The Sunday Schools of Lake.
An account of the commencement and growth of the Sunday Schools of
Lake County, Indiana, from about 1840 to 1890.
A Semi-Centennial Volume.
"One Soweth and another reapeth."
T.H. Ball,
Editor and Publisher for the Lake County S. S. Union,
Crown Point, Indiana
1891.
Second and Third Pages:
Copyright, 1891.
By T. H. Ball.
"Whoever occupies a station of moral influence---a station
where his labor lies among the most perilous material with which man can
intermeddle, the affections and dispositions and wills of other people---must
have amazing self-reliance or deplorable callousness, if he is not frequently
crushed down by the solemnity of his position."
Rev. James Hamilton
"By cool Siloam's shady rill
How fair the lily grows!
How sweet the breath, beneath the hill,
Of Sharon's dewy rose!
"Lo! such the child whose early feet
In wisdom's ways have trod,
Whose youthful heart, by influence sweet,
Is upward drawn to God."
Page Four:
Perfect history, including the events of many years,
has not been written. Man does not in anything easily attain perfection.
A good degree of accuracy may be attained in historical research; but written records, made at the time the events took place, may bear some traces of the imperfection of human observation, and the recollections of past events are liable to be more or less imperfect.
I believe this book is the first of its kind in the State of Indiana, and have endeavored to make it as accurate and as near to perfection for such a work as the circumstances would permit.
~T. H. Ball.
(pg. 5)
Wednesday, August 27, 1890, the 25th Anniversary of the
Lake County Sunday-school Convention, was observed as also the 50th Anniversary
of Sunday-school work in Lake county. To the observance of this double
anniversary this memorial volume owes its existance. The records in this
volume were prepared for that occasion or arranged for this work on account
of that occasion.
The exercises of that day were held at the Fair Ground.
The weather was all that could be desired for an out-of-door gathering.
For the closing of August it was a perfect day. And as enjoying such a
day in this grove, where the crowds gathered on three memorable days in
1884; where some, whose memorials will be found on these pages, have enjoyed
with many of us the basket dinners of past years; where children, who will
meet here no more, have mingled their sweet young voices in prayer and
praise; as though on this ground, with these associations, and in this
presence of a large assembly, let the readers of these pages imagine themselves
hearing on one long, delightful, August day, the story of our Sunday-school
work for fifty years.
"Mr. President: As this year of 1890 is, according to our reckoning, the fiftieth year of our Sunday-school work, and as I seem to be left almost the only remaining member of the earliest schools organized in our county which have continued to this year and day, it seems appropriate for me to offer a few introductory word. We hold this year, for our twenty-fifth anniversary exercises,
(pg.6)
a Semi-Centennial celebration of the Sunday-school work
in Lake county; and if any were present here of the Sunday-school poineers---so
far as I know there is not one of them now living---I think they would
be disposed to say, 'We came here into this beautiful and fertile region,
not long after the Indian title to the land was extiinguished, and before
it could be owned by any individual white man, and we brought with us our
Bibles and the Christian Sabbath, and our love for the spiritual welfare
of others. And where those Indians had so lately worshiped the Great Spirit
we gathered our children and our neighbor's children into schools on the
first day of the week, and began to teach them the teachings of the Bible;
and now, as fifty years are closing, there can be named and counted ninety
schools that are or have been in this county of Lake organized by ourselves,
our children, and our successors. Truly may it be said, in an ancient form
of words, "What hath God wrought?""
The Secretary continued:
"Mr. President: As appropriate for such a celebration, quite largely,--- I hope not too largely, for we all are interested, or ought to be interested, in reviewing sometimes work that has been done by others, --- quite largely the exercises for this day are to be historical and commemorative; and, if we may speak of our Sunday-schools as bulwarks and towers, as we might call our churches palaces, we may use again to-day an ancient form of speech and say, "Walk about Zion and go round about her; tell the towers thereof; work ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God forever and ever; he will be our guide even unto death."
This was the introduction to the exercises of the day.
(pg. 7)
The singing of the day was by the Crown Point Methodist
Episcopal school, the Crown Point Presbyterian, the Merrillville school,
the Cedar Lake Union school, the Ross Congregational, the Lake Prairie
Presbyterian, and the Dyer Union school.
There was also a song by fifty girls, which will be given
near the close of these records as here arranged for this bright summer
day.
I. INTRODUCTORY NOTES.
Lake county occupies the northwestern corner of Indiana. The city of Chicago, which once was twelve miles from the State corner-stone on the shore of Lake Michigan, now extends for more than four miles along the west side of the county of Lake. The width of this county is sixteen miles, according to its sections. Lake Michigan, with its grand waves and its huge blocks of ice in spring time, washes it on the north and gives it a beautiful beach of pure sand, with some magnificent sand hills, along which grow the native white pines. The Kankakee River forms its southern boundary, a river that, with its broad northern expanse of island grove-dotted marsh land, and with its many bayous, has been for more than fifty years almost inaccessible from the north to horsemen or to footmen. Between river and lake on the east side the distance is about twenty-eight miles. On the west side it is nearly thirty-seven miles. The entire surface area is about five hundred square miles.
In 1832, the year of the Black Hawk War, the Indian title, except to some floats, was here extinguished.
In 1834 permanent settlement here by pioneer families commmenced. These settlers were called "squatters."
(pg. 8)
In 1836, January 28th, by an act of the Indiana Legislature,
the county, as a civil division, was formed out of then existing counties,
Porter and Newton, and the infant county of Lake was attached to Porter
in respect to civil jurisdiction.
By another legislative act, January 18, 1837, it was declared that Lake should be an independent county after February 15, 1837.
The land had been laid out into townships and sections by United States surveyors in 1834.
In 1839, the land came "into market," and the United States land sale was opened at La Porte, March 19th of that year.
In 1840, by a re-location, Crown Point became the county seat.
Of the five hundred square miles of surface here, about
one hundred are in the noted Calumet Region; and seventy-five are in the
Kankakee Region, in that remarkable valley of lowland and sand ridges and
island groves, of which Indiana there are about five hundred square miles.
II. SUNDAY-SCHOOL PIONEERS.
Upon the newly surveyed Government lands, before Lake county was formed, a very few families made claims, erected log-cabins, and became pioneer settlers in 1834. Other families came in 1835. And into the new county of 1836, and the organized, independent county of 1837, laying claim to some of the beautiful prairie and to more of the open woodlands, many more families came and established homes for their women and children, by building, with axe and hammer, their cabins, with stick and mud chimneys, in the woodlands and in the groves. The open prairies, the home of
(pg. 9)
tens of thousands of pinnated grouse, where roamed the
prairie wolves and fed the deer, remained tenantless. In a strip of woodland,
some six miles south from the center of the county, named by one of the
pioneers Pleasant Grove, a settlement was formed in 1835 by some Bryant
families and others, and the locality for a few years was called Bryant
Settlement. Among these were E. Wayne Bryant, one of the early Methodists,
and Elias Bryant, one of the earliest Presbyterians.
In 1837 Ephraim Cleveland, a Methodist, settled in this grove, other Methodist families having already settled northward. Pleasant Grove therefore became an early church and Sunday-school center. Here was organized, probably, the first Methodist class in the county. The date assigned by Mrs. S. G. Wood, who has studied the Methodist history of this county, is 1836. According to official authority, the Conference Minutes, which the writer of this had the privilege of examining at the home of Rev. W. J. Forbes, in Valparaiso, not long before his death, in 1834 Stephen R. Ball was stationed on the South Bend Circuit, and in that year there were no settlements, properly so called, and but few settlers in what became Lake county. In 1835 Deep River Mission was formed, Stephen Jones Missionary, and in the latter part of that year some small neighborhoods were found by him in this county. In 1836 Jacob Colelazer was Missionary.
In 1837 Hawley B. Beers. (The Conference appointments, it should be borne in mind, do not begin with January and end with December; and also, men are appointed sometimes and the labor is performed by others. The Conference Minutes, therefore, and our own pioneer knowledge of the actual facts do not always seem to agree.)
(pg. 10)
In 1838, Samuel K. Young was Missionary. Settlements
had extended southward, and in 1839 Kankakee Mission was formed, William
J. Forbes Missionary. On his entire field, taking more than Lake county,
were then about one hundred members. The pioneers had come, but as yet
no mention appears of Sunday schools.
Near the southwest part of the up-land of the county, on West Creek, a little neighborhood was formed of Hathaway and Hayden families with some others, and here was another early Methodist center. Still another, a third, was in the eastern part of the county at Hickory Point.
Another early church and Sunday-school center was at Orchard Grove, in the south part of the county, where Charles Kenney, who had been a Sunday-school man in Maine, near Augusta, and afterward near Bangor, made his home in January, 1838, with two sons and other members of his family, coming the whole distance from "down east" in Maine, in a wagon drawn by four horses.
A family that would thus travel that distance, in the winter time, over the roads that then were or were not, would be expected to bring with them New England hardihood and enterprise, intelligence and religious principle. Well may such be numbered among our Sunday-school pioneers.
In the summer of 1837 claims were made about five miles southwest of the center of the county, at Cedar Lake, on the west side, by Hervey Ball, of West Springfield, Massachusetts, on the southeast and south by Lewis Warriner and Norman Warriner, also natives of West Springfield, these being three of the Baptist pioneers of the county. These, in connectin with the Church and Cutler families, of Prairie West, two miles
(pg. 11)
north of Cedar Lake, settlers from New York in 1836,
commenced immediately to hold religious meetings. They united together
as a church June 17, 1838, Elder French, of Porter county, being present
and conducting the business exercises. This church was officially recognized
by a "council" as the Cedar Lake Baptist church, May 19th, 1839.
Norman
Warriner was soon ordained as pastor here. And here, so far as may now
be known, was organized, was probably organized, the first Lake county
Sunday school. (Other schools will assert their claims to this distinction,
and by the readers all the claims should be fairly weighed.) Of this Cedar
Lake school, Hervey Ball was superintendent. It was organized as a Union
school, and a Union school for fifty years in has remained.
As the history of these Baptist pioneers has been given in "The Lake of the Red Cedars," a volume of 357 pages, and as the history of their school will in this volumes be given, no further mention need be made of them here. Whether their school should date 1839 or 1840, cannot now be determined.
Passing now to the center of the county, where the earliest settlement was made in 1834 and 1835, by men not members of any church, Mrs. Fancher, wife of Richard Fancher, of Fancher's Lake, and Mrs. Harriet Warner Holton, both among the settlers of 1835, were the first Presbyterian pioneer women. Mrs. Holton was a widow coming here with two sons, known as Warner and William, and one daughter. She was born in Massachusetts, January 15, 1783. In some repects she was the most remarkable woman ever a resident in Lake county. In addtion to these two, there came in 1836 Mrs. Eddy, the first wife of Russell Eddy, with one son and two daughters. She was then a Baptist from Troy, New York, but soon became a Presbyterian,
(pg. 12)
and one of the most active members of the Presbyterian
church when that church was at length organized. To her credit probably
belongs of giving Bible instruction to children before any others had commenced
this work in the county. Her husband, who outlived her for many years,
stated that she gathered her own children and those of her brother, Henry
Wells, and some other children, into her room at some hour on Sunday, and
together they read and studied the Scriptures. This was in 1838, or possibly
1837. But this gathering was not called a Sunday school, and no formal
school was opened in the hamlet days of "Lake Court House." Soon, however,
a shepherd came. Rev. J. C. Brown, Presbyterian pastor at Valparaiso, came
into Lake county in January, 1840; preached at Cedar Lake (then, probably,
the most prominent religious center in the county, where the first Baptist,
Presbyterian, and Lutheran sermons were preached); found Elias Bryant,
at Pleasant Grove, Mrs. Woodruff at Orchard Grove, the Woodbridge and
Humphrey
families from New England, on Eagle Creek Prairie; found
Mrs. Fancher,
Mrs.
Holton and
Mrs. Eddy, and commenced meetings in the "Old Log Court House."
This building, erected by the enterprise of Solon Robinson and others,
in 1837, became not only the county court-house, but was church and lecture
hall for the village and county for ten or more years.
