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.

Bruce Mitchell Times Two

This postcard is postmarked 1955:


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It introduces us to a father-and-son team of entrepreneurs who operated businesses in Hobart for some three decades. They sold a whole lot more than sporting goods, as we are told by this advertising flyer bound into the Classifieds section of the 1952-53 Hobart directory:[1]


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society, Hobart, Indiana.

Wellington Bruce Mitchell was the father, and Thomas Bruce Mitchell the son. The father usually went by "W.B."; the son almost always went by his middle name.

According to W.B.'s obituary, their business connection to Hobart started in 1932.


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"Deaths," Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 22 Dec. 1964.

But their emotional connection to Hobart started even earlier. In April 1910 W.B. married Mary Blaemire (Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index), a daughter of William and Isabell Blaemire,[2] who were Hobart residents as early as the 1880 Census, and who are now buried in Hobart Cemetery.

The 1910 Census, taken a couple of weeks before his wedding, recorded W.B. living with his parents in Chicago's Ward 8 — the furthest southeastern part of Chicago, bordering on Indiana. W.B. and his father both worked in steel mills.

W.B.'s draft card, filled out June 1917, stated that he and Mary, with their two children (the youngest being Thomas Bruce), lived in southeast Chicago while he commuted to a job in Gary, Indiana. Three years later, per the 1920 Census, they still lived in the same area, W.B. working as a millwright at an unnamed construction company.

In July 1929 we find this little personal item about the family in a south Chicago newspaper's social column: "Mr. and Mrs. Wellington Bruce Mitchell and their children, 7842 Paxton ave., left last week for a visit to their summer home at Hobart, Ind."[3] Their owning a summer home implies a fairly comfortable financial situation. In the 1930 Census, W.B. described himself as a self-employed real estate broker who owned his residence in south Chicago.

Two years after that, as we know, the family moved to Hobart. We start to find directory listings for them in the 1936-37 directory,[4] which shows them renting the house at 769 E. Third Street. We are told that W.B. is a merchant with a business called Hobart Paint & Glass, but there is no separate listing for that business. It was probably operating out of the Guyer Building, where the old-timers in 1979 remembered it, and where it was listed in the October 1940 directory.[5] A slightly later directory, for 1940-41,[6] showed Mitchell's Hobart Service Supply Co. (listed under "Paint Dealers") at 151 Illinois Street.[7]

In 1938 Thomas Bruce Mitchell got married.


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"Hobart," Hammond Times, 26 Sept. 1938.

The two Mitchell families set up separate households near each other on Kelly Street. Bruce (Jr.) worked in his father's stored; W.B. described himself as the owner of a lumber company (1940 Census) and a building contractor (1940-41 directory).

The sporting goods business makes its first appearance in Hobart's January 1946 directory,[8] with "Mitchell's" at 151 Illinois Street being listed in the Classified section under "Sporting Goods — Retail." The same business at the same address is also listed under "Hardware Stores" and "Paint — Retail." Under the latter heading we also find Hobart Paint & Glass at the same address. All these businesses shared one phone number: Hobart-75. In 1949, according to a photocopied newspaper article in the Hobart Historical Society museum files, a Mitchell appliance store was opened[9] (possibly at 225 Center Street, as listed in the 1952-53 directory insert posted above).

In the 1950 Census, W.B. is described as a "proprietor" in the "retail lumber & coal" industry, while Bruce is likewise a "proprietor," in the "retail sporting goods" industry.

As we already learned from his obituary, W.B. retired from business in 1952.

The 1956 directory[10] has a listing only for "Mitchell Bruce Sports" [sic] — no indication that any of the lumber, paint, or hardware business continued. But the Hobart Historical Society's file contains a photocopied newspaper article from 1957 about the "grand opening of Mitchell's Hardware store in its new location at 225 Center St."[11]

In 1962[12] Mitchell's of Hobart was operating at 151 Illinois. By 1968[13] it had moved across the street to 154 Illinois. That was the year of Thomas Bruce Mitchell's death, and, so far as I can tell, the end of the Mitchell business empire in Hobart. The 1970 directory has no business listings for any Mitchell business, and Bruce's widow, Loretta, is listed in Ogden Dunes.[14]

Bruce and Loretta (who died in 2005) are buried in Mosier Cemetery.

