Monroe Township

Monroe Township

The town of Monroe is situated at the center of the county, seven miles west of the Ohio state line. At various times it has fanned itself with the hope of being the county seat of Adams county. With this idea it was platted, witii eighty lots, on the line between Monroe and Washington townships by John Everhart. and the plat recorded on the nth day of December, 1847. Its four streets were Washington, Jackson, VanBuren and Polk streets. In the general election of 1850 the county seat location was a prominent issue. A feature of this election shows that it was an issue between the north and south ends of the county, and that the southern candidates for county offices were about all elected over their northern rivals, while in the county seat issue Decatur was the winner. In that election the highest number of votes was cast for coroner. Thomas W. Andrews, of the northern part of the county, received 586 votes, and was elected; that for state senator Samuel S. Mickle received 447 votes and was elected. All the other county officers were chosen from the south half of the county. Charles Nelson, of Wabash township, received 505 votes for county commissioner; John Mc- Connell, of southeast Monroe township, received 485 votes and was elected county auditor; Samuel Eley, of southeastern Monroe township, received 497 votes for enumerator and county assessor and was elected. David McDonald was elected sheriff by a vote of 461, while his opponent, the Whig candidate, Jacob Conkle, received 381 votes. Both of these candidates for sheriff !:vc(! in Wabash township. The vote on county seat location stood: For Decatur, 474 votes ; for Monroe, 343 votes ; for Monmotrth, 14 votes, and for Pleasant Mills, 2 votes. After the county seat subject was abandoned, a part of the recorded plat was vacated by order of the county commissioners. One of the principal streets of the town al this time is Jackson street. This is an east and west street, and on this the greater number of the business houses of the town are located. When the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad was completed in 1871 Monroe had but two or three houses. The first frame house in this town was built in 1871 by Dr. Charles F. Rainier, who subsequently practiced medicine in Monroe and vicinity for more than twenty years. The first house built in the town was a two-room round log cabin, located on the south side of Jackson street near the present location of Joseph Hocker's drug store. It was built, it is said, along about 1853, by William Stockham, an ex-soldier of the war of 1812, and also an associate judge. Mr. Stockham was not only the first resident of Monroe, but was the first storekeeper. The wants of the neighborhood then were few, but he kept them on hand as far as possible. An old settler relates that the road to Stockham's store from Decatur ran in the direction of a snake track in the dust; that it nowhere ran straight; that the stock of goods usually kept by Mr. Stockham chiefly consisted of whisky, blind robins, dog-leg tobacco, ox yokes and ax handles; that he took in trade coon skins, beeswax, ginseng and maple sui':ir. Monroe has made much improvement since the fifties. One can get his tobacco and blind robinc, but must cross the corporation line to get his whisky, as the saloon is just outside the corporation. For a number of years Monroe was a great timber point. Lumber of various kinds was hauled here for shipment. Especially is this true of railroad ties, heading and staves. In 1872-73 Gilig & Hower started the first sawmill. Christ W. Hocker later put in a portable mill and later hoop machinery and a burr for chopping grain. As the country was developed the town grew in business interests, and a grain elevator was built to handle the grain marketed there. In 1847 Monroe was laid out as a town, but it was not until 1877 that it had a church building. Not that it had no church-going people, for it had, but that these were accommodated by attending the "twelve-cornered" log church that was a mile and a half south of Monroe. This church was built on the farm of Robert E. Smith, in section 9, in 1866, by the Methodist and United Brethren congregations and used by several other denominations. Some of the most active members in securing the construction of the church at Monroe were Bazil Hendricks, William and Philip Hendricks, David Reefy and James Davey. These were assisted by contributions of labor, lumber and cash from the prominent business men of the town and community. This structure was repaired and remodeled in 1904 and made much more convenient and greatly improved in its outward appearance. One of the principal advocates and managers of this improvement was Rev. Sprague, the local preacher. In 1887 the present brick graded school building was erected. This was the first school building in Monroe, and the second brick school house in the township. In 1902 another room was added and the building otherwise changed. This building was erected by Township Trustee Christ \Y. Hocker, an active merchant and timber man in Monroe in the eighties. It is now a graded school building and is located on Section Line street in the east part of town. The town of Monroe has never experienced any very extensive fires. Its most destructive occurred in the spring of 1905. Then Keller Brother's general store, Shelby Ray's drug store and residence and postoffice room and A. B. Bailey's general store building, with most of the contents, were destroyed by fire. A short time later, in the same year, Peter Kesler's blacksmith shop, J- W. Hendrick's residence and Mrs. Waggoner's house were destroyed. As to the causes of these fires, there has been more or less speculation. But one common agreement is that Monroe has been ben- by some new buildings that add a much more prosperous appearance to the village. The first fire of much consequence in this town was perhaps in 1887, when the -general store building belonging to Christ W. Hocker was burned. This was rebuilt, but was burglarized a number of times. In one case the burglars were caught and held by their captors with empty guns till the burglars drew loaded revolvers, backed out and escaped in the darkness. On the 17th day of April, 1905, the town of Monroe was incorporated. The result of the election was the selection of John Hendricks, Jonathan Burkhead and Hazel J. Andrews for town trustees; for town clerk and treasurer cornmined, John F. Hocker; for town marshal,