Here Elder Warriner, of Cedar Lake, who became a resident of Crown Point, and Mr. Brown, both of whom began to preach regularly in the audience room, with the Baptist pioneers of Cedar Lake, and the Presbyterian women who have been mentioned, organized and carried on the Crown Point Union Sunday school, whether in 1840 or 1841 can not now with certainty be determined. Mrs. Strait, of Chicago, formerly Miss Josephine Robinson,
(pg. 13)
daughter of Solon Robinson, then a child and member of
Mrs. Eddy's class in that school, can not with certainty place the school
earlier than 1841. Mrs. Susan Clark, a niece of Mrs. Eddy, also a member
of that school, can give no date with certainty. Three of us remain who
were children in that school then. The teachers, the officers, the founders,
have passed away, and written records are not to be found. One early member
of the Presbyterian church remains, known for these many years as Deacon
Mason, severty-nine years of age, and he attributes largely the organization
of the school of Elder Warriner, the first resident minister in Crown Point,
but cannot give a certain date. Early in 1843, Elder Warriner removed to
Illinois, and in the spring of that year, Rev. M. Allman came from Michigan,
and became a resident in Crown Point. He was a Methodist, English by birth
and training; "a local preacher of more than ordinary ability;" and he,
for a time, took part in this Union school.
The fifty years history of this school will be given in its place by one of its present active members.
The third school to be noticed here, it may possibly have been the first in the county, was in that growing neighborhood of Pleasant Grove. As some are yet living who were interested here, and as illustrating the difficulty in determining among seven pioneer schools, which was in reality first, the date of orgainzation of not one of the seven having been found, the full evidence in regard to this school will be presented. Ephraim Cleveland, who died in 1845, was the first, and until his death, the only superintendent. His son, T. Cleveland, a lawyer of Crown Point, thinks the school was organized in 1842 or 1843. E. W. Bryant, an active Methodist, who settled here in 1835, has already been named. His daughter, Mrs. Maria McCarty,
(pg. 14)
now of Indianola, Iowa, thinks the school was organized
in 1840 with Ephraim Cleveland as Superintendent. She says that "he and
her father, Mrs. Cleveland, Mrs. Bryant and two others" were the teachers.
Mr. B. Bryant, a son of E. W. Bryant, writes, that in the summer of 1835
John Kitchel arranged with E. W. Bryant for the two families to meet in
the home of the latter "every Sabbath and read the Scriptures and have
something like a Sunday school." Referring to this his sister, Mrs. McCarty,
writes: "I do not think there was any organization at that time."---Young
readers may be reminded that the question now under consideration is connected
largely with the memory of children. These living and giving testimony
now were quite young children then.--Now, according to the Claim Register,
the oldest documentary evidence in Lake county concerning its early settlers,
E.
W. Bryant
came here as a settler in 1835, but the evidence from that Register
is that
John Kitchel came in 1836. But Mr. Bryant further says, that the
first regularly organized Sunday school, according to the best of his recollection,
was held in the house of Ephraim Cleveland. He says, "This was, I think,
in 1837." But he adds, "It was the summer following the fall that
Mr. Cleveland
came to Lake county." There is no conflict of testimony, it is perfectly
established that the Cleveland
family came in 1837.
Mr. Bryant's last statement,
therefore, will place the organization of the Pleasant Grove school in
1838. Here again, Mrs. McCarty says, "When the Sunday school was organized
I think there was fifteen or twenty scholars and perhaps five or six teachers."
To this date of 1838 there appears one objection. That summer was one of
"severe drouth and great sickness." In proportion to the number of inhabitants
it was a summer of many deaths. "The summers of 1838 and 1846 are
(pg. 15)
the two most noted for sickness in the annuals of Lake."
At Cedar Lake, where there was quite a strong church organization, the
record for the summer of 1838 says, "From continued distressing sickness,
no meetings were held until the latter part of winter." This is after a
record of meetings for five Sabbaths. And this sickness was very general
in all the neighborhoods and settlements. Judging from the fact of that
prevailing sickness, which some of us yet living remember well, it would
almost seem that the Pleasant Grove school could not have been earlier
than 1839.
The fourth to be noticed, among these seven schools, was at West Creek, where the Hathaway and Hayden families settled. A Methodist church building was erected here in 1843, and in this building probably in the same year, a school was organized. Peter Hathaway had three sons, Silas, Abram, and Bethuel. Of Silas it is said, "He was a good man, a useful citizen, a beautiful singer;" and as a singer he would surely find a place in the school. His father, probably his borthers also, took an active part in the school. Others who are named as active members by almost the only survivor of these early settlers, Mrs. Spalding, were, John Fisher and wife, Cooper Brooks and wife, Lyman Foster and wife, A. D. Foster, and Mrs. Hayden, wife of Nehemiah Hayden, one of those early settlers; also Andrew Moore. The Superintendent was Adam Hamilton, called "Father Hamilton," and he seems to have continued in office most of the time till he removed to Momence. He at length removed over the river, and then passed over the viewless river. He was evidently another of those good and useful men whose names as pioneer, church, and school workers should be kept by their descendants in lasting remembrance.
The fifth of these schools was at Hickory Point,
(pg. 16)
where a Methodist church building was erected about 1844.
The facts gleaned in regard to this school will be elsewhere given. In
that neighborhood great changes have taken place. It does not look like
a church center now.
The sixth of these seven schools recognized as our earliest organizations, is the school at Orchard Grove. Charles Kenney, the Sunday-school worker from Maine, opened a school in his home with eight or nine children as the scholars, about 1842. He also conducted a school in the log school-house at Plum Grove about the same time, but that school was not kept up. The one commenced in the Kenney home is the present Orchard Grove school.
The last of these pioneer schools to be here named was organized at Southeast Grove, by Orlando V. Servis, perhaps in 1839, perhaps in 1840. Among the Grove Schools its history will be given.
There are found, then, thus far, as the family names of
our Sunday-school pioneers, men, women, and children, among the Methodists,
Bryant,
Cleveland, Hathaway, Hayden, Hamilton, Allman, Servis, Kenney; among the
Presbyterians, Holton, Fancher, Eddy, Humphrey, Woodbridge, Bryant; among
the Baptist, Warriner, Church, Cutler, Ball. Of the Methodists there were
probably others whose names in other connections will be found, and especially
the name of Rev. Robert Hyde, a local preacher, if not an appointed missionary,
active and young in 1839, who lived in this county several years and died
in Chicago in 1883.
One of our early schools, commenced perhaps as early as 1842, was held at the home place of William W.
(pg. 17)
Paine. Here was for a few years a place for regular Methodist
preaching. A class was organized, of which W. W. Paine was leader. Of the
school J. Foley was Superintendent. This locality is a little more than
two miles south and west from Crown Point, on the road to Creston and Cedar
Lake. The school was not in existence long, as all those early families
soon removed from the county. At this school took place an instructive
incident. The lesson for the day was in Acts, chapter 23. They had reached
verse 23, where mention is made of two hundred soldiers, of three score
and ten horsemen, and of "spearmen two hundred," and about the latter,
which they called sparemen, they began to talk. Some wondered if these
were men they had to spare, so were sending them away, or perhaps they
were thin, lean, spare men. At length, the Superintendent himself is credited
with asking, "What does s p e a r spell, anyhow?" And some one suggested
the ordinary pronunciation, spear. They were of a class that knew well
what spears were, and in an instant the meaning of the whole verse was
clear. This school was composed mainly of those whom the settlers from
the East called hoosiers. Their school advantages had been few. The instruction
is this: If a knowledge of the English alphabet and of the proper pronunciation
of common words is needful to enable Sunday-school teachers and scholars
to understand the meaning of the English Scriptures, may not yet more knowledge
be desirable and needful? May it not be desirable to gain a fair knowledge
of the ordinary laws of language, of the general principles of interpretation,
even of Orientalisms, of poetic, of rhetorical figures, of the deeper principles
involved in the structure of language? To state the deeper, underlying
principle on which many now profess to rely, is it safe to expect the Holy
Spirit to
(pg. 18)
teach one and to guide one, in reading the Scriptures,
in respect to those things ordinarily taught in the schools? Ought not
all Sunday-school teachers to learn, or try to learn, how to read well,
how to pronounce words correctly, and to gain all the knowledge practicable
from the ordinary lesson helps? Can one become too intelligent for obtaining
and explaining correctly the meaning of Scriptures? The members of the
Center Prairie school were zealous, they were in earnest. Their devotion
and their earnestness entitled them to large respect. They would have welcomed
gladly the "helps" of our day. They improved their opportunities for gaining
knowledge. Their leaders have a right to place among our pioneers.
III. THE PRESBYTERIAN SCHOOL OF CROWN POINT.
A FIFTY YEARS' RECORD. BY MRS. J. FISHER.
Fifty years ago Elder Norman Warriner, a Baptist clergyman;
J. C. Brown, a Presbyterian minister;
Mrs. Russel Eddy, Mrs. Richard Fancher,
Mrs. H. Holton, and
Miss Harriet Holton, elect women, moved by a desire
to serve the Master and save perishing souls, met in the old log court
house in Crown Point, and organized the first Sunday school in the county,
in 1840. It was a Union school in which Baptist, Methodists, and Presbyterians
labored together for the Lord, the ministers superintending when present,
and Mrs. Eddy in their absence. The Cutler and Church families of Western
Prairie and the Ball family of Cedar Lake also attended. In 1843 the Methodists,
under the leadership of Rev. Major Allman, withdrew and formed a school
of their own. The Baptists and Presbyterians continued the school until
1846, when the Presbyterians, under pastorate of the Rev. William Townley,
having built a
(pg. 19)
new church, left the court house, retained the name of
Union till about 1856 (and then continued as a Presbyterian school), superintended
by the pastor, who remained ten years.
In 1859 J. L. Lower was installed as pastor of the church. He was an earnest worker in the Sunday school, and being a fine musician, did much to improve it. He was ably assisted by Mrs. Sarah Robinson, a loving worker for the little ones; Rev. John Binney, a Baptist minister who took a deep interest in Sunday school work, and Miss Mary E. Parsons, principal of a young ladies' school, a devoted Christian woman of high culture and strong influence, of whom the church record of a revival in 1860 says: "A remarkable fact respecting this revival is that nearly all who came forward are or have been pupils of Miss Parsons' school."
The school was usually superintended by the pastors. Mrs. Almon Foster was Superintendent in 1865 or near that time.
In later years Mr. Charles F. Griffin was for ten years our efficient and beloved Superintendent, laboring faithfully for the upbuilding and advancement of the school, only resigning when called to serve the State as Secretary. He was followed by Professor Voorhees, principal of the public school, who was succeeded in 1889 by our pastor, Rev. L. W. A. Luckey, under whose fostering, prayerful care the school is gaining in numbers and, we trust, in spirituality.
For many years Mrs. N. C. Cornell did excellent work both as organist and teacher, first of a boys' class and then of the young ladies' class.
From 30 pupils in 1861, 35 in 1863, 40 in 1865, the school now numbers 103 pupils and 10 teachers. For several years we have had a birthday box in which teachers and scholars deposit as many pennies as they
(pg. 20)
are years old, which is sent to aid the Sunday-school
work in needy portions of the country. We have also taken a collection
for this work Children's Day, and for two years the school has sent a Christmas
offering to the Waifs' Mission, in which all have joined, even the infant
class. What are the results of this work? Only the Master can tell. Of
its pupils one, Mrs. Annie Turner Morgan, spent eight years in India as
a Baptist missionary. Two are leading ministers of the Gospel; Henry Johnson,
D.D., pastor of a large Presbyterian Church in South Bend, a man of culture,
piety, and wide influence; and
Edwin A. Schell, a prominent Methodist minister
now in Yonkers, N.Y. Hon. Charles F. Griffin was associated with the school
as scholar and superintendent many years, and many others who, through
not so prominent, are doing good work in the Lord's vineyard.
The addtions to the church membership have come largely
from the Sunday school. Of one class of young ladies (Mrs. Ainsworth's)
all but one united with our church, and she with the Epsicopal. So we labor
in hope, knowing that God will bless us if we do our work faithfully. Of
those who first organized the school not one remains. All have gone to
their reward, and their works do follow them.
MRS. HARRIET WARNER HOLTON. It is fitting that somewhere, amid the records of Lake county, should be found more than a passing notice of one, who, fifty-five years ago, then in middle life, came with a little band of pioneer settlers into this almost unbroken solitude.
