ENTRIES COVERING ORIGINAL TOWN-- FIRST BUILDINGS AND PIONEER MERCHANT— CIRCUIT RIDER ON THE RAW GROUND-- CARRYING THE GOSPEL UNDER DIFFICULTIES-- BAPTISTS AND METHODISTS ORGANIZE— THE BUSY YEAR, 1836— YOUNG TOWN CONSIDERABLY SOAKED-- BUSINESS DIRECTORY FOR 1836— FERRY ESTABLISHED-- SMITH, HIORTH AND THE KENDALLS-- ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LOCAL PRESS— FIRST WATER POWER AND MILLS-- WOOL CENTER AND WOOLEN MANUFACTURES— THE TIPPECANOE HYDRAULIC COMPANY— N[ELSON] B. LOUGHRY AND SONS— BECOMES A RAILROAD TOWN-- MONTICELLO IN 1852— VILLAGE GOVERNMENT ABANDONED— WALKER['S], JENNER[S'] AND REYNOLDS' ADDITION— BARR'S ADDITION— BOOM NOT IN EVIDENCE— THIRD [TOWN] ADDITION— CIVIL WAR OVERSHADOWS ALL— FOURTH AND FIFTH ADDITIONS-- GEORGE W. EWING A SITE OWNER— SECOND AND MORE STABLE CORPORATION.
A general picture of the founding of Monticello must have been formed in the reader's mind if he has perused the chapters devoted to the county government and the history of Union Township. The purpose of the chapters which follow is to develop the details in connection with the establishment and progress of the urban centers of population throughout the county, which are led by its substantial and beautiful official seat and metropolis, Monticello.
When the county seat was laid out by John Barr, county agent, on the third of November, 1834, its site embraced the following entries of land at Crawfordsville and LaPorte: Eighty acres by Peter Price, being the west half of the southwest quarter, section 33, township 27 north, range 3 west, on the 13th of June; George Bartley, same date, east half of the southwest quarter, and on June 7, 1833, 78.68 acres, the south fraction of the southeast quarter; Robert Rothrock (in behalf of John Barr, Hans E. Hiorth and John Rothrock), 59.17 acres, being the south half of the northeast quarter, and 51.05 acres, being the north half of the southeast quarter, on September 6,1834, and Zebulon Sheetz, 36.36 acres, being the east fraction of the section (33) east of the river, on the 1st of November, 1834.
In the following spring the county office was erected on the courthouse square. It was a little wooden building for the clerk, auditor and recorder, all combined in the person of William Sill. About the same time Henry Orwig, late of Delphi, who had bought a lot at the sale of the preceding November, completed his house and store under one small roof at the southwest corner of Broadway and Bluff streets, and in May, 1835, commenced to sell from his $500 stock of miscellanies. Public and private business started simultaneously. Orwig might have been arrested, as he had no license to sell, but the people winked at the legal irregularity, as they were only too glad to be accommodated even to the extent of his small ability. After several months of experiment, however, Monticello's first merchant made up his mind to stay and he therefore obtained his license in the fall of 1835. Samuel Heckendorn opened the first furniture shop in Monticello. Jonathan Harbolt was the first undertaker. He would be called a funeral director.
Robert Rothrock was authority for the statement that the first sermon preached in Monticello was about the time the town was laid out, in the fall of 1834, and that a circuit rider named Stalker was the worthy man who thus inaugurated religious training at the county seat. Thereafter, he appeared at the settlement monthly until February, 1836, when a small class was formally organized. Its members were Zebulon Sheetz, wife, mother and son; John Reese, wife, mother and two sisters; Okey S. Johnson, wife and sister; Lewis Dawson; Bethsheba Cowan and her three daughters; Jonathan Harbolt and wife, and Asa Allen and wife. The class met quite regularly at the cabin of John Wilson just west of town, that gentleman having joined soon after its formation.
Soon afterward, the church-goers commenced to split up into denominational societies, the completion of the schoolhouse furnishing them with a regular meeting place.
