Elkhart County, Indiana - Chapter 18: Minor Towns and Stations, 1916

Wakarusa - Mount Olive Postoffice - Wakarusa Platted - The Present \"illage^The Churches - The Newspaper AND Banks - ^Middlebury - The Churches - Newspaper and Bank - Bristol - Early History - Millersburg - Drawbacks TO Rapid Growth - New Paris - Early Settlers - Arrested Development of Benton - Ignored by the R^mlroads - Railroad Stations.

Scattered throughout Elkhart County are several flourishing towns and centers of population, which are a credit to their founders and later-day promoters. Wakarusa, in the southwest, and Middlebury, in the northeast, are the largest of these minor towns, Millersburg, Bristol, New Paris and others being mentioned and described in this chapter.

During the first ten years after Olive Township was organized there were no centers or population other than the log schoolhouses. In 1849 a postoffice, known as Mount Olive, was established in Harvey Ely's log cabin, 2j4 miles north of the present Wakarusa. In that primitive postoffice was bom the wife of Mr. George Nusbaum, the present postmaster of Wakarusa, and as Mrs. Nusbaum is her husband's assistant, the Ely family has been identified, first and last, with Uncle Sam's affairs in this vicinity for over fifty-five years.

In 1852, a village was platted where Wakarusa now stands, and was given the name of Salem, the original plat being made by Messrs. Holdeman, Smeltzer and Pletcher. When the Mount Olive

After a period of confusion in postal matters, the citizens assembled in town meeting and voted a new name. At this meeting, which was held in 1859, Mr. Jacob Dell, then a boy in his teens, was present, and he remembers many of the pros and cons of the discussion which preceded the change of name. Mr. Woolverton finally proposed the name of Wakarusa, which was the name of a place in Kansas, of which he had been a resident, and this designation was finally adopted. Wakarusa is an Indian word whose meaning, according to the best authorities, is "knee deep in mud." It was owing to the consistency of this name with the nature of the boggy soil on which the village was located that the decision of the majority of the citizens finally favored the present title.

William Moon was the first settler on the site of ^^'akarusa, building his house near what is known as the "fish pond." Thomas Inks and Jackson Woolverton are mentioned as the first merchants, the Lutherans built the first church, and the first public school was erected about 1856, subscription schools having been in vogue up to that time. Among other well known pioneers may be named Samuel Kline; Mrs. Lucinda (Stevens) Woolverton, whose husband is said to have named the town, and Mrs. Pamelia (Pitts) Grove, who was also the first child born in Locke Township and long lived in the old house on the west side of Elkhart Street ; also Anthony Myers, David H. Fletcher, Abraham Weldy, Isaac Letherman, Mrs. Mary A. Young and Mrs. Abraham Lechlitner.

Wakarusa is now a town of some 1,200 people, on the Wabash line, with a good surrounding country from which to draw its outside vitality. It is quite a trading center, supports two banks and a newspaper, as well as a number of good general stores. Its streets are well kept and have long ago outgrown the "knee-deepin-the-mud" period. Wakarusa was incorporated as a town in 1898. As to the present adequate electric lighting for its thoroughfares, its business houses and residences is supplied by the Hawks Electric Company of Goshen. Power is also supplied for the electric pumping apparatus, which operates the town waterworks. The supply, which also assures fire protection, is obtained from two deep wells. The pumping station is on the first floor of the new town building, which was completed in September, 191 5. It is a substantial twostory brick structure and a credit to Wakarusa. The council chamber is on the second floor and the building has also "jail accommodations" fully equal to the demand, which, in truth, is not large or continuous. The town has also a fire department, organized in 1902, supplied with a chemical engine, hook and ladder, and other apparatus.

The public school system, in which the town has always taken so much pride and interest, is under the control of Supt. S. LeRoy Scoles, and the following board of education: Dr. A. S. Sensenich, president; Calvin Lienhart, secretary, and H. M. Freed, treasurer. About 230 pupils are enrolled, of whom ninety are in the high school. There are nine teachers on the faculty of the high school and in the grades. The Wakarusa high school has been accredited with the Indiana State University since 1905. The school building now occupied was constructed in 1894, but repaired and much improved in 1914. and the entire property is valued at $20,000.