As authority for reviewing, even briefly, such a life as was hers, I might refer to the Scripture narrative, as given by Mark, of that woman who anointed the Saviour of the world before he suffered, and of
(pg. 21)
whom he said: "She hath done what she could." Of her
a record was made to go down through all the coming time. Of other women
since that day, following the example, not only of the New Testament, but
also of records in the Old Testament, memorials have been preserved of
their virtues, and trials, and good deeds, by those who had no special
guidance to teach them what to say, and what to leave unsaid; and these
memorials form choice portions of the wealth of biographic literature.
The example and the lessons of a long life may have for us and others a
permanent value. The teaching which I would interweave in this brief review
may be drawn from the record given us by John concerning Mary of Bethany,
who, in Bethany, anointed the Saviour's feet with a pound of very costly
ointment. Surely, it was this same Mary, who is mentioned by Mark, who
was in Simon's house, and who anointed also the Saviour's head. The teaching
is this: That relationship with Jesus of Nazareth in heart, in life, in
good deeds, forms the choicest and most imperishable memorial that can
immortalize a woman. Station, wealth, power, beauty, talent, may cause
names to live long in time's annals; but if a woman's name is not written
in the Lamb's Book of Life, the time is coming when it must sink into darkness,
if not into oblivion forever.
It may not be possible, as an actual fact, for any member of the human race to pass into absolute forgetfulness; for, in the unending ages of the existence before us, in that mighty future which we sometimes call eternity, there may be recalled, in perfect memories, one by one, an image and a thought of every loved and lost one of all this unnumbered race. As to this I know not; but I have a right to be sure, whatever comes, whatever yet may be, that the Life Book names
(pg. 22)
will shine in resplendent glory in the great kingdom
of the future.
HARRIET WARNER, daughter of General Warner, was born in Hardwick, Massachusetts, January 15, 1783. It was that eventful year which witnessed the closing scenes of the American Revolution; the year in which, on the historic 19th of April, the cessation of hostilities was proclaimed in the American Army; in which, on September 3d, the treaty of peace was signed at Paris; and in which, the army disbanding November 3d, Washington, taking leave of his officers at New York, resigned to the Congress at Annapolis his commission as Commander-in-Chief, December 23d, and retired to Mount Vernon.
Commencing her infant existence before any of these events, Harriet Warner, who became Mrs. Holton, remained among us as one of the very few connecting those times with our own until the autumn of 1879.
Of the incidents of her childhood and youth almost nothing is now known. She had two brothers, William Augustus Warner, years ago a wealthy citizen of Massachusetts, and Jonathan Warner, a business man of Boston. She had seven sisters. Miss Harriet Warner commenced active life as a New England teacher in Westminster. She there became acquainted with a young law student, Alexander Holton, to whom she was married about the year 1804. In 1816 the young Holton family left the comfort and cultivation of New England for the Western wilds. It was the year in which Indiana became a State. Among the Seneca Indians, in Big Valley, whose chief was called Corn Planter, who were engaged in January, 1817, in making maple sugar, the migrating party spent two weeks. Then they continued their route through the woods to the Alleghany river. Fifteen miles back from the
(pg. 23)
river sugar making was again carried on. Along the bank
of the river cabins were built for a brief sojourn; but in March they moved
down to Vevay, Indiana, laid out as a town in 1813, and there settled in
1817. A law office was there opened, and among the law students in that
office were John Dumond and Samuel Merrill, the latter of whom was afterwards
a citizen of Indianapolis. Perhaps wealth did not rapidly accumulate, for
in 1820, the Holton family removed to Vernon, in Jennings county, where
Mrs. Holton resumed for a time her early occupation of teaching. Here,
in 1823, her husband, the lawyer, died, having then five law students in
his office, leaving Mrs. Holton with two sons and one daughter, and with
no large accumulation of property. Here for eleven more years the family
remained. The sons had reached manhood, the one daughter had become a woman.
Then, through Solon Robinson, who left Jennings county and found the wild,
inviting, attractive region that became Lake county, in October of 1834,
tidings came to them that a fine opening for enterprise and for securing
new homes in a fertile, prairie region was then waiting for adventures;
and with little delay, even in midwinter, joining William Clark and family,
Mrs. Holton, with her daughter and son, W. A. W. Holton, set out from Jennings
county for the northwestern corner of Indiana. Something of the hardship
and suffering of that February journey, in wagons drawn by oxen, may be
found recorded in "Lake County, 1872" pages 27 and 28. That month of February,
1835, was, as a winter month, unusually severe; it was no sugar making
month, like the January of 1817; and that they actually crossed the Kankakee
Marsh Region with their ox teams, and came up into the southwestern part
of this Lake county, amid the cold, fierce, freezing winds of that February,
is remarkable.
(pg. 24)
The Holton family, the other son, J. W. Holton, with
his wife and two little children, arriving a few days after the others,
settled where is now Crown Point, making the third family for the little
hamlet.
Here, once more, Mrs. Holton, then fifty-three years of age, resumed the occupation of her early life, and became the first teacher in Lake county. She taught throught the winter of 1835 and 1836. From this time until the infirmities of age came on, Mrs. Holton was active in doing whatever her hands found to do.
About 1840, perhaps a little earlier, or a little later, she made a visit to New England, at the time of her mother's death. That mother was about ninety-four years of age. Then, at Enfield, once more the eight sisters met. These were: Mrs. Robinson, wife of wealthy Governor of Vermont; Mrs. Stuart, wife of Judge Stuart, of Vermont, a man of wealth as well as of position; Mrs. Bradley, wife of a Vermont lawyer; Mrs. Brown, wife of a Massachusetts lawyer; Mrs. Hitchcock, wife of another Massachusetts lawyer; Mrs. Jones, whose husband was a fine penman, a copyist before the days of type-writing; Miss Warner, who never married; and Mrs. Holton, the pioneer woman at Vevay, the pioneer woman at Crown Point, a widow then, and the earliest teacher of children in Lake county; worthy to hold a sister's place among women of wealth and social position in cultivated New England. These eight sisters were all members of the Presbyterian church; and all died of old age, two of them while sitting in their chairs.
After the return of Mrs. Holton to Crown Point, after the organization of the Union school in the log court house, after the organization of the Presbyterian church at Crown Point in 1844, and of the completion of the church building in 1847, she still remained an active and
(pg. 25)
a useful woman. As the years passed and changes came,
her home was transferred from Crown Point to the farmhome of her son, J.
W. Holton, usually called Warner, some four miles northeastward from Crown
Point on Deep River. Here there was but little for her to do except to
engage in household duties. The infirmities of age came creeping on. A
letter from Capt. Woodbury, a neighbor, written before March, 1878, says:
"My acquaintance with Mrs. Holton commenced about twenty years ago or over,
perhaps twenty-four years. She then would walk from her son Warner's to
my house, two miles, with apparent comfort. She being a special favorite
with my wife it was a great pleasure to have her visit us. What made it
more interesting, she having a retentive memory and a well stored mind,
all her natural faculties improved, she could converse on any topic; and
as I had plowed the sea most of my life she was fond of inquiring of different
parts of the Old World. Indeed, it was a great pleasure to converse with
one that could go so far back in the past. She was specially fond of vocal
music, of course the tunes of her younger days. My wife and myself would
sing for hours for her. As she had at that time lost her voice I asked
her if she regretted losing her voice. She said, 'No, I can hum it over
in my mind and it sounds to me as well as it ever did.' Whe we would urge
her to partake of a more hearty meal, she would reply that eating was like
conversation. You could have too much to be digestible. In 1864 was the
last time she visited us. We have been several times to see her." Mentioning
a visit in August, 1875, the letter continues: "She had lost her sight
and was hard of hearing. Her son, William, asked her if she knew different
neighbors, naming them. She replied, 'Yes,' then correcting herself said,
'No, I guess not.' He then asked her if
(pg. 26)
she knew Mr. Woodbury. 'Yes, I guess I do.' was the quick
reply. 'Where is he? I must see him. Oh dear! I can not see you either.
Give me your hand.' ************
'On that blissful shore we shall see each other there, where this mortal body shall put on immortal bloom. I shall see you there.'" There is to the letter a postscript, 1878, March 23d. The last visit. "Her daughter-in-law asked her if she remembered Mr. Woodbury. 'I guess I do. Where is he? Give me your hand, I want to see you. Oh, I shall never see you in this world again. Oh, I am so impatient to go; but the Lord does all things well. We shall meet in the other world, and we shall know each other there.' "
This is the last recorded interview.
Mrs. Holton died
October 17, 1879, almost ninety-seven years of age. As the burial procession
came in sight of Crown Point from the Deep River home where she died; the
then new court-house bell was tolled; the first and the last time its deep
tones have been heard at any of our burial processions. A fitting tribute
it was on that day, as it announced the fact that the mortal remains of
no ordinary woman were nearing the place of burial. Such a woman, in such
a long life, the daughter of an army leader, with her native intelligence,
her New England training, her granitelike, Presbyterian principle, her
devotion, her meekness, her love, must in various ways have accomplished
no little good. As I am glad that among our Sunday-school pioneers, in
this county of Lake, we may record the name of Harriet Warner Holton.
(pg.26)
The date of the organization of the Cedar Lake Union Sunday School has not been exactly ascertained. The shadow of obscurity and of uncertainty that covers
(pg.27)
so many events in the far distant and mighty past comes
very near, sometimes, to this present in which we live. In an early Lake
county diary has been found the exact date of the opening of one of our
earlier schools. Diaries are not very generally kept by children, and the
date of many an event that may sometimes be of interest is left solely
to a fading or an overburdened memory. Annalists become therefore useful
in a community. Well said a writer in the Sunday School Times, "The collection
and preservation of perishable memorials of local antiquarian hisotry is
one of the most praiseworthy of literary tasks." To rescue what can yet
be saved from oblivion of our earliest Sunday-school work in this county
is one of the objects proposed for this anniversary.
A few only are now living who, as children, true pioneer children, living here in those interesting years of frontier life before 1840, were present at the first singing and first prayer and first reading of Scriptures when was organized the Cedar Lake Sunday school. This may have been in 1839. It may have been in 1840. And, in view of the probabilities, so far as the circumstances, it is assumed that this school was the first of the pioneer schools of the county. It was organized on the northwest side of Cedar Lake, at the home of Hervey Ball, who was the first Superintendent, and who continued to be superintendent through most of the years until 1867. The school was continued in the same locality (the large log school house, built in 1838, being occupied as church and Sunday-school room) until 1849 or 1850, when the school house southeast of the lake, near the home of Mr. Horace Edgerton became the place for Sabbath preaching and for Sunday
(pg. 28)
school. In the ten years of school life on the west side
much good had been accomplished through the faithful teaching of the Scripture.
Not long after the organization of the school a visitor came in, who seemed
to enjoy the exercises, and who was evidently interested in the frontier
Sunday-school work. Soon after his return to his New England home a gift
of library books came to Cedar Lake from a school in Massachusetts. Afterwards
funds were raised and a well selected library was obtained from the American
Sunday-School Union. One of the Ball family became school librarian (According
to the memory of one member of this family, Mrs. E. H. Woodard, of Grove
Hill, Ala., born in 1829, in these books was written, "Cedar Lake Union
S. S., 1840." If this recollection is correct---no book can now be found
to verify it---the school must have been organized in 1839. The reader
has already been reminded that in regard to many facts connected with our
pioneer schools the only dependence is the memory of childhood.) These
books were diligently read, and for many years carefully kept. Several
of the members of the school became church members, and one remarkable
instance of conversion took place apparently in connection with one Sunday-school
lesson. (Lake of Red Cedar, page 68.)
In the new locality the school continued to prosper. Within five years, from January, 1850, to April, 1855, some twenty-two members of the school became members of the Cedar Lake Baptist church. These twenty-two were:
Enoch S. McCarty, Daniel Davis, Polly Jane Edgerton, Calvin Taylor, Judson Cutler, Lucy Taylor, Esther Edgerton, Martha Cutler, Jonathan McCarty, Heman Ball, Elisabeth Vinnedge, Laura Thompson, Alvin Taylor, Mary Jane Ball, Catherine Scritchfield,
(pg. 29)
Jane Scritchfield, Susan Davis, Nancy Ann Scritchfield,
Sophia Palmer, Catherine Taylor, Amy Mann,
and
Henrietta Ball. Some of
these are not living now and some are still active Christian workers in
this busy world. That Cedar Lake church disbanded January 17, 1856, but
the Union Sunday school continued. It seems to have had the "grace of continuance."
