How to Get Lumber from Hobart to Chicago in 1849

Early in the autumn of 1849, the more famous Wicker brother ordered some lumber to be sent to Chicago from George Earle's sawmill in Hobart. What's interesting is how they got it from here to there.


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

They rafted it. I've heard of rafting cut trees down a river, but I knew nothing about rafting lumber on a lake. And now I learn that in the mid-19th century it was the most common means of moving lumber around the Great Lakes. You can find a discussion of lumber-rafting on Lake Superior here. And here is a photograph of a bag-boom raft of lumber heading out onto a lake:



This photograph comes from Michigan State University via Lost Arts Press.

The writer of our ledger lists the men who accompanied the lumber over the lake: Chancey Wheeler, Jesse Jeffcoat, and Huggins Curtis. I cannot read the name of the man who measured the lumber.

Chancey (whose name also appears spelled as Chauncy or Chauncey) was born in New York circa 1817. The earliest I can find him in this area is 1846, when he married Jerusha (or Gerusha) Curtis (Indiana Marriage Collection). The 1850 Census shows the young couple with one daughter, living in the household of (I'm guessing) Gerusha's parents in Portage Township. Sometime that same year, Chancey bought the first of several parcels he would own over the years in Hobart Township (Early Land Sales, Lake County). The 1860 Census shows the family in Hobart Township, where Chancey worked as a butcher. I can trace him only as far as the 1880 Census (still in Hobart Township). The date of his death and the site of his burial are unknown. What, if any, relation he had to the more famous Wheelers in northwest Indiana — I leave that for people with time on their hands to discover.

I can't find any information on Jesse Jeffcoat or Huggins Curtis.

Deep River's First Merchant, and His More Famous Brother

I'm glad I came across this page in one of our early ledgers, showing the ledger-keeper during the summer of 1848 somehow getting involved in plans for a new Porter County courthouse and seminary …


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

… because this information motivated me to go looking into Porter County history to find out if a new courthouse or a seminary had been built in 1848-9. The answer is no, but while poking around there I stumbled across the name of Joel Wicker, which I had seen on other pages of the ledger, so I started looking into him. That got interesting.

The earliest mention of Joel Hoxie Wicker I've found thus far in the ledgers is May 28, 1847:


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

It is significant that the ledger-keeper first wrote the initial C, then corrected it to J, but we'll get to that.

Various Porter County histories make glancing references to Joel Wicker — for example, he was "the first one to expose goods for sale in Deep River, in a building that was owned and just completed by John Wood, Sen."[1]

We also learn that Joel Wicker married into Porter County's pioneering Bailly family (of the Bailly homestead). His wife was a daughter of Joseph and Marie Bailly, named Josephine Hortense; she married Joel on July 23, 1849 per the Indiana Marriage Collection. The 1850 Census shows Joel and Hortense living in Chicago, in a household of other Wickers, only one of whom (a one-month-old infant) could possibly be a child of the marriage. I have no idea how the others were related. Unfortunately, Hortense did not live to be counted in the next census.

According to one former resident of Baillytown, Joel Wicker was more influential in developing that settlement than Joseph Bailly himself — buying some of Bailly's property after his death, operating a sawmill and a store at Baillytown, and recruiting Swedish immigrants from Chicago to come into Porter County, where they worked his sawmill and bought land from him to settle and raise their families.[2]

Now, remember that C on the ledger page above? That brings us to Joel's more famous brother, Charles Gustave. The earliest dated reference to him I've found so far in the ledgers is July 10, 1845.


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

We've all heard of the Wicker Park area in Chicago, have we not? Some sources[3] say it is named after both Charles and Joel Wicker — but only Charles gets a nine-foot-tall bronze statue! After Charles' death in 1890, someone went to the trouble of writing a fairly detailed and highly flattering biographical sketch;[4] if Joel ever received such treatment after his death in 1888, I haven't found evidence of it.

Per an entry on findagrave.com, Joel Wicker rests in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, in an unmarked grave. As for his wife, who died in 1855, there seems to be some confusion as to whether she is buried in Chicago or in the Bailly Cemetery in Porter County,[5] but in any case her grave is likewise unmarked.


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[1] A.G. Hardesty, Illustrated Historical Atlas of Porter County, Indiana, Valparaiso, Indiana: A. G. Hardesty (1876), transcribed here; see also Hubert M. Skinner, "Complete History of Porter County, Indiana," Valparaiso Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), Jan. 15, 1878, transcribed here.
[2] William T. Ahrendt, quoted in David McMahon, "Rediscovering a Swedish Ethnic Past: The National Park Service and Baillytown, Indiana," Swedish-American Historical Quarterly (Jan. 1997), pp. 26-52, reproduced here.
[3] See, e.g., "How the Neighborhoods Got Their Names" and "Ask Chicagoist: Who Put the 'Wicker' in Wicker Park?"
[4] Wyllys S. Abbot, "Hon. Chas. G. Wicker," Magazine of Western History (Oct. 1890), reproduced digitally here.
[5] See "Bailly Cemetery, Westchester Township."