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The article was captioned -- MELVIN A. HALSTED, Founder of Lowell Lives a Long Eventful Life, of Which He Pens a Brief and Interesting Sketch:
In 1836, we migrated to western New York. I worked on a farm for $7 a month. I worked seven months and got $49. I did not waste a cent that summer and went to school in the winter. Our family moved to Dayton, Ohio, in 1837, the same year Jackson left the presidency. Went to school that winter. Learned stone cutter's trade and drove horses on canal boat from Dayton to Cincinnati, then bought a farm on the Miami River one mile below Dayton in 1839.
In the winter of 1840-1841, Miss M.C. Foster and myself united with the First Baptist Church at Dayton. I erected a house and large barn before I was of age. In 1842 I got married to Martha C. Foster. That fall we visited Mrs. Halsted's father's family 25 miles south of Indianapolis. While she was visiting I went west across Illinois 30 miles across Grand Prairie without seeing a house and struck the Illinois River at Beardstown, thence by way of Carthage to Nauvoo.
The Mormons had been at Nauvoo for two years. I stayed there one day and night. The Temple was up one story high. Did not see Joseph Smith. He had so much trouble with people that were not Mormons that his life was not safe, so he went in disguise. They had a temporary roof over the basement of the Temple and a baptismal fountain on the backs of twelve carved oxen that looked as natural as life. The fountain was twenty feet long by twelve feet wide, oval at each end, and four feet deep. Stairs ran up to the top then down into the water then out on the other side downstairs. They then baptized for each relative they knew of.
From there I went up the Mississippi River thirty miles to Burlington, Iowa, thence direct back where Mrs. Halsted was, thence home to Dayton, Ohio.
In 1844, we went to Lake County, Indiana, and were so well pleased with the country that the next year I sold out and moved there. I bought 80 acres of land of Simeon Beedle one mile east of West Creek on the state road. I then bought other land and broke so I had two hundred acres under cultivation before I sold the farm.
In 1848 I went where Lowell now is and in company with O.E. Haskin erected a saw mill on the place where the brick flour mill now stands. There had already been some work done for a saw mill. The dam was partly built by A.R. Nichols and others. In the meantime the commencement of a dam had washed away. Just before this time O.E. Haskin and myself made arrangements with A.R. Nichols to buy the mill privileges and land so Nichols let his first payment go back to the Canal Company and Haskin & Halsted entered the east half of southwest quarter of section 23, town 33, range 9 west and deeded back part of the 80 acres as we agreed to A.R. Nichols. The land referred to is where Lowell now stands. We put up the dam and got the saw mill running the winter of 1848. The next year we burnt 400,000 bricks. As brick sold slow we built the first brick house in what was Lowell after that. I moved into the house in the spring of 1850 (where I now reside).
April 2 of that same spring I started for California on horse back. Went to LaSalle on the Illinois river, took my horse on board a steamer, went to St. Louis, then by streamer to St. Joseph, Mo., bought oxen and wagon and started as soon as the grass was good; on May 15th went northwest, 250 miles to Grand Island, Nebraska; thence to Ft. Kearney, thence 200 miles to junction of South and North Platte (several miles before we got to the junction the cholera was fearful; hundreds died. We stopped the wagon train long enough to bury them. One very sad case -- a mother with infant at the breast and six or seven small children. The mother was taken out of the wagon and buried amid the weeping of husband, children and those present); thence three hundred miles to Fort Laramy, thence 150 miles to ferry North Platte, thence thirty miles to Sweet Water, thence to Independence Rock, thence Devils Gap.
About five miles south of the trail three of us went up a very high mountain while the teams were resting. This was July 12, 1850. The mountain averaged forty five degrees slope. The first mile brought us to perpetual snow. When the snow faces the shining sun it becomes like a deep bed of hail stone. We set our feet from four to six inches into it at every step. We went about a mile higher. When we got to the highest peak we had a wonderful view. In that atmosphere we could see 100 miles and saw countless numbers of mountain peaks in all directions. This snow or hail freezes night and morning so we cannot go up. We got so high it was difficult to breathe.