The Christians and Methodists, the Churcii of the Brethren and the Mennonite Brethren in Christ are well organized at Wakarusa. The Christian Church was founded in 1867, and on New Year's day of 1905 its members dedicated a handsome house of worship. Rev. H. O. Harris is the present pastor. The Church of the Brethren has been active in the locality for over half a century. Its missionaries preached in various schoolhouses until 1878, when the Baugo Church was erected. The Wakarusa house of worship was built in 1895. Until 1915 both congregations were in one district. In that year it was divided, since which time H. M. Schwalm has been pastor of the Baugo Church and C. Metzler, of the Wakarusa organization. There is a combined membership of about 140. The Mennonite Brethren in Christ are in charge of A. B. Yoder, and the Methodists of Reverend Stookey.

As stated, there are two banks at Wakarusa. The oldest is the Exchange Bank, estabhshed in 1890, with the following officers, still in charge: Jeremiah Bechtel, president; H. M. Freed, cashier; H. S. Bechtel, assistant cashier. It has a capital stock of $20,000; undivided profits of $4,000, and average deposits of $200,000.

The Farmers Bank was organized by Stanford Willard in April, 1907. It is a private concern and its financial status is indicated by the following items: Capital, $10,000; undivided profits, $1,000; average deposits, $40,000.

The Town of is located at the foot of a fringe of hills which border the Little Elkhart River on the west. Its pretty main street, along which most of its business houses and residences are located, was the old Logansport and White Pigeon road before Middlebury was laid out in 1836. It was designed to be a leading station on that important landway, and a public square around which the business activity of the place centered was originally a feature of the town. But when the landway was displaced by the Lake Shore Railway the old order of things, including the primitive "square," was almost obliterated.

Enoch Woodbridge, who came in 1832, is said to have been the first settler of the township, and it is hardly probable that this fertile region could have been passed by longer than that date shows. The township must have settled up quite rapidly during the first years of the '30s. Of those who found the nucleus of the Middlebury settlement may be mentioned Solomon L. Hixon, the father of the present banker, who located on the northeast quarter of section 10 in the spring of 1834; also Thomas Evans, Cornelius Northrup ; Doctor Dunning, the first physician ; Orange Walker, who came from New York, and whose sole descendant now lives in California ; Stephen Durgin, China B. Smith ; Samuel Reynolds, who, witty and genial, was the life of the entire community : John Degarmo, Albert Meade and others.

Harvey Corpe, who died in Oregon, aged eighty-seven, settled at Middlebury in the early '30s, and owned most of the hills to the south and west of the village. Several years later came Benjamin Corpe, who was the grandfather of the present station agent at \'istula, and he located about a mile north of the village. At this writing there resides a short distance west of Middlebury one of the veritable patriarchs of this country in the person of Squier Lee, who was born in.1807, ninety-eight years ago, settled in this township in 1839, and, a carpenter by trade, assisted to erect the First Methodist Church in Bristol. He now lives with his son, who is himself a gray-haired man of nearly seventy years.

Middlebury was platted about 1836, by Winslow, Warren and Brown. The townsite was owned by a syndicate who are said to have boomed the place for speculative purposes. A plat of the town was taken to New York and many fifty-foot lots were disposed of at $100 apiece. There was a landing on the river and no doubt the original promoters had extensive visions - which they influenced others to see also - of a thriving metropolis growing up at this point.

