Whitley County, Indiana - The whole text, 1907 (part 1 of 28)

Preface

All life and achievement is evolution ; present wisdom comes from past experience, and present commercial prosperity has come only from past exertion and suffering. The deeds and motives of the men that have gone before have been instrumental in shaping the destinies of later communities and states. The development of a new country was at once a task and a privilege. It required great courage, sacrifice and privation. Compare the present conditions of the residents of Whitley county, Indiana, with what they were one hundred years ago. From a trackless wilderness it has come to be a center of prosperity and civilization, with millions of wealth, with systems of intersecting railways, grand educational institutions, marvelous industries and immense agricultural productions. Can any thinking person be insensible to the fascination of the study which discloses the incentives, hopes, aspirations and efforts of the early pioneers who so strongly laid the foundation upon which has been reared the magnificent prosperity of later days. To perpetuate the story of these people, and to trace and record the social, political and industrial progress of the community from. its first inception, is the function of the local historian. A sincere purpose to preserve facts and personal memoirs that are deserving of preservation, and which unite the present to the past, is the motive for the present publication. The work has been in the hands of a corps of able writers, who have, after much patient study and research, produced here the most complete history of Whitley county. Indiana, ever offered to the public. A specially valuable and interesting department is that one devoted to sketches of representative citizens of this county whose records deserve perpetuation because of their worth, effort and accomplishment. The publishers desire to extend their thanks to these gentlemen who have so faithfully labored to this end. Thanks are also due to the citizens of Whitley county, Indiana, for the uniform kindness with which they have regarded this undertaking and for their many services rendered in the gaining of necessary information.

In placing the "History of Whitley County, Indiana," before the citizens, the publishers can conscientiously claim that they have carried out the plan as outlined in the prospectus. Every biographical sketch in the work has been submitted to the party interested for correction, and therefore any error of fact. if there be any, is solely due to the person for whom the sketch was prepared. Confident that our efforts to please will fully meet the approbation of the public, we are,

The Formative Period

For millions, perhaps trillions of years, as time is estimated, this earth has been moving around its parent orb, the sun, propelled by an unseen and uncontrollable force, always in the same pathway, while undergoing wonderful changes in bulk and form. ' At first a vast, irregular mass of burning gaseous matter thrown off from that sun, about which it ever has and now revolves, this planet gradually cooled, condensed and assumed a spheroidal form. Its gaseous elements rearranged themselves to form new compounds, at first liquid, then solid, until in time it came to be a solid globe, or at least one with a solid but uneven crust. The process of cooling and contraction still continued. The ocean of vapor which formed a large portion of the atmosphere about the planet, condensed and fell and formed an ocean of water which filled the depressions in its crust. Above the rim of this ocean there showed in places large areas of land, bare igneous rock, absolutely devoid of life, as for millions of years the temperature of both rock and ocean remained too high for living things. When the mean temperature of its oceanic waters, by continued and oft-repeated evaporation.

cooling and condensation, was reduced to about 150 degrees F., there occurred the grandest event in the history of the planet. In some unknown, unknowable manner, life came to be. Within the waters of its ocean there was brought about a combination of matter, a living thing, which could take from the water and from the air above certain elements, and by their aid increase in size and reproduce its kind. The first lowly parasites upon the face or surface of the planet were thus aquatic plants, algae, fungi and kindred forms. In the course of ages there evolved from them other and higher plants which could live on land, for the decay and erosion of the igneous rocks, added to the remains of the aquatic plants thrown upon the beaches of the ocean, produced a soil from which the higher land plants could derive a part of their nourishment. As the centuries and the aeons rolled by, the plants, true parasites that they were, found their way to every part of the planet's surface, on to the tops of the loftiest mountains, into the abysses of the deepest oceans, they made their way; their province being the conversion of inorganic matter, earth, air and water, into a form of food suitable to the needs of a higher type of parasite, which meanwhile was coming into existence upon the planet's surface, for as the temperature of

The first animals on the planet were also lowly aquatic forms, scarcely differing from the first plants, but possessing a freedom of motion which enabled them to procure a better supply of air and water. Then evolving into higher and more varied forms as they became adapted to new environments, they spread far and wide through ocean depths and over plain and mountain, until the whole surface of the planet was peopled by them. But. ever and always, from the time the first animal came to be upon the planet, until the last one finally disappears into the darkness of everlasting night, the growth of animal life will depend upon living food prepared by the plant, the motion of animal life upon energy stored within the cells of the plant. The sun, which in the beginning first cast off the matter of which the planet is formed, still controls it, still rules over it and its destinies with an iron will. Both plant and animal parasite must forever bow before its power. Of the vast floods of energy which stream forth from that sun's disk in the form of heat and light, an insignificant fraction falls upon the surface of its satellite. Of the minute portion that the planet thus arrests, an equally insignificant part is caught up by the plants and used directly in their growth. Yet, the entire productive force of the living portion of that planet turns on this insignificant fraction of an insignificant fraction. The vegetable cell is thus a store of power, a reservoir of force. It mediates between the sun, the sole fountain of energy, and the animal life on the planet. The animal can not use an iota of power that some time, either directly or indirectly, has not been stored in the plant cell. Thus of the two great groups of parasites upon the surface of the planet, the plant must, per force, have preceded the animal. For thousands of centuries, each type of animal and plant parasite upon the planet was content if it could secure food enough to reach maturity and then a mate to reproduce its kind. All the energies put forth, all the variations in organ and form, all the adaptations to modified environment, were but means toward the better accomplishment of these two ends. Sometimes a type would reach a culmination or highest point, beyond which it could not advance. Then a degeneration would occur along side lines, or, in many instances, even total extinction of the race or group. Finally, after the planet was hoary with age, a race of animal parasites evolved from the lower forms, whose variations were ever concentrated toward the head or cephalic region. During untold ages, their brains slowly but surely increased in size until, in time, they became possessed of the power of reason and of abstract thought. In that age the "Prince of the Parasites" was born. From then on he began to rule not only the other animal and plant parasites about him, but to discover and control the powerful forces of nature, heretofore wholly latent. As he grew in brain power, he grew in greed and in egotism. He came to think that the planet, on which he was but a parasite, was created for him alone; that all other plants and animals were put there for his special benefit, though many of them outdated him by millions of years. He began to modify the surface ol the planet in all ways possible, to change, as it were, its every aspect to conform to his ideas. He imagined, vain creature that he was, that he could improve on the works of nature. In time he divided up the entire land surface of the planet by using sometimes imaginary lines and again natural boundaries. Acres and sections, townships and counties, kingdoms and empires, states and republics were the terms he used to denote his subdivisions, and over all lands and seas he proclaimed himself chief ruler - for that planet is the earth - that prince of parasites is man. To 36,350 square miles of the earth's surface, lying between the imaginary lines thirty-seven degrees and forty-one minutes and forty-one degrees and forty-six minutes north latitude, and between eightyfour degrees and forty-four minutes and eighty-eight degrees and six minutes west longitude, man, in time, gave the name "Indiana." How came this area to be where it is ? Of what kind of matter is its surface composed? What was its condition at the time of the advent of the white race ? These ought to be interesting questions to every resident of the Hoosier state.

The oldest known rocks on the American continent are those of Archaean time, laid down during the Azoic or lifeless aeon of the earth. They are known as the Laurentian System of Rocks and consist mainly of coarse granites, thick bedded gneisses and syenites, serpentines, schists and beds of modified sandstones, limestones and clays. They were formed from the debris of other rocks still older than themselves; these in turn having been derived ages ago from those original igneous or primary rocks whose molten sands rose first above the boiling floods and cooled and crusted into a chaotic continent. For Archean Time comprised those millions of years which elapsed while the crust of the earth was cooling down to a point where life was possible.

The Laurentian rocks are thus devoid of fossils or contain only the remains of the simplest aquatic forms. In North America, they comprise the surface of a vast "V" shaped area of 2,000,000 or more square miles which lies, filled with wild lakes, pineclad, rugged, almost impassable, spread in savage sleep from Labrador to the Arctic ocean. This area embodies the general form of the North American continent, and was the nucleus of all the land which was afterward added to it. From these old Laurentian rocks, came the debris and sediment which was laid down in the bed of a shallow ocean to form the rocks comprising the surface of what is now "Indiana."

