Wilson, Indiana

In the pioneer days Union township was farUicj- IVm;,! I he institutions of civilization than the settlements farther uorlh and i ;i ,1. It was thirty miles to the nearest grist mill, and it was a custom foj unr of the settlers to make up a wagon load of grain among tlu: neigh l.cj.^ and make the three day trip with an ox-team, distributing the flour or -orn meal among the owners of the grain upon his return. ^Vlien this supply I'an out an- man would take his turn in going to the mill. TIk miller's toll was hea^'J', and some of the settlers overcame the difiieulty hy liurning a hollow in the top of a large stump for a mortar, and pounding theii- corn therein with a hard-wood pestle. The meal produced ]<y this method was coarse, ^)ut it was wholesome, and frequently the only supper served was a bowl of mush made of this meal and a generous porlion of fresh milk. The implements used by the pioneer farmers wei-e of Mw most primitive character. The first plow used in the township was oT the old "bulltongue" pattern, and harrows were made by scU'ctiiii; a \"-sliaiH'd fork of a tree, boring holes at regular distances through each 1 : ^ineli of the fork and driving into them hard wood pegs for teelb. Wiicfii \\as cut with the cradle and bound by hand. In some cases the siekir, oi' "reap-hook," was used, especially if the grain was rank and tangled h> the wind. The grain was threshed with the flail, tramped out 1)>- drivii;;.' horses or cattleover it on a piece of ground smoothed off foj' the inposi', or in some instances the "ground-hog" threshing machiiu' was i,., J. This would looseu the grain from the chaff, but did not separate tlieiii. The farmer must accomplish that by winnowing the grain - that is by tossing it into the ail' - tlie wind blowing the chaff awaj' and the grain falling upon a sheet. Occasionally there was a farmer who was the proud possessor of a "fanning mill," in which the wheat and chaff were poured into a hopper at the top, and by turjiing a crank were shaken down through the mill, a revolving fan blowing the chaff out at the rear end while the wheat poured out of a spout at the bottom of the machine. ]\Iany a boy has blistered his hands ^vhile turning one of these fans, no doubt nnittering meanwhile mental maledictions upon the inventor. Now, the farmer frequently rides as lie plows, his grain is harvested with the twine binder, the lium of the steam thresher is heard instead of the "thud, thud" of the old-fashioned flail, and the fanning mill has gone, never to return. Not far from the western boundary, on the old Sauk trail, James or Thomas Snow (authorities differ as to the name), in 1833, erected the first frame house in the townsliii;). The lumber was hauled from Laporte, and when the building wa.s completed I\lr. Snow put in a small stock of goods, thus becoming Union township's first merchant. Two years later he sold out to Oliver Shepard, a Yankee, who put up a sign bearing the legend "The Hoosier's Nest," and in a short time the place became known far and wide. The fame of this place has been perpetuated in verse by John Finley, and as his poem is really a part of Porter county's history, it is here reproduced.

Passage source: History of Porter County, Indiana : a Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress, Its People and Its Principal Interests, published 1912.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Portage Township - it names this place 2 more 2 times.