Milton M. Sill claims that the first resident minister of an organized church in White County was Alexander Williamson, of the Presbyterian faith. He located in Monticello and delivered sermons in all parts of the county, at the homesteads of members of his flock who lived too far away from town to attend the regular morning services and would perhaps be compelled to deny themselves this comfort unless the preacher should go to their homes. Thus it happened that the minister, after delivering his morning discourse at Monticello, would travel ten or fifteen miles in the afternoon and deliver a second one at night. In pleasant weather this was not a severe hardship, but with the coming of storms and almost impassable roads, the preacher was placed in the same class as the country doctor. But Mr. Williamson was very diligent and faithful in his work, and never disappointed his country parishioners if it was possible to carry the gospel to them. His outside meetings were generally held at the house of Zebulon Sheetz, on the east side of the river, until the completion of the schoolhouse at Monticello in 1836.
Elders Reese, Miner and Corbin organized the Baptist society soon after the Presbyterians formed a society. Elder Miner, of Lafayette, had charge of the society, but in his absence Elder Reese officiated, the Monticello meetings usually being held at the house of the latter.
In the winter of 1836-37 a protracted meeting was held in the schoolhouse, which resulted in the formation of a Methodist class and the calling of Hachaliah Vreedenburg to the mission. The combined school and meeting-house was a frame building, 20 by 30 feet, with iron latches and hinges, as well as real glass for the windows. It was far above the average of such structures and remained both a temple of learning and a temple of worship for a full decade.
In the meantime the material interests of Monticello were also growing apace. The year 1836 was especially busy. Carpenters, blacksmiths, doctors, merchants, ministers, lawyers, speculators and mechanics of every descriptions began to appear, and the building of houses and shops was rapidly lining out the principal streets of the town.
In May, 1836, Rowland Hughes opened his tavern, having paid $5 for the license, and about the same time Parcel and Nicholson, and Ford, Walker and Company, were licensed as general storekeepers, each firm paying $10 for the privilege of selling their goods. Landlord Hughes bought the privilege of selling liquor at his hotel, and Patrick Sullivan opened a regular saloon soon afterward. Such attractions were not resisted by the Indians just above Monticello and several miles further north in what is now Liberty Township. The squaws came from the villages with their bead work and other fancy articles and the braves brought skins or venison, which were as often exchanged for bad whiskey as for good food. Sullivan was indicted several times for selling whiskey to the Pottawattamies, but Hughes was more careful to confine his traffic in strong drink to the white villagers. For a number of years, especially while the Indians lingered, Monticello had rather a bad name as a whiskey-soaked town.
In this busy year of 1836 William Sill also opened a general store, as did Reynolds and Cassel. Aside from those mentioned, the following were factors in the Monticello expansion: Peter Martin, merchant; James Parker, sheriff; Dr. Samuel Rifenberrick, general merchandise; Mr. Perces, grocer; Jonathan Harbolt, James McKinley, T. R. Dawson, Christian Dasher, Robert Spencer, Salmon Sherwood and John Hanawalt, carpenters; G. R. Bartley, Nathaniel White and John Ream, farmers; Joseph Skidmore and Thompson Crose, blacksmiths; Rev. Joshua Lindsey, minister, justice of the peace and postmaster; Jacob Meyers, tailor; Daniel M. Tilton, tailor and deputy postmaster; Jacob Thomas, shoemaker; Asa Allen, surveyor; Widows Bott and Reese; Jacob Franklin, cabinet maker; William Brock, plasterer and cabinet maker; Oliver Hammon, small store, and Abraham Snyder, tanner.
At that time the town had the frame schoolhouse and the little frame courthouse. Not long after the courthouse was blown down by a heavy wind; Robert Spencer, its builder, was placed under a cloud as to his efficiency, and Jonathan Harbolt had the satisfaction of re-erecting it. Monticello had then a population of about 100 men, women and children.
In May, 1837, Peter Martin was licenscd to conduct a ferry across the river at Monticello, and was required to keep a boat large enough to carry teams and a smaller boat for persons.