At the close of the Azoic or lifeless aeon, during which the Laurentian rocks were formed, the Paleozoic or Aeon of Ancient Life was ushered in. At its beginning the entire area of what is now known as Indiana was covered by a broad ocean which stretched far away to the south-west, while to the north and north-east it extended beyond the present sites of the great lakes. This ocean is known to geologists as the Interior Paleozoic Sea. Into it was carried the sediment derived from the erosion and destruction of the old Laurentian rocks by water and air, which agencies then, as now, were ever at work. The Potsdam sandstone of the Cambrian era, which probably underlies the Trenton limestone of the Lower Silurian beneath the greater portion, if not all of Indiana, was one of the first strata to be laid down in this sea. But as none of the surface of Indiana is represented by the Potsdam stone, it will be passed with this mere mention.

the so-called Lower Silurian or Ordovician Age. At its beginning, the sea covering Indiana and the area to the north and east was of course more shallow, as 1,000 feet or more of Potsdam sandstone had been deposited on its floor. This first great stratum of Ordovician rock to be laid down in this sea, which is of interest to us, was the Trenton limestone, which, during the past two decades, has become so noted in Indiana as the source of natural gas and crude petroleum. It is a well known geological fact that most, if not all, limestones owe their origin to the presence of minute organisms in the water in which the limestone was formed. The animals from whose remains the Trenton limestone was, for the most part, derived, were" probably very low forms, the polypo and bryozoans of the ancient Silurian seas. In untold numbers they existed, and the carbonate of lime, which makes up eighty per cent of the unmodified Trenton rocks, is largely the remains of their secretion and incrustations. Associated with these lower forms were myriads of higher ones, crinoids, brachiopods, trilobites, gastropods and even fishes. The presence of such swarms of animal life made necessary the existence of an abundance of plants ; since the plant must ever precede the animal and gather for the latter the energy, and form for it the food, the living protoplasm, necessary to its existence. These plants were mostly marine algae or sea weeds and fucoids, though doubtless many other forms existed of which no remains have been preserved in the rocks of that age. The Trenton limestones were evidently formed in rather clear waters, at moderate depths. Near the bottoms of these shallow seas great beds of calcareous sediment were gradually collected, and were swept to and fro by the tides and currents. Rivers from the older - Cambrian rocks brought down their eroded particles and added to the thickness of the ocean floor. Within these beds of sediment both plants and animals found a grave, their bodies in vast numbers being buried beneath the slowly accumulating deposits of centuries. Once buried in such deposits, they did not decay, as do animals on land, because by the waters above and the calcareous ooze around them, they were shut off from free oxygen, which is the chief agent in decay. Gradually this ooze of fine sediment was, by the agency of the seawater, cemented and consolidated into limestone. In this manner that great layer of Trenton rock which underlies all of Indiana at variable depths, was formed. From it has been derived, directly or indirectly, more wealth than from any other one formation, either underlying or forming a portion of the surface of the state. In time the waters of the ocean containing this vast stratum of Trenton limestone, with its enclosed accumulations of undecayed plants and animals, became turbid, and instead of calcareous sediment, deposited mud and clayey sediment in thick beds on top of the limestone strata. These deposits of mud and silt were afterwards, by later deposits, compressed into the fine grained, impervious Utica shale, ioo to 300 feet in thickness, which thus effectually sealed the Trenton limestones and so retained within them the oil and gas derived from their enclosed organic remains. This oil, and its more volatile portion, the natural gas, was not formed in a short time, but is the result of a slow decomposition or

distillation, carried on through thousands of centuries. Accumulating in vast reservoirs, the more porous portions of the Trenton limestone or mother rock, it there remained until man came with his iron drill and furnished a vent through which it could rise. Then by combustion he caused it to yield up the stored energy, conserved since the sun's rays fell on the plants of the old Silurian seas.

After the Utica shale had been laid down as a thick, impervious cover above the Trenton limestone, there followed the Hudson River epoch, during which 200 to 600 feet of alternating beds of shale and limestone were deposited in the old sea bottom where now is Indiana'. These form the uppermost division of the lower Silurian age. During the myriads of years necessary to their deposition, marine forms were excessively abundant, and the advancement in the scale of animal life was correspondingly great. All the principal groups of marine invertebrates which came into existence during the Trenton epoch were represented, but the species were widely different. In addition to life in the sea, there came also to be life on land. Acrogenous plants, forerunners of the ferns and mosses, harbingers of the vast forests of future centuries, came into being along the moist waterways of the growing continent, while insects, the first winged creatures, began to traverse the air. As yet, no part of Indiana was above old ocean's level, but at the close of the Ordovician, after the Hudson River limestones and shales had been laid down, a great upheavel, caused by some subterranean force, brought above the sea a large island of Ordovician rock which ever since has been drv land.

This upheaval was greatest over the point where Cincinnati, Ohio, is now located, and the "Cincinnati uplift" is the name given by geologists to the island and the broad belt of shallowly submerged land which extended from its northern shore in a north-westerly direction, diagonally across the area of the future Indiana. The main portion of that island comprised the south-western corner of what is now Ohio and a part of north-eastern Kentucky. It also included a small part of what is now Indiana and formed the first and the oldest portion of the surface of our state. The area whose surface rocks belong to this Hudson River formation comprises part or all of Wayne, Union, Fayette, Franklin, Dearborn, Ripley, Ohio, Switzerland and Jefferson counties. Over this area the exposed rocks are composed of a series of bluish, thinbedded limestones intercalated with bluish green limey shales, while at the top are massive sandy limestone beds of a brownish color. The shales are soft, easily weathered and very fossiliferous, while the bluish limestones are in places largely composed of fossils.

Whitley county is included in that part of Indiana covered by Hudson river limestones and shales at the close of the Lower Silurian time. As a part of an island, therefore, upheaval from the Ordovician seas, was the first born land of Indiana; and to that little corner all other portions of our noble state were added in their turn by the workings of nature's forces during after ages.

At the end of the Ordovician or beginning of the Upper Silurian age, the Interior Paleozoic Sea had greatly diminished in area. A broad belt of land had been added to the southern border of the old Laurentian crest, especially over what is now Wisconsin and a portion of northern Illinois; while, extending from what is now Labrador down to Georgia, was another broad belt, following the general trend of the present Alleghany mountains. By the raising of several large islands above its surface at the time of the Cincinnati Uplift, aided by the broad belt of shallowly submerged land already noted, the area of the Interior Sea was still further diminished and to that portion covering what is now the north-eastern part of Indiana and. the greater part of Ohio, West Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania, the name of "Eastern Interior Sea" is given. This was simply a great bay or eastward extension of a greater "Central Interior Sea," which, at that period covered most of Indiana, southern Michigan, Illinois and a large portion of the present United States west of the Mississippi river. The most north-eastern limits of the Eastern Interior Sea were the present sites of Albany and Troy, New York. The rock-making material which was deposited on the floor of both it and the Central Interior Sea, was derived in part from the land along their borders, but mainly from the limey secretions of the life within their waters. The dry land draining into them was small in area and hence there were only small streams for the supply of sediments. Yet, in the course of countless years, sufficient material was deposited to form the thick layer of Niagara limestone which now forms the surface rock over much of northern and eastern Indiana.

namely : the Clinton, the Niagara and the Water Lime, or Lower Helderberg. Each is represented by its characteristic rocks, bearing the peculiar fossils of its time. The ' Clinton epoch is represented in the state by a close-grained, salmon-colored limestone, varying in thickness from a few inches only to about seven feet. It outcrops in a very narrow strip along the western edge of the area of the Hudson River limestone, already mentioned as the oldest rock in Indiana, and overlies that formation beneath the surface of at least the eastern third of the state. It it has no economic importance, and serves only as a line of demarkation separating the older Silurian rocks from those great beds of Niagara limestone which were afterward laid down in the Upper Silurian seas.

At the beginning of the Niagara epoch, the waters of the Central and Eastern Interior Seas were laden with sediment and beds of bluish-green shales, known as the Niagara shales, and varying in thickness from two to forty feet, were first laid down. Owing to the gradual changes in the level of the sea bottom, and a consequent shifting of its tides and currents a clearer, deeper water then resulted, within whose depths there existed life of great variety. Corals and bryozoans were especially represented, and from their remains and those of other marine forms were gradually constructed those beds of gray and buff Niagara limestone, varying in thickness from one hundred feet along the Ohio river to four hundred and forty feet in the northern and north-western portions of the state.

their bottoms there emerged a long peninsula-like strip of land, whose general trend was north-west and south-east. In the former direction it was imperfectly attached to those portions of Wisconsin and Illinois which had come into existence during the Ordovician era. At its lower extremity it merged with that old island of the Cincinnati Uplift which had formed the first land of our present state. The surface rocks of the north-western corner of Indiana, a narrow and probably interrupted strip extending' diagonally across the state, a wide area in the central third and a narrow southern prolongation along the western border of the pre-existing Hudson River group, were thus, for the first time, brought above the level of the sea. It appears that the force which caused this upraising of the Niagara sea floor was more pronounced at certain points than at others, and so caused a number of dome-like ridges or crests resembling true upheavals in the Niagara beds. These domes are present in an area extending from the Illinois line in Newton county, through the Upper Wabash Valley nearly to the Ohio line, being especially prominent near Wabash, Delphi, Monon, Kentland and other points in the region mentioned. In them the Niagara strata, elsewhere nearly horizontal, are strongly tilted and show other evidence of a true upheaval. These domes were at first probably small islands whose crests remained permanently above the surrounding sea. They thus formed, for a long period, a more or less broken or interrupted connection between the larger area of the Niagara to the south-east and that area in north-western Indiana which was from now on a part of the continent proper.

