There Goes Charles Peterson

Here and there in my notes there will be a name that I've come across in my reading in connection with the Ainsworth area, and without understanding who that person was, I just catalog the reference and leave it up to chance that I will eventually come across something to enlighten me. In this case it was the announcement that Charles Peterson was leaving Ainsworth forever that enlightened me.


Hobart Gazette 17 Nov. 1922.

In this item we learn that he lived on the Halsted farm south of Ainsworth:


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Hobart Gazette 17 Nov. 1922.

And where might that be? This image from the 1926 Plat Book shows a farm south of Ainsworth owned by Barbara Halsted:*


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The 1908 Plat Map shows that land owned by Barbara's husband, W.O. Halsted.

As you can see, the Halsted farm is conveniently near the farm of Frank Peterson. A brief item in a later Gazette[1] tell us that Frank was Charles' brother. So was John Peterson of Hobart. Charles had come into the area in 1885 with his parents and resided locally ever since. But now he was leaving Indiana for Illinois, and farming for carpentry — a transition that stuck, apparently, as I can find him carpentering in Rockford, Illinois, through the 1940 Census.

You will notice I have highlighted the name Bragington, east of the Halsted and Peterson farms. I did that because the earliest mention of Charles in my notes has him repairing buildings on the "old Bragington farm" in 1910.[2] In January 1911, we come upon this:

Antone Peterson who has lived upon and operates the Bragington farm south of Ainsworth for the past eight years has decided to move back to Chicago next spring. He will dispose of his personal property at public sale. His brother Chas. the carpenter who lives upon the same farm contemplates moving to Hobart to reside.[3]

So there was another Peterson brother.

It seems Charles did indeed leave the Bragington farm, as he rented the "H. Scholler cottage on East street" in Hobart.[4]. The next time Charles and family show up in my notes is in February 1918, when they are again living "south of Ainsworth,"[5] which may have referred to the Halsted farm.

And now Charles and family are leaving, and the Halsted farm is being rented by S.E. Bowman. Who S.E. Bowman is, I don't know, but I hope eventually to come across something that will enlighten me.

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Let's look at the Gazette page from November 1922 that contained Charles Peterson's public sale notice — it includes a couple of other interesting (to me) things …


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Hobart Gazette 17 Nov. 1922.

… regular Wednesday night dances at Deepriver Hall (which may have been the former schoolhouse), evidently well enough attended that it was worth Clarence Howell's (who??) time to operate bus service between Hobart and the hall.

(And below the dance item, another mention of the old Lutz house's new life.)

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[1] "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 1 Dec. 1922.
[2] "Ainsworth Pick-Ups," Hobart Gazette 24 June 1910.
[3] "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 20 Jan. 1911. The third brother's name also shows up spelled "Anthon" (e.g., "PublicSale," Hobart Gazette 3 Feb. 1911).
[4] "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 17 Feb. 1911.
[5] "Births," Hobart News 21 Feb. 1918.

Old Lutz House: On the Corner or Down in the Gully?

The last time we heard of the old Bragington farm was in December 1920 when it served as an emergency landing strip. At the time I concluded that Ed Maybaum was occupying that farm, and I don't know how I figured that out, but now it seems I'm right. And Ed, like others, was finding himself at least partially priced out of farming in the autumn of 1922:


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Hobart News 26 Oct. 1922.

And with a new brick house to live in, the Lutzes were sending their old house off to become a Fasel house … which is why I think "the corner west of their place" referred to the south side of the intersection of Tenth Street and South Hobart Road. But both corners of that intersection are "west" of the Lutz house, so it might have been either the east or west corner. These days, the west corner is occupied by a house built (according to the county records) in 1890.

However, more than once when we were driving through that area, Eldon Harms told me there had been a house on the east corner. Somebody's — I forget the name and oh, how I wish I had Eldon back again to tell me — somebody's mother-in-law lived in that house, and when the house had finished its usefulness it was pushed down into the gully.

An item in the "Local Drifts" of the Hobart Gazette of Dec. 15, 1922, noted that "Henry Fasel, Jr., moved his family last Friday into their new home on 10th street." This may have been the new-to-them old Lutz house, since I haven't noted any reports of new construction there.

In conclusion: I don't know.

Airmail

I suppose disabled planes were landing in farmers' fields all over the country. It only seems as if they all came down around Ainsworth because I'm reading about Ainsworth, not the rest of the country.


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From "Local and Personal," Hobart News 9 Dec. 1920.

(Also, the Melvin Guernsey family, who had fled to Florida to escape the Indiana winter, have fled back to escape the Florida cost of living.)


From Hobart News 9 Dec. 1920


From Hobart Gazette 10 Dec. 1920.

The "old Bragington farm" was at the southern border of Ross Township:



That's how it looked in the 1926 Plat Book. The Bragington name covers most of Section 31, Range 7, from the 1874 Plat Map onward. That doesn't change until the 1939 Plat Book, and for all I know the names listed there could be Bragington heirs.

And we do find Ed Maybaum, in the 1920 Census, living on rented land in southern Ross Township.