Sandcreek Township

Sandcreek Township

Sand Creek township was organized lay the board of justices on May 2, 1825, with the following boundaries: "Beginning at the county line on the township line dividing townships 9 and 10, range 8; thence east seven miles; thence north two miles to the line of Washington township; thence due east with the said township line to the county line; thence south f with a westerly direction) with the county line to the southwest corner of the county; thence north with the county line to the place of beginning." On

July 6, 1829, on the petition of Francis Myers, the board ordered "that sections 30 and 31 in township 10, range 9, be attached to and made a part of Sand Creek township."

Sand Creek township was formed from the southern part of Washington, and, Hke Washington, in its original boundaries was much larger than it is at present. As established originally, it embraced the townships of Sand Creek, Jackson, Marion and a portion of Salt Creek, but between the years 1825 and 1836 its boundaries were greatly reduced by the formation of the latter townships. The present limits of this township have not been reached through a definite location of its own boundaries, but by the boundaries of the townships which were established from its territory and bound it on three sides. The present limits are as follow : "Beginning at the Jennings county line, on the section line dividing sections 9 and 10, township 8, range 9; thence north to the Washington township line; thence west from the northeast corner of section 28, township 10, range 9, two miles; thence south two miles to the northeast corner of section 6, township 9, range 9; thence west two miles and a half to the center of section 2 on the north side thereof; thence south to the Jennings county line; thence east on the Jennings county line to the place of beginning."

As a whole, Sand Creek township is uneven and contains several kinds of soil, from rich black lands on the Sand Creek bottoms to the poor land common in Salt Creek and Marion townships. Part of the township is very hilly and broken.

First Settlers

Elijah Davis was the first settler in Sand Creek township, so far as can be ascertained. He took out a claim in 1820, the only man to do so that year. In 1821 three others l^ought government land and made homes for themselves in this township. They were Daniel Herron, Nat Robbins and William Robbins.

Four years later, when the township was organized, it had grown but little in population, as but nine votes were cast in the first township election held in 1825 for the office of justice of the peace. Just one-third of the male population that had reached the age of twenty-one was then willing to serve the public, there being three candidates for the office. Nat Robbins was elected.

James Holmes, John Bagley, Robert Courtney and Samuel Stevens are supposed to have settled in Sand Creek township during the same year, but if they did, they merely "squatted" until they could raise sufficient cash to purchase government land. Other early .settlers were John RobJjins, Simeon Sharp, Daniel Meredith, William Schultz, John Cann and Samuel De Armond.

Samuel Stevens built a brick house in 1834 and about the same time Simeon Sharp opened a tavern where Westport now stands. Elijah Davis and John Robbins both started water-mills and some time after William Robbins built a horse-mill, so that the early settlers were not altogether dependent upon the waters of Sand creek and Millstone creek for their bread. The first church in the township was organized by Samuel Strickland, of the denomination then styled "Campbellites."

The present officers of Sand Creek township are as follow: Trustee, James .Armstrong; assessor, Jesse Blauvelt; road supervisors, James L. Gaynor, first district; Ransom O. Davis, second district; Charles Brannon, third district, and James McFall ; advisory board, George M. Keith, John A. Jackson, William A. Barclay; James R. Scott, justice of the peace.

Westport is located in Sand Creek township on the North Vernon, Greensburg & Rushville and the Chicago, Terre Haute & Eastern Railroads. This little village was laid out on March 23, 1836, by Simeon Sharp and Hockersmith Merriman, and has enjoyed a steady growth from the beginning. A marked proof of the growth is shown by the fact that it was necessary to lay out an addition in 1838 for the accommodation of people who wished to locate here. This was made by John Cann, and other additions followed soon after.

The first house was built in the town by \Villiam Shultz, who also kept the first store. Mr. Shultz seems to ha\'e been a man of manv trades and callings, for he is also accredited with being the first physician in Westport. Frank Talkington was the first blacksmith to ply his trade here. John Conwell served as the first postmaster.

Westport is noted for its excellent stone cpiarries in close pro.ximity to the town. .The product of these quarries is a high-grade building stone, which will bear favorable comparison with that of any other section of the state. It is also used quite extensively for curb and gutter, and many car loads of crushed stone are shipped from the quarries annually. At present it is under the management of a Cincinnati corporation and bears the name of the Westport Stone Company. John Ballman, of Cincinnati, is the present superintendent and he is ablv assisted bv J. L. Tackson, of Westport. (10)

The output varies from three to five carloads per day and in times of rush orders for crushed stone as much as sixty to seventy carloads extra are put out per month. This has been one of the greatest factors in making Westport among the most progressive business towns of the county.