We then went to South Pass. The water now runs to the Pacific Ocean. Before this the water all ran into the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. We then went to Little Sandy Creek, thence Big Sandy, thence junction Salt Lake trail, thence across fifty miles of desert, starting at 4:00 in the afternoon, travel all night till noon next day and arrived at Green River. Rested that day, traded my oxen and packed thru from Green River to Bear River Steamboat Spring. The water is hot and steam puffs out of the rocks. Then to a flat wide valley full of very deep volcanic craters, thence to Raft River, thence to City of Rocks where the rocks are from one to two hundred feet high, then to 1000 Springs Valley. This place is 100 miles northwest of Salt Lake. We camped at City of Rocks six weeks. Afterwards fourteen men camped in same place and seven got killed in a fight with Indians.
Then we went to Goose Creek, then to Goose Creek Mountains, thence to head of Humbolt River 300 miles to Sink or Spread, then fifty-five miles over a desert to the sink of the Carson River. We say Sink of Humbolt or Carson Rivers. The water does not sink. It is all taken up by evaporation. The water at the mouths of both rivers spreads out in shallow lakes from one to three feet deep, ten miles long and from three to ten miles wide. When the water is high, say two months in a year, a crust of white salaratus half an inch thick, which I have used, will form on the sand smooth, smooth and hard. On this desert there is hundreds of dead oxen, horses and mules. A great many abandoned their wagons, tools, clothing, bedding, etc. After fifteen miles before we got to the Carson River there was a ridge of deep loose sand. Many animals could not get through and would lay down. The people could not stay with them long without water so they would take what provision the men, women and children could carry and leave all after taking off the yokes and harness.
Here provisions were very scarce. There were some men who anticipated what the saturation would be. When the migration struck the Carson 250 miles before we got to the mines they met the people with a few wagon loads of provisions. A pie was $2; flour $200 per hundred; a single pound of anything -- tea, coffee, or sugar -- was $2. I paid $1 for a sweet potato and $1.50 for a pint of flour.
I went on up the river in company with many hundreds of others 150 miles when we came to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, thence 100 miles to the mines on the middle fork of the American river. While crossing the mountains there was some snow. One night where we camped we saw in the morning near where we slept some grizzly bear tracks. It was attracted there by the smell of our cooking. It did not disturb us but crept softly away.
Here we were on the bank of Lake Bigler but he being a rebel the name was changed to Lake Tahoe.
When we got to the mines I worked a few days at $8 per day, then went to Sacramento seventy miles further by way of Sutters saw mill where the gold was first discovered in the fall of 1848. The saw mill was put up on the south fork of the American river especially for sawing lumber for a flouring mill nine miles east of Sacramento on the American River; the saw mill was fifty miles further up the river. The gold was discovered while digging the lower race to the saw mill. The flour mill was never finished. The lumber that the mill cut was sold for $200 per thousand for rockers, long Toms, sluices and other appliances to separate gold from the gravel and sand. I arrived at Sacramento in September, 1850. The cholera was very bad. I met D.C. Haskin. He introduced me to a ranchman. In cutting wood and doing other work I made $500 in six weeks. I went down the Sacramento River forty miles to get away from the cholera. When the cholera abated I went back to the city and bought and sold hay, wood, hides and many other things. I built a ferry boat that winter. Times were good and I made some money.
I started home the next spring across the plains in company with the first mail train that went to Salt Lake from the Pacific coast. There were three of us and four in the mail service. We had thirty mules. We left Sacramento the 5th of May, thence to Placerville, then to Sly Park, thence five or six miles to deep snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The snow was soft and deep. We would leave one man in camp while the rest of us would tramp a trail to a good place to camp then we would tramp back next morning. We would then pack up and start at 4:00 in the morning and get to the other camp in two or three hours where we would repeat the work like the day before. We kept that up for nine days to get forty-five miles.
