Jefferson Township in History
By I.M. Miller and Jacob Bugher
Jefferson Township was organized September 6, 1831, on the second day of the first term of commissioner's court held in Grant county. The township originally consisted of forty sections five by eight miles, but later its boundaries were changed until it now embraces forty-two square miles or sections of land, beginning at the northeast corner and running west six miles, thence south seven miles, thence east six miles on the Grant-Delaware line and north seven miles on the Grant-Blackford line to the place of beginning. The township is traversed by the Mississinewa river in a northwesterly direction from its entrance with perhaps one-third of the township's area to the left or south of this once beautiful stream.
The water always attracted men in unexplored country, and consequently the first settlements were made near the river in the vicinity of the present town of Matthews. William Case is on record as having built the first house in the township, while some accord the house to John McCormick. This house was built in section 3, town 22, the south tier of sections, now known as the Careins farm, in 1829. A little later in the same year Thomas Littler located north of the river and within the next three years scores of settlers had made entries and occupied their lands, including the families of Joseph Reasoner, John W. Milholland, Thomas Dean, Sawyer B. Fergus, John Richards, Robert Sanders, Thomas Wharton, James Needler, John Marshall, Marshall Pugh, Joseph Allen and the McCormick and Richards families, thus founding a community unsurpassed for all that is good and great in becoming the peaceful possessors of their own homes and firesides.
The general trend of settlement was northward from the river year by year until in 1840 the remotest parts of the township had been invaded and the herculean task of "blocking a farm," out of the wilderness was a matter of necessity. The chief capital of the settlers was brawn and muscle, and there were trees to fell, lands to clear and houses to build. There were crops to raise in order to supply the demands of the households and how many have declared that the days were all too short, and many a time at night brush was picked and burned to make ready for planting.
Noah Reasoner occupied the northwest quarter of section 12 near the lake in the same section which afterward came to be known as Reasoner's lake and the source of Lake Branch. About 1846 Mr. Reasoner erected a little sawmill -Samuel Campbell being the millwright -below the lake. A mill race and dam was constructed, but for want of fall and injury done to adjoining lands, from back water the mill was abandoned after two or three years. Again it was said so many fish of large size came down the mill race, got into the mill wheel and stopped the machinery. It is said that they took out fish three or four feet in length. Although this may sound "fishy", the lake its tributaries were well stocked with the finny tribe and in season many a family's table was supplied with an excellent article of food.
Lorenzo Miles came in the spring of 1840, locating in section 1. He was a native of Massachusetts, a shoemaker by trade and had learned the trade at Lowell, the original shoe factory in America. Mr. Miles made footwear for his neighbors and kept a small stock of groceries that he often exchanged for produce, "waggoned to Cincinnati" and later to Richmond and Muncie, bringing back the most useful articles required by the settlers. His stock always included salt and he fed more of it to his cattle when it $12 a barrel than the average, and yet he suffered very little loss from murrain, a disease among the cattle at that time. It has since been attributed to leeches in embryo that infested the ponds and drinking water, destroying the health of the animals. Plenty of salt used seemed to destroy the germs of the leeches.
Thomas Dean, likewise an early settler, kept a stock of goods on the south side of the river and became an important factor in an official capacity, honored and respected by all for duty well performed at that day, entrusted to him. It is appropriate here to speak of him. Few dollars went toward defraying the expenses of the family in purchasing store goods and groceries, as the wearing apparel was manufactured in the house from wool and flax grown on the farm. Indeed in those days when it required from three to ten days to make the trip to market, all relied on their own resources for sustenance and raiment. Most all of the women could prepare the raw material for the weaver and about one in six families possessed a loom and used it dextrously, so that but few wanted for comfortable clothing.
John Oswalt came early in the "thirties" settling just south of the present site of Upland and naming his place "Rising Sun." He was at one time the largest land owner in the country. He had twenty-one eighty-acre tracts in one body all purchased from the government. His idea was that Indianapolis and Fort Wayne would be connected by water navigation by the success of little lakes and ponds and his land was directly on the line, but his prediction proved a boomerang of his own imagination. He finally disposed of his land except a half section which he retained while he lived. Mark Needler, nearly seventy, is the oldest person living who was born in the township. Frank Lyon, now a resident of Upland, is a close second, being two months his junior.
At the organization of Jefferson, it was ordered that all elections should be held at Joseph Reasoner's, who was also elected inspector, while Samuel Case was constable.
Mrs. McVicker thinks one Nicholas Owing taught the first school in the township in a little school house on the Gregg place. The records show the first schoolhouse was on the Ash Rodgers farm and that Joseph Allen was the first teacher. Others were built soon afterward. Early in the forties a schoolhouse was erected on the state road west of the lake that was used for several years. Also one was built in the same period on the Jefferson-Monroe line on land now a part of Millerton farm, drawing support from both townships and from Blackford County.
No one thing has contributed more to the country's progress than the railroads and there is an event well
Centennial History of Grant County, Indiana
The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914