Business Directory

The business and professional interests in Westport in 191 5 are as follow : Barber, Rousie Boicourt, J. N. Keith ; bank, First National Bank ; bakery, Westport bakery, Jacob Bacher, manager; basket maker, W. J. Richardson; blacksmith, Carl Keith; contractor, Moir and Davis, James

There are few towns in this section of the country which present in their business associations a more reliable and intelligent class of men, or whose enterprise is more clearly rewarded by an established and growing trade, than Westport. Although its population may not be so large as other towns with which it competes, yet its aggregated commercial transactions will scarcely be found excelled by any town of its class in the state. It is accommodated by two railroads which give it an excellent outlet to the different commercial centers. J. L. Houston acts as agent for the Big Four and Charles Hunt serves in a like capacity for the Chicago, Terre Haute & Southeastern (Southern Indiana). W. S. Sanders is the postmaster and three rural routes serve the country people with mail from Westport. The

Courier Independent, managed by J. ]\[. Keith, furnishes the community with local items of interest and also aids in every way possible in boosting the interests of the town.

The town was incorporated in 1859 for civic and school purposes. The following are the present town officials : R. D. Patrick, clerk ; Ed Whalen, treasurer; J. H. Retherford, Joe Tucker and Carl Davis, councilmen; school board, John Morris, president; Benjamin Gunder, secretary; Edward Davis, treasurer. A volunteer fire department is maintained, with E. G. Davis as chief, and has rendered excellent service on every occasion which has arisen that demanded their service. A hand-power lire engine, hose truck, hooks, ladders and an ample supply of hose are kept in the town engine house. In 1910 the town suffered a very disastrous fire which destroyed a hotel and livery barn, hardware store, opera house, millinery store and dwelling. The total loss was estimated at fifteen thousand dollars, but this fire-swept district was soon rebuilt with modern and much more substantial buildings. In 1913 the corporation purchased a town hall of the Red Men. The second floor is used for meetings, but the first floor is used for the fire apparatus.

Recently a Commercial Club has been formed, to promote the civic and moral improvement of the town and also aid in any commercial enterprise which may desire to locate here.

The village of Letts, situated on the Michigan division of the Big Four railroad, was laid out on September 30, 1882, by Joab Stout and others. Letts is one of the late towns laid out in this county and has had a very prosperous existence in its thirty-three years of life. It is situated in the center of a rich farming land and each year its exports in grain are enormous. Recently two new store buildings were erected, which add to the prosperous business atmosphere of the town.

The business interests of Letts in 1915 are as follow: Barber, H. L. Williams; blacksmith, J E. Carder; bank, Letts State Bank; contractor, Moore & Crise; elevator, Moore & Crise; garage, J. E. Carder, also gasoline station and sub-agency for Buick cars; general merchandise, W. A. Taggart & Company, Letts Merchandise Company, John McCammon, manager ; hardware, Letts Hardware Company, K. L. Adams, manager; hotel, J. Henry

Gibson & Sons ; livery and feed barn, J. Henry Gibson & Sons ; harness shop, Samuel Ketcham; physician, J. A. Welch; restaurant, Alice Gardner.

The postmaster is George W. Davis. The railroad station is known by the name of Letts Corner and O. E. Hedrick is the agent. Letts is supplied with ice by the Meek Ice Company, from Greensburg, which makes trips once a week. The population of the town is estimated at three hundred.

No town in Decatur county has experienced a greater change in the past quarter of a century than Harris City, which was once the center of the largest blue-limestone quarry of stratified rock in the state, if not in the United States. From this quarry have been shipped thousands of car loads of stone and when it was in the height of its prosperity it frequently turned out more than a hundred car loads of stone a week. Three hundred people were dependent on the operation of the quarry and the Inisy hum of industry which pervaded the place was an apparent indication that the place would one day become a town of some importance.

But today it is all changed. The quarry has closed down; the few remaining houses are nearly all deserted; the once neat homes of the thrifty German laborers are surrounded with sweet clover; the din of the hammer is stilled; the cheery ring of the blacksmith's anvil no longer greets the ear; the towering derricks, the smoking engines, the hurrying feet of the hundreds of employees - all have disappeared. Where once massive blocks of stone were piled waiting for the skilled hands of the workmen, may now be seen a waving field of fragrant sweet clover.