But this matter is only a passing phase of the history of the town, whose permanence was already strongly assured by the substantial character of the first settlers. The first building in the town was that erected by W. T. Hunter, in 1835, located at the north end of the present main street. Mr. Hunter used this house as an inn, and was the landlord of the community for many years. George Sayer opened a store on the east side of the square shortly after the town was platted, conducting a general store, as did also John C. Case; Cornelius Northrup built a flour and sawmill on the river in 1836; the frame of this building may still be seen on the east side of town. Charles A. and James S. Dole came later and operated a distillery, also had a store. In 1836 the people of this vicinity paid 50 cents a yard for calico and $5 a barrel for salt. A Mr. Hoyage was the first blacksmith; Benjamin G. Evans, the first postmaster; Doctor Cornell, the first justice of the peace; Daniel C. Bishop was a wagonmaker. The first church was the Methodist, under the direction of Rev. Ira Woodworth, and they held services from house to house during the first year or so.

Middlebury was incorporated as a town in 1868, and the first town board consisted of Thomas Naylor, Thomas Elliott, Christian Stutz, W. F. Hani and Watson Hutchinson, the last named being chairman of the board. An agricultural community, the village has not depended for its prosperity upon manufacturing or other industries and cannot be said to have ever suffered any serious reverses. Commercial activity has been stimulated and many other advantages secured by the building of the railroad through this point in 1889, while up to that time Vistula had served as the principal shipping connection for this vicinity.

The first schoolhouse in the village was a little frame structure, called the Red Schoolhouse, for its color, and was located in the northwest part of town. It was built in the late '30s, and up to that time private schools had furnished the pioneers' children their educational advantages. The present school building, erected in 1857, is a two-story brick, with four rooms. Since that year there have been many improvements both in the building and the system. The present superintendent is Prof. M. O. Titus.

Middlebury has four church organizations, as follows: The Lutheran, Rev. C. S. Bream, pastor; the Methodist, the longest established, Rev. G. W. Martin ; the Brethren, Rev. J. H. Fike, and the Mennonites, Rev. Andrew Hosteller.

The Middlebury Lutheran charge includes St. Paul's Church, at Middlebury, St. John's, Fish Lake, and Grace Church, at Griner's, and includes altogether about 300 members. The house of worship occupied at Middlebury was completed in August, 1909. The Church of the Brethren has about 120 members, and Rev. J. H. Fike has been pastor for twenty-one years. His predecessors were Revs. Martin Hardman, Ira Weaver and Cyrus Steel. The church building was dedicated in November, 191 1.

Middlebury's first newspaper was the Middlebury Record and was founded by Joel P. Heatwole, who continued as proprietor from 1877 in May until he transferred the same to Will E. Grose, who discontinued publication in 1885. The Middlebury Independent was established by J. R. Rheubottom & Son in 1887, February 2. They sold to H. O. Eldridge in 1897 and Mr. Eldridge sold to Harry E. Bloom, the present proprietor, in 1907.

The First State Bank at Middlebury was founded in 1910. Charles Hoover is its president; F. A. Walker, vice president; Harold Hoover, cashier. The bank has a capital stock (paid in) of $25,000; surplus and undivided profits, $7,500; demand deposits and certificates, about $211,000. Its total resources are $247,000.

The town has a number of good stores, grain and lumber houses, a mill, and other evidences that it is a growing center of trade for a considerable area of country.

Bristol, in the northern part of the county, is the center of a fertile agricultural and fruit country and a neat little town, being a station on the New York Central line. It lies chiefly on the southern banks of the St. Joseph River at the mouth of the Little Elkhart, and, on account of its natural advantages of water power.

Bristol has a number of stores, a town hall, a private bank, an agricultural implement depot, and several churches and lodges. Its substantial brick Union School was completed in 1904. As a further proof of its progress among the smaller places, is the fact that it has had a newspaper since 1877 - the Banner, the present editor of which is H. H. Hosier.

In 1829 James Nicholson and his family ended their search for a pioneer home by pre-empting land on the site where Bristol now stands. These first residents were soon joined by Peter Marmen, Aaron Brown, Reuben Bronson and James Cathcart. About 1835 Samuel P. Judson, Lewis M. Alverson and Hiram Doolittle laid out and recorded the original plat of the present Town of Bristol. Dr. H. H. Fowler, the first practicing physician, was also the first postmaster. Business, religion and education advanced steadily during the '30s and '40s. Alverson and Doolittle were the first merchants. Miss Philossa Wheeler taught school in a log cabin, the first regular schoolhouse being erected in 1838, and about 1837 the

Baptists and Methodists held services in the village. The water power of the St. Joseph at this point was first utilized in 1841, when a dam was constructed and several mills erected, among them a woolen mill.

