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1882 COUNTIES OF
LaGRANGE and NOBLE INDIANA HISTORICAL and BIOGRAPHICAL
Chicago F.A. Battey and Company Publishers 1882
NEWBURY TOWNSHIP
By: R.H. Rerick
Newbury Township- First Election and Officers-Early Physical
Features,Lakes,Indians,Etc.-
The First Settler and His Successors-Mills and Towns-Forest Customs-
The Amish-Their Customs,Churches,Schools,Etc.-General Development.
The township received its name, not in honor
of any personage, but to distinguish it from the older town of Middlebury,
in Elkhart county, which it adjoins. This was the borough, and Newbury
it has remained. The name was given at the first town meeting. The township
was a part of Lima, and was seperated and given a distinct organization
in 1837. On April 3, of this year, the settlers held their first election,
at the house of Truman
Wilkinson. It was difficult to get together a good show of voters,
and the canvassing was as thorough as at
some modern elections. If there was any law then requiring a long residence
in the township, it was probably accidentally forgotten that day. The workmen
on the Shipshewana Mills were taken to the polls, whether or no.
By this means a poll-book of thirteen voters was made. There were just
about enough offices to go around and
the list contains the names of most of the adult male settlers. Daniel
K. Keasy and Elijah West acted as Clerks; Amos Davis
and James Cotton, Judges; and Truman Wilkinson, Inspector.When
their laborious duties had been performed, it was found that the following
were the first officers: Amos Davis, Justice; Willard Cotton,
Constable; Elijah West, Inspector; Esick Green, Supervisor;
George
Lotterer and Elijah West, Overseers
of the Poor; Franklin Goodenough and George Hilt, Road
Viewers. The vote was unanimous. The first official act of the new Justice
was to solemnize a marriage between Esick Green and Miss Hackett,
a member of the Wilkinson family. It was not the officers fault,
but, for some lack of affinity, the newly-married couple soon seperated.
The earliest comers sought two places mainly-
the beautiful country about Shipshewana Lake, in the north,
and the forks of the Little Elkhart River in the southwest. The east
part of the township was in great part covered by marshes, and was not
so desirable. The country was densely wooded, as a general thing, but there
were large tracts of openings. An idea, however, prevailed among many of
the pioneers, who were largely of Southern
birth, that the openings were unhealthful, and the woods were consequently
in favor. There were also marsh lands along the little streams which supplied
the Little Elkhart, which flows, in two branches, through the southwest
corner. A diagonal line through the township from northwest to southeast,
is about the position of the ridge that divides the drainage of the Pigeon
River from that of the Elkhart. Cass Lake, about twenty acres in extent,
on the
northern line, and Hood's, a small body in the east, are drained into
the Elkhart, while the beautiful Shipshewana, one of the largest lakes
in the county, and Cotton Lake, a smaller one, have their outlet in Shipshewana
Creek. Cotton, Hood and Cass Lake commerate the names of the earliest settlers
near them, and Shipshewana, the Pottawatomie chieftain, who is said to
be buried somewhere on the banks of the lake. A lady, now deceased,
claimed to know the place of his grave, but the secret has been lost
with her death. The old chief died some time prior to the settlement. His
tribe inhabited the township, and their deeply cut trails ran through the
woods, taking the best courses, and never missing the beaver dams, in every
direction, so that the settlers had to blaze their road in order not to
wander off on the wrong track. The red men hunted amicably with the whites,
and would come back even after their removal to exchange venison and cranberries
for the pioneers' extra potatoes and flour.
Game was plentiful-deer and turkeys and bears. Bees were especially
numerous, and one hunter cut as many as sixteen nests in one day. The earliest
settlers came to the forks of the Little Elkhart, and this was also the
starting point of the second settlement by the German people, who now almost
entirely occupy the township. The first comers were the Woodbridges,
who "squatted" in Section 19, about 1831. This was before the land was
for
sale, and there is no record of their names or later history. They
soon moved away, and their cabin was old and deserted when the later settlers
moved in. The land was not open to entry until much later, and the first
certificate issued was to Obadiah Lawrence, dated July 17, 1835.