In the following spring Peter B. Smith, who had been associated with Hans E. Hiorth in the Norway water power and mills, opened a general store at Monticello, whither he appears to have transferred most of his interests. Hiorth afterward purchased a share in the business, which he probably held until his death in 1844. The Kendall brothers were the next important business men to enter the Monticello field with large stocks of general merchandise, and were leading merchants during the decade previous to 1848, when they took over the Hiorth properties at Norway, but two of them afterward returned to the county seat and re-entered business.
Jacob Beck and John Brady came as rivals of Rowland Hughes in the hotel line, about 1840, and Merriam and Company opened another store in 1844. In 1846 Messrs. Reynolds and Merriam became partners, besides whom there were engaged in mercantile affairs, William Sill, Rowland Hughes, Charles W. Kendall, Rifenberrick and Brearley, Andrew Sproule and William Sheetz and Company.
The late '40s were rather full of events which had a bearing on the progress of Monticello; the leading ones were the establishment of the Prairie Chieftain, the first newspaper of the county, and the practical development of the water power under the management of the Monticello Hydraulic Company. The Chieftain met with a fair patronage during the five years of its existence, and various newspapers have since succeeded one another, with more or less close connection, up to the present; the Chieftain, which issued its first number July 3, 1849, demonstrated that Monticello and the county would support a good, earnest newspaper, and its founding was therefore an important event for both.
The Monticello Hydraulic Company inaugurated a long line of industries which accomplished much toward the early growth of the place. The act by which it was constituted was passcd by the Legislature in February, 1848, and named as its incorporators Philip Wolverton, John Burns, Ashley L. Pierce, Henry Ensmiger, Randolph Brearley, John C. Merriam, Zachariah VanBuskirk, Isaac Reynolds and Zebulon Sheetz. In 1849 the company bought small tracts of land from Mr. Sheetz and Rowland Hughes and a dam was thrown across the river. A site was then leased to Messrs. Reynolds and Brearley, who erected a large frame grist mill for merchant work, and Hoagland and Conklin built a woolen factory at about the same time. Mr. Sheetz next built a sawmill and a second establishment of that kind was established by Hoagland and Conklin, the latter being subsequently transformed into a furniture factory. Reynolds and Brearley added to their interests by erecting a large frame warehouse, which Professor Bowman leased for his school in 1859.
The leases of the water power at Monticello controlled by the old Hydraulic Company were for ten years and carried with them amall pieces of land adjacent to the dam. For many years the grist, saw and woolen mills were in profitable operation and were the means of drawing and holding many useful citizens to the town. As a wool center it became well known.
In the early years Northwestern Indiana was noted as a productive sheep country, and White County shared in its good name in that regard. Probably Peter Price became the largest, if not the first of the wool dealem at Monticello, and for a number of years before the factory was built collected large quantities of the raw material and hauled it in wagons to Delphi, LaFayette and other places on the Wabash and Erie Canal, and even as far as Michigan City. He also kept at his house west of town woolen cloths, which were either sold for cash or traded for wool.
During the Civil war the manufacture of woolen goods was a brisk industry everywhere that it could be conducted. At Monticello the prospects were so good that Kingsbury and Lynch renewed the lease of the water power necessary to run their factory for another ten years The other establishments on the dam did the same, and all through the war that locality hummed with business. In 1866 Markie and Cowdin erected the woolen factory on the east side of the river. The Dales, Reefer and Roberts and perhaps others were afterward identified with it, but about 1880 the building was outfitted as a merchant grist mill and later was destroyed by fire.
In April, 1872, the Tippecanoe Hydraulic Company had been organized as an indirect successor to the old Monticello Company. Its object was the development of the water power at or near the county seat, and its first trustees were Albert Reynolds, W. S. Ayres, Robert M. Strait, J. C. Blake and William Braden. The Monticello Lumbering and Barrel Heading Manufacturing Company was formed at about the same time, its projectors being mostly members of the Hydraulic Company.