"Bristol," avers the Goshen Express of ]\Iarch 4, 1837, "as a site for a town is not excelled by any other on the St. Joseph. It is on a beautiful plain, elevated about forty feet above the river. It bids fair to make a town."

George Adams furnishes many interesting items concerning the village as he first knew it in the year of 1848. At that time, says Mr. Adams, the merchants were S. B. Romaine, Owen Coffin, Salmon Fowler, William Probasco, L. P. Knight and Mr. Wheeler. H. H. Fowler, J. R. Congdon and Louis Sovereign were physicians. Horace H. Hull was postmaster, and the old schoolhouse which was then in daily use by the boys and girls is now located on the bank of the river and is used as a blacksmith shop. According to Air. Adams, there was more business and industrial activity in Bristol at that time than at Elkhart. Wheat was brought from all directions to be ground at the mill just west of town. Mr. Adams' father kept what might be termed a "bam hotel," which was filled night after night, during the season, by farmers with their wheat wagons.

B. F. Cathcart, who came with his father, James, and whose home was just east of the present schoolhouse in Bristol, was a school teacher during the early days, and also entered about 600 acres of land in this part of the county. Mr. Cathcart was a resident of Washington Township for seventy years, one of the most prominent fruit growers and nurserymen of this section. In 1835, when he was a boy of about seventeen, he took a load of wheat to Constantine, Michigan, and while camping by the roadside one night he witnessed one of the awe-inspiring meteoric showers which characterized that year in the minds of the people better than any other occurrence.

Also among the old residents of Bristol were Henry S. \\'right and wife, Mrs. (Rice) Wright; Isaac L. Alverson ; Mrs. Michael (Nicholson) Frank.

power for the pioneer mills, grain and dairy farms early developed around it, and as early as 1857 the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern provided shipping facilities. It was incorporated as a village in 1870, and in 1892 the Wabash coinpleted its line through the county and also made Millersburg a station. It has, therefore, always been considered one of the best of the smaller towns, and its general appearance indicates that the promise has, on the whole, been fulfilled. It has a good school, the usual complement of churches, and a newspaper. The last named, which is the Grit, was founded in 1892, and is now owned and edited by \V. B. Barnard.

Several circumstances, however, have operated to prevent the rapid growth of Millersburg, the chief of which may be here mentioned. The earliest settlers of Clinton Township were surrounded within a radius of a few miles by such trading points as Middlebury on the north, Goshen and Waterford on the west, and Benton on the south. Also being a distinctly agricultural region, with its beautiful rolling landscape, capable of producing unending abundance of grain crops and of supporting a dense farming population - these circumstances, no doubt, combined to delay the formation of a commercial center in this township. Schoolhouses furnished places for social and other assemblages, where the itinerant preacher might deliver the gospel message, the farmers meet to consider their material welfare, or both they and their families join in the festivities that marked the various seasons. The fact that the township from an early date became numerously populated by the Amish and Dunkard sects, who for many years worshiped in private houses before building central churches, was likewise a factor in retarding localization of the people and their interests.

Solomon Miller, who was born in Tennessee in 1803, who was a captain in the Black Hawk war and who a year or so later, in 1834, was in Elkhart County and purchased land in section 34 of Clinton Township, in 1842 returned to take up his home on their purchase and in 1855 laid out the plot of the town which has since borne the name of Millersburg. His 160 acres in the southeast quarter of the section comprised practically the entire site upon which the town has since grown up. J- R- IMcCord surveyed the site, and the first building erected on the original plot was that of James C. Miller, son of Solomon Miller. The location of the village was well chosen, and its growth, while not rapid, has been substantial and in keeping with its ambitions to afford the people of the surrounding country a good market and town center.