When we struck Carson Valley, the grass was knee high. We went down the river one day and met some Indians and skirmished with them. One of the mail service men killed one of the Indians. None of us got hurt but in that same place the mail party was killed and their mail and mules were captured by these same Indians that fall.
We started on and in two or three days crossed the desert near the same place we did the year before. This was about May 15, 1851. There were many dead animals at the deep sand ridge twelve miles east of Carson River. Animals do not decompose in that dry pure Atmosphere; they dry up through and through with the skin on the carcass. They will remain so many months and finally crumble away to dust. Fresh meat will not spoil at any time.
When we got across to Humbolt river there were three dead Indians that a party had killed for stealing his mules and whom we met. The Indians were hostile for five hundred miles. One evening when we had gone into camp, an Indian was trying to spy our camp. Two men went out and fetched the gentleman in at point of a gun, and then showed him all our guns and pistols, gave him something to eat and after telling him that we were ready to fight a whole band of Indians, let him go.
The Bear River was high and we had to swim our mules; the water coming up over our saddles. We swam and waded for half a mile.
We got into Ogden about the 3rd of June. Where Ogden is now, I went to a house to buy butter, eggs, and potatoes. The woman said, "Mr. Brown did not have enough for himself and all his nine wives in this row of cabins." I said, "Are all them his wives?" "Yes," she said, "and he wants another. Do you see that house eighty rod away? That man has just died and he is going for the widow, farm, cattle and all. So you can see, Mr. Brown will soon have a large family." So we went along and got our butter and eggs at another house. We went into camp five miles from Salt Lake City. Next morning, while on our way, two young men came along on horseback. I began to tell them about Mr. Brown. "Yes," one said, "I have five wives and I am young in the business."
Within one mile of the city there is a spring that will boil eggs. Salt Lake City has many attractions of which I will describe later. I will speak of one cruel circumstance. This was in June 1851. An Indian chief overpowered a small tribe of Tintes and killed all the men and big boys and brought the women and children to the city to sell. A squaw with papoose sold for $10. A boy or girl from 8 to 10 years sold for from $20 to $50. They tried to enslave them. The experiment was a failure. Indians can never be enslaved as I learned years after at Salt Lake City. The city had 10,000 people in it at this time. We stayed near the city five days, and then two other men joined us. The four with the mail went back. Five of us in all left the city for home over fifteen hundred miles.
When we left the city the 10th of June, 1851, we went up City Creek Canyon through the Wahsatch range of mountains twenty-five miles to Webber River when I saw and talked to Kit Carson Fremonts, old scout and guide, thence to Old Fort Bridger. I bought some buckskin pants that his two squaw wives had made. His stockade or fort was made by setting timber or logs in the ground close together twelve of fifteen feet high. From there we went to Green River. After the Mountain Meadow massacre and other depredations the government sent soldiers and a train of provisions. At Green River the Mormons captured their train of provisions after a hard fight.
Then we went to South Pass then down the Sweet Water River across a thirty mile desert to upper Platte ferry, thence to Ft. Larimy on the Larimy River where it empties in the North Platte. The government sent out scouts and runners for five hundred miles around to have the Indians come in to make treaties and smoke the pipe of peace. There was a large room in the fort with benches around it. Thirty or forty Indian chiefs came in and smoked the pipe with the commander of the fort. I was on the bench when they all came in. I passed the pipe when it came around. The commander would smoke too. It went around three times. They were savage looking people. I went two miles out to where there were two thousand Sioux in camp. Their families were with them and when I went back to the fort about twenty girls left camp ahead of me. All of them together didn't have a yard of manufactured goods on them. Their clothes were made of antelope hide tanned white and soft, skirt and cape, leggings and moccasins. They looked neat with no bonnets or hats and a very heavy head of black course hair cut short in the neck. They walked one behind the other. When they walk they set the front end of their foot down first.
