Northwestern Indiana from 1800 to 1900A regional history written by Timothy H. Ball . . . .
Source Citation:
Ball, Timothy H. 1900.
Northwestern
Indiana from 1800 to 1900 or A View of Our Region Through the Nineteenth Century.
Chicago, Illinois: Donohue and Henneberry. 570 p.
NORTHWESTERN INDIANA FROM 1800 TO 1900
260
CHAPTER XVIII.
TOWNS AND VILLAGES.
In White County the large towns are not many. Eleven
villages and towns will be named here. In the northeastern part of the county
are three country villages having schools, some business, and mail facilities,
but on no railroad. These are Buffalo, Sitka, and New Bedford. West of these, on
two railroads is Monon, formerly called Bradford.
It is on section 21, township 28, range s, laId out originally on the northeast
quarter of the section by James Brooks, James K. Wilson and Benjamin
Ball in 1854 laid out additions. The first house
was built in 1853. Joseph Chamberlain built a storeroom in connection with his
dwelling house. Two other houses were built in the same year.
In 1879 tHe town was incorporated with the name
Monon. It is quite a shipping point for grain. Three hundred thousand bushels
shipped in a year.
In Monon are now streets paved with stone, the macadam pavement it is called,
some well built business houses, a good-sized school house, and three churches.
These are: Methodist Episcopal, Baptist, and Presbyterian.
A small stream runs near the town. The two railroads make considerable business.
The town has
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improved quite a little in the last few years. Population probably six hundred.
Wolcott, in White County, is the next town east of Remington, five miles, on the
same railroad. Its population is about eight hundred. The churches are three,
Methodist Episcopal, "Christian," and Baptist. There are three physicians and
two lawyers. This is a great grain shipping point. There are two elevators, and
it is said that as many as 10,000 bushels of oats and corn have been taken in on
one day. One of the best, if not the very best, road in all Northern
Indiana extends for four miles north of Wolcott,
up near to the "Blue Sea." It is hard, smooth, and surely will be durable, made
of crushed bowlders. Travelling on this road is delightful. In fact, this county
is in advance of the other seven counties, unless it may be Lake, in improved
roads. In White County, the construction of gravel roads commenced in 1885. Some
have been made by private enterprise, but mostly they are (built by the township
or county. But see "Improved Roads."
Near Wolcott is a large sand bed covering an area of ten or fifteen acres
from which sand excellent glass tumblers are made.
No doubt much nice glass ware could be made from
this sand. It lies about four feet from the
surface and has been examined to a depth of one hundred and forty feet without
reaching the bottom. Probably some day at Wolcott will be a large manufactory
for glass ware.
The town now has three dry goods stores, five grocery stores, one furniture
store, two banks, and a good, frame school house, with five teachers. It is
thirteen and a half miles from the south line of
White County. In 1859 it was all open prairie, a part of
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the Grand Prairie which extended over all the south parts of Newton and Jasper
counties, and across the western part of White up into Pulaski. As might be
expected from a
prairie region, much hay is shipped as well as corn and oats. As a railroad
station Wolcott dates from
1860 as do the other towns on this line. It is a neat
looking town, evidently improving. Forty years it has had of growth.
Reynolds, west from Logansport twenty-seven miles
on the crossing of the New Albany and Logansport and Peoria roads, while an old
station, has not advanced rapidly. The estimated population is five hundred.
The churches are: Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist Episcopal, "Christian," and,
counting one out a little way in the country, Advent. In all five.
Seafield is a station six miles west of Reynolds. One church; M. E.
Chalmers. Population 800. -- This place, which bears the name of one of the
great and good men of Scotland, is south of Reynolds about seven miles, on the
same road. There are three churches, one Presbyterian, one Methodist, one
Baptist, and business houses such as would be needful in such a town. The people
are enterprising.
This was first called Mudge's Station, a house having been built by a man named
Mudge, probably in 1853,
The Methodist church here, erected in 1881, cost $1,500, and will seat five
hundred people.
Six miles east of Monticello is a station called Idaville. It is in the center
of section 28, township 27, range 2, twelve miles east
from Reynolds.
There is here quite a large Presbyterian congrega-
263
tion and a Sunday school with about one hundred members.
It is a place of some business.
Burnettsville, three miles further east on the same road, is on the northwest
quarter of section 25, township 27, range 2. This is quite a town. It is very
near the southeast corner of the county. The Baptist church here numbers 184
members.