New Paris is another little town platted nearly eighty years ago in the southern part of the county, but coming into notice as a desirable shipping point for grain, produce and livestock - first, when the Big Four (the Cincinnati, Wabash & Michigan, at the time) made it one of its stations in 1S70, and, finally, in 1893, when the Wabash added to its facilities as a junction station.

The early history of New Paris begins about 1838, when the village was laid out by Isaac Abshire and Enoch Wright, the former of whom was a settler here in 1829 and the latter in 1834. Each of these men owned 160 acres, the east and west road dividing the farms, and each set aside part of his land for village lots. The first postmaster was Joseph Cowan, and the story goes that he kept the mail in a sugar bowl, the contents of which he would carefully examine whenever anyone inquired for his mail. Among the early business men were David Parrot, who had a drygoods store ; Elkanah Hoffman, the first blacksmith ; T. Divinnie, the tailor and the first hotel proprietor; John Berry and Mrs. Cashner; W. C. Matchett, the first physician. The first settler on the site of the town was Frederick Harriman. Abram Blanchard, the father of E. G. Blanchard, settled just east of town in 1836 and built the first brick house in this vicinity. He was the first man to bury a child in the cemetery just east of town, and he built a rail fence around the little mound in order to keep the wolves from digging up the body.

E. G. Blanchard, who located in 1836, was wont to speak interestingly of several phases of early life in this part of the county. Laban Lacy, who was one of the early settlers about New Paris and who broke up a great deal of the land in this vicinity, introduced into this section, according to Mr. Blanchard, the first grain separator, bringing it from Buft'alo. Up to that time the "chaff- piler" had been used as the successor of the flail. This was a mere cyhnder worked by four horsepower or treadmill, and although by this means the grain was beaten out, the straw and grain were piled together and had to be separated by means of fanning. Mr. Frank Jackson says that after the chaff-pjler came the traveling thresher - a prototype of the modern "headers" so much in use in the great wheat countries. Six horses drew this machine around the held, threshing out ten bushels at a time and emptying the grain on a canvas, leaving the straw scattered all over the field. This threshing device was operated by a bull wheel.

The first schoolhouse at New Paris, of logs, was located just opposite from where the hardware store now stands. John McGrew was the first teacher.

The old Village of Benton, in the southeastern part of the county and just over the edge of the famous Elkhart prairie on Stone Creek, combined all the best elements of progress, as they were measured sixty or seventy years ago; but, under the transformation of modern agencies, the character of such elements completely changed, leaving Benton in the background. The village is now more interesting for what it was, than for what it is. When the Wabash line was completed through the county in the winter of 1892-93, the railroad station was located some distance north of the village proper. A considerable amount of stock has since been shipped from that point. In the village itself the old mill has been long since dismantled. The dam was lowered some years ago, and water power is no longer utilized as it even was thirty or forty years ago. But the shops and buildings which served their purposes long ago have never been replaced by new structures. Its story is well described as one of "arrested development." Benton was located in the midst of oak openings, only i>< miles south of Elkhart prairie and although the country has been pretty well cleared up, there are still large timber areas in the neighborhood. There are some sugar groves to the south, and the apple crop in the vicinity was, at one time, very large. It is mentioned elsewhere that ]\Iatthew Boyd, who came in 1827, was the first settler, and that he conducted a canoe ferry across the Elkhart about where Benton now stands. This circumstance was no doubt the leading cause which in a short time attracted enough other settlers to that point, so that such a center as has been above mentioned resulted. Then, also, nature had made this an appropriate spot for a settlement, since at this point the Elkhart River presented an excellent mill site, and it must be remembered that the presence of water power was a prime consideration to the town-makers of those days. A location that in this day of railroads and graveled highways would be entirely overlooked often became, during the '30s, a thriving and bustling town. Another reason that prompted a grouping of society and industry at Benton, and which has already been hinted at in connection with the ferry, was that the old Fort Wayne road - the most important means of communication during the early days - passed and does pass at this day, through Benton.

