Dubois County’s Heritage
A special souvenir section celebrating the county’s history and traditions as Indiana observes its bicentennial year.
Fourteen Dubois County Civil War veterans gathered at the Civil War Memorial on the Courthouse Square in 1906 during a Memorial Day observance. The veterans are, first row, left to right, Jess Evans, John Troxler, George Mehringer, Pantaleon Berger, Conrad Eckert, Philip Kunkel Sr. and Raymond Fehribach. In the second row are Winfield Scott Hunter, Joseph Schroeder, Henry Kraft, Joseph Roelle, Herman Schmutz, Jacob Schmidt and Phil Merchant.
INSIDE Who was Toussaint Dubois and how do you pronounce his name? Page 3. The Buffalo Trace: A natural road. Page 18. Histories of county communities. Starting on Page 4.
Histories of some of the county’s churches. Page 20. First houses built with the county’s most abundant resource. Page 26.
The Herald ■ YO U R C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R S I N C E 1 8 9 5 DUBOISCOUNTYHERALD.COM
DUBOIS COUNTY, INDIANA
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016 SECTION B
When is a community a community? Page 35. True or false? Stories from the county. Page 50. And much more throughout the section.
PAGE 2 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 3
County namesake civic and military leader ■■ TOUSSAINT DUBOIS’ NAME WAS PRONOUNCED DEW-BWAH. WE SAY DEW-BOYS BECAUSE, AS ONE HISTORIAN SAYS, ‘GERMANS DO CRAZY THINGS.’ By JASON RECKER jrecker@dcherald.com Toussaint Dubois was neither German nor a resident of the county that eventually bore his name. He was French by way of Canada and Vincennes and he was regarded for his strong personality, high rate of success and considerable riches after spending time on the frontier as Indiana neared statehood 200 years ago. He served as an intermediary between settlers and Native Americans. He owned a large home on a large hill on the Illinois side of the Wabash River. He was once commissioned as the major commandant of all spies in Indiana. He was friends with eventual President William Henry Harrison and his son became a good friend of Abraham Lincoln. The résumé suggests Dubois should indeed have a county named in his honor. The fact that it’s us, what with all our German roots, is mostly only coincidence. Dubois was the first person to own property in the present-day Dubois County, near what is now Boone Township. Other than that, “he spent almost no time here,” said Art Nordhoff, a Jasper attorney and local historian. “He lived in Illinois, had an office in Vincennes. But he had the very first piece of property here. The McDonald family lived here, but they were squatters on (Dubois’) land.” The deed, on display at the Dubois County Museum, was signed by James Madison, the future president who was then the secretary of state. Thomas Jefferson’s signature is there, too, but it was inked by a secretary. By then, Dubois was a bit of a legend. His family came to Vincennes from Canada (near Montreal) sometime around 1780 — some literature suggests the family left France for Canada about 1740 and some books cite his arrival date in Vincennes as sometime around 1778 — to a spot along the Wabash River that had been captured in 1779 by George Rogers Clark. Dubois was born about 1750 (or several years later, depending on the source) and George Wilson writes in “History of Dubois County” that Dubois was brought to southern Indiana
SARAH SHAW/THE HERALD
A portrait of Toussaint Dubois hangs in the Dubois County museum in Jasper. Dubois was the first landowner in Dubois County. with French troops led by Lafayette at the time of the American Revolution. With Dubois, dates are unclear and details can be debated. What is clear is that he was admired and respected. He was close with Harrison, the Indiana Territory governor who later became the U.S. President. He likewise was a friend of Father Jean Francois Rivet, a fellow Catholic for whom Vincennes Rivet High School was named. He developed an affinity for working with Indians and earned status as a man trusted by both sides in negotiations with Native Americans (despite his efforts, the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe between William Henry Harrison’s army and The Prophet’s men ended with heavy casualties for both
sides). He established stores in Vincennes and nearby towns and worked commercially with Francis Vigo, the man for whom Vigo County (home to Terre Haute) was named. He also acquired substantial land holdings in both Indiana and Illinois, some of which he used for his family’s home on a bluff overlooking the Wabash River from the Illinois side; the home, with interior flair and 400 acres, was a sign of Dubois’ affluence. “(Dubois) quickly became a civic leader of importance and founded a modest political dynasty that would endure through three generations,” Leo W. Graff Jr., wrote in a paper for a George Rogers Clark history conference in the late 1980s. He married 16-year-old Janne Bonneau in 1788 and with her had four sons and a
daughter. Bonneau died in 1800, and the entire village of Vincennes gathered for her funeral. Five years later, Dubois married Jane Baird, a 25-year-old Kentucky native who had moved to Bloomington. They had three children. One of those children was Jesse K. Dubois, who later served as an official in the U.S. Land Office in Illinois and as a member of the Illinois Legislature for a decade before working as a county judge. It was a friend named Abraham Lincoln who urged Jesse to run for auditor, a post in which he served the state for two terms before a failed bid for governor in 1864. He died in 1876 at 65 years old, but one of his sons, Fred T. Dubois, lived near the Lincoln family and later moved west where, in Idaho, he was a U.S. marshal and territorial delegate to Congress before in 1890 becoming Idaho’s first full-term U.S. senator. He held that post for 16 years. He died in 1930 in Washington D.C. at 78 years old, and he’s the one who gave officials in Dubois County a portrait of his grandfather; that picture, like Dubois’ deed to land from the early 1800s, is displayed at the Dubois County Museum. The county was officially named on Dec. 20, 1818, and, at the time, was home to about 1,100 people. It might seem odd to name a county after a man whose only connection was that he was the first to own land in the area, but Nordhoff points out it’s typical for county etymology to follow loose standards. Daviess County, for instance, is also named after a man who fought in the Battle of Tippecanoe (though his last name was actually spelled Daveiss). Same for Bartholomew County. Brown County is named for a man from the War of 1812. The honor has come with a caveat perhaps because, as Nordhoff said, “Germans can do crazy things.” Books suggest Dubois’ last name was pronounced Dew-BWAH. Somewhere between the 1780s and now, Germans goofed it up; it’s for years been known to us folks as DEW-boys. He wasn’t around long enough to correct anyone. By the time immigration planted German seeds in Dubois County, Dubois was dead. He died March 11, 1816, when he and a servant were crossing the Little Wabash River in Clay County, Ill. Dubois and his horse were dragged under the swollen river. Both drowned. The obituary that followed in the Western Sun noted that “in him the poor have lost a benefactor, his country, a friend. He was a kind husband, an indulgent father and an honest man.”
HOW DUBOIS COUNTY HAPPENED A timeline of our cities and towns dating back 200 years.
1816 1817 1818 1830 1835
Ireland founded on land purchased from the United States government by John Stewart, a native of Ireland (the country), on Dec. 23. Town laid out by Stewart’s son James and four others.
1837
Dubois County created after division of Pike County. County also includes pieces of Perry and Martin counties that were sectioned off. County named after Capt. Toussaint Dubois, first area landowner in what is now Boone Township.
1840
Ferdinand founded by Joseph Kundek and named after the Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria.
1843
Portersville established and selected at the county seat of Dubois County.
Celestine platted. Named for Rt. Rev. Celestine Rene Lawrence De La Hailandiere, second bishop of Diocese of Vincennes.
1859
Jasper founded, named by Eleanor Enlow, who got the name from the Bible (Revelation 21:19)
Holland platted by Henry Kunz, native of Germany. Named for Holland (The Netherlands).
1860
St. Anthony, originally called St. Joseph, platted. Name changed to St. Anthony to secure post office in 1874. Nearby St. Marks laid out by M.B. Cox in 1872.
Haysville laid out, named in honor of Judge Willis Hays, original owner of the town site.
Huntingburg platted by Col. Jacob Geiger, who purchased 1,920 acres of land and became one of the city’s first permanent settler. Likely so named because site had been popular hunting ground.
1864 1865 1866 1867 1874
Post office established in Hillham, which was not platted; post office remained in operation until 1937. Schnellville platted Nov. 27. Founded by Henry Schnell, who was born in Germany. Bretzville mapped by William Bretz Jr.; his father, William Bretz Sr., settled land around 1850. It was called New Town but government suggested change because it sounded like Newton. Renamed in June 1873. Maltersville laid out by Mrs. Anna Barbara Malter. St. Henry platted. Town’s original name of Henryville changed because there was already a Henryville in Clark County north of Louisville.
1880
Birdseye platted. Tradition says town named after Rev. “Bird” Johnson, who helped select a place for the post office and said “this spot suits Bird’s eye.”
1883
Kyana platted. Town founded by Louisville Mining & Manufacturing Company and bears abbreviation of its home state (Kentucky) and abbreviation of Indiana; Duff platted by Robert Small, likely named for Col. B. B. Edmonston, nicknamed “Colonel Duff.”
1885 1889
Dubois platted, took name from Dubois County.
1905
Cuzco platted by William H. Nicholson, named after Cusco, in Peru.
Post office established in Crystal, which was not platted; post office remained in operation until 1919.
OTHER DATES ... 1870 Post office established at Kellerville, discontinued in 1931. Community named for founder John Keller ... 1871 Church at Zoar built, schoolhouse built in 1897 and post office established in 1900 (remained in operation until 1907). Community likely named after Zoar, Ohio ... 1879 Johnsburg post office established ... 1881 Mentor founded by Francis M. Sanders, an admirer of President James A. Garfield who named settlement for Garfield’s hometown of Mentor, Ohio ... 1885 Ellsworth platted, named for James M. Ellis, a landowner. Town now covered by Patoka Lake ... 1907 Post office opened in Dillon, then renamed Norton in 1908, discontinued in 1938. Town east of Crystal and Cuzco.
PAGE 4 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Enlow, Kundek played instrumental roles By CANDY NEAL cneal@dcherald.com Early life in Jasper was busy with people who were eager to make a life for themselves, their families and their community. Col. AnEvans, THE EARLY DAYS drew who was involved in the War of 1812, came to this area in 1813. He brought slaves with him to construct the dam and grit mill at the river. Benjamin Enlow bought the land that included this mill in 1820. The mill was then bought by cousins Francis Xavier and Alois Eckert in 1847. The Eckert family operated the mill until operations stopped in 1933. The Enlows were instrumental in getting the Jasper community started. They were English American Protestants coming from the Kentucky-Tennessee area and became some of the area’s earliest settlers. The land they bought became known as Enlow’s Hill until 1830, when the county seat was moved from Portersville (that’s also the year on the city flag and was the first year Jasper was recognized as a town). Eighty acres were donated by the Enlows for the town site. The community’s name was suggested to be Eleanor, after Joseph Enlow’s wife. Instead, she suggested the name Jasper, which she found in a passage in her Bible, Revelations 21:19. Before Father Joseph Kundek came to the area in 1838 to start his mission work of establishing churches and parishes, the Jasper community had a small Catholic population. When Kundek settled in the area, he immediately began to encourage Germans to settle in the parish. Many came from a previous immigration to Cincinnati, from small German, Baden villages like Pfaffenweiler, and from the German state of Bavaria. Kundek became a member of the Democratic Party and when Germans came to the area, he persuaded many of them to become Democrats. Col. Bazil Brook Edmonston married William McDonald’s daughter, Joanna, in 1826. William McDonald had settled his family earlier in the area that became Portersville. The Edmonstons first lived close to Kellerville, but had moved to Jasper by 1837. Edmonston owned most the land from the Courthouse out Sixth Street. During the Civil War, local soldiers trained at Camp
JASPER
PHOTO COURTESY OF ARTHUR NORDHOFF
This undated drawing of the Eckert Mill property indicates that a wooden covered bridge was used to cross the Patoka River. The Eckert homestead was across the street. The mill was known as the City Mill of Jasper, and the bridge was known as Patoka Bridge. The name of the artist in the lower lefthand corner is F. Walters. (Taken from “Pictures from the Past... Jasper, Indiana,” by Arthur C. Nordhoff) Edmonston, which extended from Sixth and Bartley streets to what is now Cathedral Health Care Center on Ninth Street. When the county’s log courthouse in Jasper burned in August 1839, Kundek was instrumental in getting a brick courthouse built. The courthouse was supposed to be built by Alexander McGroves, but after the foundation was completed, he quit, and for a time the project stood still. In December 1844, Kundek became the contractor of the project. The new brick courthouse was competed in 1847. By 1901, the courthouse was found to be too small. The building was removed in 1909 and a new, bigger one was dedicated in October 1911. The courthouse, which stands today, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The first paper published here was the American Eagle, in 1844. The first issue of the Jasper Weekly Courier was created March 19, 1858, under by the byline of Mehringer, Smith and Doane. Within a year, Clement Doane was the sole owner. The paper was discontinued in 1922, after the death of Clement’s son Ben Ed Doane, who died that year. The Jasper Herald was first
printed in 1895 under editor William Brinkley; now called The Herald, the newspaper has been led since 1919 by members of the Rumbach family. The Gramelspacher-Gutzweiler House, the oldest brick structure in Jasper, was built in 1849 by Joseph and Sophia Gramelspacher. The building sat at Main and Seventh streets until it was moved in 1980 to its current home, on Main Street between 11th and 12th streets. Because of its architecture, the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building is now the Jasper Library Annex. Sebastian Kuebler was a blacksmith and by 1851 was manufacturing farm implements and wagons from his shop at he corner of Seventh and Newton streets. In 1880, he ran a dry goods and grocery store on the southwest side of the Square. In 1895, smaller buildings to the south of the store were removed and Kuebler replaced them with a brick building that was attached to his store’s structure. The Kuebler building is the oldest one on the Square today and now houses several small businesses. The Opel or Greentree Inn was built by
Forests lured settlers By WYATT STAYNER wstayner@dcherald.com Lush forests in the town of Ireland were what attracted its founders. While the small town west of Jasper along State Road 56 bears THE EARLY DAYS the name of the country Ireland, it was founded by Scot-Irish settlers who had lived in the U.S. for years. Some — but not most — of the settlers were servants in their homeland who were searching for a better situation. After being raised in the country of Ireland, some of these settlers saved enough money to trek to America, a voyage that usually took six to eight weeks, according to the Ireland Historical Society website, which is run by Delbert “Junie” Himsel. Before it became the town of Ireland, it was called the “Irish Settlement,” and the settlement was totally forest in 1814 when Jonathan Walker became the first man to enter land into the settlement. Many of the settlers migrated to Indiana after selling land in Southern places such as North Carolina and Virgina. Some settlers also came from Pennsylvania. Walker, who was a veteran of the War of 1812, was quite the character. According to George R. Wilson, a former Dubois County Historian, Walker once lost a bet and crawled on hands and knees through snow, mud and slush from the county courthouse south to the Patoka River and then swam
IRELAND
the river before returning to the courthouse on his hands and knees. Walker, a large man, also consistently fought another large man named Robert Oxley, who served as a county commissioner. According to Wilson, the two men were more than 6 feet tall and weighed at least more than 225 pounds — some men in their families were as large as 275. While they fought many times, Walker was finally named champion of Dubois County and also Pike County, carrying the belt until his death in 1856. Walker was also a defendant in what Wilson surmised was the first murder case in Dubois County. He was tried for the fatal shooting of Henry Hudeman, a shoemaker in Huntingburg, who ended up becoming the first person buried in the old cemetery in the southeastern part of Huntingburg, which is now the city park. The shooting occurred near where the St. George Hotel used to stand in Huntingburg. Walker was acquitted in the case because there were no weapons found to be in his possession. Some suspected a Warrick County man did the shooting, but he escaped police officers. While Walker first claimed land in the Irish Settlement in 1814, it wasn’t until 1816 that Ireland started to become the town that it’s considered today, since the town is an outgrowth of the Irish Settlement. At that time, John Stewart, a veteran of the War of 1812 and a native of the country of Ireland, moved into present-day Ireland, Ind., bought 160 acres of land from President James Monroe, built a house on the land and called it his “mansion home.” The
John Opel in 1858 as a home for him and his family. It was popular for social events, including annual Fourth of July celebrations. Today, the home, on St. James St., is on the National Register of Historical places and is the residence of Joe and Judy Rohleder. The Hochgesang Brick Yard was established by Michael Hochgesang around 1880. It was located about a quarter mile southeast of the Patoka River bridge. His father, E.A. Hochgesang, had operated a brickyard earlier on north Newton Street. The Hochgesang family subsequently owned two other brick yards in Jasper. In 1881, the first telegraph message in Jasper was sent by Felix Lampert, ordering a newly invented grain reaper. The first telephone call was made in 1883, but there was a dispute over patent infringement, so any phones at that time were removed. The first permanent telephone was officially at the Jasper City Bakery in 1896. Jacob, John and Joseph Alles were among the first German cabinet makers to make furniture in Jasper. They had a store that supplies furniture and had a threestory warehouse on the west side of Courthouse Square by 1886. The Alles Brothers Furniture was the predecessor to Jasper Furniture, which became Jasper Desk. The Soldiers and Sailors Monument, designed and built by Michael Durlauf, was dedicated Oct. 19, 1894, on the east side of the courthouse. Most of the funds for the monument were contributed by war veterans. The Joseph Friedman Sr. hardware store at 516 Main St. was bought in 1895 by Louis Sturm and John Lorey. The partnership dissolved in 1909, with Sturm becoming the sole owner. The Sturm family continues to operate the L.H. Sturm Hardware store now on Courthouse Square. German American Bank was organized in 1910 with 57 shareholders. The bank leased space on north Main Street. The company bought that property in 1947 and later acquired nearby land, which is the Main Street land on which the bank’s main branch sits today. In 1911, George Krempp signed a contract with Evansville Coca-Cola Bottling to acquire a franchise to bottle the soft drink and distribute it throughout an area measuring about 60 square miles. Four generations of the Krempp family were in the soft drink bottling business. Jasper was officially incorporated as a town in 1866, and as a city in 1915. Its first mayor was George Wagner.
This is a 1906 photo of Greene School in Ireland. The school, built by school trustee G.M. Greene, replaced the original building that was torn down in 1903. The school was located in an area known as “Hog Heaven.” The school closed in 1939. PHOTO COURTESY OF DELBERT HIMSEL JR.
mansion was two 18-by-20 log homes with a front porch and a 10-foot walkway between them, with the roof extending over both houses. Stewart’s son James platted the town with four others in 1865, about 23 years after the death of John, who made $1 per day while fighting in the War of 1812. Stewart also served in a U.S. Mounted Rangers Unit commanded by Daniel M. Boone, the son of Daniel Boone. Four years after 1816, the Stewart Log
School was built. Then in 1846, Dr. E.A. Glezen, Ireland’s first doctor, built his home and office and served the town for more than 50 years. By 1870, the town had a population of 139, and many German settlers had begun to move in. Over time, the town progressed with technological advancements and it still celebrates its Irish heritage annually with the St. Patrick’s Day Festival. This year, the town celebrates its 200th birthday in August.
