Spicebush Swallowtail

Here is a Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly enjoying some Ironweed nectar.


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It has two known larval hosts: Spicebush and Sassafras. I have tried numerous times to plant both but they always died. So I feel fortunate to have found a Spicebush Swallowtail in my field, since I'm not able to help their population.

As usual, other people have taken better photos.

George Earle and the Orphans

On this page of the 1848 daybook, we find some clues to the identity of its keeper.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

On October 22, 1849, the writer made an agreement with Mr. Spencer whereby the writer, along with John and Philip, will board at the Spencer place (and wash their quilts) for $2.50 per week, including the use of the household soap and some of the household potatoes, while John will chop wood for the stove. But as for candles, "G.E." agrees to supply his own — now, who could that be but George Earle?

And indeed, when I went looking in the 1850 Census for households that contained both a John and a Philip, I found the George Earle household:


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Image from Ancestry.com.

George himself is listed as the head of the household. Mary is his wife (and Charles Devonshire, listed last, is probably Mary's father). John G(eorge) E(dward) is George and Mary's son. Mary Ann may be one of George's twelve siblings.[1]

But who were these Hodson boys, John and Philip, and why were they living in the Earle household?

Looking in my index, I find I've encountered the name Hodson before, most significantly in an earlier daybook. In the autumn of 1845, we find the writer dealing with the estate of W. Hodson:


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

This is apparently a crop of oats that W. Hodson did not live to harvest — 7 bushels to "G.E."; 24 bushels to E. Saunders; the money to the Hodson estate.

In October 1848, we find the writer making another payment to E. Saunders to cover boarding two of the Hodson boys, William and Philip:


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

I am convinced that Mr. Saunders' first name was Edward, and that he bought part of the farm that had belonged to the estate of William Hodson, Sr.

William Hodson was in LaPorte County for the 1840 Census, apparently, but by 1843 Early Land Sales shows him buying two parcels in Ross Township. One parcel of 40 acres, the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 8, R. 7 W., lies north of Big Maple Lake and is now owned by the Lake County Parks Department. The other parcel was the full southeast quarter (160 acres) of Section 12, R. 8 W. — which eventually passed into Bullock and Markham hands, and was the site of the Bullock homestead. But earlier, in 1845 (according to Early Land Sales) the west 80 acres of that latter parcel was purchased by Edward Sanders.[2]

To try to fill in the rest of the story, we have to turn to information supplied by anonymous people online — specifically, information on findagrave.com and a family tree compiled on Ancestry.com. According to these anonymous online sources, William Hodson, Sr. was born in England in 1800, and there, in 1830, married Ann Lister; they then set sail to America. A daughter was born at sea;[3] some three children were born in Pennsylvania, including one of these sons we've found mentioned in the daybooks — John, born in 1835. The last two boys were born in Lake County, Indiana: William, Jr. in 1841 and Philip in 1844.

In 1845, both parents died — Ann in February and William, Sr. in March. Both are buried in the Merrillville Cemetery.

Then Edward Saunders, also an Englishman by birth, bought some of the Hodson land, and I suppose it was logical enough for him to agree to board some of the orphaned children. What I'm wondering is — why did George Earle take on the responsibility of arranging and paying for their board, whether with Mr. Saunders or Mr. Spencer? Was there some family connection? Was it his duty as executor of the estate? Or was he just acting from the kindness of his heart?

There were also three surviving daughters, ranging in age from 15 to 8, who (so far) have not been mentioned in the daybooks. If I had more time, I'd trying to trace them.[4]


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[1] Most of what I know about the Earles comes from Dorothy Dunning Ballantyne's pamphlet, George Earle and Family of Hobart, Indiana (Hobart Historial Society, 1972). Copies can be purchased at the Hobart Historical Society museum.
[2] Early Land Sales designated that land and hundreds of nearby acres as "Canal Land." I don't know the story behind that, and I haven't got time to research it.
[3] William and Ann married in May 1830, their first child was born in June 1830 and survived. Also, according to the family tree on Ancestry.com, that child (among others) is buried in Ainsworth, Iowa.
[4] According to Lake County Encyclopedia (p. 145), during the Civil War a Miss Elizabeth Hodson went from Lake County to nurse the sick and wounded at a military hospital in Memphis, Tennessee; I think this is the daughter born at sea in 1830. That is all I know of the daughters' histories.

