Warning Signs at the Death Crossing

After the recent fatal accident at the Lincoln Highway intersection south of Ainsworth, a private organization put up warning signs, and other steps were taken to improve visibility.


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Hobart Gazette, Aug. 31, 1923.

Two columns over, a couple other stories caught my eye.

I've mentioned Charles Boyd before but never took the time to figure out exactly where his farm was. Here is his land as it appeared in the 1926 Plat Book:


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I don't know exactly where the house and burning barn were.

Below that, we find H.W. Traeger — probably the same man who gave that awful Traeger crossing its name — warning people to stay off not only his land, but "the land known as the Garden City, controlled by" him. Does that mean the former site of the Garden City brickyard, on the east side of the intersection of County Line Road and S.R. 130? It seems likely, with that land being so close to H.W. Traeger's own land. I find it interesting that the Garden City name stuck, although the brickyard had stopped operating long ago.

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Here's the social news from south of Deep River for the last week of August 1923:


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Hobart News, Aug. 30, 1923.

There's Only One Merrillville?

I'm sure everyone who's done online research knows the pain of chasing down wild geese that happen to have the same name as your own goose. There are towns in Iowa and Nebraska called Ainsworth, and both of them still exist, unlike this little Ainsworth of mine, and they clog up my search results. And in looking for Hobart, Indiana, I keep turning up things about towns in Tasmania, New York, Oklahoma, and Washington. The good thing about Merrillville is that there's only one … or so I thought, until I saw the first item in this "South of Deepriver" column:


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Hobart News, Aug. 9, 1923.

Internet research fails to turn up the location of this town in Missouri. It does turn up references from the 19th century to a town called Merrellsville, but no one seems to know exactly where that town was. Google Maps, which identify such obscure places as my Ainsworth, don't acknowledge the existence of any Merrillville or Merrellsville in Missouri.

So if there is a Merrillville in Missouri, it keeps quiet. Very quiet.

Beyond that, the news south of Deepriver is not very thrilling.

South of Deepriver, March 15, 1923

Among all the usual visiting going on in southern Ross Township, I am introduced to a connection between the Hurlburt-Smith family and the Ripley family that I didn’t know about.


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Hobart News 15 Mar. 1923.

Aside from a couple of passing mentions of the surname Ripley — back when I was figuring out who those south-of-Deepriver Smiths were, and in a 1920 "South of Deepriver" column — I have thoroughly ignored the Ripleys. That name shows up a couple more times in my notes, but never to tell of the Ripleys doing anything more interesting than being related to Milan Hurlburt and Rachel (Hurlburt) Smith. I am inclined to continue ignoring them.

However, I should do my duty as an amateur historian and at least get some of the basics. Per the Indiana Marriage Collection, Horace Ripley married Frances Hurlburt in Lake County, Indiana, on June 24, 1873. They were married by Horace Marble, J.P.

How on earth they ever met, I do not know, since Horace Ripley, aka "Hod," was born in Canada, raised in Wisconsin, and then moved to Missouri, according to his obituary on findagrave.com.

Frances Hurlburt Ripley was born March 25, 1852, according to her death certificate. Her parents were Jacob and Susan* (Perry Sheffield) Hurlburt.

What little information I have suggests that the Ripley presence in this area was never long-term, consisting only in visits to the Hurlburts and Smiths.

Now I've done my duty and can go back to ignoring the Ripleys.

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The shower for Bertha Fisher, also mentioned in the next column to the right, reminds us of the existence of Hubert Hahn.

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*Frances' death certificate gives her mother's name as "Jane," but I believe that is a mistake.

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.

South of Deepriver

Thank goodness for these South of Deepriver columns, they save me from having to write a real post.


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Hobart News 10 Aug. 1922.

South of Deepriver

Random bits from the countryside south of Deepriver, late July-early August 1922.


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Hobart News 3 Aug. 1922

I don't know exactly what a separator canvas is, but the wording of that item suggests that the farmers of southeastern Ross Township had chipped in to buy themselves a communal farm machine — a sensible thing to do — and it was getting a workout in that summer's wheat threshing.

… Here's a little article about a threshing machine that has a separator and a canvas, somehow or another.


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From the Chilton Tractor Journal, Vol VIII, No. 4 (April 1, 1922). Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=xsZMAQAAMAAJ&lpg=RA3-PA14&ots=pSADxxAJwL&pg=RA3-PA14&ci=80%2C816%2C899%2C500&source=bookclip#v=onepage&q&f=false.

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Elsewhere in the August 3, 1922 issue of the News, we find out that the strikebreaker has still not recovered …



… and among the familiar names in the second column, we also find Miss Jeanette Peterson, daughter of Lena and George. The Hugo Zobjeck at Camp Knox in Kentucky was Hugo Jr., now about 17 years old.