There was an early town, which like many others, failed to live on into these
latter years, situated on the Tippecanoe River, section 21, township 27, range
3, where, in 1845, William Sill had in operation "a merchant grist-mill," also a
carding mill. In 1845 the town was laid out and called Mount Walleston, but the
name was soon changed to Norway. In 1850 this was quite a village, competing
with Monticello in enterprise and population. But it did not live.
As the name indicates, this was an early Norwegian settlement, and one of these
pioneers from Northern Europe bought a thousand
acres of the choicest of this land near Norway. A saw-mill was started here
about 1833. The name of this then large land holder was Hans Erasmus Hiorth.
Another of these Norwegians was Peter B. Smith.
Monticello. Population 2,000. -- This locality, on the west bank of the
Tippecanoe River, section 33, township 27, range 3, was selected for a county
seat, named, town lots laid out and a sale ordered, in 1834, soon after the
organization of the county. William Sill is called the first settler, who opened
a store in 1834 and became the first merchant in White county. It is said that
Peter Price built a cabin just west of Monticello in 1831 and became the first
settler of Union Township.
In the new town Malachi Gray was the first hotel
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keeper. Early lawyers were: T. M. Thompson, R. W. Sill, and Judge David Turpice,
who at length became United States Senator. Early physicians were: Dr. Samuel
Rifenberrick, Dr. Rudolph Brearley, and Dr. Alson Potut.
In 1853 the town was incorporated. A large brick school building was completed
in 1870, costing forty thousand dollars. It has a massive looking court house
which is elsewhere mentioned. In front of the court house, in the public square,
is a well of cool water, said to be in depth one hundred feet, and on two sides
are plain seats for about twenty-five men and boys. These boys of Monticello
have a delightful bathing place about three-quarters of a mile up the river,
where the bank is low, sufficiently well shaded, the place secluded so that no
bathing dresses are needed and no intrusions feared; the river bottom sandy, the
cool, clear, flowing water of the Tippecanoe deep enough for swimming and
diving,—all the circumstances combining for pleasant bathing. And well the boys
seem to enjoy it. Exposure in the sunshine in the water has fitted them to be
what one has called "boys in their sunny-brown beauty." And their stranger
friend who visited them while they were diving and swimming in the morning hours
of Thursday, July 27, 1899, and saw them in the afternoon of that day around the
well and on the ground of the public square, reclining on the grass, calls these
Monticello boys well-mannered. They showed no rudeness to a stranger.
Monticello has some streets paved with crushed stone; it has electric lights,
telephones, and "water works." The water supply is from
a spring some twenty feet in depth. The steel stand pipe is one
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hundred feet in height, or entire height one hundred and sixteen feet. The fire
company have hose but no engine. The force of the water in the pipes is
sufficient for their needs.
There are some neat residences in the town and some good business houses. There
are three hotels and a boarding house.
There are three church buildings: the Presbyterian, a large brick structure,
date 1873; the Methodist, also of brick, large, no date; and the "Christian." an
older looking frame building.
Population about two thousand.
In Pulaski County as in White the large towns are few, and the first one to be
noticed is the county seat.
Winamac. Population 1,800. -- Note. Much of the
history of this town was taken from a paper read
by Mrs. M. H. Ingrim, before the Woman's Culture Club of Winamac, April 29,
1899. I have added to the statements the results of my own observations and
researches made in 1899. T.H.B.
In the year 1837 a trapper named Kelly built a "pole-hut" on the Tippecanoe
River and resided there until his death, in September of that year. He was one
of the first inhabitants. Two log cabins were in 1838 "Winamac's next
buildings." The names of builders unknown.
George P. Terry and Hampton W. Hornbeck are the next residents recognized after
the trapper Kelly and they occupied one of these log cabins, keeping house for
themselves, obtaining some supplies from
Logansport, depending on their guns and fish hooks for meat. Deer, raccoons, and
squirrels were abundant, and their flesh, with a little salt pork, flour, meal,
sugar and coffee, from Logansport, made good,
hearty
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living. These men were preparing land for tillage and not then directly building
up a town. John Pearson, who seems to have had a family, before the year 1838
closed, occupied the other of those two log cabins, but soon built something
more commodious, and then started a store with "two hundred dollars worth of
goods and notions," selling to a few settlers who had founded the Hackett and
Wasson neighborhoods, and to the Pottawatomies who brought in exchange
cranberries and maple sugar and venison. When commerce commences town life soon
follows, and more inhabitants came, and in 1839 the county seat was located.