In the north, a Mr. Andrews and Elijah
West came in in 1834, and the next year built a dam and race and saw
mill on Shipshewana Creek, near the center of Section 3. Mr. Andrews
died August 24, 1835, the first
death among the pioneers. His son, Jarius Andrews, lived in
the township until his decease in 1879. West, the partner, soon
moved West. This mill was in operation several years, and the damming up
of the waters was
thought to be the cause of much illness in early times, on account
of its overflowing the lake. The dam was finally torn down, and the mill
went to pieces. A log house in a grove near by, which forms a contrast
with the fine residences in the vicinity, probably contains some of the
logs of these old buildings. A little later, a number of settlers entered
their lands. In 1836, Amos Davis, one of the most prominent men
in the early history of the county, came to the Woodbridge place.
He had already entered land, in 1835, in Section 19. He built the second
saw-mill in the township on the river here.
Esick Green, who remained about twenty
years, and Truman Wilkinson, who lived here until his death in 1857,
brothers-in-law, settled about 1836. Hiram Wilkinson settled at
the same time, but soon left. Charles Barron was another pioneer.
Wilkinson
was the neighborhood poet and lampooner in the early days. Some of
his effusions are still remembered, and we are able to give part of
one, occasioned by the tragical girdling of an
oak in front of John Keightley's house, against Mr. K.'s
wishes. The oak sings:
"Here once I stood a handsome oak,
This is the first I ever spoke.
My kindred oaks shall live instead,
While I am numbered with the dead.
Here once I stood,a noble tree,
Till Sam and Charlie girded me."
Another couplet was of an epitaph nature:
"The devil,with old snaps and snarls,
Dragged off to h--l poor Sam and Charles."
Franklin J. Goodenough entered land
in Section 7, and built the first frame barn in the township. Almon
Lawrence, who had come to Van Buren in 1830, and Alexander W. Poynter,
of Delaware, Alexander Berry, of Ohio, and his sons-Samuel,
Conrad
and Doomide- were early settlers in the neighborhood of the site
of the Dunkard Church. Other early settlers were Garrett and Griffith
Shrake, Warren Stiles, James Cotton, a carpenter, who
gave his name to Cotton Lake, and Samuel Hood, who is similarly
honored. Joseph Keasy,
later of St. Joseph County, Ind., came, in 1836, from Fulton County,
Ohio. It was on his farm, at the house of Joseph Nelson, that the
first church was organized in the fall of 1837, by a Methodist evangelist,
who used to go about on foot among the settlers, doing good. This pioneer
preacher had the simple name of Brown, but from his residence received
the euphonious title of "Bald Hill" Brown. He went from here to
a more arduous field-
to Texas. Joseph Nelson was the class-leader of this little
organization, which had about nine members starting. James Latta,
of the Haw Patch, and Christopher Cory, were among the early preachers.
In those days,
families would walk three or four miles for a sermon, and find their
way home by the light of a clapboard torch.
In February, 1837, George Lotterer took
possession of land, including that owned at present by Horatio Halbert,
on Shipshewana Lake, where he laid out a village called Georgetown, which
never grew beyond the paper. Mr. Lotterer was then the richest man
in Newbury, and had just previously owned the plat of Ontario.
He remained in the township until about eight years since, when he
removed to Fort Scott, Kan.
John Keightly and Peter N. Keightly
moved upon their land near Shipshewana Lake in the fall of 1836.
The latter soon moved into Van Buren, but the former is still an honored
citizen of this township. Mr. K. came from England, in 1828, to
Tompkins County, N. Y., married Miss M. A. Winter in 1830, and started
for
Indiana in November, 1836. The journey was a sample of that which the
patient pioneer went through- a day's
journey eight or ten miles, deep mud in what were called the roads,
no bridges but crossways of logs, and these sometimes almost washed away
by floods. Soon after Mr. Keightly had built a house, it was burned,
probably
by an incendiary, and some $1,500 in money, lying in the house, was
never seen again by the owner. Such was
the life in the good old days, full of hardship and disappointment,
in great contrast with the comfort of the present.
