This is the fifth in a Series of Reminiscences by E. R. Brown. Brown was born in Pulaski County on August 9, 1845. His writings are abstracted from the Pulaski County Democrat on microfilm housed in the Pulaski County Public Library, Winamac, Indiana.
Earlier entries can be found on our website, https://pulaskihistory.net/newsletters/.
- Part one was in the October 2018 newsletter.
- Part two was published in June 2019.
- Part three was in the November 2019 issue.
- Part four was in the February 2020 edition.
“Its Public Roads”
Perhaps all of us complain sometimes about the condition of our public roads and it may be well for us to give some attention to expenditures for them. But among the many things which in my early life were in striking contrast with present-day conditions, the public roads are certainly entitled to mention. To say that there were no public roads in Pulaski County in my early life would not be far from the truth. Of course, a few had been ‘laid out’, as was then said. This is, in accordance with certain legal forms previously observed, a surveyor or engineer, along with others who acted as viewers and in other capacities, had gone over and by driving stakes and blazing trees had marked the courses of different roads. In most cases also, these established roads had been traveled enough so that it was not difficult to find them–unless under too deep water.
Before I was old enough to know about it, if not before I was born, two such roads had been established along the Tippecanoe; one on either side. Both of them traveled relatively early. The one on the west side of the river was called the Monticello and Plymouth State Road and the other the Monticello and Rochester State Road. It may be a matter of interest to note that they had been so established and named under the provisions of a law very similar to the one recently passed and of which some good results have already been realized and more are confidently expected, whereby the state proposed to build and maintain roads connecting prominent points. This early law was soon repealed and the roads left to be cared for, if at all, by local authorities. Parts of both of these roads still remain though rarely as much traveled and at no place in the country as wide as formerly. Main street in Monticello is understood to be a part of one of them and it is one hundred feet wide. Main street in Rochester is, I think, the same width, but it is probably a remnant of the Michigan Road, another early road promoted by the state.
Road Connecting Winamac with Logansport
Another road early established and relatively much used was the one connecting Winamac with Logansport. It was prominent for a long time, but only short stretches of it in this county are now in use, most of it having been changed along survey lines. From two miles this side of Royal Center into Logansport, however I think it follows exactly the same lines it did seventy years ago. Another noted early road passed through Pulaski County north and south, connecting Lafayette and Michigan City. It also was much traveled, considering many early conditions, but I would not doubt that what I am about to say as to early improvements of roads will apply to it the same as to others, if not more so.
In addition to these longer, more prominent roads, others were naturally established early so as to connect them or lead onto them. Some of these later roads were likewise considerably traveled. All of these early roads had been located for a common purpose and by a common method, which was that they should connect certain points by the shortest route possible and on the best ground available. Hence, no attention was paid to survey lines or the rights of individual land owners. Any considerable stretch of straight road was exceptional. Solid ground was chosen and ponds or wet places avoided at any cost of curves or crooks.
Road Improvements. Or Not.
Now the surprising fact about all of these roads is that for ten years or more after they had been established most of them having in the meantime been extensively used, as has been stated, scarcely any start whatever was made towards improving any of them, except to remove obstructions so that teams could barely have room to pass over them and, in extreme cases, to cover soft places with fresh cut weeds, prairie grass or fine brush. In most instances this last was voluntary work, done by those who lived near or who had to do it for their own benefit. Not counting the roads crossing the western end of the county, I was personally conversant with parts of all the others and have reasons for knowing certainly about the dates, so I can state confidently that I was close to six years old before there was a bridge of any size or a rod of improved road in our county.
It was on my second or third trip to Logansport with my father (we were not permitted to go often) when we saw three or more teams stalled in the mud at the crossing of Little Indian Creek, this side of Royal Center, while in the further edge of that village, where there is now a large ditch, two others had stuck fast. True, these places were in Cass county, but improved roads there came in advance of what they did here.
Roads Near the Brown Home
At the south end of our farm was one of the shorter roads I have reference to. Crossing the river at a ford, it connected the two state roads with the one from Winamac to Logansport, entering the latter in Cass county. A frog pond in one of our fields extended out into this road, though a bend in the fence on the opposite side enabled teams to avoid it in part. When I became old enough to observe such matters, two logs, perhaps two feet in diameter and ten feet long, had been placed crosswise of the road, the two being about three feet apart, with stout stringers, split out of wood, connecting them. That was the beginning of the first bridge (really a culvert) I ever saw and evidently one of the first to be started in Pulaski county.
That road was then much traveled but now is little used. A year or two later men ‘working the roads’, as had been provided for by law, placed round rails on the stringers and placed other logs side by side between the two original logs and and the two sides of the pond, using smaller logs as they approached the edges, finally using rails or larger poles. Then a covering of brush and dirt was put on the whole length of it and it was ready for use. That was a ‘crossway’ of the old timers and the first piece of improved road I personally knew of in the county. After that I was present when bridges were built across Halls branch west of the river and across Mud creek east of it. Both were roughly constructed out of logs cut nearby, and both had the inevitable crossways connecting their two ends with dry ground. Other crossways with short bridges or culverts followed. A little later the bridges and culverts were covered with oak planks. Some changes in roads since then!