Another Glass-Plate Negative Identified

I have updated my post of November 13, 2011, to reflect that we now know the names of our four generations (thanks to one of their descendants)!

The Death of Otto Kulage

Otto Kulage, who started the Kulage Brick Works, died May 24, 1923.


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Hobart News, May 31, 1923.

The child whose story is just below Mr. Kulage's was buried in Deer Creek Cemetery — the only one of that surname there (at least per findagrave.com). Louise Doepping had married Earl Fauser in 1919 (Indiana Marriage Collection).

Lumber for the Lake County Courthouse, 1849

I have begun indexing the daybook of the "Hobart Mills," which begins in 1846.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

On February 9, 1849, we find this entry for "lumber delivered and hauled to Crown Point for the Court House."



This frame court house was being built to replace the old log structure that had served as a courthouse since 1840, when Crown Point became the county seat.

The builder of the new courthouse was Jeremy Hixon, who appears on the February 9 entry as the recipient of the lumber. The courthouse's architect was George Earle himself.[1]

I have found only one image of this frame courthouse …


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… which comes from Courthousehistory.com, where you can also find an image of the old log courthouse, as well as early images of the 1878 brick courthouse that we all know and love.

The "J. Premer" who hauled the lumber to Crown Point was probably John Premer — I have seen that name often throughout the 1840s (and as early as 1837) in the ledgers I have indexed. I shall write a little about him and his family in another post.

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[1] T.H. Ball, Lake County, Indiana, From 1834 to 1872 (Chicago: J.W. Goodspeed, 1873), p. 163, https://books.google.com/books?id=TjvWAAAAMAAJ.

Silver-Spotted Skipper (Butterfly)

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This Silver-Spotted Skipper was frolicking around in my pollinator habitat.

According to the Wikipedia article, these skippers "almost never visit yellow flowers, favoring blue, red, pink, purple, and sometimes white and cream-colored ones." This one is drinking nectar from a lovely purple Ironweed blossom. I know, I know, Ironweed is an invasive species … but the pollinators like it!

Mr. Moehl Wants to Build a Garage

On May 28, 1923, William Moehl bought a lot on Second Street (near his home) where he planned to build his garage.


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Hobart News, May 31, 1923.

Higher up in the same column are a couple of items that involve our friends the Harmses. The first just tells of a visit by Herman and Minnie (Rossow) Harms, along with her sister and brother-in-law, to her parents. The second tells us that Herman Harms bought a cottage, intending to move it elsewhere in the city. The Fairbank cottage was being moved from New Street to make way for what would eventually be the Roosevelt Gym.[1] In an earlier report, however, the Gazette named the buyer as Herbert Harms — whom I cannot identify in any local census — and the intended destination of the cottage as being in "the Melin subdivision," which may be Andrew Melin's Fairfield Addition on the east side of Wisconsin Street.[2] I will just add that in all the time I knew Herman's son, Eldon, he never mentioned any such cottage to me, but that doesn't prove anything.

An item over in the right-hand column tells us that the Amlong family was spending a second summer camping out near the village of Deep River.

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[1] "Local and Personal," Hobart News, May 17, 1923.
[2] "School Board Sells Dwelling," Hobart Gazette, May 18, 1923.

Grape Leaffolder Moth

A Grape Leaffolder was hanging around on my garage door at night, even though it is supposed to be a day-flying species.


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This year my property is overrun with wild grapes — nice for anyone who wants to fold grape leaves. It is the behavior of the larva that gives this moth its name.

Better Grape-Leaffolder photos can be found here.


This moth was sharing the garage door with a frog that has suction cups on its feet:



That frog was at the top of the door.

A Mill Saw for George Earle

This receipt dated April 13, 1846 was among some loose papers stored in a merchant's daybook from the 1840s belonging to the Hobart Historical Society. It shows "Mr. Matthews" making some purchases in a Chicago store: a mill saw and other building hardware (nails and a hammer, screws, door handles, sashes, a can of putty, and rectangles of glass).


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Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Notes on the back of the receipt bring George Earle into it.



The last line gives an amount "due P.G.M." I believe that is the Mr. Matthews of the receipt — Peter G. Matthews, who shows up now and then in the daybook's entries. One entry records his coming to board with the keeper of the daybook in February 1846. Here, in an entry from May 16, 1846, Peter is being reimbursed because he spent some of his own money on purchases for someone else in Chicago:



In another entry on the right-hand page, P.G. Matthews buys a pair of boots for $2.00.

So this person was in the Hobart area, it seems, and was involved somehow in the building of George Earle's saw mill at Hobart; but I cannot identify him in any local census, or any other official record anywhere. An inscription on the flyleaf of another daybook (which I haven't even begun indexing) indicates that he came from Canada.



Adding that information to the search on Ancestry.com doesn't help me. Peter G. Matthews remains a mystery.

Ainsworth Actors Hit the Big Time

In May 1923 the plucky thespians of Ainsworth took their production of The Brookdale Farm from the school basement to the bright lights in the big city of Hobart.


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Hobart Gazette, May 25, 1923.

The story in the left-hand column describing an ambitious project for 40 acres of summer homes on the south shore of Lake George probably explains the origin of the Patzel Lakeview Summer Resort subdivision.

Clover Looper Moth

Here's a common, unremarkable moth.


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The "looper" part of their name comes from the larvae, which are inchworm types that form loops with their bodies as they move.

If they like clover, I've got tons of it.

Another Klan Parade

One week after the big rally in Valpo, the Ku Klux Klan staged a smaller rally in Hobart, with a parade, burning crosses, and initiation ceremonies.


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Hobart News, May 31, 1923.

The "field south of Michigan" Avenue, I'm guessing, would be where the sewage treatment plant is now. There was some open space on the west side of the southern end of Michigan Avenue, or at the bottom of Michigan between Cleveland and the Pennsy tracks, but I'm not sure either of those was large enough to be called a field.