Plymouth’s Oldest Resident Part 1
Norman S. Woodward was 83 years old on December 11, 1911. He had lived in Plymouth for longer than anyone else at that time. A Weekly Republican reporter asked him “How does it feel to be 83?” “Oh, I have no reason to complain” was his reply. The interview that followed was full of stories about the earliest days of Marshall County. I will share just a few.
Mr. Woodward was known to have a mind “as bright as a silver dollar” and was frequently asked to settle disputes dating back before formal records were kept in Marshall County. He knew the given names and initials of men who lived back in the 1830s and 1840s. He knew the first officers of the county, things in the city, the cemeteries, the politics, the markets, the money used, and the facts of every character.
“I came to Plymouth on May 1, 1835, with my father and uncle,” said Mr. Woodward. “I was then only six years old, but I remember everything as distinctly as though it were yesterday.” At the time there were only five houses in the town without a name. Chester Rose ran a little store on the site at the corner of what is now Center and Laporte Streets. Grove Pomeroy had the hotel at 101 N. Michigan. The hotel housed the Yellow River Post Office. Mail came once a week via horseback carrier, on a route that ran from Logansport to Niles, MI.
At that time, the county was unorganized and there were only a few white people among the many Indians. Five miles north, the first house belonged to Peter Schroeder, who was later elected the first probate judge in Marshall County. A half mile further north lived Adam Vinnedge, the first county treasurer. As Mr. Woodward states, “These people were curious to see us as we were Yankees, having moved to Indiana from Vermont. My uncle and father traded a wagon and some of their horses for 80 acres of Michigan Road lands.”
“In August of that year was the great Government land sale at Laporte. Uncle and father went there to buy land. They went nearly to Laporte before they saw a white man. At the Kankakee River the bridge was gone all but the stringers. Father and Uncle had their money in French francs and Mexican dollars, and it was quite a burden. The problem of crossing the Kankakee on stringers was a hard one. My father got across with his money, but Uncle could not do it. Father came back and got Uncle’s money and carried it across. Still Uncle could not make it. Father then saw a boat downstream. Leaving the money on the bank, he went and got the boat and took Uncle across. They bought their land for $1.25 an acre. Our home then became the farm now located just a halfmile north of the Brightside Orphanage on the west side of the road.”
“It is hard today to understand the hardships of that time,” said Mr. Woodward. “There was no food, no money, no market for anything if there had been anything to sell. My father went twenty-one miles beyond Logansport to Delphi to get grain ground for corn meal. That was the closest mill. Near there we bought some white corn and had it ground, but they did not “bolt” the meal then as hey do now, and mother had to sift it.” Bolting refers to a machine that had spinning screens that sifts the grain. He continues, “We had some cows, and hogs ran wild and fattened on the nuts in the forest. These pigs were shot for meat and game of all kind was plentiful. Neighbors would kill a beef at different times and divide with each other, trading back and forth. There was no market closer than Michigan City where we hauled our wheat. The price was 31 cents a bushel and later we got 40 cents. In a few years there was a mill at Bertrand, a mile north of South Bend, and people hauled their wheat there to be ground.”
The Marshall County Historical Society Museum contains a treasure trove of stories about the people like Norman S. Woodward who made this place so special. Stop in anytime and learn more about our history. We will continue Mr. Woodward’s fascinating story in weeks to come.