Peter Kesler. The highest vote received in this election was forty-two votes for marshal. In the general election of 1905 the following named officers were elected : John Hendricks, W. S. Smith, and L. F.. Lobenstine, for town trustees; for clerk and treasurer combined, M. L. Oliver and J. F. Hocker each received thirty-one votes; the tie vote was broken by tossing coppers, and on the basis of "Heads I win and tails you lose" Marion L. Oliver was selected ; for town marshal, J. W. Fverhart (the present marshal is is Joseph Dentner). Since the town was incorporated it is taking on some new life. The Ray block on the north side of Jefferson street is a substantial structure with ample hall room on the second floor for any meetings that may be held in the town. The new bank buildinfr is under construction, and the town has a number of tasty tile block residences. It has g-otten well started in placing cement sidewalks over the village. Its business men have started the movement towards getting more and new business enterprises to start up in the town. Stock is now selling to place a newspaper plant on its feet in Monroe, and a grist mill is already assured and' will soon lie built in the town. Among some of the other items of interest that may be named are : Church, 1 ; hotels, 2 ; restaurants, 1 ; drug store, 1 ; general stores, 3 ; hardware and implement store, 1 ; blacksmith shop, 1 ; tile and brick works, 1 ; lumber yard, 1 ; harness shop, 1 ; junk shop, 1 ; barber shop, 1 ; creamery, 1 ; coal yard, 1 ; dotcors, 2; grain elevator, 1.

The Oil Industry

1 1 was not until 18S8 that there was any definite assurance that Adams county was underlaid with oil. Along about this time companies were formed for the purpose of drilling for gas to be used for fuel and lights. The towns southwest, such as Anderson and Muncie, were then at the height of the natural gas booms. A little later than this wells were put down at Decatur, bin no oil or gas in any paying quantities were found. The first well showing plenty of oil was drilled north of Geneva near the northeast corner of section 29, township 25 north, range 14 east. This was on the land then owned by Reuben R. Bradford. This well was put down by Jack Adkinson at the instance of the Citizens' Gas Company of Geneva. As gas was not found in paying quantities; the well was abandoned. Within six years later a paying oil well was drilled within a few hundred feet from this and is at this time a producing well. Active operations in the' Geneva field began about the first of the year 1S92. The first well that started the tide toward Geneva was a well drilled in October, 1891, en the George Bolds land near the southwest corner of Adams county. This was a good producer and other wells were put down at once. On the 1st day of January, 1892, a well was put ui on the farm of George W. Shoemaker, About three miles west of Geneva. It was alsp a good producer. Then the oil fever <*'gan to raise. - Lands could not be bought " two and three times their previous values. il-r one one-hundred-and-twenty-acre farm »"li:ch before this the owner would have ll!>' sold for sixty dollars an acre he, in

1S95, refused twenty thousand dollars. This farm was then paying him a royalty of about five hundred dollars a month as his interest in the production. From a report made by the Buckeye Pipe Line Company in January, 1S96, which handled a greater part of the oil from the Geneva field, we take the following statement:

