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 VI.
COUNTY ORGANIZATIONS.
1. By an act of
the Indiana Legislature, approved January 9, 1832, a certain area was to be from
and after April 1, 1832, known as La Porte County. This area, according to the
copy of the act examined, was thus described: "Beginning at the State line which
divides the State of Indiana and Michigan Territory, and at the northwest corner
of township number thirty-eight north, range number four west of the [second]
principal meridian, thence running east with said State line to the center of
range number one west of said meridian; thence south twenty-two miles; thence
west, parallel with said State line, twenty-one miles; thence north to the place
of beginning." The northwest corner of La Porte County, it thus appears, like
that of the State, is in Lake Michigan, and it also appears that the Legislature
formed into a county some land, a strip twelve miles in width which had not then
been purchased from the Indians. Since that time an addition has been made to
the southern part of the county and a small area has been added on the east, so
that now the Kankakee River forms most of the southern and a part of the eastern
boundary.
Commissioners of the new county were soon elected, Chapel W. Brown, Jesse
Morgan, and Elijah H. Brown; also George Thomas was elected clerk, and Benjamin
McCarty, sheriff. The commissioners
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met May 28, 1832. They divided the county into three townships, and made of each
a commissioner's district.
A Circuit Court, probably in 1832, commenced its jurisdiction and its sessions.
The judges until 1851, when the new Constitution was adopted, were: Gustavus A.
Evarts, Samuel C. Sample, John B. Niles, Ebenezer M. Chamberlain, and Robert
Lowry.
In 1833 Benjamin McCarty was probate judge.
No record of the proceedings of the first court have been found for this work,
but for some sixty-eight years civil and criminal cases have been disposed of,
year by year, for the most part, it is to be hoped, not only according to law
but equity.
The judges of the La Porte Circuit, after 1851 to 1880, were: Judges Stanfield,
Dewitt, Osborn, Stanfield, and Noyes.
2. Next, as to its organization, in the order of time, was White County,
organized by act of the Legislature July 19, 1834. On that day county
commissioners already appointed met at the house of George A. Spencer, and
formed four townships and three commissioners' districts. These townships were
called Prairie, Big Creek, Jackson, and Union. Elections for justices of the
peace, those necessary officers in civil government, were ordered to be held at
the houses of William Woods, George A. Spencer, Daniel Dale, and M. Gray, in
August, 1834.
On September 5, 1834, the county seat was located by three commissioners, and,
evidently remembering Thomas Jefferson as the early American "sage," the place
was named Monticello. The first term of the White County Circuit Court was held
in October, 1834, at the house of George A. Spencer.
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Only the associate judges were "on the bench." The sheriff was Aaron Hicks;
clerk, William Sill. No cases were tried. Business postponed till the April term
in 1835. John R. Porter was then present as presiding judge. Seven indictments
were returned. One was for retailing intoxicating drink to Indians; one for
illegally marking hogs; and one for setting fire to a prairie.
In these years were three judges, two called associate or side judges, and
these, having little to do, were not required to be lawyers or to have much
knowledge of law. Their opinions as to justice and right were of value.
The county thus commencing its civil life was named after Colonel Isaac White,
an Illinois soldier, who was killed in the noted battle of Tippecanoe. Its area
is five hundred and four square miles. There were, at its first settlement, oak
openings; some timber land; and, in the southwestern part, prairie. It contained
some limestone rock, and some shale of what the geologists call the Devonian
age, and "underlying lime rock of the upper Silurian." The fall of the
Tippecanoe River is said to be about four feet to a mile, and the river
furnishes much water power, as well as containing many fish.
