HATCH’S MILLS AND LAMBS CHAPEL, Michigan City News, September 1926 "Civic Column"
Driving back from Hatch’s Mills the other day, we stopped off at Lamb’s Chapel and walked across to the old graveyard adjacent thereto. As that part of the county was settled over 90 years ago, it is quite interesting to the "Old Timer."
There are graves marked with handsome, up to date stone monuments, others with small old fashioned white stones, many with wooden markers from the old "Father Time" with the help of the elements had erased the inscriptions, and some, sunken down to the path’s level, had no markers at all. Possibly at some time they had wooden markers which succumbed to the rain, the sun and the snow. Possibly those who were left had promised themselves they would attend to it, but had neglected to and moved away and died themselves. Possibly some believed it an unnecessary expense, maybe rightly so. Possibly others were neglected on account of poverty or lack of strength of the survivors. Possibly some were the last of the race and left neither kith, kin nor friends.
One corner was occupied by the Wells family and they were numerous. Some one, way back in this family had a penchant for unusual names as evidenced by the following women’s names: Calphurnia, Euphemia and Indiana. Among the men’s names were: Americus, Columbus, Hannibal, Dexter and Christopher.
Some thought there was no death as inscription read: "Passed to the Spirit Land."
And now a new, modern, up to date 1926 house is being built across the road from Lamb’s Chapel. Galena township is still a beautiful spot with its lakes, Porter, Hog, Sogany (sp), Pine, Morton and Silver, and still has an abundance of virgin timber in many a wonderful tree. It used to boast it never had a saloon, an incorporated village or town, or a railroad, until the South Shore put through its line to South Bend.
Had there been an historical society in the county a few years ago it could have accumulated a vast store of interesting information of the time when it was practically a wilderness from Eugene Davis, Ed Etherington, Jim Hatch or from the Hickmans (Heckmans), Austins, Wells or Woodmansies. But nearly all the pioneers or sons of pioneers are now gone, and about all that can be learned now is from the inscriptions on the tombstones which go little beyond names and dates.
Springfield township, which is just west of Galena, was settled early in the thirties and the town of Springville was surveyed in 1822, and was a prosperous place in 1840, being on the main road from Niles to Michigan City. It early advertised that you could save eight miles by coming through Springville instead of Laporte.
The Lake Shore surveyed a line through Springville but it never came and they had to depend for years for a shipping point on Corymbo in the northwest corner of the township adjacent to the Michigan Central.
An early history of Laporte county says that Corymbo had once a tinge of romance. In the thirties and forties, a gang of counterfeiters infested that locality under the leadership of two men called Van Vester and Stroud. They had headquarters in a log cabin surrounded by dence (sp) willows and other growth, situated on a dry knoll. But it is said they were finally detected and Van Vester died in a state prison and Stroud was lynched for horse stealing. Grand Beach is just across the road and over the state line from Corymbo.
While going out to Hatch’s Mills the other day over a fine road, with a car that could make 55 miles an hour or more if you let her out, I thought of my first trip there, through the sand and clay a few years ago, with the old grey mare and the side bar buggy. Jim Hatch’s daughter had invited us out to a Sunday dinner and when he saw us come down the pike, he seized his rifle and when he did that, his few turkeys took to the trees, as they knew from past experiences what was going to happen and happen right quick.
When we drove into the front yard we heard a shot and a young, fat hen turkey without any head dropped to our feet from the top of the tree. This turkey formed the basis of our dinner with about 40 other good things which would be hard to duplicate nowadays either in quantity or quality in the county.
Jim was then nigh on to 80, six feet two in his socks, had the eye of an eagle and an abundant crop of white whiskers. After dinner he hung up the rifle and took down his fiddle and we spent an hour or two listening to his music.
W. B. Manny