"At least there has been one thousand wells put down in this territory within the last three years. There are now six hundred and forty-four producing wells, as will be seen from the following table for November, 1895:

Oil at this time was selling at about seventy-five cents a barrel. That this district for the year at this rate would produce over one million five hundred thousand barrels of oil, which at seventy-five cents a barrel would make almost a million and a quarter dollars. There were a great many oil companies and they were changing from time to time. Some of the longest lived companies were the Northern Indiana Oil Company, the Superior Oil Company, the Devonian Oil Company, the Globe Oil Company, the Warren & Indiana Oil Company, the Geneva Oil Company, the Biack Brother Oil

Snow'S History Of

Company, the Porter & Haskell Oil Company and the United Pipe Line Company. The principal oil territory in Adatns county is limited to Hartford, Wabash, Jefferson and Blue Creek townships. In Saint Mary's township a shale gas field was found on the farm of William H. Tceple, on the state line southeast of Pleasant Mills. A gas company -was organized and the product piped to Willshire, Ohio. But it soon became exhausted and the company dissolved, much the poorer and some wiser than when it began operations. The Blue Creek township oil field was a close rival of the Geneva field and some wells are said to have made a? much as five hundred barrels a day at the start.

The prospecting for oil is partly a matter of chance. On one eighty-acre lease a mile west of Geneva an experienced oil producer put down a well that to all appearances was entirely dry. He abandoned the tract and gave up the lease A new producer leased this land and the first well he put down was a hundred-barrel production. Four other wells were put down in close succession and .all were good producers. This lease was pumped for about five years and sold for ten thousand dollars. In Blue Creek township a well was put down that when it was completed had not the least indications of oil. The one contractor declared that so far as he was concerned the well might go to the hottest region known, that he wouldn't sink any more money in it ; that already he had sunk one thousand dollars with no prospect of ever gettiag a cent of it back. His partner said thai he would make one more sink just before he left it - that would be eighty quarts of nitfo-glyceriri - and see what it would do. The charge was put in and when the well was shot the oil flew high above the derrick and started off as a twohundred-and-fifty-baneh-a-day producer. In 1906-7 many of these wells ran so low that the casing was removed and the wells abandoned. The field at this time has a large number of active wells, but the production has greatly diminished. Two miles directly rwest Of the village of Ceylon is what are known as the "Twin wells." These are two wells that are about fifty feet from each other and right at the roadside. By pumping the one for ten or twelve hours the salt wafer could be lowered so that the oil could reach the pumps. Mr. J. H. Hardison, a philosophical producer, reasoned that if the pumping capacity was doubled that the salt water could be removed and then oil could be pumped all the time. With this belief the second wed was put down and both pumped at the same time. This was done and the desired result obtained. A careful observation of the operators in the Geneva field demonstrates the fact that the oil producers' risks are fully as great and even greater than similar investments in other lines of business. That a few two-hundredand-fifty-barrels-a-day wells soon made capitalists, but that a half dozen dry wells made bankrupts of some of them ; that the only real winners were the land owners upon whose properties the productive wells were operated. The Standard Oil Company located a pumping station at the village of Preble along about 1895. The object of this plant is to convey the raw production from the fields to the company's refineries at the various points. The pipe line from the Lima (Ohio) field to Preble and on to Chicago passes through the north part of Decatur. Another branch of this line reaches the

- inborn part of the county and is said to extend to the Casey oil fields in Illinois. The - umping station properties are immense in dimensions. The estimated valuation as assessed by the county assessor is one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for 1907. The Lima line has five pipes lying in the same trench. These pipes are six inches in diameter and carry an immense volume of oil. The grounds at present occupied by the I tumping station at Preble consist of about eighty acres, upon which is situated its pumping machinery, a large number of residences for its employes, a good-sized artificial lake of water to be used in case of fire, as well as for some other uses, and sixteen monstrous boiler-iron tanks, perhaps thirty or forty feet high and from one hundred and fifty to two bundled feet in diameter, which are roofed by conical covers of iron. It is said that the capacity of each of these tanks is about two hundred and forty thousand barrels of oil. A look at the tank field reminds one more of the show tents of some large aggregation like Barnum & Bailey's show than anything else. Along the lines there are occasional breaks that let the oil escape. When these are repaired the pools of oil are set on fire and the blue-black clouds of smoke rise hundreds of feel in height and resemble the destruction of a city in flames.