3. The third of these counties to have a civil organization was Porter, over the
area of which as well as of that which became Lake County, the county
commissioners of La Porte County seem to have exercised some jurisdiction,
having in March, 1835, divided it into three townships, Waverly and Morgan
extending to the center of range six, and Ross including all that lay west of
the line running through the center of range six. These commissioners also or-
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dered an election at that same time to be held in these
townships. In the returns of this election, for Ross Township, one Lake County
name is found, William B. Crooks, receiving twenty-eight votes for justice of
the peace. George Cline in Morgan Township for the same office received
twenty-six votes, and in Waverly, Elijah Casteel, eleven. So that, in some sort,
civil government commenced in 1835 in what became Porter and also Lake County.
(In 1837 William B. Crooks was elected an associate judge for Lake County,)
By an act of the State Legislature it was enacted, that after February 1, 1836,
a certain "tract of country" should "constitute the county of Porter," thus
defined: "Commencing at the northwest corner of La Porte County, thence running
south to the Kankakee River, thence west with the bed of said river to the
center of range 7, thence north to the State line, thence east to the place of
beginning." It is not said, north to Lake Michigan, but to the "State line."
At the same session it was enacted, in the same act, that "all that part of the
country that lies north of the Kankakee River and west of the county of Porter
within the State of Indiana, shall form and
constitute a new county" to be called Lake.
As sheriff for Porter County Benjamin Saylor was appointed, and an election for
county officers was held February 23, 1836, twenty-six votes were that day cast
at the house of William Gossett, fifty-five at the house of Isaac Morgan,
twenty-four at the house of Morris Wilson, thirty-five at the house of John
Spurlock, and forty at the house of J. G. Jackson.
Elected as county commissioners were: John Safford, Benjamin N. Spencer, and
Noah Fouts;
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county clerk, George W. Turner; recorder, Cyrus
Spurlock; associate judges, L. G. Jackson and James Blair.
The commissioners met April 12, 1836, and divided the county into ten townships.
At that term they also ordered elections in each township for justices, and
appointed three assessors, one John Adams, was for the attached territory, Ross
Township or Lake County.
In June, 1836, the county seat of Porter County was located by three
commissioners appointed by the State Legislature. They selected a place called
Portersville at that time, where town lots had been laid off, but where no house
had then been built. This paper town was on the "southwest quarter of section
24, township 35 north, range 6 west," owned by Benjamin McCarty. This proposed
town was represented at that time by the Portersville Land Company, of which
Benjamin McCarty, Enoch [S.] McCarty, John Walker, William Walker, James
Laughlin, John Saylor, Abram A. Hall, and J. F. D. Lanier were members.
"How the land company had its origin is now a matter of conjecture." "Whether
the other members of the company bought their shares from
Benjamin McCarty, or whether they were a gift to them in order to secure
their influence, is not known."* Benjamin McCarty, who had been probate judge in
La Porte County, who was afterwards prominent in Lake County, was fortunate in
securing land in the center of the county.
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*Rev. Robert Beer in "Porter and Lake," 1882.
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In October, 1836, was held the first Porter County court, presiding judge,
Samuel C. Sample.* This court was held in the house of John Saylor, in the new
county seat, where before the year, 1836, closed, there were, it is said, eight
houses, some made of logs and some small frame buildings.
4. Next in the order of organization was the County of Lake, already named by
the Legislature, and declared by an act of Legislature January 18, 1837, to be
an independent county after February 15, 1837,
Lake County, therefore, commenced its independent, organic existence February
16, 1837. March 8, Henry Wells was commissioned as sheriff, and an election for
county officers was held March 28. As illustrating the mail facilities of those
days it is on record that "a special messenger, John Russell, was sent to
Indianapolis to obtain the appointment of a sheriff and authority to hold an
election. He made the trip on foot and outstripped the mail.**
Officers elected March 28, 1837: --
William Clark and William B. Crooks, associate judges; Amsi L.
Ball, Stephen P. Stringham, Thomas Wiles,
commissioners; W. A. W. Holton, recorder; Solon Robinson, clerk; John Russell,
assessor.
The county had been divided into three townships, North, Center, and South,
before its organization; justices of the peace were elected for each township;
"In North Township, Peyton Russell; in Center, Horace Taylor, at Cedar Lake,
Milo Robinson; and in the South, F. W. Bryant. At the August election,
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*Solon Robinson was a juror.