We started down the North Platte the next day about 400 miles to junction of South and North Platte.
(To be continued next week)
This is the second installment of the autobiography of the founder of Lowell, taken verbatim, from the June, 1900, files of the Tribune.
Arrived home in August. bought Haskin's interest in the property and erected a flouring mill and got it running January 1, 1853. In fall of the same year I laid out Lowell and gave away many lots to mechanics and others to settle up the town.
Lowell was surrounded by good farmers and good land. The mills caused Lowell to begin to settle. The first store started in Lowell in 1854. In 1852 the first brick school was erected. It was 20 x 30 and stood near where Hago Carstens' harness shop is now. In 1856 the Baptist church and what is now Mrs. R.C. Webb's houses was built.
Several houses were built by this time.
In 1857 I sold the property and went to Kimmundy, Illinois, and bought an interest in a saw mill. I erected a flour mill and seven houses -- one to live in and the others to rent. The mills proved to be good property.
In the fall of 1858 my brother, another man and myself went through Missouri and Arkansas to look at the new wild country. This same year I went to New Orleans, Mobile, thence up the Tom Bigley River and visited several plantations four years before the war and saw slavery at its best; I went across the country, struck the Alabama River, then to Montgomery, Ala., then to Atlanta, Ga., then to Chattanooga, Tenn., Augusta, Ga., Wilmington, N.C., Petersburg and Richmond, Va., thence to Washington and home by way of Baltimore.
I sold the mills in Kimmundy but kept the houses to rent. I went to California again in October 1859.
I went through Harper's Ferry the same week of John Brown's raid. The train stopped twenty minutes to see the havoc made by capturing John Brown and others. They were put in jail eight miles from Harper's Ferry across the Potomac River. I went via New York to California on a steamer around by the Isthmus. From Aspinwall to Panama it is 48 miles by rail. The elevation of the Isthmus is 350 or 400 feet. We saw a great many people with scanty clothing; some boys and men were entirely nude.
After prospecting for a mill site about six weeks, we found a good site 39 miles south of San Francisco on the coast. We erected a flour mill in 1860 with two run of stone. We used 80,000 feet of lumber in boom and mill. A very rich company wanted our stream of water above the mill to carry water to the city to better supply San Francisco. We sold out at a good price.
We then came home before the war began. William, my oldest son, went in three months service. The next call there was twice as many offered as was wanted so I went back to the gold fields.
I went to Virginia City, Nevada, and stayed two years. In 1863 while at San Francisco my family and myself, consisting of my wife and two sons -- one twenty and one eleven -- went on the coast 30 miles south where my brother and I built a flour mill at Spanishtown in 1860, thence 10 miles to a whaling camp of which there are six such camps in 900 miles coast from San Diego to Oregon. It takes 20 men to man a whaling camp. They see a whale 2 or 3 miles from shore. About 6 men will go out in a small boat and when they get near him they will put down their oars and one man will paddle slow and still so not to scare him until they get up broad side for they swim and play with their backs from 2 to 6 feet out of water, then one man will shoot the whale just behind the shoulder blade; for a whale is more animal than fish. Their two fore fins have anatomy just like the fore legs of a cow or horse, only instead of a leg it is a fin three feet wide and five feet long. The gun is about four foot long and will carry a bomb lance one inch in diameter and 12 inches long with a three inch taper point, so will enter the whale easily. As the bomb leaves the gun, the fuse is lighted so it will explode the bomb in the whale which paralyzes it for five minutes when the sailors go up to him (for he lays still a few minutes) and sink a harpoon into him and attach a 300 fathom of rope at one end and a buoy at the other. In a little while the whale will wake up and dive and swim often 10 miles before he dies which often takes two days.
