Destruction at Fourth and Center

The Gazette of March 19, 1964, included this photo of the demolition of Dr. Pliny Gordon's house.


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I have not been able to verify that "a beautiful and modern apartment building," or anything else, for that matter, was built on the site.

The Humane Society and its Shelter

These articles, from August 1954 through September 1955, tell the story of the Humane Society of Hobart's formation, and the building of its shelter on Rte. 130.


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"Humane Society Organized Here," Hobart Gazette, 19 Aug. 1954.


Hobart Gazette, 7 July 1955.


Hobart Gazette, 22 Sept. 1955.

I suppose these kind people have all gone to their reward by now. Their president, Morris Cox, died in 1978 and is buried in Evergreen Memorial Park.

The Humane Society is still operating out of the 1955 building. The size of the property is now less than three quarters of an acre; if it's true that Bertha Jacoby originally donated several acres of land, some of it may have been sold off to raise money for construction or operating expenses.

Dr. Joseph L. Gordon of Wheeler

Back when I was researching the Gordon house, someone asked me whether the Dr. Joseph Gordon who practiced in Wheeler was related to the Gordons of Hobart. I didn't know the answer then, and I don't know it now, but this article from July 1923 tells us a little about Dr. Joseph Gordon's background.


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Hobart Gazette, July 20, 1923.

His parents, Samuel and Frieda, farmed near Wheeler. Here is their land in 1906:


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From https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1906Plats/Union-1906.jpg

So Wheeler was home to Dr. Gordon; no wonder he set up his practice there.

According to a 1927 biographical sketch, he would be practicing in Gary within a few years.

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An item above the article about Dr. Gordon gives us a little update to the C.O. Mize story. In the next column to the left, we learn that the speed limit on the Lincoln Highway was 25 m.p.h., and that it was frequently broken.

Lushia Trumper Gordon

This is the last of the Gordon family obituaries that I have on hand. Lushia, aka Lucy, was the mother of E.R., among others.


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Hobart News, Sept. 30, 1926.



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Hobart Gazette, Oct. 1, 1926.


The News gives her maiden name as Trumper, the Gazette as Trumber, and I couldn't tell you which is correct.

We catch a glimpse of Lushia in this 1881 photograph, where she is standing on the porch of her brick house, on the southwest corner of Center and Second Streets.

Like her sister-in-law, Hettie, she taught in Hobart's Union Sunday School.

The obituaries say that she was buried in Hobart Cemetery (and her death certificate indicates burial in Hobart), but neither the Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society's index of Hobart Township cemeteries nor findagrave.com records a grave marker for her, or her husband.

Hettie Rifenburg Gordon

Here is another Gordon-related obituary — Hettie, wife of Pliny P. Gordon; mother of Howard (and Mildred, who died in infancy); sister of William H. Rifenburg:


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Hobart Gazette Aug. 7, 1891.


She made quite a few appearances as a teacher in the early-1870s Union Sunday School record book that I indexed.

She is buried in Hobart Cemetery.

Frederick Wallace Gordon

I have not finished with the Gordon family yet — I still have some obituaries to post. This one tells of the untimely death of E.R.'s brother.


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Hobart Gazette 5 May 1899.


The article has details about the funeral but does not tell us where Frederick was buried, nor can I find any information on that.

His wife, Amanda, was the daughter of Frederick and Wilhelmine (Passow) Triebess, and now I have another project: figuring out if this Triebess family was related to Julius, Tillie, and Lena.

John M. Gordon

As I mentioned earlier, John Gordon's biographical sketch appeared in Porter and Lake Counties (Goodspeed/Blanchard):

JOHN M. GORDON, junior member of the firm of P. P. Gordon & Brother, was born August 19, 1838, in Richmond, Penn. When John M. was eighteen years old, his father died. Mr. Gordon bought up the homestead soon after the death of his father, and in 1871 sold out and came to Hobart and went into partnership with his brother, P. P. Gordon; his mother lived with him until her death, in the spring of 1882, aged eighty years, fifty-six years a M. E. Church member. The brothers keep a full line of drugs, paints, oils, varnishes, brushes, etc., and groceries, provisions, flour, cigars and tobaccos, etc. Their trade has increased, and has always ranked among the first in the city. Mr. Gordon has an improved farm west of Hobart, about one mile; he is a member of the F. & A. M. fraternity, has always been a Democrat, but is liberal in local matters; he was married, January 20, 1869, to Anna L. Trumper, a native of Canada. They had three children — Frederick W., Mary J. and Edwin W. Mrs. Gordon was a teacher for four years, and was educated in Canada.

