CASS COUNTY

HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE

             Passing over Wabash and Miami counties, for the present, we will take up Cass county. This jump in our route is made necessary by the absence of data, at this writing, for the complete history of those counties, as well as by the fact that the settlement of Cass county is of earlier date.

            Cass county was organized on the thirteenth of April, 1829; previous to which it was under the jurisdiction of Carroll county, being originally, however, under the jurisdiction of Tippecanoe county. Previous to its existence as Cass county, it was known as Eel township, in Carroll county.

            The mouth of Eel, which, in early times, acquired considerable notoriety as the point where the mainline of travel crossed the Wabash, is the point where the first settlement was made in Cass county. As early as the fall of 1824, Edward McCartney came down from Fort Wayne, under the auspices of a company of fur-traders located there, with head-quarters at Detroit, and erected a small trading-house on the north side of the Wabash, a little below the mouth of Eel, which was, perhaps, the first house built for the occupancy of a white man within the present limits of Cass county. A year and a half later, about August, 1826, Alexander Chamberlain, a native of Kinderhook, New York, but more recently from the vicinity of Fort Harrison, in Vigo county, Indiana, brought his family and settled on the south side of the Wabash, just opposite the mouth of Eel river. Here, with the assistance of his neighbors from the Deer Creek settlements, more than twenty miles down the river, he built the first residence, also used as a hotel (a double hewed-log cabin, two stories high) in the county.

            About the same time, William Newman settled with his family and built a cabin, also situated on the south bank of the Wabash, and three miles below Chamberlain’s. The same season, James Burch made a settlement less than one mile below the former, and on the same side of the river, on what is since known as the Simon’s farm. These two last remained but a short time, selling out their claims and returning to older settlements.

            Mr. Chamberlain, after selling out his first residence to General Tipton, who lived there afterward and established the Indian Agency formerly at Fort Wayne, built another house, a little further down, where he lived and kept tavern until the year 1835, when he moved to Rochester, in Fulton county, and died there a few years since.

            On the twenty-seventh day of March, 1827, Major Daniel bell, a son-in-law of Captain Spear Spencer, who was killed in the battle of Tippecanoe, and brother-in-law of General John Tipton, crossed the Wabash river and built his cabin, the first one built between the rivers, within the present limits of the city of Logansport. It was situated just south of the canal, and a few feet west of Berkley street. He lived there until sometime in the spring of 1830, removing thence to a claim, subsequently purchased, a little way north of Eel river, in what is now Clay township.

            Not long after the settlement of Major Bell, Hugh B. McKeen, an Indian trader, from Fort Wayne, erected a trading-house and domicil on the banks of the Wabash, a few rods above the mouth of Eel river, near where McKeen street, in the city of Logansport, strikes the Wabash river.

            In the fall of the same year, Joseph Barron, an interpreter of considerable celebrity, with his family, moved also from Fort Wayne and settled on the reservation granted to his children by the treaty of October 16, 1826, below the mouth of Eel river, residing temporarily in the house before built and occupied by Edward McCartney as a trading house, until the completion of his own house, a half mile above.

            Beside those named, there were numerous other settlers who came shortly after, adding rapidly to the population form time to time, so that, by the spring following, the inhabitants numbered about one hundred souls.

            By the treaty with the Pottawatomies, at the mouth of the Mississinaway, in October, 1826, one section of land, at the falls of Eel river, was reserved to Georg eCicitt, which, having been surveyed in the month of July following, negotiations were at once entered into between McKeen, Chauncey Carter and General Tipton, for the purpose of acquiring an interest in, if not the entire control, of the Cicott grant. Mr. Carter succeeded in obtaining the control, and, on the tenth day of April, 1828, laid out the original plat of Logansport, between the Wabash and Eel rivers, just above their junction.

            On the eighteenth of December, 1828, the legislative act authorizing the organization of Cass county, was approved by the governor, to take effect from and after Monday, April 13, 1829. Accordingly, on that day, an election was held by the qualified voters of the county, under proclamation from the governor, and the following officers chosen as prescribed by said act, to wit.: Chauncey Carter, James Smith and Moses Thorpe, County Commissioners; John B. Durst, Clerk and Recorder; James H. Kintner, Sheriff; John Smith, Senior, and Hiram Todd, Associate Judges; Job B. Eldridge and Peter Johnson, Justices of the Peace. For the purpose of conducting this election and carrying the enabling act into effect, William Scott had been previously appointed by the governor, special sheriff, to serve as such until his successor was elected and qualified.

            By the supplemental act of January 19, 1829, the territory included within the present limits of Fulton, Kosciusko, Miami, Wabash, Marshall, Elkhart, St. Joseph, with portions of La Porte, Pulaski and Starke counties, was attached to Cass county, for civil and criminal jurisdiction.

            The first session of the Board of Commissioners was held on the first day of May, James Smith and Moses Thorpe, Commissioners, with William Scott, Sheriff, being present. At this session, Cass county and the territory under its jurisdiction, were sub-divided into Eel township, embracing all that part of Cass county lying south of the Tippecanoe and west of the west boundary of the five-mile reservation; Wabash township embracing all that part of the territory attached, south of Eel river, and east of the eastern boundary of Eel township, and St. Joseph’s township, embracing all that part of the attached territory lying north of the Tippecanoe river, to the north line of the State.

            On Thursday, May 21, 1829, the Cass circuit court held its first session in the old seminary building, occupying only one day, Hon. Bethuel F. Morris, Judge of the Fifth Judicial Circuit of the State, presiding, with Hiram Todd and John Smith Associate Judges, William Scott, Sheriff and John B. Duret, Clerk.