Twenty-two blocks were laid out in town lots and twelve streets located and
named.
Twenty of these blocks contained eight lots each. Soon a government land office
was located at Winamac, the one at La Porte, probably, having been removed to
that place. The office was opened in a log building and entries of land were
soon made. But the growth of the town was for some time quite slow. In 1846
there were about thirty families. In 1868 the town was incorporated, one hundred
and seven votes then being cast. Churches, schools, banks and business houses
came along, as the needs of the inhabitants of the now growing town required,
and at length substantial, fine looking brick blocks were erected, the Keller
block in 1880, the Frain block in 1883. The church buildings of the present are:
a Roman Catholic, large brick building, quite massive amid the buildings around
it, the most costly church building in the county; a Presbyterian brick
structure, fine looking, the second in cost in the county; the third in the town
is Methodist Episcopal, a frame building, painted white, standing over the
burial place, so tra-
267
dition says, of chief Winamac; the fourth is the
"Christian" church, a frame building; the fifth is an old frame building
occupied by the United Brethren and Free Methodists; and the sixth is the
Lutheran.
Winamac has a brick school house, two stories and basement, built in 1895,
costing twenty thousand dollars. A. F. Reid, Superintendent. Number of teachers,
ten. School children in the town, five hundred and fifty.
Mr. Thomas Hackett is called the oldest resident of Winamac. Another old
resident of the county is Mr. James Rover, living a mile and a half out of town,
over the river, who was born in October, 1816. He is a good Christian man, a
member of the Methodist Episcopal church, an active man, with his faculties
still in good condition.
Being a county seat there are in the town many resident lawyers, among whom, in
years, experience, and strong principles, Judge Spangler would surely rank high.
There is quite an industry in the edge of the town, a steam canning factory and
hominy factory; buildings of brick.
The Tippecanoe River, a very pretty stream of water, is, at the town, one
hundred and forty feet in width. The first island in the river below the town
was the scene, according to tradition, of a sad tragedy in the Indian times.
Their name for the island was Wasatch-a-hoo-la, the meaning said to be ghost or
spirit island. Young Mi-neek-e-sunk-ta, "a dark-eyed Indian belle," was here one
day with a young warrior who sought her love and wished to make her his wife.
But already "to another tribal lover" "she had plighted her troth," and of
course rejected his suit.
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Then fully equal in savage conduct to the young civilized white men of our day
who shoot the white maidens that reject their horrid kind of love, this young
savage, in his disappointment and rage, tomahawked the beautiful belle upon the
spot, buried her body in the sand of the island, and disappeared in his canoe.
He was not quite refined enough, like some of our "high-toned" young men, to
kill himself also, but lived, possibly, to regret, and it may be hoped, to
repent. "Mi-meek-e-sunk-ta's spirit is said to appear there and chant its
wailing song frequently at the midnight hour."
A fitting legend is this for the town of Win-a-mac, where the Pottawatomies
lingered till 1844.
Next to Winamac in size are the following eight towns, villages, and stations:
Medaryville, Francesville, Monterey, Star City, Oak or Parisville, Pulaski,
Denham and Thornhope.
The comparative size of these will appear from the
number of teachers, taken from an annual report of
the Public Schools of Pulaski.
Winamac nine and the Superintendent. Francesville, Medaryville, and Star City
four each. Thornhope, Pulaski and Monterey, two each. Denham, one.
Star City is on section 8, township 29, range 1, about six miles southeast of
Winamac. It was laid out as a town in August, 1859, by John Nickles and Andrew
Wirick. Village growth commenced in 1860. The population is about four hundred.
Although not yet a large place it has become a great shipping point for horses
and for sheep. It has a large brick school house erected at a cost of about five
thousand dollars, a Methodist church, a "Christian" church, and some Seventh Day
Adventists. It is a thriving town.
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Thornhope, is a small village between Star City and Royal Center, a station
without a station house, but a church, a school house, and a few families, a
neat looking, pleasant, prosperous village. This is in Van Buren township, not
far from the Pulaski county line. It is about one
hundred miles from Chicago, as the Pan Handle
Railroad counts the miles.
Nine miles northwest from Winamac is a station and
a small village called Denham. It is six miles only from
North Judson. It has a large Lutheran congregation.
Pulaski. Population 150 -- A dam was placed across the Tippecanoe River at a
favorable location and a saw-mill was put in operation there in 1854. In 1855 a
grist-mill was added, and there a village started taking the name of the county.
