A Very Short History of the Deep River Church

I came across this article in the May 14, 1975 issue of the Hobart Gazette about the Christian Church of Deep River, whose original building is now the Deep River County Park visitors' center.


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It's interesting that the old-timers of 1975 did not remember Contractor Abel, unless he was one of the volunteers mentioned. But I believe he and his family belonged to the German Lutheran Church in Hobart, so it isn't likely that he was volunteering his services to the Deep River church.

The article does me a favor by explaining the "Willing Workers," as I was unclear about its origin. I have seen that ladies' aid society mentioned numerous times in the early 20th-century newspapers (for example, a 1922 social column previously posted announced their fund-raising sale and supper). The earliest such mention I can find in my notes was in June 1906,[1] so I guess the 1975 old-timers' memories were off by just one year. Which is remarkably good.

I only wish the article were clearer about the location of the dance hall! [6/24/2026 update parsonage/dance hall identified]


The photo of the Sunday School class includes some familiar names as well as some I have scarcely looked into.

Mrs. Flora Maxwell, presumably the Sunday-School teacher, had been born into an old Ross Township family, the Sturtevants, and had married Douglas Maxwell. Thus Olive Maxwell, in the first row, was her stepdaughter.

We already know of Philip Waldeck and his untimely death. Through his mother, he was a cousin of Clarence Maybaum ("Maybawm" is a mistake).

George Casbon, born in 1897, was a child of Thomas and Ella Casbon[2] and lived in a brick house on the north side of what is now 73rd Avenue (later owned by the Buchfuehrers).

Raymond Wood was the son of William and Martha Wood, and a great-grandson of John and Hannah, who founded the village of Deep River. The "Ford agency in town" mentioned in the article was run by William and Raymond.

Floyd Yager was born in 1897 to George and Anna. The extended Yager clan has already furnished considerable material for this blog, from Floyd's eccentric uncle, Fred, to his elegant brother, George Jr., but Floyd himself seems to have led a pretty quiet life. His family's farmhouse on 73rd Avenue is still standing.

Now we get to the less familiar names.

I believe that George Sandburg's father, John, bought Huffman's mill in 1903, and his mother, Lucy, had been a Baker.[3] George remained a Porter County resident through the 1940 Census, but by 1950 had moved with his wife to Tennessee, where he is buried.

Thus far I have indexed the surname Ditlow only in connection with "South of Deepriver" social columns (1921 and 1922). Raymond and Cecil Ditlow were brothers, born into a Union Township farming family. This 1942 article about their parents' 50th wedding anniversary gives a little of the family history …


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"Mr. and Mrs. Abe Ditlow Celebrate Golden Wedding," Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 21 Sept. 1942.

.. as does their father's 1947 obituary:


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 17 Mar. 1947.

Raymond and Cecil are both buried in Mosier Cemetery.

As for the surname Riley, I have found it several times in my notes, in connection with minor social news, and once it got into the blog, but I am confused about the relation of the various Rileys to one another, if any. The Riley in this photo, Marion, was the daughter of Edwin Stanton[4] and Rose (Miller) Riley and was born in 1897. In 1917 she married Reid Peck and lived out the rest of her life in Valparaiso. She, too, is buried in Mosier Cemetery.

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[1] "Thursday, June 21st, from two to four o'clock, there will be a ten-cent Tea served by Mrs. B.H. Wood at Deepriver and by other members of the Willing Workers society on Mrs. W.M. Waldeck's lawn. Everybody invited. Mrs. Casbon, President." "General News Items," Hobart Gazette, 15 June 1906.
[2] Per his entry on Findagrave.com, his middle name was Perry — the maiden name of his grandmother.
[3] The surname appears as both "Sandburg" and "Sandberg." Since George himself used "Sandberg" when he signed his WWI draft card, I will be indexing it that way.
[4] He seems to be variously referred to as "E.S.," "Edwin S.," and "Stanton," which contributes to my confusion.

Death and Dollars

When we left off with the Harms 73rd Avenue farm, Charles Chester had just bought those 80 acres.

That was August 1856. Some seven months later, in March 1857, Charles and his wife, Mary, sold the land to Luther and Sarah Smith for $900. The purchase was financed with six promissory notes coming due at intervals over the next six years, their payment secured by a mortgage.


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Image courtesy of the Eldon Harms family.

The Smith family and the Chester family had been neighbors for a few years before this sale. If we look at Early Land Sales, Lake County, we find that in May of 1850, Charles and Mary Chester bought the northwest quarter of Section 17. The following year, Jacob and Hannah Smith (Luther's parents) bought the adjacent northwest quarter of the northeast quarter — that is, the land where someday Henry Chester would build his brick farmhouse.