His wife, "Anna L.," more commonly went by her middle name, Lushia or Lucy. The 1880 Census shows John, a druggist, and wife Lucy, a teacher, living with their three children, Frederick, Mary, and Edwin, as well as John's 78-year-old mother, Lucy.

Once again we turn to an obituary for the rest of the story.


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Hobart Gazette 3 July 1914.

Hobart Then and Now: Dr. Pliny P. Gordon's House

1898, and 2017:


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Top image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Since the location of this Gordon house is not general knowledge (I certainly didn't know it until very recently), I should set out my reasons for concluding that it stood on the east side of Center Street, slightly south of the Fourth Street intersection.

To establish that the house was on Center Street, here's a little item from the "Local Drifts" column of the Hobart Gazette of July 4, 1902: "Mr. and Mrs. Howard Gordon came out from Chicago last Saturday to live in Hobart and have begun housekeeping in his father's house on Center street." We can refer to the 1880 Census or P.P. Gordon's 1904 obituary (below) to confirm the relationship between Howard and Pliny.

Fortunately for posterity, the Hobart Gazette's 1898 Souvenir Edition reproduced a photograph of the house and identified it, and also fortunately, as we can see in the photo above, it was a fairly distinctive house — brick, two full stories, with a bay window in front (and on your left as you stand in the street facing the house), a small front porch next to it, and a small bay window towards the rear on the right side. So let's look at the Sanborn map of 1895 to see if we find a house like that.



Almost a match: it's colored red, so it's brick; most of it is two full stories; the bay window in front would be on your left as you faced the house. But what about the side bay window and the small front porch? Let's go to the 1902 Sanborn map:



Now we have the front porch and the side bay window. We know they were sometime after 1895, so they could have been there for the 1898 photograph.

Speaking of which, if we look carefully at the background of that 1898 photo, we can see that at some distance behind the house is a large structure, over two stories, with a gable topped by a chimney on the side facing the house. I think that's the Hobart Township School on Fourth Street; compare this 1894 photo and this circa-1900 photo.

That's my case for the location of the P.P. Gordon house.

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Porter and Lake Counties (Goodspeed/Blanchard) included a biographical sketch of P.P. Gordon:

PLINY P. GORDON, M. D., senior member of the firm of P. P. Gordon & Bro., druggists and grocers, was born December 21, 1835, in Pennsylvania, and is one of eight children born to Edwin and Lucy (Power) Gordon, the former of New York, and the latter of Vermont. Grandfather Gordon was in the war of 1812. Two uncles were noted physicians of Detroit and Harrisburgh. When Pliny P. was four years old, his parents came to Michigan; here he lived at home until about 1860, attending school at the Ontario (Ind.) Seminary; he then began the study of medicine under Dr. Warren Byrns, of Bronson, Mich., and studied also at Ann Arbor and Buffalo, and graduated at Buffalo in the spring of 1865; he then came to Hobart and located; the first year he had a $1,200 practice, and has since run as high as $3,500; three years later, he began the drug business in partnership with his brother, and has been in that ever since; the firm has also been engaged in buying land, and at present the brothers have two farms; they have a fifth interest in the Deep River Ice Company. The Doctor is the oldest practitioner in Hobart, and has a leading practice in this part of the county. He is a Knight Templar, member of the F. & A. M. fraternity, and has been a member of the I. O. O. F. lodge; he was County Coroner for two years; he has always been a Democrat, and is a public-spirited citizen. He was married, in December, 1869, to Hettie Rifenburg, a native of New York. They have one child, Howard B. Mrs. Gordon was a teacher for a number of years.

