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
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CHAPTER XXII.
EARLY TRAVELS.
In a little book of seventy-two pages, called "Journal of
Travels, Adventures, and Remarks, of Jerry Church," printed at Harrisburg, 1845,
belonging to E. W. Dinwiddie, of Plum Grove, some interesting statements
concerning a few of our localities are found. The writer, Jeremiah Church, born
in Brainbridge, New York, evidently very eccentric and an adventurer, as he
himself allows, spent many years, apparently between 1820 and 1835 or 1840 in
various adventures and speculations in the then West and in the South.
He appears to have been honest in his dealings and truthful in his narratives. A
little confusion exists in his dates where he gives 1830 after he has given as
the year 1831. Considering the latter the correct date, some extracts
from the journal are now quoted. In company with
his brother he had been speculating in lands at Ottawa, in Illinois, laying out
town lots on government land, and he says: "We then prepared to leave, and hired
a man with a yoke of black oxen and a wagon, to take us to Chicago, distant
eighty miles, which we travelled in two days and a half -- two nights camped
out. At last we arrived in front of a hotel, in the City of Chicago (which at
that time contained about half a dozen houses, and the balance
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Indian wigwams), with our ox stage. We stayed there a
week or two with the French and Indians, and enjoyed ourselves very well. We
then took passage in a wagon that was going to Michigan through the Indian
country, without any road. We followed round the beach of the lake; camped out
the first night and slept on a bed of sand. The next morning we came to an old
Frenchman's house, who had a squaw for a wife. They had three daughters, and
beautiful girls they were, and entertained us very well. My brother almost fell
in love with one of the fellow's girls, and I had hard work to persuade him
along any farther. He told me that he thought he felt a good deal like 'an Ingen,'
and if he had an 'Ingen gal' for his wife, he thought he could be one. However,
I persuaded him to travel on."
This place seems evidently to have been Baillytown, although the Porter County
annalist assigns to this family "four beautiful and accomplished daughters"
named Eleanor, Frances, Rose, Hortense.
The journal continues: "We went on through the Pottawatomie nation until we came
to a place called the door-prairie. There we stopped and tried to buy a piece of
land for the purpose of laying out a town at that place. We could not get any
title but an Indian one, and we concluded that would not do, so we travelled
on." They reached Detroit at length, "a very beautiful place."
This singular traveller and adventurer went back from
Detroit after a little time with a man who had a horse and wagon, and he
says: "We travelled the same road that my brother and I had travelled * * * so
that in our route we came to the old Frenchman's house where the Indian girls
were, and
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as my brother was not with me, I concluded that I would play 'Ingen' awhile
myself."
They staid three days, by permission of the family, rested, hunted, and then
made a new start for Chicago. According to the journal "It was fifty miles
from the old Frenchman's house to the Callamink
where the first white man lived on the road. He had a half-breed Indian wife and
kept the ferry across the Callamink River at its mouth." They expected to reach
his house the first day, but their horse was tired out. They camped, sleeping in
a broken canoe, and reached the ferry at ten the next day. Jerry Church was
almost famished. No food was to be had till a wagon returned
from the town. He shot a blackbird. The woman
cooked it and made him some coffee. He made out a breakfast. The man would take
no pay, but be gave the woman a dollar, and they went on to Chicago.
Business soon again took him back to the door-prairie, and on his return to
Chicago he took a slightly different route. He says, "I was then about twelve
miles from the Dismaugh Creek, which empties into
the Michigan lake where Michigan City now stands. That was in the year 1830."
This narrative is evidently trustworthy, but this date should surely be 1831. He
now had a horse and peddler's wagon or carriage, and a young man and the young
man's sister wished to go through with him to Chicago. The sister was on
horseback, the two men in the wagon or carriage. "The first day we cleared a
road and got down near to the lake and encamped." So the journal reads. To the
young lady the carriage was given for a "bed room," and the two men slept under
it. The next day they went on. "We struck the lake
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where Michigan City now stands, ours being the first carriage of any kind that
had been there; and there was not a white man living within twelve miles of the
place at that time. We then took the beach and followed it to Chicago. We had to
camp out three nights." So this time he avoided or missed Baillytown.