Morgan's men were riding through the counties of southern Lidiana in July, 1863, and some of them chanced to pass by what is now Harris City. One of these same men must have been looking for a future place to locate, or at least one of them returned to Decatur county immediately after the close of the Civil War and made a close examination of the spot which had attracted his attention on that hot sultry day in July, 1863.

This man was B. B. Harris, the founder of the town which bore his name and the man who was responsible for the opening of the quarry which was destined to become one of the largest of its kind in the whole country. By 1869 Harris had the quarry opened and was turning out considerable stone, although he was badly handicapped because he was so far from a railroad. However, the possibilities of the quarry were so apparent that he had little difficulty in organizing a hundred thousand dollar company in 1873. . The company made Harris president and manager and five years later the business had reached such dimensions that it was deemed imperative to build a spur of track to Greensburg, six miles away. The right of way, the building of the track and the purchase of a railroad engine entailed an expenditure of fifty thousand dollars, but the increased business brought about by the better shipping facilities was sufficient to pay for the heavy outlay. The company had secured a contract for a large amount of stone to be used in the new state house at Indianapolis and this fact was largely responsible for the building of the railroad to Greensburg. In fact, they could not ha\e taken the contract without so doing. At the same time they were furnishing stone for the United States custom house at Cincinnati. Three thousand carloads of stone went out from this rjuarrj' for the state house and six thousand for the Cincinnati custom house. At least ten thoussand car loads of this stone was sold to Proctor & Gamble for their immense soap factor)^ at Ivorydale, a suburb of Cincinnati. The company also furnished the stone for the abutments of the Chesapeake & Ohio bridge at Cincinnati and the stone for hundreds of other railroad bridges. The stone for the cells in the !\Iansfield, Ohio, reformatory were cut in this quarry and smoothed with chilled shot in the local }-ards. There is no machinery which will smooth this stone on account of its excessive hardness, and all the stone had to be smoothed by hand.

The company built thirty-seven houses for its employees and erected a large three-story boarding house which would accommodate two hundred men. The business prospered until the latter part of the nineties, but the hard times of 1897, combined with the poor management of Harris, forced the company into bankruptcy. In the following year W. C. Patton took charge of the quarry and operated it until 1904, when S. B. Eward became the sole owner and manager. Eward had been connected with the company since the beginning and was thoroughly familiar with every detail of the business, having for many years been the treasurer. Eward continued to operate the quarry until his death, December 31, 19 14, although very little stone was quarried for a few years before his death. The use of cement had made such heavy inroads into the business that the sale had dropped sharply away. In addition, the equipment was getting old, the track was too light to stand the heavy freight cars which had come into use, and, in short, the quarry was closed for the simple reason that it had ceased to be a profitable enterprise with the present demand and prices. The quarry and the one hundred and fiftj'-three acres of the old company are now the property of L. D. Eward, of Greensburg. In 1914 thirty-one of the houses of Harris were moved away. The store is owned by Mr. Eward, after having passed through several hands in the past c|uarter of a century. What the future of the quarry may be is entirely problematical ; the stone is still there in abundance, only eleven acres of stone having been removed. In order to put the quarry in operation again it would be necessary to rebuild the railroad track to the quarry switch, a distance of four and a half miles, and install a complete equipment for getting out the stone. Undoubtedly the cjuarry will be opened some day, but only the future can tell when the blacksmith's anvil will again ring. Until then the fragrant sweet clover will reign undisturbed and the silence will be broken only by the wayfarer who stops to inquire what village once occupied this picturesque spot.

Sardina Crossing

Sardina Crossing is a flag stop on the Big Four Railroad. A postof^ce was maintained here for a number of years and bore the name of Harpers, but the rural free delivery has long since taken its place and at present nothing remains to mark the town.

Sand Creek township has one consohdated school, located at Letts. This school building has been remodeled and affords very modern and commodious quarters for the young aspirants for knowledge. This school also presents a commissioned high school course of study and the enrollment for the past year totaled forty-four. Westport also has an ui>to-date high school, with an enrollment of eighty-five. There are six outlying district schools in this township, which ha\e not experienced the ad\antages of a consolidated district.