Moonshine Again

It's the winter of 1924. In spite of the cold weather, local entrepreneurs are busy supplying consumers' wants.


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Hobart Gazette, 11 Jan. 1924.

The article is worded for an audience that already knows where this is — "the road," "the farm." I suppose "the road" is Lake Park Avenue, but that's just a guess. I do not know how many roads the New Chicago area had in 1924. And I'm guessing that "the farm" was the C.J. Smith farm as shown in the 1926 Plat Book:


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I cannot identify John Kopek (spelled Kopack in the story below), except possibly as John Kopec, a Polish immigrant (born mid-1880s, arrived in the U.S. circa 1909) residing in Gary in the 1920 Census but later moving to Hobart. He was married, as described in the article below, and old enough to be running a booze operation. But I can't be sure that's our guy: all the vital records I have found thus far show only that this John Kopec lived the blameless life of a steel-mill employee, and now rests from his labors.

As for the other guy, his name was probably Szymanski, but he lived out his life in Gary, so he's Gary's historical problem.

They were found guilty:


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Hobart Gazette, 15 Feb. 1924.

In the next column over is an item about several Rossows attending the funeral of Mrs. Herman Borck — Christina Kummerow Borck — about whom I know almost nothing except that she was the mother of "mom's godmother." The weekend after the funeral, Ella Rossow came down from Chicago to visit her parents (William and Antonia), bringing along August Rolff,[1] whom she would marry in June of that year.

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Here's a near-death experience involving liquor:


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Hobart News, 21 Feb. 1924.

The idea of taking the midnight train to Valparaiso seems so evocative. I guess I've heard too many songs about midnight trains. Actually, I'm surprised there even was a midnight train to Valparaiso.

To the right of that story, we find that on Valentine's Day, Lena Maybaum Barney, who had lost her first husband in 1921, married Henry Schavey, who had lost his first wife in 1920.

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[1] "Local and Personal," Hobart News, 14 Feb. 1924.

Selling Off Jeremiah's Stuff (Part 1) and a Mystery Wiggins

On October 4, 1838, settlers gathered at Wiggins' Point to buy up the worldly goods left behind by Jeremiah Wiggins, who had died about two months before.

Here is the first page of the record that J.V. Johns kept of who bought what and for how much, and whether they paid in cash or a promissory note.


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Image courtesy of Alice Flora Smedstad.

My transcription:


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With one exception, we have seen these names before and turned up whatever information we could about them.

The exception is Wiatt Wiggins. I have not been able to determine whether he was any relation to Jeremiah. In fact, I haven't been able to find out a single thing about him. These estate papers contain the only mention of him I have ever seen. He's absent from the local histories and from the 1840 Census.[1] His name hasn't surfaced in the early merchants' records at the Hobart Historical Society museum — that is, not in the ones I have indexed so far.

If Wiatt were any kind of close relation to Jeremiah, like a brother, I would expect him to inherit Jeremiah's goods, not have to buy them at a sale like any non-relative. On the other hand, I don't know what the Indiana laws of intestate succession were in 1838.

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[1] On Ancestry.com, I found a family tree that included a Wyatt Wiggin whose father was named Jeremiah! But that Jeremiah died in 1876.

How Jeremiah Earned Some Money

This summary of amounts owed to Jeremiah Wiggins is in the same handwriting (and spelling) as the Charles Sloat note, but, as we shall see, Charles wasn't involved in these transactions, except maybe as the scribe of this summing-up written well after the transactions took place.


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Image courtesy of Alice Flora Smedstad.

My attempted transcription:


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This document was a challenge: the copy is bad, the spelling non-standard, and the writer did not start a new line for every item. But this is what I have teased out regarding what Jeremiah did or supplied to earn these amounts:

• eight days' unspecified work by Jeremiah
• work by Jeremiah and his horses for 3 days to help build a house
• boarding (i.e., feeding) Watkins and Wyett, whoever they may have been (we'll get to that below), from April 29 to June 12 of — 1835? (the document is being written in May of 1836)
• washing and mending
• hay for two horses and (almost illegible but looks like) six chickens
• one two-horse harness

All of that is reasonable enough except for the washing and mending. "Washing," I suppose, meant laundry. Now, does a tough frontiersman do laundry and mending by the week for other people? Do tough frontiersmen want their laundry done every week? Maybe my notion of tough frontiersmen is wrong. Or maybe Jeremiah subcontracted that work.

