History of Whitley County, Indiana

All life and achievement is evolution; present wisdom comes from past experience, and present commercial prosperity has come only from past exertion and suffering. The deeds and motives of the men that have gone before have been instrumental in shaping the destinies of later communities and states. The development of a new country was at once a task and a privilege. It required great courage, sacrifice and privation. Compare the present conditions of the residents of Whitley county, Indiana, with what they were one hundred years ago. From a trackless wilderness it has come to be a center of prosperity and civilization, with millions of wealth, with systems of intersecting railways, grand educational institutions, marvelous industries and immense agricultural productions. Can any thinking person be insensible to the fascination of the study which dis- closes the incentives, hopes, aspirations and efforts of the early pioneers who so strongly laid the foundation upon which has been reared the magnificent prosperity of later days. To perpetuate the story of these people, and to trace and record the social, political and industrial progress of the community from. its first inception, is the function of the local historian. A sincere purpose to preserve facts and personal memoirs that are deserving of preservation, and which unite the present to the past, is the motive for the present publication. The work has been in the hands of a corps of able writers, who have, after much patient study and research, produced here the most complete history of Whitley county. Indiana, ever offered to the public. A specially valuable and interesting department is that one devoted to sketches of representative citizens of this county whose records deserve perpetuation because of their worth, effort and accomplishment. The publishers desire to extend their thanks to these gentlemen who have so faithfully labored to this end. Thanks are also due to the citizens of Whitley county, Indiana, for the uniform kindness with which they have regarded this undertaking and for their many services rendered in the gaining of necessary information.

In placing the "History of Whitley County, Indiana," before the citizens, the publishers can conscientiously claim that they have carried out the plan as outlined in the prospectus. Every biographical sketch in the work has been submitted to the party interested for correction, and therefore any error of fact. if there be any, is solely due to the person for whom the sketch was prepared.

 

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The surface of Smith township and the greater part of Union is greatly undulating, of a subdued morainic type. The long slopes, large fields and open forests, give to many portions of it the appearance of an English park. Around Coesse it is more irregular, with sharper ridges and numerous tamarack swamps. Southern Union, northern Jefferson and north-eastern Washington are very flat. Mud creek is very nearly the dividing line between the flat and the crumpled country. One feature of this region, not in itself obtrusive, is of special significance to the geologist. A mild boulder belt can be traced from section 34, Smith, in a south-west direction to section 32, Union, beyond which it is lost in the thickly wooded swamps. It is about seven miles long and from a half mile to a mile in width, with well defined edges and as un- mistakable as a highway. The boulders are chiefly granite, rounded and sub-angular, averaging two or three feet in diameter, and the largest twice that size. This belt bears directly toward the divide in sections 35 and 36, Washington, where also boulders are large and numerous. This line extended southward would pass near the city of Huntington where the immense accumulation of boulders has long been a puzzle to geologists. Whether a distinct boulder belt exists in northern Huntington county has not yet been determined.