The Water Lime and Lower Helderberg are too closely related limestones of the Upper Silurian age which, in Indiana, so merge as to be difficult to distinguish. They represent an epoch between that of the Niagara limestone and the lowest or oldest rocks of the Devonian era. Their texture and composition show them to have been laid down in very shallow seas, close into the shores of the recently upraised Niagara limestone. The Water Lime is an impure magnesian hydraulic rock, ranging in thickness in Indiana from twenty to ninety feet. It out-crops near Kokomo where have been found numerous fine samples of its most characteristic fossils, gigantic crustaceans, two feet or more in length, closely related to the king crabs of the present seas. Over the extensive mud flats of the closing period of Upper Silurian time they were the undoubted rulers, while in the nearby waters sported descendants of those mail clad fishes which first appeared in the Trenton period of the Lower Silurian era.

The Lower Helderberg represents the final epoch of Upper Silurian time. In Indiana its rocks form a buff to gray cherty limestone twenty-five to 250 feet in thickness and often irregular and uneven in its bedding. It directly overlies the Niagara limestone where the water lime is absent. Outcrops occur at Logansport and other points to the north-west and drill holes sunk for oil and gas show that it probably forms a portion of the surface rock beneath the deep drift covered area of the northern third of the state.

earliest of Arachnids, the scorpion, came to be, their first remains being in the water lime, showing that they were neighbors of the giant Eurypterid crustaceans. Cockroaches and progenitors of dragon flies were also present, but remains of other terrestrial forms are few or lacking. Among marine invertebrates, cephalopods reached the acme of their development, the gigantic orthoceratites of this group, whose remains are so common in the Niagara limestones of Wabash and adjoining counties, being worthy of special mention.

We have seen that by the beginning of the Devonian Age or era, which succeeded that of the Upper Silurian, the waters of the great bay known as the Eastern Interior Sea had become farther separated from those of the Central Interior Sea by the uprising of the Niagara limestone area of eastern Indiana and western Ohio, and also by the deposition along the margin of this formation of the sediment comprising the water lime and Lower Helderberg limestones. A probable connection still existed between the waters of these two basins across the broken or interrupted strip connecting the main body of Niagara limestone in eastern Indiana with the main land area of the same formation in north-western Indiana and northern Illinois.

The Devonian rocks of Indiana may be roughly classed as representing two great epochs, the Corniferous and the Genesee, the former being represented by beds of more or less pure limestone, ranging up to fifty-five feet in thickness; the latter by beds oi black or brownish bituminous shales, which reach a known maximum thickness "f 105 feel. The waters in which the materials of the Corniferous limestones were deposited were clear and comparatively pure and in them sponges, corals, crinoids, trilobites and lower animal forms existed in great profusion. From the lime secreted by these marine forms, the upper and purer beds of the Corniferous rock are mainly composed. The great abundance of coral life during the period is grandly shown at the Falls of the Ohio, opposite Louisville, Kentucky, where the Corniferous beds have a notable outcrop. Here "the corals are crowded together in great numbers, some standing as they grew, others lying in fragments, as they were broken and heaped up by the waves ; branching forms of large and small size being mingled with massive kinds of hemispherical and other shapes. Some of the cup corals are six or seven inches across at the top, indicating a coral animal seven or eight inches in diameter. Hemispherical compound corals occur five or six feet in diameter. The various coral-polyps of the era had beyond doubt, bright and varied coloring like those of the existing tropics ; and the reefs formed therefore a brilliant and almost interminable flower garden."

Near the close of the Corniferous epoch deposits of silt, mud and sand began to becloud the clear waters and put an end to the life of many marine forms. The upper beds of rock then laid down, known as the Hamilton, contain in places quite a percentage of magnesia and clay, and embody those vast deposits of hydraulic limestone which, in southern Indiana, have been so extensively used in making natural rock cement. The Corniferous rock, when raised above the surface and added to the pre-existing land of the state, formed along the western margin of the latter an irregular strip five to forty miles in width, extending from the present bed of the Ohio river at Jeffersonville northward to the present site of Logansport and Monticello. North of the Wabash it has been found to be the surface rock in a number of the deep bores sunk for oil, but on account of the thick mantle of overlying drift, its exact limits are unknown. It is probable, however, that at the close of the Corniferous epoch a strip twenty miles or more in average width and extending nearly across the state was, in this region, raised above the floor of the old Devonian sea, to become a part of the permanent land of the future state. The south line of this strip ran through Whitley county from the east to the west in a north-westerly direction, putting all the county in the strip except a small part of Jefferson, a larger part of Washington and perhaps the half of Cleve land township, along the south side of the county.

During the latter part of the Devonian Era those lowly acrogenous plants known as Rhizocarps flourished in vast numbers in the fresh waters and brackish marshes of the time, and their spores by countless millions of tons were carried out as sediment into the surrounding seas. Mingling with the mud and silt and sand, brought down by erosion from the rapidly increasing land surface, they formed those vast mud flats which have since, by age and pressure, been consolidated into the thick beds of brown and black, finely-laminated shales which form the rocks of the Genesee epoch in Indiana. At New Albany the outcrops -of this shale are 104 feet in thickness and especially prominent, so that the local name, "New Albany black shale," has been given it by geologists of the state. Along the western edge of the Corniferous limestone, this shale forms a continuous strip three to thirty-five miles in width, reaching from the present site of New Albany north and northwesterly to Delphi and Rensselaer. Over much of this strip it is covered by a thick mantle of drift, but everywhere within the area wells or the eroding streams have proven it to be the surface rock. The black shale has also, by deep bores, been found to be the rock immediately underlying the drift over much of the area embraced within the two northern tiers of counties in the state.

The Genesee shale is rich in bitumens, derived from the spores of the ancient Rhizocarps, which also give it color. When kindled, it will bum until they are consumed, and it is therefore, by the uninitiated, often mistaken for coal. These bitumens are, by natural processes, sometimes separated from the shale and in the form of gas or petroleum are collected in reservoirs in it or in the underlying Corniferous limestone.

During the thousands of centuries of the Devonian Period, a great advancement took place in the flora and fauna of the times, especially in the vegetation of the land and the development of the higher aquatic vertebrates. Among the acrogens growing on land, ground pines, tree ferns and equiseta or horse-tails came into existence and flourished in vast numbers. Their remains are often found in the corniferous limestone, into the sediment of which they were drifted and preserved. The first Phanerogams, conifers of the yew and cycad families, were also evolved, their leaves and branches be- ing found in the upper or Hamilton beds of the Corniferous epoch. As the land plants increased in number and variety, insect life became more varied and numerous. Many Hies abounded and the first musicians of the earth appeared in the form of Orthopterans which, by means of their shrilling organs, enlivened the solitudes of the strange old Devonian forests with their love calls and wooing notes. Among fishes, the Ganoids and Selachians, of which our garpikes, sturgeons and sharks are degenerate descendants, reached the acme of their development ; while gigantic species of Dipnoans, or lung fishes, now only represented by the dog fish, or "John A. Grindle," abounded in the bays and bayous about the ancient Genesee flats.

At the beginning of the Lower or Sub- Carboniferous Era, which followed the Devonian in regular sequence, we find more than half of Indiana above the level of the sea. By the deposition and subsequent raising of the rocks of the Corniferous and Genesee epochs, the gap between the large era of Niagara limestone in the eastern part of the state and the mainland to the northwestward had been filled, and that portion of the future Indiana became for the first time a part of the slowly growing North American continent. The rocks which were afterward added on its western side were deposited on the sloping floor of the Central Interior sea which stretched far away to the south-west, and they consequently have a notable dip in that direction. The lowermost stratum of the sub-carboniferous rocks in Indiana is a thin but very persistent bed of green i si i limestone, known as the Rock ford Goniatite limestone. It is but about two feet in thickness at its most notable outcrops, and hence forms but a very narrow area of the surface rocks of the state. It serves well, however, as a line of demarkation separating the Upper Devonian shales from the thick beds of Knobstone which represent one of the early and important epochs of Lower Carboniferous time. These Knobstone rocks consist at the base of a series of soft, bluish shale, which gradually become more arenaceous or sandy, until toward their western horizon they merge into massive beds of impure grayish sandstone. The formation ranges in known thickness from 440 to 650 feet. The name "Knobstone" was first given it by that eminent geologist, David Dale Owen, because its siliceous strata weather into those peculiar conical knobs or hills which are so prominent a feature of the topography in the southern unglaciated portion of its area. By the deposition and upraising of the knobstone a strip of territory, three to thirty-eight miles in width, extending from the Ohio river south-west to New Albany north and north-westerly to a point a few miles south of the present site of Rensselaer, Jasper county, was added to the existing land of the future state. Deep bores have also shown the knobstones to immediately underlie the drift in a strip of varying width along the extreme northern border of the state. By its deposition and subsequent upraising over this area, all of the northeastern portion of the state became for the first time dry land, and the waters of the Eastern Interior Sea were forever banished from the future Indiana. ( her much of the northern part of its main area in Indiana, the Knobstone is at present more or less covered by glacial debris, its strata being exposed only in the stream valleys. The shales of the basil or eastern third of its unglaciated portion are exceedingly adapted to the making of vitrified wares, as paving brick, sewer pipe, etc., as well as for the clay ingredient of Portland cement, though as yet their possibilities of service for these products have been largely ignored.