Hettie Rifenburg was the sister of William H. Rifenburg. Much of this sketch was repeated in the doctor's obituary, printed in the Hobart Gazette of March 18, 1904:



I believe that Mary McAfee was the widow of Samuel (1880 Census) and her maiden name was Russell (Indiana Marriage Collection). Dr. Gordon only flitted through the last year-and-a-half of her life.

The 1979 article that was the basis of my Downtown Hobart 1979 blog included a story involving the Gordon brothers, set in the 100 block of Main Street:

Lot #1 of Hobart's plat was the site of Lew Hammond's tavern, a stage coach stop. In 1886 it was run by Mrs. David Young as Young's Hotel. John Gordon came from Pennsylvania that year to visit his brother, Dr. Pliny Gordon. He walked from the Pennsylvania Railroad station down Front Street and inquired at the hotel where he could locate his brother. He was told he was upstairs at a dance. John Gordon bought a ticket for $2.50 and was handed a slip of paper. This, he was told, was a deed to a lot in the new cemetery on Front Street and the dance was being given to raise money to build a fence around the cemetery to keep the pigs and cows from grazing there. Mr. Gordon relates the hotel later burned down.

I do not know the identity of the Mr. Gordon relating this story. It appears he misremembered the year, since John Gordon was already well settled in Hobart by 1882, when Goodspeed and Blanchard printed the biographical sketch above.

From a family tree on Ancestry.com comes this 1903 picture of Pliny Gordon and his first grandchild, Virginia (born in November 1902):


Image credit: "KatharineMRedmond," Ancestry.com.


If the photo is correctly dated to 1903, that's likely a christening gown Virginia is wearing as she sleeps in Grandpa's arms, before or after the ceremony. The overexposure of the photo makes it very difficult to judge the baby's age. If the photo dates to January 1904, then her christening gown has become her burial gown.

Little Virginia died January 17, 1904, just a couple of months before her grandfather. They are both buried in Hobart Cemetery.

An Eight-Pound Gordon

On January 12, 1909,¹ an eight-pound boy was born to Zora and E.R. Gordon — delivered neither by his father nor his great-uncle Pliny, but by an out-of-town physician named A.G. Schklieker.² I find that a bit odd.

The child was named John Jackson, probably in honor of both his grandfathers. Little John would spend much of his first year in the house where his father grew up.

In March, "Dr. E.R. Gordon … moved his office from the First State Bank block to the Fiester block, upstairs in front,"³ which explains why his name appears on the second-story front windows in this photo:


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.


In May, as we've learned, construction began on the new Gordon house. All in all, it had been a very eventful year-and-a-half for E.R. and Zora.

_______________________
[1] "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 15 Jan. 1909.
[2] Indiana Birth Certificates.
[3] "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 19 Mar. 1909.

E.R. and Zora

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Dr. E.R. Gordon, circa 1908.
Image credit: "KatharineMRedmond," Ancestry.com.

This item in the "Local Drifts" of the Hobart Gazette of Feb. 28, 1908, tells of Dr. E.R. Gordon making a surprise visit to Hobart with his new bride, Zora (Knopsnyder).


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He is described as "head house physician in one of the Health Homes at the [Bernarr] Macfadden Sanatorium, Battle Creek, Mich." Earlier, we saw in his obituary that he had been a patient at an unnamed sanitarium in Battle Creek, where he met his future wife. The Bernarr Macfadden Sanitarium definitely existed, but I haven't been able to confirm E.R.'s association with it in any source except the Gazette.



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Zora Knopsnyder, as a student at Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, Virginia, circa 1903. Image credit: Ancestry.com


Zora Knopsnyder was born in 1882, which means we have no census record of her until the 1900 Census, where we find her in Ridgway, Pennsylvania, boarding in the home of Edward and Mattie Sowers — who may or may not be related to her; I don't know. In a family tree on Ancestry.com, her parents are listed as Jackson Wynkoop and Margaret (Catz) Knopsnyder; the 1908 paperwork for E.R. and Zora's marriage names her parents only by their initials: J.W. and M.J. In 1900, if I've found the right people, J.W. and M.J. were living in West Virginia. I wonder why Zora chose not to live with them? She was then 18 years old and the enumerator recorded no occupation for her.