They then watch him from the bluff with a glass when they go after him and tow him to the camp on the sand beach. They often weigh 100 tons and are often from 60 to 90 feet long. The men have two capstans run by 10 men each with two inch rope with 5 or 6 shive pulleys. They land the whale back to shore at high tide when they begin to take the blubber off which is as solid as fat pork, four foot from the back. The blubber or fat is two inches thick and gets thicker every foot until it is 8 inches thick at the bottom. They often get from 60 to 80 barrels of oil off one whale. The whale must live near the surface to breath or they will drown. The mortal enemy of the whale is the sword fish which has a lance 3 or 4 feet long and come up under the whale and spear him in his vitals which is sure death. When we are on the steamer we can often see 5 or 6 whales spouting and playing for 5 or 10 miles around. We occasionally run into a school of porpoise 2 or 3 miles long. Many thousands of them jump out of the water. They are 5 or 6 feet long and 12 to 15 inches through.
I made a good stake and bought back all the Lowell mill property, Foley mill, the McCarty grist mill, also improved the lake so there was enough water to run without steam.
In 1864-65 Lyman Foster and myself went south when Lee surrendered and looked the country over and come home by way of Mobile and New Orleans up the Mississippi River and Illinois Central Railroad. Here, I should mention that I went to Nevada City and Gold Hill. The Yellow Jacket mine paid me well and I sent for Mrs. Halsted. She came to me by way of New York and Isthmus by steamer. It took 28 days to go that route. She and my youngest son Theron arrived safe in San Francisco. I met them there when we went direct to Nevada, 150 miles by stage from Sacramento. Theron was 9 years old.
In one more year I made a good stake. I came home alone to see if I could buy back the Lowell mill property which I did in the spring of 1864. Then I telegraphed Mrs. Halsted to sell Yellow Jacket and come home to Lowell which she did and rather than pay the expressage -- six per cent -- she brought the money and saved her fare which was $300 for herself and $150 for the boy. I met her in New York.
(To be continued next week)
This is the final installment of the autobiography of the founder of Lowell, taken verbatim from the June, 1900, files of the Tribune:
In 1867, I was elected trustee of Cedar Creek Township and built the first graded school building under the new law in Northern Indiana which served its purpose for 28 years when the present fine school house was built. That same year the first brick mill was built for a woolen factory but that was given up and only a carding machine was put to work. Afterward a plow and wagon factory was put in the same building. It ran two or three years then the machinery was moved out of the old flour mill into the brick mill which burned in 1886.
About 1864, Jonah Thorn built a small hotel near the grist mill and a store nearby it and started the first store. Four years afterward William Sigler started a store in the brick building that Mrs. Webb now occupies. In 1859 or 60, Murton & Viant put up a store on the county road and about that time Sigler moved on the same street which is now Commercial Avenue with his store.
In 1864 when my family was on their way home, I met them in New York and went to Washington where we stayed one week seeing many things of interest. We spent several days visiting Congress. We heard Charles Sumner and many other notable men speak. We went to Mt. Vernon. Then it was with Mr. Colfax's help I got the daily mail to Lowell. Up to that time no dailies and very few weeklies were taken.
The old saw mill run 12 or 14 years until it was out. The old flour mill done a paying business for many years. The town of Lowell had a slow but healthy growth. Early in 1870 we had one frame and three brick churches. About this time we had a full compliment of stores and shops of all kinds, about 1000 inhabitants and three or four physicians second to none in the state.
In the fall of 1869, J.H. Luther and myself went to the Pacific coast which was my fourth trip. We went by railroad. Stopped off at Ogden and then went to Salt Lake City; took in the city and had a nice talk with Brigham Young. He was about 74 years old and hale and hearty. He had 19 wives; some old, some younger, some good looking, some on the shady side of life, some free to talk, some more reserve. It is characteristic of the Mormon women to talk freely.
Many think Salt Lake City is on the lake. It is 20 miles southeast of the lake. The lake is 90 miles long and will average 30 miles wide. The water is five times more salty than ocean notwithstanding there are three large rivers of fresh water running into it and there is no outlet. The water is all taken up by evaporation.
