Luman A. Fowler was chosen for sheriff and Robert Wilkinson for probate judge.*

In October of this year the first county circuit court was held by Judge Sample and Associate Judge Clark. A log building, designed for a court house, and long afterward used for that and other purposes, was built in the summer of 1837 by Solon Robinson and his brother, Milo Robinson. In 1839 commissioners appointed, as was customary, by the Legislature, located the county seat at Liverpool, on Deep River, in the northwestern part of the county, on section 24, township 36, range 8, about three miles from the county line and four from Lake Michigan. Dr. Calvin Lilley, on the northeast bank of the Red Cedar Lake, and Solon Robinson, at his village, named at first Lake Court House, had both been applicants, along with George Earle, of Liverpool, for the location. There was so much dissatisfaction among the settlers at the idea of having their county seat in a corner of the county, that a new location was ordered.

In the meantime Dr. Lilley died, and his place came into the hands of Judge Benjamin McCarty, who had been successful in giving a county seat location to Porter County, and was now, with his large family, a resident in Lake. He laid off town lots, called his home town West Point, and was against Solon Robinson a competitor for the new location. But he was not now in the center of the new county, Solon Robinson was; and the commissioners, Jesse Tomlinson and Edward Moore, of Marion County, Henry Barclay, of Pulaski, Joshua Lindsey, of White, and Daniel Doale, of Carroll County, determined

*There were two pioneers named Robert Wilkinson.

T. H. B.

that this time the location should be in the center of the county. They therefore located the county seat at Lake Court House, which soon after took the name of Crown Point. This was in June, 1840. Solon Robinson and Judge William Clark were the proprietors of the new town, which was on section 8, township 34, range 8, as near as could well be to the "geographical center of the county." Area of Lake County, according to Solon Robinson, "five hundred and eight sections of land, about four hundred of which are dry tillable ground."*

5. Jasper. This county, but then including the present Newton and Benton counties, was organized in 1838. It contained then an area of thirteen hundred square miles, and the southern part, which in 1840 became Benton County, was said to include some of the best land in Indiana. Then the large sweep of the Grand Prairie came in at Parrish Grove, and in 1848 this was from "Sugar" to that grove almost a perfect wild of very fertile, unbroken prairie.*

In 1838, the Indians roamed over it "almost undisturbed in all directions," dotted only here and there, was this broad area, "by a solitary cabin."

In January, 1838, the county commissioners, appointed, met at Robert Alexander's in Parrish Grove. They ordered that the courts should afterwards be held at George W. Spitler's, if the voters consented, and for some time at Spitler's home the courts were

*Lake County Claim Register.

*I crossed this prairie region, staid over night in this grove in the fall of 1848, on the way from the Red Cedar Lake to Crawfordsville, and it was a memorable journey. T. H. B.

held, till of Jasper County proper, Rensselaer became the county seat.

In March, 1839, two townships were marked out by the commissioners, one called Newton, the other Pinkamink, and an election for May 1, was ordered, to be held at the house of Joseph D. Yeoman, in Newton, and at the house of William Donahoe, in Pinkamink.

The first session of the Jasper circuit court was held at Spitler's, now in Newton County, Judge Isaac Naylor presiding; Joseph A. Wright, afterward Governor of Indiana, prosecuting attorney; George W. Spitler, clerk; associate judges, James T. Timmons and Matthew Terwilliger. Present as an attorney at this first term of court was Rufus A. Lockwood, afterward a noted lawyer who established the claim of John C. Fremont to his Mariposa estate receiving for his fee one hundred thousand dollars.

The first county commissioners were, Joseph Smith, Amos White, and Frederick Renoyer. This first court room in George W. Spitler's house is said to have been sixteen feet square, with the ordinary puncheon floor, on which at night the judges, lawyers, and jury all lodged. In February, 1839, was held the first session of the Jasper Probate Court. Record: "Adjourned-there being no business before the court." In April, 1840, a place at first called Newton, afterwards, Rensselaer, became the county seat.

The first marriage was in the Renoyer Settlement, the ceremony being performed by Squire Jones, of Mud Creek, whose home was thirty miles distant, and the license having been obtained at Williamsport, in Warren County, south of what became BentonCounty, fifty miles from the house of the Renoyers.

The first grist mill was erected in 1840, by James C. Van Rensselaer, which was considered, at that time, the best mill northwest of Logansport. Dr. John Clark is named as the first physician.

Jasper County, in 1840, comprising then the present counties of Newton, Benton, and Jasper, returned 138 polls, assessed at $20,347. As late as 1850 the State Gazetteer said: "Jasper is the largest county in the State and contains about 975 square miles; but Beaver Lake, the Kankakee Marshes, and the Grand Prairie, occupy so large a portion of it that its settlement and improvement have hitherto proceeded slowly." In 1840 the population was 1,267; in 1850 about 3,000."

The principal early settlements were five: the settlement at the Rapids of the Iroquois ; the Forks Settlement, at the union of the Iroquois and Pinkamink; the Blue Grass Settlement; the Carpenter Settlement, which became afterward, Remington; and the Saltillo and Davidsonville Settlement. The State road from Williamsport to Winamac went through Saltillo. This settlement was made about 1836. John Gillam and Joseph McJimsey early settlers.

The area of Jasper after Newton was set off was reduced to five hundred and fifty square miles. It was named after Sergeant Jasper, of Marion's Band in the time of the Revolution. What are cailed by some of the scientific students, ancient river beds, lie between the Kankakee and the Iroquois valleys. These are from three hundred to twelve hundred feet wide, with low ridges of white and yellow sand on each side. Burr oak, white oak, hickory, and other trees are a native growth. White Sulphur springs are near Rensselaer and there is also an artesian well of

sulphureted water. The land lies over a bed of limestone of what the geologists call the Upper Silurian age. From the surface outcrop lime is burned, and lower down good sand rock for building is obtained. Groves of sugar maple where the Indians made sugar were along the Iroquois River.

6. Pulaski. This county was organized by act of the Legislature, February 18, 1839. Governor Wallace appointed George P. Terry for sheriff. At the May election Peter Demoss, John A. Davis, and Jesse Coppick were chosen for commissioners, John Pearson for clerk, and John A. Davis for recorder.

This county was named in honor of Count Pulaski, one of the noble Polanders who aided the Americans in the War of the Revolution, who fell at the assault upon Savannah in 1779. Many are familiar with Longfellow's poem "Pulaski's Banner." Nanies in our land often come into singular companionship. The place selected for the county seat of Pulaski bears the name Winamac, the name of a Pottawatomie Indian chief, whose place of residence on the Tippecanoe River had been selected for a town by a company of men of whom the following names have been found: John Pearson, Wm. Polk, J. Jackson, John Brown and John B. Niles. Their offer the commissioners accepted and there located the county seat, May 6, 1839. It is said that the wife of chief Winamac was a white woman who had been made a captive in her girlhood.

The bones of Winamac, it is further said, now repose beneath the Methodist meeting house in the town which perpetuates his name.

The surface of this county is mainly quite level. Into the southwestern extends an arm of the Grand Prairie.