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This image is from the 1874 Plat Map.

The Smiths had been in Ross Township early enough to be counted in the 1850 Census: Jacob, 49, a native of Connecticut; his wife, Hannah, also 51, born in New York; and their children, Luther and Charles L. (16 and 13, respectively, and both born in Ohio), plus a 19-year-old woman named Emma Bevins, of Canadian birth. They were recorded with only one intervening entry between them and the Chester family, so perhaps the Smiths were renting farmland nearby.

In 1854, Luther Smith married Sarah Maxwell (Indiana Marriage Collection), who was only about 15 years old.[1]

Then in 1857 comes this sale to Luther and Sarah of the Chester 80 acres along Randolph Street. And that is where the 1860 Census finds them, with their children, Emma (5), Albert (2), and Sarah (10 months). Also in the home were Luther's parents, Jacob and Hannah.[2]

The mortgage on the land was cancelled in 1861, a year before the final promissory note was due. It may have been paid off early with money raised through what happened in 1859: Luther gave his parents a life-long lease on the land, for which they paid him $600.


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This image and the images below courtesy of the Eldon Harms family.

In January 1865, Luther enlisted in the Union Army. By August of that year he was at home (not discharged yet, so perhaps on leave, possibly due to poor health). On August 10, he died.

He had made no will, and it seems that for a few years, his survivors went on farming that land together peaceably, not even seeking to have Luther's estate probated. But in 1868, something began to stir, and that's when the county court finally appointed an estate administrator.


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Image courtesy of the Eldon Harms family.

And in 1869 Jacob and Hannah sued the estate for the return of the $600 they had paid Luther ten years earlier.



The 1859 transaction between them and their son, they said, wasn't just a lease for $600. It was a promise of a home: "these claimants were to live with said Luther Smith upon said premises and help to till the same and to share the benefits thereof throughout their natural lives," and if ever Luther sold the farm out from under them, Jacob and Hannah would get their $600 back. But that provision was not included in the lease "through a misunderstanding of the Justice [of the Peace] drawing said agreement, and through their own ignorance of the modes of doing business and the force of written contracts."

Reading between the lines of the last paragraph, it sounds as if, in August of 1865, Luther did not expect to recover from his sickness — he and his parents "talked over" these arrangements, "and the final understanding was that in the event of his death the farm must be sold." He did die, as we know, but the farm wasn't sold, and his parents went on without their $600 for several years.

I wonder if Sarah — still a young woman — was getting restless around 1868, wanting to sell the farm, take her share of the money, and move on with her life somewhere else.

A sympathetic court decided that the lease of the farm should be cancelled, and the $600 returned to Jacob and Hannah.



The estate administrator then petitioned the court to be allowed to sell the farm, and summarized the estate:



After the required publications to advise potential buyers, the sale went forward. And Jacob and Hannah bought the farm.



Luther's widow and four minor children received a total of $506.22 from the estate (about $10,000 in today's money).



The estate administrator duly conveyed the land to the elder Smiths.



Sarah may have moved on with her life, but unfortunately she did not have much life left. According to the penciled note in the bottom margin of page 6 of the abstract, above, "Sarah P. Smith died Aug 9th 71." Perhaps that was written circa 1896, when Henry and Johanna Harms were buying the land. But a statement from 1878 says approximately the same thing:



By 1877, Jacob and Hannah had died too.



Concerning the four minor heirs of Luther's estate, someone jotted notes on the abstract, again probably circa 1896: Emma, Elbert, and Ambrose were dead; Adna was living in Denver (where he is now buried). The little Sarah from the 1860 census is unaccounted for; she may have died in infancy. The rest of Luther's survivors named in the abstract are a mystery to me — their lives, their deaths, their final resting places.

Luther Smith himself is buried in the Woodvale Cemetery, but he is not alone. His and Sarah's son rests there too — a two-month-old infant, named Jacob for his grandfather.

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[1] I don't know much about Sarah's family of origin. Her marriage is the earliest record I can find of her locally.
[2] The other son, Charles L., was not in the household and in fact I can't find him in 1860, but we will hear from him again.

The Relics of a Dead Marriage

With her marriage ending, Olive Maxwell Hill and her little daughter were moving back with her parents, and she no longer needed all this nice furniture from the marital home — at least, that's what I think was going on here.


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Hobart News, Nov. 29, 1923.

Here is the Maxwell farm on the 1921 plat map of Union Township, Porter County:


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Image from https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1921Plats/Union-1921.jpg.

We may be seeing the descendant of the old Maxwell place in the house and outbuildings on the north side of U.S. 30 east of N 725 W. Except I don't think the Maxwells had a caboose.