E.R. and Zora were married February 19, 1908, in Elk County, Pennsylvania.[1].

After their visit to Hobart, the young couple returned to Battle Creek for several months. In May, Zora came down alone for a visit to her in-laws, staying with them in the house on Second and Center Streets.[2]

In July 1908, E.R. came home to Hobart for good.


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Hobart Gazette 24 July 1908.


(There's another make of car I never heard of before. Looking at the 1908 models on this page, they look so exposed. I'd hate to go out on a call on a cold, rainy night with only that flimsy convertible roof to shield me.)

With E.R. came a 15-year-old boy, formerly a bell boy at the sanatorium, who would work as office boy (in E.R.'s office, I expect).[3] The Gazette gives his name as Ormer Thaker, the 1910 Census as Omar Thenker. I can't find him elsewhere.

E.R. rented an office in the First State Bank building and went about his business as doctor and coroner.


(Click on image to enlarge)Hobart Gazette 2 Oct. 1908.


________________

[1] Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Marriages, 1852-1968 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016. Original data: Marriage Records. Pennsylvania Marriages. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, UT.
[2] "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 22 May 1908.
[3] "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 31 July 1908; 1910 Census.

The Gordon House

As some of you already know, the Gordon house has new owners, who have begun the difficult process of restoring this lovely old place. Because they have enough work to do, I volunteered to look into the microfilm and other records in search of some background on the house to share with them … and with the readers of this blog.

Let's get straight to the good part: the spring of 1909, when construction first began.


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Hobart Gazette May 7, 1909.

The electric-line franchise is discussed in more detail in the left-hand column of this page. As we know, the streetcar line ended up taking a different route — passing a block south of Dr. Gordon's house, rather than right past it.

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He went by "E.R." and I'm beginning to wonder if it's because he himself didn't know whether his first name was Edwin or Edward. It shows up both ways. With the help of Paula Isolampi of the Hobart Historical Society, I've come up with a theory: he was christened Edwin after his paternal grandfather, but he didn't like that name, and as soon as he was old enough to impose his will on others, he started making them call him Edward, or just Ed. Professionally and publicly, he used his initials — a common practice at the time.

E.R. Gordon was born December 7, 1878 (Indiana Death Certificates). His parents were John and Lushia (aka Lucy) Gordon, whose brick house used to stand on the southwest corner of Center and Second Streets (and where four-year-old E.R. was photographed on the porch). His father was a druggist, and his uncle, Pliny P. Gordon, a doctor, so medicine ran in his blood, I suppose you could say.

To find out the details of his life, we must look to his death — which came early; the poor soul had scarcely three years to enjoy living with his family in his beautiful house. Here are his obituaries from the two Hobart papers of 1912.


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Hobart News 26 Dec. 1912.



Hobart Gazette 27 Dec. 1912.


It's interesting that E.R. went to Battle Creek originally as a patient. He did more there than rest and recuperate, according to accounts at the time of his marriage (1908), which described him practicing his profession in a sanatorium. But we'll get to that later.

How Do You Spell Your Name, Again?

I just love these actions to quiet title. Here we have George Chester seeking to establish his perfect right to the farm his father, Charles, bought for him. From the length of this notice, it looks as if hundreds of people have had some claim on this land, but when you look closely you see there were not that many — it's just that they never spelled their names the same way twice, and due diligence requires every variation to be published.


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From the Hobart News of April 1, 1920.

So let's count:

1. Andrew L. Booth (or Andrew J. Boothe or Andrean J. Booth) and his wife, Sarah;
2. Winnefred Linsey (or Winfred Linsey) and her husband, name unknown;
3. Finette Gordon (or Finnet Gordon, or Finette Pierce) and her husband(s), name(s) unknown;
4. James Crawford and his wife, name unknown;
5. Horace Marble and his wife, Martha;
6. William Mankey (or Menkey or Menke) and his wife, Doris;
7. Frank Abel and his wife, name unknown;
8. Oswald Kleine (or Oswold Kline or Oswold Kleine or Oswald Kline or Oswald L.E. Kline) and his wife or wives, Christiana and Emeline;
9. Vincent Hassler (or Vencennes Hassler or Vincent Hasler) and his wife, whose name may be Anna;
10. Frank J. Smith (or Francis J. Smith) and his wife, whose name may be Hattie;
11. George Earle and his wife, name unknown;
12. George Earle & Son; and
13. Charles Maybaum and his wife, Carolina.

