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 VII.
OUR LAKES AND STREAMS.
The counties of
Lake and Porter, if extending northward to the Boundary line of Indiana, have in their limits a good many square
miles of the area of Lake Michigan. And when the pioneers came that water was
very clear and pure. No sewers from cities, no
streams of filth, no decaying garbage, had gone into its waters. But besides
quite a share in that great lake, there were in 1830 many small, beautiful
lakes, with clear, pure water, the homes in summer, or in the spring and autumn
time, of wild fowl, and a continuous home for muskrats, for mink, and some of
them for otter. In La Porte County the number of small lakes has been given
from fifty up to one hundred, but many of these,
probably, were properly marshes with some open, or clear water in the center.
In a marsh proper, a prairie marsh, grass grows, sometimes rushes, sometimes
even pond lilies; but the larger marshes in early times usually had in the
center open water where there was no grass, and in this open water one pair or
more of wild ducks might generally be found in the springtime.
The more noted and the larger lakes of La Porte County are: Hudson, Pine, Clear,
Stone, Fish, and Mud lakes. Fish Lake, in Lincoln Township, has three divisions,
Upper Mud, Upper Fish, and Lower Mud. Mud Lake proper is an expansion of the
Kan-
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kakee River, as also is English Lake, which is between La Porte and Starke
counties.
The streams of La Porte are mostly small, the Little Kankakee, Mill Creek, these
entering the Kankakee; Trail Creek, Spring Creek, and many small ones in Cool
Spring, Springfield, and Galena townships, flowing northward to Lake Michigan.
In describing Lincoln Township General Packard says: "Fish Lake, near the center
of Lincoln, is of very peculiar shape. It is divided into four parts connected
by narrow passages or straits, each of which have received distinctive names.
The extreme upper part is called Upper Mud Lake, and is nearly circular in form
with the outlet towards the northwest into Upper Fish Lake. This part is much
larger, and curves so as almost to double back upon itself and has its outlet
towards the southwest into Fish Lake which is almost one mile in length, and is
connected by a narrow passage with Lower Mud Lake. The outlet of the entire body
is into the Little Kankakee. Upper Mud Lake is on the south side of section
sixteen; Upper Fish Lake is in sections sixteen and seventeen; Fish Lake is
mostly in section twenty; Lower Mud Lake is in section twenty and twenty-nine.
There are several other smaller lakes in Lincoln, isolated and having no
outlet."
In Porter County are some sixteen small lakes, the more noted ones being Flint
Lake, Clear Lake, Mud Lake, Lake Eliza, Long Lake, Quinn Lake, Bull's Eye Lake,
and Sager's Lake. The streams are: The Calumet coming
from La Porte County and flowing across into Lake, Fort Creek, Fish
Creek, Coffee Creek, and Salt Creek, flowing northward; Wolf
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Creek, Sandy Hook Creek, and Crooked Creek, flowing into the Kankakee.
In Lake County are not many lakes. Berry Lake, Lake George, and part of Wolf
Lake, are in the northwest; part of Long Lake is in the northeast; the Red Cedar
Lake, the most noted one and the most beautiful one, six miles southwest
from Crown Point; Fancher Lake, Lake Seven, and
Lemon Lake, are the other lakes of this county. "Cedar Lake" is the name
commonly given to the lake named above, called in this work Red Cedar Lake, to
distinguish it from a lake in Starke County called
Cedar Lake. But to avoid the confusion of similar names the Starke County lake
has of late been called Bass Lake. Both these lakes are pleasure resorts. On the
Lake County Cedar Lake, also called "The Lake of the Red Cedars," is Monon Park,
which may need some further mention. The streams of Lake County are: The noted
Calumet, Deep River, Turkey Creek, and Deer Creek, whose waters reach Lake
Michigan; and Eagle Creek, Cedar Creek, and West Creek, Stoney Creek, Spring
Run, and Willow Brook, also a little stream fed by springs, Plum Brook, the
waters of which reach the Kankakee River, and so pass on to the Mississippi.
Passing across the Kankakee the principal lakes of Newton County are or were:
Beaver Lake, Little Lake, and Mud Lake.
Beaver Lake covered nearly one township, numbered 30 in range 9. It was found to
be shallow and was drained several years ago by a deep ditch some six miles in
length taking the water into the Kankakee River. Twelve feet was, in places, the
depth of the lake. The boys and men obtained quantities of
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fish when it was drained. The great ditches on each side
of the Kankakee River have changed very much the natural water beds and courses.
One of the streams is Beaver Creek. Not far away is the belt of woodland known
as Beaver Woods. These names indicate the existence here once of beaver, and
here was quite a favorite Indian resort. Jasper County has few if any real
lakes. It has one considerable stream called Carpenter's Creek, also Curtis
Creek. The Iroquois, with its tributary, the Pinkamink, is its river, and this
flows across Newton County into Illinois. It now runs into the Kankakee; but
according to the earlier geographies the Kankakee discharged its waters into the
Iroquois.
Pulaski County seems not to be a region of lakes, but it has for its large
streams the beautiful Tippecanoe River and the large Monon Creek.
White County also has few or no proper lakes, but its streams are many. Besides
the Tippecanoe, there are the Big Monon, the Little Monon, Moot's Creek, Pike
Creek, Honey Creek, Big Creek, and Little Mound Creek.
Starke County has one quite noted lake formerly called Cedar Lake; for the last
few years it is called Bass Lake. It is in length, lying nearly northeast and
southwest, about two and a half miles and about one mile and a half across its
southwestern expanse. Its shape is quite different from
the Red Cedar Lake of Lake County, although like that lake it has
abounded in fish and is something of a pleasure resort.
The other lakes of Starke County are: Koontz Lake, in the northeast, about
three-quarters of a mile in length, Lake Rothermel and Hartz Lake in the
southwest corner of the county, one on section 35,
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one on 36, and Round Lake three miles northwest of Bass
or Cedar Lake.
The streams of Starke are now for the most part turned into ditches. Their
beauty of course is spoiled.
So far as beauty is concerned, these large and small ditches which have cut up
the entire Indiana part of the Kankakee Valley
region, have spoiled what was once, in its natural water ways, attractive and
picturesque. Although not like mountain streams and rivulets, the water in our
streams was usually clear, their natural courses were winding, giving the curved
lines of beauty, and the green herbage that fringed them was abundant. Now,
nearly all is changed by the spade and the dredging machine of man's invention.
The water in springtime runs off in straight lines, man's object being to get it
from the land into the river and ocean as quickly
as possible. He wants the use of all the land surface. And so thousands and
thousands of acres where once the wild fowls had their resorts and where
muskrats and mink and otter had their homes, are now pasture land and oat
fields, and corn fields, and the ditches mar the landscape's beauty.
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