and fragrant smoke, and "black salts" or potash was all it yielded. In those days, old men tell us, nothing was considered good enough to burn for fuel but straight body wood of the choicest ash, hickory and maple. It is futile to say, now, that a government system could have conserved it; the settler's life at that time appears to have resolved itself into an inevitable and ceaseless strife with the forests for possession of the fertile acres under them. And the settlers, as everybody knows, won out.
The survey of the Lower Huntington road, in 1842, was an encouragement to immigration, but several years elapsed before it was made the passable and popular thoroughfare which it has long since become. And notwithstanding the need of sawmills, it was ten years before one was built, obviously because of there being no water power, and no roads over which to bring machinery into the township. Logging naturally became the prominent industry of the township as soon as mills were accessible, but the first mill, built near Zanesville, by Henry Link, was far later in date than those of older townships, which were already embarked on the high seas of commerce by that time. Commerce is, perhaps, still a second- ary consideration in Lafayette township, production holding as it probably will for many years to come, the first place in this fertile soil.
The first man to settle in Lafayette township was Samuel Fog- well from Ohio, who purchased land in section one, where his sons David and William lived on after his death. This was a position of much advantage, being within the shortest distance from the settled district in Wayne township and from Fort Wayne itself. The tim- ber was cleared from the tract and a fine farm brought under culti- vation. Frank Morrison and David Overly came soon after Mr. Fogwell, settling near him. The years 1843 and 1844 brought aug- mentations to the population from Pleasant and Marion townships, in the persons of Anthony Krumme and William Jobs. The latter had lived in Marion township with his parents for twelve years previous to his advent in Lafayette. He purchased land in section seventeen, and made it his home for life. In 1845 James Wilson, Isaac Alter, Owen Hatfield, John Akers and Christian and John Foley settled. Walter Kress took up a tract in section ten in 1846, and Henry S. Kelsey selected a site in section eighteen in 1847. These newcomers and others not listed were all rather near to the Lower Huntington road.
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