History of Lake, Porter, and LaPorte, 1927County history published by the Historians' Association . . . .
Source Citation:
Cannon, Thomas H., H. H. Loring, and Charles J. Robb. 1927.
History of
the Lake and Calumet Region of Indiana, Embracing the Counties of Lake,
Porter and LaPorte: An Historical Account of Its People and Its Progress
from the Earliest Times to the Present.
Volume I. Indianapolis, Indiana: Historians' Association. 840 p.
HISTORY OF THE LAKE AND CALUMET REGION OF INDIANA
CHAPTER I.
GEOLOGY AND TOPOGRAPHY.
GEOLOGICAL FORMATION -- GLACIAL PERIOD -- TERMINAL MORAINE -- VALPARAISO
MORAINE -- ELEVATION AND DRAINAGE.
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The geology of the Lake and Calumet Region of Indiana to which section this narrative is devoted, shows upon the surface in places fragments of limestone, crinoids and other traces of the Silurian Age but these were brought from regions far to the North during the Glacial Period, and with the exception of parts of Lake County which below the drift show Upper Silurian limestones, this area belongs to the Devonian Age. Beginning during the Newer Pliocene and terminating below the close of the Post Pliocene Age, occurred the Glacial Period, during which the territory in the now North Temperate Zone had an area of the most intense cold, as severe as now exists in the polar regions. The ever falling, never melting snow accumulated into enormous ice formations during the hundreds of centuries of this period, the bottom of the ice mass being a plastic, porous sort of ice formed from the snow by the pressure from above.
The great ice mass which was formed in the regions South and East of Hudson Bay, started on a slow almost imperceptible motion to the South and Southwest, and as it moved thus onward, great masses of partly decayed rock and clay from hill sides and jutting cliff s rolled down upon it and were carried on and on until by the melting of the mass they were deposited hundreds of miles from the places in which they were gathered. Large irregular masses of rocks from the region in which the glaciers were formed were either frozen to its nether portions or rolled along beneath it, and as the ice sheet moved they served as great stone drags grinding down and smoothing off the hills and ridges until the irregular, uneven surface of the old pre-glacial rocks was planed and polished. In many places these imprisoned rocks cut deep scratches or grooves-the so-called "Glacial Striae" -- in the surface ledges over which they passed. These grooves, or furrows, to the geologist are excellent proof
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of the direction in which the glacier moved. From these striae and other evidences it is now believed that there were several distinct epochs in the glacial period and that Arctic conditions did not prevail unintermittently during all this time in the area covered by the glacier, but that the earlier of these divisions of the Glacial Period was the colder and more severe and the great ice sheet which was first formed reached the extreme Southern bound. As the temperature changed in the region which it entered, the ice mass receded and advanced several times, its retreat or recession being each time as gradual as its advance had been. Its advancing margin was naturally not a straight line, but in lobes or long gradual curves, until the permanent change to a higher temperature in the now North Temperate latitudes completely dissolved it near the close of the Glacial Period.
TERMINAL MORAINE.
Whenever a glacier had reached the limits of its advance and there halted a sufficient length of time, the ice melting, left behind it as a deposit immense boulders which it had gathered in its journey Southward as well as vast accumulations of clay, sand and gravel, and this glacial drift is known as a Terminal Moraine. The great thickness of the ice sheet which covered Indiana and the vast accumulation of the drift which it carried, resulted in a general deposit of drift over the entire State from thirty to three hundred feet in thickness when the ice mass finally dissolved. The deep erosion of the surface North of Indiana from the action of the glaciers gave birth to the Great Lakes. As showing the great value to Indiana of this immense layer of drift we quote from Mr. B. F. Taylor's graphic description of the ice sheet at the time of its greatest advance into the region now comprising Indiana and neighboring sister states: “It is hard to think of Indiana as being clothed in such a shroudlike mantle as this but it was in large part this same ice sheet coming perhaps four or five times in succession that covered the State with the inexhaustible soil of the drift and made Indiana the fertile agricultural State she is today.”
VALPARAISO MORAINE.
The City of Valparaiso in Porter County stands near the crest of a Terminal Moraine, which has been given the name of the “Valparaiso Moraine.” In a bulletin of the Chicago Academy of Science published in 1897, Mr. Frank Leverett gave the results of his investigations of this “Moraine,” which he traced southward from the boundary line between Illinois and Wisconsin through Lake MacHenry, Cook, DePage [DuPage], and Will counties in Illinois. In Will County it turned southeastwardly and enters Indiana where its course gradually turns to the northeast crossing Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties into Michigan, where it has been definitely
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traced as far as Montcalm County. In the third annual report of the United States Geological Survey (1883), Dr. Chamberlain says: “It may be likened in a general manner to an immense ‘U’, embracing the Great Lake between its arms. This gigantic loop is over two hundred miles in length and from ninety to one hundred and fifty miles in width. The parallelism of the Moraine to the lake shore is one of its most striking features.” As would be expected from its origin, the Valparaiso Moraine is of varying width with irregular surface and broken occasionally by some creek. Where it crosses the western boundary of Porter County from Lake County, the Moraine is about fifteen miles wide, but where it enters LaPorte County on the eastern boundary of Porter County it is only about five miles in width.