**Lake County, 1872.
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Luman A. Fowler was chosen for sheriff and Robert Wilkinson for probate judge.*
In October of this year the first county circuit court was held by Judge Sample
and Associate Judge Clark. A log building, designed for a court house, and long
afterward used for that and other purposes, was built in the summer of 1837 by
Solon Robinson and his brother, Milo Robinson. In 1839 commissioners appointed,
as was customary, by the Legislature, located the county seat at Liverpool, on
Deep River, in the northwestern part of the
county, on section 24, township 36, range 8, about three miles
from the county line and four
from Lake Michigan. Dr. Calvin Lilley, on the
northeast bank of the Red Cedar Lake, and Solon Robinson, at his village, named
at first Lake Court House, had both been applicants, along with George Earle, of
Liverpool, for the location. There was so much dissatisfaction among the
settlers at the idea of having their county seat in a corner of the county, that
a new location was ordered.
In the meantime Dr. Lilley died, and his place came into the hands of Judge
Benjamin McCarty, who had been successful in giving a county seat location to
Porter County, and was now, with his large family, a resident in Lake. He laid
off town lots, called his home town West Point, and was against Solon Robinson a
competitor for the new location. But he was not now in the center of the new
county, Solon Robinson was; and the commissioners, Jesse Tomlinson and Edward
Moore, of Marion County, Henry Barclay, of Pulaski, Joshua Lindsey, of White,
and Daniel Doale, of Carroll County, determined
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*There were two pioneers named Robert Wilkinson. T. H. B.
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that this time the location should be in the center of the county. They
therefore located the county seat at Lake Court House, which soon after took the
name of Crown Point. This was in June, 1840. Solon Robinson and Judge William
Clark were the proprietors of the new town, which was on section 8, township 34,
range 8, as near as could well be to the "geographical center of the county."
Area of Lake County, according to Solon Robinson, "five hundred and eight
sections of land, about four hundred of which are dry tillable ground."*
5. Jasper. This county, but then including the present Newton and Benton
counties, was organized in 1838. It contained then an area of thirteen hundred
square miles, and the southern part, which in 1840 became Benton County, was
said to include some of the best land in Indiana.
Then the large sweep of the Grand Prairie came in at Parrish Grove, and in 1848
this was from "Sugar" to that grove almost a
perfect wild of very fertile, unbroken prairie.**
In 1838, the Indians roamed over it "almost undisturbed in all directions,"
dotted only here and there, was this broad area, "by a solitary cabin."
In January, 1838, the county commissioners, appointed, met at Robert Alexander's
in Parrish Grove. They ordered that the courts should afterwards be held at
George W. Spitler's, if the voters consented, and for some time at Spitler's
home the courts were
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*Lake County Claim Register.
**I crossed this prairie region, staid over night in this grove in the fall of
1848, on the way from the Red Cedar Lake to
Crawfordsville, and it was a memorable journey. T. H. B.
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held, till of Jasper County proper, Rensselaer became the county seat.
In March, 1839, two townships were marked out by the commissioners, one called
Newton, the other Pinkamink, and an election for May 1, was ordered, to be held
at the house of Joseph D. Yeoman, in Newton, and at the house of William Donahoe,
in Pinkamink.
The first session of the Jasper circuit court was held at Spitler's, now in
Newton County, Judge Isaac Naylor presiding; Joseph A. Wright, afterward
Governor of Indiana, prosecuting attorney; George
W. Spitler, clerk; associate judges, James T. Timmons and Matthew Terwilliger.
Present as an attorney at this first term of court was Rufus A. Lockwood,
afterward a noted lawyer who established the claim of John C. Fremont to his
Mariposa estate receiving for his fee one hundred thousand dollars.
