So first let me just get the basic facts about Calvin and Mary Harper, who built the brick house.
Calvin was born in Ohio on September 24, 1819, to William and Deborah (Thompson) Harper. William was a native of New York, Deborah of Vermont, but they had moved to Ohio by the time of their marriage in 1818.
Calvin married Mary Underwood in September of 1843, in Ashtabula County, Ohio. Mary had been born in 1822[1] to Harmon and Mary Mary (Mather) Underwood, in New York. The family must have moved to Ohio by the 1840s, although I can't find them in the census. By 1850 Harmon, Mary, and several of their children had gone to Lake County, Illinois.
But their daughter Mary, now a Harper, did not go with them. Here we see her and Calvin, with their only child, Mayvorite, in Ashtabula County, Ohio, in the 1850 Census:
(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from Ancestry.com.
You will note that their neighbors include Harpers and Thompsons, any of whom may have been relatives. The family of Benjamin and Ruth Harper is particularly interesting. Ruth was Mary's sister, who married Benjamin Harper in 1842 (in Ashtabula County). But what was Benjamin to Calvin? — per a family tree I've found on Ancestry.com, Benjamin was Calvin's uncle, but that tree doesn't cite any definitive sources.
In my earlier post about the land now occupied by Southlake Mall, I noted its purchase in October 1852 by Daniel Underwood. He must have been some a relation to Mary (Underwood) Harper — brother, probably, or uncle. According to Early Land Sales, Lake County, in that same month and year, her father, Harmon Underwood, bought at least 160 acres in Ross Township.
Calvin and Mary Harper came to Ross Township in 1850, according to her 1916 obituary;[2] if so, that must have happened after July 1850 when the census was taken. The land they eventually owned was purchased by James Halsted in June 1852. The 1860 Census records Calvin and Mary in Ross Township. While (as we know) early censuses don't give addresses, the Harpers appear as neighbors (on the census, at least) to Carter and Charlotte Castle, who owned land adjacent to James Halsted's 1852 purchase. This suggests that the Harpers were already on their farm on what is now Grand Boulevard, living in a predecessor to the brick house.
In 1868, Mayvorite Harper married Admiral[3] Rodney Castle. He was the son of Lysander and Maria Castle, born in Ohio in 1841 (Indiana Death Certificates). Lysander had died in 1851[4], and his widow married Samuel Lathrop. The 1860 census and the 1874 Plat Map show the Lathrop-Castle blended family as neighbors of the Harpers.
As for Benjamin and Ruth Harper, they were still in Ohio in 1860, but within the decade they also came to Ross Township, where the 1870 Census found them. According to the 1874 Plat Map, they owned a good chunk of land at the tiny village of Hickory Top (later Ainsworth). They probably lived in, and may have built, the house at 6305 Ainsworth Road, built in 1869 per the county records.
The children of Benjamin and Ruth were Mary, Ellen, and Frank.
Ellen married Cyrus Smith in 1861 in Erie County, Pennsylvania;[5] in 1863[6] they moved to the farm in Ross Township where they would settle permanently.
Ellen's brother, Frank Harper, married Ella Hopkins in 1878, here in Lake County, and they had two children: Cassie and Robert. Thus, Robert was Ellen Smith's nephew.
When it comes to Middleton Harper, things get murky. From his obituary and his grave marker, we know he was born in Montgomery County, Indiana, on December 10, 1850. Per his death certificate, his father was John Harper, born in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, and his mother was Sarah Frazier, born in "East Tenn." or maybe "East Penn."
Middleton first appears as a nine-year-old boy in the 1860 Census of Tippecanoe County. The household consists of his grandfather (I'm guessing), Middleton, born circa 1795 in Maryland, and his 27-year-old mother, who is described as widowed. (She has several children besides Middleton, and there is a 21-year-old William who may be her brother-in-law.)
The next glimpse I catch of Middleton Harper is not the 1870 Census — I can't find him in it — but the Indiana Marriage Collection, which shows him in Lake County, Indiana, marrying Anna Goodrich in 1872. You'd expect to find them in the 1880 Census, but you'd be disappointed.
We do find Anna Harper in the 1900 Census. By then she was widowed. We also find her in 1910 and 1920, living with her married daughters.
But that doesn't help us figure out if Middleton Harper was any relation to all these other Harpers. I just don't know.
All of this was put together with online sources. If I ever get the time to go through microfilm and other offline sources, I may find out more.
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[1] Indiana Death Certificates.
[2] "Descendant of Cotton Mather Dies at Miller," Porter County Vidette (Valparaiso, Ind.), 19 Apr. 1916.
[3] Yes, that was his given first name.
[4] He is buried on the south bank of the Deep River west of State Road 51; according to legend (as noted in the NWIGS's Ross Township Cemeteries), at the time of his funeral and even after two days' wait, the river was too swollen to carry his coffin across to the cemetery up the road in Hobart Township.
[5] This is according to his obituary ("Death of a Ross Township Citizen," Hobart Gazette, 8 Oct. 1915); I can't find a record of their marriage on Ancestry.com. I do wonder if this means that Ellen's family spent some time in Pennsylvania, between the time they left Ohio and the time they came to Indiana.
[6] Also from Cyrus' obituary.
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