NATURAL FEATURES OF THE TOWNSHIP— NEIGHBORING MARKET TOWNS— ROAD BUILDING— FIRST SETTLERS AND LAND OWNERS— ISAAC S. VINSON AND WIFE-- FIRST LAND ENTRY— SICKNESS DROVE AWAY THE PRICES-- LAND ENTRIES OF 1835— WOULD RATHER HUNT THAN EAT— THE VAN VOORSTS AND THEIR FRAME HOUSES— DOCTOR HALSTEAD BUYS LAND— WILLIAM JORDAN LOCATES— OTHER ENTRIES IN 1836-45— TOWNSHIP VOTERS-- THE VAN VOORST FRAME SCHOOLHOUSES-- CHURCHES OF THE TOWNSHIP— ANDERSON IRION AND DAVID DELLINGER— LAND ENTRIES, 1847-51-- PARMELEE'S MEADOW LAKE FARM.
The political township of West Point is one of the largest of the civil divisions of White County, comprising a congressional township and a half, or fifty-four square miles. It is in the southwestern part of the county and is bounded north by Princeton (of equal length), east by the southwest section of Honey Creek Township and Big Creek Township, south by the three westernmost sections in the north tier of Prairie and the entire boundary of Round Grove Township, and west by Benton County. Nearly the entire northeast quarter of the township was covered with timber, the remainder being included in the Grand Prairie. A distinct point of wooded land extends westward into the prairie country some distance beyond the general timber line, and that physical feature decided the early settlers to name the township West Point, when it was organized in 1845.
The wooded lands generally occur massed in the northeastern sections. There are two exceptions to the rule in Long Grove, a small wooded tract in the southern part of the township, and in Jordan's Grove, a larger timbered area in the southwest, which derives its name from William Jordan, who, with other members of the family, entered much land in that locality at an early day.
The natural drainage of West Point Township is chiefly due to Big Creek and the Little Monon; the former rises in the township, and both water its northwestern sections. The timbered, or northeastern portion, was a succession of low sand-ridges, with intervening swamp lands sprinkled with ponds. Now all of it is drained and in a high state of cultivation. The prairie lands of the south are broken by undulations and small hills, those of the north and west being generally level. The prevailing soil is a black loam, with subsoil of sand, gravel and clay.
Although West Point Township has neither railroad nor postoffice, it is more advantageously situated than some districts which have these facilities. Since its rather useless array of non-resident land owners has been largely replaced by settlers prone to make improvements, the wet lands have been reclaimed, and good roads constructed so as to bring the farmers within easy access to such neighboring markets as Wolcott and Reynolds to the north and Chalmers and Brookston to the southeast. West Point Township has had one postoffice--Forney, established in 1881 on the old Lafayette and Wolcott mail route, in the southwestern part of the township—but that was absorbed by the rural free delivery which is of so much general utility.
In the building of the macadam or gravel roads which are of such widespread benefit to the people, the township has incurred a debt of nearly $30,000. Of that amount the J. H. Moore road is credited with $11,200; Hewitt, $2,380; Krapff, $10,800; Pugh, $5,400.
The first settlements in the township were made in 1835 by Shelby Hudson and Oscar Dyer, who entered lands on Christmas day of 1834 in section 15, northeast of the central part of the township. They did not settle until the following spring, when each built a hewn-log cabin half a mile apart, 16 by 18 feet in size. Each had its clapboard roof, an opening for one window made by the omission of a log section and the big, invariable fire-place.
How long the bachelors Hudson and Dyer remained on the ground is not divulged by any accessible records, but it is known that Isaac S. Vinson, who had bronght his wife and two children to Union Township from Ohio, about the time that they built their cabins on the banks of Big Creek, appeared in that locality in the spring of 1838 and bought the Hudson land, with improvement—if the shack could be thus dignified. But it was a family shelter and a protection against wild beasts. The Pottawatamies had an encampment just across Big Creek, but they were friendly and, at times, of actual use.