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 5
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PAGE 6 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Legend of hunting led Geiger to town By SAM STITES sstites@dcherald.com When Col. Jacob Geiger was a boy, his father, Capt. Fredrick Geiger, told him stories of a lush hunting ground he frequented
THE EARLY DAYS
HUNTINGBURG along the Buffalo Trace during marches between Louisville and Vincennes. Col. Geiger, Huntingburg’ founder, first visited the heavily forested Huntingburg in search for bears to hunt. An avid woodsman, Geiger’s experience was so pleasurable he decided to make the area a permanent home, and in 1837 he purchased a 1,900-acre tract and built a frame house at what is today Sixth and Geiger streets. But Geiger wasn’t the first settler to plant roots in Patoka Township. In fact, there were settlers taking up residence in Huntingburg as early as 1816, the year Indiana gained its statehood. The location of present day Huntingburg intersected with several heavily trafficked paths including the Buffalo Trace and Yellow Banks Trace, which ran from Rockport through Huntinburg and Jasper before linking with the Buffalo Trace. Eli Thomas, a settler from North Carolina by way of Kentucky, was one of the first to stake a claim to land which is now home to Southridge High School. Thomas moved from Kentucky to Huntingburg with his family and one slave named Harry whom he had inherited from his father. Shortly after reaching Indiana, Thomas freed Harry. Around the same time, Henry and Sarah Kemp were establishing their settlement with the help of 11 children just to the south of present-day Huntingburg. Several families soon followed the Kemps
— Cox, Bolin, Hendricks, Lemmon, Walker — and Col. Simon Morgan, Dubois County’s first clerk, recalled the men of these families being particularly tall and broad. Upon the construction of the area’s first steam mill by Col. Geiger, Huntingburg became a destination for more than just good hunting, and worsening conditions in 19thcentury Germany as a result of the Napoleonic wars led to an influx of German settlers coming to the lush hunting grounds seeking their own land and fortune. The wave of German settlers created friction between the Americans and Germans. This animosity was short lived, for the American settlers found the Germans to be honest, hard-working and able to adapt to changing conditions in the pioneer landscape. By 1860, about half of the 1,400 residents of Patoka Township were of German descent, and at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Huntingburg men, American and German alike, stood to fight for President Abraham Lincoln’s Union Army. Among those men was Capt. Morman Fisher, who brought together a band of about 30 Dubois County men forming a section of the Tenth Cavalry unit, which saw action in the battles of Nashville, Reynolds Hill and Sugar Creek. When the war was over, Fisher returned to Dubois County, where he married the granddaughter of Col. Geiger, Wilhemina Heflrich. Fisher became an attorney and eventually served as mayor of Huntingburg before his death in 1898. In March of 1866, 38 people signed a petition to the county to incorporate the community of Huntingburg as a town. A total of 65 votes were cast in favor of the idea, and nine against. Fisher, Herman Rother, E.J. Blemker and E. Brundick and E. Pickhardt were among the town’s first trustees. This article was compiled with reference to “The History of Huntingburg,” by Judge Hugo C. Songer.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE HUNTINGBURG PUBLIC LIBRARY
The Old Town Hall on Geiger Street in Huntingburg in 1890. The building is now restored and houses the city’s chamber of commerce. According to Judge Hugo C. Songer, in his book “The History of Huntingburg,” the town hall was designed by Henry Mursinna, an Italian architect who worked for an Evansville firm. The hall, completed on June 10, 1886, cost $13,600. Songer goes on to note that part of the new building was used as an opera house and was rented to traveling theatre companies for $7.50 a night and to local companies for the lesser fee of $5. The town’s fire company, founded a year after the hall was built, was on the first floor. (Photograph from “Images of America: Jasper and Huntingburg,” edited by Ron Flick and Jane Ammeson.)
Dairy a link to progress By BILL POWELL bpowell@dcherald.com When the Town of Holland celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2009, the grand marshal of that sesquicentennial parade was a Guernsey cow. There THE EARLY DAYS was historical symbolism there, according to Holland resident Lee Bilderback, an educator, town historian and Holland Events Committee representative. He, local historian Eloise Henke and Holland native and published author William Bartelt compiled “Holland History, Noteworthy Happenings in a Dubois County Town: Holland, Indiana, 1859-2009” especially for that celebration seven years ago. “We decided to go with the Guernsey cow because it was the initial cow of the Holland Creamery Association,” Bilderback says. “That was a (farmer cooperative) before the Holland Dairy.” First things first: Holland’s founding residents were not Dutch. They were as German as they come. But, before they came to America, they experienced a regional economy that was in a prolonged recession. The people from northern Germany who founded Holland were Germans who earned money for their passage working seasonal jobs in the Netherlands. Bilderback says Holland’s early German
HOLLAND
PHOTO COURTESY OF LEE BILDERBACK
Participants of the Holland Guernsey Cow Club pose with their newly selected calves behind Holland Public School on April 19, 1926. Emil Caldemeyer, founder of what became the Holland Dairy, attributed the success of the cow club as an important factor in establishing his company in 1931. settlers came primarily from three German communities: Ladbergen and Lengerich in Kreis Tecklenburg and Venne in Hanover. In America, merchant, trustee and postmaster Henry Kunz platted the Town of Holland in 1859. While it was being surveyed, boys from outlying areas who came to see what was going on said they were interested in learning if there was an opportunity for them to earn any extra money, sort of like their parents did when they temporarily worked in Holland. When everyone heard that, so the story goes, the name Holland just hung on the ears and the rest was history. Cut to 1926, when a group of Holland businessmen and farmers start a Guernsey Cow Club at Holland Public School. “A group of farmers from Holland went to Wisconsin and hand-selected Guernsey cows,” Bilderback says. “They were brought back by train and they actually had a parade through town with the cows.” Area dignitaries, including the mayors of Huntingburg and Jasper, were present
for the event, which was perhaps the biggest happening in Holland up until the 1959 centennial, according to Bilderback. During a ceremony behind the school, names were drawn and students were allowed to select a Guernsey calf to take home to their farms and raise. “The idea was that they would eventually build these highly successful dairy herds,” Bilderback says. Seeing the success of the cooperative’s farmers, E.F. Caldemeyer organized the Holland Custard & Ice Cream Co., which later became Holland Dairy. Before there was a Holland, there were three churches — German Lutheran, German Methodist and Evangelical (United Church of Christ today) — and three distinct church communities, according to Bilderback. Town founder Kunz came from Germany and realized the thing to do was to put a store in the middle of the three communities. “That’s where he organized his town,” Bilderback says.
Like the Dutch, the founders of Holland wore wooden shoes while living in northern Germany. Wooden shoes proved the perfect footwear for settlers who came to the United States and tackled the rugged job of clearing the land, Bilderback says. “Sticks and briars didn’t go through them,” according to Bilderback. Wood from a stand of sycamore trees at the site of today’s Holland Park were used to make the local wooden shoes. The dairy industry continues to play a major role in Holland. It is the town’s largest employer. Prairie Farms acquired Holland Dairies and is selling milk products throughout the region. The 150th celebration jump-started town revitalization. Just in time for that historical bash, the Holland Town Council accepted ownership of the Hank and Eloise Henke Stadium & Field. The wrap-around stadium with 80 chairback seats and a roofed pavilion for 20 picnic tables was built behind home plate at the town park’s ballfield and was the centerpiece of the sesquicentennial and every community fest since. Holland residents are continuing to link history and progress with an ambitious downtown project called Holland Commons. More than 100 people attended its official groundbreaking June 5. They shared in a shot of milk to toast the town’s Indiana Bicentennial Legacy Project. The $110,000 Holland Commons will bring a 24-foot gazebo and a commemorative flagpole honoring men and women of the community for military service to a lot west of the post office. There will also be an Indiana limestone sign with Holland’s history, a green space with native trees to shade visitors and bicycle racks to enhance wellness. The completion date — Dec. 11 — is Indiana’s bicentennial date. Bilderback said Herbert Quelle, Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany, learned of Holland Commons and wrote a letter of acknowledgement to the people of Holland. “We appreciate very much your pledge to honor the German heritage,” Quelle wrote.
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 7
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PAGE 8 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Catholic settlers found haven at intersection
By SAM STITES sstites@dcherald.com
The story of the town of Ferdinand is one with deep roots in its Catholic faith and the man that championed that faith, Father Joseph Kundek.
THE EARLY DAYS
FERDINAND Kundek was born in Croatia in 1810 and was ordained a priest in 1835 for his home diocese of Agram. He served for two years as an assistant pastor before taking the opportunity to be a pastor in the United States. Kundek originally applied for admission to the diocese of Detroit, but was assigned into the newly established diocese of Vincennes instead, tasked with a mission in Dubois County. In 1838, at the age of 28, Kundek arrived in Dubois County. For three years, Kundek was the only Catholic priest in the region of southern Indiana. He explored the area between the Patoka and Ohio rivers and found that the recently constructed road between Troy to Daviess County was the only gateway to Dubois County from the east. This new road connected several roads, shortening trips from Cannelton on the Ohio River to Jasper, which also increased access from the east. As Kundek continued to explore the area on horseback, he started to come up with an idea to unite Catholic immigrants across southern Indiana and attract those Germans arriving by the boat full on flatboats from the Ohio River. “I believe settlements are the most apt means to safeguard and to spread our holy religion in America,” Kundek wrote to the Leopoldine Society in Vienna. “In this manner, the members of the same faith unite as it were into one family, live together, mutually share their religious sentiments and impressions and as one body attend divine service... Such colonies and settlements are according to my conviction the best means to protect Catholic immigrants against the loss of their faith.” Picking a site for this new German-Catholic settlement was a strategic decision for Kundek. Twelve miles south of Jasper the Old Princeton-Fredonia Road intersected east and west with the Troy-Jasper road heading north. To the south, a mile long valley ran parallel to the Troy-Jasper road. In this valley and along the hill side to the east, Kundek envisioned the new Catholic town. At the end of 1839, Kundek purchased 1360 acres of land which would become Ferdinand Township. Kundek named the town “Ferdinandstadt” after Austria Emperor Ferdinand I — a devout Catholic and member of the Leopoldine Society based in Vienna.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MONASTERY IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
The front lawn of Monastery Immaculate Conception in 1900. In the distance, the town of Ferdinand can be seen. (Photograph from “Images of America: Jasper and Huntingburg,” edited by Ron Flick and Jane Ammeson.) “I deliberately resolved to lay off a new town under a German name Ferdinand out of this reason, that they can pronounce it easily, impress on their minds and find it out accordingly,” Kundek wrote to the Archbishop in Vienna. A quick glance at the original platting of Ferdinand Township reveals a long list of familiar surnames that remain in the area today — Schwoeppe, “Hoppen-John,” Niehaus, Powell, Shoemaker, Metzger, Mehling, Schnell, Tretter. To attract German-Catholic immigrants to his newly founded town, Kundek put an advertisement in Der Wahrheitsfreund, a German language Newspaper in Cincinnati. He also visited German communities in Louisville and Pittsburgh to preach about the new Catholic community he was creating in the fertile little valley along the TroyJasper Road and the opportunity the land could provide. One of those families intrigued by Kundeks vision for Ferdinand were the Gehlhausens of Pittsburgh. By winter of 1842, more than 50 families had moved to Ferdinand and built cabins. The town’s first log church, measuring 32 feet by 16 feet, was erected the previous year, but the town’s growth quickly rendered the first log church inadequate to host the entire congregation, and a second log church, 40 feet by 25 feet, was built to accommodate the town’s incoming settlers. But by the end of 1844, the congregation had once again outgrown its facilities, and an act of the Dubois County Board of Com-
missioners had officially created Ferdinand Township. Kundek’s vision for the GermanCatholic settlement was coming into place, and now it was time to create a permanent home for his congregation. Earlier in the year, the Leopoldine Society bestowed a gift of $1,940 to the church, and with his congregation in mind, Kundek decided to dedicate $665 to the construction of a new stone church to become a centerpiece for the town. “The new church which I intend to build will be 109 feet long and 60 feet wide, and is to be dedicated in honor of St. Ferdinand,” Kundek wrote. Work on the new church commenced in May of 1845 and lasted until December of 1847, although much of the work on the interior decorum and design of the pews was continued into 1848. With the new German-Catholic settlement permanently situated around the new church, the town continued to grow over the next few decades. In 1845, John B. Pfaff was elected justice of the peace, but for years the rule of the town was left to Kundek and a church council. By 1849, the town had grown to about 450 people, and the church struggled to keep order among its inhabitants. The congregation decided to elect a committee made up of the church’s trustees — one of those men being John Herman Beckman — to draw up a resolution for how the town would regulate business and deal with troublemakers. Things in Ferdinand were so bad — petty quarrels, theft, violence, and a general
diversion from the catechism by many parishioners — at one point Bishop Maurice of the Vincennes Diocese decided to focus Kundek’s mission back on Jasper, leaving Ferdinand without a priest. The town’s people, with guidance from the committee of trustees, decided the only way to eradicate the immoral behavior was to break any social or business ties with anyone known to be involved in wrongdoing and publicly ostracize them. The committee drafted the resolution and delivered it to Bishop Maurice in Vincennes. The bishop then made a trip to Dubois County, visiting Jasper and Ferdinand. In Ferdinand he met with parishioners and confirmed 110 people into the Catholic Church. The resolution and face-to-face meeting resulted in Father Kundek being allowed to celebrate Mass with the town of Ferdinand once again. Over the next few decades, the town continued to grow as the congregation changed hands from pastor to pastor. The town’s first school house was constructed in 1854 under the authority of Father Ulrich Christen, and in 1870 the first convent was built next to the church and housed the Sisters of Providence. In 1887, Monastery Immaculate Conception was completed, but the first Benedictine Sisters had arrived nearly 20 years prior. Ferdinand was finally incorporated as a town in 1905. This article was compiled with reference to “Ferdinand” by Father Albert Kleber, OSB, STD.
Town offered place for parish closer to home By SAM STITES sstites@dcherald.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF RON FLICK
This architect’s drawing of the St. Anthony School was originally published in the Birdseye News at the time of construction. At the top right is a sketch of the previous school in St. Anthony, which was replaced. At the top left is a rendering of the architect, Mr. Michael Durlauf of Jasper.
Like many cities and towns in Dubois County, St. Anthony’s heritage is closely tethered to the large volume of German immigrants settling in the area between 1835 and 1890, landing first in New York and ending up in southern Indiana by way of cities like Pittsburgh or Louisville. Upon Father Joseph Kundek arriving in Dubois County in 1838, he felt it was necessary for German immigrants to form their colonies to preserve their Catholic faith. To encourage this, he founded the town of Ferdinand in 1840, as well as the town of Celestine in 1843. Out of these two parishes
THE EARLY DAYS
ST. ANTHONY grew the parish of St. Anthony. Jackson Township was first platted in 1819, but it wasn’t until 1860 when Benjamin Kemp surveyed sections of the northwest corner of the township that the plat for the town of St. Anthony — then known as St. Joseph — was registered, and the land was deeded to the parish’s four trustees: John Leisman, Francis Richart, Francis Amps and Francis Merkel. At the time, settlers in the St. Anthony had to go to church in either Jasper, Celestine or Ferdinand. Many in the vicinity decided that it was too far to travel and decided to start their own
church. In 1859, Father Joseph Meister was assigned by the diocese of Vincennes to serve as pastor of the Celestine parish around the same time the settlers of St. Anthony were deciding to start their own parish, but it would be difficult to convince the diocese to provide a pastor without a church. Meister helped advise the people of St. Anthony on starting their own church and provided them guidance on how and where to build. The church was finished in 1864, and at the time consisted of 40 families. In September of 1865, Meister went before the Dubois County Commissioners to officially change the name of the town from St. Joseph to St. Anthony.
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 9
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PAGE 10 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
PHOTO COURTESY OF HELEN (SCHILLER) BURRIS
Velma (Harder) Schiller, left, and her son, Radus, 2, posed with the rest of the new home economy class at Dubois High School in 1937.
Mills, logging, river shaped initial industry By LEANN BURKE lburke@dcherald.com No mills operate in Dubois these days, but in the unincorporated town’s first 100 years, the milling industry was a driving force behind the economy. Before the town was platted in 1885, pioneer Andrew Kelso purchased land in the area from the government. His 1829 purchase made him the first landowner in Dubois, according to George R. Wilson’s 1910 “History of Dubois County.” Wilson suspected that Kelso built a grain mill prior to purchasing land at Dubois based on a memory of Charles Ellis. Ellis recalled another town near Dubois, called Knoxville, and said that’s where Kelso built his mill; however, Wilson found no record of Knoxville ever being platted. The most popular mill in the area, however, was built by another early settler in Dubois, Shiloh Polson. While the Kelso mill mostly ground corn, the Polson mill could grind both corn and wheat, and it provided
THE EARLY DAYS
DUBOIS a machine for carding wool — untangling the material and ordering the strands to be made into yarn. Charles W. Ellis purchased the Polson mill in 1866 and converted it to steam power shortly after. In 1889, Ben Rowekamp, Ferdinand Schneider, Henry Beckman and Charles Nordhoff purchased the mill and formed Dubois Milling Company. The company supplied flour to stores in parts of Dubois, Martin and Orange counties until it closed in 1939. Two other Polsons bought land in Dubois in the town’s early days: Thomas S. Polson in 1838 and Robert S. Polson in 1839. According to Ellis’s memory, Thomas practiced medicine in the town for 40 years, and Robert operated a flat boat. He remembers that Robert died during the Civil War and is buried “in the Sunny South.” Logging also played a large role in the
Kelso arrived first, but town named after merchant Hays
A parade float passed through Haysville during the town’s sesquicentennial celebration Aug. 6, 1966. Photo from “A History of Northeast Dubois County in Indiana.”
economic development of the budding Dubois. The first settlers in Dubois County had to clear forests to build homesteads and farms. Several histories recount early farmers doubling as loggers in the colder seasons. The men felled trees and rolled them to the shores of the Patoka River, where they were shackled together to form rafts. In the spring when the river flooded, timber men rode the rafts to Jasper to sell the logs, a trip that took three to four days. The Dubois mural exhibit at the Dubois County Museum recounts the site of the floating rafts: “(A line of rafts) often extended for a mile upstream from Dubois. In many cases, there were as many as 15 rafts, and in the process of jamming, many were sunk never to be recovered.” Logging continued to be a major industry for Dubois until 1935. Joseph Friedman Sr. and his sons — Jacob, Edward, William, Tony, George and Fred — made most of their living through logging, using horsedrawn wagons to carry the logs. Later, Anthony DeKemper used a yoke of oxen to By CANDY NEAL cneal@dcherald.com Haysville’s first settler was in the community before Haysville was officially named. That man was Joseph Kelso, and he bought 624 acres of land in 1816. The town was not laid out until 1835, when Moses Kelso, a probate judge in Dubois County, settled there. Kelso also operated a wool carding machine establishment there in 1840. Haysville was named for Willis Hays, who bought land in the area in 1818 and was the area’s first merchant; he was also an associate judge. Hays donated some of his land for the town. A ferry service started in the early 1840s, carrying people who lived on the north side of White River to the south side into Haysville; Harry Krodel operated a ferry service in the early 1900s. In 1913, a bridge was built across the river. In 1932, the bridge was declared unsafe and a new bridge was built several hundred yards east; that bridge was completed in 1933. The Meyer Planing Mill was started in 1874 by George Meyer, who named the company George Meyer and Company. He passed on the business to his sons August, John and Wesley; that partnership dissolved in the early 1920s, leaving August Meyer as the sole owner. The building continued as Meyer Planing Mill until 1933, when August’s son Roy took over the company and named it Meyer Custom Woodworking. When rumors spread about mineral be-
move the logs, eventually adding a Caterpillar tractor to his process. Flooding of the Patoka River often cut Dubois off from the rest of the county in its early days. In 1869, townspeople remedied the issue by building a bridge. In 1890, the bridge was upgraded to steel, and today a concrete bridge sits where the original wooden structure was built. The bridge paved the way for the Pony Express mail delivery system that ran along the Southern Railroad, which was built through Dubois in 1908 to connect Jasper to the south and French Lick to the north. The first freight train passed through Dubois on Oct. 25, 1908. Soon, passenger trains joined the freight trains that passed through the town, and a depot was built. In the railroad’s heyday, six trains passed through the town each day. The depot stood until 1969 when it was torn down. Dubois may not be a railroad boom town anymore, but agriculture remains at the base of the Dubois economy, albeit with modernized farms.