As the topography of the Morainic belt in Porter County is much more varied than other sections, a description of this part of the belt will give its most distinguished characteristics, and we quote from the Lewis “History of Porter County” as follows: “North and West of Hebron there are a number of high ridges composed chiefly of clay and covered for the most part with timber. Then comes Horse Prairie, a high undulatory region, which covers the greater part of the south half of Porter Township. On this prairie are a number of boulders of large size, showing evidences of the glacial origin of this portion of the county. North of Horse Prairie a stiff clayish sub-soil is found near the surf ace, and a timbered area begins which covers the north half of Porter and the south half of Union townships. The subsoil over the greater part of this area is a whitish clay. Along the crest of the Moraine this section is much broken by ridges. The north part of Union Township is chiefly sandy subsoil. A spur of the Moraine about two miles in width extends into Portage Township and includes a portion of Twenty Mile Prairie.
In the western part of Center Township the Moraine begins to show more prominently and to assume distinctive glacial characteristics. Here there are a number of high ridges intersecting each other at various angles and presenting a broken surface. The component materials of these ridges, where exposed, consist principally of stiff yellow clay and limestone pebbles angular in form and little worn by the action of water. In Liberty Township the north slope of the Moraine is much narrower and more abrupt than in any other part of its course in Porter County. One standing near the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, about two miles west of Woodville and looking southward across a small tributary of Salt Lake, may get a fine view of the Morainic hills which here rise to a height of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet above the surrounding county. Further to the eastward the irregularities of the surface are strongly marked and in Jackson township, especially in sections thirteen, fourteen and fifteen, there are to be seen many of the features of a typical unmodified terminal Moraine. Subordinate ridges branch off from the
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main one in all directions; the largest boulders along the Moraine are found in this vicinity and are so plentiful that the farmers have used them in the construction of fences; numerous rounded depressions are seen, some of them embracing more than an acre in extent and alternately with these depressions are corresponding rounded knolls of the depressions.”
W. S. Blatchley, State Geologist, in his report for 1897, says “these knobs and basins as they are called, owe their peculiar formation to the irregular deposition of the glacial debris, there probably having been a great isolated mass of ice embedded in the debris where each basin now exists. By its melting a cavity was left which was separated by a mass of drift material from a somewhat similar cavity where another ice mass had been embedded. The shape and size of each cavity or basin depends upon the shape and size of the ice block and the amount of drift originally covering it. Where an impervious bed of clay was left or has accumulated in the bottom of the basin, the latter often fills with water and a small lake results. Eliza, Quinn, Flint, Long, Bull's Eye, and Clear Lakes in Porter County are examples of the type of small lake formed as above described. In as much as the lakes above mentioned lie near the crest of the Moraine and depend largely upon rainfall as a source of supply, and having only a very small timbered or other area for a water shed, these lakes may eventually disappear, as the cutting away of the timber and the draining of the land means gradually diminishing lake water.
ELEVATION AND DRAINAGE.
Prof. Blatchley gives Lake Michigan an altitude of 600 feet above sea level and the crest of the Moraine lies from 225 feet to 300 feet above the level of Lake Michigan. Frank Leverett of the United States Geological survey is quoted as follows: “The Moraine rises very abruptly on its northwest border above the low plain which lies between it and Lake Michigan, but on its southeast border a gravel out-wash from the Moraine is built up near to the level on the crest and the descent is gradual from the Moraine to the Kankakee marsh. The marsh stands fully 100 feet above Lake Michigan in Eastern LaPorte County and about 75 feet above Lake Michigan at the western border of the county. The Kankakee marsh therefore is 150 feet to 200 feet or more below the crest of the Moraine. The gravel plain makes a descent of 75 feet or 100 feet in the interval of eight or ten miles between the Moraine and the marsh.
With the exception of the Calumet and Kankakee rivers, all the streams of consequence have their source near the crest of the Moraine or divide. Those having their source north of the divide flowing northerly into Lake Michigan and thence into the Atlantic Ocean by way of the St. Lawrence, while those streams having their source on the south side of the divide
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flow in a south or southwesterly direction to reach the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico eventually, by way of the Kankakee River and other streams. Salt Creek, however, is one exception, as it rises in Morgan township and flows in a northwesterly direction and pierces the divide near Emmettsburg, emptying into the Calumet River.
NAVIGATION OF
HISTORY OF THE LAKE AND CALUMET REGION OF INDIANA
FOREWARD
AN APPRECIATION
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I - Geology and Topography
CHAPTER II - The Mound Builders
CHAPTER III - Days of Indian Occupancy
CHAPTER IV - Early Explorations
CHAPTER V - Border Warfare
CHAPTER VI - Lake and Calumet Region Becomes Part of United States
CHAPTER VII - After Wayne and Greenville - Tecumseh and the Prophet
CHAPTER VIII - Indian Peace
CHAPTER IX - Early Settlements and Pioneers - County Organization
CHAPTER X - Townships - Towns - Villages
CHAPTER XI - Pioneer Life
CHAPTER XII - The Lake Michigan Marshes
CHAPTER XIII - Agriculture and Livestock
CHAPTER XIV - Military Annals
CHAPTER XV - The Lake and Calumet Region in the World War
CHAPTER XVI - The Newspapers
CHAPTER XVII - The Medical Profession
CHAPTER XVIII - The Bench and Bar in the Lake and Calumet Region
CHAPTER XIX - Churches
CHAPTER XX - Schools
CHAPTER XXI - Libraries
CHAPTER XXII - Social Life
CHAPTER XXIII - The Dunes of Northwestern Indiana
CHAPTER XXIV - Banks and Banking
CHAPTER XXV - Transportation and Waterways
CHAPTER XXVI - Cities
CHAPTER XXVII - Industrial Development
CHAPTER XXVIII - Chambers of Commerce
Transcribed by Steven R. Shook, December 2022