Stone And Gravel Roads

The question is frequently asked, when did this stone road building begin and who was the instigator of it in Adams county. It may have had several instigators, but he who is most 'entitled to be known as the "father of the stone road" system in Adams county is Samuel Doak, an ex-county commissioner. Long before he was chosen to h'l that very responsible office he was an advocate of better roads and more drainage. 'J lie roads and the drainage make this country what it now is as compared with what it was forty years ago. The chief hindrance to the road improvements at an early date Was the mistaken idea that there was no road-making material in the county and that !'» ship it in would be too expensive for the advantages derived. Perhaps the first att<-mpt toward pike-making was along about l,'7^. when the town trustees of Decatur contracted to have Monroe street graded and graveled. The gravel proved to be sand of too fine a texture to be of much value. It was hauled from the Daily farm in section 26, in Root township, about a mile from Decatur. This for a time checked the gravel road building in the north part of the county. The first gravel pikes of much value or extent were made in the southern part of the county. They extended west and northwest from Geneva and were begun about 1890. These were made of coarse gravel and were pretty good dry weather roads, but cut to pieces badly in the wet spring time. The old Piqua road was graveled about this time; it was perhaps the first good gravel road in the north part of the county. Later the township trustees would buy the gravel and the land tax of the citizens was worked out by hauling gravel on certain pieces of road as directed. In 18S8 the Rice & Bowers stone quarry north of Decatur began crushing stone for road purposes. There was a switch from the Grand Rapids & Indiana: tracks laid that the product might be shipped to other localities where stone roads were under construction. Several attempts to locate stone streets and roads were made, but they always resulted in failure until there was a joint petition gotten up including the townships of Washington and Kirkland with the adjoining township on the Wells county side. Daily Sr Mock as attorneys were employed to assist in getting the petitions in shape and having the proper elections advertised and held that when the decision at such elections was determined the will of the majority could be enforced. In Kirkland township David Steele took an active part in favor of the stone road project. as it ran past his farm. In Decatur John S. Bowers worked hard to secure its location, as he had stone to sell and wanted the road built. Joint petitions were filed and acted upon by the county boards ; the route as petitioned for and started at the west corporation line of Decatur, went a mile and threequarters, then south a half mile, then west two miles, then south four miles, then west to the county line at Couryviile and met the Bluffton division. In several attempts to vote a subsidy or tax for a stone road the majority was against the tax because there was no other issue before the election. The friends of the road waited to have the subsidy election held to a time near the holding of the general election, then this issue was made a part of the entire election and its advocates carried their issue by a fair majority. However, Kirkland township voted against the tax by about fifty majority.

This township was united in the petition with Washington, which, with its Decatui vote, won the issue. At that time a majority of the Adams county board of commissioners was absolutely opposed to such a measure as taxing the civil corporations through which the road was located for its construction, and as much as intimated that they would not permit it.

The line was surveyed and an estimate made of the construction placed it at thirtyfour thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars, or a little more than three thousand dollars a mile. Mr. Doak was the only county commissioner that favored making the tax lew for the construction of the road. About all the argument that the opposing part of the board would make was: "Veil, veil, to make dot rote vill broke everypody up." The attorneys for the petitioners threatened legal proceedings if the law regarding the result of the subsidy election was not speedily complied with. The levy was then made and the road built. The contractors for this road were Miller, Williams & Cavalt. After all the hustle and bustle for the subsidy the crushers here furnished but a part of the material for the road. The bulk of it came from Waterville, Ohio. In Adams county there are about seven hundred miles of public road. Of that amount there is about oneseventh gravel pike, and about a fifth, or one hundred and forty miles, of stoned road. Something near the average cost of the construction of this road is three thousand two hundred dollars a mile. Since the first stone road was built in the county there have been four separate stone quarries and crashers operated in the Decatur quarries. There are quarries at Big Blue creek southeast of Decatur, at Pleasant Mills and at Buena Vista.