Among the first to take advantage of the improved conditions brought about by the reorganization of local hydraulic and manufacturing interests was Nelson B. Loughry, a Pennsylvanian by birth, who had migrated to Lafayette with his family when forty years of age. At the time of his departure for the West he had become somewhat prominent both as a merchant and a public man. In 1858 he moved with his wife and family to Monon Township, where for about fourteen years he was engaged in milling and agriculture, in which pursuits his three sons received a thorough training. It was in 1872, the year of the organization of the Tippecanoe Hydraulic Company, that Mr. Loughry purchased the mill which had been erected in 1850 and promptly set to work to improve it. Both in this work and in the subsequent operation of the plant Mr. Loughry had the efficient assistance of his sons, Joseph E., Albert W. and Cloyd. Joseph E. had had active charge of the milling interests since 1869 and in 1872 the firm of Longhry Brothers was formed. The father died in 1890. It is needless to say, except for the benefit of strangers in that part of the state, that under the management of the three Loughry brothers it has become one of the best equipped mills in Northern Indiana. In the early period of their industrial and business career, the Loughrys also operated a furniture factory opposite their mill. They also promoted other lines of manufacture, became interested in the financial matters of Monticello and for a number of years were considered perhaps the leading men of affairs in White County, and, after all these years, they are still leaders.
The early '50s were charged with great expectations and resulted in not a few actualities. Although the people were disappointed over the fact that the New Albany and Salem Railway did not materialize in Monticello, the Logansport, Peoria & Burlington was actually completed and Monticello made a station. The village was also incorporated in 1853, the streets were drained and graded and sidewalks built and improved. The county seat was made a little uneasy by the founding of Reynolds in 1854, and its rise for a number of years, but considered that its advantages over its ambitious sister to the west were made permanently superior when what is now known as the Pittsburgh, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad was completed through the township in 1859, thus giving the village a western outlet. Trains did not commence to pass over the Tippecanoe River to the eastward until January, 1860, which marked the completion of the Logansport, Peoria and Burlington line.
During the period of the early '50s the churches of Monticello had obtained a foothold and no class of its citizens had a better opportunity to observe people and conditions than the ministers. One of the Methodist clergy, Rev. L. Nebeker, thus draws his picture: "My personal recollections of this place began in the fall of 1852, when appointed by Bishop Baker at the first session of the Northwest Indiana Conference, held at Terre Haute that year. On my arrival I was directed to Dr. Rifenberrick's for a temporary home. We were cordially received by the Doctor and his good wife, the latter still living in Greencastle as the widow of the late Rev. Daniel De Mott.
"The church was new, having been built and dedicated under the administration of the Rev. John Leach, one year intervening between his and my term, filled by Rev. R. H. Calvert. This was a year of turmoil. Mr. Calvert got into difficulty with a local preacher by the name of John Kistler and produced partisan feeling throughout the entire circuit, which reached as far west as Palestine, fifteen miles. One half of the year passed before a reconciliation could be effected.
"There were at that time in the medical profession in Monticello, Drs. Rifenberrick, Spencer (father of Dr. William Spencer), Gray, Raymond and Brearley, the last not practicing.
"In the law my recollection takes in only 'Bob' Sill and David Turpie, now of Indianapolis. Rowland Hughes, Jonathan P. Ritchey, Daniel Tilton and 'Cub' Reynolds were the merchants, all selling groceries, boots, shoes and notions. Isaac Reynolds and Dr. Brearley owned and managed the mill at the west end of the dam. Crose & McElhoe were partners running a blacksmith shop. A Mr. Kiefhaber also ran one. There were two Presbyterian churches, Old and New schools, presided over respectively by Rev. John Wampler and Rev. George D. Miller. These, with the Methodist, constituted the religious organizations of the place at that time.
"Here I found D. F. Barnes, now of the Michigan conference, an honored member, having a number of times been sent by that body and now leads the delegation in the next general conference. The family were in moderate circumstances and in some way connected with the woolen mill here. Young Barnes, then in his teens, had attended the winter school and at the close took part in the closing literary exercises. Noticing the lad was gifted with a fine oratorical voice and exhibited good taste and modest demeanor, I suggested the propriety of attending college.