Following the Knobstone epoch came that of the Lower Carboniferous limestones. Four distinct horizons of these limestones are recognized in Indiana, namely : the Harrodsburgh, Bedford, Mitchell and Huron, in the order named, each representing a distinct period of deposition in the slowly retreating Central Interior Sea. Their total thickness is nearly 600 feet, and together they form the surface rocks over an area forty miles wide on the Ohio river, but which gradually narrows northward until it disappears beneath the drift in the vicinity of Crawfordsville, Montgomery county.

Of the four horizons, that of the Bedford is by far the most noted, since from it is obtained that famous Bedford or Indiana oolitic limestone which is now widely recognized as the finest building stone on the continent of America. It is mainly composed of the globular shells of microscopic foraminifera or Rhizopods, minute onecelled animal organisms, which must have swarmed in untold myriads in the sea waters of the time. The shells or cell walls of these animals were composed of a very pure carbonate of lime, and when they died and sank on the old sea bottom these shells were cemented together by the same material. Under the lens they resemble a mass of fish eggs soldered together, hence the name oolitic, meaning like an egg. The Bedford stone is noted among architects for its strength and durability, and for the ease with which it may be sawed or carved into any desirable form. For many years it has ranked as one of the principal natural resources of the state.

The Mitchell limestone overlying the oolitic is composed of a series of closegrained limestones, shales and cherts. Its outcrop, five to thirty miles in width, is a fairly level plateau which is pitted with a great number of sink holes, many of which form the openings into underground caverns and the beds of subterranean streams. The thick beds of Mitchell limestone taken in connection with the underlying Bedford and Harrodsburg limestones, afford a series of rocks which are more or less jointed, and therefore easily eroded- by underground waters. As a result, large caves, some of them possessing great vaulted rooms, deep pits, high water falls and streams of water large enough to allow the ready passage of a boat, are found throughout this area. All of these caves are due to the action of water, that greatest of nature's solvents and abraders, its work of a day, a year, a century upon the solid limestone not appreciable to the eye, yet by slow unceasing action through the ages which have elapsed since that limestone was raised above the sea, it has carved every room and passage, constructed every pillar and stalagmite existing beneath the surface of southern Indiana.

The Huron limestone or Huron group of rocks, represents in Indiana the latest epoch of the Lower Carboniferous Era. It is composed of three beds of limestone with two intervening beds of sandstone, their combined thickness being about 150 feet.

The sandstones carry in places concretions of iron ore and thin beds of coal, the latter being the forerunners or harbingers of those vast veins of stored energy which, in southern Indiana, represent the Carboniferous and final era of Paleozoic time.

The Carboniferous Era is noted as one of gentle oscillations in the surface of those shallow seas bordering the land, these causing successive more or less wide emergencies and submergencies, the former favoring the growth of boundless forests and jungles, the latter burying the vegetable debris and other terrestrial accumulations beneath fresh water or marine deposits. During the era, that cryptogamous land vegetation which had sprung into existence in the Devonian Era. advanced with wonderful strides. The temperature was mild, the atmosphere moist and heavy laden with carbon dioxide. As a result, the vast lowland marshes were overgrown with great trees of Sigillaria, Lepidodendron and Calamites ; while at their base grew dense thickets of fern underbrush, inhabited only by insects and amphibians. For the first examples of the latter, evolved during this period from some mud-loving, fish-like creature, no flowering plant had as yet unfolded its petals, no bird had, as yet, winged its way through the buoyant air, no animal was, as yet, a denizen of earth or sea. rhose dim watery woodlands were flowerless, fruitless, songless, voiceless, unless the occasional shrill of a cricket or grasshopper could be called a song. Yet in the cells of the semi-aquatic plants and trees of those - ild forests, there was stored that heat which was destined in after ages to be freed by man and used in doing the work of the -world. The- rocks laid down during this era were alternating beds of sandstone, shale, clay and limestone with occasional beds of compressed vegetation which, during after centuries, has been changed into coal. The basal formation of the carboniferous era in Indiana, as generally elsewhere, is a bed of coarse-grained sandstone, known as the Mansfield sandstone or "Millstone Grit." It has a total thickness of 150 feet and forms the surface rock over a strip two to twentytwo miles in width, extending from the northern part of Warren county in an east of south direction to the Ohio river, a distance of 175 miles. In Martin and Orange counties it occurs with an even, sharp grit, furnishing a most excellent material for whetstones and grindstones.

Above this sandstone are the Productive and Barren Coal Measures, which comprise 7,500 square miles of the land surface of the state. At the time of their deposition or formation, the area which they cover, as well as a large part of Illinois, was a great basin or depression, but little above the level of the sea and surrounded on every side except the southwestern by the higher lands of the older formations. By successive alternations of upheaval and subsidence, carried on through thousands of years, this depression was at times an area of the southwestern sea, again a fresh water lake, and then, for a period, a vast swamp or marsh. When raised high enough to form a marsh, the luxuriant vegetation, above mentioned, sprang up from the ooze and mud at its bottom, flourished for centuries, the newer growths springing from between the fallen masses of the older, as in the peat bogs today, and so formed a mighty mass of carbonaceous material. Bv subsidence, the level of the marsh was, in time, lowered until it became a lake into which rivers from the surrounding highlands flowed, bearing with them millions of tons of clayey sediment and disintegrated quartz, the remains of the older decayed rocks. This sediment was spread out over the mass of submerged vegetation, compressing it into the hard, mineral coal ; the clayey sediment itself being in time compressed into vast beds of shale, and the particles of quartz into sandstone. In some places a more prolonged subsidence took place, sinking the floor of the lake below the level of the sea, and allowing the waters of the latter with their accompanying forms of marine life to flow in. In time beds of limestone were then formed over those of the shale or sandstone, but none of these cover an extensive area or are of great thickness. After each subsidence with its resulting beds of coal, shale and sandstone or limestone, had taken place, an upheaval followed. The floor of sea or lake was again raised so near the surface that the semiaquatic vegetation for a new coal seam could spring up and, in time, the processes above detailed were again undergone. Such, in brief, was the origin and formation of those five great veins of coal which form to-day the chief mineral wealth of our state, and of those vast beds of overlying shale which, in recent years, have come to be used for so many varied products.

We have now traced the growth of the area comprising Indiana through Paleozoic time. We have seen how that area gradually appeared above old Ocean's rim. But it was not yet the Indiana of nature, the finished product of the ages ready for the advent of man. Centuries untold had yet to come and go before it was complete, centuries during which changes of momentous importance were to come and to pass, for as yet. no palm, no angiosperm or flowering plant with seeds, no osseous or common fish, no reptile, no bird, no mammal had come to be upon the surface of the earth. All these were evolved from pre-existing forms during the age or era immediately succeeding the carboniferous or final period of Paleozoic time. This age is known as that of the Mesozoic or Middle Time, represented by the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous eras. For our purpose there may be combined with these eras the Tertiary of Cenozoic or recent time.

During the myriads of years ascribed to these eras, while vast changes were taking place in other parts of the American continent, the surface of Indiana probably all remained above sea level. On it there grew the plants and over it there doubtless roamed, in their turn, the animals of each successive era, but as its surface was above the sea, they left no fossil bone or foot-print to tell us of their presence. All this time, however, the silent processes of nature were unceasing in their labor, and wrought great changes in the surface of the future state. Decay and erosion were in action then as they are to-day. Sunshine and rain, wind and frost, trickling rills and strong streams were ever at work, softening and sculpturing and wearing down the exposed rocks, forming clays and sand and gravel and bearing them away to lowel levels. At the close of the Tertiary Era, the entire surface of what is now Indiana resembled that of to-day in the driftless area of its southern part, being cut up by erosion into a complex net work of valleys, ridges and isolated hills. In certain portions of the northern half great streams, of which there are now no surface indication, had worn their channels a half mile in width, two hundred feet or more down into the solid Niagara limestone. The Ohio river valley, a trench from one to six miles wide and four hundred feet deep, was mainly eroded during this period, as was also the greater portion of the Wabash valley, from Columbia City to the mouth of the Wabash. Everywhere over the surface was a thin soil, formed from decaying rocks and vegetation, poorer, perhaps, than much of that which at present covers the surface of the driftless area, where the underlying limestones and shales have been the parent rock. In this soil grew the cedar and the sassafras, the willow and the maple, the oak and the beech, while over its surface spread many of the coarser grasses, sedges and mosses of the present day.

During these long periods of erosion and decay, mild climate conditions had prevailed. But near the close of the Tertiary a change in these conditions came gradually to pass, a change which was most sweeping and farreaching in its final results. For some, as vet unknown reason, the mean annual- temperature of the northern hemisphere became much lower. The climate of the regions to the east and south of Hudson Bay became similar to that of Greenland of to-day. or even colder, The snow, ever falling. never melting, accumulated during hundreds of centuries in one vast field of enormous thickness. Near the bottom of this mass a plastic, porous sort of ice was gradually formed from the snow by the pressure from above. This ice mass or glacier took upon itself a slow, almost imperceptible motion to the south or south-westward, until it covered three-fourths or more of what is now Indiana. As it moved slowly southward, great masses of partly decayed rock and clay from hillsides and jutting cliffs rolled down upon it and were carried on and on until, by the melting of their icy steed, they were dropped hundreds of miles from the parent ledge. Large irregular masses of rock from the region in which the glacier was formed were either frozen into its nether portion 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 and filling up the valleys, until the irregular, uneven surface of the old preglacial rocks was planed and polished.

