One Township's Yesterdays Chapter XXIX  

STILL MORE SETTLERS Part 1

".... orchards and cornfields Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain." ... Henry W. Longfellow

THEY CAME, AND KEPT COMING, more and more settlers. After the middle of the Nineteenth Century, the land was fast being taken up in Union Township, and the two decades following that milestone saw the settlers' numbers increase rapidly in this region. The 'fifties and 'sixties witnessed the arrival of many emigrants south of Lake Maxinkuckee and east and west of there. A large porportion [sic] [proportions] of these were of families originally from Germany. Some of them were acquainted before their arrival, and some were connected by ties of marriage.

They were forming into distinct colonies or neighborhoods. They settled close to one another, to be neighborly and to satisfy that sense of protection and comfort which is obtained through communal life, especially in a country that is new and strange.

The histories of a few of these families have already been outlined. A few more warrant consideration.

HAWK

WILSON

PARKER

RECTOR

Not far distant from the very early "upper and lower settlements." northeast and east of Lake Maxinkuckee, were those established at and near the south end of the lake in the 'fifties and _ sixties. Some mention has already been made of families that came to the south end neighborhood, but we must not abandon that locality without appropriate mention of the EASTERDAY family. Here is a name that has been closely associated with that section of the township ever since the pioneer of the family, Daniel, first set foot there in about the year 1864.

EASTERDAY

Let us leave the neighborhood of the south side of the lake and hop over to the northern part of the township, where another family of German descent was moving in and getting settled on the land at about the same time that DANIEL EASTERDAY came or perhaps just a year or part of a year later.

KYSER (or KEYSER)

Returning again to the Snores [shores] of Lake Maxinkuckee, we find that, somewhat later than the KYSER settlement near Hibbard, another family has moved in and taken up laud in this region, which is now fast developing into a rich and populous farming country.

BENEDICT

BOGARDUS

Again we shift from one part of the township to another. This time we leave the Maxinkuckee community and, with one long leap across the big lake and its outlet and the little Lost Lake, we land in that southwestern section of the township, visited by its [us] before and known to us as the early settling-place of the ROMIGs, the Cromleys, the KALEYs, the STAHLs, the ZECHIELs, and all the rest of the related and correlated families of that miniature world in itself. In making this leap we not only cover distance but also travel backward along the avenue of time and find ourselves in a period considerably earlier than that of the coming of the BOGARDUS and SPANGLER families to Maxinkuckee. In fact, we find that we have gone back very close to the year of the first white settlement in Union Township.

ROMIG

ZECHIEL

We cannot leave the Zion neighborhood without some reference, however brief it may be by reason of lack of data, to another family which in early times was associated with the ZECHIELs and STAHLs. This is the BECHTOL family. Like the ZECHIELs, the BECHTOLs came from Marion County, Ohio, and they settled in the same neighborhood in Union Township. The pioneer BECHTOLs were Abraham and his wife Susan.

BETCHOL

LA BOUNTY

Up in the northern part of the township, several years before the coming of Edward LA BOUNTY, the YORK family had moved in and taken up land.

YORK

Only a short distance away from the place of settlement of the YORK family in the Burr Oak neighborhood, the BURKETTs made a beginning in Union Township. The BURKETTs came earlier than the YORKs, but the years that intervened between the arrival of the one and the other of these families were very few indeed.

BURKETT

WOLF

The Burr Oak Flats were very familiar to another family, the MEDBOURNs, who settled at the lower end of that territory and not far from Lake Maxinkuckee...

MEDBOURN

Although the OYLER family did not come to Union Township anywhere near as early as the others already considered, we believe that the association of its members with the MEDBOURNs warrants our giving them this little niche or alcove of space in our history of the township's early comers.

Oyler

The section of the township known as the Sickman neighborhood was not far from the HOUGHTON and MEDBOURN settlement; in truth, the two sort of rubbed elbows. The Sickman community got its name from its important center, the Sickman school, and the school got its name from the SICKMAN family, living nearby. And, of course, the first family to be considered of those residing in the Sickman neighborhood should be the SICKMAN family.

SICKMAN

In close association with the MEDBOURNs on the Burr Oak Flats was the family of JOHN and NANCY GREEN...

GREEN

Over in the northeastern corner of the township, in early days, the Hartman family took up land. That was in the Rutland neighborhood.