In-Law Troubles

Here's some juicy gossip reprinted from the Valparaiso Vidette about people with Deep River ties.


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Hobart News, June 28, 1923.

Douglas Maxwell was one of the children of William and Roxanna Maxwell and thus, I believe, was "Uncle Douglas" to Gladys Maxwell Rose. He grew up in Ross Township (1870 Census, 1880 Census). His wife, Florence (aka Flora), was born a Sturtevant. They married in 1904, but it was his second marriage (Indiana Marriage Collection), and Olive was a child of his first. It doesn't appear that Douglas and Florence had any children together.

Olive Maxwell had married Charles R. Hill in 1921. (His parents, William and Lillian, were farming in Winfield Township in the 1920 Census.) They had only the one child, Violet. In the 1930 Census, Olive described herself as divorced; she and Violet were living with Douglas and Florence in Valparaiso.

I don't know how Charles spent the rest of his life, but (if I've found the right death certificate) he died in the Veterans' Home in West Lafayette, Indiana.

A Chopping Bee

In December 1922, the men of the South of Deepriver neighborhood got together and held a "chopping bee" to supply Jim Jeffrey with stove wood for the winter — as Jim was in no condition to chop wood for himself, with a twice-broken leg.


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Hobart News 21 Dec. 1922.

I've paid so little attention to the Prescott family that I had to go look them up to remind myself that Mrs. John Prescott was born Carrie Sturtevant.


Over in the left-hand column, the Central Drug Store in downtown Hobart was selling popular recordings. I've never heard of either "Indiana Lullaby" or "Three O'Clock in the Morning" before. I guess I need to get out more.

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.

The Death of "Bone"

This obituary from the Lake County Star of 12 Dec. 1920* doesn't explain how Daniel got the nickname, "Bone," but I suspect it came from his middle name, Beauman.

The Rev. T.H. Ball, in his Encyclopedia of Genealogy and Biography of Lake County, Indiana (1904), had this to say:

Daniel Beauman Sturtevant, of section 28, Ross township, has lived in this vicinity all his life, and from his boyhood days of sixty years ago to the present almost the entire development of Lake county has taken place, so that few men are better informed by actual personal experience of the material history of this portion of the county. He has lived continuously on one farm for over fifty-five years, and all the associations and interests of his life are bound up with it, and there it is his good pleasure to pass the remaining days of his busy and prosperous career and await the summons from an activity that has borne much fruit and been worthy and beneficial to the community in general.

Mr. Sturtevant was born in Porter county, Indiana, just three miles east of the farm where he has lived so long, on April 27, 1840. His father, John Sturtevant, was born in the town of Barton, Vermont, in 1806, and was reared, educated and married there. He came to LaPorte county, Indiana, in 1833, being one of the first carpenters to follow his craft in that now populous county. In 1836 he moved to Porter county, locating on the farm where he remained until 1848, when he settled on the old farm in Lake county now owned by his son, and where he died on January 1, 1858. He belongs to the list of early settlers of the county, and was also successful in his general career. He married Miss Louise Cass, who was a native of New Hampshire and a cousin of Dr. Lewis Cass, who was one of the pioneers and foremost men of Lake county. She died at the age of thirty-eight years, having been the mother of three sons and three daughters.

Mr. D.B. Sturtevant, who was the second child and eldest son, was eight years old when he went with his parents to Lake county, so that most of his boyhood was spent on the farm which as a man he has tilled and made the source of his livelihood. He is now the owner of about five hundred acres, some of it in Porter county, and on this he is still actively engaged in general farming and stock-raising. He has about a hundred and fifty head of cattle and a good lot of hogs. His farm is one of the model places of the township, and he has made it so mainly by his own labors and most efficient management. Mr. Sturtevant was a raiser of the registered Herefords for a number of years, but has now retired from that business. He has given his best years and efforts to this life work, but has also taken an intelligent interest in the world about him, co-operating in community affairs and regularly casting his ballot at national elections for Democratic principles.

Mr. Sturtevant was married in 1866 to Miss Eugenie Wood, who was born in Iowa, but came to Lake county in girlhood. They are the parents of four children, John, Judson, Flora and Carrie. John was a student of Valparaiso College. Mrs. Sturtevant was born in Keosauqua, Iowa, October 31, 1844, a daughter of John and Caroline (Brown) Wood. Her father was a native of Vermont and her mother of Virginia. Her great-grandfather, David Wood, was a hero in the Revolutionary war, and the gun he carried in the war is yet in the family as a souvenir.

Mrs. Sturtevant was reared and educated in Ohio, She came from a family of teachers. Mrs. Sturtevant is a member of the Christian church of Deep River, Indiana.