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As for the recipient of our postcard, Lloyd Schroeder — he lived a long, eventful life and now rests in Valparaiso.

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[1] 1952 — Directory — 1953 (Hobart – Wheeler – New Chicago – Ainsworth – Green Acres – Deep River – South Hobart Twp. – South Portage Twp.), published by Advance-News, Nappanee, Indiana (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[2] Indiana Death Certificates.
[3] "Personals," Southtown Economist (Chicago, Ill.), 19 July 1929.
[4] City Directory/Hobart, Ind./1936-37 ["Compiled by House-to-House Canvas"]. 1936: Mrs. Sherlock Hope (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[5] Hobart/Chesterton/East Gary/Kouts/Ogden Dunes/Valparaiso/Wheeler. Indiana Associated Telephone Corporation, October 1940 (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[6] City Directory/Hobart, Indiana/1940 – 1941 (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[7] Per the county records, the gas station now on that site was built in 1979. I have not been able to find any bird's-eye or aerial views showing whatever buildings may have been there before 1979.
[8] Valparaiso/Chesterton/East Gary/Hobart/Kouts/Ogden Dunes/Wheeler. Indiana Associated Telephone Corporation, January 1946 (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[9] "Mitchell's To Hold Grand Opening Of New Appliance Center On Saturday, Oct. 1," Hobart Gazette, 15 Sept. 1949.
[10] Robinson's Hobart, Indiana City Directory. George C. Robinson Directory Service (Hillsdale, Mich.), 1956 (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[11] "Many Prizes Awarded at Grand Opening of Mitchell's Hardware," Hobart Gazette, 28 Mar. 1957.
[12] Polk's Hobart (Lake County, Ind.) City Directory 1962. R.L. Polk & Co. (Detroit, Mich.).
[13] Polk's Hobart (Lake County, Ind.) City Directory 1968. R.L. Polk & Co. (Detroit, Mich.) (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[14] Polk's Hobart (Lake County, Ind.) City Directory 1970. R.L. Polk & Co. (Detroit, Mich.) (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).

Another Branch on the Bodamer Tree

But who (I asked myself) was this John Bodamer who in 1930 sold his 34 acres to the Wiernasciewicz family? — who exactly, I meant, since obviously he was one of the many Bodamers who farmed in eastern Ross Township over so much of its history.

It didn't take much research to figure out that he was a brother of George and Benjamin, and the son of Christopher F. and Elizabeth (Lortz) Bodamer.

According to information someone has added to Christopher's findagrave.com entry, the family came to Lake County from New York in 1854. John was born in 1855. The 1860 Census shows the Bodamer family farming in Ross Township — exact location unknown, but to judge by the names recorded near them, they probably already occupied the Randolph Street (S. Hobart Rd.) area that would be continue to belong to Bodamers well into the 20th century. On the 1874 Plat Map, I believe the "C. Batlmer" who owned 160 acres in Section 9 was just C. Bodamer with his name misspelled:


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The 1876 plat map of Union Township in Porter County shows that Christopher and Elizabeth also owned two good-sized farms near Union Center.

In 1878, John Bodamer married 18-year-old Adelia Nicholas of Center Township, an Ohio native whose family had come to Porter County sometime after 1867. With all those Bodamer farms around here, I was surprised to find John and Adelia in the 1880 Census farming in St. Joseph County, Indiana. They had one baby son, Alvah. They would go on to have two more sons, Vernon (b. 1882) and Herman (b. 1887).

In 1894, John's father, Christopher, died and was buried in Jasper County, Indiana, where he had been living separately from his wife (or former wife), Elizabeth. I do not know whether John and Adelia returned to this area soon after his father's death, as I cannot find them at all in the 1900 Census. But the 1906 Union Township plat map shows two farms under the name of J.F. Bodamer …


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

… and by the 1910 Census, they were living on their own farm in Union Township, described as being on the Joliet Road.