From all the accounts which filter down, Mrs. Vinson's bartering with the dusky brothers was largely in her favor, such exchanges as the saddles, or hindquarters of a deer, for two cold corn cakes, or a number of saddles for a loaf of bread, being nothing out of the ordinary. In those days deer and game birds were especially plentiful, and one winter the lady of the house made a trap and caught 101 prairie chickens.
The Vinsons remained on their homestead on Big Creek for a number of years, during which Mr. Vinson bought land in section 12, and in 1855 moved to the new town of Reynolds in Honey Creek Township, where the man of the house established himself in business and as a hotel keeper. Mr. and Mrs. Vinson raised a large family. The father died in August, 1883, at the Indiana Hospital for the Insane, Indianapolis, where he had passed a number of years laboring under religious mania. His remains were brought to Monticello and buried from the residence of one of his sons.
The first entry of land in the township was made by John T. Bunnell, June 18, 1834, his tract being in section 15, as were the lots of Hudson and Dyer. But there is no evidence that Bunnell ever made any improvements on his land, or participated in township affairs.
Soon after the arrival of the Vinson family, however, John Price and his wife came into the township, but the latter was taken ill and the couple returned to their Ohio home. Mr. Price appeared on his claim soon afterward alone, but was stricken with inflammatory rheumatism, and for three months lay in almost a he]pless condition at the Vinson house. During the following spring he sold his property and left the township permanently.
From the Tract Book it appears that in 1835 the following made land entries in West Point Township: Andrew Brown, in section 11; John Lewis, in section 12, and Armstrong Buchanan, in section 14.
The next person to settle in the township after Shelby Hudson and Oscar Dyer was Isaac Beezy, a noted hunter, who came in 1837. But he was of the uneasy, erratic kind, and his stay was short. It is said that his desire for hunting was so keen that he would go for days without eating; as many as twenty unskinned deer are known to have been in his smoke-house, frozen stiff, and the gaunt Beezy still hunting more. The hunter never made much improvement on his land, soon left the township and settled in Pulaski County, where he was killed by an ex-convict.
In 1841, John and Sylvanus Van Voorst came from Ohio and purchased large tracts of canal lands in sections 14 and 22, probably 300 acres. John also bought 160 acres in section 10. They brought their houses with them, procuring the frames in Toledo, which they shipped, with other necessary material, by way of the Wabash and Erie Canal, to Delphi and thence by wagon, twenty-five miles, to West Point Township. The house of John Van Voorst was a large two-story frame and was placed on a high knoll in the prairie near the point of timber which gave the township its name. Its site, as well as its size, made it by far the most imposing house in the township.
Abram Van Voorst, who died at the Monticello home of his son, Henry, in 1899, did not locate in section 12 on the border of Big Creek Township, until 1849. Most of his life in White County was spent as a resident of Reynolds.
In 1841 and 1845 Dr. John Halstead, the first physician in the township, entered considerable canal land in sections 2 and 4, in the northeastern part, and is said to have actually located for practice and speculation in 1844. He came with his brother, Bartlett Halstead.
About the same time William Jordan, a resident of Tippecanoe County, moved into the township, settling on his entry in section 35, southwestern portion, which he had taken up in 1842. He afterward purchased the bulk of the 480 acres of canal lands in section 36, but fixed his homestead on the tract in section 35, which comprised the large and beautiful grove bearing his name. Within the eighteen square miles comprising the east half of congressional township 26, range 6, and the west third of West Point Township, the Jordan family represented, for many years, its sole residents.
Besides those already mentioned, the following entered land in the sections designated, previous to and including the year of the formation of the political township in 1845: In 1836—Thomas H. Brown, in section 1, township 26 north, range 5 west, and in section 12 of the same; Andrew Brown, in sections 12 and 13, and Thomas Price, in section 15; in 1839—Joshua H. Scarff, in section 1, and George McGaughey, in section 11; in 1841—Jesse T. Vinson and Jacob Nyce, in section 1; John Halstead, in section 21, and William J. Galford, in section 13; Mary Halstead, in 1844, and John Halstead, in 1845, both in section 4.