THE EARLY DAYS
HAYSVILLE ing located in the area, the Hartsfelt Mining & Smelting Company formed a company with John Seitz of Haysville as president. The company moved in a 20-ton smelting furnace and silver mining began in the late 1880s, but stopped in March 1888 when the U.S. Mint determined that the not enough silver was in the ore to warrant mining. The George Hoffman House was built in 1890 and was unique because of its Queen Anne style and spindle work that was on the upper and lower porches. The house used to sit on the north side of Market Street but has been razed. In 1902, John and Anna Opel sold about 5 acres of land to George and Ludwig Eichmiller, who started the Haysville Flour Mill. The flour, corn meal and ground feed were made at the mill. Future owners included Wilby Dorsam, James Schwenk and William Braun. The land is now part of Burger Farms. The Opel-Kieffner complex was three joined buildings that housed a home, a saloon and a lunchroom. The saloon was operated by John Opel Sr. and later by Henry Kieffner. The complex was destroyed by fire in 1916. Martin Stamm Saloon was built in 1917 and operated as a saloon until Harry Baker purchased it and converted it into a general store. Haysville celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1966 and its bicentennial this year.
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 11
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Religious bonds run deep By LEANN BURKE lburke@dcherald.com The histories of Celestine the town and of St. Celestine Catholic Church are inextricably linked. Father THE EARLY DAYS Joseph Kundek, the man responsible for founding most of the Catholic parishes in Dubois County, platted Celestine in 1843 and named the town and the parish for Rev. Celestine Rene Lawrence de la Harlandere, the second bishop of the Vincennes Diocese. Celestine’s third priest, Father Karl Bilger, wrote a church-centered history of the small town in which he records that Celestine almost wasn’t placed in the northeast section of the county. Father Kundek was considering two or three locations for the parish. The first priests to serve Celestine were responsible for multiple parishes and often held Mass only once a month. The town’s early history is remembered almost exclusively in the church’s history, leaving the names of many of the town’s first inhabitants, many of whom came from Hesse province in Germany, remembered only as they related to the parish. Celestine’s Sesquicentennial book devotes two paragraphs to the daily life of the town’s first settlers: “The early settlers at Celestine had their joys and sorrows. Life was not easy. The early settlers lived in solitude and stillness among the hills and trees. With oil burning wicks and tallow candles, they managed to bring a little light into their homes when darkness came. On their open fireplaces, they prepared their frugal meals. When death came, many times there was no priest to the graves of loved ones. They lived on, hoping for better days and praying to find a happier home in heaven.”
CELESTINE
Schaaf & Schnaus Planing Mill was the business name given to the sawmill and planing mill acquired by Alois J. Schaaf, George W. Schnaus and John M. Schnaus on Feb 23, 1904. Schaaf was the son of John Schaaf, a German cabinetmaker. He and his parents came to the United States in 1854 and settled in Dubois County. (Photograph from “Pictures from the Past... Jasper, Indiana” by Arthur C. Nordhoff) The early industries of Celestine were logging and farming. The homesteaders had to clear the forests to build their homes and farmland. The first recorded men to purchase land and build homes in Celestine were Bonifaus Fehry and Bernhard Merkel from Baden, Germany. Once sawmills were built, Celestine’s timber industry took off. Dubois County became known as a haven for high-quality hardwoods, and Celestine’s residents made their livings selling the timber. Milling was a dangerous industry to be in, however, and often deadly mill accidents made the news. One such accident is recorded in the Jasper Courier from February 26, 1869: “EXPLOSION: On the 17th inst, near Celestine, this county, the portable saw mill belonging to Hacker and Hagen exploded its boiler, killing John Hagen, one of the owners of the mill, instantly, and seriously, it is supposed not fatally, wounding another man, whose name we have not yet been able to learn. This is the 2nd sawmill explosion that has taken place in this county within the last few years.” The Sesquicentennial book records that the first post office in town went up in 1851, and church records first mention a school in 1852, although there is indication that a
school existed prior. Martin Hasenour built a general store prior to 1850, in the time before railroads. Hasenour had to travel to Louisville by horse and wagon regularly to pick up the goods he sold. Several shopkeepers from the area often traveled together on the three- to four-day journey. It was on one of these trips that Martin Hasenour drowned while crossing the Blue River in Harrison County. His son, George, took over the store. The was kept in business and in the family until it closed in 1965. Evidence of one other general store in the area comes from a Jasper Courier article from Nov. 12, 1869 recording a robbery. The article alleges that Mr. J. Jacobs stole “candy and 5 copper cents” from the Schulz store in Celestine, making him the first prisoner confined in the new county jail. Around the time of the Civil War, men began leaving the town to fight for the Union army. The first 20 men left Celestine in 1861 to join Capt. Kish in the S Company in New Albany. Later in September, a group of men led by John Alles left to form Company I of the Indiana 49th Regiment; Alles became captain and commander of Company I. After the Civil War, blacksmithing became a major business for Celestine. The
town’s first blacksmith was Joseph Striegel. A priest named Father Bruning purchased a church bell from Striegel. The bell was named after Striegel because he split the $105 bill with the church. Striegel’s blacksmith shop burned down in the early 1900s under the ownership of Carl Schepers in one of the five worst fires in Celestine, records the Sesquicentennial book. Three other blacksmiths — Thomas Striegel, Jacob Seng, Jr. and Harry Humbert— also had shops in Celestine. Joseph Schlegel became the first horse harness and saddle maker in the town, George Seng opened a wagon and carriage shop, and John Meschede was a shoemaker. John Schaaf moved to Celestine in 1870 and continued a cabinet-making business he started in Harrison County. Schaaf’s descendents and those of another German woodworker, John Schnaus, founded Jasper Cabinet Company. Agriculture was a staple of early Celestine. Farmer oats, wheat, barley and corn for cereal and raised pigs, cows, chickens and sheep. The farmers often helped each other during the harvest and with barn raising. “Life wasn’t luxurious,” the sesquicentennial book says. “But it was fulfilling.”
Church helped keep families closer to home By SAM STITES sstites@dcherald.com
Pictured in this undated photo from a home-made wine tasting party in St. Henry are, front row from left, Joe Geeskin, Al Jochum and Johnny Geeskin. In the second row are Joe Wendholt, Pius Oser, John Luebbehusen, Henry Kerstein and Al and Paul Oeding. Photo from the St. Henry Quasquicentennial 1862-1987 book.
Like many Dubois County municipalities, the town of St. Henry was established as a parish community made up of the members of a growing congregation. St. Henry was first organized in 1862 by Rev. Chrysostoma Foffa and was comprised of 25 families who came together to build a stone church rather than travel to Huntingburg or Ferdinand to join a congregation. The town’s proximity to Ferdinand Station — one of the area’s first train stations west of Ferdinand and north of Mariah Hill — made it an attractive location for settlers looking to start businesses. Straddling the Cass and Ferdinand township lines, St. Henry was platted in 1874, officially putting it on the map with a population of about 100 people at the time. The town’s original name “Henryville” was changed because there was already a Henryville in Clark County north of Louisville. With the nearby Ferdinand and Johnsburg stations bringing new settlers and travelers into Dubois County, St. Henry’s economy boomed in its early days. St. Henry was home to more than 30 businesses, including two general stores, three saloons, two grocers, a post office, a sawmill, two dressmakers, a shoe maker, a tailor, a wagon maker, a tin shop, a machinist and a blacksmith. But the same railroad that breathed
THE EARLY DAYS
ST. HENRY life into the St. Henry community also took it away. The extension of the Southern Railway line from Johnsburg Station to Huntingburg undercut the town’s commerce, and many businesses either relocated or closed. Many of the families who stayed were farmers or ranchers, and those agricultural ties to third and fourth generation family farms remain to this day. In 1962, residents organized its first beer and barbecue festival to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the town. The festival — dubbed Heinrichsdorf Fest — was held on two separate days in June and August before it was condensed into two days in June starting in 1975. The festival remains a point of pride for St. Henry residents and serves as the biggest fundraiser of the year for local clubs such as 4-H, the Knights of Columbus and Christian Mothers Society. Nearly the entire population of the town pitches in to help with the women making coleslaw and preparing baked goods for the bake sale, the men barbecuing the locally famous chicken and pork chop dinners as well as building and taking down the temporary structures that house the festival and the teenagers and children helping to run the game booths and serve food.
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 13
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
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DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 15
PAGE 16 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
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DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 17
A commemorative postcard handed out at the Dubois County Museum shows off the elements found in the Birdseye mural painted by Kim Schroeder.
Famous sorghum grown, shipped across country By BILL POWELL bpowell@dcherald.com Birdseye officially came into being 133 years ago after Martha and Enoch Inman, Mary and E.H. Baxter, John and Sarah Pollard and Scott Austin gave their land to form the original plat of Birdseye — on Jan. 24, 1880 — and, three years later, the town incorporated. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Birdseye became known worldwide for its sorghum. The cane was grown in the bottom land around Birdseye and, after it was harvested, it was cooked down to syrup and stacked in wooden barrels along the town’s streets. In the summer of 1983, a souvenir history book for Birdseye’s centennial bore a reproduction of the Birdseye sorghum label. During the town’s quasquicentennial, a 125th birthday history book’s cover was dominated by an antique train. The tracks through town that caused a boom in population are still busy but, during Birdseye’s sorghum heyday, trainloads of syrup were shipped out of town each year. According to the centennial history book, up to 20 railroad cars loaded with $25,000 worth of sorghum were shipped per train. It wasn’t far into the 1900s, however, that farmers stopped growing sorghum in Birdseye because the United States started buying sugar cane from Hawaii and Cuba at a lower price. The loss of a leading crop wasn’t the first disaster the residents of Birdseye faced. At 9 p.m., Aug. 20, 1893 a fire started in Carr’s saloon and by the time it was over much of Birdseye was destroyed. Many of the town’s businesses and about 40 homes were burned to the ground. Many homeowners and business owners rebuilt but the population of the town dropped from 600 people to 400 as many of those who couldn’t afford to rebuild moved on. Before the fire, businesses ran parallel with the railroad. The layout changed Residents of Birdseye often worked at local saw mills and lumber yards. A chair factory was a big employer as were local tomato canneries. Some of Birdseye’s early news-
THE EARLY DAYS
BIRDSEYE papers included The Birdseye Coon, which was published in 1883; The Birdseye News, published from 1899 to 1901; and The Birdseye Signal, published from 1921 to 1931. According to the centennial history book, there was a time when Birdseye residents went to bed and their lights shut down with them. At 10:15 p.m., so the story goes, the lights in town would blink off and on, signaling that in 15 minutes the town’s electricity would be turned off until the next morning. Each night the electricity would be turned off by Joy Wright. Turning off the town’s electricity each night wasn’t the only interesting rule followed by Birdseye residents. A town ordinance from September of 1892 stated: “Any person of the age of 18 years and upward who shall curse (or swear) in the name of ‘God’, ‘Jesus Christ’, or ‘The Holy Ghost’ within the corporate limits of said town shall be deemed guilty of profanity and upon conviction thereof shall become liable for and forfeit to said town a fine, penalty and forfeiture in any sum not exceeding three dollars to be recovered according to law.” Today, Birdseye’s public meetings take place in a new Town Hall at 103 W. State Road 64, there is a new Birdseye Family Dollar at 2 E. State Road 64 and an ambitious push has started to stabilize and possibly revive the former Koerner Commercial Block building at 101 State Road 145. One of the men behind the latter push, Greg Sekula, Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana Inc. southern region director, talked during a town council meeting this year about the importance of saving landmarks. “I think it’s important for this community,” Sekula said. “The key to any of our small communities here in Indiana is helping to retain community character. That is what is going to attract future investment. You lose your community character, in essence, you lose a lot of the soul of your community.”
Pictured is Schnellville resident and Civil War veteran, Joseph Schuch, center, and five of his children — Kate, left, Carolyn, John, Tillie and Mary — shortly before Joseph’s death in 1930. During the war, Mr. Schuch was captured by the Confederates and assigned to the infamous Andersonville prison camp in Georgia as a prisoner. Of the 45,000 Union prisoners who were confined to the fifteen-acre camp, nearly 13,000 died. Schuch was 86 when he died.
Small businesses fostered sense of independence By WYATT STAYNER wstayner@dcherald.com It’s not hard to figure out where Schnellville got its name. The town’s namesake was clearly inspired by founder Henry Schnell. However, Schnellville was actually officially founded as the town of Worth only months after the Civil War ended and President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. At that time, Schnellville was considered bustling. Part of that was because Schnell offered free lots of land to anyone who planned to start a business. On top of that, Schnellville operated similarly to most rural communities before the advent of transportation and telephones. Because of its size, the town had to be independent, forcing locals to rely on each other for help. It didn’t make sense for someone to ride into Jasper on a horse every day for basic necessities, so local businesses flourished. Henry Schnell operated a store in the town not too long after he founded it. Jospeh Buchart was the town’s chief merchant and he also started a general store. There was also a mill and hotel operated by Buchart. In 1915, when Buchart began to sell his businesses, a downhill slide started. During the turn of the century, the town population was 200 and the town began to change as transportation improved. Some shop owners closed their stores. However, Schnellville was also a farming community, and as residents of Schnellville told The Herald last year during its 150th birthday celebration, its farming background helped the town persevere despite adversity. “(Schnellville residents) had to work together,” Ed Uebelhor, a Schnellville resident who has worked on a town history book,
THE EARLY DAYS
SCHNELLVILLE said. “The farmers had to work together to do the big chores like the threshing of wheat and the butchering of hogs.” In the 1930s and ’40s, power lines came to Schnellville, connecting it to the rest of the county. But Schnellville stayed independent. It had its own grade school, its own parish and Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church. In 1976, consolidation shifted Schnellville-area students to Pine Ridge Elementary School; that marked the first time Schnellville students didn’t attend class in town since a two-story, two-frame school was constructed in 1903. In its early days, that building featured just an outhouse with a board wall separating the girls and boys restrooms. In July, Schnellville experienced another type of consolidation as Schnellville and St. Anthony parishes merged. Sacred Heart remains the church of Schnellville, and in many ways is the glue that holds the town together as faith has always played a major role in the community. After all, Henry Schnell led Mass in his house before the town built its first church in the 1870s. Today, Schnellville proudly celebrates its history with a “Voices of Schnellville: Whispers From the Past” performance, which has drawn an audience of 500. The speaking performance has happened two straight years now and includes characters Henry Schnell, Abraham Lincoln and Theresia Merkel Merkley, who was struck dead in 1934 by lightning while shelling peas on her porch. In total, the performance has 41 cast members and aims to do two things: entertain and inform people of the town’s rich history.
PAGE 18 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
The Buffalo Trace, a trail carved by the migration of bison, called American buffalo, ran through the north side of Dubois County. It brought many of the first settlers to Dubois County.