By then their three children were grown and out of the house. In 1907, their eldest, Alvah, had married Carrie Wolfe. In 1910 that young couple were farming rented land in Ross Township, with Alvah's unmarried brother, Vernon, in their household. It was in this time frame that we've encountered Alvah and Vernon, the "Bodamer brothers," hiring themselves and their machinery out to do threshing for their Ross Township neighbors. In 1915, Vernon married Anna Murray. Per the 1920 Census, Vernon and Anna took over farming the rented land in Ross Township (apparently part of the Randolph St. land of their grandparents); Alvah and Carrie moved to Porter County and the youngest brother, Herman, lived with them. (Herman never married, and apparently was a bit of a loner. When he died in 1957, some ten days passed before his body was found.[1])

In 1920, John and Adelia were still farming their Union Township land. I haven't found any evidence that John and Adelia, after their marriage, ever actually lived on the Ross Township farm. I suspect he just inherited it or bought it from his father's estate, and rented it out.

In February 1925, Adelia died at the age of 64. She is buried in the Mosier Cemetery.

I think the 1926 Plat Map contains an error, in that it fails to show John's Ross Township farm:


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The highlighted "B.B." would be John's brother, Benjamin — or rather, his widow, Bertha, since Ben died in 1917. John's 34-acre farm lay on the south border of B.B.'s. John owned those 34 acres in 1930 when he sold them to the Wiernasciewiczes, and the 1939 Plat Map shows the subject of that sale. I have a hard time believing John Bodamer sold the land to John Gruel sometime after 1908, then bought it back in time to sell it again in 1930.

In the 1930 Census, John was living alone in his farm home in Union Township. Alvah and Carrie and their three foster children lived nearby. As much as I'd like to think all was family harmony and bucolic peace around Union Center, I have found suggestions otherwise; for example:


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Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 22 June 1925.

Was John always like that, I wonder, or did his wife's death, several months earlier, change him for the worse?

And a few years later, we have conflict in the family:


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 9 May 1929.


But all such concerns came to an end for John in 1932.


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 24 Nov. 1932.

(He was 77, actually, and it had been seven years since Adelia died.)

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[1] "Herman Bodamer's Body Is Found; Dead About 10 Days," Vidette -Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 11 Mar. 1957.

The Pennsy Bridge and the Spell of Nostalgia

This postcard joins a view of the Pennsy Railroad bridge with a little nostalgic poem …


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… but it seems the typesetter wasn't much of a speller. Eyes dimmed with nostalgic tears, maybe? Or should I say nostalgic "ears"?

Here's a high-resolution scan of the tiny (about 1.5" x 2") photo.



I think it's a reproduction of another photo postcard.

The postmark on the verso is nearly illegible, but the year looks to me to be 1912.



It was sent from Wheeler to Hobart by someone who saw no need to sign a name, counting on the recipient to recognize the handwriting.

The recipient, Pete Schaller, was a local whom I've never paid any attention to before. Here is his obituary from the Vidette-Messenger of October 12, 1954:



His family shows up in Union Township, Porter County, in the 1880 Census; by the 1900 Census Pete and his widowed father, August, were the only ones still in the household. They were farming rented land. August died in 1905.

By 1910, Pete was living in the home of Paul and Elizabeth Fredrick, probably in the big white house on the east side of S.R. 51 midway between Ainsworth and Hobart (it's still standing). He is described as Paul's cousin. So far the only explanation I can find of this relationship is — if I've found the right people — Elizabeth Fredrick's maiden name was Gross, like Pete's mother's (Paul and Elizabeth having been married in Chicago in 1899 per the Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index).

Peter remained a part of the Fredrick household through the 1920 Census, at least; I cannot find him in the 1930 Census. By the 1940 Census he had become a lodger in a rooming house in Valparaiso.

Pete's obituary reveals another connection to a local family, the Frames. Anna M. Schaller married Irvin G. Frame in April 1905, in Porter County (Indiana Marriage Collection). But I don't know exactly how Irvin (who seems to show up sometimes as Irving or Erwin) fits into the Frame family that I have previously mentioned in the blog. Irvin and Anna show up occasionally in "South of Deepriver" columns and the announcement of the birth of their son Thomas describes them as living "east of Deepriver."[1] But strangely, I haven't been able to find them in any census.


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[1] "General News," Hobart Gazette, Aug. 20, 1915. I have found, on the 1921 plat map of Union Township, a farm southeast of Deepriver under the name of Anna E. Frame. It's across the road from Henry Schaller's farm.