A new school house was erected a half mile further wouth, and to this, as its place of meeting, the school was removed. The west side library went along with the school. At this, its third locality, the following persons were superintendents: Mr. Pratt, 1868; Philander Cross, 1869; Samuel Love, 1870-74; Elsie Palmer, 1875; Mrs. B. Stuppy, 1876.
Hervey Ball, then known as Judge Ball, died in 1868, having been for more than twenty-five years a Sunday-school superintendent, and surely one of the earliest in the county. Ephraim Cleveland, of Pleasant Grove, who died in 1845, and O. V. Servis, of South East Grove, who also died many years ago, share with him the honor of having been our earliest pioneer superintendents; and it seems impossible to determine now in which of four localities, whether at Pleasant Grove, at South East Grove, at Cedar Lake, or in the log court house, was really opened the FIRST SUNDAY SCHOOL.
When the church building at Creston was ready for use, in 1876, the locality of the Cedar Lake school was again changed. Superintendents at the church building since 1876: Victor Gear, 1876; Reuben C. Wood, 1877-1880; Aleck Scritchfield, 1881; Alfred Edgerton, 1882; O. G. Taylor, 1883; M. A. Nichols, 1884; J. E. Love, 1885; Mrs. J. Hill, 1886; George Edgerton, 1887; Edward Stonix, 1888; B. F. Cross, 1889, 1890; George Taylor, 1890.
(pg. 30)
The school had shown its ability, in accordance with
the impulse and tendency given it by its founders, to remain undenominational
for some sixteen years in connection with a living and growing Baptist
church. For twenty years it lived without any church life near it. And
that same ability it has possessed for now fourteen years in connection
with the Methodist church at Creston. Its members work in harmony with
the church; but in electing its officers, in carrying on its affairs, it
is independent of church action.
Throught the first ten years of its existence this school was at the religious center of a community livng on Prairie West, on the west side of West Creek, and on the east of Cedar Lake. Some came in wagons, some on horseback, some crossed the lake in boats. Sabbath boat rides were taken in those days by members of that community, but not for pleasure. They were going to the place of meeting or returning to their homes; and some of the children were reminded of the boat rides and the fishing, in the Saviour's time, on that noted lake in the Holy Land. Those who carried on the school had been accustomed to Sunday schools in other and older settled States. Of the helps used in those days, question books, commentaries, Bible dictionary, there was no lack. The teachers had shared largely in literary and religious training. The best Sunday-school books published were read by the children. It was a New England school of those days transplanted into a new, wild West.
In its second locality it was still attended by those on the west side, and it became here a very important agency in the training of quite a group of enterprising young people.
Among its members now are children and grandchildren of those who were members in the earlier years.
(pg. 31)
Inheritors of the traditions, although not of the pleasant
associations of the past, may many of these live to reach our hundredth
year.
The following belongs to the later records of this school:
"A RECORD."
Every year, month and day, has its joys and also its sorrows. The Cedar Lake Union Sunday school, one of the oldest in the county of Lake, has lately lost one more of its members----a pupil in the years of her childhood and youth, a teacher in her early womanhood. Miss E. JENNIE TAYLOR, on the last day of the past year, on Tuesday morning, Dec. 31, 1889, passed from the confines of time; passed from her Creston home to the great home of the redeemed. Her grandmother, Mrs. Lucy Taylor, a woman of more than ordinary endowments of person and mind, was a pioneer settler at Cedar Lake in 1836, and died Dec. 10, 1869, 77 years of age; her mother, a pioneer child, a winsome Cedar Lake girl in 1840, now Mrs. Julia A. Taylor of Creston, is still living with her husband, O. G. Taylor, in their village home; but from out that home, ESTHER JENNIE, born May 11, 1868, like her grandmother and mother, a Christian, a church member, winsome in her social relations, pleasant in her home as a daughter and sister, has passed into the relations of another and to us a viewless life. She dwells among those that are unseen by mortal eyes. Six sisters and three brothers went forth into homes of their own, and their little children, growing up around them, are, many of them, members of the Cedar Lake Sunday school.
A few only of the early members of that school are now living, but the little children come trooping in. So broken ranks are more than filled. Although in
(pg. 32)
failing health for the last year, even for the last three
years, sister Jennie attended at Crown Point the last county Sunday-school
convention, the meeting of the Old Settlers' Association, the county fair,
and the Grand Army encampment at Lowell, rideing out and meeting her friends
so long as strength would permit. On Thanksgiving day she was out of the
house and played once more upon her organ. She knew she was soon to leave
this earth. She made what arrangements she wished to make, and patient,
resigned, hopeful, trustful, as became a Christian girl who had just entered
womanhood, conscious to the last and true in her kindred and church relations,
she fell asleep in Jesus.
"Asleep in Jesus! blessed sleep,
From which none ever wakes to weep."
Belonging to the fifty years of teaching the children around Cedar Lake there should not be omitted a record of the RED CEDAR SCHOOL. This was held at the Binyon school house on the east side, nearer to the lake shore than any other school, not far away from Cedar Point, and fittingly it bore the name of Red Cedar. It was probably first commenced by Andrew S. Cutler, now Dr. Cutler, of Kankakee, and his first wife, an active, energetic Christian woman, who died in 1865. This school was carried on by these two young and zealous workers, in 1864.
It was re-opened by T. H. Ball and Mrs. M. K. Hill, with others, in 1884. Cedar Lake had now become a great pleasure resort, yet a very interesting school was for a time kept up here, and many children and young people received the precious, life-giving teachings of the Scriptures.
Changes among the families soon took place, and it was impracticable longer to to continue the school or any
(pg. 33)
religious services at the Red Cedar school home. Mrs.
Hill found other Sunday-school work to do at Oak Grove, where her short
life soon closed. The Red Cedar school, like several others that have been
in our county, belongs now only to the past.
V. PLEASANT GROVE.
Under the heading of "Sunday-School Pioneers" seven schools were named as having been organized somewhere between 1838 and 1843. A certain date was found for none. Assuming 1840, or, according to the recollections of Mr. B. Bryant, then a boy about ten years of age, 1839 or 1838, as the date of organization for Pleasant Grove, it remains now to place on record what further facts have been found concerning this early school. It is placed beyond question that Ephraim Cleveland was the first superintendent and that he continued in office until his death in 1845. E. W. Bryant was his successor and the school was still at the Cleveland house. It is in the personal knowledge of the writer that in 1847 William Pleasant McCarty, then a young public school teacher and Methodist church member, was Superintendent. The following is a diary record: "September 26, 1847. Went to Pleasant Grove in the morning. Delivered an address to the Sunday school." "After the school attended a prayer meeting. Most all were young. Quite interesting." That address, as delivered, written out in full, now lies on this manuscirpt copy. It was, perhaps----------that word is very needful in the statements which these researchers authorize----- the first address to a Sunday school written in this county. Another diary record is, date October 11th: "Yesterday went down to the Pleasant Grove Sunday school again. A person was expected to address the school, as it was then to close, but he did not come."
(pg. 34)
So the dairy writer gave an unwritten address. The closing
referred to in the diary record was probably in order to go into winter
quarters. Evergreen schools in Indiana were not so common then as now.
Echo says, not too common now.
In this summer of 1847 the school was held in the Grove school house, and when removed, either in the spring or in 1846, it had been reorganzied by Rev. Robert Hyde, the then young Methodist preacher of the county. Who succeeded W. P. McCarty is not known. Rev. G. W. Taylor was then living near the school house in Pleasant Grove---from 1845 to 1849---and he and his large family would naturally be interested in keeping up the school. Probably no change in officers for some time took place.
In a few years a church building was erected south of the school house, in the same grove, and to this the school was removed. Two dates are found for this church building, 1851 and 1853. Here the Pleasant Grove Sunday school was kept up (superintendents T. Cleveland, Adam Hamilton Jr., and C. Templeton, perhaps others) until the present town of Lowell was founded and that began to be a school and a church center. In 1863, at Pleasant Grove, C. Templeton was Superintendent, and this school commenced, at his suggestion, visiting the neighboring schools at Lowell and Orchard Grove for the purpose of gaining more knowledge in school methods, and for stimulating each other in the work. This exchange of school courtesies led to the large Sunday-school assembly at Lowell in August of 1863. Then, it is said, Judge Ball, of Cedar Lake, proposed that a similar assembly should be held every year. This led to the county organization in 1865; after the summer assembly that year on the east side of Cedar Lake. Thus singularly the two pioneer schools
(pg. 35)
of Pleasant Grove and Cedar Lake co-operated in forming
the Lake County Sunday-school Union.
Mrs. S. G. Wood says: "Lake County, 1884." page 196: "In 1870 the M. E. church of Lowell was built, and accordingly the Pleasant Grove church was abandoned and all concentrated in this new one in Lowell." At this time, it would seem, if not before, the Pleasant Grove school, as such, ceased to exist. The Cedar Lake school changed its locality three times, but it has preserved its name and kept not very far from the lake. A church center Pleasant Grove has ceased to be. For thirty years such a center it truly was.
VI. THE GROVE SCHOOLS
It is taken for granted that all readers of this book have access to a map of Lake county. The location, therefore, of these schools need not be marked out. Of South East Grove it may be said that it is rather the finest upland grove of the county, nearly circular in form, covering an area of about one mile, and comprising parts of four sections. Here an early settlement of enterprising families was made. Early family names of this grove are: Morris, Parkinson, Smith, Servis, Flint, Ketchum, Thompson, Brown, Wallace, Crawford, Bray, Fisher, Cochran, Durland, Kingsbury, Post. These are found between 1835 and 1850. Some of these families were Methodist and some Presbyterian.
The date once found for the organization of the first school here was 1845; but researchers made this year lead to an earlier, yet an uncertain date.
From Louis Parkinson, a resident in 1837, it has been ascertained that the first school was orgainzed by Orlando V. Servis in his own log cabin, which "cabin," Mrs. William Brown, of the Wallace family, states,
(pg. 36)
"with eighty acres of land, was purchased by Lyman Wallace
in 1842." Mrs. Brown further says, that when the family came in 1843, a
log building, on land then or afterward owned by Gibson Parkinson, was
used for school, church, and Sabbath school; and that
O. V. Servis or Robert
Thompson generally superintended the school. The school, then, was in existence
before 1842, and had its second locality in 1843. The date of settlement
of O. V. Servis is 1837. The very sickly season of 1838 followed, and the
probability is that the school could not have been opened and carried on
before 1839 or 1840. Here again, unexpectedly, we find a school that may
claim, with three others, to have been the first.
O. V. Servis "was an
Episcopal Methodist and one of the live workers in the church." Robert
Thompson was a Methodist local preacher. We can not well place this school
later than 1841. How much earlier it was is not sure.
In 1850 was built the frame school house and again the locality of the school was slightly changed. After the removal from the grove of O. V. Servis, Joseph Bray was chosen superintendent and he was succeeded by John Martin, Samuel Parkinson, Leroy Doak, Alexander Turner, and H. Boyd. Mrs. Parkinson, now living in Hebron, was an active member of this school, and gave the children a strawberry festival, one summer, in her own shaded yard, from her own productive vines. The Crawfords, Brown and Doak families were also active in carrying on this school, and for several years it ranked among the first and the best of the country schools of the county. With Orchard Grove, Plum Grove, Lake Prairie (and Robinson Prairie and Center while they were in existence), it was always reliable for sustaining the County Convention. For making pastoral "donations" there was not a better school in the
(pg. 37)
county. This school closed in 1885, the schools in the
church buildings at Le Roy taking, to some extent, its place. It is probably
that South East Grove, so long a church and social center, where so many
gatherings of various kinds have been, with all its native beauty and its
sheltered situation, will be added to the other places in the county, where,
in this generation, there will be no more Sunday school and no more church.
At Orchard Grove, also, there was an early settlement of intelligent families. The organziation of the school here by Charles Kenney in 1842, has been mentioned. When the small frame school house was built, the school was held there with the same Superintendent; one of the sons of J. M. Kenney, who is still living; and is the Orchard Grove merchant and postmaster, succeeded his father in the same position, and the office has, since his retirement from its active duties, been filled by G. W. Handley, the constant and faithful Superintendent for many years, by L. Wallace, and by G. Ragon.