At the June term of the Commissioners' Court, in 1845, it was ordered by that body that all of congressional township 26 north, range 5 west, and all west of that to the county line, should comprise the political township of West Point. In the preceding year a log schoolhouse had been built, 18 by 24 feet, and this was designated as the place for holding elections. At the first election, held in the following August, the fourteen citizens of the township who turned out to exercise their rights of the elective franchise were Ira Emery, Sylvanus Van Voorst, Alexander Page, Jesse Tinnison, William Vodyce, Isaac Beezy, William Jordan, John Halstead, Barney Spencer, Gideon Brecount and Isaac S. Vinson, several of whom will be recognized as acquaintances.
Several years after the building of the old West Point schoolhouse, Abram Van Voorst erected two frame buildings for educational purposes, one on section 7 and the other on section 15. As there were no sawmills in the township, he hauled the material for their construction from Delphi. Each of these frame schoolhouses was 20 by 24 feet, cost $500 and was considered quite a demonstration of township enterprise. All the Van Voorsts were promoters of frame buildings, and induced quite a number of the early settlers to enter the ranks of progress in that regard.
The religious needs of the pioneers were met almost immediately by such old and faithful circuit riders as Rev. Mr. Lee, of the Methodist Church, who preached quite often at the old Vinson house and other cabins before the organization of a regular class in 1844. In that year a little log church was erected on section 2, range 5. Later the United Brethren held services in Schoolhouse No. 2, and the Presbyterians and other denominations have organized societies with varying success.
In 1853 Capt. Anderson Irion and David Dellinger became settlers of the township. The former, who had received his title because he had organized a company for the Mexican war while residing in Fayette county, Ohio, located in West Point Township about seven miles southeast of Wolcott, and became quite prominent in county affairs, serving as commissioner and in other public capacities. Several of Captain Irion's sons also became prosperous farmers and leading citizens.
David Dellinger also came from Ohio and bought a large farm in the northern part of the township, seven miles southwest of Reynolds. Both he and Captain Irion made a specialty of raising live stock.
Probably at the time (1853) these two well known residents settled in West Point Township its entire fifty-four square miles could not show twenty-five families. Many of those who came during the period previous to the early '50s were single young men, some of them speculating and others prospecting for future homes. Those who entered lands from 1845 to 1852 were as follows: In 1847—John Nyce, Sarah Adams, Samuel P. Edmonson, Sarah J. Halstead and Walter McFarland, in section 4, and Isaac S. Vinson, in section 12; in 1848—Isaac M. Cantwell, in section 9, and Nicholas Van Pelt and Samuel McFeer, in section 10; in 1849— John Herron, in section 2; Drury Wood, in section 5; Grant Wynkoop and James Wynkoop, in sections 6 and 7; Peter B. Kennedy, in section 7; Henry Britton, in section 12, and Marquia Higson, in section 22; Eli Meyers, in section 12, in 1850; in 1851-- James Stroud, in section 6, and Daniel Davis, in section 23.
It is estimated that of the fifty-four square miles comprising the area of the township fully forty were purchased by non-residents, mostly as military, canal and swamp lands. That fact usually was a great drawback to actual settlement and improvements, although there was one noteworthy exception to the rule. As late as 1879 Frank Parmelee, the widely known 'bus man and storage-house proprietor of Chicago, purchased what was known as the Meadow Lake Farm, a fine stretch of 1,700 acres in the northern part of the township, 3 1/2 miles south of Wolcott. Within the following two years he erected a handsome residence and magnificent farm buildings, and founded one of the finest live stock farms in the state. His specialty was Hereford cattle. But the Parmelee case was, as stated, a grand exception.
With the drainage of the swamp lands, the fair assessment of the benefited properties, the subdivisions of large tracts held for purely speculative purposes and the construction of adequate highways, the residents of West Point Township have long been comfortable and contented citizens.