Buffalo Trace a trail of mystery, movement By ALAN HOVORKA newsintern@dcherald.com In an effort to preserve a unique piece of Hoosier history, a group of dedicated volunteers searched out and documented the approximate, sometimes exact, locations of the first major road used by settlers into Indiana — just in time for the state’s 200th birthday. The Buffalo Trace Working Group, formed in fall 2014, spent about a year and a half combing through survey records, journals, satellite imagery and other documents in order to find the closest approximations of where the Buffalo Trace was. The group members then set out across Southern Indiana to document, with GPS technology, the remains of the old buffalo trail used by Native Americans and white settlers, which was the first major roadway from Vincennes to the Falls of the Ohio River. The Buffalo Trace is a trail carved by the migration of hordes of bison (called American buffalo) through countless years. The path went by a number of names during the 1800s, such as the Vincennes Road or Harrison’s Road, and was part of larger buffalo migratory route that ran through Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky. It served as the first major road into what became Indiana. What makes the Buffalo Trace Working Group’s findings significant is that this is the closest anyone has ever been to knowing the location of the routes the trace covered since it was more or less lost after 1825. They either found the exact locations of the trace or were within a couple hundred feet. What’s more is the findings will be public domain once they’re published. The group hopes to have all of their work wrapped up by the end of the year, in time for Indiana’s Bicentennial. Many families settling in Dubois and the surrounding counties came into the territory via the Buffalo Trace. It remains a significant part of family history for people like David Drake, coordinator and team leader for field work for the Buffalo Trace Working Group in Dubois and Orange county. Drake’s reports are now available at the Dubois County Museum. “My family settled along the Orange-Dubois county line,” said Drake, a 64-year-old
Huntingburg resident. “And, as I worked through my family history, I was trying to figure out where they came through. They came in the early 1800s.” He started digging for answers as to how his family arrived in the state, which led him to research the Buffalo Trace and the work of Angela Doyle, heritage resource specialist and travel liaison for the U.S. Forest Service at the Hoosier National Forest. Doyle and her colleagues in Bedford chipped away at finding the exact locations and crossings of the trace in the Hoosier National Forest for two decades. She wrote an article on the progress she and her colleagues had made in 2014 that garnered the attention of not only Drake, but of about 25 others. “I realized that I had the opportunity to organize a group of people into volunteers to do the work that I, as a federal servant, had been unable to really do well as part of my regular duties,” Doyle said. Doyle and a group of volunteers formed the Buffalo Trace Working Group with the goal of researching, locating and preserving the locations of the Buffalo Trace in southern Indiana using survey records from 1805 to 1807. They used GPS units to plot the location of the remnants of the trace while they were out in the field. This is the first time a permanent, extensive record of this nature has been created about the trace, even if some of the locations are still approximations or best guesses. The group formed committees responsible for tracking down various parts of the trail and then set out on researching their locations. The trace’s general path in Indiana, traveling west toward Illinois, begins at the Falls of the Ohio River near New Albany and continues toward the Wabash River by Vincennes before crossing into Illinois. This road, often 12 to 20 feet wide in places, was the most direct route to Vincennes in the 1800s, which was the main destination in the territory at that time. It crossed (east to west) Floyd, Harrison, Orange, Dubois, Pike and Knox counties for the most part. The trace wasn’t a typical road because it was carved out by the buffalo. It had a number of small side paths and
curves. It did have a clear, main path, which was the path from the Falls to Vincennes. The buffalo wandered and didn’t always use the same pathway to reach their destination for a number of reasons, such as weather. The working group focused on the primary route, however. Many of the side paths — and even some of the main paths — have been lost to time. Drake found a lot of the trace in eastern Dubois County, but did not have as much success in the western part of the county because of farmers. “Any remnants of the trace are just going to be long gone because the farmers have eliminated it. Or if it’s been through a town,” said Drake, who assisted in the Knox County field work of the project. “Primarily, I was looking for wooded tracks, where I could find the property owner and ask for permission to go out there and see if I could see anything.” This wasn’t the first attempt to locate the historic pathway. The trace was more or less lost by 1825 because of population explosion between 1800 and 1830, before and after Indiana became a state in 1816. In 1800, there were about 2,600 people living in Indiana, according to U.S. Census data. By 1810, the number of people in the state grew to 24,000, reaching 147,000 in 1820 and 343,000 in 1830. The old buffalo trail was a critical route for settlers, supplies and militia during Indiana’s early days, Drake noted. As the state expanded, so did the road and the need for new roads. Side trails and alternate routes sprouted up everywhere. “After we became a state, people were coming into the territory so fast, roads were being built everywhere,” he said. Settlers needed a way to their cabins and would make their own roads. An example of this is what’s now known as the Paoli Pike. It was built from Paoli to New Albany, separate from the Buffalo Trace because the land was flatter. The pursuit of progress drove the trace out of the minds of people, Drake said. “We didn’t care about that old Buffalo Trace anymore — we’ve got to get to the county seat,” he said about the mindset at the time. “We could not care less about that old stupid road, you know? So nobody cared
about it anymore. It was all progress and new county developments and it was just forgotten.” In 1935, state leaders decided it was time to remember. A three-person commission was created to find the location of the trace and to test the viability of incorporating it into the state highway system. George R. Wilson, a Dubois County historian, led the commission. The commission’s 1936 report found that most of the road was gone and it wouldn’t be feasible to turn it into a state road. It’s likely no one will ever know the 100 percent accurate location of the trace, Doyle said. Several parts of the trace are just gone. “It’s not like it’s going to ever be a route that people can walk or drive from beginning to end,” she said. “There are just a lot of segments that just don’t exist. They’ve been plowed under or are under an existing road or we didn’t get landowner permission to walk that 40-acre parcel.” Besides publishing reports on the location of the trace in various counties, which will be delivered to libraries in Dubois and other counties, the group has put together a website in partnership with Indiana University Southeast to share the findings with the public One committee of the working group received a grant from Indiana Humanities to put together 70 educational boxes for fourth-grade classrooms in southern Indiana. The boxes include hands-on material, such as bison teeth, surveyor’s notes, surveyor’s chain or a fragment of a rifle barrel, that represent Indiana history and 15 lesson plans; they’re being distributed this summer for use in the upcoming school year. Another product currently being produced is an ArcGIS Story Map that will use the GPS data collected by field surveyors to create an interactive map that details the history of the trace and its role in Indiana history. “It’s just a little Indiana gem,” Doyle said. “It’s just one more thing for us to bring about that we have this and that we’re trying to learn about it and here, see what we’ve found so far.”
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 19
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE HUNTINGBURG PUBLIC LIBRARY
Salem Church Interior, Huntingburg, c. 1905. The interior, shown here as it looked from 1902 to 1921, is a grand space with no columns to obstruct the congregation’s view of the service. (Photograph from “Images of America: Jasper and Huntingburg,” edited by Ron Flick and Jane Ammeson.)
History of Dubois County churches varied By LEANN BURKE lburke@dcherald.com There’s more to the area’s religious history than Catholicism. Sure, Catholicism has been integral to the development of Dubois County, bringing the area key figures like Father Joseph Kundek. But several of the county’s oldest churches aren’t Catholic — they’re Protestant. As Catholic churches sprang up throughout the county in the 1800s, so did Lutheran, Methodist and Church of Christ congregations. A complete history of the Dubois County churches over a century old could fill several books, but the following offers a sampling of Dubois County’s rich Christian heritage. Ferdinand and Jasper St. Joseph Catholic Church in Jasper, St. Ferdinand and Monastery of Immaculate Conception in Ferdinand trace their roots back to the mid 1800s and Father Joseph Kundek. The Croatian missionary dedicated his life to serving the Catholic community of Dubois County, erecting the first Catholic church, St. Joseph, in Jasper. St. Joe began as a log cabin, but the congregation quickly outgrew the first building. The congregation began construction on a larger brick structure in 1840. Construction on the current St. Joseph building began in 1867 under the congregation’s fourth pastor, Father Fidelis Maute. Maute served as architect, contractor, foreman, laborer, fundraiser and pastor for the church during its construction, completed in 1880 with the exception of the tower. Father Basil Heusler oversaw the completion of the tower in 1904. The lawn of St. Joseph is both a tribute to God and to the pastors who helped build the church. The cross on the south lawn is the fulfillment of a vow made by the German immigrants during their Atlantic crossing in the midst of a life-threatening squall. According to St. Joe’s website, George Bauman, a stonecutter, vowed that if the ship arrived safely he would erect a stone crucifix wherever they settled. He fulfilled his vow in 1848. A storm destroyed the original cross in 1928, and the present figure was placed in 1932. The “Plaza of Pastors” on the east lawn of the church honors St. Joseph’s three great pastors: Basil, Maute and Kundek. Kundek’s statue looks out over
Jasper and the other towns he helped found in Dubois County, including Ferdinand. Kundek brought German settlers from Ohio to Ferdinand with a magazine ad. According to St. Ferdinand’s website, Kundek placed an ad in “Der Wahreheitsfreund,” a German-language Catholic weekly calling for settlers to move to “a new town with the name ‘Ferdinand’ twelve miles south of Jasper on the Troy Road, about eighteen miles from the Ohio” that the German Catholic congregation of Jasper set up. Philip Wagner bought the first plot of land from Fr. Kundek and built a two-story log house. Kundek held the first Mass in Ferdinand in Wagner’s cabin in 1840. The townspeople then built a log church that soon needed to be expanded. The larger, stone church was completed in 1848 and serves as the heart of the current structure. The Sisters of St. Benedict and Monastery of Immaculate Conception came to Dubois County through St. Ferdinand Catholic Parish. The first sisters — Benedicta Berns, Xaveria Schroeder, Rose Chapelle and Clara Vollmer — arrived in 1867 from Kentucky to teach at the parish school. Within 20 years, the group had grown to 72 women and become an independent monastery. They built their quadrangle — a traditional monastic structure — near the parish. The Chapel of Our Sorrowful Mother, built in 1877, sits on the monastery property. Currently, it is closed to the public, but visitors can peruse the outside. St. Henry Father Chrysostom Foffia of Ferdinand founded St. Henry Catholic Parish in 1862. He named the parish in honor of Abbot Henry of Einsiedein Abbey in Switzerland. The first church was built in 1863. The current building was built in 1910 and 1911. Parish growth led to the construction of a new building in 1910. St. Henry used coal and oil lamps until 1934 when the Huntingburg Power and Line extended to St. Henry. Services are still held in the church. Ireland Ireland is home to one of Dubois County’s oldest churches: Shiloh Church. The church, a Cumberland Presbyterian church, held its first services in a log church in 1817 at the edge of an Irish settlement. In 1849, Shiloh Meeting House was erected and was known for many years as one of the finest country churches in the southern part of the state.
In the late 1800s, Ireland was also home to a Methodist church. The church began as the Ireland Methodist Society in 1873 thanks to Rev. O.A. Barnett of Haysville and several local residents. Barnett was pastor of the Haysville Methodist Episcopal Church, which has disbanded. The original building was built in 1878 and is currently owned by the Ireland Historical Society. The current Ireland Methodist Church sits at the northwest corner of State Road 56 and County Road 350. Ireland’s Catholic church, St. Mary, was established in 1890 when parishioners from St. Joseph in Jasper decided there was a need for a Catholic congregation in Ireland. The current building was completed in 1905. Huntingburg and Holland Huntingburg is home to three churches that are more than a century old. St. Mary Catholic Church in Huntingburg was founded in 1859 in Mrs. Herman Rothert’s living room. Later that year, the congregation built a church on land bought from Herman Beherns. The congregation built a large church on Washington Street in 1889. The original structure was used as a school until a fire destroyed it in 1901. A group of German immigrants founded Salem United Church of Christ in 1842. The current building was built in 1889 and featured in the 1998 movie “Hard Rain.” In the film, which is set in Huntingburg, the town is forced to evacuate when the town floods. Looting and crime follow the evacuation, including the planned robbery of an armored car. St. Paul United Church of Christ in Holland formed in 1840. It was the first Evangelical church in southern Indiana. The congregation built the current building in 1869 out of bricks made at the Hilgeman farm roughly a half mile from the site. Until 1934, men and women were separated by an “uttershild.” The men sat in the pews on one side, the women in the pews on the other. The first congregation of St. James Lutheran in Holland moved to Dubois County from Ohio. The current building was built in 1876 for roughly $5,000, and the church held services in German until 1942. Celestine and Dubois Celestine’s St. Celestine Catholic Parish and Dubois’ St. Raphael have intertwined histories. St. Celestine was first founded in 1843 when the town was platted atop a hill. When Father Joseph Meister came to
the parish in 1859, he wanted to build a new church downtown. The story, according to the parish’s website, is that the church sat on a tree covered hill and the Father was afraid of tree-covered hills. The parishioners, however, didn’t want to move the church. In the end, the parishioners won, and St. Celestine stayed on its hill. Several years later, Father Meister was killed by a falling tree limb while at St. Anthony parish. Until St. Raphael’s completion in 1902, each Sunday morning, the Catholics who lived in Dubois traveled five miles down the dirt road to attend Mass in Celestine. According to St. Raphael’s website, most of the parishioners walked. People from Dubois petitioned Father Charles Bilger, who arrived at the parish in 1891, for a church in their town, but Bilger refused. St. Celestine needed to be rebuilt, but was in debt. Bilger didn’t want to commit to building another church until St. Celestine was repaired and financially stable. Bilger completed St. Celestine’s third rebuild in 1897, and he began construction on St. Raphael in 1899. By 1902, the parishioners in Dubois had their own parish. Fifteen years after it was built, St. Raphael burned down in a fire on Christmas Day 1917. For the next two years, the congregation held mass in a saloon/restaurant/hall owned by Clamor Nordhoff. Work on the present St. Raphael church began in 1936. St. Celestine and St. Raphael first united to from the St. Celestine St. Raphael Cluster Parish in 2002. Last month, the parishes merged to form St. Isidore Catholic Parish. The buildings retained their historic names, but the group of parishioners merged to form St. Isidore. Dubois is also home to Emmanuel Evangelical Lutheran Hill Church, first founded in 1858 by Pastor C. Risch. The current church building was erected in 1901 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. St. Anthony and Schnellville Meister founded St. Anthony of Padua in 1864 under the name St. Joseph. At the time, both the churches were named St. Joseph, but in 1865, both changed their names to St. Anthony. Construction on the current St. Anthony Church began in 1881 and was completed in 1885. During construction, parishioners walked 6 miles to attend Mass at St. Celestine. Today St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church belongs to a cluster parish with Sacred Heart of Jesus in Schnellville.
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
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DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 21
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Dubois County businesses have storied history From Herald Staff Reports
Gerber, Joseph L. Eckstein and Joseph F. Friedman.
Meet some of Dubois County’s heritage businesses: Jasper Desk While Custer was dodging bullets and arrows at his last stand at Little Bighorn under the leadership of U.S. Commanderin-Chief Ulysses S. Grant, desks and household furniture were being built from the ground up by a team of cabinet and furniture makers at the Jasper Desk Company, albeit under a different name. That was 1876. In 1895 at the Kansas City World’s Fair, the company received an award for its desk. In 1906, the company was shipping a rail carload of desks to San Francisco to replace some destroyed in the great earthquake and fire. In 1960, President John F. Kennedy, while campaigning, gave a televised appeal from Washington, D.C., while seated at a walnut conference unit made by the Jasper Desk Company. Starting out, a trio of entrepreneurs — John Gramelspacher, Sebastian Keubler and Frank Joseph — bought the Alles Brothers Furniture Company from the Alles brothers, who retained stock in the company. In 1894, the company employed 50 hands, had 18 machines and had 25 patterns of desks made from walnut, white oak and cherry woods. Prices ranged from $13 to $55 a unit. The Alles Brothers mainly built household furniture. The name was changed to Jasper Furniture Company and, with the addition of desks to the product line, the name changed again — this time to Jasper Furniture and Desk Company — around 1889. It wasn’t until the early part of the 20th century (1913) that “furniture” was dropped and the business was renamed the Jasper Desk Company, identifying the company’s chief product. Today, the Jasper Desk Company still is shipping desks and office furniture throughout the world and the company’s website bills the business as the oldest wood office manufacturer in the United States. Huntingburg Wagon Works In 1874, William Roettger and Ben Klosterman formed a partnership that later would become Huntingburg Wagon Works at 321 Fourth St., according to the Dubois County Museum. The company built a plant at Fifth and Washington streets in 1902 and eventually expanded its line of handmade wagons to include buggies and spring wagons as it acquired other companies. In 1925, the company began a car dealership in Hudson-Essex automobiles before the company was sold in 1958 and moved to Arkansas. But visitors to City Hall today can glimpse the past as they are greeted by a 1901 Huntingburg Roadster buggy, the only one known to still exist. A 1920s pony cart and an early 1940s hitch wagon also are exhibited on City Hall’s second floor. The original wagon works building at 321 Fourth St. was sold in 1902 to Henry Dufendach, who opened a hardware store there. In the 1930s, Dufendach sold his hardware business to Reutepohler Hardware Co. Reutepohler enlarged the store and also sold furniture, rugs and household supplies. Indiana Desk Many young men of the county became skilled in woodworking at the “desk factory” in the early years. To provide employment for the increasing number of skilled workers and apprentices, a second factory was organized on March 5, 1905, under the name of Jasper Novelty Works. This firm was financed by local capital, a considerable part by men who were woodworkers themselves. Like the original plant, this factory soon found sufficient demand for desks, discontinued its original plan to produce novelty furniture and on April 25, 1927, changed its name to Indiana Desk Co. Joseph M. Sturm, the first manager, and Joseph Jahn, superintendent, were active in the organizational work. Both men were instrumental later in organizing other plants. The original board of directors of Indiana Desk comprised George P. Mehringer, president; Alois Schaaf, vice president; Joseph Sturm, secretary; Jacob Jahn, Joseph
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JOHN FIERST
Joseph L. Eckstein Lumber Company, First and Clay streets, Jasper.
Huntingburg tobacco Huntingburg was on the Southern Railway Co. mainline from Louisville to St. Louis and one of the industries benefitting from that was tobacco. Herman Rothert had a four-story tobacco handling warehouse at Fourth and Geiger streets where area farmers sold their crop and workers processed the tobacco. In the same year Huntingburg became a city, 1889, a large fire destroyed 17 buildings along Fourth and Geiger streets, including Rothert’s tobacco business. Hugo Songer, a Duff native, judge, area historian and author of “The History of Huntingburg,” said the tobacco industry never recovered from the fire. As for the railroad, the Huntingburg portion of the railway and the old train depot off Washington Street between State Road 64 and Fifth Street were finished in 1882. Songer has said the railroad’s importance cannot be overemphasized. Huntingburg went from a little village of 300-plus people to somewhere near 3,000 in about 10 years. The train depot was torn down but the Huntingburg Event Center on 14th Street is modeled after it. Hoosier Desk The success of Indiana Desk and the development of more skilled workers led to the establishment of another factory on Aug. 20, 1915, known as the Jasper Manufacturing Co. This concern also found it advantageous to standardize in the manufacture of office desks and tables. On Jan. 1, 1922, the name was changed to the Hoosier Desk Co. The original executives were Albert Bohnert, president; Joseph Jahn, vice president; Louis J. Eckstein, secretary; Felix Schneider, treasurer; William Bockelman, director. The first manager was Louis Seibert.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF HUNTINGBURG PUBLIC LIBRARY
Huntingburg Furniture Plant No. 1, Eighth and Van Buren streets.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JOHN FIERST
Alles Brothers Furniture Store, Public Square, Jasper.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF HUNTINGBURG MUSEUM
Uhl Pottery, Huntingburg.
Huntingburg Dry Press Brick Early Huntingburg settlers recognized the value of clay deposits in a hill northwest of Huntingburg and kilns were erected for burning brick, according to Songer’s “History of Huntingburg.” Adolph Katterhenry was one of the first brick makers with a permanent facility a half mile north of Huntingburg. In 1892, Huntingburg’s Dry Press Brick Company was organized by W.R. McMahan, Mike McNelis, Adam Stratman, Henry Landgrebe and A.H. Koerner. The company made buff-colored face brick. Another firm, Southern Indiana Clay Products (later known as Patoka Brick Company), made red-colored brick from shale. In the mid-1920s, both firms sold out to Central Brick Company of Chicago. The operation wound up in the hands of a receiver during the Great Depression and, in 1934, a group of business and professional men purchased the defunct company and incorporated the Huntingburg Brick Company. In May 1968, Charles C. Niehaus bought control of the company and the kilns west of Main Street were converted to natural gas for burning the brick. When natural gas proved too expensive, the kilns were converted back to coal, which ran afoul of the Indiana Clean Air Act of 1968. Operations ceased June 1, 1975, according to Songer’s history book. JOFCO The fourth entry into the field of desk manufacturing in Jasper was the Jasper Office Furniture Co., which was organized in February of 1922. Later the firm’s promotion and advertising stressed a shortened version of the company name and in 1965 JOFCO was officially registered. The organizers and original board consisted of Joseph M. Sturm, president and general manager, Victor F. Sturm, Dr. E.A. Sturm, William F. Sturm and John M. Schnaus. Joseph Sturm was succeeded as manager in 1924 by his son, Victor, who served in that capacity for 11 years. Jim Wallace was manager from 1935 until 1953 when Rudy Sturm was appointed. The company recently merged with Jasper Group. Continued on Page 24
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 23
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DuCrafts, Inc. In 1937, William E. Menke founded DuCrafts, Inc., in Huntingburg, for the purpose of manufacturing venetian blinds and basketball scoreboards. The firm started in a building on Fifth Street.