The first county commissioners were, Joseph Smith, Amos White, and Frederick
Renoyer. This first court room in George W. Spitler's house is said to have been
sixteen feet square, with the ordinary puncheon floor, on which at night the
judges, lawyers, and jury all lodged. In February, 1839, was held the first
session of the Jasper Probate Court. Record: "Adjourned -- there being no
business before the court." In April, 1840, a place at first called Newton,
afterwards, Rensselaer, became the county seat.
The first marriage was in the Renoyer Settlement, the ceremony being performed
by Squire Jones, of Mud Creek, whose home was thirty miles distant, and the
license having been obtained at Williamsport, in Warren County, south of what
became Benton County, fifty miles from the house
of the Renoyers.
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The first grist mill was erected in 1840, by James C.
Van Rensselaer, which was considered, at that time, the best mill northwest of
Logansport. Dr. John Clark is named as the first physician.
Jasper County, in 1840, comprising then the present counties of Newton, Benton,
and Jasper, returned 138 polls, assessed at $20,347. As late as 1850 the State
Gazetteer said: "Jasper is the largest county in the State and contains about
975 square miles; but Beaver Lake, the Kankakee Marshes, and the Grand Prairie,
occupy so large a portion of it that its settlement and improvement have
hitherto proceeded slowly." In 1840 the population was 1,267;
in 1850 about 3,000."
The principal early settlements were five: the settlement at the Rapids of the
Iroquois; the Forks Settlement, at the union of the Iroquois and Pinkamink; the
Blue Grass Settlement; the Carpenter Settlement, which became afterward,
Remington; and the Saltillo and Davidsonville Settlement. The State road
from Williamsport to Winamac went through Saltillo.
This settlement was made about 1836. John Gillam and Joseph McJimsey early
settlers.
The area of Jasper after Newton was set off was reduced to five hundred and
fifty square miles. It was named after Sergeant Jasper, of Marion's Band in the
time of the Revolution. What are called by some of the scientific students,
ancient river beds, lie between the Kankakee and the Iroquois valleys. These are
from three hundred to twelve hundred feet wide,
with low.ridges of white and yellow sand on each side. Burr oak, white oak,
hickory, and other trees are a native growth. White Sulphur springs are near
Rensselaer and there is also an artesian well of
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sulphureted water. The land lies over a bed of limestone of what the geologists
call the Upper Silurian age. From the surface
outcrop lime is burned, and lower down good sand rock for building is obtained.
Groves of sugar maple where the Indians made sugar were along the Iroquois
River.
6. Pulaski. This county was organized by act of the Legislature, February 18,
1839. Governor Wallace appointed George P. Terry for sheriff. At the May
election Peter Demoss, John A. Davis, and Jesse Coppick were chosen for
commissioners, John Pearson for clerk, and John A. Davis for recorder.
This county was named in honor of Count Pulaski, one of the noble Polanders who
aided the Americans in the War of the Revolution, who fell at the assault upon
Savannah in 1779. Many are familiar with Longfellow's poem "Pulaski's Banner."
Names in our land often come into singular companionship. The place selected for
the county seat of Pulaski bears the name Winamac, the name of a Pottawatomie
Indian chief, whose place of residence on the Tippecanoe River had been selected
for a town by a company of men of whom the following names have been found: John
Pearson, Wm. Polk, J. Jackson, John Brown and John B. Niles. Their offer the
commissioners accepted and there located the county seat, May 6, 1839. It is
said that the wife of chief Winamac was a white woman who had been made a
captive in her girlhood.
The bones of Winamac, it is further said, now repose beneath the Methodist
meeting house in the town which perpetuates his name.
The surface of this county is mainly quite level. Into the southwestern extends
an arm of the Grand Prairie.
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In the eastern part was originally timber, walnut ash, oak, and other valuable
timber growth. Then, going westward, came oak openings. The prairie region, with
many "fly meadows," was next. The small prairies were called, Dry,
Northwestern, Fox Grape, Pearsons, and Olivers.
Deer, other game and fur bearing animals were abundant. Markets were distant.
