(Sep 28, cont.) About 1.5 miles after stopping to take the photo of Martindale Creek, I stopped for another photo for documentation purposes.

I remember that stop. I was standing in a long, gravel driveway that led to a farmplace that was back from the road. I remember deciding not to point my camera in that direction, but I don’t remember why. Instead I took a photo of the church at the top of the small hill to the east.

Now that I’ve looked at the 1882 county history the place is more interesting to me.

My route is shown in light brown on the map above — a map of West River township from that same county history. The stop at Martindale Creek is marked with a red dot on the left, and the stop for this photo was at the red dot on the line between sections 10 and 11.

The father of the Jonah L. Catey who in 1882 owned the land on which I was standing was William Catey. His name is still shown on a county plat map from the 1870s. His farm was the one now owned (in 1882) by J.L. Catey — the one I didn’t take a photo of. On that older map it looks like he used a different driveway back then, one that left the road very near the church at the edge of his property and cut across to the southwest to his place. I suspect it’s because the higher ground was dry enough to make a more reliable road. One can still see traces of it on Googlemap satellite view.

I didn’t find any particularly interesting anecdotes about William Catey or his son, Jonah, but the family got interesting when I found this Rootsweb site that gives some of the genealogy. The interesting part was that one of William’s brothers and one of his sisters had married into a family that had names like Joseph Rippey and Matthew Rippey. Those were familiar names to me. And yes, further investigation shows that it’s the same Rippey family that had settled near Leesburg Indiana, the same Rippey family that produced a Matthew Rippey who lived near Goshen at the time of the Black Hawk war scare. He and a neighbor had made a walking trip down to Kosciousko County, to land not yet ceded by the Potawatomi to the United States, to check on the Indians and their reaction to the Black Hawk news.

Leesburg was the kind of place that got me started on the Black Hawk Slept Here project. It itself had made such a vivid and lasting impression on me (as had many things on that day) that the next year I rode down to visit it and check it out more closely. One of the things I looked for was a big brick house that had belonged to one of Rippeys who had moved there, perhaps (and here I’m guessing) on the advice of the Matthew Rippey who had scouted out the land while he was checking up the Indians. Alas, it had been torn down not so long before, and all that was left was a big pile of masonry and concrete rubble. A gravel and cement operation had begun to take over. I couldn’t remember whether a house had still been standing in 1996.

The last time I rode there was in October 2006. I see that I’ve done only one blog entry about it, here. It has a map showing my route past the Rippey place just south of town.

Ah, good. I see I took a photo of the rubble. The pile may have been pushed closer to the road since 1997, but I wouldn’t swear to it.

So in summary I could say that the church scene in the top photo is now a more interesting place to me because it has a connection to this pile of rubble south of Leesburg. Such excitement one can get from bike touring!

Erik Wesner mentioned the Old Order Mennonite community near Nappanee, Indiana in his latest Amish America article. That gives me an excuse to post some more pictures from LeRoy Martin’s buggy shop. It’s north of town, out in the country. (Previous post here.) Myra and I stayed at a nearby B&B for our wedding anniversary in early August. I didn’t do any bicycle riding this particular day, which is why an excuse is needed.

Note that the above is not an Amish buggy, even though it has spoked wheels. Many of Martin’s buggies end up in city parks in major metropolitan areas.

Mr. Martin said I could take photos, but he didn’t care to pose for any. So I concentrated on getting pictures of his work instead. But he had a way of walking into my photos, as he did above while pointing out some of the features of this sleigh. Note that it’s not painted in traditional Amish colors.

This one may have been a historical renovation. He does a few of those, too.

But Mr. Martin does some Amish (and Old Mennonite) buggies, too, for his neighbors. He said this used one, with the sign saying, “High Miles. Low Price. $575,” would be good for a first buggy for a young man. Teenage drivers are hard on buggies, so new ones would be wasted on them.

We just got back from a couple of days in Nappanee, IN. Monday we did things that didn’t involve our bicycle, including a tour of Martin’s Buggy Shop. This photo shows part of the large inventory of wheels. Those parts are built elsewhere — perhaps in Holmes County, Ohio, IIRC.

We learned about the place from Steve, our host at the B&B where we stayed. He had given us a map of Amish businesses and shops that welcome tourists, but then said there were others in addition to those on the map, such as this shop where buggies are made.

LeRoy Martin, the owner, is not Amish, though. His family belongs to the Yellow Creek Mennonite Church. I had ridden past that church a couple of times in previous years, and was somewhat taken aback by the men who dressed much like the Amish, and who drove buggies, but who were clean shaven. LeRoy Martin is one of those.

