Series Finale: The Harms 73rd Ave. Farm History

And now we come to the waning days of 1896 — December 28, to be exact — and William Notter is selling his 79.5 acres to Henry and Annie (born Johanna Springman) Harms, who were living on and farming their old homestead to the northeast of this property. The Harmses were to pay $3,180 for the land (about $112,000 in today's money) in installments.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Eldon Harms family.

The transaction included an action to quiet title, a review of the property's owners — not all of them, in this case, as you can see. I'm guessing the action named only the ones who might conceivably have some claim to the land.







The only new information we get from this concerns Emma Smith, daughter of Luther and Sarah: in 1881 she married William J. Hatch in Chicago; they had five children, and then Emma died in 1893. None of the surviving Hatches turned up to contest the title to the farm.

This is the title bond that William Notter gave to Henry and Annie Harms on December 28, 1896, promising to deliver title to the land and "a clear abstract of title" upon payment of the full purchase price, without interest.



On the outside of the title bond, William Notter jotted down a payment by the Harmses of $300 on the "noat" in January 1897. Below that, someone with more polished handwriting (Louis Wettengel, probably) recorded a larger payment, and William signed his name.



And this, also from the verso of the title bond, is why I think the person with the polished handwriting was Louis Wettengel.



Louis was a resident of Hobart, who appeared in the 1870 Census as a saloonkeeper, but by the 1880 Census had made a lawyer of himself. He and his wife, Emmeline (Shearer), had many children, lived out their lives in Hobart and are now buried in Hobart Cemetery.

By October 16, 1897, Henry and Annie Harms had paid off the purchase price of the land, and William Notter gave them the deed.







And so we come to the end — not of the history of the farm, but of this abstract. I'm afraid I've already given away an episode of the sequel, when Henry and Annie sold 9 acres of the land to Herman and Minnie Harms in 1938. From a comparison of the 1939 Plat Book to the 1950 Plat Book, we can see that a lot more dividing and selling of the land went on over the course of that decade. I shall see if I come across any details in the future.

Anna and Norma Lindborg in Sweden, 1938

The Hobart Index-Commonwealth of May 26, 1938, carried this article on the front page:

Ainsworth Ladies Embark Saturday For Visit In Sweden With Relatives
Planning to embark on the "S.S. Gripsholm" from New York City this Saturday, for a trip to Sweden and other European countries, Mrs. Gust Lindborg and daughter, Norma, and Miss Bernice Taber, left Wednesday morning for the east. They will be accompanied on their motor trip as far as New York City by Mrs. Lindborg's son, Raymond, daughter, Gladys, and Miss Evelyn Wolf,[1] who plan to return home in about a week, after a motor trip through the eastern states.

Mrs. Lindborg expects to visit until the latter part of August with her aged parents, brothers, and sisters and also with her husband's brothers and sisters, who all reside in the southern part of Sweden in and near the city of Malmo. This will be the first time she has seen any of them in 38 years, since she came to America from her homeland, when she was a young girl.

After a short visit with Miss Lindborg's relatives in Sweden, she and Miss Taber will continue their tour through Sweden, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, and England. The two young ladies plan to return to the United States about August fifth by way of Montreal, Canada.

Mrs. Lindborg will spend all of her time in and near Malmo returning home the latter part of August on a different boat.

The Hobart Historical Society recently received a donation of a scrapbook/photo album put together by Mildred Lindborg Lute, Anna Lindborg's eldest daughter. It included photos from that trip to Sweden in 1938. We know that thanks to Mildred's happy penchant for identifying her photos — otherwise, we'd just be looking at the photos and saying, "Doesn't that look like Anna Palm Lindborg? But where on earth were these taken?"

The first photo shows Anna and her mother, Hanna Palm.[2]


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society, Hobart, Indiana.

The photo below shows both Anna and her daughter, Norma, with some relatives. (The fact that Mildred referred to her sister as Norma Berg means she was typing up these captions sometime after Norma's marriage in April 1949.)



For the rest of the photos, I will let Mildred's captions speak for themselves.













