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LaGrangeCounty Gazette

The Builders

People who started the towns, mills, shops, schools, and churches of this county. Living or long dead, no distinction.

Shipshewana

Davistown and Summeytown

Shipshewana was two towns before it was one, with a road between them and a rivalry across it. Neither county history mentions this. It is on a marker at the corner of Main and Morton, put up by both families together in the year 2000.

An 1882 lithograph bust portrait of a man in late middle age, turned three-quarters to his right and looking at the viewer. High balding forehead, hair long over the ears, a full dark beard reaching his chest with the moustache trimmed clear of the lip. Dark coat with a wide lapel over a white collar and dark neckcloth. Beneath the portrait an engraved signature reading Hezekiah Davis, and under it Newbury Tp.

Counties of LaGrange and Noble, Indiana, F.A. Battey & Co., 1882, via the Internet Archive.

  • Howe

    Not enough travel for two roads

    In January of 1835 a lawyer at Lima wrote to Lewis Cass asking him to get this county a road to Chicago. Congress voted twenty thousand dollars for the survey. About half of it was spent, and nothing was ever built.

  • An 1882 lithograph bust portrait of an older man facing the viewer nearly square on. A high bald crown with hair left long at the sides and over the ears, heavy brows drawn together above deep-set eyes, and a full white beard falling well below the collar while the upper lip stays nearly bare. A dark coat with a wide lapel over a buttoned waistcoat and a white shirt with no visible tie. The figure fades into the paper below the shoulders with no border or frame. Beneath it an engraved signature in a flourished script reading Charles Cochran, and under that, in small spaced capitals, MILFORD TP.

    Milford Township

    An old horse, quite smart and active

    Charles Cochran was twenty-one and had less than four dollars when he walked out of this county in March of 1843, heading for Iowa. He came back thirteen months later on a horse he had traded for at Galena.

  • A detail from a colour fire insurance map. A yellow building stands at the left with a narrow wing running right to a structure lettered PEN STOCK and, below it, WATER WHEEL. A blue channel enters from the bottom left, passes under a bridge and widens across the lower right of the frame, with WATER GATE lettered where it meets the wing. Across the upper middle, in hand lettering rising slightly to the right, WOLCOTT MILLS., and beneath it in smaller letters E. A. CUTLER, PROP., followed by six lines of notes reading no night watchman, no fire app., lights lanterns, fuel coal and wood and corn cobs, capacity fifty barrels, and a list of machinery including a scourer, a corn sheller, four stand rolls, a cob crusher, a separator, two purifiers, centrifugal reels and a California brush. A large numeral 3 marks the block above.

    Wolcottville

    Seven occupations at once

    George Wolcott came to the southern line of Johnson Township in March of 1837, built a log house, and went back for his family in September. The race that fed his first mill, he dug himself.

  • An 1882 lithograph bust portrait of a man turned three-quarters to his left and looking past the viewer. A broad face with heavy brows, hair swept back off a high forehead, and a full beard covering the jaw and chin while the upper lip is nearly bare. A dark coat with a wide lapel over a waistcoat, a white collar and a dark bow tie. The figure fades into the paper at the shoulders with no border or frame. Beneath it an engraved signature in a flourished script reading O B Taylor, with no stops between the initials, and under that, in small spaced capitals, the word WOLCOTTVILLE, whose last letter is crossed by the descending tail of the y above it.

    Wolcottville

    Wherever duty has called them

    O. B. Taylor clerked in the store the town was named for, went to the Indiana House twice, and was credited with a drainage law nobody can name. Three years after the county printed his portrait he left for California.

  • LaGrange

    The whole community against him

    Andrew Ellison defended the men his neighbours wanted convicted, and the county history says the whole community was against him. Twelve years later the same county hired him to prosecute a murder. Nine years after that it gave him the courthouse money.

  • A page of a printed book, page 36, with the running head FORT DONELSON. Six lines of text end with the sentence, I could give no more reliable account of the part performed by the Forty-fourth Indiana, in this battle, than to copy Colonel Reed's official report, followed by a colon. Beneath it, set smaller and to the right, a dateline reading FORT HENRY, February 18, 1862. Below that a line of bold text, Col. Charles Cruft, commanding First Brigade, Third Division, and then the letter itself beginning SIR, on the morning of February 15, the Forty-fourth Regiment Indiana Volunteers left their bivouac near the enemy's lines. The letter runs on and the frame cuts it mid-word at the foot. Faint printing from the following page shows through the paper behind the type.

    LaGrange

    No more reliable account

    Dr. John H. Rerick signed more of the 1882 county history than any other man in it, and he owned the newspaper in the town where it was gathered. When his own regiment's history reached two of its battles, he stopped writing and copied the commanding officer's report.

  • An 1882 lithograph bust portrait of a man turned three-quarters to his right and looking at the viewer. A lean long face with high cheekbones and a high forehead, dark hair combed flat back and long enough to cover the tops of his ears, no moustache, and a very long full beard falling well down his chest in tight crimped waves. A buttoned dark coat with a broad lapel over a plain dark shirt, with nothing at the throat. Beneath the portrait an engraved signature reading Matthew Strickland, and under it, in small spaced capitals, the words CLAY TP.

    Clay Township

    Still bearing excellent fruit

    Clay Township never had a town, a village, a store or a tavern, and the Gazette has no piece about it for that reason. One man from Clay has his face in the county history. This is everything the record says about him.

  • An 1882 lithograph bust portrait of a man turned three-quarters to his right and looking at the viewer. Dark hair combed back off a high forehead, no moustache, and a long full beard worn from the jaw and cheeks leaving the upper lip bare. A dark coat with a notched lapel and a welt pocket over a matching waistcoat and a white shirt. Beneath the portrait an engraved signature reading Samuel P Bradford, and under it, in small spaced capitals, the words COUNTY CLERK.

    Brighton

    The non-resistant's son

    Samuel Bradford left his church over anti-slavery and non-resistance and founded a religious commune. His son was twelve when he died. Nineteen years later that son enlisted as a private, and eleven years after that he built the county courthouse.

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