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Before the City — Roseland, Indiana
The townsite section — Menzo Webster's farm
1875 county atlas, Clay Township footnote (p. 62) and directory (p. 91); Howard (1907) I, p. 284
The ground the town stands on was a farm for eighty years before it was a town. Roseland occupies part of Section 23, Township 38 North, Range 2 East. The 1875 county atlas's settler footnote for Clay Township assigns the…
The first-settler wave, 1829–1834
1875 atlas, Clay Township footnote; Howard (1907) I, p. 284; Chapman (1880), pp. 675–681
The township filled from the river eastward, and the atlas footnote is its roll. Benjamin Potter came before 1829, on Section 24; John Hague came in July 1829, and William McCombs the same month, on Section 26; John and Peter…
The mill on Section 23 — the Sheffield, then Siders', mill
Chapman (1880), pp. 676–677; Howard (1907) I, pp. 285–288 (the Lyon paper, South Bend Weekly Tribune, 6 July 1901, reprinted whole)
The one industry the ground ever held before the town was a flouring mill on the river side of the townsite section. Chapman places it exactly: "There is a grist-mill on section 23, on the river … Prior to the erection of the…
The carding mill on the creek — Stephen Ulery
Chapman (1880), p. 677; Howard (1907) I, pp. 285, 288
The mill stream carried a second small industry, and a settler's name. Above the flouring mill, the same creek worked carding machinery from an early day. Chapman: "at one time in the history of the township, S. Ulery ran a…
The first school in the township — taught on Section 23
Chapman (1880), pp. 677–678; Howard (1907) I, p. 288
The township's schooling begins in the townsite section. Both histories agree: "The first school ever taught in the township was on section 23, in Mr. Eyler's house . Charles Murray , a married man from 'Dutch Island,' in Harris…
The church and the burial grounds of the township
Chapman (1880), p. 677; Howard (1907) I, p. 288; the Ullery Cemetery at modern carrier strength
One congregation stood in the township's own ground. Chapman: "There is only one church in Clay township besides the Catholic… It is a German Baptist organization, and the church building is located on section 24. It was erected…
1840 — the township made, and its first election
Chapman (1880), p. 675; Howard (1907) I, pp. 283–284
Clay Township was constituted in June 1840, and its first officers were settlers of the wave above. Chapman explains his chapter's own shortness: "it was not organized as a township until 1840, and therefore everything concerning…
Chalfants, Bullas and Drapiers: Section 31
Howard (1907) I, p. 284, on the authority of William H. Drapier; Chapman (1880), p. 678
The township's southeast quarter-section cluster carried its own distinction. On the word of William H. Drapier of Indianapolis, son of one of the settlers, Howard records that "Gideon and Ariel E. Drapier, Thomas P. and William…
The farm township at the record's full length, 1875–1907
1875 atlas directory (p. 91); Chapman (1880), Ch. X; Howard (1907) I, p. 288
What the township was, in its own record, on the eve of the town. The 1875 directory's Clay Township roll is a farmers' roll with the university's faculty interleaved — Webster on Section 23, Cripe and McCombs on Section 26…
The record's edge — what was never on this ground
The three county books read whole; the town's own code for 1915–16
The negative is itself the finding. Across the whole pre-1916 record read — a township chapter and its biographies, a second history's township chapter and its biographical volume, and an atlas footnote and directory that name…