The Village of Benton, which lies almost entirely in section 6, was laid out by Henry Beane in 1832, on land that belonged to John Longacre. Already in 1830 the first business building, a general store, was established by James Banta and Jesse D. Vail. For the first few years the settlers received their mail from the carrier who came from Fort Wayne, but in 1836 the postoffice that had formerly gone under the name of Elkhart Prairie was moved to Benton, with Dr. F. W. Taylor installed as the first postmaster. In the same year a sawmill was established by Peter Darr, and the first schoolhouse erected, in which Henry Beane presided as first schoolmaster. Two years later the Baptists put up the first church, and by this time all the institutions and activities of a prosperous and thriving town were in evidence.

According to the Goshen Express on March 4, 1837: "Benton is the name of a village that, being touched by the magic wand of improvement, has sprung into existence the past sixteen months. It is situated near the southeast corner of Elkhart prairie, and immediately on the bank of the Elkhart river. The state road from this place (Goshen) to Fort Wayne, and from Hawpatch to Huntington on the Wabash, passes through the village. It contains, at present, two stores, several groceries, one public house, a number of mechanics and one physician." The men now living whose memory goes back to that early period all unite in saying that Benton was a business and social center at first magnitude. All conditions were favorable to a steady and continuous growth - immense ao-ricultural and timber resources, plenty of water power for manu- factures, good transportation for that day, and an industrious and progressive citizenship. But there came a change. Goshen, on a few miles to the northwest, as the county seat, drew prestige from her surrounding rivals. Railroads crossed and recrossed the county, creating new centers and touching with magic growth the old, while Benton was left to one side. Her industries ceased or sought other fields, influx of population stopped, and there was a general decline to the position of a cross-road trading point. The advent of the Wabash Railroad in the early '90s came forty years too late.

The Hamlet of Locke, in the southwestern part of the county, two miles north of the Baltimore & Ohio line, and the same distance from Nappanee, received its stroke of paralysis when the Baltimore & Ohio - in 1873 - favored that prosperous village as its station. In December. 1847, the Goshen Democrat has an item which states the establishment of a new office in Locke Township, called "Locke," and Daniel McCoy postmaster. The postoffice was known also as "Five Points" and under different postmasters had different locations. Previous to its removal to the Village of Locke the office was occupied by Solomon Berlin, who was the incumbent from 1861 to 1869. The Berlin homestead is situated half a mile east and one mile north of the present Village of Locke. Laid out about 1867 in section 24 by George W. Eby, M. H. Morlan and L. B. Winder, its history for several years was that of a flourishing town, with a future which would place it among the leading towns of the county.

Jamestown, a few miles southwest of Elkhart, in Baugo Township, is also a hamlet, about as far away from railway communication as Locke. It has a good township centralized school, a Methodist Church, and is a modest center of a country of farms.

The station of Foraker, on the Wabash Railroad in Union Township, was platted in 1892, shortly before that line was completed through the southern part of the county. The site originally belonged to Samuel Yoder.

Vistula, in the extreme northeastern part of the county on the New York Central, came into existence as the result of the demand by the people of Middlebury for a near-by station on the Lake Shore Railroad, and for some time the depot and shipping point thus established was known as Middlebury Station. About 1851 the railroad was built through the northwestern comer of the township, and, according to the story, a woodshed was placed alongside the track about half a mile west of where the Vistula depot now stands. The Middlebury people, among whom Carrington Casey was foremost in the promotion of this object, appealed successfully to the railroad company to establish a station where the woodshed stood, and as a result a side track and platform afforded the shippers from the south an outlet for their products without the necessity of going to Bristol or Goshen. Thenceforward, until the railroad was built to Middlebury, Vistula was practically the railroad station for her southern neighbor. About 1845 the depot was moved to its present location, and William Bilhngs took charge as the first station agent in its new location. As Middlebury Station the place continued to be known until a postoffice was granted, when William Caldwell, who held both offices of station agent and postmaster, suggested the name of Vistula. The name probably had its origin in the old Vistula highway. The town was laid out in 1865, but has never attained to the dignity of a village.