Yet once more this peculiar man, Jerry Church, peddler, trader, speculator,
showman, town and city founder, crossed this strip of then new country. He and
his brother were now at Indianapolis. There they traded for three town lots.
Then they bought a "cream-colored horse and a small red, square box wagon * * *
and took the national road for Michigan lake, the mud about two feet deep, and
as black as tar."
"We travelled through a pleasant part of the State of
Indiana, so far as land is concerned, until we arrived at Michigan City,
situate on the lake shore, where three years before I had slept under the wagon,
and the young lady who was with us slept in it. There were no inhabitants within
nine miles of it at that time, and now it was a considerable town, and called a
city." As in August, 1833, the first log cabin, so far as known, was built in
Michigan City, this visit must have been in 1834 rather than in 1833, and so the
conjecture that 1830, as the date of the first carriage track made there, should
be 1831 is confirmed.
Misprints in dates are by no means uncommon. One more extract, as again Michigan
City is a starting point. "We there took the beach of the Michigan lake and
followed it to Chicago, and there we found a large town built up in three years;
for it was only three years since we were there with the black oxen
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and wagon, and at that time (1831) there were but half a
dozen houses in the place." And here, in 1834, we will leave this singular man,
Jeremiah Church, and his interesting journal.
Having found a peculiar traveller crossing, in 1831, the strip of land bordering
on Lake Michigan from Chicago to Detroit, and
from Detroit back to Chicago; then again,
from Chicago to Door Prairie and back once more to
Chicago and then, in 1834, from Michigan City to
Chicago: next in the order of time come, "Travels of James H. Luther in 1834,
1835, and 1836."
He is writing for "Lake County, 1884," and he says, "The northern extremity of
Lake County had a history before the central and southern portions were hardly
known." He refers to travel "along the beach of Lake Michigan"
from Detroit to Fort Dearborn before 1834, and
then, in 1834, his own narrative begins. It is so graphic and so illustrative of
pioneer life that it does not seem suitable to condense it.
He says: "I, in company with the Cutler boys of La Porte County, travelled with
ox teams upon the beach from near where
Indiana City was afterwards built to Chicago, and
Fox River, Illinois, which was then called the Indian country, was unsurveyed,
and occupied by Aborigines. Our object was to make claims and secure farms. I
was then nineteen years old."
This must have been sometime in 1834. "We returned in the spring of 1835 for
teams and supplies. After the grass had grown so that our cattle could subsist
upon it, we, with an elderly gentleman from
Virginia, by the name of Gillilan, who had a large
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family of girls, three horses, a 'schooner wagon' filled
full, started west, and this time struck the beach at Michigan City. Our first
camp was on the beach where, back of the sand ridge, were extensive marsh lands
with abundant grass, upon which we turned our cattle consisting of eight yoke of
oxen and one cow." In the morning, when hunting up their oxen, one was missing.
They found him mired in the marsh and "almost out of sight." They succeeded in
getting his legs out of the mire and then rolled him about five rods to ground
upon which he could stand.
The narrative proceeds. "We only made about three miles on our way that day. We
finally reached the Calumet, now South Chicago, without further accident * * *
and went into camp. That region was then all a common with plenty of feed. A
small ferry was then used there by the single inhabitant living on the north
side of the river in a log cabin. After considering the matter well and
consulting with the ferryman, we concluded to drive into the lake below and go
round the river on the sand bar. After studying and getting our bearings we
hitched our friend's lead horse before the ox teams and I, as pilot, led the
way, and succeeded in getting the ox teams nicely over. Our Virginia friend and
family came next. They had never seen so large a body of water before, and were
very timid in spite of all. The only danger was in getting too near the river,
not in getting too far into the lake. I hitched on to them and started in. They
were scared and screamed, and begged me to get nearer land, which I presume I
did, and the wheels began to sink in the softer sand near the river and we were
stalled. The boys on the other side hastened to us. I dismounted into the cold
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liquid to my armpits; could hardly keep the precious freight aboard our wagon.