It has been quite a large and useful school. As Orchard Grove, where Rev. J. C. Brown preached for a time, soon became an established point for Methodist class meetings and preaching and quarterly meetings, the school has been denominational. The school house location is pleasant.
The third of these schools bears the name PLUM GROVE, and in regard to its organization there is no uncertainty. It was organized in the fall of 1852 by the Rev. William Townley, Presbyterian pastor at Crown Point, but organized as a Union school. So far as is now known Joseph Bray, of Southeast Grove, Dr. Brownell, and Allen Hale, were the earlier superintendents. About 1856 the main charge of the school
(pg. 38)
came upon Mrs. M. J. Dinwiddie, who was generally Superintendent
and a teacher until about 1882. Superintendents since have been Martin
Nichols, Mrs. Nettie Henderson, and
Mrs. L. V. Pearce. Although first opened
in the fall, the school was for many years, like most other of our country
schools, only a summer school; but in the fall of 1875 it was proposed
to make it "evergreen," and T. H. Ball, who since 1864 has usually been
the Plum Grove pastor, acted through the winter as Superintendent. E. W.
Dinwiddie was Secretary. Eighty members were in attendance. The experiment
proved to be a success. There were cold winds on the ten miles of prairie
between Crown Point and Plum Grove, but the Superintendent and his trusty
steed, the dar brown "Zella," did not fear winter storms.
From the school at Plum Grove many have gone forth to become active Sunday-school workers in Kansas and Nebraska, in Missouri, and in other points of the great West.
It was a beautiful sight on one of those memorable Sundays, years ago, when the then sixteen members of the Dinwiddie family, the mother, the children, the grand-children, were all present in the school. The grand-children of the Dinwiddie and Pearce families, numbering now some thirty-five, form not a small portion of the Plum Grove Union school. ** The Superintendent and Treasurer of this year, Mrs. Pearce and Miss Jessie Bryant, are members of the one family; and the secretary until August, John A. Dinwiddie, and the
(**Note---Mrs. Pearce, who is still living, and the husband of Mrs. Dinwiddie were brother and sister, both among the pioneer settlers of Lake county. So these thirty-five children all are cousins. Of these children, too young to be even in the infant class, Herbert Ray Dinwiddie, son of E. W. Dinwiddie, passed up to Paradise, out from his mother's arms and love, September 17, 1890.)
(pg.39)
secretary since August, Elmer Dinwiddie, are members
of the other.
The McCann and the Hale families, though not equalling the other two in numbers, have for long years borne their parts well in this school. And members of other families have for a longer or shorter time taken a deep interest in the school, and aided nobly in sustaining it. An interesting record of a young and remarkable child member, Juno Henderson, may be found in "Lake of the Red Cedars," pages 297-301. She died when between nine and ten years of age, probably the most mature Christian child that has been trained in any of our schools.
Many have gone from this school to become active workers in the newer States.
The following, copied from "Our Banner," of May, 1888, may fittingly close the record of this school:
"Friend after friend departs;
Who has not lost a friend?"
Lake county has lately lost another very active and devoted Sunday-school teacher, superintendent and friend. Mrs. M.J. Dinwiddie, a daughter of Joseph Perkins and of Mrs. Elizabeth Cook Perkins, was born in Rome, New York, May 5, 1818, became a Christian and a church member in youth, commenced active life as a teacher, was planning to become a foreign missionary, but came to Illinois on a visit, and was married there, Aug. 19, 1844, to John W. Dinwiddie, of Lake county, Indiana. Settling in Lake county, and in 1852 at Plum Grove, her active disposition found, besides family duties, work to do in advancing temperance Sunday schools and home and foreign missions. She became a member of the Cedar Lake Baptist Church, May 3, 1851, and was, for the last ten years of her life,
(pg. 40)
a member of the North St. Baptist Church, at Crown Point.
Quite a view of her life, of her home, and of her children can be found
in "The Lake of the Red Cedars," and need not be repeated here. Her special
school work commenced in 1852, at Plum Grove, and her interest and active
efforts in behalf of the county work ended only with her life. She died
March 15, 1888, leaving five children and nineteen grand-children. The
writer of this sketch, who is himself three-score years of age, who began
Sunday-school life in this county some forty-eight years ago, feels that
his earlier associates in this work are passing, one by one, away. During
the few years that he may yet live, while there are in his field thousands
of children whom he loves, and for whom, in part, he lives, he will not
cease to cherish the memory of Mrs. Dinwiddie of Plum Grove.
CENTER SCHOOL.
This school, a record having been kindly furnished a few years ago by an early secretary, J. P. Downs, was first organized by Mrs. Bell Mitchell, wife of Simeon Mitchell, in 1864. It was re-organized in 1869 by Joseph Bray of South East Grove, who died May 24, 1890, at the home of his son in Jasper county, sixty-eight years of age.
Miss Melissa Hain afterward carried on this school successfully for some time---Superintendent in 1870 when quite a large number of young people attended the school----and the last Superintendent was Mrs. L. V. Pearce.
VII. MERRILLVILLE METHODIST SCHOOL.
It seems impossible now to find out when or by whom the first school was organized in Merrillville. Mr.
(pg. 41)
Hiram Barton reports a school in existence in 1851, and
that he, only twelve years of age then, was a teacher, and that one of
the now well known business men of Crown Point, Paul Raasch, was a member
of his class. He names as interested in this school Mr. Francis Pinnell,
who perhaps organized it in 1850, who afterward died in Michigan, being
96 years old. The burial services,
H. Barton, in September, 1881, attended.
Concering this, probably, first superintendent in Merrillville, Francis
R. Pinnell (P. M. Knoll having been the second), quite a record, published
just after his death, is now before me. According to this record his father,
James Pinnell, born in England, having resided in London, came to this
country in 1733, settled in Jamestown, Virginia, served seven years in
the Revolutionary War, a member of General Washington's body guard. In
Jamestown Francis R. was born in 1785, became a member of the Methodist
church in 1800, was educated at Stanton College, Virginia, was licensed
to exhort in 1803, took part in political life, was sheriff of Logan county,
was Judge of the County Court, was a member of Colonel R. Buckely's Light
Horse Company in the War of 1812, and in 1835 settled in Berrien county,
Michigan. In that county he was township clerk, school inspector, justice
of the peace, and county surveyor, having been assistant surveyor of the
Michigan Central railroad from Niles to Michigan City. When he became a
resident of Merrillville in this county does not appear, but he could hardly
have remained here many years. Mr. Barton is quite sure that he was not
only interested in Sunday-school work but was actually Superintendent about
1850. While therefore he was not one among our pioneers---in Michigan he
was a pioneer---he was quite an early laborer here, and should be remembered
by us in this semi-centennial years. His
(pg.42)
name does not appear in the record soon to be given,
but the name of one of his sons is there found.
The school of 1851 could not have been a permanent school. While searching for facts in Merrillville, an old Sunday-school secretary's book was placed in my hands in which was the following:
"This is to certify that the Merrillville Sunday-school was organized by the Methodist church, May 5, 1862, in Merrillville, Lake county, State of Indiana, at nine o'clock."
First Officers and Teachers:
Superintendent, Thomas Pinnell; Assistants, John Underwood
and Mrs. Lucinda Green; Secretary,
James Hemenway; Librarian, I. B. Pierce;
Treasurer, George Nicholson.
| Teachers | No. in Class |
| Mrs. Sarah Lewis | 6 |
| Hiram Case | 4 |
| Bennet Bates | 4 |
| Daniel Lindsey | 4 |
| William Frasier | 4 |
| Anah Hemenway | 4 |
| Frank Barton | 4 |
| Mrs. R. Sawyer | 5 |
| John Merrill | 4 |
| Minerva Saxton | 3 |
| Emily Newton | 5 |
| Bible Class, Teacher,
John Underwood |
9 |
| No. of scholars first Sunday | 47 |
This school having twelve classes in 1862, has no doubt continued through varied experiences until the present time. Its members have taken not a little interest
(pg. 43)
in the annual gatherings of the county Convention, and
have shown interest in the county institute and mission work. Of this school
from 1864 to 1872, Hiram Barton was Superintendent. Since 1872 the superintendents
have been: Mrs. M.J. Hyde, 1872-1879 by whom it was made an evergreen school;
Myiel Pierce, 1880-1888; S. Wayman, 1888-1889; C. L. Merrill, 1890.
It has been among the substantial, reliable, evergreen schools, a power for good in the community.
The date of 1851 is assigned to the organization of the first school at Hobart. This was organized by H. N. Wheeler and did not long continue. The second school was organized in 1863, by S. Stilwell and W. H. Rifenburg. It did not prove to be permanent. In 1864 or 1865 a school was organized by Mrs. Nickerson, by Mrs. Wadge, the wife of one of our State Senators, and by some others with them, at the Hobart school house. This school has been kept up year after year until the present time. It was a Union school. After the completion of the Methodist church building the school was held in the church. When the church needed repairs in 1876 the school was again held in the school house, and then removed to the Unitarian church, as a denominational school was commenced in the Methodist church. The Hobart Union school became practically, if not for a time in name, a Unitarian school, and has generally been the leading school of Hobart. Mr. W. H. Rifenburg has usually been its Superintendent, and as he is an active, popular, influential, genial, business man, the school would naturally have material prosperity. Each summer this school goes on a pleasure excursion to the shore of Lake Michigan, accompanied
(pg. 44)
usually by the other schools of the town. The school
has had quite a large library.
The Hobart Methodist school was organized after the re-opening of the church building in 1876. Mrs. S. Kean, now Mrs. S. K. Rice, was Superintendent. Her daughter, now Mrs. J. M. Whitmore, was Infant-class teacher, her class at one time numbering eighty-five, being then the largest in the county. This was a large and flourishing school in 1881, and has continued to maintain much interest and life, with some decrease at times in number. Superintendents have been: Mrs. Rice, Abel Wood, Mrs. Whitmore, and H. C. Hanson. Twelve members of the school have this year become church members.
In 1883 was organized the Christian Union Sunday school, of Hobart. Superintendent, Abel Wood; Assistant, W. B. Ballentyne; Treasurer, A. K. Garhart. The sessions of the school were first held in the old brick school house, afterward in what is known in Hobart as the Chapel room, and finally the school was removed to the tabernacle church, after that building was erected. In the Band tabernacle building a Congregational church was organized May 16, 1885, and the school was adopted by the church, and soon became the Hobart Congregational Sunday school. It is now quite large and flourishing. Superintendents, A. Wood and E. Stelow.
The German Methodist school at Hobart was organized about 1874.
F.F. Frank, who was this year married to the cultivated organist of the Crown Point German Methodist schoo, has been for many years the Superintendent.
The Swedish Methodist school was commenced about 1887 by J. E. Mannder, an educated and cultivated Swede, who was this year nominated for State Senator of Lake and Porter counties.
(pg.45)
The school is now prosperous. Superintendent, Ellis Anderson.
The Swedish Lutheran school in Hobart is prosperous, having sixty members. This is the only Lutheran school in the county that has taken any part in a Convention anniversary. This school united in the exercises at Hobart in 1888. It seems to the writer that ll Evangelical schools, all that could be represented in the Evangelical Alliance, might, if sufficiently Americanized, unite in a county Sunday-school inter-denominational convention. Are denominational lines to separate us in everything? How fittingly at such a convention might be sung No. 198, in Gospel Hymns:
"Lift up, lift up thy voice with singing,
Dear land, with strength lift up they voice!
The kingdoms of the earth are bringing
Their treasures to thy gate----rejoice!
Chorus---Arise and shine in youth immortal,
Thy light is come, they King appears!
Beyond the Century's swinging portal
Breaks a new dawn---the thousand years.
And shall his flock with strife be riven?
Shall envious lines his church divide,
When he, the Lord of earth and heaven,
Stands at the door to claim his bride?
Lift up the gates! bring forth oblations!
One crowned with crowns a message brings,
His word, a sword to smite the nations;
His name, the Christ, the Kind of kings.
He comes! let all the earth adore Him;
The path his human nature trod
Spreads to a royal realm before Him,
The Life of life, the Word of God."
The following Memorial will give the organization of this school and other items of interest concerning it.
It is taken from OUR BANNER of October, 1887, and is part of an official report as made at the twenty-second anniversary of the county Convention.