Ogden is 1030 miles west of Omaha, Nebraska. The first 100 miles of Ogden there are two road beds graded side by side some places only 20 feet apart. Finally they saw that this would not do so the two companies agreed just before Lincoln was killed that the president should decide the dividing point. So Lincoln said to the Union Pacific, "Ogden shall be the point and the Central pay for the 100-mile grade to the Union Pacific." It is about 1,000 to San Francisco by rail.
Mr. Luther and I went to California in 1869. This was within two years after the Union and Central Pacific railroads were built. We traveled up and down the Pacific coast and stayed in the city the winter of 1870. In the spring I went to Valeji and bought lots and built 15 homes including the one I put up for myself. I rented those houses for $15 per month each. I had my family come to me again and stayed there two years. A gentleman came to me, paid my price and I sold. Then I let my family go home to Lowell and I went [on] a lark or hunt.
I went to Santa Barbara, hired a small schooner and paid $10 a day with captain and cook. We sailed 50 miles northwest to a small island about 15 feet above tide water except one small hill that was 50 feet high. The name of the island is San Miguel and is two miles across either way. At the north end was a sand flat which was dry twice in 24 hours which was called a rookery where millions of seal lions would come and sun themselves. All sea lions carry their body 6 to 10 inches high while fur seal drag their body along with their fore flippers. Unlike the female the male has a heavy mane, hence the name. No fur seals are found south of the Aleutian Islands. I caught the largest sea lion at San Miguel. We had such a hard time to secure her that we only caught one-year-olds after that which weighed from 60 to 90 pounds. We raised anchor and went about a mile south to Santa Rosa Isle and from there to Santa Clara. Greasers, or half Spanish and Indians, were living on the islands herding sheep for rich men in the city. On the island of Ana Capa we caught three sea lions about one mile from where the steamer Yankee Blade was lost in 1852 with our old townsman, C.L. Templeton of Lowell, on board. I believe no lives were lost. When the tide was out we went around the old wreck. The largest island had 4000 sheep. There were five of us in the party. I took along lumber and made tanks and cages for our animals. About the tenth day we weighed anchor and went direct to Santa Barbara arriving about dark; then about midnight the coast streamer came into Santa Barbara on it s way north, I got my tanks and cages on board and went to San Francisco.
When I got there Mr. Woodward wanted me to go to his garden. He gave me $10 a day and expenses. I stayed 9 or 10 days. By that time I got the sea lions used to the change from salt to fresh water and I came east with them. When I got to the Missouri River a John Robinson bought my four sea lions, for which he paid me a little over $1200.00.
About 3 years earlier I had made an extensive trip through Kansas and Indian territory. In 1872 I went to Utah in the silver mines southeast of Salt Lake City where I superintended a mine at $150 per month. I had my family with me again. In 18 months the mines changed hands and we moved back to Lowell. I soon went back and worked in the Emma mine at $6 per day.
In the spring of 1874, the superintendent of the C. & S.A. Railroad wrote me to come home and work up notes and votes in Cedar Creek and West Creek Townships. I came back and took several thousand dollars worth of notes and voted the two townships, and began grading half a mile south of Creston.
August 15, 1874, I began and took 50 deeds and helped select the railroad route. I paid surveyors and graded most of the road and built $18,000 worth of bridges from Dyer south. In all I paid out over $85,000, and received $65,000 in money, notes, and store pay, leaving a remainder of $20,000 unpaid. I have had the claim with others in law for 20 years but probably it is lost. The railroad has been a very costly affair to me but the town and country get the benefit.
In 1878, T.H. Halsted and I erected a 300 foot bridge across the Iroquois River at Rensselaer in Jasper County. The same winter C. Haskin, T.H. Halsted and myself bought a saw mill at Bumbaloo in Newton County, run it two years and moved it to Roselawn, Indiana. In 1882 moved the same mill to West Lebanon and run it two years, then moved it to Washington territory and sawed timber and ties for the Northern Pacific Railroad for three years. I come home once in that time. Then went back and sold the mill and land and come home.