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The August 11, 1938 Index-Commonwealth reported:

Miss Bernice Taber and Miss Norma Lindborg, both of Ainsworth, returned recently from a three months tour of Europe. The girls motored, together with Mrs. Gust Lindborg, to New York where they embarked on the ship, Gripsholm of the Swedish-American lines. Landing in Sweden they took a trip up the Goda Canal to Stockholm, which is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. From there they went to Oslo, Norway, and through the fjords. The water in the fjords, Miss Taber reports, is a very clear, marked green, but the air has a definite bluish cast and gives the surrounding scenery a hazy look, which even accents its beauty. From Norway, the travelers journeyed to Copenhagen, Denmark, and from thence through Germany by way of the Rhine. The Rhine, the girls said, is an exceptionally winding river and makes its many turns through the surrounding Alps. From Brussels, Belgium, they ferried to England across the English Channel, where they visited London, and Oxford University. Mrs. Lindborg, who remained longer to visit her sister in Sweden, sailed this week for the United States. Miss Taber and Miss Lindborg, however, returned two weeks ago by way of Canada, on the ship Express of Britain. Arriving in Canada, they visited Quebec and Montreal and then journeyed on home.

The August 25 Index-Commonwealth noted that Anna Lindborg had finally come home to Ainsworth, saying she'd had "a wonderful trip."

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[1] I have found an Evelyn Wolfe living in Portage Township, Porter County, who was about 17 in 1938, but I'm not sure she's the right person.
[2] Although the newspaper article mentions Anna's "aged parents," none of the photos include her father. I don't have international Ancestry.com to find out if he was still living then.

A Naughty Notter

As we saw in our last post, Gustave and Wilhelmine Wegner bought the northern 39.5 acres of the Harms 73rd Avenue farm on April 16, 1878. On October 5 of that year, they sold their land to William and Catharine[1] (known as Kate) Notter …


(Click on images to enlarge)
Title abstract images courtesy of the Eldon Harms family.

… who assumed the remainder of the mortgage on the land. By 1880 they had paid it off:



In 1886 the Notters bought the southern 40 acres of the future Harms farm from Christian and Johanna Beilfuss.



The day of that sale, the Notters borrowed money from the State of Indiana, mortgaging their northern 40 again.



In 1890 and 1894, the Notters again borrowed money from the state, securing the debt with mortgages on both the northern and southern halves of their farm. I have no idea what was going on here.





They did pay off their debt to the Beilfusses in 1893.



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William Notter was a native of Canada, born circa 1837. He came to the U.S. probably in the early 1860s, since he married an Illinois-born woman, Catharine Golden, before 1864.[2] In the 1870 Census, the Notter[3] family was recorded in Chicago, with three sons: William (born circa 1864), Thomas (1867), and Edward (1869).

As we've seen, in 1878 they bought their first 40 acres and presumably relocated to Ross Township, where the 1880 Census records them. Their eldest son, William, was not accounted for in that census; possibly he had died; it's also possible he left home at 15 or 16 years of age. The Notter children accounted for in 1880 were Thomas and Edward, and a daughter, Fannie, born circa 1875.

In 1891, William and Catharine leased their 79.5 acres in 1891 to Christ Springman:



Since two families had once occupied those 80 acres, perhaps there was a spare house for the Notters to live in while Christ Springman ran the dairy farm. But at some point William bought another 13 acres on the northeast corner of the intersection of Randolph and 73rd, per the 1908 Plat Map.

Sometime before 1900, Catharine died — when and where, I don't know. I can't find any record of the death, or a grave, either here in Ross Township, or in Illinois. The last mention we have of her is the 1894 reference in the title abstract.[4] The 1900 Census shows William, a widower, living alone in Ross Township, farming his own land (probably the 13 acres). The children had grown up and left home.

The "General News Items" of the Hobart Gazette of February 8, 1901, carried an item noting that William Notter "who lives about one-half mile west of Deep River" had sold all his goods and was planning to move to Chicago. But it wasn't until the September 20, 1901 issue that this notice appeared:

"For Sale — My chicken and truck farm one mile west of Deep River, Indiana, comprising 13 acres, a new brick and terra cotta house, frame barn, corn crib and terra cotta chicken house; good water. Will sell for cash or on terms to suit purchaser. Wm. Notter, 396 W. Polk street, Chicago, Ill."