I asked if it was OK to take photos and he said it was fine, though he didn’t care to pose for any. So this is one I took while he was busy on the phone talking with customers — most of whom are not Amish or Mennonite.

Today I got in a good bicycle ride. It was 76 miles, a little more than I had wanted, but not bad because the wind was mostly at my back.

YTD mileage: 1355

I must confess that I didn’t ride my bicycle to take this photo of the marker for Fort Beane in Goshen, Indiana. I’m not exactly sure why. I’ve ridden in, around, and through Goshen many times. But this marker isn’t on any of my usual routes. It’s on Hwy 33 and Reynolds Street. As far as I have learned, the exact site of the fort is not known.

Highway 33 is the successor to one of the earliest roads through the region. It’s a busy one, now.

This fort is on the lists of North American Fortifications compiled by Phil and Pete Payette at www.northamericanforts.com. That list is missing a couple of Indiana forts from the Black Hawk war that I know about, but it has also filled me in on some that I’ve missed. I used it once when planning some riding in Illinois. There are a LOT of Black Hawk fort sites in that state, which is not surprising given that’s where some of the fighting took place. I don’t pretend to be familiar with all of them.

Another place for information about Black Hawk fort locations is the Black Hawk War Message Board at http://blackhawkwar.proboards9.com. The people there deal mostly with Illinois and Wisconsin locations.

My first ride through Nappanee was on my ride to the Midwest League baseball parks in 1996. I was pre-occupied and forgetful that time, too. It was my first experience riding through an Amish town, and it was interesting to see the facilities for horse-drawn buggies. I was already thirsty by the time I got there, but forgot to get water. When I finally got water near South Bend, it took another 24 hours to completely rehydrate myself. I’ve tried not to make that mistake again.

For an August outing this year, we stayed at a campground between Nappanee and Bremen. On the last day I went out for a 30-mile morning ride. I took this gravel road as part of an effort to avoid US-6. By the time I got to the end of this mile, I needed my raingear. I put my maps under cover and ended up guessing my way until I accidentally found myself in Nappanee. From there I knew my way back to camp.

This is one area where one sees a lot of adult Amish people on bicycles (as opposed to the more conservative Amish in Adams County who are required to give up their bicycles when they become adults). I wear a lot of yellow in the rain to make sure I’m visible. During this day’s rainstorm, the Amish people I saw on bicycle wore dark ponchos — which made me worried for them.

This photo is from October 2006. I took it somewhere south of Nappanee, on one of the county roads I had taken in order to avoid Highway 19. I wondered what an Amish-Mennonite church was. I just now got around to looking for information about it. I found this article in Jstor:

Sectarian Ideology and Church Architecture

Charles A. Heatwole

Geographical Review, Vol. 79, No. 1. (Jan., 1989), pp. 63-78.

Abstract: Church structures of most denominations do not exhibit consistent differences. A case study reveals that Mennonites once worshiped exclusively in plain buildings but now use a stylistic spectrum from plainness to modern generic church architecture. Ideological interpretation within the sect explains the choice of architecture for a church. Mennonites are symptomatic of a broad denominational trend. A dynamic model of relationships among religious ideology, church architecture, and the cultural landscape is presented.

And the article contains a a photo of the Fairview Amish-Mennonite church south of Nappanee, near US-19. However, the building is obviously not the one in my own photo. Heatwole’s description says it’s a mile east of US-19, which is a good match to where I was riding, and approximately seven miles south, which sounds perhaps a bit too far (but I’m not sure).

He also says, “…the Fairview Amish-Mennonite Church was founded by persons who broke away from the conservative wing. Compared with fellow moderates, therefore, the Fairview congregation is ideologically conservative and meets in a plain-looking church….”

However, none of the photos in the article, whether of more liberal or conservative mennonites, shows pointed-arch windows like the one in my photo.

So what happened? Did the church move? Did something happen to the building so the congregation bought a protestant-denomination church building and took it over? A break-away group from the break-away group? It might be something to ask about next time I’m in the area.

I hope they didn’t get wiped out by that tornado, though. Some Amish homes were destroyed. I see by looking at Photo #10 from the Indianapolis Star that one eating place I’ve used a couple of times has been damaged. Several months ago my wife went with another woman from our area to visit with a couple of Amish women at a restaurant in Nappanee. I think they were trying to learn what German Lutherans might have in common with the Amish. She was not able to tell from the photos whether the restaurant where they met was demolished, but it looks like that end of town was hurt pretty badly. She is concerned about those women she met in Nappanee, but at least we know that nobody was killed in all that destruction.

The following is what the Cass County history published in 1882 had to say about him.