In 1888 traded for another saw mill at Michigan City; cut 50,000 feet of lumber, then moved on B&O Railroad and cut 80,000 feet more, then moved to Lowell. About 1892 I moved the saw mill to Shelby; run it two years; built two long bridges across the Kankakee River and others from 15 to 100 feet long in the neighborhood. Then moved back to Lowell where the mill is now (1900). In 1894 I built two frame dwellings and the next year two brick houses on Halsted Street to rent.
In 1885 on my way back to Washington territory 100 miles west of Ogden I met a gentleman who was mining in the Snake River Canyon. The mines are 110 miles from C.P.R.R. The canyon is 25 miles long and from 800 to 1000 feet deep; 800 feet wide with perpendicular walls. There is 30 or 40 feet of large rock from the water to the foot of walls weighing from a few pounds to many tons. He wanted to know if I could put up a derrick to move those rocks. The pay dirt lay under the rocks. The rocks had hundreds of craters black with smoke. They must have been heated by mineral heat as there was no lava in sight. Within 2 miles of the lower end of the canyon is the Great Sho Shone Falls, 214 feet high; three miles above is Little Sho Shone falls, 140 feet high.
I put the first derrick up half a mile below last named falls. It gave entire satisfaction. I shipped in three derricks. I went 50 miles to get upright and boom timbers with a four horse team. There was only one place I could get down the river between the falls.
In 1885 I came home from Washington Territory. On the train I met Rev. Duncan, a missionary. When he left college some 12 years before, he went 600 miles north of Victoria, British Columbia, among savage Indians. He christianized them, taught them to read and write and work; built a saw mill and helped build houses for them. He had 1000 civilized people. He was an English Episcopalian and began his work without help from any church. Soon after his village was nearly built, an E. Bishop ordered him to come into his diocese. He would not and applied to Washington for permission to go over to an island a few miles northwest in the jurisdiction of the United States. So these Mettelack Indians all went over to the island to be in a free country.
February 18, 1899, my dear wife died after a lingering illness. We had lived together nearly 57 years. It was always sunshine in my house and the time seemed very short. In July 1899 I made a trip east; was gone 31 days and returned home very much improved in health, and now I find myself in my eightieth year hale and hearty ready for any enterprise that offers.
This brings me down to May 1900. I live in the east part of the house we built 50 years ago. No children are with me at the present time. My oldest son lives in Kansas. He is a farmer and has a wife and three children. My youngest son lives in Boston; his only son lives with him. They are both engineers.
Respectfully,
M.A. Halsted
Below will be found a well written article from the pen of our venerable townsman, M.A. Halsted, who is now 83 years old, but with a mind as vigorous as most men at 50. His interest in Lowell has never lagged since he laid out the first 16 lots and built the old mill, which in fact is one of the most prominent factors, next to the railroad, in making our town what it is today, and to him belongs all the credit for the mill and much for our railroad. The article follows:
About the year 1869 the Indianapolis, Delphi, & Chicago Railroad was started and preliminary survey was made after three or four years. The Chicago and South Atlantic Railroad arranged with the former company to build the road. I saw the officers of the latter named company on my way to Utah in 1873, and talked the matter over with them. Early in the spring of 1873 [1874] I received a letter saying that they were ready to build the railroad, so I left a six-dollar-a-day position and came to Chicago and entered into a contract to construct the road.
I came home to Lowell and lone-handed took several thousand dollars worth of notes, obtained the right-of-way for proposed road, took a great number of deeds, helped survey and select the route, voted Cedar and West Creek townships, and had work on the road underway by the middle of August, 1874. By the end of 1875 most of the grading was completed.