From the strata formed by these imprisoned boulders and from other evidence which it is difficult to otherwise explain, it is now believed that there were several distinct epochs in the glacial period. The great ice sheet, which was at first formed, several times advanced and as often, by an increase of the temperature of the region which it entered, melted and receded ; its retreat or recession being each time as gradual as its advance had been. Like a great army which has attempted the invasion of a country and has been compelled to withdraw, it would again assemble its forces and start in a slightly different direction. But, perchance, before it had reached the limit of its former invasion, a force of circumstances would render a retreat necessary. Its advancing margin was thus not in a straight line, but in lobes, or long, gradual curves.

est advance into the region now comprising Indiana, the ice was at least 500 or 600 feet deep over the present site of Terre Hante and nearly as deep over that of Indianapolis, and it thickened gradually northward, reaching .a depth of perhaps 700 feet over present Whitley county. If an observer could have stood on one of the hills in Brown county -at that time, he would have seen to the east of him the great wall of the ice front extending south toward Kentucky, while toward the west it would have been seen in the distance stretching away toward the southwest. For hundreds of miles to the east and west, and for 2,000 miles or more to the north, the glaring, white desert of snowcovered ice, like that seen in the interior of Greenland by Nansen and Peary, would have appeared, stretching away out of sight, with not a thing under the sun to relieve its cold monotony.

By the incursions of the various ice sheets, all the so-called "drift soils" of northern and central Indiana were accumulated where thev lie. Derived, as they were, in part, from the various primary and igneous rocks in the far north, ground fine and thoroughly mixed as they were by the onward moving force of a mighty glacier, they are unusually rich in all the necessary constituents of plant food. Principally to them does Indiana owe her present high rank as an agricultural state. All the level and more fertile counties lie within this drift covered area, and its southern limit marks, practically, the boundary of the great corn and wheat producing portion of the state. But few of the present inhabitants of Indiana realize how much they owe to this glacial invasion of our domain in the misty past. It not only determined the character of the soil, the contour of the country and the minor lines of drainage, but in manifold other ways had to do with the pleasure, the health and the general prosperity of the present population.

When the final ice sheet gradually receded from the area now comprising Indiana, the surface of the glaciated portion was left covered with a sheet of drift or till composed mainly of clay, gravel and boulders, and varying in thickness from 100 to 400 feet or more. Over the greater portion of this area the surface of the drift was comparatively level, but in the northern fourth of the state it was in numerous places heaped up in extensive ridges and hills, due to irregular dumping along the margins and between the lobes of the melting ice sheets. In the hollows or low places between those ridges and hills, the waters of the meltingice accumulated and formed those hundreds of fresh water lakes which are to-day the most beautiful and expressive features of the landscape in the region wherein they abound. At first, all of those yet in existence were much larger than now, while for everyone remaining a score have become extinct.

A new vegetation soon sprang up over the land left desolate and barren by the retreating ice. The climate gradually became much warmer than it is to-day. The . great expanse of water in lakes and rivers, aided by the increase in temperature, gave rise to excessive moisture. Fostered by the rich soil and the mild, moist atmosphere, a vast forest of deciduous trees spread over the larger portion of the state. Through this forest and about the margins of the lakes and marshes, there wandered for centuries the mammoth and mastodon, the giant bison and the elk, the tapir and the peccary, the mighty sloth and that king of rodents. Castoroides ohioensis. Preying upon these and smaller mammals, were the great American lion, and tigers and wolves of mammoth size. The bones and teeth of all these species of extinct animals have been found buried beneath the surface of former bogs and marshes, in various portions of the state. It is not improbable that with them was also that higher mammal, man, in all the nakedness of his primitive existence. But over this phase in the evolution of the future Indiana, there came again a change, for nature knows no such thing as rest. The o-reat rivers which had borne south and south-westwardly the floods and debris of the melting glaciers, gradually diminished in size and filled but a small portion of their former valleys. Extensive shallow lakes in the north-western part of our present area gave way to marshes and these, in time, towet prairies, possessing a rich black soil derived largely from the decay of aquatic vegetation. The climate gradually grew less moist, more cool. The mammoth, mastodon and contemporaneous mammals disappeared, and in their stead came countless thousands of buffaloes and deer. With them, came too, that son of nature, that descendant of the naked barbarians of centuries before, the noble red man.

Location, Size, Geology

Whitley county originally comprised townships 30. 31, and 32 in each of the ranges 8. 9 and 10 east of the second principal meridian in Indiana, government survey, or a territory eighteen miles square, containing nine congressional townships. each six miles square, a total area of 324 square miles. To this was later added the south third of congressional township 33, range 8 (Washington civil township, Noble county), making its present area 336 square miles. This territory is entirely occupied by the great Saginaw Erie interlobate moraine, two members of which are distinguishable within its limits, the outer or third and fourth Erie moraines. The crest of this morainic system forming the water shed between the Tippecanoe and Eel rivers, passes through Troy and Thorncreek townships, thus leaving the greater part of the county upon the Erie side. Topographers locate the western line of the Maumee River Basin along Eel river, placing all of the county east of that stream within that great valley. This is not technically correct but is used for want of an accurate line laid down by engineers. The only recorded borings of considerable depth into the earth are at Larwill and Columbia City, made about the year 1886; a later boring about the year 1904, at Larwill, confirms the former. These borings pass through about 220 feet of drift, and its thickness can not be much less in any part of the county except in the south-east corner of the county where it touches the Wabash-Erie channel. Perhaps nowhere else in the whole northwest, within equal limits, does the surface of the drift present aspects so strongly marked and contrasted in character ; yet no- where else in the state is it more difficult to differentiate and correlate the various members of the morainic system. There are at least five distinct topographical types which agree only in strong features, limited area and confused arrangement. These will be described and afterward an attempt will be made to arrange them in accordance with the general plan of the morainic system of north-eastern Indiana.

In the townships of Washington, Jefferson and the southern third of Union, the surface is best described by the word flat. It forms a part of the great level plain of east central Indiana, except that in the southeast corner of Jefferson township, near the old Wabash-Erie canal the surface is much broken, equal to the most rugged parts in the north and western part of the county, while generally in this flat part of the county the slopes are sufficient for drainage, they are usually imperceptible to the eye, and can be determined only by the general course of the streams. The surface resembles that of a sheet of paper which has been wet and dried, the depressions and elevations having very slight relief and no definite boundaries. The concavities are perceptible only because the water stands in them like puddles on a flat tin roof. The only relief from unbroken monotony is afforded by the channels of the streams, which have been eroded to a considerable depth and which grow deeper as the stream descends towards its mouth. The marshes, now almost eradicated by drainage, are like a platter having only an insignificant depth and no definite margins. The soil contains very few boulders and requires understanding to realize its full fertility. It is a part of that enor- mous mass of fine mud, which, as the ice melted, settled quietly to the bottom of the glaciers and is known as ground moraine. From this region, several streams flow east and south and south-west, all toward the Wabash-Erie channel. Indian creek and Big Indian creek flow in parallel courses eastward to join the Aboite, just above its mouth in Allen county. Where they enter the Aboite valley, they are bordered by bluffs forty to fifty feet high. Along the southern boundary are the headwaters of Calf creek and Clear creek, which flow south through Huntington county to the Little Wabash, commonly known as Little river. Out of the marshes of northern Washington and north-west Jefferson townships. Sugar creek and Stony creek wind sluggishly westwardly to join Eel river. Both these streams have been opened up of late years by county ditches, adding untold wealth to the agriculture of that region. The drainage of Sugar creek, with its numerous branches, caused a great deal of litigation, and the work was not systematically done, but was of untold value and increased the value of the real estate very much. The perfecting of this drainage is now being agitated, which will make it of more value than any other system of drainage in the county, not even considering the dredging of old Eel river.

This whole region seems characterized chiefly by its want of character. A slight but perceptible ridge along the east tier of sections in Washington forms the water shed between the Indian and Calf creeks on the east and Clear creek and the Eel river tributaries on the west. In summing up the results of the survey, this ridge is found to possess more importance than its appearance seems to warrant. Passing west into the southern part of Cleveland township, a marked change is discernible. Here the surface is no longer Hat, but corrugated with gently sloping ridges which are elevated above the general level and extend northeast and south-west. These ridges grow successively higher to a summit two to four miles east of the west county line, whence they fall away more rapidly to the Eel river valley in Wabash county. Hurricane creek and other small streams cut across them almost at right angles and flow westward through deep channels. These ridges are also pitted with frequent kettle holes.

