Cantankerous Hank and Truculent Chuck

While searching for something else, I came across information about another bad day for Henry and Charles Chester, among unnamed others. This one happened sometime around late August of 1898.


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Crown Point Register, Sept. 2, 1898.

I will try to fill in the details: Homer L. Iddings, as "Superintendent" of something (I don't know what; he was also Ross Township trustee at that time), had ordered that a drainage ditch be built along the Chicago & Grand Trunk Railroad,[1] which crossed Henry Chester's land. Henry Chester had some objection to that. When the men building the ditch came onto his land to do their work, he and his sons, including Charles,[2] attacked them.

Or his sons did, anyway; it seems Henry himself was found not guilty:


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Crown Point Register, Sept. 16, 1898.

In the next column over, the Merrillville correspondent is sorry to see the end of this exciting case … and further down, we see that the ditch-diggers are continuing about their business.

The last I heard of this case was this item in the "Hobart News" column of the October 21, 1898 Crown Point Register: "H. Merril has commenced suit against Hank Chester for permanently disabling him on the occasion of the late ditch melee. Merril asks $3,000 damage." Whether he got any part of $3,000, I don't know. This is the first evidence I have that anyone ever called Henry Chester "Hank." I have no evidence that anyone ever called Charles Chester "Chuck."

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I tried but failed to positively identify the two ditch-diggers.

The H.G. Merrill might possibly have been H.C. Merrill — Henry Cass Merrill, one of the Merrill brothers, born (1852) and raised in Ross Township; but by 1880, it appears he had left the area and was never again counted in a Ross Township census. The 1900 Census shows him living in Chicago and working as a bank clerk.

As for the other man, who is variously referred to as "Hartner," "Hartnip," and "Hartman," he might have been Edgar Hartnup of Hobart, who was described in the 1900 Census as a 46-year-old day laborer. If not, I'm out of ideas.


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[1] "H.G. Merrill has the C. & G.T.R. ditch completed and will now commence on the Hayward-Goodrich ditch." "Merrillville," Crown Point Register, Oct. 21, 1898.
[2] An item in the "Additional Locals" column of the Hobart Gazette of October 14, 1898, mentions that Charles Chester of Ross Township had recently been through a criminal trial.