Howard H. Smith and the Union Center Cemetery

The "South of Deepriver" community was shocked when the news began to spread on the morning of April 20, 1923, that Howard H. Smith had died in his sleep.


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Hobart News, April 26, 1923.

"A large procession followed the remains to their last resting place in the Union Center cemetery" — where??? I asked myself, never having heard of such a place. But then I remembered that little cemetery marked on plat maps near the location of the Walnut Gardens. So I consulted the Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society's listing of Union Township cemeteries, and found it there among the "Small Cemeteries" with this information: "The [Union Center] cemetery could not be found in 1994. It was located on the northeast corner of Route 30 and 600 W. '… When Hiway 30 was built any stones left there were buried or were moved.'"[1]

Naturally my mind formed a picture of Howard H. Smith lying there at the corner of Route 30 and 600 W, trying to get some eternal sleep beneath the rumbling traffic of Route 30.

However, a little more investigation convinced me that the News simply got their information wrong, and that Howard has been resting peacefully in Mosier Cemetery all these years, where his death certificate and the April 27 Gazette placed him …


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Hobart Gazette, April 27, 1923.

… and where today you can find his grave marker.

If I live long enough to read the microfilm from when Route 30 came through, I hope to learn more details about what happened to the Union Center Cemetery.

♦    ♦    ♦
Howard's death notice partially answers the question of what happened to his siblings. Mildred Smith had married John Dick in 1898 (Indiana Marriage Collection); the 1920 Census shows them farming in Porter Township, with a son (Sherman) and a daughter (Margaret). Abbie and Rudie apparently died before Howard — but when, and where they are buried, I do not know.


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[1] NWIGS does not identify the source of that last sentence.

Women Voters and a Woman Pioneer

The mid-term election of 1922 was approaching, which may be why the Ainsworth League of Women Voters planned a meeting in the W.G. Haan school; but then again, in those days people held meetings for any reason.


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"Local and Personal." Hobart News 21 Sept. 1922.

The death of Mrs. J.E. Small, mentioned at the bottom of that column, got a fuller treatment from the next day's Gazette.


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Hobart Gazette 22 Sept. 1922.

Her daughter, Mrs. Crisman — christened Elizabeth — was the wife of John Crisman, Sr., and the grandmother of Dorothea.

Mary Hardesty, the daughter with whom Mrs. Small had lived, was a widow (1920 Census), but I'm not sure of her deceased husband's name. It might have been Adolphus (Indiana Marriage Collection).

Mary Jane Riley Small rests in Mosier Cemetery.


In the pages above and elsewhere in old newspapers I have come across references to "Small's Crossing," and thus far nobody I've asked has known exactly where it was. Based on the people whose names came up in connection with Small's Crossing, I gathered it was in Porter County but not far from the village of Deep River. In common parlance around the turn of the 20th century, the name likely referred to a road crossing a railroad line near a piece of land owned by a Small. So, let's take a look at the plat map of Union Township, Porter County, in 1895, by which time all the railroads were in place:


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Image from http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1895Plats/Union-1895.jpg, courtesy of Steven R. Shook.

There's a Small farm, there's the Grand Trunk Railroad, there's the road now known as N 725 W crossing the railroad. Just over the county line is the village of Deep River. I think this is a pretty good candidate for Small's Crossing. If you can find a better one, please let me know about it.

Mahala Burge Frame

Since this blog is full of Burges and Frames, I thought I should go back to 1912 and post this obituary, skipped over the first time …


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Hobart Gazette 1 Mar. 1912.

… not that it's particularly helpful, since it fails to name her parents or her children. But with a little research, we can try to remedy that.

Looking at the 1850 Census, we find J. and Julia Burge farming in Chautauqua County, New York. While the census does not include what relationship each member of the household has to its head, this household includes a 17-year-old Mahala Weaver, a 13-year-old Byron, and a nine-year-old Henry. This suggests that the obituary gave the date of Mahala's first marriage incorrectly. In the 1860 Census, still in Chautauqua County, we find a 27-year-old Mahala Weaver living with a 31-year-old carpenter, Oren Weaver, and a three-year-old Ida.