Per the pre-1916 Illinois on-line death records, William died in 1904, but I can't find his grave.

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The title of this post promised you a naughty Notter. To find him, we must go back to 1896, to the August 21 issue of the Hobart Gazette:

Thomas Notter in Trouble
A special from Crown Point to the Chicago Times-Herald, dated Aug. 19, reads as follows: Thomas Notter was arrested this morning at Deep River, this county, for a clear case of bigamy on complaint of wife No. 1, a resident of Chicago. The bigamist and his wife were taken before Judge Van Winkle this morning. Notter was bound over to the circuit court in the sum of $1,000, and wife No. 2 was held in bonds of $200. In 1892 wife No. 1 was married to Notter at South Omaha, Neb., by Father Thomas. They then moved to Chicago and lived in that city for over three years. During this time three children were born to them. Unknown to Mrs. Notter No. 1, Notter was secretly married to Miss Hock of Laporte, Ind., in December, 1895, by Father Welch of Chicago, and took up quarters in Chicago, and there they remained about two months. They then moved out to Deep River, off a railroad, and located on a farm, where they have remained up to today. Mrs. Notter No. 1 began a search soon after her husband disappeared in Chicago and finally located the couple at Deep River.

This Thomas was the son born to William and Kate circa 1867.

A family tree on Ancestry.com includes the paperwork for a marriage in Omaha, Nebraska in 1889:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from Nebraska, U.S., Select County Marriage Records, 1855-1908 via Ancestry.com.

Was this yet another marriage, or did the article quoted above get the date of the first marriage wrong? (It's unfortunate that the article doesn't give the first wife's name.) The Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index does indeed show Thomas marrying 21-year-old Frances Hock in December 1895.

I don't know any more about the bigamy case — for example, whether Thomas served time in prison, or paid a fine.

Thomas and his first wife may have kissed and made up after all this mess. In the 1900 Census Thomas is recorded with a wife named Mary. However, as noted by the enumerator, he claimed to have married her only a year prior. I can find no record of that marriage. In the 1910 Census, Thomas was living alone, saying he was a widower. In June of 1913, there's a record of a Thomas Notter marrying an Anna Daley in Cook County; in December 1921, a Thomas Notter married an Anna Powers, same place. One of these (or maybe both) might be our Thomas, whose wife, at the time of his death in 1925 per the Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths Index, was named Anna. But her maiden name is not included in that record.

To top off the story, I will just add that in 1898 Thomas' brother, Edward, married a young lady named Anna Louise Hock, whom I believe to be the sister of Thomas' partner in crime. The 1880 Census shows a Hock family in LaPorte, Indiana, which includes two young girls named Frances and Anna. The girls' ages in that census correspond to their ages in subsequent records: the 1895 marriage record in the case of Frances, and later censuses in the case of Anna.

Edward and Anna were married in Chicago. I can't find them in the 1900 Census, but the 1910 Census shows them living in Ross Township, by which time they had a son, George, and a daughter, Vernet(te). They owned a farm in the vicinity of Deep River (possibly Edward bought his father's 13 acres) and made occasional appearances in the local newspaper social columns. In 1913 Edward sold his farm and relocated to Charlestown, Clark County, Indiana, allegedly "to assist his brother in farming," according to the Gazette[5] — what brother, I'd like to know! Was this the long-lost William, or did Thomas slip out of the city between the 1910 and 1920 censuses, to farm a bit? Or maybe there was another brother I've missed? I can't identify any Notters in that location except for Edward and family, who appear in the 1920 Census (by which time there was another son, Brent). It's possible, of course, that the Gazette got the "brother" part wrong. But if the brother was Thomas, well, all I can say is … awkward.

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[1] Spellings of her name vary. I chose one at random.
[2] I can't find a record of this marriage. I'm going by the age of their eldest child per the census.
[3] The enumerator spelled their surname Knotter.
[4] Someday I have to read the 1890s Hobart and other local newspapers on microfilm. I have only skimmed through them without taking notes, back when when very few names meant much to me.
[5] "Additional Locals News," Hobart Gazette, 14 Mar. 1913.