A schoolhouse, in which religious services were held, was built on
the northeast corner of Mr. K's land, where a graveyard is situated.
Methodist meetings were also held at his residence, where among other attendants
were George and Melicent Winter, brothers-in-law of the Keightlys,
who came in with them from Tompkins County, N.Y., in 1836. George Winter
was born in Lincolnshire, England, and died in Newbury in 1868. His wife
had died in 1854. His son, Wrinch Winter, who was only eight years
old on moving here, now occupies a finely situated residence on the old
homestead, in view of Shipshewana Lake. Among other early settlers, Peter
Schermerhorn entered land in Section 5, and died north of the Yoder
settlement. In 1845, Francis Lampman,
of Oswego County, N. Y., settled in northwest Newbury. He remained
upon the farm until 1864, when he
removed to Lima, where he was still living in 1881, at the age of eighty-three.
Among the later comers in the northeast is Elias Wight, who came
from Ohio in 1854, and lives upon Section 3. Mr. Wight was elected
County Commissioner in 1879.
The trading of the early days was done mostly
at White Pigeon and Middlebury. Some hauling was done from more distant
points. In 1837, Amos Davis brought through flour and goods from
Michigan City to Lima with five yokes of oxen. LaGrange, then, was unborn,
and the country to Middlebury was almost impassable, except on foot. On
the White Pigeon trail there were but two houses. In 1833, a road was run
through from Lima to Goshen by John Kromer, and this was the only
one until 1836, when a party went through the township eastward,
running the Baubaga road to the future county seat. Amos Davis,
about 1840, surveyed three roads- the Middlebury and Haw Patch, which follows
the course of the main branch of the Little Elkhart, the Middlebury
road to intersect the Goshen road, and the White Pigeon and Ligonier
road.
The first schoolhouse was put up on the farm
of Joseph Keasy, on Section 19. The house was of unsquared logs,
with a low roof, and densely-shaded in a little opening in the forest.
The first teacher was Miss Mary Pomeroy. The teachers were not heavily
paid in the early days. The ladies would get as low as $1.25 and up to
$2 a week in the summer schools. There was quite a discussion at first
about how long school should be kept.
That it should be nine hours a day was agreed, but some were of the
opinion and some not, that for the munificent wages school should be taught
six days in the week. The second schoolhouse was a log one, on Section
20, built
in 1840, and the third on Section 19, about 1842.
Besides the early preaching already mentioned,
a Presbyterian society met at Forest Grove, southwest of
Davis' Mill, and the United Brethren and Free-Will Baptists
had meetings occassionally in various places. All
these small socities worked together for the common good. At present
the Methodist meeting place is Shipshewana Schoolhouse, included in the
Middlebury Circuit, now under charge of Rev. John T. Blakemore.
In 1838, Newbury experienced its share of the
ague and bilious fever. Like the rain of that spring, it fell on
all alike, and like the drought of the fall, it had no intermission. Drs.
Latta, of Goshen, and Elliott, of Middlebury would call about
twice a week upon the unfortunate shakers. There was quite a mortality
among the young on account of the fever.
The hopes of the settlers were raised to a
considerable height by the talk in an early day of the Buffalo & Mississippi
Railroad, and deeply sunk by its failure. The road was surveyed through
the northern part of the township. The same experience was repeated by
a preliminary survey of the Baltimore & Ohio road in later years.
In 1839, Amos Davis was chosen an Associate
Judge for the county, and held the position until the abolition of the
office, sitting on the bench with Judges Hobbs and Spaulding.