Sometime after 1860, the family came west. Orrin died in Porter County on June 9, 1866.** In 1867 Mahala married Levi Frame in Porter County (Indiana Marriage Collection). While I can't find them in the 1870 Census, another source* seems to place Levi Frame in Christian County, Illinois, by 1870; and that is where we find Mahala in the 1880 Census, by which time she was widowed. A child of her first marriage, the 17-year-old Arthur Weaver, was living with her, as well as a 10-year-old girl named Effie Brown, who was described as an adopted daughter. The children of the second marriage were: John (11 years old), Burton (10), Frank*** (6), and Jesse (4).

So that gives us the five sons mentioned in the obituary. I suppose the one surviving daughter was from the first marriage.****

Sometime during the next 20 years, Mahala left Illinois for Indiana. In the 1900 Census, she was living in Hobart with her youngest son, Jesse.

Well. That was a lot of research for a little bit of information.

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Elsewhere on that page from the Gazette, we find obituaries of people we've mentioned before — Patrick Sullivan and Ericka Pearson.

Marion Wilson was a member of the Wilson family of Union Township, which I've only recently noticed. The obituary says he was buried in the Boiling Springs cemetery, which may be the Leonard Family cemetery on Boiling Springs Road listed on the NWIGS site. If the obituary is correct, it seems he was later moved, as today he rests in Blachly Cemetery. His wife was a daughter of Harriet Towl Ragen.


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*Ancestry.com. Selected U.S. Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850-1880 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
**According to his grave marker in Mosier Cemetery; the obituary states 1865.
***I swear the enumerator wrote "Freak," but that can't be right.
****Based on information at findagrave.com, I believe her name was Blanch.

Walnut Gardens

I have been told by a couple of long-time local residents that the Walnut Gardens (the entertainment venue once managed by Cecil Tonagel) was located on the northeast corner of the intersection of U.S. 30 and 600 W.



According to the county property records, no building in that vicinity is old enough to be part of the original Walnut Gardens, which existed by 1927, and perhaps earlier.


Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso) 19 July 1927.

But then again, as I've said before, the property records don't always tell the story the way you'd expect. Furthermore, I know very little about the Walnut Gardens' history, and nobody actually said any of the present buildings were part of the original Walnut Gardens.

Here's something I find interesting, from the 1921 plat map of Union Township:


From http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1921Plats/Union-1921.jpg, courtesy of Steven R. Shook.

You see two cemeteries circled in red. The southern one is Mosier Cemetery. I don't know the name of the northern one, there at the intersection; but it also appears in the 1928 and 1906 maps. Nowadays, that area is a parking lot. What happened to the people buried there (if indeed there were any)? I suppose they could have been moved to Mosier Cemetery. I hope they weren't just paved over.

Death, Expected and Unexpected

The family of the octogenarian Julius Manteuffel had been preparing themselves for his death since mid-April 1922,* but when John Hardesty left home on April 28, heading for the Wheeler saw mill, his wife and children had no idea they would never see him alive again.


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The reports about John Hardesty come through to us a bit garbled, and small wonder, since there were two John Hardestys farming in Union Township, and I can hardly sort them out myself. The one we are concerned with, I believe, was John N. Hardesty, born in 1863 to Harmon and Isabella Hardesty, and now resting in Mosier Cemetery.

This John Hardesty may not in fact have been farming in Union Township at the time of his death; while I can't find him in the 1920 census, a 1920 Gary city directory shows him living on Broadway with his wife, Maud, and working as a teamster. However, he had been farming in Union Township in 1910.

The other, John H. Hardesty, was born circa 1871 to George and Catherine Hardesty. He was still alive and well and farming in Union Township in 1930 and 1940.

The report above attributes six children to John N. Hardesty. I can identify only two from the 1910 census: a daughter, Rebecca, and a son, Russell. There was time enough to produce four more between then and 1922, but still, it's possible that the newspapers were confusing John N. with John H., whose family seems to have been more numerous.

♦    ♦    ♦
In happier news, Dr. Clara Faulkner goes to Crown Point to hear her grandson, Elmer Bullock, sing. She brings Mary Kipp with her, and Mary brings her sister, Mrs. Hatten, and Mrs. Hatten brings her sister-in-law, Mrs. Seider.