At the west line of the county, the sandy and gently undulating valley of Eel river is encountered, here about one mile wide, the slopes on either side being gradual and without bluffs. In the four or five miles of its course, east of South Whitley, the river flows at the bottom of a much deeper and narrower valley. The hills upon either side rise to a greater height and have more abrupt slopes. In section i, township 30. range 8. two very curious depressions extend back from the river into the hills. One is narrow and over a half mile long, the other smaller, but separated from the first by a narrow ridge like a canal tow-path. They are now occupied by swamps, but were originally lakes exactly similar to some of those in the northern part of the county. They are the southernmost specimens of morainic or kettle-hole lakes to be found upon the Erie side of the Saginaw-Erie system. The ridges of Cleveland township form a part of the Mississinewa or fourth Erie moraine, through which Eel river, following the example of so many other streams in this region, here cuts transversely. In the north-west half of Columbia and the east half of Richland townships, the fourth moraine assumes a character which words are powerless to picture. The country is entirely occupied by deep, irregular, elongated valleys with narrow sharp winding ridges between, all in inextricable, indescribable and almost unmapable confusion. In a somewhat extensive study of the great morainic belts of North America, by personal observation and published reports. Prof. Charles Dryer says he has never seen or found described anything nearly resembling this area. It covers in all about forty square miles and the greatest distance of level probably does not exceed 100 feet, yet this little patch of the earth's surface is unique. The roads through it were originally very crooked to avoid the marshes and, though somewhat improved by drainage and good graveling, will always remain of the crooked type. In whatever direction one travels, it is one continuous succession of steep descents and ascents. The ridges are composed of rather barren clay and the valleys occupied originally by marshes and tamarack swamps. The relief might be imitated by taking a block of plastic clay and gouging it with some blunt instrument in the most irregular manner possible, somewhat as the ancient Babylonians did their bricks. It is one of nature's cuneiform inscriptions, and as difficult of interpretation as those of the Euphrates valley. This type of topography may he called chasmed. It is now impossible to imagine with any definiteness of detail the process by which this little bit of the face of the earth was put in its present shape. Another strange peculiarity, is that a country which so abounds in depressions is almost devoid of lakes. This condition continues to and beyond the west line of Richland township to about the center, north and south, or the entire west side of township 31, range 8.

Black lake, section 27, and Wilson lake, section 35, township 32, range 8, lie upon the north-western border of this region. The former originally covered about forty acres, is shallow and almost free from vegetation. An unusually high and precipitous ridge separates the two. From these lakes Spring creek flows southward through the chasms to Eel river near South Whitley. North of the middle of Richland township, the surface smoothes out, decidedly retaining similar features in a much milder form, and may be called gently sloping. This comparatively smooth interval extends westward nearly to the county line, and to the north occupies the greater part of Troy and Etna townships. Although the contrast between the precipitous chasms on the east and the gentle undulations on the west is very strong, it is impossible to draw more than an approximate line. The village of Larwill is situated upon this boundary, which extends thence south-ward and southwest and toward the north-east, passing between Loon and Crooked lakes. On the west side of the interval and in Kosciusko county, the surface becomes again tumbled and broken, assuming the usual characters of a moraine. This type of typography, which may be fitly designated as crumpled, touches Whitley county near Robinson lake, section 18, Troy township. This lake with an original area of about 150 acres has an average depth of thirty feet and a maximum of fifty-two feet near the south-west end. It is drained north-westward into the Tippecanoe. Etna township and the northern part of Troy have the appearance of an elevated tableland, a smooth plain, not level, but slightly inclined to the west. Ridges and gorges are wholly absent. It is a country of long, gentle slopes and wide vistas, from which woods beyond fields may be seen stretching away to a horizon dim in the distance. It is remarkable that this comparatively level interval should be found upon the very crest of the Saginaw-Erie interlobate moraine, the slopes on either side being much more rough and irregular. Like the valley of Upper Pigeon creek in Steuben county, and a portion of north-western De Ivalb county, it looks as though it once might have been a wide and deep valley, subsequently filled by overwash from either side. This impression is made stronger by the fact that in both cases the interval is found to contain extensive sand streams. The one described as lying south of Fremont, Steuben county, is matched by the deposits of sand south and west of Loon lake, sections t and 2, Troy.

In Whitley county the interval contains several lakes. Cedar lake, sections 10 and 11, Troy, originally of about 150 acres, has been lowered ten feet by a ditch and has a sand beach nearly all around it, in some places ten rods wide. The deepest place found is forty-five feet. Goose lake, in section 12, resembles Cedar, but is only about half as large. In this region also is Loon lake, one of the largest in the county. It occupies parts of sections 36, Etna ; 1, Troy ; and 6, Thorncreek; and about one-half its area is comprised in Noble county. It is broadly bottle-shaped, with a short neck to the north, one mile and a quarter long by a half mile wide. The shores are low but clean, without marsh except at the north and south ends. The water is so clear that the bottom can be distinctly seen at depths of thirty or forty feet. Between the south shore and a small island, depths of thirtyfive or forty feet are found. From the island a gravel bar covered with small boulders extends westward. The main body of the lake has a depth varying but little from seventy feet. One sounding north-west of the island reached the very unusual figure of 1 02 feet, thus placing Loon lake among the list of the deepest lakes in the state. Tributary to Loon lake are Old lake and New lake, each of about eighty acres, the latter interesting from the fact that within a few years it has been drained and diminished to one-half its size. The wide beach of sand and shells are almost bare of vegetation, but the little lobelia Kalmii is rapidly taking possession, with only Lysiwachia ciliata and Cassia Marilandica for competitors. The country around these lakes is moderately uneven, but its irregularity is not at all comparable with that of the regions on the east and west of it. The lake basins are great depressions in a surface otherwise comparatively smooth.

The remainder of Whitley county, including the townships of Thorncreek and Smith and the portions of Columbia and Union, present the usual features of crumpled moraine topography in moderate strength and great variety. It is divided diagonally from north-east to south-west by the valley of Blue river, which here serves to separate the third and fourth Erie moraines. The latter contains a group of lakes, which for beauty and general attractivenessmay challenge comparison with any of their Indiana rivals. Shriner, Cedar and Round in Thorncreek, are as pretty a trio of lakes as one can wish to see. They occupy parallel valleys separated by slight ridges. On these ridges are several cottages, and the whole is one of the most picturesque regions to be found anywhere. Shriner is a mile and a quarter long by a quarter wide. Its level was lowered many years ago by a ditch cut through the ridge to Round lake. The stream connecting the two rivals the most beautiful trout streams of the mountains. The cutting of this ditch was the occasion for one of the early cases of litigation in the county. The present shores of Shriner lake are remarkably clean and present many most beautiful landing places. The water from the shores deepens rapidly and is very clear. At either end the banks are low, at the east very sandy, at the west marshy, while along the central part on either side are beautiful high bluffs covered by native forest trees. The depth varies from fortyfive to seventy feet.

Cedar is much like Shriner but more irregular. The lower fourth is separated from the main body by narrows. Its level was raised by a dam at the same time Shriner's was lowered and the shallow space thus gained is entirely occupied by aquatic vegetation, chiefly nuphar. These two lakes furnish an illustration of the law that lowering a lake leaves clean shores and raising it results in the formation of a marshy border. The depth of Cedar lake varies from fortyfive to seventy-nine feet in the center of the upper basin. Round lake occupies an area of about 1 60 acres, lies at the same level as Cedar, connected by the strait or ditch already described. Its axis is at right angles with that of Cedar and its depth thirty-five to sixty feet. These lakes are drained through Thorncreek into Blue river.

Separated from the west end of Cedar by a divide a quarter of a mile across and twenty-five or thirty feet high is Crooked lake, which empties westward into the Tippecanoe river. Its axis continues the general direction of Shriner and Cedar, south-east and north-west, but it is nearly as large as the other two and much more irregular in outline and bottom. The upper basin is small and partially separated from the central by a narrow gravel ridge. The central basin is half a mile in diameter and near its center is found among the deepest soundings ever made in an Indiana lake: 107 feet. The lower end extends into Noble county. The shores are* clean and gravelly and the hills on either side probably form the highest ground in Whitley county. The group of lakes comprising Shriner's, Round, Cedar and Crooked, furnish five or six miles of boating and offer attractions for the camper, sportsman, fisherman and artist, such as are equaled by few places in the state.