The following was the closing part of the Secretary's report at Lake Station, August 31, 1887:
Death has visited our ranks more frequently than usual within the part year. On Sunday morning, February 6th, of this year, Carrie D. Hipsley, fifteen years of age, a girl of much promise, a member of the Salem school, was called away from earth; and three days after, on Wednesday, there followed into the unseen world Clara Isabel M. Davis, not quite fourteen years of age, a member of the Dyer school. Clara when only nine years of age made public profession of her faith in the Saviour and her love to him, and became at that early age a church member, leaving thus a bright example for all our children/ She was a well beloved young sister in the Lord. We miss these bright and loved ones, young Carrie and Clara, from our throng to-day; and there is yet one more whom largely we all must miss, the energetic, active and beloved superintendent of this Lake Home school, sister Ella Lincoln. Her death was truly here as when a standard-bearer falleth. It seems appropriate to present the following brief memorial:
Ella M. Mabiey was born March 4, 1854, near Fayetteville, in North Carolina. After the war, while she was yet in early youth, her father's family removed to Indiana, and having gained knowledge somewhere, in 1871, when only seventeen years of age, she began to teach in the public schools of Indianapolis, where she continued to teach for six years, until her marriage. While a teacher in Indianapolis she was baptized by
(pg.47)
Dr. Henry Day, then pastor of the First Baptist church
of that city, of which church she became a member, in the choir of which
church she was one of th singers, as was also T. E. Lincoln, whom she afterward
married. She was a member also of the Sabbath school of that church when
J. R. Osgood, a large manufacturer of that city, was superintendent, the
most noted Baptist superintendent of his day in the State. She was married
by Dr. Day June 24, 1877, when twenty-three years of age, and went immediately
to reside in Joliet, but not long after her residence was changed to Chicago,
where she attended the Baptist church known as Dr. Lorimer's. In February,
1881,
Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln made their home on a farm a little south of
Lake, the other side of Deep River. In January, 1882, was organized through
her influence this Lake Home school, and through her energy and influence
(an influence that is not yet spent, that we all may feel with us to-day,
that will be felt by some of these children while they live), through summers
and winters, through heat and cold, and storms and freshets, the school
life has been maintained.
It is safe to say that no superintendent in Lake county has exhibited more resolution or needed more energy in reaching his school than did she across a sometimes frozen, sometimes swollen and apparently bridgeless river. And in the night-time of April 18, 1887, she attempted the passage of a very different river, the viewless river, in the deep waters of which we are sure she did not sink, for she had a stronger arm to lean upon than the arm of any man, and she passed over that river safely into the heavenly land. At the early age of thirty-three her life-work was done. It was a sad day when on April 21st the children of this Lake Home school gathered for the last time around her no
(pg. 48)
longer living form, and amid their grief and tears placed
above her remains their little gifts of flowers. And from among them for
all life she passed away.
She was a natural teacher. She had a natural talent not bestowed on all, of easily governing children. She loved to be with them. That she was successful as a public school teacher is evident from her position for six years in Indianapolis. She loved music and was a good musician. This also is evident from her position in that city choir. And many of us have heard her voice at Crown Point, at Hammond, and at Lowell, a voice which on earth we will hear no more. She now rests from her labors and her works will follow her; and perhaps, although she spent those years of girlhood's prime in the capital of our State, and those earlier years of womanhood in the city of Chicago, perhaps her choicest years of labor were these last five with the boys and girls of Lake. She was not fully satisfied with her work, yet she believed that it was for good. Let us imitate her example and emulate her virtues.
Since the death of Mrs. Lincoln, her husband, T. E. Lincoln, Mrs. E. Corey, and Le Grand T. Meyer have been superintendents. Miss Tillie Grimshaw as organist has been very helpful in the school; and members of the Hazelgreen, Burt, Moore, and other families have aided in carrying it on.
In 1887 the Convention met with this school, of which anniversary as quite an unusual one, a record will elsewhere be found.
An earlier school than this of Lake Home was organized at Lake Station, as early as 1872, when twenty-five members were reported, but of this school further records are not found. The first Lake Station school belongs only to the past.
(pg. 49)
X. LOWELL SCHOOLS.
May 6, 1848, there was organized the second Baptist church in Lake county, called the Baptist church of West Creek, ten years after the organization of the Cedar Lake Baptist church. The place of meeting of this church was a school house in the neighborhood of what is now called Pine Grove. According to the recollection of the writer that school house, then a central place for holding religious meetings, was on the State road in section 5, it may have been on section 4; township, without any doubt, 32, and range 9 west. It would seem that a Sunday school was carried on by the members of this church, although the only trace of it that now appears is the following associatinal record for 1852: "This church, though small in number, is strong in missionary efforts; their contributions are large. *****Sabbath-school instruction continued with zeal; library of seventy volumes." This school will remain without being "named" or "counted" in the memorial records of this book; but it leads up to Lowell. In January, 1856, this West Creek church, having been for some time without a pastor, ceased to exist as an organization, a part of its members uniting with others in a new church known as the Baptist church at Lowell, organized January 20, 1856, in the new brick school house. Here, in 1857, so far as any records show, was organized the LOWELL UNION SUNDAY SCHOOL. Whether that West Creek library of seventy volumes came to this school, or where it went, is not known. June 28, 1857, the Baptist church building at Lowell was dedicated, and in this building the Union school was held until it ceased to exist in 1871. H. B. Austin, of Buncombe Street, was for years the Superintendent. D. Fry, still a resident of Lowell, was chorister, and the school was noted for its excellent
(pg. 50)
singing, for the many child voices that joined always
in song. In 1867 this school was the largest in the county. So long as
it existed it was no little part of the county Convention force. For about
fifteen years it carried on as a Sunday school a noble work. It was evangelical
and union and the different denominations represented worked together harmoniously.
Many children in those fifteen years gained in that school much good.
The Pleasant Grove school was traced down to 1870. In that year two new church buildings, Methodist and Christian, were erected at Lowell. A record exists that in 1871, the original or first Lowell Union school ceasing to exist, denominational schools commenced. There is some obscure Sunday-school history here; but some records which have just been found will harmonize, it is hoped, the somewhat conflicting individual recollections. From the report of 1872, in August, the following is an extract: "As Secretary of the Convention I have endeavored to visit all our schools. I commenced September 3rd and closed August 25th. Have succeeded in visiting nearly all. The northern and central schools seem to have been more prosperous this year than those of the southwest. The Lowell Union, one of the largest and best in the county during former years, closed up last fall and has not since reopened."
"Its place is in part supplied by the Lowell Methodist."
In August of 1870, this record was made: "The Lowell school has felt the loss of its former superintendent, Mr. Austin, one of the zealous, earnest workers in this cause, now an inmate of the Insane Asylum at Indianapolis." The school continued, it appears, through the summer of 1871. In August, 1872, it was not reopened.
In August, 1873, the report stated, "At Lowell the Union
school, discontinued in 1871, was reopened at the
(pg.51)
Christian meeting-house, June 1; though not so large
as in former years it seems to be prospering." In that year the Lowell
Union and Lowell Methodist Episcopal were reported. From the diary or journal
of school visitations, the following is the entry for 1873: "June 8, visited
the school at Lowell, the M. E. school; present about 70; school increasing;
meets at 9:30 A. M." "3 P.M. Visited the Lowell Union S. S.; present 57;
school lately reopened." Again from that journal: "July 13, Morning, M.E.
S. S. at Lowell. P.M., Union S. S. at Lowell." That there were, in 1873,
these two schools at Lowell certainly can not be questioned.
In 1875 the secretary reported thus: "My own labors mostly in southeastern part of county. Visited a few schools, "attended the re-opening of Lowell Union;" and he reported that year "Lowell M. E., Lowell Union, and Lowell ________;" three schools, one without a full name. It seems to be the fair inference from this report that in 1875, at the Baptist Church in Lowell, a school called Lowell Union was opened or reopened. That this inference is correct is made eveident by the official reports from the individual schools for 1877. These are all on file and can be examined at any time. The three Lowell schools are reported thus:
Union S. S.: Superintendent, Rev. J. Bruce; Teachers and officers, 11; Whole number of scholars, 90; Number of church members, 25; Under twenty-one years of age, 79; Sec., M. E. Discoll.
(pg.52)
Christian Sabbath School: Superintendent,
Henry Dickinson;
Teachers and officers, 10; Whole number of scholars, 41; Under twenty-one
years of age, 21; Sec., Julia Lawrence.
Lowell M. E. S. S.: Superintendent, Alonzo Martin; Teachers and officers, 17; Whole number of scholars, 90; Number of conversions since last August, 16; Number of church members, 26; Under twenty-one years of age, 70; Sec., Clara Metcalf.
These are official reports and can not be questioned, and it is evident that in each of the three churches there was a school. How long the three continued does not fully appear in the reports. (Some are not on file.) But the secretary's journal for 1882 contains the following: "July 23. Visited Lowell M. E. school in the morning, and attended meeting at Christian church. 2 1/2 p.m., Band of Hope. 4, Lowell new Union school. Some life apparent here. Expect the Convention."
To infer again, it seems that between 1877 and 1882 two of the schools, the one in the Baptist and the one in the Christian church, had united, and that thus was formed the present Lowell Union; or perhaps the Christian school was discontinued, and the Lowell Union of the Baptist was transferred to the Chirstian church. These seem now to be the historic facts; that the Lowell M. E. school was organized in 1871; that in 1873 a school called Lowell Union was opened in the Christian church, the name afterwards being the Christian school; that in 1875 a school was opened again in the Baptist church and called Lowell Union; and that
(pg. 53)
before 1882 this school was removed to the Christian
church or united with the Christian school, and the original name of each
school was retained, the Lowell Union Sunday school.
The Lowell Union, with its present enrollment membership of 124; and with such sturdy workers as the two Dickinsons, father and son (the son, Cyrus F. Dickinson, a leader of church music); as brethren J. L. Worley and James Pinkerton; with such zealous assistants as are the whole membership of the Christian church, has been for years one of the strong, reliable schools of the county.
The earlier superintendents were, Rev. J. Bruce, C. F. Dickinson.
Superintendent for several past years, James Pinkerton; for the last few years, Cyrus F. Dickinson.
Many members of this school have become members of the Church.
The Lowell Methodist Episcopal school reports a membership of 106. The superintendents for nineteen years have been:
George W. Waters, _______ Jones, Evi Fuller, Alonzo Martin, 1877; George W. Waters, John McCabe, Perry Jones, Mrs. P. D. Clark, J. W. Viant, 1883; C.E. Chaffee, 1884; J. H. Spindler, Charles Ketchem.
The first school at Lowell (the town plat of that place as recorded bearing date May 13, 1853) was carried on by Mrs. Mahala Van Slyke, a sister of Mrs. S. J. Clark, in either 1852 or 1853; Mrs. Van Slyke was a day school or secular school teacher. She was one of the teachers in a large school taught at Crown Point in the old Methodist church building. She cared for the spiritual welfare of her pupils. In Lowell, having built a small house and opened a school there, she also commenced a Sunday school. This school did not continue long.
(pg. 54)
The Lake Prairie Sabbath-school (in West Creek township) was organized in the log house of Mr. Abiel Gerrish May 17, 1857. The next Sabbath, May 24th, was the first school, with forty in attendance. Rev. H. Wason was first superintendent and held the office for several years. The majority of those connected with the congregation, both old and young, attended Sabbath-school, many coming a long distance. The venerable Dr. Peach, who lived to be ninety-eight years old, was a scholar as long as he was able to attend. For several years it was a large school. Samuel Ames, E. N. Morey, Rev. H. Sheeley, J. D. Baughman and T. A. Wason have been superintendents. The present one, who has served for some years, is Lewis G. Little. The
(*Note: I was desirous that the record of the Lake Prairie school, for this anniversary and this volume, should be written by one who for so many years was pastor in the southwestern part of the county, when the "parish" (to use a New England word) was larger than it is now; by one who could say of his record, as Virgil's Æneas says of what he rehearses, a great part of which I was---magna pars fut---and that desire has been gratified. But the writer modestly refrained from saying some things which justly ought to be said in regard to this school. As already suggested, the field or area over which this school extended, for several years after 1857 was much larger than it has been in these later years. This naturally made the school a larger power for good; a larger community felt its influences. Its earlier workers were then in the prime of lief. Captain Little was there. Mrs. Gerrish was there. Mr. and Mrs. Ames were there, and Miss Sarah Little; and it is safe to say that a more cultivated school choir was not then in the county, when Mrs. Wason, Mrs. Ames, and Miss Little were leading vocalists. Also the Fuller and Blayney families from over West Creek were there. And when the school met in the Convention gatherings we all knew there were trained New England voices to give us the sweet Sunday-school songs. There are younger singers, younger teachers, younger leaders there now, and they might say, the county Secretary and Editor is growing old, if he here suggests palmy days were in the past. And so, recognizing what a power for good this school now is, with its compact phalanx of Christian young people, and its comparatively youthful leaders, I may close this long note with these words of the old gladiators: "We, who are about to die, salute you.")