The firm produced solid wood and upholstered chairs for business and industrial offices, schools, libraries and institutions and are sold in all 50 states. Materials used include Indiana oak, birch from Canada and walnut from the Midwest.
Styline William Menke and his son, Robert, founded Styline Corporation in 1952, leasing space from the Huntingburg Wagon Works. In 1959, it began building its manufacturing facilities on the Moenkhaus farm west of Chestnut Street. In 1972, it merged with its parent company, DuCrafts, and continued to grow to become Huntingburg’s largest employer. Robert’s son Hank became president in 1984. It manufactured occasional tables, desks, contract bedroom furniture and office furniture. In the early 1980s, it started manufacturing wood office furniture exclusively. Today it is OFS Brands.
Indiana Chair The new Indiana Chair Co. was organized early in 1929. The first organized board of directors consisted of M.L. Wagner, president; John F. Schneider, vice president; F.J. Seng, treasurer; Edward J. Beckman, secretary and manager, and Grover Salb, director. Simultaneous with the development and growth of office desk and chair factories, other types of wood manufacturing as well as allied wood industries also were established and flourished.
Jasper Chair The Jasper Chair Co. was the pioneer plant in this field and was begun in 1922 at a meeting called by Louis P. Joseph and attended by Leo C. Jahn, L.T. Koerner, Judge Bomar Traylor and Alva Elliott. These men became the first board of directors and laid the foundation for the chair industry in Jasper. It was a considerable struggle to gain recognition in the chair field, but by producing a quality product at a fair price, the firm became a factor in the trade. Two additions were built to the original plant by 1966. The first manager was Louis T. Koerner. By the end of the 1920s, the demand for Jasper-built chairs was so well established that two more chair companies were organized, almost simultaneously. They were the Jasper Seating Co. and the Indiana Chair Co. Before these plants had time to get well underway, the Depression hit this country, and it was a bitter uphill battle for both. Jasper Seating The Jasper Seating Co. was organized in 1928 and incorporated Feb. 14, 1929, with Louis P. Joseph as president; George R. Wilson, vice president; Leo C. Jahn, secretary; Louis T. Koerner, treasurer; and Alva Elliott, John Eckert and Dr. Leo A. Salb as directors.
Eckstein Lumber Eckstein Lumber, Inc., dates back to 1898 when the sawmill of Joseph L. Eckstein & Sons came into being. The family operated a stationary circular sawmill on East 14th Street until 1920, after the death of Joseph Eckstein when the sons, Louis J. and Clem E. Eckstein, built a band-sawn mill at the south end of Clay Street. The business was sold to a corporation in 1945. In 1959, the corporate name was adopted. J.V. Stimson Mill and Lumber Yard J.V. Stimson came to Huntingburg from Parke County in December 1895 and, by the following February, opened a lumber mill powered by a 75-horse steam engine in tandem with a pair of 46-inch boilers. Some 30 men were employed, 15 as mill hands and the others as teamsters and lumber men. Jasper Cabinet The Jasper Cabinet Co., was one of the major woodworking industries of the community not producing office furniture and was an outgrowth of the Schaaf & Schnaus Planing Mill which was established in 1903. The mill became the Schaaf & Schnaus Manufacturing Co. in November 1916 and began producing porch swings, sandboxes and tables, laboratory tables, costumers and bookcases as well as window and door sashes. The original executives included Aloiz J. Schaaf, George W. Schnaus, John M.
Schnaus, Otto Schaaf and Alice Fritch. In 1928, the name of Jasper Cabinet Co. was adopted and the firm began manufacturing a wide range of products which included secretaries, breakfronts, cellarettes, knee hole desks, piers, curio and gun cabinets, foyers, commodes and mirrors. Continuous growth of the business was evidenced by four additions made to the plant in the early 1960s. Jasper Wood Products Co. The Jasper Wood Products Co. was founded Jan. 10, 1924, for the purpose of manufacturing plywood for the industry. Included among the organizers were John M. Schnaus, Louis M. Buechlein, A.W. Berger, Louis J. Eckstein, Claude, Virgil and C.U. Gramelspacher. John M. Schnaus served as president and Louis Buechlein was vice president from 1924 until 1927. Buechlein held the presidency from 1927 until his death. The firm, which pioneered in many plywood products, produced plywood parts for airplanes and boats during World War II. Its primary product in the 1960s was custom manufactured flat and molded plywood. Jasper Turning To supply the demand for turned legs and carved designs of other woodworking plants according to the furniture styles of the day, the Jasper Turning Co. was organized Dec. 14, 1928. The original board of directors included A.J. Schaaf, president; Martin Fritch, vice president; Otto Schaaf, secretary; William Fritch, treasurer, and Edward Knust, director. William Fritch served as manager until his death. The Farmers Mill in Huntingburg In the late 1800s, farmers who saw a need for processing their grain in order to maximize profits established a mill at Sixth and Jackson streets in Huntingburg. The board of directors consisted of Jacob G. Cato, Herman Heitman, Clement Hembrook, Smith Robinson and William H. Bretz. Brands of flour were known by the names Snow Flake, Chickadee and Family Pride. Jasper Novelty Furniture Another major manufacturer not in the field of office furniture was the Jasper Nov-
elty Furniture Co. Organized in 1928 under the name of Jasper Hickory Furniture Co., the plant began operations the following year, producing rustic outdoor furniture. Like the other plants which started just before the Depression, this factory also had an uphill struggle but overcame its difficulties. Early in its existence the firm switched from outdoor furniture to living room accessories, including such items as end tables, cocktail tables, bookcases, commodes, record cabinets, etc. The organizers and first board of directors included John M. Schnaus, Martin Fritch, Louis J. Eckstein, Hilbert Kuebler, who was the first manager, Claude Gramelspacher, Adolph Egloff and Ed Koffitz. Jasper Veneer Mills Another of Jasper’s long-established firms, dating back to the turn of the century, was the Jasper Veneer Mills. Organized by John and George W. Gramelspacher, William F. Beckman and Joseph F. Friedman, the mill supplied veneers used not only locally but by manufacturers throughout the nation. Several decades ago when strawberries were a major agricultural crop in Dubois County, it also manufactured berry crates used by the growers for shipping purposes. In 1919, Claude and Virgil Gramelspacher acquired interest in the firm and together with their father George operated the business for many years. Uhl Pottery In 1849, according to Songer’s Huntingburg history, Louis and August Uhl left Lisberg, Germany, bound for the United States. The potters erected a plant in Evansville and secured clay there, but that supply proved unsatisfactory. After learning of the fine clay being mined near Huntingburg, the business moved to Huntingburg in 1908. Fifty employees produced a million and a quarter pottery pieces per year. Failure to keep the pottery modernized, coupled with a prolonged labor strike in the 1940s, resulted in its closing. Continued on Page 26
“A City Like No Other!”
Known for its picturesque downtown, famous for numerous antique shops, quaint specialty shops and unique dining establishments, that features brick sidewalks and wrought iron fences, is Huntingburg, a historic town ... “A City Like No Other” in southwestern Indiana. The town is also known as the “Hollywood of the Midwest” in which two movies were filmed in the city’s beautiful League Stadium A League of Their Own and HBO’s Soul of the Game
Enjoy our ... Huntingburg Museum Historic 4th Street Walking Trails and Golf Driving Range City Parks – Lakes – Golf Course Nature Preserve
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Resources ... Manufacturing and Agriculture
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 25
PAGE 26 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Brosmer Lumber Band sawn lumber was the principal product of the Brosmer Lumber Co., Inc., Jasper, which was founded in 1937 as the Brosmer & Seng Lumber Co. The firm was incorporated in 1940. Later the remaining shares owned by William Seng were purchased by brothers Edgar and Edward Brosmer and the corporation was solely owned by father and sons. The name was officially changed Dec. 3, 1964. Officials of the firm placed all its timber tracts under the Tree Farm System for preservation of young timber and conservation practices. Jasper Corporation In 1939, the Midwest Mfg. Co. was organized and began production of chests of drawers and dinette sets in a plant located in the Skyline subdivision in Jasper. Ten years later, in May of 1949, ownership of the company changed hands and on March 23, 1950, the Jasper Corporation was officially incorporated. After the 1949 reorganization, the household furniture operation was discontinued and the plant went into the production of leather-top tables. With the advent of television in the 1950s, production of tables gave way to TV cabinets produced for several major television manufacturers. By 1952, production space was expanded to about 60,000 square feet and 250 people were employed. In 1952, the Jasper Corporation purchased the Borden Cabinet Co. and converted the operation from kitchen cabinets to the production of roller grained television cabinets. Habig Mfg., Inc., was established during the same year. The Jasper American Mfg. Co. began operations in Henderson, Ky., in August, 1953, producing vertical extruded chipcore and in April 1955 the Evansville Veneer and Lumber Co., in Evansville, was acquired. Jasper Stylemasters, Inc., was formed in February 1956, producing plywood and processed wood components. This company was housed in the expanded Corporation plant until 1959 when it was moved into a 30,000-square-foot building at 15th and Cherry streets built originally for warehousing. Stylemasters was expanded in 1961 to approximately 90,000 square feet.
This photo taken from the front side of the J. & A. Eckert Mill is dated to approximately 1905. Standing in front are Andrew Eckert, his brother Jacob Eckert, and Jacob’s son, Alois Eckert. PHOTO COURTESY OF BILL ACKERMAN
Also in 1956, Compania Maderea Interamericana was established in Panama City, Panama, and has been active to a limited degree in panel and lumber imports. The Jasper Corporation Retirement Profit Sharing Trust and individual members of the board acquired controlling interest in the West Baden National Bank and French Lick State Bank and on Jan. 1, 1959, the banks were merged to form the Springs Valley National Bank. The W.W. Kimball Co. of Melrose Park, Ill., was purchased in July 1959 and in October of 1961, the piano assembly operation was moved to a new plant in French Lick. Also in 1959, the Lafayette Mfg. Co. was incorporated in Lafayette, Tenn., to furnish lumber core and dimension parts to the expanding Corporation operations. On November 7, 1960, the S.S. & S. Mfg. Co. of Evansville was acquired and on December 18, 1960, Cabinet Mfg. Co. of Evansville was purchased. Production in both plants was later discontinued in lieu of the more economically favorable Cabinet Division location in Jasper. Jasper Electronics Mfg. Corp., was formed Feb. 7, 1961, to produce Kimball organs and electronic components. In May of
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that year, Jasper Finance and Acceptance Corporation was incorporated to assist Kimball’s growth by wholesale and retail financing. Also in 1961, the general offices were moved to the Cherry Street location and the Kimball Music Center, a retail piano and organ sales facility was established. Indiana Hardwoods, a sawmill, lumber yard and processing operation was established in Chandler in 1964. In 1965, a dimension plant, Dale-Wood Manufacturing, was established in Dale. A subsidiary company, Habig-Kimball International, was formed Jan. 1, 1965, in London, England, to supervise Kimball organ assemblies and develop a sales organization for European distribution. The Bosendorfer Piano Co. of Vienna, Austria, was acquired this same year. The original executives of the firm were Arnold F. Habig, president; H.E. Thyen, secretary; R.F. Schneider, treasurer, and A.C. Sermersheim, director. Today the company is Kimball International and Kimball Electronics. Jasper Table Originally established to manufacture office tables, the Jasper Table Co. expand-
ed its production through the years to include the wider selection of wood office and school furniture. The company was founded Nov. 17, 1948, with the following officers: Albert M. Schaaf, president; Cletus J. Krodel, vice president; Omer Sturm, secretary and general manager, and R.E. Sturm, treasurer. The company’s first plant was located on south Main Street. In March of 1965, however, the operation was moved to a new 36,000-square-foot plant on East 15th Street. United Cabinet Already represented in a variety of woodworking fields, Jasper industry entered still another field in June of 1954 when the United Cabinet Corporation was founded. The principal products were wood kitchen cabinets and vanities which were distributed throughout a wide area of the country. Original executives of the firm were Edwin Krempp, president; Leo Brelage, vice president; Stan Krempp, secretary; Louis Savage, treasurer, and Amos Braun, director. Today the company is MasterBrand Cabinets. Huntingburg Furniture Company/DMI In 1911, according to Songer’s Huntingburg history, Huntingburg Furniture Company incorporated. Its founders and first board of directors consisted of Edwin B. Fish, George D. Brown, Harry A. Gabriel and Mrs. Edwin B. Fish. In 1964, shareholders approved the sale of the company to Dolly Madison Industries. Olinger Construction Raymond “R.P.” Olinger started a construction business in 1916 concentrating on silos, elevators, sidewalks, steps and driveways, according to Songer’s Huntingburg history. Road and bridge work started in the 1950s. Olinger Construction Company is credited with building State Road 64 east and west from Huntingburg, I-64 in this area, I-275 near Cincinnati, Maple Park Elementary School and St. Joseph’s Hospital, both of which were in Huntingburg.
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DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 27
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Small towns have big impact
John H. and Rosa Wibbels purchased the general store in St. Anthony from Michael Demuth in 1896 and erected this new building the following year. The building sat directly across the street from St. Anthony Catholic Church. In 1901, John’s two sons, Ben and Henry, bought the store and operated the business as Wibbels Brothers General Store. The store continued in business until 1963. A year later, the empty building was demolished.
By WYATT STAYNER wstayner@dcherald.com While Dubois County only has two cities and three incorporated towns, it’s made up of many more small towns. Cuzco, Dubois, Duff, Haysville, Hillham, Kyana and Portersville, plus many more. You’ve probably heard of some. You probably haven’t heard of some. A few are smaller, dots on the map. Some are like Dubois, an unincorporated town that has the size to merit becoming incorporated. Haysville stands as one of the original towns of Dubois County. It is celebrating its bicentennial this year making it the same age as the state of Indiana. Haysville became a prominent area for commerce at the time of its inception and many of the smaller towns in Dubois County have similar backgrounds. Before cars, highways and electricity, it made sense to have just about anything you needed in town so that you wouldn’t have to trek to another area. Schnellville was also described as bustling when it was founded 151 years ago. While Kyana might be one of the smallest places in Dubois County, it holds one of the most interesting festivals that can be found in the county limits. In 1969, Max Yasgur threw the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, a music festival on his 600-acre farm
PHOTO COURTESY OF MARY YOUNG
in New York state in front of a crowd of 400,000 young people, with 32 acts performing. While Kyana didn’t ever get Jimi Hendrix to its small town, the town has held a Kyana Woodstock regularly since 1994. The festival features videos of performances from the original Woodstock. On Sept. 19, 1814, Jacob Lemmon bought the land that is now considered Portersville. The U.S. government sent Lemmon a large piece of parchment with President James Madison’s name on it. Portersville, while only 445 acres, was the first county seat. Portersville is also the only town in Boone Township and is the oldest in the county, according to George R. Wilson, a former Dubois County historian. While it was small, business was prosperous in the village, court was held there and soldiers were mustered there. All different kinds of boats car-
ried cargo from Portersville to surrounding areas. Arthur Harbison named Portersville after a favorite relative. Farming is the top occupation in Portersville and for a while Boone Township was once a part of Harbison Township. On 120 acres of land, Hillham was founded. On Nov. 18, 1836, George Wineinger purchased the land that now comprises Hillham and 14 years later a store was built in the town. Ten years after that, a post office was established in the village in the northeast corner of Dubois County. A Masonic lodge was organized at Hillham in 1875, but it has since been disbanded. According to Wilson, Hillham had not been established as a town. No survey was ever conducted and no land was platted, although mills, churches and stores have occupied the area. Cuzco is the youngest town in Columbia
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 29
Railroad linked Dubois County, nation By SAM STITES sstites@dcherald.com The invention of the steam locomotive in the early 19th century had a profound impact on industry, politics and the socioeconomic migration of humans throughout much of the century, and that impact is quite visible in the landscape of Dubois County’s history. Railroads didn’t reach Dubois County until the mid-1800s, but the metaphorical and physical groundwork for railways was laid long before that. Most highways found in Dubois County today follow paths of old Native American trails or roadways carved by thousands of pioneers over the previous decades. In 1829, the Indiana Legislature passed an act authorizing the construction of a road between Troy and Washington, Ind., according to Hugo Songer’s book “History of Huntingburg.” At the time, most all settlers were coming to Dubois County via flatboats on the Ohio River. The first mention of a railway coming to Dubois County was in 1837. Several Dubois County communities stirred with interest at the prospect of a railroad connecting Louisville and St. Louis, but the idea took nearly four decades to materialize. In 1870, citizens of the newly incorporated town of Huntingburg voted in favor of a 2-cent tax to aid the New Albany and St. Louis railway, and private investors poured money into the project as well. After a majority of the work was completed on the railway, funds dried up and work was suspended, and the citizens of Huntingburg decided to vote down the 2-cent tax because the railroad mismanaged its funds. Despite financial woes, the railroad was finished in 1878 connecting Huntingburg to Louisville just 6 miles south of town at a place called Ferdinand Station. In 1879, the railway was extended north to connect Jasper.
According to Judge Hugo C. Songer in his book, “The History of Huntingburg,” the Southern Railway Depot, built by local contractor Henry Winkenhoefer, was completed in December 1882. Songer says the train delivered newspapers the same day they were printed, allowing people quick access to world events. (Photograph from “Images of America: Jasper and Huntingburg,” edited by Ron Flick and Jane Ammeson.) PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE HUNTINGBURG PUBLIC LIBRARY
But the railroad from Louisville to St. Louis was still the dream of many industry leaders and politicians. In 1882, that dream was finally realized when the railroad from Louisville to St. Louis neared completion. Many local men were hired to build trestles and bridges traversing ravines, creeks and rivers across Dubois County from east to west at a wage of 90 cents per day. On Aug. 3, 1882, the first locomotive reached Huntingburg from the west, and citizens in Dubois County were bustling with excitement. “Bringing the Air-Line through Huntingburg was the best investment the mer-
chant, the mechanic, the businessman and owner of real estate ever made,” wrote the editor of the Huntingburg Argus. “The future of Huntingburg is bright with hope, and her influence and importance is fact becoming felt and appreciated at home as well as abroad becoming more manifest every day (sic).” The completion of the railroad brought a business boom to Dubois County, and specifically Huntingburg. The town grew from 780 citizens in 1880 to more than 3,100 by 1890. English and Irish immigrants began to take root in Huntingburg, becoming railroad section hands, engineers, firemen
and roundhouse workers, and soon smaller railway lines opened to destinations such as Princeton to the west and Marengo to the east. Huntingburg’s citizens were no longer estranged from the rest of the nation. They traveled to Louisville, St. Louis and beyond. Newspapers from larger cities arrived daily bringing word from Washington D.C. and across the globe. The same year the railroad was completed, the Southern Railway Co. had contracted Joseph K. Fick of Evansville to engineer a train depot, and it was completed by the end of the 1882.