In the third column are a couple of obituaries. The first concerns the untimely death of Ida (Heck) Carlson, who probably grew up on the old Heck place. The second brings me to consider the Wilson family of Union Township, Porter County, whom I have considered very little up to now. Mrs. Jane Harwood would have been Aunt Jane to "Miss Leola Wilson of Blachly's corners," and also, I believe, to Ralph Wilson, who in his youth took music lessons from Ainsworth's own Hugh Dotzer ("Ainsworth Pick-Ups," Hobart Gazette 6 Jan. 1905). In my notes and in the blog, I find several references to Wilsons, and some day when I retire and have time on my hands, perhaps I shall investigate which of them belonged to the Wilson family of Union Township.

Here is the farm of Jane's parents, Amos and Hannah Wilson, as it appeared on the 1876 plat map:


From http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1876Plats/Union-1876.jpg, courtesy of Steven R. Shook.

This Is Why He Couldn't Have a Gas Station

While the human race exists, there will be jerks. At the time we are concerned with — 1922 — jerks had found a relatively new way to be jerks, involving that relatively recent invention, the gas station. But already this avatar of jerkitude was so well known that the neighbors of John Kibler's triangle rose up to prevent his building a gas station where jerks could be jerks.


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Hobart News 13 July 1922.

Also, news from the countryside south of Deepriver, some of it involving huckleberries in a way that I interpret to mean they grew wild around here. News to me!

Abscess on the Brain

I can't find the Harold Guernsey, Otis' son, in the 1920 census — not even in Montana, which is where his brother William had to go to fetch him when he became dangerously sick in June of 1921. Harold was about 21 years old at this time.


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Images from the Hobart News 23 June 1921.

All the other news on this page is much more pleasant, including an ice-cream social at the home of Arthur and Mary Strong, south of Deep River; and in Crown Point, a party for Elmer Bullock's 18th birthday.

In the left-hand column we find notices of an upcoming show based on the popular comic strip, The Gumps. The fact that it would be held under a "big rainproof tent" is alarming to those of us who know what waterproofed tents could do when they caught fire. But no reports of disaster came out of "Henpecked Andy" in this case.

South of Deepriver

Here's a South of Deepriver social column that might be mildly interesting if you're related to these people. Also, John Killigrew, moving up in politics, is attending the inauguration of Warren T. McCray; John's brother, William, seems to be doing well in his oil business with Lewis Barnes and Calvin Shearer.



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From the Hobart News, 13 Jan. 1921.

The Great Cattle Drive of 1920

This social column from the Hobart News of December 2, 1920, finds H.H. Smith going to Chicago and bringing back cattle, as if Ainsworth didn't have enough cattle already.


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So who (I ask myself) was this H.H. Smith, since I find myself knowing absolutely nothing about him? — which turns out to be surprising, because a little research shows that these Smiths have been in the area since 1860 at least.

I believe "H.H." was Howard H. Smith, son of Homer and Rachel Smith, grandson of George and Caroline Smith, whom the 1860 Census finds farming in Union Township, Porter County, having come from Ohio, apparently, via Michigan. The 1870 Census records the Smith family farming in Ross Township, Lake County, with Homer still single and living at home, but in December of that year he married Rachel Hurlburt (Indiana Marriage Collection). By the 1880 Census Homer and Rachel had four children — Abbie (8), Howard (6), Rudie (4) and Millie (2). Their farm was, I believe, 80 acres on the county line in southeast Ross Township; that parcel belongs to "H. Smith" per the 1874 Plat Map, and per the 1926 Plat Book is owned by "Rachael Smith."

In the 1920 Census, the widowed Rachel is living there with her son, Howard, who at the age of 45 is still single. The other children have gone, I don't know where.

But you can see it was a fair distance to drive 24 cattle from the Ainsworth depot, especially when you had to dodge reckless motorists.



Checking my notes, I find a few references to this branch of the Smith family. In fact I've been neglecting them since 1903!

• "Contractor Abel has had three cars of lumber shipped to Ainsworth, to be used in the construction of a new barn for Howard Smith who lives south of Deepriver." ("General News Items, Hobart Gazette 15 May 1903.)
• "John Hann, a farm hand employed on the Smith farm, near Deepriver, had his right hand badly mangled in a corn shredder Tuesday. Part of the hand had to be amputated." ("General News Items," Hobart Gazette 4 Nov. 1904 [not entirely sure that's the right Smith farm].)
• "T.A. Strong has the job of building a barn for Howard Smith south of Deep River." ("Personal and Local Mention," Hobart News 9 Apr. 1913.)
• "H.H. Smith helped to car wheat at Ainsworth Monday and Tuesday of this week for Wm. Raschka." ("South of Deepriver," Hobart News 27 Apr. 1916.)
• H.H. Smith bought a team of horses. ("South of Deepriver," Hobart News 20 Feb. 1919.)
• The John Dick family visited H.H. Smith and his mother. ("South of Deepriver," Hobart News 1 Jan. 1920.)
• H.H. Smith and his mother joined members of the Fisher, Crisman and Ripley families in visited Mr. and Mrs. Ben Edwards at Gary. ("South of Deepriver," Hobart News 7 Oct. 1920.)

And then the great cattle drive is the next recorded event. You know what? — I think I may just go right on neglecting these people.

A Threshing Party

…and a load of fertilizer, and a lot of minor socializing.


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From the Hobart News of Sept. 2, 1920.