"Daniel Dale was a character in those days. Though he lived at 'Git-away' (Burnettsville) he was frequently in Monticello. I have a very vivid recollection of my first interview with the old gentleman. He was a loud talker, rather dogmatic in manner, and spoke with a great deal of positiveness. The question of securing a railroad to this place was the topic. An east and west road going out from Logansport was under contemplation.
"'How much will it require to secure the road through Monticello?' I inquired. He named the amount. I said it would be hard to raise so large an amount of money, would it not?
"'Oh, no,' said he, 'if you can get the people together and pump an acre and a half of thunder and lightning into them, the money can be raised easily.'
"There was another son of the old gentleman, Levi, living then at Delphi, long since dead. He was an attorney and frequently visited Monticello; a kind of Lincoln style physique, and somewhat in his fondness for repartee—quite a plain man. On one occasion, meeting him here, I was surprised to see a reckless display of jewelry, Among other things a very large metal watch chain hung about his neck and down to his watch in the vest pocket.
"I said, 'Brother Dale, you seem to be coming out.'
"'Yes, I have determined to he rich if it costs me all I am worth.'
"Since then I have seen a great many who seemed to have come to the same determination.
"There were, some eight or ten miles west, in the neighborhood of Ashbury Chapel, some Virginians who had entered land and were making farms. If they were not the titled F. F. V.'s they certainly were worthy of it. Abel T. Smith and William Vanscoy, with their families, will be remembered and honored by those who knew them, and their impress on society will be felt for generations by those who did not know them. * * *
"I shall never forget my first visit to Palestine, the western extremity of the circuit. After leaving Brother Thompson's, a little southeast of where Reynolds now stands, there was a wild stretch of six or seven miles without a human habitation. Having passed this and found a man building fence, I inquired of him for Palestine.
"'Do you see that schoolhouse up on the ridge yonder?' pointing to a round-log building with clapboard roof weighted down with heavy poles, about a quarter of a mile away, but in plain view on an oak ridge.
"'Yes,' I said.
"'Well, that is Palestine.'
"I hardly need say my dreams of a land of milk and honey with grapes of Eschol vanished quicker than it takes to tell you."
["]During the pastorate of Brother Leach he made an appointment to preach at the Monon schoolhouse on a week night. It was the fall of the year, the evenings were getting long, and at the time of which we speak the air was crisp and cool, when the preacher, accompanied by Brother Will Bott, and, by the way, incidents and anecdotes will be incomplete without Brother Bott's name, together with many others figuring in it. The preacher and Will, late in the afternoon, took up their journey for the evening appointment, giving themselves just time to reach the place by the time the people were there. Arriving, they found the people on hand, and had kindled a fire in the box stove that occupied the middle of the floor, and from the opening at the hearth proceeded all the light they had. On the arrival of the preacher and his traveling companion, all conversation ceased, which up to that time had embraced all the range of crops, coon hunts, corn huskings and general neighborhood gossip, and everything was quiet, subdued and dark.
"As Brother Leach sat warming himself and musing on the situation, the spirit of song took possession of him, and, though I can't afford to give you much music in this lecture, at the price I get for it, I will give you this as sung by the preacher that night while warming by the stove:
'Plunged in a gulf of dark despair,
We wretched sinners lay,
Without one cheering beam of hope
Or spark of glimmering day.'
"While the hymn was being sung some parties slipped out to the nearest neighbors and returned with candles to light up the house."
The incorporation of the Village of Monticello was soon followed by the election of the following officers: Jacob Hanaway, Ferdinand Keifhaber, William S. Haymond, A. V. Reed and John Wilson, trustees; John R. Willey, marshal, clerk, treasurer and assessor. The viilage form of government, as inaugurated in 1853, only endured for a year, and was then abandoned by mutual consent.