PAGE 30 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
East Fork, Patoka River hold important roles By BILL POWELL bpowell@dcherald.com Scenic beauty and historical significance run deep in Dubois County’s two rivers. The Patoka River is generally recognized as having a name that is Native American for loggy bottom and for being used to float logs to sawmills in Dubois County. The East Fork of the White River runs longer and deeper, but Hindostan Falls — a 41⁄2-foot-tall rock ledge extending across the East Fork south of State Road 550 — precluded too many logs coming here by that stream. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources’ interpretive master plan for Patoka Lake said the Patoka River winds 130 miles from headwaters near Paoli to its confluence with the Wabash River. It is fed by countless springs that historically served as watering holes for livestock and cool water for springhouses. Today, a 2.1-mile paved path called the Jasper Riverwalk brings the public to the river to experience nature, socialize, exercise and meditate. The Riverwalk follows the stream through scenic wooded areas and farm fields. It has turned the river into a peaceful place for tourists, kayakers, walkers, runners and bicyclists. But the Patoka River used to be very, very angry at times. A decision to build a dam, impound the river and create Patoka Lake for flood control was made in 1965, with completion in 1978 and the lake’s official opening in 1980. The state’s interpretive master plan describes historic flooding along the Patoka River as frequent and at times devastating, with Jasper regularly flooded by the small Patoka River. A flood in March 1913 turned Jasper’s clay streets into mud in an event The Herald referred to as “The Great Flood” as the entire state was swept by storms. More than 11 inches of rain fell in a five-day period in parts of the state beginning March 23, taking out 180 bridges. Flooding halted rail travel, left the Wabash River nearly seven miles wide and took the lives of scores of people, according to the United States Weather Bureau. Harold Allison, 79, a Hoosier historian, naturalist, columnist and author who is a life trustee of the Indiana Nature Conservancy, said a rock outcropping south of Shoals called Spout Springs — it is a mile and a half from the town’s famous Jug Rock — serves as a reminder of The Great Flood. “It is about 60 feet tall,” Allison said of the Spout Springs feature. “During the 1913 flood, the people in that area — it flooded Shoals completely — they came over there in boats and marked with some kind of paint how high the water was. You can still see that today. It must be 25 or 30 feet above the flood plain. There are other marks at Spout Springs, but they are lower than the 1913 mark. “Different ones will go there when it floods and mark how high the water was over the years,” Allison said. Spout Springs has a spring that issues from its rock base. Locals who draw water there say it makes the best iced tea and coffee, ever, Allison said. He took friends there
This photograph, taken during the 1913 flood, shows a view to the southwest from the Jasper Desk Company, just south of Fifth Street. The tall building to the left was Bohnert’s Mill and Elevator located at Second and Main streets. The two-story building immediately to the left of the mill was the U.S. Hotel. (Photograph from “Pictures from the Past... Jasper, Indiana,” by Arthur C. Nordhoff) and had a drink this spring. “That water must have been about 40 degrees coming out of that rock,” Allison said. Allison lives in the Daviess County hamlet of Cumback a couple of miles from the East Fork. He said the river doesn’t get the respect it deserves. “That is a point of controversy with me,” Allison said. “Officially, the East Fork of the White River starts at Columbus and the Big Blue River north of that basically should be called the East Fork of the White River. There are two or three rivers there that branch off of that. The East Fork really should start at Indiana’s border with Ohio. The East Fork and the Big Blue are really the same stream.” The former town of Hindostan was on a stagecoach route and served as a county seat. It had mills, a couple of factories and almost 1,200 residents prior to 1820. Then a terrible and fast-moving sickness that many think was a cholera outbreak made it a ghost town. There is nothing there now but square cuts into rock at the falls where a mill was once anchored, according to Allison. The East Fork is one of the state’s less polluted rivers, according to Allison. “When the river is slow you can still see the muscle beds out in the river,” he said. “It is completely covered in muscle shells and there’s still some live ones out there.” Allison has tallied more than 75 species of freshwater mussels that once lived in the Ohio, lower Wabash and lower White rivers but many of them are now listed as
POSTCARD COURTESY OF MARY CAROLYN HOPF
This postcard from the past shows East Fifth Street in Jasper during the flood of 1913. The view is looking east.
rare, threatened or extinct because of water degradation. Today, Allison said, all of the muscles in Indiana are protected. But, at one time, there were muscle shells from the East Fork being made into buttons at Shoals. “They had button factories from the muscles they collected along the White Riv-
er,” he explained. In earlier times, Allison said, steam boats would travel up to the base of Hindostan Falls and even farther north. “It was much deeper then,” he said. “It has silted up so much over the years. In high water (periods), the steam boats went clear up to Bedford.”
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
S
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 31
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Pictured is the second courthouse in Jasper, which was built after the first one, made of logs, burned in 1839. In the foreground is the Soldiers Monument.
Working with the latest in woodworking tools and leaving quite a mess on the floor are students of the Huntingburg High School shop class in 1915.
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Early settlers you may not know about By LEANN BURKE lburke@dcherald.com When the early settlers connected to Dubois County come up, two names spring to mind: Toussaint Dubois, the first to purchase land in Dubois County, and Father Joseph Kundek, the Croatian priest almost solely responsible for the county’s Catholic churches. But what about Dubois County’s other early people? Who were they, and what did they do? One of the first pioneer families to settle in Dubois County, the McDonalds, arrived via the Buffalo Trace along the county’s north border and settled near present-day Portersville in the early 1800s. The patriarch, William McDonald, allegedly became the first “adopted Red Man” after he made friends with the local Native Americans, the Piankishaw. Although the Piankishaw were a peaceful tribe, the settlers who continued to arrive in the area weren’t always simpatico with Native Americans. As more families settled in the area, the McDonalds built Fort McDonald, the strongest of all local forts at the time, at an area called the Mud Holes. One of William’s sons, Allen, was the first white boy to be born in Dubois County. Around the time talk began of forming Dubois County, Dr. Simon Morgan arrived from Virginia. He was following the Buffalo Trace en route to St. Louis but fell ill at the Mud Holes. Rather than move on, he accepted the post as Dubois County’s first county clerk, the most important position in the county at the time. Around the same time, John Niblack arrived from Fayette County, Ky., and was appointed to oversee the organization of the new county. He spent the rest of his life in service to the county, serving as an associate judge after helping to get the first courthouse built at Portersville. John Sherritt arrived in Dubois County in 1815 and spent his first days in the William McDonald house. In 1818, he married Jane Brown. The couple was the first to be wed in the new county. In 1823, Sherritt was commissioned captain of the state militia. A cemetery named for him, Sherritt Cemetery, served as the final resting place for many of Dubois County’s pioneers.
The pioneer Robert Stewart settled on Sherritt’s farm and is remembered as Dubois County’s first gun maker. He set up a shop east of Sherritt Cemetery and made guns for both white men and Native Americans. According to “Wilson’s History of Dubois County,” the Native Americans traveled for miles to visit Stewart. Courts of some sort existed prior to Dubois County’s formation, Wilson’s history reads, but William E. Niblack was the first county native to “sit upon the bench as a circuit judge.” Niblack was born in Portersville in 1822 when it was still the county seat. After his time on the Dubois County bench, Niblack went on to serve on the Indiana Supreme Court for 12 years, as well as several years in Congress. Niblack grew up on a farm before heading to college at the age of 16. His first job was as a surveyor. After three years at that post, he decided to study law. In pioneer days, doctors were a cornerstone of the community, braving all weather at all times of day or night to help the sick. The first pioneer doctor in Dubois County was Aaron B. McCrillus, according to Wilson. He was the physician at Portersville before moving to Jasper, where he is remembered as one of the founders. John Polson was also a doctor at Jasper. Both men served terms as state representatives. Drs. Kruse, Montgomery and Stephenson also served as doctors when the county seat moved to Jasper, though Wilson’s history doesn’t list their first names. Kruse introduced vaccination to Dubois County and also served as a doctor in Huntingburg. Other pioneer doctors in Huntingburg were Scheller, Hughes, Beeler, Messick, Adams and Welman. An 1850 advertisement from Welman in the Jasper Courier offers services in exchange for hogs and cattle. Ferdinand’s pioneer doctors were Seifert, Keller, Sunderman and Kempf. Kempf was a member of the faculty at the Kentucky School of Medicine. Dr. Rust served Holland, and Dr. William Sherritt served Haysville. Dr. Edward A. Glezen served Madison Township and built another office in Ireland in 1852. The earliest merchant recorded in Wilson’s history is George H. Proffit, who opened a store in Portersville around 1825.
Proffit was born in New Orleans in 1800 and served as a congressman from 1839 to 1843. Wilson’s history says, “He was quick and ready, a splendid orator and a power on the stump.” When pioneers came to Indiana from the South, they brought their slaves with them. Dubois County was no exception. According to Wilson’s history, a law laid out in 1805 by Indiana territory’s legislature allowed the holding of slaves under certain restrictions. Wilson’s history says there is no record that the African Americans were held as slaves, but they were at least servants who did as told. Records show, however, that slaves were held in Pike County, and a Dubois County Judge, Arthur Harbison, presided over a suit for freedom brought by two black men, Bob and Anthony. The case was in the courts for five years before the black men were finally granted freedom in 1817, seven years after the territory law allowing slave holding was abolished. Judge Harbison was the only Dubois County judge to hear a case regarding freedom for slaves, Wilson’s history says. John Mehringer, Rudolphus Smith and Clement Doane founded the county’s first newspaper, the Jasper Courier, in 1858. Mehringer also served as county auditor, and Smith was a lawyer. Most of the publishing and printing duties fell to Doane. The Enlow family — Jacob and Elizabeth; Benjamin and Fanny; Joseph and Elandor; and Henry — were prominent in the Jasper area when the county seat relocated and donated a significant portion of their lands. Elandor, or Eleanor (Elandor is an Old World spelling), wasn’t an ordinary pioneer woman, Wilson’s history says, as she could write her own name, an anomaly among women of the time. Jasper was nearly named after her, but she refused. Instead, she grabbed her Bible and chose the word Jasper from Revelations 21:19 as the town name instead, according to an account from Mrs. William Hayes recorded in Wilson’s history. A Dubois County judge, Benjamin R. Edmonston, was a member of the Indiana Constitutional Convention of 1850. Benjamin’s father, B.B. Edmonston, Sr. was a Jasper pioneer. In Dubois County, Benjamin was a
respected leader. Wilson’s history describes him thus: “He was devoted and strong in his attachments to his principles or friends and ever ready to defend them. He was always bitter in his denunciations of what he considered wrong. These traits in his character fitted him to be a leader in the days of the early settlement of Dubois County when personal encounters often settled the political status of a neighborhood or county. Many times before he was of age he demonstrated his physical strength in ‘fist and skull’ encounters with the champions of his political opponents, as was customary in pioneer days.” Although Benjamin was only educated to the extent the public schools of the day provided, he became a skilled orator and politician, not only serving in the Constitutional Convention, but also as a presidential elector of the first congressional district, casting his vote for James Knox Polk. Benjamin’s brother, Bazil Brook “B.B.” Edmonston, is known as the Father of Dubois County democracy. He lived on a farm in Kellerville before moving to Jasper in 1837. His wife, Joanna H. McDonald, was the first white girl pioneer of the county and well respected among the other pioneers. The first officials in Dubois County were members of the Whig party. The Whigs believed in the power of Congress over the president and included many active Protestants, which Dubois County’s early inhabitants were, and voiced a moral opposition to President Andrew Jackson’s policies regarding Native Americans. Over time, the Whigs began to lose footing in Dubois County, and B. B. Edmonston, a Democrat, became the county clerk, the position with the most authority at the time. He was still in power when the German immigrants began to arrive in the 1840s and he won many of them to his political party. As the German immigrants moved in, Wilson’s history says, the original pioneers moved out, pushing farther west to Illinois, Kansas and even as far as California. Their exodus paved the way for the German immigrants to create the traditions and culture many in Dubois County trace their ancestry through today.
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 33
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DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 35
When does a community become a community? By WYATT STAYNER wstayner@dcherald.com Right here in Dubois County, there’s some disagreement on exactly when the county was founded. You might think a quick glance at the county website will help out, but that seems to create even more confusion: “It was not until December 20, 1817, that a separate Dubois County was created effective February 1, 1818.” You might still be trying to figure that sentence out, so we’ll explain. In 1817, the Indiana Legislature created Dubois County, but decided that it wouldn’t be official until the next year. “Now, how old are we?” Dubois County historian Art Nordhoff questions. “Was it when the Legislature established (Dubois County) or was it when the Legislature said we actually came into existence. You see people using both of those dates.” It’s already confusing enough deciphering when a community becomes a community in legal terms. And that’s before you even start to ponder when a community becomes a community in more abstract terms. Looking further back into Dubois County’s history, the county was first part of communities that some of us would now consider rivals. At first, Dubois County was considered a part of Knox County, or “an extension of Vincennes,” as Nordhoff said. After that, the land that now constitutes Dubois County was subdivided into Gibson and Pike counties. This weird game of county hot-potato has sliced both ways as Dubois County lost land to Crawford County. That’s kind of where platting comes into play. Platting is essentially the process of setting up areas within the municipality in question. Jasper was founded and platted in 1830, incorporated as a town in 1866 and as a city in 1915. Huntingburg was founded and platted in 1837, and was incorporated as a town 1866 before becoming a city in 1889. Ireland, the small community west of Jasper along State Road 56, was founded in
This is downtown Ireland in the early 1900s. In 1816, John Stewart, a veteran of the War of 1812, secured a deed from President James Monroe for the land that is now Ireland. John’s son, James, named the town “American City,” but the name was dropped when it was learned that there was already a town by that name. The community then became known as the Irish Settlement or Ireland, named for the ancestral home of the Stewarts and many of their neighbors. (Photograph from “Images of America: Jasper and Huntingburg, edited by Ron Flick and Jane Ammeson.) PHOTO COURTESY OF ELSIE [MORGAN] TRAYLOR
1816, but wasn’t platted until 1865. “A town (can become) a town way before it’s platted,” Nordhoff said. “It’s whenever the people in the particular area get together and say we want to be a town.” In Dubois County there are two cities: Jasper and Huntingburg, plus three incorporated towns: Holland, Birdseye and Ferdinand. The difference between a town and a city deals with the structure of the governing body, although many times towns aren’t cities because they aren’t large enough. In Indiana, a town must exceed 2,000 people to become a city, even though the place isn’t required to become a city if it does surpass a population of 2,000. A town is governed by a town council, which selects a town council president who officiates meetings and performs some executive functions; cities have a council and an elected mayor. In Dubois County, unincorporated towns actually outnumber cities and towns. Dubois, which is unincorpo-
rated, still has a school and would definitely be considered a community, but as Nordhoff said, “They don’t want the problems that are related to being a legal town. They don’t want to have somebody to tell them how they have to live. They want to be independent.” That can apply to how Dubois has no zoning commission, meaning residents can build just about however they want, as opposed to the City of Jasper ordinance that says no accessory building shall exceed 16 feet in height. “You can imagine what farmers would say if they can’t build a barn that’s taller than 16 feet,” Nordhoff joked. Even within the larger Dubois County community, there’s commonalities that form and make each community its own community. Nordhoff pointed out how the founders of Haysville, Boone Township and Cass Township all were from northern Germany, very different from the southern Ger-
man ancestry of Jasper. In Dubois, Main Street used to be a dividing line — south of Main Street, you were from southern Germany and north of Main Street, you were from northern Germany. Each side spoke a different dialect of German. “If you lived in Dubois back then, you had to know high German and low German because the two dialects didn’t match,” Nordhoff said. “There are communities within communities.” While this all might seem like a jumbled mess, sometimes the founders of towns kept it pretty easy. As the story goes, Father Joseph Kundek, who founded Ferdinand, placed advertising in a Cincinnati newspaper to attract residents to Ferdinand, which he had just platted. An old Cincinnati farmer saw the advertisement selling Ferdinand as a place to live, Nordhoff said. The farmer made the 164-mile trek, arrived in Ferdinand and “all it was was a sign nailed on a tree saying ‘Ferdinand.’”
PAGE 36 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
PHOTOS COURTESY OF PATOKA LAKE NATURE CENTER
Flooding near Elon, one of three towns flooded when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Patoka River to form Patoka Lake. The lake was created for the sake of flood control, a water source and recreation.
HISTORY UNDER WATER THE TOWNS OF ELLSWORTH, ELON AND NEWTON-STEWART WERE ONCE HOME TO FAMILIES AND FARMS. WHEN PATOKA LAKE WAS FORMED IN THE 1970S, THE TOWNS DISAPPEARED. FOR SOME AREA RESIDENTS, THE MEMORIES REMAIN DEEP. By JASON RECKER jrecker@dcherald.com
T
here was no running water — the well was on the porch and the outhouse was in the side yard maybe 100 feet from the door. The summer kitchen, an outdoor area used for cooking and canning during warm weather, was out there, too. It was the 1960s and for the folks in and around a trio of small towns called Ellsworth, Elon and Newton-Stewart, living life decades behind the times was just the way it was. Manpower over technology. The comforts of tradition over the anxiety of change. We’re fine, leave us be. “God’s place,” Amy Kendall calls the land where she was raised. “Sacred ground.” These days, the old Schnell place belongs to the government. Amy’s land of memories idles near the banks or along the bottom of Patoka Lake after the federal government saw to it in the 1970s that the Patoka River was dammed, the nearby landscape was left to flood and life for 261 families was redirected. Memorial Day has passed. Independence Day is but a month away. This is the peak season on Patoka Lake, a 8,800acre body of water officially completed in 1980 for the purposes of flood control, water supply and recreation (in that order). What idles beneath the boats and fish rests in the serenity of nature but doesn’t exactly rest in peace. “Old-timers are slowly passing on and the younger people realize what the lake is for,” said Stan Akin, Patoka’s property manger for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “But a lot of people grew up here and didn’t want to
see outsiders.” The champion among them was a man named Albert Schnell. That’s Amy’s grandfather and word is that when Corps of Engineers personnel came to meet with him about the takeover of his land a few miles northeast of Celestine, he grabbed a shotgun, climbed aboard his bulldozer and pulled the machine into their path to stand his ground. His wife, Cecelia, hung extralarge underwear on the clothes line — and splotched them with brown paint stains — as an antidote to Corps of Engineers staff. Albert erected a granary in the engineers’ path just to be a nuisance. There are members of the Schnell family still bitter enough about the federal takeover of some 26,000 acres of what was mostly farmland that they decline to discuss it. The Schnells took the government to court in a bid to get more money for their land but the costs incurred offset the gain. As Amy remembers, the family was paid $100 or $110 per acre of tillable farmland and her father, Dennis, rushed to cut, haul and sell timber on the family’s 160 acres over the last several months before the Schnells were officially evicted.