(pg.55)
school has been kept up most of the time since its organization;
the present number is about seventy.
The Buncombe Union Sunday-school was organized in 1861. One of the first superintendents was a Mr. Morgan, who afterwards went West. Mr. Worley also had charge of it for some time, and others whose names I am unable to learn. It was usually well attended and did much good; has not been in session for some years. It was held in a school house on the township line between Cedar Creek and West Creek, near the marsh.
THE PINE GROVE UNION SCHOOL was organized in 1883 by Mrs. Minnie Ells, then a teacher in the public school in that district. After she left the school Hon. Joseph A. Little was Superintendent, also W. H. Bradley and Alexander Burhans. A sad calamity came in the spring of 1885. On Sunday afternoon, May 24, thunder clouds came over the southern part of the county; the superintendent was out in his dooryard observing these clouds. he was near a tree to which was attached a wire clothes-line. A bright flash of lightning came from the clouds, and from the tree and the wire the lightning passed to the human form. In that flash was death, and a lifeless form was all that remained here of one who had been an earnest and faithful Sunday-school worker. A few moments before he had been reading with his family in his home. Suddenly he was called up to the great Home.
For the last five years Lewis G. Little, of Lake Prairie, has been, for most if not the entire time, the efficient Superintendent of this school. The Little family of Lake Prairie, some of whom became residents in this county in 1855, have aided largely in keeping up
(pg. 56)
this school; as they have also done much for the Lake
Prairie school; showing that zeal and that energy in a good cause which
have characterized this large American Little family for two and a half
centuries; a family descended from George Little of Newberry, Massachusetts,
who came from London in 1640, whose descendants in these years have numbered
more than six thousand and five hundred Americans. The three brothers,
and three sisters of this Lake county generation, members of these two
schools near their prairie home, are, through their mother, who was Mary
Gerrish of Lake Prairie, descendants, of the eleventh generation, of John
Rogers the martyr, who was burned at Smithfield, February 14, 1555. Inheritors
of the traditions and associations that come through a Puritan and also
a martyr line, all these would be expected to find a place and work in
our Sunday schools.
In the neighborhood of Pine Grove school are families also of active, intelligent young people whose zeal in promoting their own moral and religious welfare has made for themselves a good record. Their names will all be found on the enrollment page.
A member of the infant class, whose name is there enrolled, passed away this year from her home and school life. ELLA E. BELSHAW, the younger daughter of Edward and Rosina Brannon Belshaw, was born on Tuesday, May 26, 1885, and died of diphtheria, on Monday, March 3, 1890. Not quite five years of age, she was a winsome little child, was a joy and a light in her home, attended the Sunday school, learned something of earth and life, of a Saviour and his love, enjoyed and suffered here, disposed of her playthings and earthly possessions, and went to sleep in death. Surely some time will her hour of waking come. Her sleep in death is not a sleep for ever.
(pg. 57)
EGYPT UNION.
About 1865 a school in the neighborhood two and a half miles south of Lowell, known as Egypt, was conducted by James Wells. He was a son of that William Wells who lost his life in the severe snow storm of November 17, 1842. He became a Methodist minister and left this county many years ago. How many seasons this school continued has not been ascertained; but in 1878 the Egypt school was again in session, with John Burge as Superintendent and Nathan Worley as Assistant. There is again an uncertainty as to the number of summers in which the school was now kept up but in 1883 Ellis Cross, then a young man and student, whose home was near Lowell, was found here carrying on the school. When visited that summer by the county Secretary it was a very pleasant, quite large, and properous school. The young Superintendent attended the normal school at Crown Point in 1884, went afterward to Valparaiso as a student, became a minister of the "Christian" denomination or church, was a successful evangelist in Porter and Starke counties, and is now preaching in the State of New York. Again, in 1889, the school was re-organized, Mrs. Susie Allen, a daughter of Mr. Dickinson, Superintendent. Again the school was interesting and prosperous. Whe opened in the spring of this year, 1890, J. L. Worley was choosen Superintendent. Miss Ida A. Anderson and Miss Gracie B. Ebert have been its Secretaries. As in 1883 so now it is a school, as to locality and membership, to interest a visitor.
The Butler Union school, like many others, takes its name from the name of the school house where it is held, which is on the Joliet wagon-road nearly two
(pg. 58)
miles west from Merrillville. The name came from the
Butler family, a pionerer family in Lake County. There is good evidence
tha William Butler erected some cabins, where is now Crown Point, in the
summer or early fall of 1834, but he made there no settlement. The Sunday
school at what has been long known as the Butler school house was organized,
in the spring of 1880, by A. T. Davis, now residing in Dyer, who was its
superintendent for some years, all the family taking an active part in
the school. After the removal of this family to Dyer,
Mrs. Nicholson
was Superintendent for some four years, and now the office is filled by
her husband, E. J. Nicholson, while she still remains as Assistant, "the
power behind the throne." This school has been noted more for earnest steady
study of the Scripture, than for anything in the line of show or display.
The Secretary, who is about eighteen years of age, has this year become
a living Christian. The acting and active Librarian is as yet but a child,
a child learning to work in the "vineyard."
The present school at Dyer was commenced in 1880 by Mrs. F. N. Biggs and Mr. George Davis. The inhabitants of Dyer are, for the most part, German Catholics, but a few Protestant families having their homes in that town desired for their children the advantages of a Sunday school. For some time this school was carried on by the two named above; but Mrs. Biggs after a time removed to Crown Point, and Mr. A. T. Davis removed from the Butler school neighborhood to Dyer. He then became Superintendent at Dyer, and continued in that position about four years. Through the year, or for most the year 1889, Dr. S. Turner was Superintendent. The school
(pg. 59)
is this year carried on by
Mrs. Flanagan, the teachers
being Mrs. Johns, Mrs. Brewer, Mrs. Templeton, and Mrs. Smith. While not
large, this is a very interesting and useful school, and ther reports from
year to year show that, for its number of members, it is the best school
in the county for its mission contributions in aid of home work. It is
the only school now in the county contributing regularly for that excellent
institution, the Foreign Sunday-School Association, of Brooklyn, N.Y. It
also contributes regularly for the Orphans' Home, in Chicago. It is a pleasure
to spend an hour in this school.
Some facts have been gleaned in regard to a much earlier school in or near what is now the town of Dyer. Mrs. Babcock is named, and also the Wolcott, Park and Bower families are mentioned as interested in a Sunday school before the Hart family came from Philadelphia to Dyer.
A peculiar school was held at Clarke Station for two or three winters. It was not in session in the summer. It was carried on by a benevolent lady whose husband had business interests in Lake county in the winter sessions. Unfortunately her name can not now be obtained. The school was reported in 1883 with twelve members. The wife of the station agent at Clarke for that year, Mrs. Cole, aided in the school. That family soon moved away, the business interest was closed, and no more sessions of the Clarke school were held.
In a school house north of the Little Calumet, southeast from Hessville, some members of what was called the "Band," from Ross, organized a Sunday school and
(pg. 60)
carried it on for about eighteen months. In 1882 a school
was again organized here.
In 1887 and 1888 the school was carried on by Miss Grace Ousley, a noble-hearted young Christian, a teacher for a few years in our public schools. Miss Ousley has spent this summer in the British Isles, recruiting health, enjoying the beauties of nature and art in that old home of Anglo-Saxon civilization.
In the fall she returned, and commenced in Chicago the study of pharmacy. The place of one so true and unselfish and devoted is not easily filled again in our county of Lake.
The HANDLEY SCHOOL a few miles east and north from Crown Point, was organized when the "Band" movement was meeting with such success in Lake county. Preaching was regular at that school house in 1880, and probably then the school was organized. It continued some two or three seasons and was quite a flourishing school. S. H. Gehr was Superintendent. It is now among the discontinued schools, along with Deer Creek and Vincent, its near neighbors.
The JONES SCHOOL, called for a time North Pleasant Grove school to distinguish it from the early Pleasant Grove, was organized about 1859. At first it was Protestant Methodist, but afterwards became, with the agreement of all who were connected with it, Methodist Episcopal. The school was prosperous and useful for many years, numbering from forty to sixty members. It was closed about 1881. Perry Jones, now of Lowell, Treasurer of the County Convention, was its only superintendent.
This school was re-opened, or rather a new one organized, at the same school house in 1888, James
(pg. 61)
Westbay, Superintendent; Secretary, Miss Daum. But it
was not largely prosperous, and has not this year been in session.
Let us imagine another voice to come in here, another reader now, who takes us back again to the earlier times, and to a little cluster or rather line of schools no longer in existence.
A part of Lake county on the Illinois line, averaging a mile in width, lies on the west side of West Creek. Five schools, or perhaps more accurately, two schools, becoming afterwards three, in the history of our past, belong to this locality. The first of these was organized in the home of Mrs. Sarah Farwell, July 14, 1846, by members of the Ball family of Cedar Lake, Elder Benjamin Sawin, of La Porte, being present. This statement is taken from a diary record, and so is free from all uncertainty. Members of the Ball, Church, and Cutler families united with the Farwell family in carrying on the school, which proved to be a very pleasant one, and in which were some more than ordinarily promising children. Where those are now, no one is Lake county knows. Seed was sown, and that Great Father who was once called by our Saviour the "Husbandman," surely watched over and controlled the results. There are living now of those who were young and active then as members of the Cedar Lake church and school helpers in this first church mission school of the county: Mrs. E. H. Woodard, of Grove Hill, Alabama, who for now about forty years has been a teacher in tha Southland; Eli Church, of Oregon; and Mrs. Sophia Cutler-Brownlee, of Illinois, the wife, and now the widow of a Presbyterian clergyman. Mrs. Farwell died in 1848, and this school, probably, was
(pg. 62)
closed for a time, but was reopened in 1849 at Brunswick,
in a log house near the residence of Mr. Joseph Schmall.
Judge Ball, with the younger members of his family, kept up this school for some time, aided by Mrs. Carlos Farwell, who took charge of the school in his absence, members of the Burns, Robbins, Farwell, and other Brunswick families, attending. A library was kept here which was well read, and especially in later days by young Stillman A. Robbins, who, when a soldier in the 12th Indiana Cavalry, died at Huntsville, Alabama, July 18, 1864. (See "The Lake of the Red Cedars," page 243.)
In 1849 Mr. H. S. Fuller, with quite a family of sons and daughters, became a resident on one of this row of sections, in range 10, bordering on the Illinois line. West of him was then the almost boundless prairie, without a railroad, extending to the Mississippi River. East of him was the almost impassable stream called West Creek, with its broad, marshy valley and its quicksands. He was a staunch Presbyterian, and no church or school privileges being near, in the spring of 185 he opened a Sunday school in his own house. In the summer of 1851 this family school was transferred to the Graves school house, then newly erected. H. S. Fuller was Superintendent. For some ten years, each summer, a school was continued here, J. Milton Blayney and Mrs. Blayney being some of the time superintendents. Forty and sometimes more than this number, were in attendence, including the Marvin, Gordinier, Graves, Blayney, Bliss, Fuller, Pattee, and DeGroff families.
Then the school house was burned. In its stead two others were built; one north of Mr. Marvin's, the other south of Mr. Blayney's, on the east and west road near
(pg. 63)
the State line. In each of these new houses a Sunday
school was organized. The one school which closed with the burnt school
house was divided and became two. At the northern school Elliott Graves,
Mrs. Marvin, Mrs. Blayney, were the superintendents. At this school house
Rev. H. Wason preached every other Sunday afternoon, at the close of the
school session. This school continued till about 1871. At the other school
house, which was near his home, H. S. Fuller was the one superintendent.
Different ministers preached here and good results followed.