Across the river was a quite noted mound about twelve feet high and one hundred
feet in diameter. It would appear, therefore, that this had been a chosen
location many long years ago.
The present village' is not large. It has a Presbyterian church with a good
Sabbath school, institutions which the mound builders could not have known. Also
a Roman Catholic church. The school house is of brick.
Monterey. Population 425, is on the Chicago & Erie road, eighty-four miles
from Chicago. It has two school houses, one a
frame building, the other a brick building. The churches are two: Roman
Catholic, the building of brick, and Methodist Episcopal, the building of wood.
It is the only station in Tippecanoe Township and is near the river.
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Oak, is the postoffice name and Parisville is the town name of this little
place, population 75, in Van Buren Township, on the Pan Handle road. It has one
church, Methodist Episcopal. In the school are 75 pupils.
Francesville. Population 900, is nine miles north of Monon, on the Michigan City
Division of the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railway. It became a railroad
station, and then a village and town, like other places on this line when the
road went through in 1853. Its growth has not been rapid. It has three churches:
Methodist Episcopal, Roman Catholic, and "Christian." It has a two story frame
school building, with two hundred and ten pupils. The usual business houses and
professional men, for a town of a thousand inhabitants, are to be found here.
Medaryville, population 700, is six miles north of Francesville, on the same
railroad. About the same kind of soil extends through this portion of Pulaski
County. The public school building at Medaryville is of brick. The pupils number
one hundred and seventy and the teachers are in number, five.
The churches are four: Roman Catholic, Lutheran, "Christian," and Methodist
Episcopal.
The business interests similar to those at Francesville.
Knox was the name given to the locality chosen in April for the county seat of
Starke County. It is on section 25 and 26, east half of one and west half of the
other, township 33, range 2. At that time it was land, soon laid out in town
lots, but without a house. But building commenced, families moved in, village
life commenced, and then a town was formed. Civil as well as social life began.
Its growth for sev-
271
eral years was slow. Within the last few years it has improved rapidly. Brick
buildings have gone up, large business houses have been opened, cement sidewalks
have been laid down, and one of the best arranged court houses in Northern
Indiana has been erected, completed on the inside
with very modern improvements, at a cost of one hundred and twenty-five thousand
dollars. The population is estimated at eighteen hundred.
The Yellow River passes a little east and north of the town.
In Knox there are a Methodist Episcopal church, a Free Methodist church, a
"Christian" church, and a church or congregation of Adventists, these having no
house of worship, also a congregation of "Latter Day Saints" more commonly
called Mormons. These have a building of their own. The churches are frame or
wooden buildings.
Knox has a good, two story school house, but not modern, like the court house.
Half-way between Knox and North Judson is a station called Toto. It is on the
northeast corner of section 1, township 32, range 3; has a school house, two
stores, a Free Methodist church, about a dozen families, and a postoffice. This
postoffice is one of the oldest in the county, and its peculiar name, Toto, said
to be Indian and said to mean Frogpond, was adopted by the railroad officials as
the name for their station. For the original location of the office, a short
distance away, the name is said to have been perfectly appropriate. Before the
great and the smaller ditches went through the county, a frog pond, one of the
oldest residents there says, the location was.
Drainage, good drainage, changes the condition of
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land remarkably. The Indians would not recognize their "toto"
now.
North Judson. Population 1,000.—This now enterprising town, seventy-seven miles
out from Chicago, on the Pan Handle road,
commenced village and business life about 1863. In 1867 "Keller Brothers," L.
and J. Keller, commenced business. They had a store and a mill. The first year
the amount of business transacted was about $7,000. It increased year by year
until it reached $133,000. Their place of business is now occupied by "Craig &
Kurtz," the house being called "Hardware, Furniture & Merchandise Co." Amount of
business in 1899, $50,000. Expecting to reach $100,000 in 1900. Have shipped in
one season two thousand bushels of huckleberries. The industries here are: 1. A
curl grass factory, said to be the only one in the State. The native grass is
twisted and curled into a form to be used in making mattresses. 2. A pickle
factory, J. Nichols, Manager, started about 1890. Some 25,000 bushels of
cucumbers used in a season. 3. A broom factory, to be changed into a different
factory. 4. A sugar beet factory in near prospect. Seven thousand acres desired
in an area with a radius of forty-five miles. 5. North Judson Brewery.
North Judson has four physicians: J. F. Noland, W. A. Noland, P. C. Enllerth, C.
