The Bryant Settlement
- As the year of 1835 advanced settlers came in quite rapidly. In April the "Bryant Settlement" was commenced. The names of these Bryants were, Wayne, David, Elias, and Samuel D.; and with them in this settlement was a sister, Mrs. Agnew. They called their location Pleasant Grove.
The following was found on pages 32-33 in Rev. T.H. Ball's Lake County, Indiana, from 1834 to 1872:
- In the spring of 1835 settlers began to come in more rapidly. In March, Richard Francher again entered the county, with two assistants, and erected a cabin on his claim. He brought up a load of provisions and goods, drawn by two yoke of oxen, deposited them at Solon Robinson's, and returned for his family. He arrived with them and settled in April. In the same month Wayne Bryant, Simeon and Samuel D. Bryant, a brother-in-law named Agnew, and David Bryant, commenced what was known for years as "the Bryant Settlement." Elias Bryant also joining them in the Fall. To E.W., generally called Wayne Bryant, is attributed the naming of the grove where they settled. His wagon reached a grove in the afternoon. They camped there for the night. In the morning the bright spring sunshine of April shone over the broad prairie lying eastward, and gilded the trees westward, then putting on their green foliage. The little birds, which had been accustomed to sing only for the Indian children and the deer, were no doubt flitting amid the green boughs , and as the white family looked around that morning and listened, they said, "How pleasant. We will stop here." And they gave it the name which it has ever since borne, of "Pleasant Grove." But a trial came upon them in that early springtime. On the fourth of April there came "a most terrible snow storm, the weather previous having been mild as summer," and the brother-in-law, Agnew, overtaken by night on the prairie east of Pleasant Grove, perished with the cold. This was the first death among the settlers; no places had been selected for burial; and these remains were deposited in a cemetery on Morgan Prairie, in Porter county.
The Agnew family, nevertheless, took possession of the claim and the settlement went on.
The following information was found on pages 8-9 in T.H. Ball's The Sunday Schools of Lake: An Account of the Commencement and Growth of the Sunday Schools of Lake County, Indiana, from about 1840 to 1890:
- The open prairies, the home of tens of thousands of pinnated grouse, where roamed the prairie wolves and fed the deer, remained tenantless. In a strip of wood land, some six miles south from the center of the county, named by one of the pioneers Pleasant Grove, a settlement was formed in 1835 by some Bryant families and others, and the locality for a few years was called Bryant Settlement. Among these were E. Wayne Bryant, one of the early Methodists, and Elias Bryant, one of the earliest Presbyterians.
Go to Bryant Settlement, "Pioneer History Index," for further information.
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