Eight-Spotted Forester

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Found this small but showy moth in my pollinator habitat area. It refused to pose for a photo. If you want a better shot you'll have to look elsewhere.

Having a Gas, in Ainsworth and Elsewhere

This page from the August 23, 1923 issue of the Hobart News is dominated by Carlson news. First off, Charles Carlson, gassing up his automobile in Ainsworth, luckily avoided a conflagration.


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"Local and Personal," Hobart News, Aug. 23, 1923.

The automatic shut-off mechanism for gas pumps hadn't been invented yet.

I suppose this gas-pumping Charles Carlson and the corn-selling Charles Carlson in the item above are the same person. The other "Carlson brother" would be Richard, whom we've heard of before. The 1920 Census shows Charles, age 42, living in the vicinity of what is now the Indian Ridge golf course (to judge by his neighbors) with his 79-year-old mother, Hedvig (widow of Swan Peter). But the old Carlson house and the land surrounding it was now owned by Teofil and Wanda Grabowski.

Which leads me to wonder about the location of the "Carlson grove … on the banks of Deep river" where the family reunion (mentioned in the middle column) was to take place. The Carlsons' land (shown here on the 1939 plat map) no longer bordered on the river. Perhaps the Grabowskis let the Carlsons use a grove on their land for the reunion.

Looking at those planning to attend the reunion, I recognize only a couple of names. Russell Koehler was the Carlson brothers' nephew, son of their sister Augusta. Tekla Ceander used to be Tekla Anderson … but I don't know how she was related to the Carlsons.

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Now, who might have been selling gasoline in Ainsworth? Here is Henry Paulus, owner of the Ainsworth department store, listed among the sellers of Red Crown gasoline:


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Hobart News, Aug. 30, 1923.

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To end this post, we have news of that elegant young couple, George and Pearl (Severance) Yager, who eight years earlier had fled Ainsworth and never looked back.


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Hobart Gazette, Aug. 24, 1923.

Dark-Spotted Palthis

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Found this moth on my garage a few days ago. Those things sticking out from his face are "labial palps." He falls into the category of "litter moths" according to Peterson. Beyond his labial palps, I can't find out anything remarkable about him.

The Matriarch of the Woods

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This is the first photograph in the album that I mentioned in my previous post. She was born Hannah E. Pattee on October 13, 1802, in New Hampshire. At the age of 22, she married John Wood of Massachusetts.[1] Her children were: Nathan (b. 1825), Augustus (1828), Abbie (1830), John Warren (b. 1832-d. 1836), George (1835), John W. (1838), Mary (1840), and Oliver (1842). All but the last three were born in Massachusetts. John Wood came to Lake County, Indiana, in 1835, and the following year brought his family to join him.[2]

Hannah died on September 27, 1873, and was buried in the Woodvale Cemetery.

A fine granite monument, about fifteen feet in height, marks the burial place, on which is inscribed, "A true, faithful, loving wife; a kind and affectionate mother; ever toiling for the good of all; and this is her memorial." Mrs. Wood was another of those superior New England women … with native endowments and a Puritanic training, which fit their possessors so well for frontier life and for laying the right foundations for an enduring civilization. The comfort and hospitality of her home were not excelled by any in those early years. She was one of our unselfish women, and well does her memorial say, "toiling for the good of all."[3]

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On the back of the original photo of Hannah is the name of a Valparaiso photographer:



Steve Shook's blog, Porter County's Past: An Amateur Historian's Perspective, lists Lewis H. Mandeville among the known Porter County photographers and states that he arrived in Valparaiso in 1855. Hannah's elegant dress is of a style dating to the Civil War era, and that era is consistent with her apparent age; let's say the original photo dates to roughly 1865.