AH of these furnish stone for road building. Running south from Decatur are three stone reads; a little way to the south they are .-ibout two miles apart and run to the southern part of the county. The center road connects Decatur with Geneva. There are many cross sections of stone road connecting these north and south roads, and the com- -missioners' court is crowded with petitions for new ones yet to be made. It now is a noticeable fact that those who were so alarmed lest everybody be broken up are now strongly in favor of good roads at the price they cost and would not have them removed from their premises for double the expense of building them. The lands through which these roads run are much higher in price than others and usually can find buyers at the figures asked for them. The methods of road building now are somewhat different from those used at the time the first roads were built in this county. In 1907 there were between thirty and forty improved dump wagons sold in Decatur to the contractors for stone road building. It is said that these wagons will bear up a four-horse load on good roads and that they can be unloaded in a half minute's time. That one of the contractors, Fred Hoffman & Son, has arranged for a train of ten or a dozen of these wagons to be drawn by a traction engine from the quarry or the cars to the place the material is used for road. At the present rate of road building within the next decade all of the principal roads of the county will be stoned. "Behold what a great fire a little spark kindleth," was never truer than the great change in sentiment on road building in Adams county.

The Hand Of Fate

The mysteries of life are many and varied. The dictates of fate are no respecters of the wishes or aspirations of men. Napoleon said that "The god of war favors the army most that can command the greater number of complete battalions." This great commander conducted eighty fierce engagements 111 his meteoric career without serious wounds. Fate seems to have marked him -or a slow and tedious death on the lonely ij-Ic in the sea after an intoxicating whirl at the crowned heads of Europe. After a most successful termination of the bloodiest conflict in the new world the martyred President. Abraham Lincoln, surrendered to the hand of fate. Generals Warren and Stonewall Jackson fell at almost the first fire. Were it not better that Moscow or Waterloo had ended Napoleon's life? Or that' Warren be spared to share his military genius with his destitute Revolutionary patriots? This could not be. Fate had otherwise declared. The train of life will carry its passengers onward to their destination. They can neither anticipate nor retard the hand of fate. Nor can it be that men as officers or rulers make them more dear to their friends or families than those whose honorable careers have shown them to be worthy citizens. In Adams county the hand of fate has been at work. Accidents and disasters have done their parts. To enumer- ate them all would require a volume much beyond the scope of the present work. \\ ho first lost his life by violence or accident in this country will remain a volume sealed by the hand of fate.

Ex-Sheriff Zachariah Smith, who was elected in October, 1836, and served till 1840 in Adams county, was drowned in the Saint Mary's river a short distance above Decatur on the 7th day of July, 1844.

Henry Eilenberger was crushed to death by the falling of the buildings in the cyclone that demolished John Baumgartner's house in French township in 1871.

Henry Cramer and his son, Charles Cramer, were drowned in the Saint Mary's river at Decatur in February, 1862. The son was skating and went through the ice and his father tried to help him out.

Robert Allison came near meeting the same fate at Buena Vista. His son, Rufus K., fell into the river and his father nearly lost his life in an attempt to rescue him.

Charles L. Schermyer was killed at the crossing of the Grand Rapids and Chicago & Erie railroads by a collision of trains that threw the watch tower over on him in 1891.

William F. Clendening was killed by a stroke of lightning while taking shelter during a thunderstorm under a tree a short distance west of Geneva on the 31st day of July, 1884.

Frank Teaney was found dead at the roadside between Chattanooga and Berne. He left towrn late in the evening, got down in the snow and froze to death, in February, 1886.

Samuel Jorden, who in 1888 was a prominent member of the Decatur "Coonskin Club," a political organization, was shot and killed in Clay county, Missouri, while there on business. Robbery was the probable cause of his murder, in September, 1892.

The Orphanage, at Berne, burned down on the 19th day of April, 1899. Three of the orphans - Alaggie Dell, of Portland, Indiana, age nine; Mamie Broderick, of Chicago, aged fourteen, and Katie Goebclbcrger, of Cleveland, Ohio, aged fifteen years. were burned to death.

