The Mysterious Mr. Fish

Here we have J.V. Johns collecting some money from the Jeremiah Wiggins estate. First, for his services to the estate as a clerk:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of Alice Flora Smedstad.

My transcription:

Redeemed November 18, 1839 of James H. Cassady
Administrator of the Estate of Jeremiah Wiggins
deceased $2.00 in full for services as Clerk of the sale
of Personal property of said Estate, and other writing[?]
for said Estate

J.V. Johns

And secondly, for hay he sold to Jeremiah indirectly:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of Alice Flora Smedstad.

My transcription:

The Estate of Jeremiah Wiggins Dr.
To J.V. Johns Dr.

To 6 Tons of hay used by
the Wiggins, bot by me
of one Fish, who was a
tenant of the land[?] of Wiggins
@ $2.50 dollars per ton $15.00

I have already talked about J.V. Johns a couple of times. To the bits of information we have on him, I want to add this anecdote from Solon Robinson:[1]

J. V. Johns was elected sheriff this August [1839] election, H.N. Brooks was his opponent. The election was contested and created some excitement at the time. … (One witness testified that he would not vote for either, because one was a drunkard and the other a black-guard — too true.)

I'm not clear whether J.V. Johns was supposed to be the drunkard or the blackguard. His elaborate signature, above, looks as if it were written with a steady hand, so maybe he was the blackguard.

The second paper introduces another character — this tenant of Wiggins, whose surname was Fish. Without a first name, or even initial, it's impossible to identify him. Among the early settlers of Lake County listed by T.H. Ball[2] we find E.T. Fish and John Fish, who came here in 1837. But that is the first and last mention of either in any history book I can find. They don't appear in the 1840 census.

I've also encountered a Fish in an 1830s daybook at the Hobart Historical Society museum. This entry, dated September 10, 1837, shows him buying a large number of household items …


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society, Hobart, Indiana.

… and paying for them by selling the merchant 6 tons of hay and a promissory note signed by one of the Wilkinsons.

Fish's first initial is unclear: it might be M or W, or maybe that's just Mr. Fish — meaning the merchant didn't know his first name any better than we do.

Below Mr. Fish, J.V. Johns shows up. That's just coincidence — OR IS IT????


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[1] Lake County 1929 at p. 52.
[2] Lake County 1834-1872 at p. 56.