HARTMAN

Quite a number of years ahead of the SICKMANs, the MENSER family came and settled in the Sickman Community. Of course, when the MENSERs arrived there, it was not called the Sickman neighborhood. It was then, no doubt, the Menser neighborhood.

MENSER

The name of BEHMER has long been a familiar one in this part of the country, and for eighty years the family has been prominent in the affairs of Marshall County. It was in 1855 that the family emigrated out hero from Ohio.

BEHMER

The SPEYER family came to this part of the country late in the 'sixties or early in the 'seventies.

SPEYER

In the late spring of 1864, HARVEY and MARY JANE (ROGERS) THORNBURG, with their family, moved to Marshall County from Van Wert County, Ohio.

THORNBURG

The GROSSMAN family came to the vicinity of Lake Maxinkuckee at an early date. They took up land in the Wolf Creek neighborhood and in the northeastern part of Union Township
GROSSMAN

Among the pioneer families that came to Union Township during the Civil War was that of JAMES DUDDLESON, who was of Scotch descent.

DUDDLESON

Associated with the early history of the community that is now Culver was the POTTER family

POTTER



ELDRIDGE

JOHN ELDRIDGE was an old settler at Maxinkuckee. He migrated to Indiana around the year 1832, and it is said that he came to the region of Lake Maxinkuckee not many years after that, perhaps around 1840. He was born in 1808 and was getting well along in years in the late _ seventies. He lived to a ripe old age.

Also among the early settlers at Maxinkuckee was MOSES SMITH, who came there from Fulton County in the _ fifties.

MOSES SMITH

Precisely at the half-way turn of the Nineteenth Century, the MC FARLAND family arrived in Union Township

MC FARLAND

After relating the MC FARLAND family history, we are naturally drawn on to the recounting of some of the more important facts and most interesting episodes in the story of another early family of this region, the MC ELRATHs, who are associated with the MC FARLANDs

MC ELRATH

Prominent among the settlers attracted by the fertile soil of the Burr Oak Flats were the OVERMYERs. In 1859, FRANKLIN OVERMYER came to Indiana from Ohio and located on the Flats, while later, in '78 or '79, William came over to Union Township from Pulaski County.

OVERMYER

DAVID SMITH came in the 'fifties to the region east of Lake Maxinkuckee. He took up land from the government .

David H. SMITH

Before closing our records of the early settlers of the township, we have a few notes to add:
Among the early comers was Lucinda Jones, daughter of WILLIAM and Susaman [SUSAN] JONES she was married to HICKERSON JONES

JONES



HAND

The HAND family settled early in the Wolf Creek neighborhood and later owned lands in the northeastern section of Union Township. W. E. HAND, 73-year­old veteran resident of Culver, passed away December 3, 1924, at the hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, after suffering for two weeks from injuries received when he was run over by an automobile in that city.

EZRA HIBRAY, who came to the township at a comparatively early date, is one of the oldest residents still living in this part of the country. His home is at Maxinkuckee.

HIBRAY



FRENCH

Among the early families in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood we find listed the FRENCH family, resident there prior to 1864.

The early home of the family, a log house at the south end of Lake Maxinkuckee, is remembered to this day by a few old-timers.

ABRAHAM FRENCH, familiarly known as Abe, was living at Hammond until very recently, when the hand of death took from us one of the last of the pioneers of Union Township. He passed away March 5, 1935, at the home of a daughter, Mrs. JENNIE MEDARIS, in Hammond, where he had lived for twelve years. He was eighty-four. He had suffered for five years with heart trouble. He is survived by two sons, one daughter, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild. He was a member of the Hammond Christian Church. The body of the pioneer was brought back to the township in which he had spent the major portion of his life. Burial was in the Culver Cemetery.



Steve Smith

STEVE SMITH at the age of eighty, is among the old-timers still with us. A resident of Culver, he is keen and active and keeps up with the times. He works as industriously as anyone less than half his years. The way he works belies his age. On winter days he enjoys shoveling snow. Sometimes he shovels all day long, cleaning off walks and street crossings around town, all of his own free will and without remun­eration other than the satisfaction in performing a public service. The shovel he uses is the same one that accompanied him on his mail route for twenty years.

To return for a moment to the CLIFTON family, we find these additional facts:....

NOTES: ....