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1865–1880 · the importer of the Terre Coupee Polish settlement
The Polish township that worships at Terre Coupee began as one man's import business. Fred G. Miller, born in Germany in 1835 and educated in its high schools, came to La Porte County in 1854 and became a farmer, contractor and saw-miller on Section 4, selling his timber mostly to the railroad companies. In 1865, Chapman records, he "imported the first company of 'Polanders' into Indiana," most of them settling in this township's marsh timber; he was "still importing them" in 1880, when about thirty-five families were there, "industriously clearing the marsh timber, and having farms of 20 to 80 acres each." The parish those families built — St. Stanislaus Kostka at Terre Coupee, founded 1884 — is told in the Religion section's file. Miller himself was a Democrat and a member of the German Reform Church; his sketch's measure is the community he planted.
Sources
- Chapman (1880), Olive Township chapter, p. 766, and the sketch of Fred G. Miller, p. 781.