That's only 13 pairs, and there you have, for search-engine purposes, every name they ever called themselves when they were dealing with this land.

Below that notice, I see we are finally getting around to settling the estates of a couple of Ainsworth-area people who have left Ainsworth forever.

Portable Housing

I've mentioned Eugene Chandler here and there, only, it seems, in connection with his misfortunes, such as the time he broke his collar bone in the Ainsworth barbershop disaster, or when his young family fell ill with the Spanish influenza.

Eugene's father, Sylvester, was the only son of Thomas Peach Chandler, who settled in Lake County in 1854 on an 80-acre farm about a mile west of the village of Deep River. Eugene, born in 1886, grew up in the Deep River area. He was a farm boy, and after his marriage to Carrie Schnabel early in 1910, he continued to farm, but on other people's land. For example, the birth of his first child in 1910 finds him on the farm of his uncle, Nathaniel P. Banks, south of Hobart; soon thereafter he moved to the W.B. Owen farm (the location of which I don't know), and then in 1911 to the Kruse farm southeast of Ainsworth. In 1915 he moved from there to "the Gordon farm," somewhere south of Hobart.

That's a lot of moving. But the Gordon farm was the last stop before Eugene finally got a farm of his own. In July 1919 he bought the Anna Franz farm, an 88-acre spread about three miles west of Hobart. That farm had no house, no barn, no improvements of any kind, so the little Chandler family remained on the Gordon farm, to harvest their season's work and await the completion of their new home.

Now we have to mention another of Eugene's misfortunes. About 6:30 on the morning of July 29, someone passing by the Gordon farm noticed smoke coming from the top of the farmhouse, and alerted the Chandler family. Eugene and Carrie got their children safe, and by quick work managed to save most of their furniture and personal effects. But in spite of the best efforts of the Hobart fire department, the house was destroyed. The News added:

Mr. Chandler's loss is fully covered by insurance, but even so, that does not replace eighty gallons of pure cider vinegar, some fifteen gallons of lard and forty or fifty quarts of canned fruit.

If those items were of home manufacture, they represented a tremendous amount of work.

And there was the Chandler family, with their old house in ruins and their new house not yet even begun. So they turned to the 1919 version of a mobile home — bought a small house in the village of Wheeler and simply had it picked up and moved to the Gordon farm.

By mid-August Eugene had broken ground for a brick house on his new farm. James H. Carpenter was to build it.


Sources:
♦ 1874 Plat Map.
♦ 1891 Plat Book.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 15 Aug. 1919.
♦ "Death of an Old Citizen." Hobart Gazette 4 Nov. 1904.
♦ "Fire Destroys Residence of Gordon Farm South of Hobart." Hobart News 7 Aug. 1919.
♦ "House on Gordon Farm Burns." Hobart Gazette 8 Aug. 1919.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 10 July 1919.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 2 Sept. 1910; 17 Nov. 1911;
♦ WWI Draft Cards.

Hobart Then and Now: Second and Center, SW Corner

1881 and 2011



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Top image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

The caption of the 1881 photo, on display at the Hobart Historical Society Museum, reads:

The John Gordon House

This picture was taken in the summer of 1881. Mrs. J.M. Gordon is on the porch. (Dr.) E.R. Gordon, 4 years old, is on her right. Ten-year-old Frederick W. Gordon is standing by the gate. Mr. Gordon, Hobart's first druggist, built this home in 1872. (Now the parking lot for Edward's)"

I gather that Edward's has likewise passed into history. And I don't know whether the house faced Center or Second Street. But it doesn't really matter.

Too bad the 1881 photographer didn't know how to focus a camera.