One of these pastors had an experience in reaching his afternoon appointment. He had preached at Lowell in the morning and was to ride over, crossing the Torrey bridge, with the Graves family. But, by some disappointment, the conveyance was not present. Riding westward, therefore, as far as he had opportunity, he left the buggy and took a direct course through the West Creek woods to a spot where he hoped to find a boat. The boat could not be found. It was almost time for the services to commence. But the creek, with its then marshy valley of tall grass and rushes, with its quicksands here and there----and to step inot one of these concealed spots was dangerous---with its water snakes and other perils, was between him and the school-house. He hesitated not long, but crossed over in a way that only those having some knowledge of frontier life would understand and appreciate. It would be safe to say that no minister ever crossed that then dangerous valley in that way before or since.
(That same missionary pastor has, in the winter, in the same manner, passed a barrier in the Kankakee valley region, when the ice would in places support his weight, and in place would give him the full benefit of the cold water.)
(pg. 64)
This school closed about 1873, the Fuller family removing
to a more western home.
About twenty-seven years then, from 1846 to 1873, will measure the life of the west side West Creek schools, in which Baptist and Prebyterians worked ever harmoniously together.
It may be noticed by the observant reader that the early Baptists, and to quite an extent the Presbyterians, established only Union schools.
From 1850 to 1873, almost continuously, H. S. Fuller was a superintendent. Constantly for twenty-three years he was active in the Sunday-school cause and work; and to him along with members of the Graves, Blayney and Gordinier families, the credit largely belongs to three and twenty years of diligent Sabbath instruction. Of the members of the Fuller family, Mrs. Marvin only remains among us.
Some of those once so active in those schools are yet among the living, and many are among the dead. Surely many names of those in the West Creek schools will be found written in the "Life Book."
(pg. 65)
changed. In later years Superintendents have been Hugh
Moore, C. T. Bailey, and Charles Belshaw. It has always had a church building
in which to meet. It contains some good workers, some interesting children.
Others schools, of which little can now be learned, are: The ADAM's, reporting forty members in 1872; LIVINGSTON's, also numbering forty; HESSVILLE, numbering thirty; LAKE STATION of 1872, numbering twenty-five; ENSIGN's, numbering twenty-five; HICKORY TOP, afterward Ainsworth, numbering forty; VINCENT's, then numbering sixty; PRAIRIE VIEW, also numbering sixty; PLEASANT PRAIRIE, numbering fifty. These numbers are all for 1872. I am sorry that so little can now be placed on record of schools that were flourishing only eighteen years ago.
Of the schools once held at the CLARK and BUCKLEY school houses no report as to numbers has for any year been found.
The Prairie View school, named above, was for several years quite prosperous. The date of organization has not been learned. It was in existence before 1859. About that time Dr. Vandewalker, of Hammond, thirty years younger than he is now, was one of the superintendents. Mrs. R. Fancher, the family residing in the neighborhood for five years, was Superintendent and teacher here. There were others whose
(pg. 66)
names are not at hand for this record. The school house
was one of the many in our county, where, in earlier days, regular preaching
appointments were kept up. The later School Grove school, was new. Horace
Bliss, a youth in one of the West Creek schools, a young merchant in Crown
Point sixteen or seventeen years ago, aided in religious work at School
Grove. He was a noble, Christian young man, and set an example worthy
of imitation for the young men of to-day. Here the Williams, Chapman, and
Farmer families of School Grove also helped to maintain Sunday-school life;
but all are gone from that neighborhood now. As families change Sunday
schools start into existence or go down. Families make the neighborhood
life.
The Pleasant Prairie school, held at what is now the Winfield school house, was a prosperous summer school. When this was first organzied is uncertain. Perhaps about 1870. A school had been held at Eagle Creek Prairie, now Palmer. Mr. Jacob Wise, now a resident of Crown Point, Superintendent. This school was commenced about 1863 or 1864. The attendance was quite large. The school was kept up for a few summers, quite a library having been obtained, and attention being given to singing. After this closed about the same community opened a school at the then new school house, and Mr. Wise was Superintendent. The young people here gave large attention to singing, their Superintendent being a leader and teacher of vocal music. Probably the second Superintendent was Joseph Patten. The last school session here was about 1885, Mr. Isaac Handley Superintendent. The name of Elliott Bibler belongs somewhere in connection with this school; the Baldwin, Smith, Crisman, Bibler and Blakeman families, the two Handley and the two Patten families, and some others, aiding in making it interesting and prosperous. In
(pg.67)
1885 changes commenced in the neighborhood, and it ceased
to be a center for preaching and for school. For a part of one term the
public school had but two pupils. A few particulars have been gathered
in regard to the Vincent school. As early as 1856 the school house was
one of those used on Sundays and evenings for religious meetings. There
was regular Sabbath preaching here for several years. Brother Hines, a
Methodist minister, not Episcopal nor Protestant nor Wesleyan, simply "Methodist,"
resided for a time in the neighborhood. His wife was an excellent singer,
and it was pleasant to hear them sing in Sunday school or church that beautiful
song, "The Only Way to Heaven is the Royal Way of the Cross." The date
of school organization is here also uncertain. Perhaps in 1865.
An early Superintendent, the only one whose name has been obtained, was Frank Larabee. He was an earnest, living Methodist, and for a time no little religious life was manifexted in this Vincent neighborhood. The Holton families and others were here; Captain Woodbury lived here; and the social life was pervaded by the religious element. A live Sunday school would naturally follow, if it did not precede; and sixty members are reported for 1872.
The second school house here was known as the "Red" school house, and a third one has been built. The last Sunday school here was carried on by Superintendent G. Handley and others in the summer of 1886.
Some have been found---Mrs. Underwood, Miss Lathrop, Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Blachley---who have recollections or traditions of the Hickory Top school before 1860. It is probable that Mr. Booth, then living in the neighborhood, and Mr. Brown were superintendents or active in the school. The school house was a center for religious meetings and other social gatherings. About
(pg. 68)
1863, the Harper family came, and soon Mrs. Ruth Harper
became and continued for many years active in this school as teacher or
superintendent. She died March 9, 1884, having been a wife for forty years,
and having been an earnest, useful Christian woman for about twenty years
at Hickory Top in our county.
For the last few years Rodney A. Castle has been superintendent. The name was changed to Ainsworth, none were left to sing, he removed to Hobart, and the school was closed.
In 1847 Miss Esther Castle opened a school in a private house, not then occupied, on the farm of Mr. Lathrop,Mrs. Underwood's father, where for those days, a large number attended as many sometimes as forty. Miss Castle was a neice of R. A. Castle, evidently an active woman, and kept up this school for some years. Out of this school probably grew, when a school house was built, perhaps much earlier than 1860, the Hickory Top, the Ainsworth school.
Another quite early school, of which one trace has been found, was also in a private house, west of Merrillville. The one who remembers it is not quite sure whether it was in the Butler house or in another house near by. Mr. Julius Demmon was either Superintendent or a principal teacher in this school. The year has not been determined but it must have been before 1850.
The Hickory Point school was commenced in 1847. Superintendents: W. A. Nichols, 1847-1849; W. Gibbs, 1849-1854. Average attendance 40. Interested in the school were the Beebe and Gregg families among others. In the early church here were at one time some seventy-five members. The religious interests closed here about 1887. The school closed much earlier.
XV. CROWN POINT METHODIST EPISCOPAL SCHOOL.
(pg. 69)
In 1843 Rev. Major Allman, who has been already mentioned,
came to Crown Point and became a resident among us, not as a pastor but
as a local preacher, and a helper and worker in Christian activities, and
especially in building up the Methodist church. He concluded it was well
to organize a denominational school, and soon therefore left the Crown
Point Union school, and, according to the best authority we now have, in
this same year of 1843, encouraged and assisted by Silas Hathaway, he orgainzed
the Methodist Episcopal Sunday school of Crown Point. It is probable that
he was the first superintendent. He soon became county recorder, and held
that office from 1845 to 1856, preaching occasionally and doing school
and church word as occasions required. In 1847 the school began to be held
in the then new Methodist church building, and there continued until the
present building was erected in 1860. In this year of 1847, when the two
schools of Crown Point were each in church buildings, there were in the
county five church buildings, --- the county was now ten years of age---
seven postoffices, aobut fifty frame houses, two brick dwelling houses,
and four or five stores. There were five local preachers, one circuit preacher,
one Presbyterian pastor. There were two lawyers, six or seven physicians,
fifteen justices of the peace. There were two saloons. There was one village.
Crown Point contained about thirty families.
The Sunday school, of course, was not very large. The school increased in number with the growth of the town, for some years, and then for a time declined, and in 1857 its members were quite discouraged, but one woman began to give her energies more fully to the work; a new pastor, Rev. J. W. Green, came into the field, church and school revived, and the school has continued
(pg. 70)
to grow as the population of the town has increased.
Seasons of declension and seasons of revival have had their day; but in
the main the school has held steadily on.
The superintendents, so far as can be ascertained, have been the following: Samuel Cade, elected in 1849; Sylvester Green, the years not certainly known; Martin Wood; the different pastors for a time succeeding, till 1857; Mrs. S. G. Wood, if not by election, became for a time largely the life of the school. There followed as elected superintendents, ----Upthegrove, about 1858; Geroge Krinbill, 1859, in office eight years; Andrew Krimbill; J. Hauk; W.T. Horine; again for some time J. Hauk; Mrs. S. G. Wood, 1886; S. Witherell, 1887, 1888; Dr. Gibbs, 1889, 1890.
The names of the teachers can not all be given, but the following have been obtained for this record. First of all is the name of Mrs. S. G. Wood, a daughter of Rev. George W. Taylor, of Pleasant Grove, married to Martin Wood in August of 1849, and entering upon home and church and other duties in Crown Point in 1855.
Commencing her work as a Sunday-school teacher before her marriage, as many others do and have done, she has continued it till the present time, a teacher for forty-three years. As might well be supposed she has been active also in other kindred work. Other teachers are: Mrs. R. Fancher, a superintendent and teacher from 1860 for about twelve years, and for the last eighteen years kept out of the school by bodily afflictions; J. Hauk, Mrs. Horine, Mr. and Mrs. Upthegrove, Mrs. Griggs, Miss Cordelia Wood, now Mrs. Judge Herrick, of Kansas; Miss Addie Meeker, now Mrs. J. Rockwell, for three years teacher of the infant class; Miss Mattie Dresser, now Mrs. Dr. Gibbs, teacher for five or six years; Mrs. Witherell, Miss Ann M.
(pg. 71)
Millikan, George Krinbill, Jr.; Miss Julia Krinbill,
Miss Lily Krinbill, T. A. Muzzall, Arthur Griggs, Benton Wood, and
Miss
Ada Griggs. There have been other teachers for a longer or shorter time
in this school.
For several years George Krinbill, Jr., now teacher of vocal music in the Public school of Red Wing, Minnesota, was chorister in this school.
T. A. Muzzall has done not a little for several years in building up the material interests of the school. He has been Secretary, Treasurer, a leading singer, as well as teacher, and has put his prompt, active, business habits into the life of the school.
Professor O. J. Andrews, Principal for some years of the Crown Point Public school, was an active member of this Sunday school.
In numbers this school has been for many years one of the large schools of the county.
In these forty-seven years of school life additions from time to time have been made to the church membership from the classes in the school.
XVI. BAPTIST SCHOOLS IN CROWN POINT.
The first school in the Baptist church house at Crown Point was held by T. H. Ball in 1857.
Rev. J. Benney became pastor in 1857, but did not continue the school. Rev. A. E. Simons became pastor in 1860 adn conducted a Baptist school till April 19, 1863. In the fall of 1863 the school was reopened by T. H. Ball and continued till 1870. The teachers were: Mrs. Ball, Miss Mary Bacon, Mrs. L. G. Bedell, now Dr. Bedell of Chicago, and Mrs. Sarah Robinson. In 1865 three members of the school, and in 1867 ten, became church members.
After 1870 a school was again opened in the church building by Mr. and Mrs. Abrams and Mrs. Whipple.
(pg. 72)
In 1877 Rev. R. P. Stephenson was pastor, and he with
others carried on the school.
In 1880 and afterwards Rev. E. H. Brooks was pastor and Mr. and Mrs. Osborne and Mrs. E. Church were for several years active in this school. The school was transferred from East Street to Main