About the year 1877, Yeoman [Youman], Hegler & Co., of Ohio, made arrangements to put a narrow gauge track on the line. After forty miles of track had been built from Delphi to Rensselaer, and cars were running, the road was bought by Henry Crawford and it was called the Indianapolis, Delphi & Chicago Air Line. The road has changed names several times. Crawford finished and ironed the road and run the first mail train to Lowell in April, 1881[1880]. The road is now called the Monon Route.
I did [done] grading and bridging to the amount of $85,000; received $65,000 and was kept out of $20,000 nearly thirty years. The principle and interest would bring this sum up to $50.000. I was compelled to law the company for twenty-five years, winning all the first suits. The company appealed many times, and offered us 50 per cent, which we refused to accept. The last suit went against us and we lost all. There were many of our friends who also lost money.
During my endeavor to build the road many good men repeatedly told me that I never would get the road as it was too much to expect, and other wise good men put many obstacles in the way. When I condemned farms, the appraisers, being from the middle of the county, would set the price two or three times as high as I had bought adjoining land for, but their schemes failed to defeat us. The very men who were largely benefitted voted against the tax, with the hope of defeating the great enterprise. The few dollars they would keep in their pockets was better than a railroad. How is it now, with land so much higher.
South of Cedar Lake, the people were generally very willing to give the right of way. Lake Meyers [Myers] and Van Holland were friendly. Peter Teland (God bless him) gave right of way across his large farm; he also gave cash across two farms south of his and gave four acres for depot purposes at St. John. F. Keilman and Gerlach treated us well. L. Keilman and Du Brueill rendered us every assistance in their power. It cost us from $100 to $500 cash [cash each] to cross several farms and that was thirty years ago.
When you stop to think of the vast benefit the Monon road is to the people of our community today, it seems strange that there should have been anyone who would have opposed the enterprise. I realized what it meant four our community and I am glad it is here.
M.A. HALSTED
We had no glass with which to construct windows, thus were compelled to use greased cotton cloths for lights. A small opening would be left between the logs, and after the cotton cloth had been dipped in a kettle of warm grease it would be fastened over this space. When more light was needed the doors were opened. The chimney itself was very low and wide, thus the cook had plenty of light from above.
The chief cooking utensils were pots and kettles, skillets and dutch baking kettles with covers so made that they would hold coals of fire on the top. The frying pan had a handle three feet long, so that the cook could not burn her hands. We can not help from being serious when we think of what a struggle our dear wives and mothers must have had in looking after the large families, which they had to raise under such difficulties. When our house was done we would construct our bedsteads in a very curious manner. They had only one post and this was connected with the wall in such a manner that when corded with ropes and covered with straw filled ticks it made a very comfortable bed. The other corners of the room were furnished with these same kinds of beds, thus all the family were treated alike. We obtained boxes or sawed off blocks for chairs and made a table in the same manner.
I do not think that we paid out one dollar for the entire furniture or house. We changed work as we had no money to hire hand, thus our pioneer days were very happy for we had no time to quarrel, no saloons to make men crazy, no money to pay a lawyer to start divorce suits, no labor unions, no strikes, no high schools to learn our boys how to get their living by their wits and make the other fellow dig the potatoes and live on the farm.
Out of twenty-five or thirty families who were living on the old state road at that time, between Sherburnville and Hebron, there is but one man and his wife left on the road. This is Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Kenney, who now live about three miles east of Lowell. The most prolific and remarkable family in the state is the Hayden family. Daniel Hayden, who lived on the state line in Lake County at a later date, had thirteen children, all living and married. Nearly all of these were farmers, living in the same neighborhood. At a recent election the Haydens cast forty-seven votes, and this tells the whole story. They are industrious, temperate, prosperous people, and the best of neighbors. The father, and great-grandfather and the great-great-grandfather came into Lake County in 1837, and settled about a half mile east of the state line on the state road.
In conclusion I will say; the most of my old neighbors, who would confirm my story, have gone across the river, where the great Jehovah has a house built of the very best material, and where our loved ones are waiting with open arms to receive us.
M.A. Halsted
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