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 XXXIV.

BIRTH PLACES OF THE PIONEERS.

It is risky to make sweeping statements, especially where the statement implies more knowledge than most men have or can have. As an illustration, in the history of Indiana by Goodrich and Tuttle, one of the standard State histories, it is said, on page 447, referring to the trial and execution of a man for murdering some Indians, "Such was the result of the first case on record in America where a white man was hung for killing an Indian." Again, on page 449, mentioning two more men who were tried and executed for having part in the same murder it is added. "Thus ended the only trial where convictions of murder were ever had, followed by the execution of white men for killing Indians in the United States."

To make such statements is assuming a large amount of knowledge. Now, whoever will look into Martyn's excellent history of the Pilgrim Fathers, pages 371, 372, will there find that in 1636 a lone Indian, a trader, but an Indian, was murdered by some white men, and that "three of the murderers were caught, tried at Plymouth, found guilty and hung."

And so sure was such strict justice administered by those noble men, the Pilgrims, that Martyn says: "It was as certain death to kill an Indian in the forests of America, as to slay a noble in the crowded

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streets of London." Such facts, in studying the history of their state, the children of Indiana ought to know.

But another illustration of the danger of missing accuracy in these sweeping statements, and one bearing on the subject of this chapter, is taken from "The Indianian," a high class, illustrated, monthly magazine, published at Indianapolis. This is from the April number of 1899, in an article on Henry County.

"The early settlers of Indiana, in every part, were mainly from the South, coming from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Here and there would be a family from Pennsylvania, and occasionally one from New England, but the great majority were from the South." The sweeping clause in this is, "in every part." The writer certainly had not penetrated into the Northwestern part. If he had said, "in most parts of the State," it would have done very well, "in many parts" would have been still better; but "in every part" was more than he knew.

As giving the birth place of "early settlers," some of the New England families will here be named who made their homes in Lake County. Commencing in the center of the county may be first named Solon Robinson, a native of Connecticut; then the Holton families from Massachusetts and Vermont, the Wells family and Mrs. Eddy, and Luman A. Fowler, from Massachusetts originally; W. R. Williams, the Sherman family, (Mrs. Calista Sherman, born in Vermont in 1789, having fifty-two descendants living in 1884), and another Holton family descendants of Dr. Ira Holton, and Mrs. Roselinda Holton, a sister of Mrs. Sherman, all New Englanders. Then the large Wheeler family; and indeed the early Crown Point

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was mostly of New England blood. Going out
from Crown Point, among others, the following pioneer New England families are found: The family of John Wood on Deep River; the Humphrey and Woodbridge families on Eagle Creek Prairie; the Ball and Warriner families at the Lake of the Red Cedars; and the large Taylor, Edgerton and Palmer families, whose descendants are now the large Creston community, all of New England origin. Again, there may be named the Kenney families of Orchard Grove from Maine; the Warner families from Connecticut; the Saxton family of Merrillville, having still a conch shell brought here by the pioneer, Ebenezer Saxton, which shell, according to their family tradition, came over in the May Flower. James Farwell and family from Vermont, also John Bothwell; George Willey and Charles Marvin from Connecticut originally; Elijah Morton from Vermont; the Spaulding family and yet others of New England descent. Not to mention the later "New Hampshire Settlement" in the center of Lake Prairie, not to mention the Towle families and others in the city of Hammond, in the early days New England families and "York-Yankees" were well scattered over Lake County.

Solon Robinson, the authority for Lake County in its earliest years, stating what it had become in 1847, says: That there were then in the county about fifty frame houses, five churches, two brick dwelling houses, two brick offices, and one small out building, these the only brick buildings then in the county and these at Crown Point, and four or five stores in the county; and then he adds: "Majority of the inhabitants Yorkers and Yankees. About one hundred

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German families, fifteen or twenty Irish, about twelve English."

Going now to La Porte County, General Packard, an authority for that county, says: "The first settlers in Michigan City arrived in 1833, and it may readily be presumed that they found few attractions to welcome them. To their view there was presented only sand hills and swamps. Hoosier Slide towered up many feet higher than now, * * * and further back across the creek that passed through the woods, * * * a low, wet, swampy tract of country occupied all the locality." But in imagination, discouraging as the prospect was, they saw a harbor and a city destined to be there. A town was started. Its growth in 1834, 1835, and 1836, was astonishingly rapid. There were hotels and business houses, and W. D. Woodward, who came in 1836, says that there were then nearly three thousand inhabitants.

"At the end of 1836, besides the numerous warehouses and commission and forwarding houses, there were twelve dry goods stores." And the first log cabin, so far as is known, had been built in August, 1833. And now General Packard speaks of the early settlers, "They who first peopled Michigan City were pushing, active, intelligent, and enterprising men. Some of them became the heaviest business men at that time in the State. They were chiefly from the eastern States; and with them, to suggest a business enterprise was to see it accomplished."

Surely the writer in "The Indianian" had not examined the early settlement of the northwestern corner of Indiana. It cannot be said accurately that the early settlers here were "mainly" from "Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and the Carolinas."

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While just credit is given to what Southern families did come here, the enterprise and energy and industry that have made this region what now it is, came "mainly" from New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Holland, Sweden, and Norway.

Note. -- When in 1835 Abijah R. Bigelow settled in La Porte County, in Clinton township, "he brought a small colony with him who were mostly Canadians."

East of Hebron, in Porter County, was a neighborhood of early settlers called Yankee Town.

Furthermore, in regard to the settlers of La Porte County, Professor Cox, State Geologist, in his report for 1873, says: "Though a few French were numbered among the first settlers, the greater portion of the present population trace their ancestry to New York, Pennsylvania, and New England, and retain in a marked degree the characteristic habits, thrift and energy of their ancestors."

From the enrollment of the Old Settlers' Association of La Porte County it appears that of the constituent members, in number 108, there were born in Indiana 18, in Pennsylvania 12, in New England 12, in Ohio 18, in New York 19, in the South 19, in England 2, and in Scotland, Ireland, Spain, District of Columbia, New Jersey, Illinois, and Madeira Island, one each, and one with no birth place given, making 69 from the eastward as against 19 from the South, not counting those born in Indiana and Illinois, which would make 19 more, or as many as came from the South.

And yet further, from a careful examination of the full enrollment of more than seven hundred members, it has been found that at least 92 of the early

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settlers were born in New England, 150 in New York, 53 in Pennsylvania, 109 in Ohio, 34 in various eastern places, 161 in Indiana, and 111 in the South, making 438 from the east as against 111 from the South, not counting those born in Indiana.

The early settlers of southern Indiana, probably of Central Indiana, were no doubt quite largely from the South, and some of them brought their slaves with them, and held on to them for years; but quite surely Northern Indiana, and especially the north tier of counties, was not settled up that way, and slaves, as such, could not have lived so near to what was in those days the line of freedom. In this latitude, of forty-one and a half degrees, were some of the most northern stations of that once noted Under Ground Railroad.

Evidence is not at hand for giving the birth places of pioneers south of the river; but some were from the east, some from the south, and some from Europe. 

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

 

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