This is how the Sturtevant land appeared on the 1908 Plat Map:**


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By the time of the 1926 Plat Book, Charles Gernenz held the 120 acres in Section 20; D.B.'s son John owned the 240 acres in Section 28 (ownership of the 26.6 acres south of E. 89th is not clear); and D.B.'s daughter, Flora Maxwell, owned the 80 acres in Section 21.

Flora's husband was (if I've found the right people in the 1920 Census) Douglas Maxwell, and they lived in Porter County.

John Sturtevant was unmarried.

D.B.'s daughter Carrie married John Prescott. The 1920 Census, in March, shows the Prescotts in Ross Township, with D.B. and Eugenie in their household — which, being on rented land in southeast Ross Township, may be on the Sturtevant land, but I do not know if that could be the "near Ainsworth" mentioned in the obituary above.

I would like to know the story behind D.B.'s death. According to his death certificate, he fell from a third-story window. The accident may have happened at the Allenel Sanitarium, where he was undergoing treatment for some unknown condition.

Now he rests peacefully in Mosier Cemetery, beneath a lovely stone.

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*See also "Funeral of Daniel B. Sturdevant Held Tuesday Afternoon," Hobart News 9 Dec. 1920.
**For Jerome Chester fans, I should mention that the 1900 Census shows him boarding with the Sturtevants.

Come Down Our Way … and Bring John Sapper

From the steamer trunk.


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This image and the one below courtesy of Eldon Harms.

Here we have (at right) Martha Granzow. The woman at left is unidentified; she looks too young to be Martha's mother, but might be her older sister, Alma.

This is the message Martha sent to Herman Harms:



My transcription: "Say Kid come down our way next Sunday night rather late. You will find us at my house or at Lily Buchfuehrers or walking down Deep River. Answer this card. Matz." At the top she added: "Send me one of your pictures. Let me know if you are coming." And up the left margin: "Bring John Sapper along."

I sense a vivacious personality behind this card. The postmark was 1911, so Martha was then about 15 years old, her friend Lillie Buchfuehrer maybe a year younger. Herman Harms and John Sapper were both about 17.

♦    ♦    ♦
If I've found the right family, the Granzows had come to Indiana from Wisconsin after 1900. The family in 1900 consisted of father Carl (42), mother Minnie (43), and the children: William (17), Fred (16), Albert (14), Paul (11), Alma (7) and Martha (3). Carl's mother-in-law, Christiana Voss, lived with them.

It appears they first moved to Hobart Township, as the 1908 plat map shows 80 acres in the very southwest corner under the Granzow name. In April 1906, Carl bought from Mary Giese 30 acres near Deepriver — perhaps part of this land still attributed to August Giese in 1908:



In 1908 the Buchfuehrers bought the Casbon land, so the two families were neighbors. While the Granzow household had shrunk to just Carl, Minnie, Alma and Martha by 1910, Fred Granzow was around enough to fall in love with Louise Buchfuehrer. Fred and Louise were married in April 1911; they moved first to Hobart, then to Milwaukee in 1912. I do not know what became of the other Granzow brothers, and by 1920 Alma had vanished, too — either I've not been paying attention in my newspaper reading, or they carried on their lives with little publicity.*

In 1918 the Granzows sold their farm to Michael Baessler, Jr. and moved to Lake Street in Hobart, occupying a house and four acres they bought from L.E. Maxwell.

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*It doesn't help that their last name turns up in several different spellings, e.g., Granzow, Granzov, Granson, Granzon; and Carl is also called Charles.


Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Deepriver Items." Hobart Gazette 16 Apr. 1909.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 31 Jan. 1918.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 16 Apr. 1909; 3 May 1912.
♦ "Married." Hobart News 20 Apr. 1911.
♦ "Personal Mention." Hobart News 6 Apr. 1911.

Wedding Bells

If you read the whole June 27 Gazette page I linked to in the outlaw-bikers story, you may have noticed its account of the wedding of Maude Shearer and Leslie Walter (referred to in the article as "Lester Walters"). She had been so quiet for so long that I forgot about her, paying more attention to the adventures of her brother, Howard, and her sister, Bliss Emery. But now, at about 32 years of age, she finally decided to tie the knot, and with no less than one of the Walter brothers. I had actually heard of their garage, but had no idea I could tie it to Ainsworth. You can see a picture of the garage on the home page of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society; you can also page through their photo album for a slighter larger version of the same picture.

Just before Independence Day, another acquaintance of ours, Fred Rose, Jr., also slipped off to Crown Point to get married.


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From the Hobart News of July 3, 1919.


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From the Hobart Gazette of July 11, 1919.

I find in my notes only a few minor mentions of the Maxwell family of Deep River, which I suppose means they were generally quiet, well behaved and fortunate.

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.