The Sykes House

This is the house on the Sykes farm, where the Charles Chester family (among others) once lived.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society.

The house is still standing today, but this picture was taken sometime in the 1970s or early 1980s, I think. It's one of a number of photos, now at the Merrillville museum, that someone took of local old houses, and I just have the loosey-goosey impression that they date to the 1970s/early 1980s. Whoever took the photos made only very rough notes on the back, sometimes only a name, and if any reference was made to location, it was vague. Whenever I look at those photos, I feel grateful that someone took the trouble to take them, and frustrated that the notes on the back aren't more informative.

On the back of this photo, someone wrote: "Sykes house — also where Shult lived." I did not understand who "Shult" was until Suzi Emig clued me in, telling me that in the late 1960s or early 1970s a family named Schultz had lived and farmed there, and Mr. Schultz had been murdered there, apparently by robbers. I have not been able to find any newspaper articles about the incident.

According to A Pictorial History of Merrillville, the house was built circa 1875 by Charles Sykes. That book, written in 1976, described the Sykes house as nearly hidden by surrounding trees, which is certainly isn't now, and apparently wasn't in the above photo … although the trees were leafless when the photo was taken.