Waddell; and one lawyer, S. Bybee. It has three drug stores, seven business
houses, two hotels. The brick school house, two stories and basement, built in
1896, cost $12,000. The churches are four: Catholic, Lutheran, M. E. and United
Brethren. Population one thousand; some estimate at twelve hundred.
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Besides the Pan Handle railroad, the Chicago & Erie passes through North Judson,
and also the Indiana, Illinois & Iowa, giving good
railroad facilities in different directions. Incorporated some ten or twelve
years ago.
It is located on sections 17 and 16, township 32, range 3.
San Pierre. Population 300. -- The station and town bearing the above name has
had an existence about forty-five years. It contains three stores and a few
other business houses. It has four churches: a Roman Catholic, a Lutheran, a
Methodist Episcopal, and an "Evangelical Association" church.
A brick and stone school house for 1899. Contracted to be built for $4,224.
The town is not specially growing. Location, northeast quarter of section 29,
township 32, range 4.
Next in size to North Judson among the towns of Starke, and next in enterprise
and growth, is Hamlet. For some time it was only a quiet little hamlet and a
station on the Fort Wayne railroad, but the Indiana,
Illinois & Iowa road lately went through it to South Bend, and this seems
to give it new life. The population is now estimated at four hundred. It is at
the center of section 24, township 34, range 2, six miles
from Knox.
Grover Town, on the Fort Wayne road, has not made as much advance in the last
five years as has Hamlet. It is on the northeast quarter of section 27, township
34, range 1. Number of inhabitants about two hundred. It has a United Brethren
church, a school house, and business houses.
Ora, in section 32, township 32, range 1, on the Chicago & Erie road, and close
to the south line of the
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county, is a young and growing village, with, perhaps two hundred inhabitants.
Between Ora and North Judson are two stations, Aldine and Alida, making nine
stations in Starke.
NAVIGATION OF
NORTHWESTERN INDIANA FROM 1800 TO 1900
FRONT MATTER AND DEDICATION
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
- GENERAL OUTLINES
CHAPTER 2
- THE INDIANS
CHAPTER 3
- THE EARLY SETTLERS
CHAPTER 4
- WHAT THE EARLY SETTLERS FOUND
CHAPTER 5
- PIONEER LIFE
CHAPTER 6
- COUNTY ORGANIZATIONS
CHAPTER 7
- OUR LAKES AND STREAMS
CHAPTER 8
- LAKE MICHIGAN WATER SHED
CHAPTER 9
- TOWNSHIP AND STATISTICS
CHAPTER
10 - RAILROAD LIFE
CHAPTER
11 - POLITICAL HISTORY
CHAPTER
12 - THE WAR RECORD
CHAPTER
13 - RELIGIOUS HISTORY
CHAPTER
14 - RELIGIOUS HISTORY
CHAPTER
15 - RELIGIOUS HISTORY
CHAPTER
16 - SUNDAY SCHOOLS
CHAPTER
17 - TOWNS AND VILLAGES OF NEWTON AND JASPER
CHAPTER
18 - TOWNS AND VILLAGES OF WHITE, PULASKI AND STARKE
CHAPTER
19 - VILLAGES, TOWNS AND CITIES OF LAKE
CHAPTER
20 - VILLAGES AND TOWNS OF PORTER
CHAPTER
21 - VILLAGES, TOWNS AND CITIES OF LA PORTE
CHAPTER
22 - EARLY TRAVELS
CHAPTER
23 - PUBLIC SCHOOLS
CHAPTER
24 - PRIVATE AND PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS
CHAPTER
25 - LIBRARIES
CHAPTER
26 - OTHER INDUSTRIES
CHAPTER
27 - SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS
CHAPTER
28 - THE KANKAKEE REGION
CHAPTER
29 - DRAINING MARSHES
CHAPTER
30 - ANIMALS AND PLANTS
CHAPTER
31 - MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS
CHAPTER
32 - COURT HOUSES
CHAPTER
33 - ARCHAEOLOGICAL SPECIMENS
CHAPTER
34 - BIRTH PLACES OF PIONEERS
CHAPTER
35 - McCARTY
CHAPTER
36 - ATTEMPTS TO CHANGE
CHAPTER
37 - ALTITUDES
CHAPTER
38 - MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS
CHAPTER
39 - SOME STATISTICS
CHAPTER
40 - WEATHER RECORD
CONCLUSION
Transcribed by Steven R. Shook, April 2012