Up to this time two additions had been made to the original plat, both of them within three years after the town was laid out. The particulars of these accessions to its area are thus presented by the late Milton M. Sill: "Little opportunity was given to non-resident land speculators to obtain land in the immediate vicinity of the county seat, as it was all taken by the resident settlers very soon after the county seat was located. Messrs. Jacob Walker and William M. Jenners, of Lafayette, and Benjamin Reynolds, of Big Creek township, succeeded, however, in purchasing land of George R. Bartley adjoining the original plat of the town on the south and west, and laid out the first addition to the town on the twenty-seventh day of October, 1836. It was named Walker's, Jenners' and Reynolds' addition to Monticello, and still retains the name. It consisted of one hundred and thirty-four lots with streets and alleys, the streets varying in width from Railroad street one hundred feet to Water street thirty feet, and the streets and alleys in the original were extended through their addition of the same width as in the original plat. The venture did not prove to be a financial success, as town lots were not ready sale at the prices asked by the proprietors, and Mr. Reynolds parted with his interest in the addition soon after it was laid out.
"The Board of County Commissioners directed the county agent (Mr. Barr) by an order, entered of record, to lay out and plat the remaining land donated for the county seat, and accordingly, on the 27th day of April, 1837, one hundred and five lots xvere added to the original plat, and called Barr's addition, to designate it from the town first platted. Two additional streets were platted in Mr. Barr's addition, one on the north marking the northern limit of the land donated, and named North street, running east and west parellel [sic] with the streets in the original plat and sixty-six feet in width, and one on the river bank, one hundred feet in width, connecting Main Cross street on the south with North street and used by the traveling public to gain access to the ferry landing located about midway between Washington street and Main Cross street but after the removal of the ferry landing to the foot of Marion street, the southern part of River street was abandoned, and that portion of it south of Washington street was never afterward used as a public thoroughfare.
"With the addition of Mr. Barr's and Walker's, Jenners' and Reynolds' to the original plat, Monticello assumed the proportions of a town on paper, but was in fact only a respectable village. A few lots in the new addition were sold, mainly those on the east side of Tippecanoe street, between Main Cross and Marion streets, they being much larger than those in the original plat, and more than twice the size of the largest lot in the Walker addition, but the sales were made chiefly to residents who already owned vacant and unimproved lots in the original plat, and if improvement was made on their new purchase it was only a stable or fence enclosing their lot for the purpose of utilizing it for a calf pasture.
"The supply of lots far exceeded the demand, and though the prices asked were ridiculously low, but few were disposed of for several years after the Barr addition was made to the town.
"Those who had purchased town lots at the first sale, expecting a boom in prices by reason of the selection of Monticello as the county seat were grievously disappointed. No boom was realized. Grass grew in the streets and dog fennel and other noxious weeds covered the vacant lots on the west and south of the original plat, and cattle, horses, sheep and hogs roamed at will through the town. Invidious remarks were made that the town was finished and only needed fencing to make a suitable pasture field for the stock. Some wicked boys and young men, acting on this suggestion, one summer night, whilst their parents were peacefully slumbering in bed and perhaps dreaming of the future profits to be realized from the sale of their vacant lots, actually did build a rail fence across the two principal streets (Main and Main Cross), taking the rails from the neighboring fields adjoining the town. The fence was well constructed and duly staked and double ridered, and completely spanned the two streets on the south and east of the court house square. The perpetrators of this indignity were never discovered, and but little effort was made to find them. The fence was removed in the morning by the owners of the rails, who were the only parties whose equanimity was seriously disturbed by the boys' foolish prank.
"After the organization of the Hydraulic Company and the improvement of the water power, the town improved somewhat and lots increased in value, eligible sites for business houses and residences on the principal streets selling for one hundred dollars, and in a few instances more. This was a great advance over former prices, and property owners began to assume a more cheerful demeanor.
"The third addition to the town was made by James C. Reynolds on the 16th day of December, 1854. It consisted of fourteen lots on the west side and fronting Illinois street, between Washington and North streets.
"There was no crying demand for additional town lots at that time. There were vacant, unimproved lots fronting on every street of the town to the number of one hundred or more, in the aggregate, awaiting purchasers at prices ranging all the way from ten to one hundred and fifty dollars, so that the supply already far exceeded the demand, but he succeeded in disposing of a few lots between Washington and Marion streets, and frame buildings were built on them by the purchasers.