__________________________
*His name was mistakenly give as "Louis" in the April reports.


Sources:
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ 1940 Census.
♦ "Death of Julius Manteuffel." Hobart Gazette 5 May 1922.
♦ Gary Indiana City Directory 1920. R.L. Polk & Co. (Indianapolis), 1920. Ancestry.com.
♦ "John W. Hardesty Accidentally Killed." Hobart Gazette 5 May 1922.

Huffman's Mill

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Notes on the back of this photo suggest it was taken on October 8, 1938.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Until a few weeks ago I had no idea that the site of another historic mill lay only about a mile beyond Wood's Mill. One Saturday at the Hobart Historical Society museum, someone came across the photo shown above, with "Huffman's Mill" scrawled across it, and none of us knew anything about Huffman's Mill. So of course I asked Eldon Harms if he knew where it had been. Not only did he know, but he was able to direct me to the spot where it had stood, as we drove out there together.

Its site was just over the Porter County line on N 750 W, a scant half-mile south of Route 30. The mill had stood on the east side of the road, on the north side of Taylor Creek — which, these days, is a barely perceptible rivulet, marked by no sign, and in fact I had some trouble even learning its name. (Another local historian theorizes that the conversion of surrounding land from wilderness to farmland caused the creek to silt up.) Anyway, it wasn't the creek's direct flow that powered the mill; the creek was dammed to form a mill pond.

Below, I have tried to identify the mill (and mill pond, but that is really dubious) on a 1939 aerial photo:


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Image courtesy of the Indiana Geological Survey, I.U. Bloomington.

For decades before either of these photos were taken, this site had housed a mill operation.

The August 18, 1936 issue of the Valparaiso Vidette-Messenger, a special edition in honor of Porter County's centennial, included a history of Union Township compiled by Wheeler High School history students and instructors (transcribed here) stating that in 1861 David Hardesty built the Cascade Mills on this site.

Written in 1882, Porter and Lake Counties (Goodspeed/Blanchard) had this to say about it:

The Cascade Grist-Mills were built by David Hardesty, on Taylor Creek. They were built about fourteen years ago [i.e., 1868], on to a small brick mill which was constructed by him eighteen or nineteen years ago [i.e., 1864 or 1863]. The structure is some 18x40 feet, and two stories high. He put in two sets of buhrs, and, at that time, had the only overshot wheel in the county.

Consulting some of the old Union Township plat maps, we find the mill marked.

For example, here it is in 1876 (and you can see a drawing of the mill circa 1876 here):


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From http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/UnionTownshipMaps.html, courtesy of Steven R. Shook.

The mill is marked on the 1895, 1906 and 1921 maps as well. On the 1938 map, the mill itself is not marked, but the "Huffman Mill Pond" is:


(Click on image to enlarge)
From http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/UnionTownshipMaps.html, courtesy of Steven R. Shook.

The next available map, from 1969, does not show mill or mill pond. The mill building still stood, but it wasn't operating as such. This clipping, from the Hobart Herald of January 50, 1955, shows the building being used for storage:


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

The remark about Levi Huffman dying of his injuries in 1900 is probably based on oral history. Here is Levi's obituary from the Hobart Gazette of January 9, 1903:


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He was buried in Mosier Cemetery.


Six photographs of the abandoned mill building were shot in 1981 by Daniel Kleine, who was kind enough to give me high-resolution scans of his photos.


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All photographs by Daniel Kleine. Used with permission.

I don't know when the mill was demolished. Today there is no trace of it.


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Photograph by Ansel Adams.
… Just kidding. Photograph by me.

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.

Birth and Death

Nellie Peck had married Nicholas Ehrhardt, Jr. in November 1920; early in the morning of January 16, 1922, she gave birth to their first child, a daughter — but the little girl died at birth.

Nellie survived her daughter by only a few hours.


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Hobart Gazette 20 Jan. 1922.

I suppose the child was buried with or near her mother, but so far as I can tell neither Nellie's grave marker nor any other in the Mosier Cemetery acknowledges her child's existence, any more than the obituaries do. I would not have known about her but for the "Births" column in the News.


Additional Sources:
♦ "Births." Hobart News 19 Jan. 1922.
♦ "Funeral of Mrs. Nellie Peck-Ehrhardt Held on Wednesday Morning." Hobart News 19 Jan. 1922.