But the oxen came, were hitched on, and my horse to lead, and we pulled out all
safe and well pleased. This was exciting, but we boys feared nothing, but it was
awful to our Virginia friends. But they soon cooled off, settled on a claim near
ours, and were happy * * * I drove teams between Chicago and La Porte up to the
fall of 1836 and did not know of any other way but via the beach."
"I have not travelled along that beach since 1836, but in the spring of 1837, I
started from Valparaiso for Milwaukee * * *
intending to take the usual beach route, but missed it, and came upon what my
friend, Bartlett Woods, speaks of as the
'ever-to-be-remembered-by-those-who-crossed-it,' Long Bridge over the Calumet
River, at the mouth of Salt Creek, built of logs and covered with poles * * * I
had far more fear in crossing this than I had in getting around the mouth of the
Calumet River."
This rather remarkable bridge he thinks was built by Porter and Lake counties in
1836. His father, James Luther, he says, was the commissioner of Porter County
for building it. Constructed, he says, of logs and covered with poles, it was
commonly called the Long Pole Bridge, and many probably, supposed that nothing
but poles entered into its construction. G. A. Garard says it was sixty-four
rods long.
In the same spring of 1837, James H. Luther returned from
Chicago to Porter County by stage, and the line of travel which he gives
as the stage route at that time was, "along the lake banks" "to the Calumet,
which we ferried, thence to the Calumet again where Hammond now is, * * * thence
the road
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ran on between the Grand and Little Calumet rivers via Baillytown * * * to
Michigan City."
Besides the beach route which was evidently the earliest between Michigan City
and Chicago, the traces yet remain of the two other routes of travel in the days
of those early stages; the one passing not far from
the present Hessville; the other, south of the Little Calumet, by way of
the Pole Bridge and the early Liverpool, along that grand sand ridge where now
are Highland and Munster. Old roadways, unless plowed over and over, leave their
traces for many long years.
The next interesting record of travel along one of these lines is of a trip made
by James Adams in 1837.
"In the year 1835 James Adams passed through Liverpool on his way to Chicago or
Fort Dearborn. He returned in the winter to Michigan. In January, 1837, during
the Patriot's War in Canada, he was sent by Governor Mason and General Brady,
from Detroit to Chicago, as messenger
extraordinary to obtain soldiers from Fort
Dearborn to aid in the defense of Detroit. There was, it may be remembered, a
stage route then between these two places. The sleighing was at this time good.
Warmly clad, furnished by General Brady with a pair of good fur gloves,
receiving instructions to make the distance in twenty-four hours, if possible,
he left Detroit at 4 p. m., in a sleigh drawn by a good stage horse. At each
stopping place, the distance between being about twelve or fifteen miles, he
gave the attending hostler a few moments for changing his horse, requiring the
best horse in the stable, and dashed on. At 8 p. m., of the next day he entered
Chicago; thus making the distance in twenty-eight hours, probably the shortest
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time in which a man ever passed over that route drawn by horse power. He
delivered his instructions to Captain Jamison, who chartered the stagecoaches
and sent the soldiers immediately to Detroit. J. Adams was allowed to remain off
duty for four weeks."
He was at this time a regular stage driver on the line
from Detroit to Chicago, and well did he know the road. Distance, 284
miles.
Note: Both James H. Luther and James Adams were for many years well known
citizens of Lake County, the former having been county auditor
from 1861 to 1869.
In 1837 I crossed that long pole bridge as many as five times, passing
from City West into Lake County and returning to
City West. T. H. B.
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