Mr. Davis was born in Loudon County,
Va., in 1797. When yet a boy, he went to Ohio, where his parents settled
in Fairfield County. He was a man of ability and energy. Mr. Davis represented
LaGrange and Elkhart Counties in the Legislature in 1862-64, and was active
on the side of the war party in the struggle between Gov. Morton and the
majority of the Legislature. He removed to Greenfield Mills, and died October
5, 1867, from the
effects of an injury received on his seventieth birthday. His son Hezekiah
Davis, was eleven years of age when
he first saw Newbury, and has ever since remained here. He has served
the county as Commissioner for thirteen years, beginning in 1853. In 1848,
he moved to his present commodious residence in Section 2, which is a
portion of his farm. Newbury has always been remarkable for its quietness
and freedom from crime. Of
course, there has been a law-suit now and then, but, as a rule, she
furnishes little litigation. The first law-suit in the township was before
Justice
Davis, and between Sylvanus Lamb and Charles Hascall
over a difficulty in the division of land. This called in lawyers- Mitchell,
of Constantine, and Chamberlain, of Goshen. No causes celebres have
come from Newbury since that time. Especially since the Amish and other
German sects have
taken up the most of the township has everything been peaceful.
There was once a case of horse-thieving which caused considerable sensation.
Three horses were stolen in 1855, or thereabouts, and taken to Pennsylvania,
whence the owner received them after expending much more than their value
in the search.
As far as the records show, the following is
a list of the Justices of Newbury: Amos Davis, 1837-42;
Andrew Ashbaugh,1842-47; Alexander W. Poynter, 1845-50;
Perley
R. Cady, 1852-57; John Butt, 1859-71; Benjamin F. Lieb,
1856-60; Oliver Lampman, 1859-67; Jacob Hines, 1863-69; H.
J. Vandorsten, 1869-73; William Wiler, 1873-75; Horatio
Halbert, 1875-84; Michael Hoff, 1880-84. At the census of 1880,
there were found to be the following named persons, residents of the township,
who were over seventy-five years of age: Horatio Halbert, seventy-seven;
George Miller, eighty-five; Joel Yoder, eighty; Fannie
Miller, eighty-three; Francis Walter, eighty-four.
In 1844, an event of great importance was the
first settlement of members of the Amish Church, in the southwest portion
of the township. Daniel and Joseph Miller came on horseback
to Davis' place, on a prospecting tour, out two months from Somerset
County, Penn. They stopped here and bought farms, Daniel Miller
taking the old Woodbridge place. Soon after, Christian Bontrager
and Joseph Bontrager bought farms in Sections 19 and 20. This was
the beginning of an inflow of Germans from Pennsylvania, at first, and
later from Holmes County, Ohio. Emanuel Miller, who bought land
in Section 29, and Philip Weirick were also among the earliest settlers.
John
C. Yoder, familiarly called the doctor, on account of his skill in
healing some of the human ills, came in November, 1844, from Somerset County,
where he was born in 1821. He still resides
upon his farm near the Moses Kaufman mill-race (1849), on the Little
Elkhart, and is a patriarch among the
original Amish. This branch of the church, which is distinguished by
a strict observance of all the old customs, has
a large membership among the Germans, who now occupy almost the whole
of Newbury. There are three
districts of the old school in the township, the southern one having,
in 1881, 161 members, the western 100, and the northern, including part
of Van Buren, about one hundred and twenty. Each district has its Bishop
and two ministers. The Bishop alone can perform the rites of baptism and
marriage. At present this position is held by Dr. Yoder and David
Kaufman. The peculiar characteristic of the church is a literal
observance of every injunction
of the Scriptures, as they understand them. There are no meeting-houses,
but they meet at the homes of the members; no written creed is used by
the church; the apostolic rite of feet-washing is observed at the meetings.