Blue River Valley contains one lake which is distinguished as being inter-morainic rather than intra-morainic. Blue River lake, in sections 9, 10, 15 and 16, Smith, has a basin one-half mile by a mile and a half, with low shores and a very uniform depth of forty to fifty-five feet. Aquatic vegetation in great variety and profusion furnishes a botanist's paradise. The shores are nearly surrounded by a broad belt of plants arranged in distinct zones, according to the depth of the water. On approaching the shore, the first zone appears at depths between six and eight feet and consists of Brasenia, Potamogeton, species with filiform leaves being very abundant, Utricularia and Myriophyllum. At a depth of four feet, Nuphar covers the water with its leaves, the spaces between being filled with a dense mass of Chara covered with a mantle of Lemna. Here navigation becomes difficult. At a depth of three feet Pontederia appears with Polygonum Amphibium. At two feet the water passes gradually into a jungle of Decodon. Typha, Polygonum nodosum, Phragmites and Salix, passable only by birds and reptiles. This lake is the only locality in north-eastern Indiana where the splendid Nelumbo lutea occurs, and here it is as abundant as Nymphse. Flowers are difficult to procure because they are gathered by numerous visitors as fast as they open, but the leaves rolled up and rocking like a boat, or expanded into an orbicular shield twenty to thirty inches in diameter and flapping in the wind, present an interesting and attractive sight. The water in mid-summer has the appearance of muddy coffee, and through the whole season teems with plant and animal life. Such a lake as this would repay a thorough and prolonged biological examination and would furnish the naturalist with material enough for several years' study. Here also the artist finds a rich and unworked field. He would transfer to his sketch book the dark, glossy green, triangular leaves and showy purple spikes of the pickerel weed, the symmetrical oval crimson shields of Brazenia, the boat-bell shaped saucers of the Nelumbo, the Victoria regia of the North, the grace- ful dignity of the reed grass, the swaying stems and densely whorled capillary leaves of the water milfoil and numberless forms of Chara, pond weed, and bladderwort, which would be new to decorative art, and in place of the conventional cat-tail and pond-lilly, would astonish and delight not only the natives but the world.

The lakes of Whitley county are not numerous, but they include some of the brightest gems of their class; delightful to the sportsman, the naturalist, the artist and the lover of nature in her most charming aspects.

The surface of Smith township and the greater part of Union is greatly undulating, of a subdued morainic type. The long slopes, large fields and open forests, give to many portions of it the appearance of an English park. Around Coesse it is more irregular, with sharper ridges and numerous tamarack swamps. Southern Union, northern Jefferson and north-eastern Washington are very flat. Mud creek is very nearly the dividing line between the flat and the crumpled country. One feature of this region, not in itself obtrusive, is of special significance to the geologist. A mild boulder belt can be traced from section 34, Smith, in a south-west direction to section 32, Union, beyond which it is lost in the thickly wooded swamps. It is about seven miles long and from a half mile to a mile in width, with well defined edges and as unmistakable as a highway. The boulders are chiefly granite, rounded and sub-angular, averaging two or three feet in diameter, and the largest twice that size. This belt bears directly toward the divide in sections 35 and 36, Washington, where also boulders are large and numerous. This line extended southward would pass near the city of Huntington where the immense accumulation of boulders has long been a puzzle to geologists. W'hether a distinct boulder belt exists in northern Huntington county has not yet been determined.

The drainage system of Whitley county does not conform, except in the most general way, to the chief topographical features. The great divide between the tributaries of Eel river and the Tippecanoe, in the northwestern part of the county, is a comparatively level table land; in fact an interval between the Saginaw moraine in Kosciusko county and the fourth or outer Erie moraine. Through the valleys and gorges of the latter flow the north-western tributaries of Blue and Eel rivers. The principal drainage line of the region of Blue river, which rises near Avilla, Noble county, and passes through a tortuous and varied course to its junction with the Eel, in section 23. Columbia. Most of the way it has occupied a channel much too big for it, bordered by a marsh a quarter of a mile wide, but in some portions, as at Columbia City, the valley is no wider than the stream. The dredging of this river through the north-eastern part of the county recently and the completion of the same at this writing, to its mouth, has left Blue river but a big ditch and much straightened. The wide parts of this valley are undoubted fragments of a once continuous glacial drainage channel, or system of channels, from one to another of which the present river has cut its way in past glacial times. In doing so, it has left here and there an old bayou at one side, the largest of which is the marsh extending from the bend of the river in section 17, Smith township, southward two

Eel river rises in the interval between the second and third Erie moraines in northwestern Allen county and flows across the third moraine to the mouth of the Blue. Thus far it is geologically a younger and less important stream than the latter. Three miles below their junction in section 32, Columbia, the united streams turn westward and cut directly through the fourth moraine, after passing which, they resume their original south-westerly direction.

The following is from the seventeenth report of the Indiana state geologist : "The first and second Erie moraines have already been described in a previous report under the name of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph and Wabash-Aboit moraines. Since that report was submitted, two more morainic lines have been distinguished north of the Wabash river, as belonging to the Erie system and corresponding to similar lines south. of the Wabash. The existence of these moraines, and the general plan of the system, was indicated and outlined in the previous report (Sixteenth Report, P. 123-4). A private letter from Mr. Frank Leverett, of the United States geological survey, who is engaged upon an extensive examination of the drift of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, confirms and supplements the predictions there made in a very gratifying manner. The third or Salamonie moraine follows the right bank of the Salamonie river through the counties of Jay, Blackford and Wells into the south-eastern part of Huntington count}'. According to Leverett its features are weak, irregular and discontinuous. The fourth or

Mississinewa moraine follows the right bank of the Mississinewa river through the counties of Jay, Delaware, Blackford and Grant into the eastern part of Wabash, where according to the same authority it is very strong, crossing the Wabash river at Lagro and passing northward to the south-east corner of Whitley county. The counties of Steuben, Lagrange. Noble. Dekalb, Whitley and Kosciusko have long been known to be occupied by a broad and strong-featured mass of drift, the joint product of a tongue of ice proceeding from Saginaw Bay and another thrust forward from Lake Erie and known as the Saginaw-Erie interlobate moraine. From this great mass it has been the privilege of the writer to distinguish and separate two morainic lines, forming continuations of the Salamonie and Mississinewa ridges. While the work of differentiation and correlation has been in some places difficult, in others it has been so easy as to leave no doubt in regard to the general conclusions. South of the Wabash river, the Erie moraines are separated by intervals of ten to fifteen miles, while north of that river, owing to the obstruction offered by the Saginaw glacier, they are so crowded together as to be almost contiguous. While it is thus rendered impossible to fix thenexact dividing lines throughout their whole extent, certain features here and there are so obvious and suggestive as to be unmistakable. The third moraine extends from the north-eastern comer of the state through eastern Steuben and north-western Dekalb, the south-eastern corner of Noble, the northwestern corner of Allen and the eastern part of Whitley counties. In the south-eastern part of the latter county, it ceases to be a prominent topographical feature, but is represented by a mild boulder belt. The interval between the third and fourth moraines is, in Steuben county, from three to sixmiles wide, but in Dekalb county the two moraines are contiguous and undistinguishable. Tn Noble and Whitley counties they are very close together, but separated by the valley of Blue river. The fourth moraine is very strong in north central Steuben and the line of demarkation between the Erie and Saginaw drift is very distinct. In southwestern Steuben and in Noble county, this line, if it exists, has not been determined. In Whitley county a level interval of three or four miles bounds the outer Erie moraine on the west. The present divide between the basins of Lake Erie and Lake Michigan lies in Steuben county, between the third and fourth moraines, in Dekalb and Noble counties, along the crest of the fourth, while in Whitley county the divide between the Eel river and the Tippecanoe lies in the interval outside of the fourth. The following tables, gleaned from various sources, give a general idea of the elevations of these moraines :

A confusion of these elevations with those of the first and second Erie moraines given in the sixteenth report of the state geologist, pages 115 to 122, shows the same general descent in each, from the extremities toward the apex and a progressive elevation of the extremities and a depression of the apices from the first to the fourth. The first and second are composed of the same material as the general ground moraine of the region, a stiff, gravelly clay, kettle holes, lakes, domes, peaks and the usual features of moraine topography being almost wholly absent. The third and fourth, north of the Wabash river, contain large masses of sand and gravel and present all the peculiar morain ic characters in strong development.

In north-eastern Indiana the story of the advance, the struggle and the retreat of the glaciers is .written in characters so plain that he who runs may read.

Earliest History

The early claims of European monarchs to large portions of the western continent were based upon first discoveries by their subjects, and were maintained upon very slender threads of fact interwoven with superstitious fancy. Boundaries were hardly approximately defined, and such terms as headwaters, portage, tide water, fort, Indian villages and residences of white or red men. were described in early records as monuments from which lines ran. Many of them were run by parallels' extending indefinitely into the undiscovered, unexplored and unknown. The country was so vast, wild and unknown, lakes, rivers and mountains so mythical and indefinite, that there were no facts upon which to base contentions and no one to raise dispute. It will never be known to a certainty when the foot of white man first pressed the soil of Whitley county, or who that white man was.

La Salle established himself as a trader with the Indians in Canada, in 1669. As grew his business, so grew his ambitions as an explorer. He conceived the plan of seeking a northwest passage to the Pacific.

that is, to a sea he felt must lie beyond the land, and he believed not far off. He supposed Lake Superior near that sea, if indeed not an arm of it extending into the land.

