Dr. Christopher Souder House

Previous to 1869 the voters of the old townships of Troy and Richland had to go to the central school house of each township to vote. On December 5. 1868, there was held a meeting in Larwill and a petition gutten up to be presented to the county commissioners, praying for a new township to be named Larwill township and formed of a two-mile strip off the south side of Troy township and a two-mile strip off the north side <if Richland township. This was on Saturday evening and by Monday evening the petition had been circulated ever the win ile territory, and on Tuesday, I think, the petition was presented to the commissioners. It seems the commissioners granted the re- quest, but in the meantime the voters in South Richland petitioned for a two-mile strip off of the south side of Richland township to be annexed to Cleveland township. This petition was granted and the Larwill proposition was reconsidered, which resulted in the two-mile strip off the south side of Troy township being annexed to Richland township and the remainder of Troy and Etna township forming one township. The date of these proceedings was about December n, 1868. Since this time Larwill has been the place of holding the elections. The township was divided into two precincts in 1884. since which time there have been two voting places, and usually both in Larwill. In 1905 and since there have been special elections held in each road district to select a road supervisor.

Passage source: History of Whitley County, Indiana, published 1907.

When Richland township was first settled ii was covered with a dense forest of beech, oak, sugar-maple, ash, walnut, poplar, elm, lind, hickory, wild-cherry, butternut and smaller varieties of timber. Therewere several swamps and a few small wet prairies. There are five or six small lakes within its borders. Spring creek, with itstwo branches in the eastern part and Cleark creek (sometimes called "Little Spring creek") in the western part carry off most of the surplus .water. The face of the country is somewhat hilly, but nearly all of it can be farmed. The make-up of the the soil is generally good as the name of the township implies, a good depth of soil underlaid with clay or gravelly subsoil. The lowlands for somepurposes are better than the highlands. The soil of these lowlands is underlaid in some places with clay and other places withmuck or peat to considerable depth, and' marl is found in a few places. There is plenty of gravel for road and building purposes. Some parts of the township are somewhat stony, especially the -western part. They are of the boulder variety, many of these stones have been used to good account for building purposes. A great deal of the lowland has been ditched and brought into cultivation. There are a good many springs, but since the country has been drained, the springs have grown weaker, and now most of the water for house use is obtained from wells, and for the past fifteen years, there has been man)' tubular wells put down, ranging from forty to two hundred feet deep, and in many places wind power pumps adorn the landscape. There were several Indian trails crossing the township in various directions. TheSquawbuck trail was ' the most noted. It crossed the northeast corner of the township. It was named for an Indian by the name of Bill Squawbuck, a Miami, I believe, and a leader of a gang or faction. It is said there was a trail from the Asa Shoemaker place in the northwest corner of Columbia township through in a western direction past where Larwill now stands and on west by Hayden's to Kosciusko county. There was another crossed this somewhere about where Summit was, in a northeast and southwest direction. It crossed sections five and six, but in the other direction I am not certain where it ran, but I suppose to the Squawbuck trail. I think these trails ran by springs. The Indians changed camping places frequently on account of hunting. There was a camp in section 6, in the southeast part. There was plenty of water in springs nearby and here Bill "Wois-see" or "Wa-wa-es-see" (with the accent on the third syllable) and an old squaw named Mem-shaw, and some younger Indians camped. They also camped sometimes on the Perin place, in section 32 and on the Lancaster place in section 8 or in section 17. These two I have named were not transported with the other Indians. The squaw was supposed to be ninety years old and was know as "Granny Meem-shaw." There were in some places a great many maple trees, and the Indians were great lovers of sweets, and they used to make sugar (sis-ko-quet-see they called it) where the maple trees were most plentiful. I never saw an Indian sugar trough or an ax that the Indians used to tap the trees. I think the troughs were made of broad pieces of elm bark, about ten inches or more wide and about two feet long. The ends were gathered together and tied tight enough so it would hold water. The tree was tapped with a hatchet or tomahawk, by cutting a sloping gash in the wood. I suppose they used split-spiles. I have seen many of the trees with their scars on. They boiled the water in their little camp kettles. They were also great lovers of whiskey, "Good-neytosh." It has been said that whiskey was better in those days than now, that it would not make a man crazy at it does now. But it worked differently on the Indian, he would g'et just like the drunken man of today.

Passage source: History of Whitley County, Indiana, published 1907.

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 Richland Township - 22,916 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.