The person owing Jeremiah these amounts set off part of his debt by furnishing to Jeremiah one young pig, two bushels of corn, some pork, and some fish.

Here is the description noted on the back of the document by Solon Robinson, the court clerk:


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Image courtesy of Alice Flora Smedstad.

My transcription:

No. 1
Wiggins Estate

Barney's a/c.
Balance due 55.25

Filed March 28th 1839
Solon Robinson
Clk. L.P.C.

So, while the body of the document does not name the debtor, the clerk's description supplies a name: Barney.

This may have been Francis Barney, who was in Lake County by 1836 (Lake County 1834-1872 at 55) and is listed in the 1840 census. Around 1842 he married Amanda Strong (Indiana Marriage Collection). The Barney family, with three children, is listed in eastern Ross Township in the 1850 Census. One of their daughters married Austin Thompson in 1863 and raised a family of five children, all of whom went on to raise their own families in Lake and Porter Counties.[1] I have not been able to trace any other Barney family member beyond 1850 (not that I've tried very hard!).

Let's look again at the two people whom Jeremiah boarded: Watkins and Wyett. I have found two possible matches for those names:

• William Watkins, an early settler of northeast Ross Township, who appears as early as 1837 in records of Hobart merchants, and in the 1840 census
• Thomas J. Wyatt, an early settler of Liberty Township, Porter County (Porter and Lake Counties (Goodspeed-Blanchard) at 38, 209, 211)

But I simply don't have enough information to identify either man positively. As to why Francis Barney would have owed Jeremiah Wiggins the cost of boarding them or any member of their families, I don't have a clue.

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[1] One of their sons, George, was the father of Eva Thompson.

Catherine Mereness Crisman

Catherine Mereness Crisman died in Chicago, I gather, so her remains had to be brought back to the place where she had spent much of her life, to be laid to rest with her husband in Mosier Cemetery.


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Hobart News 23 Feb. 1922.

I suppose I will have to wait for another obituary to find out if Jane Crisman Maxwell's husband was related to the Lewis and Nettie Maxwell of Deep River.

A Menu of Death

This page from the Hobart Gazette of November 25, 1921, offered up varied styles of death, from the horrifyingly sudden to the tragically premature.


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I'm guessing that Bertha Stoltz's mother was Gust Busse's sister (Bertha's maiden name being Heiman, not Busse). Bertha had married Robert Stoltz in 1908, and early in their married life they rented a house on Center Street in Hobart, convenient to Robert's work in a brickyard. By 1920 they had moved into Morgan Township, Porter County, and were farming rented land.

The Gazette's version says the shooting was accidental, but a couple of articles I have tracked down from other sources, including a Wanatah newspaper, say it was intentional, though impulsive.

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Minnie Chase Smith had been born November 9, 1865, on her parents' farm, which I believe I have found on the 1874 Plat Map:


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I wish I had figured out earlier that Sela Smith had this local connection; I could have talked about him more — not that he's done anything particularly interesting, but I think his name has popped up in the newspapers more than his wife's … which isn't saying much. They seem to have led a pretty quiet life. (Minnie's brother, Gust, is the one who would be killed in a car crash in 1927.)

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We saw this coming for poor Harold Guernsey, who had been seriously ill for many months. Incidentally, I have never heard of Putout, Indiana, where Otis Guernsey is described as living, nor can I find any information on such a place. (And "Mrs. Carrie Sondong" in the last sentence is a misprint for "Santonge.")


Additional Sources:
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Funeral of Mrs. Sela Smith Held at Her Home Saturday Afternoon." Hobart News 24 Nov. 1921.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Mrs. Robert Stoltz Killed by Shot Gun in Hands of Orphan Boy." Wanatah Mirror 24 Nov. 1921 (newspaperarchive.com).
♦ "Obituary." Hobart News 17 Nov. 1921.
♦ "Youth Slays Woman." Indianapolis Star 23 Nov. 1921 (newspaperarchive.com).

John Barney

A westbound Grand Trunk train stopped at the Ainsworth station on the morning of October 24, 1921, to deliver a sad cargo: John Barney, born and raised in Ross Township, was making his last trip home.


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Hobart News 27 Oct. 1921.