Frontenac, governor-general of Canada, joined in the golden dream, and gave encouragement to an exploring expedition to find the sea, but before it had gotten under way the west shore of Lake Michigan was discovered and explored as far as present Chicago. Marquette discovered the Mississippi and navigated it far to the south, returning by way of the east shore of Lake Michigan, in 1673. These things caused explorations to be made into the interior, and La Salle found and descended the Ohio, and we have reason to believe was in northern Indiana in 1671. Marquette ascertained by his voyage that the Mississippi emptied into the sea far beyond the claims of Spanish territory, and that it could be reached by way of Green Bay and the Wisconsin river by a short portage or by way of Lake Michigan and the Illinois river by way of the Chicago portage. La Salle learned also that it could be reached easily by the St. Joseph and Kankakee rivers, by means of a short portage at South Bend, and believed other streams could be found by way of the tributaries of the Ohio much farther east. He was dazzled with the hope of a vast and magnificent realm added to the French crown. His dream of empire was great, of federation of and control of Indian tribes, of wealth and honor, of a line of French military posts girdling this great area. There is no doubt that if indeed La Salle did not traverse this region in person, he did by his couriers and explorers, from 1679 to 1683. In 1679, ne crossed the South Bend portage and descended the Kankakee to the Illinois, and some members of the party explored every river and stream that would carry a canoe, at least as far east as the Maumee. In the public archives at Paris is an ancient map, a copy of which may be seen in the public library at Detroit. It purports to have been made by d-Anville. in 1686, and to show La Salle's explorations. It represents remarkably well most of our Indiana streams. The inscription claims it was drawn under the personal direction of La Salle himself. The Wabash is given its true course, as is also the Tippecanoe and Kankakee. Almost as accurately as shown on our maps to-day, is the location of both Blue and Eel rivers, Blue river the largest and most prominent. This accords with the theory of geologists thai Blue river was originally the larger and most important of the two streams. A portage is drawn from the Maumee forks at Kekionga (Fort Wayne) to Blue River lake. Perhaps the first fort he established was Maumee City, on the Maumee river. in J 680, ami in the same year La Salle himself gave personal direction to the building of the fort at the confluence of St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers, now Fort Wayne. Enterprising Frenchmen at once established themselves and carried on a large trade with the Indians, having a water route direct to Lake Erie.

The earliest commandant was Sieur Courthemanche, and in his diary for 1681 he speaks of the superior otter skins purchased from the Indian tribes living north and westward about thirty miles from the post, and remarks the hospitality with which the Indians received his men. There can be no doubt, therefore, that white man visited Whitley county in 1681.

The story of La Salle's return to France, the royal favor and assistance, his return, his discouragements amid rising hopes and finally his death by violence in 1687, are not pertinent to this narrative.

In 1 7 14, Gov. Alexander Spotswood, of the colony of Virginia, a man of energy and foresight, viewed with alarm the pushing of the French into this undefined country. He urged on the English king and ministry measures to reach into this country and take possession, as against France. The king and his advisers were slow to act, and the aggression first assumed shape through private capital and enterprise, and as early as 1716 they attempted to bribe the Indians to their standard against the French, Naturally, the French used the same weapons, and thus white men encouraged and bribed the Indians into inhuman barbarism and treachery, and were the real cause of the trail of blood and savage warfare that pervaded this country for more than a hundred vears. during the claim and counter-claim of these countries, kept up until after the cession of the country to the colonies, indeed lingering until after the second war with England in 1812.

In June, 1759, three hundred French militia and six hundred Indians marched from the Illinois country to the Mississippi, thence the}' went by canoes down that river, then by way of the Ohio and Wabash to its confluence with Eel river, thence up Eel river to a point near the headwaters of the Maumee (Fort Wayne), thence to Lake Erie. This great army came up Eel river to some point in Union township, Whitley county, and across to Fort Wayne on the trail already established by the traders.

French dominion practically ceased over the territory in 1761, though peace was not concluded with England till the following year, but the state of affairs in this country practically remained the same, the French contending after the treaty of peace that they were to have possession of the Maumee, Eel and Wabash rivers. George Crogan, of Pennsylvania, Sir William Johnson's subcommissioner, visited the country with an escort in 1765, traveling from Logansport along Eel river to the Union township portage to Fort Wayne. He records of his trip through what is now Whitley county, as follows : "We traveled along Eel river, passing through fine clear woods and some good meadows, though not so large as some we passed a few days before. The country is more overgrown with woods, the soil is very fine and rich and well watered with springs. This stream runs through as fine country as the world affords."

missionary priest was an occasional visitor to Whitley county, traders from Fort Wayne and from the Elkhart country came and went, soldiers and adventurers passed through, but no record or monument is left of their doings. Within our limits was neither fort nor stockade, though we were not far from the protected ramparts of Fort Wayne. Even the once busy carrying place between Blue and Elkhart rivers, known to French records, is lost and will never be found, though used by white men, and a veritable highway for the Pottawottamies for perhaps centuries, and entirely abandoned little more than a hundred years ago. Gathering the fragments of history relating to this once important thoroughfare, studying the topography of the country, giving importance to early tradition and evidences as late as 1840, we feel quite sure the route struck Whitley county at or about Cold Springs and followed the little stream to Loon lake and wound deviously among our chain of lakes by way of Shriner lake, then a place of importance among the Indians, and that from Round lake it led almost directly to the north line of section 17, in Smith township. The proof is not sufficiently conclusive to positively state this was the route, but all evidence obtainable warrants the belief that it was.

At the treaty of peace between England 'and the colonies, the mother country insisted on fixing the western boundary of the L nited colonies at the Ohio, but unaware of the richness that lay between, tired of the long war and with humbled pride, finally agreed on the Mississippi. The treaties by which the Indians were divested of their title to this section, are all of record in the nation's archives, but would be too tiring and confusing if attempted to be followed here, many of the monuments having long ago perished. The most important and the one worth considering in a general historical article, is that of Greenville, Ohio, August 3- 1795-

The first attempt at white man's civil local government over this territory was in 1778, during the war of the Revolution, when the English organized the county of Kent, Upper Canada, with seat of government at Niagara Falls. The north and east boundaries of this county were characteristic of the period ; understood by those who made them perhaps at that time, but now indefinable by anyone, but the southern boundary was the fortieth parallel and the western the ninetieth meridian, so that present Whitley county is surely within the limits of the original county of Kent, Upper Canada. An election was held, and William Grant and William McComb were elected as members from Kent county to a legislature that soon after convened at Niagara Falls. There is scant record in existence of the work of that legislative body, and nothing that in any way concerns us. It is likely they did but little than resolve fealty to the crown in the impending struggle. After Great Britain had relinquished her sovereignty over us, her subjects harrassed the few settlers for many years, assuming to control them in their helplessness. The colonies were thoroughly imbued with the fact that they were so many little sovereignties, independent of each other. They had fled from oppression of various forms in the old world. Their thoughts of government, religion and even family control.

were widely divergent, and it required the best statesmen and patriots, with the blood of the Revolution yet upon their clothes, to secure among them that tranquillity for which they had fought so hard and endured so much.

There were different colonial claims of ownership over the newly ceded territory not within the original limits of their respective colonies. Especially was this so in regard to this, the northwest territory, north of the Ohio river and west of Pennsylvania. The question, after vexations, quarrels and delays, was finally settled by ceding all these claims to the general government, and the newly acquired domain became national. Massachusetts claimed this particular territory as against Virginia, but never attempted to exercise political control, and ceded it to the general government, April 19, 1785. Virginia did exercise authority and control, and we were clearly a part of that sovereignty from the time British control lawfully ceased till the creation of the northwest territory with a territorial government.

October, 1778, (Vol. IX, P. 557, Statutes at Large) the general assembly of Virginia organized the territory west of the Ohio and adjacent to the Mississippi, into the county of Illinois, and appointed Col. John Todd commandant, who exercised undisputed authority and therefore settled the title in Virginia. Todd transferred certain powers to a Mr. Le Gras and a court was held at Vincennes. Thus, in October. 1778, we were Illinois county, Virginia, or Kent county, Canada, as the fortunes of war might decree between England and America. English title extinguished and Virginia title ceded to the general government, July 13, 1787, congress passed an ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory. It provided for the appointment of a governor for three years unless sooner revoked. He must reside in the territory and own at least one thousand acres of land. A secretary was to be appointed for four years and must reside in the territory and own at least five hundred acres of land. A seal was also provided, a rude form of government established and recognized. The creation of a national territorial government over the Northwest Territory dissolved the county of Illinois, state of Virginia.

On April 30, 1802, congress passed a law that when the territory within certain limits should adopt a constitution, it should be admitted as the state of Ohio and thus Ohio became a state in the Federal Union in 1803, without ever having had a distinct territorial government. Ohio as it now is was never a territory except as originally a part of Northwest Territory. August 15, 1796, in the absence of Gov. St. Clair, Secretary Winthrob established Wayne county, and it was the third county in Northwest Territory. This action caused some ill feeling between the governor and his secretary, the former believing such county government, so far away from the seat of territorial government, might bring about a clash of authority, but the county was established with seat of government at Detroit and we became Wayne county, Northwest Territory. The southern boundary began at the southernmost point on Lake Michigan and ran south-eastwardly to Fort Recovery, Ohio, passing through present Huntington county, taking in present Whitley county.

but the line was quite near the south-west corner of Whitley county. From Fort Recovery the line ran almost due east through Ohio to the western reserve.