            A seal for said court was adopted on the same day, the device of which commemorates the agreement of Aub-bee-naub-bee, a principal chief of the Pottawatomies, and General Lewis Cass, one of the commissioners on the part of the United States to the terms of the treaty of October 16, 1826, by  which the major part of the territory within the boundaries of Cass county came into the possession of the United States –An Indian and a white man joining hands.

            Henry Ristine, Erasmus Powell and Harris Tyner, appointed by the act of organization, Commissioners to locate the seat of justice of Cass county, by their report dated August 12, 1829, submitted to the Board of County Commissioners, then in session, selected Logansport, in consideration of certain donations made by Mr. Carter, the proprietor.

            The settlement in the outer townships, Miami in the east, Clay, Noble and Jefferson immediately north of the Wabash and Eel rivers, Boone, Harrison, Bethlehem and Adams on the extreme north, Clinton, Washington and Tipton south of the river, with Deer Creek and Jackson on the extreme south, as the public lands came into market from time to time, were filled up rapidly with an enterprising population. The last settlements were in the lower townships, that part having been surveyed in the winter and spring of 1846-7, came into market immediately after, though prior to that time and subsequent to the treaty of 1843, many settlements were made by preemption.

            For several years succeeding the year 1829, the growth of town and country kept nearly even pace in the progress of settlements and improvements, reaching, perhaps, the year 1836, when the country having fallen behind in the race, as a consequence, the trade being yet chiefly of a local character the town came nearly to a stand still, while the country moved steadily forward, producing, ere long, a large excess over the demands of home trade, for transportation to other localities. The completion of the canal to this point, in the fall of 1837, opened an avenue to trade with other points of commercial importance, which advantages the people were not slow to improve. The improvements of the Michigan road, also, from the fall of 1828 to 1834-5, tended to the development of resources scarcely known to exist before. The canal having been completed from Toledo to the lower Wabash, was about the only means of shipment of surplus products until 1852-3, and from that time forward, when the Richmond and New Castle, and the Lake Erie, Wabash and St. Louis Railroad that began to be operated about that time, with telling effect upon the producing interests of the county, adding greatly to the wealth and prosperity of our citizens. Since that time other roads of equal importance traverse the county in various directions.

            Beside Logansport, other smaller towns have sprung up, of greater or less importance, in different parts of the county; among these, Galveston, Walton, Royal Center, New Waverly are of most consequence, embracing a population of from three hundred to five hundred each in their own localities, carrying on a substantial trade.

            There are now published in the county, all of them in Logansport, the Logansport Pharos, daily and weekly; the Logansport Journal, weekly; Logansport Star, daily and weekly, and the Sun, weekly.

            And now, more particularly of the present city of Logansport. The seat of justice of Cass county, as originally laid out, was a small unpretentious plat, in the shape of a right angled triangle, its base, along the margin of the Wabash, being the length of five, and its perpendicular of four squares, embracing one hundred and eleven lots and fractions. These lots contained an area of fifty square rods, and such of them as occupied a position on the corner of a square were offered and sold for seventy-five dollars, the others for fifty dollars. Some of the lots were sold on condition that the purchaser should erect thereon, within a prescribed time, a house not less than eighteen by twenty feet, and one story high. It was laid out on the tenth day of April, 1828, and the plat recorded in Carroll county, in which jurisdiction it then was. In connection with the name, the following incident is related: While the survey was in process of completion, the name of the new town site became the subject of conversation between Mr. Carter, the proprietor, General Tipton, Hugh B. McKee, Colonel John B. Duret, and others present. General Tipton suggested a Latin compound, signifying the mouth of Eel, of historic fame, or otherwise commemorative of the location above the junction of the two rivers known as the Ouabache and Eel rivers. Another submitted as Indiana name by which the locality had before been known. Then Mr. McKeen, who had formerly resided on the Maumee, in the vicinity where Captain Logan, the Shawanoe chief, a nephew of Tecumseh, who lost his life while attesting his fidelity to the white people, in the month of November, 1812, proposed that his memory be perpetuated in the name of the new town. Colonel Duret agreed with the idea, and thought Logans’ port would be appropriate. These differences of opinion were then submitted to the arbitrament of shooting at a mark, an exercise common in those days. The several names proposed were shot for, and that having four best out of seven, should have it. The exercise was finally brought to a close by the declaration that Colonel Duret had won. Hence, the name as now known – LOGAN’S-PORT.

            By the action of the commissioners appointed for the purpose, Logansport was selected as the seat of justice of Cass county, on the twelfth day of August, 1829.

            At the time it was laid out, and for several years succeeding, its importance was chiefly recognized in the light of a central trading post for a large extent of Indian territory surrounding, and as such it acquired a well merited fame. The consequence was that as soon as the sources of trade began to diminish, the producing population outside the town being inadequate to meet the demands of consumption, and the growth of the town was retarded for several years subsequent to 1836-7, indeed, until the country products equaled, overbalanced the consumption account of the non-producers in town, and the avenues of trade were opened between this and other more commanding markets.

            The increase in population and business facilities was steady for many years succeeding the depression of trade in 1837-8, but not rapid. Up to 1860-65, the spirit of improvement and enterprise was only in process of development. After that time, however, new life seemed to be infused, and rapid advances were observable in every department of industry, and capital –before withheld from investment promising extensive accumulations, as if a dollar out of sight was forever lost –began to seek investment in public and private enterprises which have since yielded liberal profits. For a few years past, the character of the improvements have been more healthy and permanent than ever before, the population increasing in the last decade more than three hundred per cent. To-day it contains fourteen church edifices, one college, eight public school buildings, including seven ward and one high school building, in addition to four private school buildings, representing conspicuously the educational interest of the citizens.

Source: An Illustrated History of the State of Indiana by DeWitt C. Goodrich and Charles R. Tuttle, 1875.