The first store — C. W. N. Stephens, West York and Walkerton, 1851–1884

1851–1884 · WEST YORK AND THE TOWNSITE

The first business in what became Walkerton was a post office with a grocery attached. The post office designated West York, situated a half-mile south of the later townsite, was established in 1851 and kept by C. W. N. Stephens, its first appointee, who, Chapman records, "also had a grocery store, and still holds the position of Postmaster" in 1880; the mail then came by hack from La Porte to Plymouth, there being no railroads. In 1854 Stephens moved onto the townsite itself: he "built the first house in Walkerton, and also erected a store-building, and soon after opened a store, which was the first in the place." The site was then "covered with a dense thicket," no roads were laid out, and Chapman preserves the picture of the first storekeepers going out before breakfast to chop and slash the underbrush into passable roads. The railroad construction of 1856 brightened the town's prospects, in Chapman's word, and the Baltimore & Ohio's arrival in 1873, crossing the first road at West Troy, made the junction the town still trades on.

Stephens is the one merchant who spans the whole first generation: the 1882 gazetteer still lists "Stephens C W N, general store" alongside his postmastership, and the 1884 gazetteer lists the same general store, with the entry's header still naming him postmaster thirty-three years after the West York appointment. Around him the first mercantile generation forms at sketch strength in Chapman: John J. Miller was in the mercantile business in Walkerton from 1866 to 1871, and from June 7, 1878 kept the stage line to South Bend, running Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays; Wm. W. Hamilton came in July 1867 and opened a grocery store, kept it a few years, followed buggy and carriage painting about five years, and appears in Chapman in the firm of Hamilton & Thompson, proprietors of the Walkerton Livery Stable. E. J. Vincent clerked in 1869 in "C. Behrn's store at Walkerton" — the house the 1882 and 1884 gazetteers list as Behrens' general store (Claus Behrens in 1882; Behrens Bros in 1884) — which puts a second general store on the ground by 1869.

Sources:

1. Chapman (1880), Lincoln Township chapter, pp. 731–751: West York office and Stephens' grocery; the 1854 first house and first store; the thicket and road-clearing passage; Miller and Hamilton sketches. Read first-hand.
2. Polk, Indiana State Gazetteer and Business Directory 1882–83, vol. II, Walkerton entry, p. 798; 1884–85, vol. III, Walkerton entry, pp. 743–745 (Stephens general store both years; postmaster in both headers).