I've seen the Barney name every now and then in social news, but I didn't realize until now how long the family had been in this area. A couple of posts ago, I mentioned Thomas Chandler buying a farm from "Charles E. and Maggie E. Barney at Palmer" — John's parents — which farm I haven't identified; but oddly enough it seems that Charles E. and Maggie E. Barney sometime between 1874 and 1891 bought 80 acres that had belonged to Thomas Chandler's grandfather; namely, this parcel on the south side of E. 73rd Ave.:


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On this image from the 1908 Plat Map, the land that belonged to Charles and Maggie Barney in 1891 is outlined.

That's the only land I have found ascribed to the elder Barneys in any plat map.

John's widow, née Lena Maybaum, belonged to the large Maybaum family. They had married in 1887, not 1886 as stated in the article above.

Their two sons, Edward Ray and Charles Leslie, often went by their middle names.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1874 Plat Map.
♦ 1891 Plat Book.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Obituary." Hobart Gazette 28 Oct. 1921.
♦ WWI Draft Cards.

Bungalow or No?

After the trouble I went to finding out who Elmer Livingston Arment was, I'm annoyed that suddenly in October 1921 he has to move half a state away and has no further need for a bungalow on Grand Boulevard … which means I've probably been wasting my time trying to figure out which of the houses in that area was his.


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"Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 21 Oct. 1921.


But wait! — up jumps the builder, Frank MacPherson, with an announcement:


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"Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 4 Nov. 1921.


Next door to that item, another interesting announcement about some people we know. I haven't blogged much about the Thomas Chandler family, although they show up here and there in my notes, in happy events of births or ordinary sociability. (I was just checking my notes from way back and found this little item from 1910: "A daughter was born Apr. 13th to Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Mosher who live at present with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Chandler near Deepriver." The first time I read that, I had no clue who the Moshers were.)

Now that these Chandlers are leaving my bailiwick, I suppose I should finally talk about them! Thomas, born in 1878 and named for his grandfather, was one of seven children of Sylvester and Margaret Chandler — an older brother to Eugene Chandler, whom we've heard so much about.

In February 1900 Thomas married Maud Whittmer. Early on in their married life, it appears they lived in western Ross Township, and Thomas worked as a railroad section hand. In 1907 they were living near the village of Deep River — perhaps farming, as the 1910 census shows them farming rented land in the same area. In 1913, the family reportedly bought "the 52-acre farm of Charles E. and Maggie E. Barney at Palmer," and yet in 1919 they were "occupying the Cunningham farm of 116 acres six miles southeast from Ainsworth, for the third year" — and the last year, it seems, as their landlord was reportedly selling the farm out from under them. In 1920, they were farming rented land in Winfield Township. (By this time, Thomas and Maud had three children: Emery, Josephine, and Janet.) And now, in November 1921, the Chandlers were departing from the Ella Roper farm, which I believe lay on the west side of Clay Street, its southern border at present-day U.S. 30 (see 1908 Plat Map).

As so off go the Chandlers, and onto the Ella Roper farm come Fred and Olga Rossow.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Additional Local News," Hobart Gazette 29 Aug. 1919.
♦ "General News Items." Hobart Gazette 30 Aug. 1907.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 22 Apr. 1910.
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 10 Apr. 1913.

He Went Home Again

I didn't even know that Charles Maybaum, Jr. was in poor health. And now, having learned that from the age of 17 he suffered from "rheumatism" (probably arthritis), I am surprised that he was so active. As the years passed, his condition grew worse: by his early thirties, he needed a crutch and a cane just to move about, and toward the end he was "quite helpless."

All of this came out (to me) only after Charles died on October 11, 1919, in the house in Ainsworth where he had moved only three months earlier. He was 53 years old, having been born July 23, 1866, in Germany.

I do wonder if the grief and disruption in his life — the loss of his mother, who had cared for him all those years, the move from his old familiar farm home to a house in the village — hastened his death, but that is just my wild conjecture.

Charles was survived by his nine siblings, and since eight of them lived in northwest Indiana, they likely attended his funeral at the M.E. Church in Hobart. The possible exception was his sister Lena Barney, who now lived in Battle Creek, Michigan; but her branch of the family was represented by her 28-year-old son, Ray, who made the trip down to pay his respects.

Charles Jr. was laid to rest in Crown Hill Cemetery.


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That is the west side of the stone whose east side memorializes his parents.

His brother-in-law, R.D. Sizelove, was appointed administrator of his estate.




Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 11 July 1919.
♦ "Card of Thanks." Hobart News 16 Oct. 1919.
♦ "Death of Charles Maybaum." Hobart Gazette 17 Oct. 1919.
♦ "Funeral of Charles Maybaum Held Monday Afternoon." Hobart News 16 Oct. 1919.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 16 Oct. 1919.
♦ "Notice of Administration." Hobart News 16 Oct. 1919.

Charles Chester v. Everybody

A new season, a new action to quiet title.


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Two and a half acres of this land overlapped the land that Charles' stepmother and her second husband had been suing over the previous autumn. I wish I knew the story behind that.


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These days you can go walking in the woods on the land that was the subject of this action.


Sources:
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Notice to Non-Resident." Hobart News 11 Apr. 1918.

(For search-engine purposes) Defendants named in the action: Benton, McDonald, Race, Beckwith, Barney, Wheeler, Bond, Hanks, Smith, Maxwell, Wilcox, Brown, Green.

McDaniel v. Everybody

In September 1917 John McDaniel brought an action to quiet title against everybody who might possibly ever had anything to do with a couple of parcels east of Ainsworth. He published this "Notice to Non-Resident" to tell them about it:


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Not residents of the state of Indiana — I expect that by 1917 some of them were not residents of this world.

That's all pretty boring, isn't it? But I find it interesting because some of the land involved is now mine.

The only reason John McDaniel had anything to do with the matter was because he had married Henry Chester's third wife and widow. The parcels in question were part of the old Chester land.


The disputed parcels as shown on the 1926 plat map.

Some of the names I recognize. Willard O. Halsted sold the Ainsworth general store to the Raschkas in 1901. Lucy M. Hanks was, according to Homer Ghearart, the sister of Henry Chester's second wife, Harriet (and Lucy's husband's surname was Spencer).

Charles Chester, of course, we know well — he was Henry and Harriet's son. And what's up with that "Mrs. Chas. Chester, his wife, whose true Christian name is unknown"? Constance Chester was John McDaniel's stepdaughter-in-law-by marriage; you'd think he'd know her name. Perhaps this is evidence that relations between Mary Chester McDaniel and her stepchildren were a bit strained.


Source: "Notice to Non-Resident." Hobart Gazette 7 Sept. 1917.

Trees: Falling and Family

As I said, I'm at a point in time where an Ainsworth person has to die or be born in order to get into the paper. Charles Maybaum made it onto the front page of the Hobart News of September 11, 1913, by being killed by a falling tree. And it took that obituary to inform me just how instrumental he and his wife, Caroline, had been in populating the area. Just look at the list of surviving (adult) children:

In Ainsworth:

• Albert Maybaum
• Edward Maybaum
• Charles Maybaum
• August Maybaum (in Ross Township, outside the village of Ainsworth)
• Mrs. Lena Barney
• Mrs. Martha Miller
• Mrs. Hattie Sizelove

In Deep River: Mrs. Gusta Waldeck
In Hobart: Mrs. Jennie Dewell
"Near Hebron": Mrs. Mary Thompson

Honestly, Ainsworth wouldn't have been much of a town without Charles and Caroline Maybaum; now, would it? I mean, even less of a town. Or village.

He was also survived by a brother, Fred Maybaum of Chicago, and just to make things interesting there was an (I believe) unrelated Fred Maybaum in Hobart whose hobby was likewise, apparently, populating the town.

Charles Maybaum was born in Germany in 1840. In 1863 he married Caroline Wagoner, and their two eldest sons, August and Charles junior, were born in Germany. In 1871 the family came to the United States and eventually settled in Ross Township, south of Ainsworth, where they resumed producing children. The 1891 Plat Book shows "Chas. Maibaum & wife" owning the 80-acre parcel that later passed into the hands of George Chester, and where Chester Cemetery is located.


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The 80-acre Maybaum parcel is outlined in red. This image is from the 1926 Plat Book, which I use because it's easier to read than the 1891 one, and by that time the land belonged to George Chester.

Charles died sometime on the morning of September 4, 1913. He had left the house about 9 a.m., after announcing his intention to go chop down a tree in the woods on his land. No one thought anything of it when he didn't come back for lunch, but as the afternoon wore on and Charles was nowhere to be seen, someone got worried and set out looking for him. His "severely bruised" body — dead for probably several hours — was found near the tree he had cut down.

He is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery.


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Sources:
♦ 1891 Plat Book.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Chas. Maybaum Killed by Falling Tree Thursday." Hobart News 11 Sept. 1913.