The place was back in the sticks with a bumpy lane. Amy was the oldest and always helped her father put up hay, drive the tractor and milk cows. They had cows, pigs, a rooster and cats and dogs. The home, sold to them by a horse doctor who built the structure in 1912, was lined with cherry wood floors. Amy knew the family was poor. Other folks had running water and there were wild dogs that scared — sometimes killed — livestock but school in Celestine wasn’t far away. “It was tough,” Amy concedes. “But we absolutely loved it.” Still, by the time the Flood Control Act of 1965 mandated something be done about various areas of the country often incumbered by rising waters — and the impact downstream from the Patoka River — everyone knew what was coming. The Schnells had to be out of their house in March 1973. “’You’re not living here much longer,’” Amy remembers hearing. The last day was the worst. “It was cold,” recalls Amy, then 14 and now 56. “We walked through, and we had wood burners in two rooms for heat and it was empty. It was a feeling of emptiness. It was our home and it was gone. No furniture. We had looters who had taken glass door knobs and took things from the screen porch, took down poles that held up parts of the porch because they were engraved wood. Someone had taken the coal oil lanterns. The horse vet we bought the house from had green medicine
Farris and Ruth King at the Newton Stewart Bridge in 1955.
See UNDER on Page 38
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 37
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Under
(Concluded from Page 36) bottles and they took those from some of the buildings. It was an awful feeling that day. Oh ...” The family moved to Dubois then Celestine and Amy believes now they are better off for it (Dennis still lives in the house in Celestine). Albert and Cecelia Schnell have both died, but Amy, her four siblings and their mother, Shirley, have been back to the home place. Amy, husband Steve and their three children drive from their Santa Claus home to go boating on the lake (their son, Dakota, even worked as a park ranger at Patoka at one time). But like a man who won’t look at a photograph of a girlfriend who broke his heart, Dennis stayed away for years. Last fall, sentiment finally eroded bitterness and for the first time since that cold day near the end March 1973, Dennis returned. Some of their land is under water. On the part still on dry ground, there are no buildings remaining but there are stone foundations. Amy can still pick out the sycamore tree she used to climb. The big tree next to the old fishing pond is still standing, too. Akin and peers from the Corps of Engineers led Dennis on the tour in November. At one point, Dennis paused. “Everything is gone,” he said. He asked to be led to where the barn once stood. That was his favorite place. “I looked at Dad and he had a quiver on his lips,” Amy says. “I said, ‘Dad, it’s OK. We’re so much better off now. Drop it. Don’t get depressed. It’s over. We’re better off.’” She told him not to cry. “Then I saw a tear come down his face. That was his pride and joy, that farm. We had some good times there.” Working with the water Though the lake was finished in 1980, the legwork for establishing a solution to what the government called “improvement for the benefit of navigation and the control of destructive flood waters” in the Ohio River basin dates to 1927. Surveying for Patoka Lake began in 1966 and demolition commenced in 1972 on a project that cost an estimated $73 million (the majority was spent on land acquisition while construction costs were about $24 million). The lake remains the second-largest in the state, behind only Lake Monroe near Bloomington. But to say it’s man-made is a bit of a misnomer. The only digging took place at the dam. Once that structure was in place not far from what used to be the town of Ellsworth, officials let Mother Nature run her course. Upstream from the dam, the Patoka River breached its banks. Wherever the water crept, that’s the lake. The water swallowed Ellsworth in Dubois County (near the dam), Elon just on the Orange County side of the border with Dubois County (the town was to the right of the island that’s visible from the beach) and a swath of Newton-Stewart in Orange County (near State Road 145 and what is now the Newton-Stewart Recreational Area within the lake property). “They cleared timber and property owners before we got it, harvested timber and made huge brush piles and cabled them down for fish habitat,” Akin says. “Some piles, I’ve seen on my depth finder. They made travel lanes. But most of the timber is still standing for fish habitat.” Folks at the Department of Natural Resources call those trees “stickups.” The wood wasn’t the only thing left behind. Bridge abutments remain in part because rain filled the area with water so quickly that crews didn’t have time to clear everything they’d intended to remove. (For the same reason, folks were on the lake fishing before it officially opened). At one spot near the Osborne Boat Ramp, parts of a bridge linger and if the water is low enough on a drought year, “you could hit the old bridge pieces,” said Dana Reckelhoff, a naturalist with the DNR. Reckelhoff, through her work at the lake’s visitors center, has pieced together bits of underwater history. Every once in a while, she hosts a program inviting people with links to or questions about Ellsworth, Elon and Newton-Stewart to share their stories. It’s an ongoing endeavor with folks who could be termed hostile witnesses or secret informants. “There are people who had owned the
PHOTO COURTESY PATOKA LAKE NATURE CENTER
Among the towns swallowed up by the water when Patoka Lake was formed in the 1970s was Elon where this schoolhouse and church once stood. still exists, but it dead ends on its easterly path toward lake property. “Before the lake was impounded, all they had were signs out on the roads, so we’d move the signs, drive through and come back and put the signs back,” DeKemper says. “It was wide open, cleared out.”
Newton-Stewart Mill along a portion of the Patoka River that flooded and is now part of Patoka Lake. land since they came to America and they were not happy about the lake. Then we have families who were in flooded areas and frustrated and the payout was a benefit to them. It’s about half and half,” Reckelhoff says. “A lot of the information we have is patchy because I have families who would love to learn more but they say they can’t do it until Grandpa passes away or something like that. Then I’ll magically get in the mail an envelope with pictures and no other information.” She does her best to unite images with words. For decades, life in the area trailed industrial advancement (remember: the Schnells didn’t have running water even in the 1970s). Reckelhoff has photos of old homes and the folks who harvested timber then floated it three or four hours downstream to Jasper. Logging was prevalent. Farming was the other profession, though residents often had trouble getting to certain parcels of land when the river flooded. Among her best prizes is a log of everyone who attended Hall Creek School from 1861 to 1874; there are familiar names (Friedman, Hoffman, Miller, Klem) from the school, which used to be in what is now a hiking area near the visitors center. Reckelhoff also has a map from Fred Dillard, whose family lived in Newton-Stewart; Dillard constructed a map of the lake that includes dots that point out homes and buildings taken out during construction. Families like the Dillards are honored in ways that are public, even if subtle. Dillard Road cuts through Patoka Lake property and one part of the Dillard family lived in a house that sat where the visitors center is now. The Walls Boat Ramp is named after the family. Same goes for the D.E. Smith Parking Lot. Not everyone would like to be honored. What’s known as Seng Island, the piece of land that juts from the lake straight out from the beach at Newton-Stewart Rec-
reational Area, is named after a Dubois County family. Corps of Engineers personnel say some of those farmers were never a fan of the lake. Tom DeKemper, who works for the Corps of Engineers at the dam, remembers a man named Hilmer Denu who was a Dubois County Commissioner during lake construction. Denu pushed for the lake. His father-in-law, John Pieper, had ground near what is now the spillway and did not want to leave. “There were some issues there,” DeKemper says. The Corps of Engineers has records of every piece of land acquired in the takeover and among its gobs of information are photographs of the 25 cemeteries that were relocated. A company from North Carolina did the work and bunched the remains and markers near Painter Creek, one of the streams that flows into the lake. Some of the cemeteries were small, nearly unmarked plots. Among the people buried were Civil War soldiers. “From what I understand, they had to go in and they knew they may or may not find a headstone but saw a depression,” Akin says. “So they would dig until they found discolored dirt and put it in a box. Rarely were there any remains or coffins.” Officials with the DNR and Corps of Engineers point out that while much of the land was farmed, only Newton-Stewart still thrived as a small town. At the time the lake was formed, Ellsworth and Elon were primarily vacant and, even at their peaks, weren’t much more than small settlements. DeKemper remembers Ellsworth during the 1970s. He was from the area and back when he was younger, he and his buddies used the property to hunt groundhogs (with permission, encouragement actually, from farmers). They took torches to the roof of a Lincoln Continental to create a homemade convertible and drove along Ellsworth Road as it cut toward what months later was part of the lake. The road
Holding a grudge Get Donald Hall started and he’ll cut loose with the curse words. The Cuzco man in his 80s used to go coon hunting on what is now lake property. He grew up near the road that leads to the dam; a large oak tree still marks the spot. His family farmed the land and so did his neighbors and friends. He remembers Elon as a place with a school and church, gauges Ellsworth was once a good-sized community and notes that Newton-Stewart had a good general store. For him, the lingering thorn is money. Hall guesses his father, who died at 64 years old, wore himself to death fighting to coax as much money as possible for the family land. He points out that he sold 50 acres last fall for more than $9,000 an acre and notes that when the government took over Cuzco-area land for the lake, some folks were “hustlin’ to get $50 an acre.” The top amount he remembers was $500 an acre. That was the bottom ground. Hill ground, that’s where the offer was sometimes a mere $50 per acre. “My dad had 80 acres and had some bottom ground,” Hall says. “They offered him $29,000. We took them to court and got about $3,000 more after all the expenses. That was (bull).” Hall runs through a list of names — Welp, Matheis, Nolan, Pieper, Seng, Schnell (Albert, the one with the shotgun and the bulldozer) — of folks forced to sell. “The biggest problem people had was how they appraised the land,” Hall says. “I said all along that if they’d have come in and bought this whole damn land and given, say $500 an acre -- and give them money if you’re taking their good home — then nothing would have been said. But when they brokered down ... it’s a wonder somebody didn’t get killed.” Hall concedes the lake helped with flood control and water supply; it’s said to have saved millions of dollars in damage and pumps water to hundreds of thousands of residents of 10 southwest Indiana counties. Those “are the only good things to come out of that damn lake,” Hall insists. As for the recreation that generates millions of dollars in revenue for local businesses and provides upwards of 200 jobs, he’ll pass. “I never fished hardly any on that damn lake,” he says. “I coon hunted every acre around here and, (shoot), now there’s 50 feet of water on it. ... You put a lot of time in somewhere and some son of a buck comes through and wants it, that gets to you.”
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PAGE 42 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Portersville gained, lost status over location By CANDY NEAL cneal@dcherald.com Dubois County’s first county seat turned into a prosperous community that lost the county seat status because of its location. In 1801, William and Jane McDonald settled with their then-seven children (they ultimately had 10 kids) on an area of land off the present Portersville Road and built Fort McDonald, their residence. People stopped at the site as a “safe haven” while traveling along the Buffalo Trace. Dubois County itself was created Dec. 20, 1817, after Pike County was divided, thus sectioning off a portion of that county to make this county. The current county also ended up having pieces of Perry and Martin counties that were sectioned off. In keeping with the unwritten law in the early days of naming newly created counties after those honored from the Battle of Tippecanoe campaign, the county bears the name of Capt. Toussaint Dubois, the first man to properly own property in the county. John Niblack was selected by Gov. Jonathan Jennings to organize the new county. He established the offices of clerk, recorder and sheriff in 1818. Also that year, on Feb. 9, 1818, Portersville was selected as the first county seat during a meeting a the McDonalds’ cabin. Portersville was selected because it was located on the White River banks and streams were an important means of transportation. The first courthouse and jail were both
PHOTO COURTESY OF IRELAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Hobard McDonald and Henry Rudolph are pictured with two teams of mules and a large log on a box wagon chassis in Portersville sometime in the early 1900s. The sycamore log was said to be 58 inches in diameter. log structures, both two stories high. In the 1820s the county seat was prospering — many lots had been sold starting in July 1818 — but there were two serious problems. Malaria was prevalent along the river streams. Also, the population in the southern part of the county was increasing;
it was determined that Portersville was too far north to be the county seat. The 13th General Assembly on Indiana passed an act in 1828 to move the county seat from Portersville to the soon-to-be formed Jasper. The act was approved by Gov. James Ray in 1829 and the law was approved Jan. 21, 1830. The county seat was moved to Jasper. But Portersville continued to prosper in those early days. The community had a post office and the John Rudolph Hotel was on the south side of Main Street, across from the courthouse. Fred Munkel owned a shoe shop on the north corner of Main and made shoes for people miles around. The shop stood until 1929. In the early 1900s, the Giesler family ran the post office and Giesler’s Store on Main Street across the street from the courthouse.
The post office and store used the first floor, while the second story was used as a lodge hall; the second story was subsequently removed from the building. A two-story general store was on the corner of Court and Rudolph streets, built by Marion McCormick. The second floor of the building was used as a lodge hall and for community activities, including plays performed by the Portersville Theatrical Club. The store was subsequently run by Tom Hays, Heamer Krodel and William Baker. The original store was destroyed in a fire in 1912; another one was built, but that one burned down in 1930. It was not rebuilt. Portersville School, a one-room schoolhouse, was established in 1823. The tworoom Lemmons Schoolhouse followed in 1848, followed by St. John Lutheran Parochial School in 1902 and the Miley Schoolhouse (it was one room and then expanded to two rooms) in 1858. The Chris Senning building was a twostory building — the first story being used as a store and saloon, and the second story a school building. The building eventually burned down in 1903. The Portersville Flour Mill was built by George Cox and stood near Old River Road behind Senning’s store. It operated for a short time before being destroyed by fire. Cox served as Dubois County sheriff from 1876 to 1880. The Portersville Saw Mill, owned by Warren Cooper, operated on the east side of Old River Road. It was subsequently sold to Henry Hoffman, Adam Schnarr and Cyrenus Cox. They operated it until 1913, when the high waters of the river washed most of the mill site away. Cox operated the Portersville Ferry for 33 years, from 1880 to 1913. He was put out of the ferry business with the completion of the Portersville Bridge in 1913. But he started a wagon service business that served Boone Township and Daviess County by way of the bridge. Cox also went on to become a barber, telephone company operator and church sexton.
“W h e re Cus tom e rs S e n d Th e irFrie n d s S in c e 19 29 ” PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN FIERST
This is the Friedman Log Cabin, Meridian Road, Jasper, around circa 1900.
Settlers built wood homes By SAM STITES sstites@dcherald.com The pioneer spirit is often thought of as a phenomenon associated with the American West, but the movement was alive and well in Dubois County and much of Indiana some 200 years ago. At the heart of any pioneer settlement are the homes of those families creating their new community, and it often took an entire community to help raise a home. According to George R. Wilson’s “History of Dubois County,” the first settlers to take up residence in the region often selected sites deep within the lush timber that once covered the entire area. Some of the first homes were erected near what is present day Portersville, the first seat of Dubois County. One of these first families to reach Dubois County in 1801 was that of William McDonald, an early settler of Boone Township. “The pioneers came from timber country and knew how to use the axe,” Wilson wrote in 1910. “The pioneer, having hewn his logs, and having passed word around and all neighbors gathered in to help raise the house. A house-raising was an event that called for much rejoicing in the community of widely scattered settlers. It meant a new home, a new family, new neighbors and new interests.” These first homes were constructed of hand-hewn wood blocks placed one above the other with the ends cut into corresponding shapes 10 to 12 inches in width. The ends
were then double-wedged with the use of a hammer, each log interlocking with the one beneath it. Roofs were made of clapboard secured by weights on top. Most floors were made of logs split in two and hewn flat. Doors were generally hung with wooden hinges and fastened by a wooden latch raised by string. During the day, the string would hang outside the door, and at night it would be pulled in. Chimneys were usually placed in the center of the home as a source of heat and so they could not be torn down from the outside. Portholes were cut in the exterior just barely big enough to aim a rifle out of for hunting deer, turkey or bear, as well as for defense against attacks by local Native American tribes. Most homes were outfitted with Dutch ovens on the hearth of the fireplace which were fed by a bed of red coals underneath, and every home had a spinning wheel and loom with which the women made clothes for their families, as well as bedding. Throughout the mid-19th century it was customary for every settler to keep whiskey in their homes, and it was expected to be offered when a visitor arrived. Brick homes didn’t appear in Dubois County until about 1845, and even then most homes remained made of hand-hewn wood logs until the 1880s when brick became more affordable. Wilson notes the influx of German settlers after 1839 caused a noticeable increase in the quality of homes being built.
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Families’ ancestral lines long in county history By ALAN HOVORKA newsintern@dcherald.com
been in Owensboro, Ky., and was 16 when the war broke out and joined the Confederate Army. Sixteen months after enlisting, he deserted to return home and join the Union. After the war, he served as county auditor and was partly responsible for creating the Courthouse monument, Phil Gramelspacher said. He also managed Jasper Desk Company and had been called the father of Jasper’s desk manufacturing industry. A significant theme in the Gramelspacher family has been entrepreneurship. They’ve held high positions in businesses or owned patents on inventions. John and wife, Franziska (Dupps) Gramelspacher, had five children, one of whom was George. He managed Jasper Veneer Mill. George’s brother, Virgil, was secretary and treasurer of the mill and president of Jasper Wood Products. Virgil was Phil Gramelspacher’s grandfather. Virgil married Catherine Gramelspacher, and they had four children, one of whom was John Winston Gramelspacher, Phil’s father. John W. was president and general manager of Jasper Wood Products and was vice president of the board of directors for several years. Clarence U. Gramelspacher, son of George W. Gramelspacher, headed Jasper Wood Products from 1926 to ’72. His other business accomplishments include owning several patents. The patents were for one of the first electric food mixers, the GoodYear Life-Guard Tube, the early tubeless tire later sold to Firestone and the process to use molded plywood on station wagon bodies and airplanes used in World War II, according to “Jasper Area History.”