Eastward was the Wabash & Erie Canal, after that was opened up for business and
trade, which was the nearest grain and other produce market. The next was
Michigan City or Chicago, ninety-two miles distant and rivers and marshes and
sand and mud between, and not one "gravel road." Cattle raising, almost of
necessity, became the great occupation. They could transport themselves to
market. There was a mill in Carroll County and one at Logansport, in Cass
County, to which the early settlers had access.
A record of the first court has not been found.
7. Starke County has an area of three hundred and six square miles. It was named
after a general of the Revolution. It was organized by act of the Legislature
taking it out from Marshall County. In April,
1850, county commissioners were elected. John W. P. Hopkins, George Esty,
William Parker. They met at the house of Mrs. Rachel A. Tillman, on the south
bank of Yellow River. Her house was used for county purposes for some years. The
next county officers elected were: Sheriff, Jacob I. Wampler; Auditor, J. G.
Black; Clerk, Stephen Jackson, Senior; Recorder, Jacob Bozarth; Treasurer, Jacob
Tillman; County Agent, C. S. Tibbits.
May 19, 1851, was held the first term of the Starke Circuit Court. Held at Mrs.
Tillman's. Judge E. M. Chamberlain; associates, Samuel Burk and George
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Milroy. One indictment was found. That was for hog
stealing and the defendant was acquitted. Hog stealing in those days was very
different from
horse stealing.
April 1, 1850, the county seat was located. There was then no town where the
place was selected, but town lots were laid out in June and the place was called
Knox.
Some of the first things in Starke County, according to the records found, were
the following:
The first boy born, Tipton Lindsay, 1836. The first burial in the county was of
Thomas Robb, who was frozen to death while out hunting and was buried in a
canoe. The first church building was erected by the United Brethren in 1853; the
second was built by the Methodists in Knox in 1856. The first ministers in the
county were, "Elder Munson," Methodist; Elder Ross, United Brethren; and Rev.
James Peele, "Christian." The first physicians, 1851, Dr. Solomon Ward, Dr.
Baldwin, Dr. Charles Humphreys. First lawyers, 1852, Judge Willoughby, M.
McCormick.
The first paper, the Starke County Press, published May, 1861, Joseph A. Berry,
editor. Democratic; succeeding editors, James H. Adair, Napoleon Rogers, William
Burns, Boyles & Good, and Oliver Musselman. The name Press was changed to
Ledger.
8. The last of our eight divisions to become an independent county was Newton.
Area about four hundred and twenty-five square miles.
In December, 1857, a petition was presented to the Jasper County Board of
Commissioners that the area in ranges 8, 9, and 10, from
township 26, to the Kankakee River, might become a new county. The
petition was granted, and Thomas R. Barker was ap-
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pointed by the Jasper board as a sheriff, empowered to
administer the oath of office to the new county officers April 21, 1860. In
December, 1859, a place called Kent had been selected for the new county seat, a
place afterward called Kentland, and at this time containing only two buildings.
Here the elected officers met to take the oath of office. They were: William
Russell, Michael Coffelt, Thomas R. Barker, commissioners; Zachariah Spitler,
clerk; Alexander Sharp, auditor; Samuel McCullough, treasurer; Elijah J.
Shriver, sheriff; A. W. Shideler, surveyor. In 1860 a court house was built
costing eighteen hundred dollars. The first term of court was held August 27,
1860. Charles H. Test, judge; John L. Miller, prosecuting attorney.
It thus appears that not until 1860 were all the eight counties of North-Western
Indiana independent and separate as counties, each
with its own civil jurisdiction.
The years of organization and commencement of courts, lawyers, judges, juries,
and civil cases, were: 1832, 1834, 1836, 1837, 1838, 1839, 1850, and 1860.
The years of settlement commenced: La Porte, 1829; White, 1829; Pulaski, 1830;
Newton, 1832; Porter, 1833; Lake, 1834; Jasper, 1834; Starke, 1835.
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