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The album does not include a portrait of John Wood. Fortunately, Porter and Lake Counties (Goodspeed-Blanchard) does:



From the same source and printed in 1882, a biographical sketch:

JOHN WOOD was born in Massachusetts October 28, 1800, and is a son of Moses and Sarah (Baker) Wood; the former was born May 25, 1748, and the latter July 14, 1756. John Wood's father died when he was quite young, and his mother placed him with a friend of the family, where he remained five years, after which he learned the trade of a tanner, in which vocation he began business for himself. On November 16, 1824, he married Hannah E. Pattee, to which union there were born eight children …. In 1835, Mr. Wood came to this township, settled on a quarter section of land, built a log house and went for his family. On his return, an Indian had claimed his land, and he was compelled to pay $1,000 for it. He built the first sawmill in the county, and in 1840 a grist-mill near by, at the same time farming and raising stock. He remained in the milling business until 1860, when he sold to his sons, Nathan and George; the saw-mill has gone to pieces, but the grist-mill was rebuilt, and is being run by Nathan Wood. Moses Wood was a soldier of the Revolution, and fought at Bunker Hill. John Wood, who is a Freemason, was present at the corner-stone laying of Bunker Hill Monument. He has been instrumental in establishing several Masonic Lodges — one at Valparaiso, one at Crown Point, and was the first to aid one at Wheeler. He is a Master Mason in good standing, and a greatly respected citizen. His wife died September 27, 1873, aged seventy years eleven months and fourteen days. His grand-daughter, Miss Abbie Shedd, is his housekeeper.

John died in 1883 and is buried beside Hannah in Woodvale Cemetery.

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Finally, I just want to say that, based on very little evidence and only superficial research, I've jumped to the conclusion that the album belonged to Alice Vincent Nesbit, the daughter of Mary Wood and Dr. Alonzo W. Vincent. Perhaps someday I will be able to update this post, either to say that after intensive research I'm convinced I'm right, or to say that it's a bad idea to jump to conclusions based on very little evidence.


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[1] Hannah's birth and marriage dates, and the list of her children, come from Lake County 1884, pp. 436-7.
[2] History of Lake County and the Calumet Region, p. 182.
[3] Lake County Encyclopedia, p. 133.

Wood Family Reunion, 1923

I haven't paid a lot of attention to Deep River's famous pioneer family of John and Hannah (Pattee) Wood, since I figured the Deep River museum people had them covered; but a few months ago I acquired an album containing photographs of some of the Woods and their relations, so I am going to look into the family more closely as I get into the album. And I might as well start with the annual Wood family reunion in August 1923.


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Hobart News, Aug. 23, 1923.

The eldest relative, the 87-year-old Jane, had been born Mary Jane Dizard on March 15, 1836, and on October 2, 1857 had married George Wood (the third son of John and Hannah Wood, who came to Woodvale/Deep River ca. 1836 and built the mill that is now part of Deep River County Park). Mary and George's children were Eugene, William H., Anna E., and Sarah J.,[1] who was known as "Nettie" per the 1910 Census.

The two-month-old Bettie Mae Gunderson was the great-granddaughter of Dr. Oliver Wood, the youngest son of John and Hannah.

Mary Wood Vincent was their daughter. She had married Dr. Alonzo Vincent in 1869.

Olive Wood was known to many older folks around here, as she taught for years in Ross Township schools. She was the daughter of William and Martha Wood, and thus Mary Jane (Dizard) Wood's granddaughter.

If the William Wood residence eventually became the Olive Wood residence, then it is still standing just west of the entrance to Deep River County Park and is now known as the Mroz house; but whether that boulder was ever placed, and if so, is still there, I do not know.

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I just realized that yesterday, August 1, was the tenth anniversary of this blog. How time flies! I feel very fortunate to have this work to occupy me; without it, I might have to get a life.

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[1] T.H. Ball (ed.), Lake County, Indiana, 1884: An Account of the Semi-Centennial Celebration of Lake County, September 3 and 4, with Historical Papers and Other Interesting Records Prepared for This Volume (Crown Point: Lake County Star Office, 1884) ("Lake County 1884").