"The Logansport, Peoria and Burlington Railroad, now a part of the Pennsylvania system known as the Panhandle, after a long delay from its beginning, was completed in 1860, the first train passing through Monticello on the first day of January of that year. With a railroad the hope that the county seat question was finally settled was entertained by the real estate property owners of Monticello, and their hope was realized to a greater or less extent, probably more on account of the War of the Rebellion, beginning early in the year 1861, than the possession of railway facilities. The war question was the vital one overtopping all others in which the citizens, not alone in Monticello and Reynolds, but the whole country, were deeply interested, and until it was finally determined, county seat and other minor questions were relegated to the rear and almost, if not entirely, forgotten for the time being.
"The fourth addition to Monticello was made April 13, 1860, when George Snyder, one of the first settlers, who owned a farm adjoining the town on the north, made his addition of eight lots on the north side of the railroad and fronting on the right of way.
"The fifth addition was made by Sylvanus VanVoorst and called by him the West addition. It consisted of two tiers of lots lying between the extension of Main Cross street on the south and North street on the north. There were thirty-six lots in this addition, with street sixty feet in width between, running the entire length of the addition. This street was named Julia Ann street at the suggestion of Professor George Bowman, who had before purchased a small tract of ground fronting on Main Cross street and on the west side of the new street, where he lived when the addition was made. The name has since been changed to Dewey street, in honor of Admiral Dewey, the hero of Manila."
Among the land owners of what has become a portion of the site of Monticello and which was acquired before the first incorporation of the town in 1853, none was so widely known as George W. Ewing, of Fort Wayne. He laid the foundation of a large fortune in trade with the Indians of the Northwest, and, in the course of his negotiations and travels, invested his profits in real estate at St. Louis, Chicago (when it was a frontier town), Fort Wayne and many other sections in Indiana. Mr. Ewing acquired title to large tracts in White County, embracing land covering what is now known as the Dreifus and Haugh addition. He was a man of courtly carriage and conveyed the impression, which was fully borne out by acquaintance, of great breadth and strength of character. He had the sagacity, energy and patience not only to establish an immense and widely extended trade with the Indians in their native homes, but to follow them to the reservations allotted by the Government, and, with the perfected husiness machinery and tried personality of his establishments, continue the dealings with them commenced in a former generation. This policy made it necessary for him to spend much of his time in Washington, giving personal attention to his claims and treaty interests. Another portion of the year he spent in journeys of inspection among his western trading posts, and the third, in visits to his old friends at Fort Wayne and in other portions of Indiana, including Monticello. He was an especial friend of David Turpie, who largely looked after his real estate interests at the county seat. Mr. Ewing had much public influence and in his earlier years was somewhat active in state politics. But his mental and physical energy was too great to be confined even to Indiana.
Notwithstanding the drains of the Civil war, Monticello continued to increase in population and business, the "boom period" of stimulated industries and inflated prices affecting it, as elsewhere in the country secure from the actual ravages of the armed conflict. In 1862 the town incorporation was effected under which the local government was conducted for over half a century. That important step was taken mainly through the persistent efforts of Alfred R. Orton, son of a prominent lawyer and public man of Perry County, Ohio, and himself a prominent merchant of Monticello at the time it became an incorporated town. He afterward became county surveyor. He is yet an honored resident of Monticello.
In response to a petition numerously signed and presented to the Board of County Commissioners, that body ordered an election to be held at the courthouse, in April, 1862, for the first town officials, and it resulted as follows: A. Hanawalt, Z. VanBuskirk, James Wallace, John Saunders and D. K. Ream, trustees; W. H. Parcels, treasurer and marshal, and Milton M. Sill, clerk and assessor. Richard Brown was the first school trustee.
The subsequent history of Monticello, after its more permanent incorporation as a town, is given in the chapter which follows, which also embraces sketches of religious, social and benevolent organizations the record of which, in some cases, antedates the life of the 1862 town by many years.