But the most obvious characteristic is that no ornament of any kind
is tolerated on the person, nor in the way of paint or plaster in the houses,
nor any brilliant coloring about the buildings. The natural grace and beauty
of the person is altogether unthought of, or only considered as a snare
of the evil one. As no conformity to the world is allowed, something like
a German peasant costume is still used, and as buttons are under the ban,
hooks and eyes supply the neccessary fastenings. Lightning rods were for
sometime forbidden. As for literature, there is nothing in much favor but
the sacred Scriptures. The Amish seem to conform their social lives especially
to Paul's
instructions to the Corinthians, and renounce the world, even to the
extent of casting out from among themselves
all who have worldly failings. In avoiding the world, politics, of
course is somewhat neglected, but more formerly than of late. German
is also spoken continually in their home life, and this is another "tie,"
and distinction from the "world." A marked degree of mortality pervades
this people. The children are educated to read and write well,
but higher studies are considered useless. Financially they are prudent,
frugal and successful, and allow none of their members to depend upon the
county for support. Besides this home charity, foreign charities are well
contributed to. In many of these particulars, the other German socities
agree with the Old Amish. There are four branches of the church in this
township. The other leading one is the New Amish, which is about twenty-five
years old, and has about two hundred members. It has but one meeting-place,
a frame church, erected in 1863,
at the Forks, which cost some $600, and seats 500 persons. In 1881,
Jonas
Troyer was the Bishop, with four subordinate preachers- Emanuel
Hostettler, Seth Troyer, Christian S. Plank and Christian
Miller. The
new church believes in going into the water for baptism, while the
old adheres to sprinkling on dry land. There is also no rule in regard
to clothing, and more freedom in customs. The Mennonite Church resembles
the Amish, being, infact, the original from which the Amish sprang, and
a union between them is not unlikely. The Mennonites have a church upon
the Baubage road, at Lake Shore, which was erected in the fall of 1874.
The German Baptist Church, or "Dunker," has
a large following in this township. The earliest efforts of the church
were in 1854, when meetings were begun in the Poynter Schoolhouse. In 1857,
the church was partly organized, and Samuel Doney and Samuel
Lupold appointed deacons. Samuel Lupold has remained one of
the ministers and elders till the present. David Evans and Benjamin
Leer have also served as ministers. At the
present time, David M. Truby is elder of the district, including
Newbury, and Benjamin Leer minister of the Shipshewana Church. On
Christmas, 1874, this society dedicated a frame church, on the land of
Samuel Lupold, which is valued at $700. Regular meetings are held
here fortnightly, and a Sunday school at the Marsh Schoolhouse. The membership
of the church is about ninety.
The post office of Pashan was established in
1844, and was kept at the house of Amos Davis until his removal,
when it was discontinued. In 1872, it was re-established at a small settlement
north of the Baubaga road, near the center of the township. This little
"burg," in 1881, is in possession of one business house, a store,
kept by Harmon Stutsman, who is also Deputy Postmaster; the chief
in this department is Dr. Myers, the resident physician. These,
with the smithy, make up the business part of the settlement. In 1881,
a post office was
established at the neighborhood called Lake Shore, near Hood Lake,
and the official name of the post office is Shore. It, as well as Pashan
and Emma, lies on the mail route between Goshen and LaGrange. In 1881,
the neighborhood contained about twelve families. Dr. W. H.. Shrock,
who has been here four years in the practice of medicine, holds the position
of Postmaster. The omnipresent blacksmith shops are owned by Benedict
Miller
and Jacob Lupold. Amos Walters, who has been a resident
for many years, owns a steam saw-mill which was built here about 1870,
by Charles and Monroe Atwater, and does an extensive business
in lumbering. A schoolhouse and the Mennonite Church are on the shore of
the lake. In the southeast corner of the township is
the settlement and post office, now called Emma; formerly the place
was known as Eden Mills, but went down under that title. The saw-mill here
is within Newbury, and is owned by Joseph Schrock. Jacob and
Andrew Hostettler are the propietors of a store, and the former
attends to the United States mail.
Volunteer transcription by Pati Blowers May. Material for transcription
gathered by Barbara Henderson.
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