The Mystery of Harriet

Ever since I started looking into the Henry Chester family, I've been puzzled as to why there was no gravestone for his first wife, née Harriet Perry, in the Chester Cemetery. Obviously their marriage had ended — he did take a second wife — and the usual way of ending marriages in those days was death.

It took some detective work by one of Henry's descendants, Linda Pearson, to establish that Henry's first marriage had likely ended in the unusual way: divorce.

We knew that Henry had married Harriet, daughter of Ezekiel Perry of Porter County, in 1859. But Linda has tracked down a biography of Sylvester Casbon (whose fine brick house we have already seen), which states that after his first wife died in 1868, Sylvester married again, to "Miss Harriet Perry, daughter of E. Perry." Per the Indiana Marriage Collection, Sylvester married Emmeline H. Perry on October 21, 1869; I guess we know what the "H." stood for.

Back in 1913, when Henry's will was being contested, I was mystified by the mention of "Mrs. Etta Wood" as a daughter of Henry, since I had never seen, in census or newspaper article, any daughter named Etta. However, Linda points out that there is a Henrietta Chester in the 1870 census, in the household of Sylvester Casbon:


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Image from Ancestry.com.

Unlike later ones, this census does not help us by listing each person's relationship to the head of the household. But now we can deduce that Henrietta was Sylvester Casbon's stepdaughter. Her age means that she was born circa 1862, too late to appear in the 1860 census, where we find Henry and Harriet and their two small daughters, Mary (who went on to become Mrs. Marchant), and Olive (who died in infancy and now rests in Chester Cemetery). "Etta," then, is likely short for Henrietta (but at present I can't explain any Wood connection).

The marriage of Sylvester and Harriet ended in the usual way, and a lovely stone marks Harriet's grave in Mosier Cemetery.


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Image courtesy of Linda Pearson.

Henrietta Chester went on to marry a Charles Stroman, according to the 1918 marriage certificate of her son, Martin:


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Image courtesy of Linda Pearson.

Martin Stroman was Linda's grandfather; he was also described by the Hobart News in 1913 as the son of Mrs. Etta Wood, who was the daughter of Henry Chester.

I'd like to know how the surname Wood got in here, but otherwise I'm convinced we've solved the mystery of Harriet. Many thanks to Linda Pearson, History Detective!

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.

____________________
*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.

The Death of Michael Baessler, Sr.

Michael Baessler, Sr. never lived in Ainsworth, but he fathered two Ainsworth-area farmers — Michael Jr. and John — so I ought to take note of his passing.

He was 80 years old and had buried all three of his wives and five of his eight children.


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(The News gives his first wife's name as Magdalena, but the Gazette here agrees with the 1870 census.)

His gravestone, in Hobart Cemetery:



Beside him, his second wife, Louise (and thank heaven the Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society/DAR transcribed these markers back when they were still legible!):



In the next row over, his first wife, Wilhelmina, who died in 1875 (the inscription is in German):



Beside her, three of their children (the first stone marking two graves):





(I can't read the names or dates, but according to the NWIGS listing, all three children died within four days of each other — on March 16, 19 and 20, 1877, aged 11, 4 and 15, respectively.)

Two babies were buried in Mosier Cemetery, in Porter County. According to the NWIGS listing of Union Township cemeteries, this first stone marks the grave of Anna Sophia, daughter of Michael and Menia Bassler, who died January 30, 1866, aged one year, ten months and 27 days.



Just beside it lies a completely illegible stone — small, suitable for a baby. The NWIGS volunteer was able to read "infant son of Michael and Menia Bassler," but even at that time the name and dates, if any, were illegible, and the stone broken.



♦    ♦    ♦
As noted beside the obituary above, the Indiana legislature had just ratified the proposed 19th amendment to the Constitution.


Sources:
♦ 1870 Census.
♦ "Death of an Aged Citizen." Hobart Gazette 16 Jan. 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 8 Jan. 1920.
♦ "Michael Baessler, Sr., Dies at Home of His Daughter Wednesday." Hobart News 15 Jan. 1920.
♦ "Obituary." Hobart Gazette 23 Jan. 1920.