Almost 200 years after Indiana reached statehood, several families among the first in Dubois County can still trace their history back to the earliest days of the county and back to their ancestral homelands. The names of the first settlers in Dubois County came from places like England and Scotland, such as the McDonalds. This shifted when in the mid-1800s Germans families arrived in the county in droves, many arriving in 1847 aboard the ship the Tallahassee, which landed in New Orleans. The families came from southwestern Germany, the Pfaffenweiler area, because the county’s geography reflected their home. They came to escape war, famine and seek better economic opportunities and in the process built Dubois County as it is known today. “They were all very community-oriented,” said Kathy Mott, genealogist at the Jasper Public Library. “They established themselves, businesses and a lot of these companies that are still here.” These are a handful of names and histories of families and how they shaped Dubois County, according to descendants and history books. Alles The Alles family can trace its ancestry to Jacob Alles, a school teacher in Prussia who fought in the Napoleonic Wars, according to the book “Jasper Area History.” Jacob came from Ferschweiler, Germany, a town on the French-German border. The town had passed back and forth between French and German control through the years, said Tom Alles, son of the late Jerome “Chick” Alles, a three-term mayor of Jasper. It was an area ripe with strife. Jacob Alles eventually found passage for his family to the United States after years of war and discord. Jacob, married to Catharine Hahn Alles, immigrated with his family to Peru, Ohio, in 1840. The Alles family came to Dubois County, around Celestine, in 1842, likely picking the area because family had already settled here, said Tom Alles. The official transaction for their Dubois land happened in 1845. Jacob died in 1863 in Celestine. A son of Jacob’s, John J. Alles, was born in 1824 in Prussia and served in the Civil War on the side of the Union, enlisting in Company I, 49th Indiana Volunteers. He served under the rank of captain. He fought in 14 battles, including the Battle of Cumberland Gap, and was wounded during the siege at Vicksburg. He served as justice of the peace for 25 years, except while fighting in the war, starting in 1856. In 1880, he became trustee of Hall Township and then served as a county commissioner in 1884. He died in 1911. Frederick Alles, son of John J. Alles and grandfather to Jerome Alles, was born in 1858 and became a county commissioner like his father. He was one of the commissioners to oversee the construction of the Dubois County Courthouse monument; a plaque commemorates this deed and his service. The late Jerome Alles, born in 1926, continued the family theme of public service when he served three terms as mayor of Jasper and two terms on the county council. He was the great-grandson of John J. Alles. He had six brothers — Hilary, Oliver, James, Norbert, Edward and Charles Alles. “Political interest is a common thread through the family through the years,” Tom Alles said. Many of Jerome’s descendants remain in the area. He’s survived by two daughters, Bev Alles of Jasper and Eve (Eric) Ambler of Carmel; five sons, Joe (Sissi) Alles, Bob (Brenda) Alles, Bill (Paula) Alles, Tom (Ellen) Alles and Jerry Alles, all of Jasper; 10 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Dilger The Dilgers came from a community near St. Margen, Baden, Germany, which is close to the Black Forest. The oldest known ancestors are Josef and Ursula Kern Dilger. Lorenz, son of Josef and Ursula, married Catherine Schertzinger. They had 11 children, one of whom was Frank. Lorenz
John Gramelspacher was one of eight children of Joseph and Sophia Gramelspacher who were both originally from Germany and among some of the first families to settle in Dubois County. was a clockmaker and Frank completed his apprenticeship in his father’s shop until he fled to the United States to avoid military service in Germany, according to “Jasper Area History.” The Dilgers in north Spencer and Dubois counties are descendants of Lorenz and Ursula. Frank arrived in Waterbury, Conn., where he worked at the Seth-Thomas Clock factory and was critical in developing the Seth-Thomas clock in the U.S., according to the book. He was also instrumental in creating the Baby Ben alarm clock, according to family lore. Meanwhile in Germany, Lorenz, Catherine and the rest of the children struggled to find work and land. Catherine had two brothers living near what is now the town of Santa Claus, which led the family to move to the U.S. They made the trip to the New World aboard the Tallahassee in 1856 with their children. Lorenz died eight days after arriving at their new homestead near Fulda. Catherine and the children, ranging from 7 to 20 years of age, were left alone with the task of erecting a house, barn and smokehouse. The children worked professions such as shoemaker, a priest and farmer. Theodore Dilger, fourth son of Lorenz, had 10 children. They lived on a farm 4 miles north of Fulda. He also operated a sawmill and threshing machine. August Dilger, a son of Theodore, inherited the farm and died in 1918 at 39 from what Bob Dilger, grandson of August,
thinks was Spanish flu. He was working in the fields one day and came down with a cold; three days later, he was dead. He left behind Cecilia (Maffenbeier) Dilger and five children, one of which was Bob Dilger’s father, Benno John Dilger. Benno was a farmer and an employee at United Wood Products in Ferdinand. Benno and his wife Marie (Balbach) Dilger, who also worked at United Wood Products, had four children. Agriculture has remained a fixture for the family. Owning land remains an important value too, said Bob Dilger, 63 of Jasper. The land purchased by Lorenz and Catherine is still owned by members of the Dilger family. “You don’t see a lot of land actually sold by Dilger descendants,” Bob Dilger said. “They acquire it and really hang on to it because of its value. It’s necessary to grow your crops so you can sustain yourself.” Gramelspacher The Gramelspachers answered the call of Father Josephus Kundek for German families to settle the Dubois County area because of geographical similarities to southwest Germany, said Phil Gramelspacher, 63, of Jasper. Joseph Gramelspacher and Sophia Friedman Gramelspacher, both from Germany, were united in the first Catholic marriage in Jasper in 1838. Joseph moved to the U.S. from Boschweil, Germany. They had eight children, one of whom was John Gramelspacher, who fought on both sides during the Civil War. John had
Kiefer The earliest maternal and paternal members of the Kiefer family are Joannes Strassler, married to Anna Ammin in 1659, and Joannis Kiefer, son of Martin Kiefer, who married Anna Haffner in 1665. Theobald Kiefer and Catherina Strassler both came from Pfaffenweiler, Germany sometime in the mid- to late-1800s to escape economic duress and poor crops. Having both known each other prior to relocation, they married sometime after arriving in the United States and had their first daughter, Eleanora, in 1883 in Terre Haute. They bought a house at Fifth and McCrillus streets in Jasper sometime between 1883 and when their second child, Caroline, was born in 1887. Their third child, Herman Kiefer, was born in 1896. The Kiefers owned a restaurant on the corner of Sixth and Jackson streets. They eventually sold and Theobald went to work at Jasper Desk Company for 40 years as Herman served as an apprentice. Herman worked at the company for 62 years. He also served on the city council for one term and 50 years on the fire department. The fire station on Sixth Street in downtown Jasper was named after Herman Kiefer during the 1987 Jasper Strassenfest. Members of the Kiefer family, both in Jasper and Pfaffenweiler, have followed a tradition of serving on fire departments with Herman’s son, grandson and greatgrandson serving here in Jasper while Gustav Kiefer, a cousin of Herman’s, served on the Pfaffenweiler Fire Department for 60 years. The family lost contact with the Kiefers after they came to the U.S. until in 1985, when Jasper established its sister city program. When the group from Pfaffenweiler came to the States, there were Kiefers in the group. When Herman Kiefer heard about the same name, he brought a photo of the Kiefer Villa in Germany to show the group. Stefan Kiefer, a member of the visiting group, said it was the house where he and Theobald were born. This reuniting of the families rekindled the relationship, said Tom Kiefer, the 63-year-old grandson of Herman Kiefer. Tom, who lives in Jasper, has visited the German Kiefers about once a year since 1989. “I’ve met so many friends over there. They either come over here and stay with us or we go over there and stay with them,” he said. “I got a phone call about a week before my daughter got married and they said, ‘We’ve got four of us coming over for the wedding, is that OK?’ So they stayed with us.”
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 45
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
County has shown sustained growth ■■ CENSUS DATA ALSO SHOW THAT THE COUNTY IS CHANGING IN RELIGIOUS MAKE-UP. By ALAN HOVORKA newsintern@dcherald.com Dubois County’s population has sustained growth for more than 100 years, the longest period of growth of any of its neighboring counties. As Indiana celebrates its bicentennial, data collected through the past 100 or more years paints a picture of where the county is going and where it came from in overall population and religious affiliation. Population Four counties surrounding Dubois County — Spencer, Pike, Warrick and Martin — peaked in total population between 1890 and 1900, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s decennial census records. Dubois and the other four surrounding counties — Daviess, Orange, Warrick and Perry — are at their current peak populations. This means that the population in the four former counties was highest at the turn of the 20th century and the latter five hit their highest ever population in 2010. Census estimates for 2015 indicate that Dubois, Warrick, Daviess and Perry continue to grow past this mark. Orange County’s 2015 estimate indicates a drop in population from 19,840 to 19,605. It’s important to note that a county that peaks in population could still surpass their all-time high population. Also, a county that has peaked in population doesn’t mean it has a failing local economy. The population of Dubois County in 2015 was 42,461 people. The county remains the only one among its neighbors to experience a sustained growth for more than 100 years. The population between 1900 and 1910
dipped slightly, going from 20,357 people to 19,843 people, though the county surpassed that 1900 population in 1930. Dubois County’s growth is likely to continue until at least the 2030s. Projections from the Indiana Business Research Center in 2012 indicate that the county could hit its peak population in 2035 at 45,623 people with the population dropping to 45,058 by 2050. These projections have their limitations, however. A number of things could change the outcome of population growth by 2050, such as a future medical breakthroughs, political strife or migration patterns. The projections are based on current population trends. The only other neighboring county to see decade-to-decade growth like Dubois is Warrick with about 80 years of sustained growth since 1930. The two counties started the 20th century with comparable populations — 20,329 in Dubois and 22,407 in Warrick. Warrick’s population in 2015 was almost 62,000. The two counties’ population numbers diverged in 1970-1980. Warrick saw a population increase between 1970-1980 of about 48 percent whereas Dubois saw an increase of about 10 percent. While Dubois has seen longer growth, Warrick saw larger increases in a slightly shorter timespan. Dubois County’s decade-to-decade percent changes has never increased more than 15 percent between 1910 and 2015. The period from 1950 to 1980 saw the years with highest number of people added decade-todecade. Each decade saw about 4,000 people added to the total population. Religion Dubois County, considered a Catholic county for much of its existence, didn’t reach a majority of regular Catholic members until about 1926, according to data obtained from the Association of Religion Data Archives. The first ever attempt to record the number of members, adherents or commu-
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nicants in U.S. religious organizations happened in 1890. The U.S. Census Bureau collected statistics on religious organizations from 1890 to 1936. The research was continued by a number of groups, such as the National Council of Churches, the Glenmary Research Center in Washington D.C. and Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. There is a notable gap in the census of members of religious organizations in the U.S. from 1940 to about 1970, with only one census in 1952. There were about 6,098 regular members of the Catholic Church in Dubois County in 1890 when the total county population was 20,253, making regular Catholic members 30 percent of the county. Censuses on religious membership past 1890 did not happen during decennial census years — 1906, 1916, 1926 and 1936 — which makes it somewhat difficult to determine exactly when regular members of the Catholic Church became the majority. The population of Dubois County was 19,915 in 1920 and the number of regular Catholics in 1926 was 10,161. Regular Catholic members became more than 50 percent of the population sometime between 1926 and 1936, according to religious censuses and the decennial censuses. What proportion of the population other religious groups held, such as Protestants or other groups, isn’t clear until 1980. The ARDA data on religious membership doesn’t begin to group churches based on tradition until 1980. The proportion of the population that regular Catholics comprised of peaked between the late 1960s and the early 1970s at about 70 percent. The number of regular Catholics in 1971 was 21,619 and the total population of the county in 1970 was 30,934. The county has remained majority Catholic since 1971, but Catholics have not increased in their share of the population. In 2010, regular Catholic members made up
about 52.5 percent. The number of regular Catholics in 2010 was 22,001, slightly higher than the reported number in 1971. The county population in 2010 was 41,889. The largest number of regular Catholics in the county was in 2000 when there were 23,044 regular members. Their share of the population was about 58 percent that year. In fact, the number of regular Catholics has hovered between 21,000 and 23,000 since 1971, with 1990 being an exception when the number of regular Catholics was 19,110. Similarly, the share of the population that mainline Protestants hold has fallen through the past 30 years, going from 18 percent of the population in 1980 to 12 percent of the population in 2010 — 6,377 adherents to 5,080 adherents. However, the number of evangelical Protestants has steadily increased in that same time frame, where they have become a larger share of the population. There were 1,215 evangelicals in Dubois County in 1980. In 2010, the number of evangelicals was 4,008. The percent increase from 1980 and 2010 for evangelicals was about 230 percent. Their share of the population went from about 3.6 percent in 1980 to almost 10 percent in 2010. Similar to how the proportion of the county population that regular Catholics held, overall affiliation with these groups has stagnated, where Catholic, mainline and evangelical Protestants and other groups made up about 88 percent of the population. Their overall proportion fell to about 75 percent in 2010. Twenty-five percent of the county fall under “unclaimed,” according to data obtained from ARDA. This doesn’t mean that 25 percent of the county is atheist or irreligious. The “unclaimed population” includes other religious adherents that were not expressly included in the 2010 Religious Congregations and Membership Study conducted by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 47
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
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DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 49
PAGE 50 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
RACHEL MUMMEY, FILE/THE HERALD
Jennifer Hein, an Indianapolis-based restoration expert, inspected the condition of the 151-year-old Company K Civil War flag while it was displayed at the Dubois County Museum in Jasper in 2013. Hein spent a year and a half restoring the flag and visited the museum to check on how it was holding up.
Tales of county’s past as varied as its people By LEANN BURKE lburke@dcherald.com From historical stories that can’t quite be proven to proverbs brought over from Europe to spooky stories prime for middle school slumber parties, Dubois County folklore has it all. Merriam Webster provides two definitions for folklore: traditional customs, tales, sayings, dances or art forms preserved among a people; and an often unsupported notion, story, or saying that is widely circulated. Dubois County’s folklore has all of those bits. Before white settlers set foot in Dubois County, the Piankishaw (also spelled Piankashaw) tribe lived on the land. As white settlers took over, the Piankishaw were pushed farther west, eventually melding into what today is known as the Miami. A prominent figure in the folklore of Algonquian-speaking tribes, which includes the Miami, is Wisakatchekwa (wis-ah-KATCHeh-kwah). Commonly called the Great Hare, Wisakatchekwa was a mythological creature who was responsible for the origin of land and the creation of people. Wisakatchekwa was also an entertaining character who got into all kinds of trouble. When the first settlers arrived in Dubois County from the southern United States, they brought with them prejudices against the Native Americans, said Mary Anne Hayes, the collections manager at Dubois County Museum. The Piankishaw were a peaceful tribe, unlike the tribes of the south. “If you came up from Kentucky, and members of your family had been killed by Native Americans, you might not be too tolerant,” Hayes said. Not all settlers disliked the Indians, however. One of Dubois County’s earliest pioneers, William McDonald, was initiated into the tribe and given the name Pale Face McDonald, according to a story from William’s grandson, Hiram McDonald, that is recorded in “Wilson’s History of Dubois County.” “A short time after my grandfather, William McDonald, settled in Dubois County, the Indians called on him, and insisted that
the pale face should be initiated into the mysteries and secrets of the original Redmen,” the history reads. “He consented, whereupon one of the braves killed a hawk, its head was cut off and impaled on a tall pole, when all proceeded to the banks of Mud Hole Creek. Pale Face McDonald was given the pole and required to hold the hawk’s head above his own, while the Indians joined hands and danced about him in all their gruesome style. He thus became the first adopted Red Man in Dubois County, and lived to tell the tale to his future neighbors.” The pioneers had several folk remedies as well, which Wilson calls “charms.” The root of one plant, called the “she-she-note” plant, was said to ward off rattlesnake bites, and holding Irish potatoes or buckeyes supposedly battled rheumatism. When the German immigrants began arriving in Dubois County in the mid-1800s, they added their own stories to Dubois County’s folklore. Matthew Hassfurther, an immigrant from the Franconian village of Hassfurther, passed along conditions in Germany before he left in a letter to his future son-in-law that is preserved in Norbert Krapf’s 1996 book “Finding the Grain.” “Everything is topsy-turvy here, everything is spoiled and gets stolen and during a year one gains little more than trouble and animosity, where everyone steps and stamps on the farmer ... If only God could deliver me from this torture chamber,” Hassfurther wrote. Another immigrant, John L. Betz, passed his experience during the Atlantic crossing and arrival in America in a journal that is also preserved in “Finding the Grain.” “For 42 days we saw nothing but sky, water and ships at sea,” Betz wrote. “At 4 o’clock we went down from the ship into the city of Baltimore, and on the 4th (of July) was the big Washington fest when we saw a lot.” Accounts like those of Hassfurther and Betz became part of Dubois County’s tales that were passed from generation to generation. The Germans also brought over count-
less proverbs, rhymes and songs that Mary Jo Meuser and the Jasper High School German Club translated and preserved in booklets that are now in the collections of the Dubois County Museum. One of the most common proverbs in the booklets is “Nicht alles was glänzt ist Gold,” or not all that glitters is gold. Another is “Wer’s Kleine net ehrt, ist’s Große net wert,” or he who does not value small things is not worth great things. One of the rhymes in the booklets is a riddle: “Ich stehe die ganze Nacht still, Und komm doch nimmer fort. Ich zeige dir die Stunden an Und rede doch kein Wort. Nun wer es weiss und wer mich kennt Der sage mir, wie man mich nennt”— I stand quietly the entire night and just never get away. I show you the hour and yet speak no word. Now, whoever knows it and whoever knows me, tell what you call me. The answer, according to a drawing next to the rhyme, is a coo-coo clock. Around the time of the Civil War, Company K made its way into Dubois County folklore. A group of ladies sewed a flag for the company and presented it on the land that would become Courthouse Square in Jasper. The Company K flag replaced the regiment flag during the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day of the Civil War. There is a chance, Hayes said, that the flag was also carried during the Battle of Gettysburg, but the claim can’t be proven by any historical documents. The flag is on display at the Dubois County Museum. Dubois County folklore, while full of history, is not without its accounts of the supernatural. One story spans several states and involves a psychic horse in Virginia named Lady Wonder, according to local historian and Oakland City University professor Randy Mills. In the 1950s, police from multiple cities used Lady Wonder’s psychic skills to help find missing persons, including Ronnie Weitkamp, a boy who lived near the Crane Naval Base north of Dubois County. The Campfire Chronicle recorded the story: “Legend has it that the police asked the horse if she knew why they were there and she spelled ‘boy’ with toy letters her owners
had given her. When asked if she knew his name, she spelled, ‘Rone,’ meaning ‘Ronnie.’ When asked if Ronnie was dead or alive, she spelled, ‘dead.’ Further questioning resulted in Lady Wonder ‘telling’ the police that little Ronnie Weitkamp would be found in December, in a hole dug in sandy soil, near an elm tree. The prediction also said that he would be found more than a quarter mile from his home. The body was, in fact, discovered in December, in a hole dug in sandy soil, near an elm tree. The location was a little more than a mile from the Weitkamp home.” Wabash Valley Visions and Voices, a project from Indiana State University, also records some tales of the supernatural from Dubois County and surrounding areas. One legend comes from St. Meinrad as told by Father Jerome Neufelder: “(In about 1869) in the town of St. Meinrad, Indiana people were dying in great number from scarlet fever. The people, with the advice of the monks at the monastery, made a vow to the Virgin Mary to make an annual pilgrimage to her Shrine of Monte Cassino in the area if the epidemic stopped. After the vow, no more people died.” Another legend in Wabash Valley Visions and Voices reads, “This wealthy family near Jasper who has a large stone wall around their home gave their son a car for his 16th birthday. The boy was really excited and thought he was really cool, so he went out drinking that night. When he came home he was going real fast, missed a curve and ran into the stone wall. People say to this very day you can still see an impression of his face on that wall.” A variant of the story says a semitruck smashed the car against the wall and left the imprint. Over the last 200 years, Dubois County has served as the backdrop for an eclectic history that crosses cultures — Piankashaw Native American, pioneers from Southern states and German and Irish immigrants crossing miles of ocean in search of a better life. The county’s unfolding history produced a collection of folklore as varied as its people.
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE ■ PAGE 51
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THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016