There have been a number of deaths caused throughout the count)- in mysterious ways, but dates and names are wanting and no effort will be made to enumerate them, i iic hand of fate has perhaps rested most heavily upon that part of the county that is spanned by the Grand Rapids Railroad between the Limberlost creek south of Geneva and the Wabash river north of Ceylon. Within these limits there have been about twenty sudden deaths, caused by railroad accidents. The first was:

Kail road wreck at Ceylon on the iSth day 1 October, 1895, killing three men. The kvork train was handling some repairs at the « abash river bridge and ran in on the Ceyi"ii switch. The switch was not closed and 'he pay car crashed into the train on the -!<le track. These carpenters were killed : Harvey Makxt, William R. Brown and J>»nes Gibson.

the south span of the Wabash river bridge gave way with a heavy engine and freight cars. The train was moving southward when the engine and several cars went down. Two men were killed, but their names cannot be given.

William Newcomer was killed at the crossing of Line street in Geneva in the summer of 1897. He was in conversation while the train was switching and was run over by the cars.

David Long while returning home from the Portland fair was killed in North Geneva by a special train that pulled in after him as he started north for his home on the evening of August 26, 1899.

Daniel M. Hoskinson met his death near Ceylon while returning home in March. 1901. He got caught in a cattle guard that held him till the train ran over him.

Nora Shaner was run over and killed in the Geneva switch yards while playing on some empty flat cars in October, 1905. She was a child of about ten or twelve years of age.

Dr. J. W. Collins was killed in November, 1905, at the railroad crossing just north of Geneva, where Metcalf lost his life. The train killed his horse and demolished his buggy, breaking the doctor's limbs.

Snows History Of

Adams county was organized by the legislative enactment of January 23. 1S36. Union township was organized as a separate civil corporation about 1840. Among the earliest settlers in this township were Daniel Hines, Andrew Luckey, John Walters, David Erwin and Christian F. Blakey. The whole country was all woods at that time. The roads were simply "by roads,"' cut from one clearing to another. There are no towns in this township, but at various times there have been country stores that were a great accommodation to the fanners in the springtime, when the roads were nearly impassable. This township now has some good stoned roads and has arranged for others to be built. As a fanning country it is one of the best in the county. The schools and churches at an early day received much attention by the residents. The school houses were first built and used for school and church purposes combined. Some of the log school houses were the Hines school house, in section 9, built in 1845 i trie Caskey school house, in section 31, built in 1S46; the Schnep school house and Walters school house, built in 1848, and the Reiter school house, in 1853. The first frame school house built in the township was in what was later known as the Erwin school, in section 9. The first brick school house was erected in what was known as the Caskey school district. This was built to replace the frame destroyed by lire after a warm school district fight in the selection of a school teacher, perhaps in 1884-5. This brick was remodeled and rebuilt several years later and this school is now known as the Spulle.- district. The first brick residence in this township was built by Simon Barkley in section 5. Among the list of church buildings are the Clark's chapel, in section 10, which was the first brick church in the township, and was built in 1881. Its congregation occupied a log church for a number of years before this structure was built. One of the finest church buildings in the township is known as the Emmanuel's Evangelical Lutheran church in the Blakey neighborhood, in section 24. This is a fine brick edifice, erected in 1891, and now has some other valuable church property, as school house, parsonage and grounds. From a small beginning in 1858 this congregation has grown and prospered. In 1865 it started its church school with about a dozen and a half of scholars; it now has a large congregation and fine church property. Another brick building is that of the Evangelical Association, which has a tasty brick edifice a few miles east of Decatur. The Union chapel, on the line between Root and Union townships, has a long and interesting history. The original church was burned down, but was rebuilt in 1873. In this township many of the first churches were log structures. Clark's chapel, in section 10, a Methodist church; the Woods chapel, in section 15, a United Brethren church; the Valley church, a United Brethren church, and the Grove church, all come under this list, bul ii is impossible to give the dates of their erection. The estimated population of Union township in 1907 is 1,105, tMe number of voters, 221 ; and the school enumeration, 403. Until i860 the townships of

Indiana had three trustees. Commonly the president of the board of trustees was the inspector of elections in the township. The names of all of these trustees cannot he given because they fail to appear upon the county records. Jacob W ending, 1847: Noah Glass, 1S48; G. D. Racket, 1849; Andrew Lucky, 1S51; F. J. Gillig, 1852; M.