F. Garver, a native Virginian, who moved his family into this township in 1827 or 1828, was possessed of many of the-superstitious and idiosyncrasies possessed by our forefathers.’ He lived in his log cabin for nearly a month without any roof, subject to the rain and inclemencies of the weather, waiting for the moon to be in the right position in the zodiac before shingling his cabin, so that the shakes would not warp up. In 1834, he disposed of his farm of nine eighty-acre lots, to Cyrus Bacon, for $6,000, and moved to the thick wood in Indiana, miles away from any habitation, for he loved solitude, and the numerous neighbors in this township, coupled with the fact that a road was surveyed past his dwelling, was so distasteful to him that he sold out. One house within five miles, and that a tavern, where whisky could be obtained, constituted his idea of a paradise.

Just on the face of it it doesn’t seem plausible. Of the 720 acres he owned, he bought 440-some from the government at $1.25 an acre. He probably made a good profit if he sold all his land for $6,000. He doesn’t sound like a loner who was going to let superstition and eccentricity keep him from managing his property well. He had a large family. He doesn’t sound like the anti-social, hard-drinking recluse the writer is portraying him to be.

There may yet be more to be learned from a careful reading of the county history. In particular, I’m curious about that business with the road. I wonder if the person telling these tales about Frederick Garver didn’t himself have something to do with the road commission.

When he left Cass County, Garver didn’t go far — only 16 miles as the crow flies.

As best I can tell, this is the location of his farmstead. The area may have been wooded, but it’s only 5 miles from Goshen, which already by 1832 had enough settlers to build a fort for protection against Indians. It’s not as though he had gone all that far away from people.

He would have had a couple of streams to cross to get to Goshen. This farm is on the west edge of the Yellow Creek valley, and Goshen is the east bank of the Elkhart River. So that may have isolated him somewhat.

Here’s a view from the bridge over Yellow Creek. The farm is in the distance. It’s a pretty setting for a farm, no? That bottomland probably has grown some good crops over the years.

Whatever the rest of the story about Frederick Garver, he seems to have picked a nice setting for his new farm.

The destination for the second day’s ride from Bremen was on the south edge of LaGrange county, 50 miles from camp if I went the short way, which I did not.

First I wanted to look for the grave of Frederick Garver, west of Goshen. I had come here back in early June and had looked at a lot of cemeteries, but I somehow neglected to ride an extra mile to the place where he had actually lived.

On the way I saw this Amish ballfield. At least I presume it’s Amish. There were some Amish homes right next to it. (The farm in the background of the photo is not one of them.) And Amish people sometimes play baseball. (What was new to me this year was seeing several basketball courts in Amish schoolyards. But I later discovered from this blog entry that maybe it was new only to me.)

What is the contraption in deep centerfield, though? An Amish batting cage? That’s my best guess.

Speaking of guessing, it was just a couple of miles before reaching this point on my ride that I had stopped at an intersection to refold my maps in preparation for my exploration of Frederick Garver country. An older man on a moped stopped to ask if I needed help, and we got to talking. (I like roads where one can stand out in the middle and talk without there being any cars to get out of the way of.) I told him about my search for cemeteries in the area, and he had some useful information for me.

At one point he said, “You’re about 60, aren’t you?” I told him not quite, but that I would be 59 in another month. That was a pretty good guess just the same. He said he was 65. It has happened too often, though, that older guys guess my age too high. I remember the time when I had just turned 40 and a much older man at work was surprised — he had thought I was 50.

One of the reasons I do long-distance bicycle riding is it makes me feel young again. It doesn’t exactly help the cause when I hear things like that.

So I was pleased Friday in the lunchroom when a young woman — one of the grad students — said, “How old are you, anyway? I didn’t think you were that old!” And one reason she gave was my bicycling.

She asked because in the question-and-answer period after the morning seminar I had mentioned that the techniques now being promoted were exactly the same as what was being promoted in the teaching methods classes I had taken 39 years ago. So I told the young woman that I had been 20 at the time. I also thought to thank her for the mistake. Her question was a welcome change, because there were times this past spring when bicycling didn’t make me feel younger.

I’ll get back to Frederick Garver in the next post or so.

On workdays I wouldn’t ride on CR-22, but I took advantage of low traffic to ride the windy, rolling road to Goshen. I happened to see a log cabin as I was leaving town, and stopped to take photos. I must never have taken that route out of town before. I’ll have to find out if there is any interesting history associated with the building.

The afternoon route took me through Amish country to Nappanee. There were lots of smiles and waves from the buggies today. The rest of the afternoon was through mostly new country for me, on roads I had never before ridden. I went around the south side of Plymouth on roads that had less and less vehicle traffic. At one place a pack of hound dogs came out to bark at me from all sides. A few miles later I rode past a farm where the roadsides were edged with flowers. Perhaps the farm wife didn’t think the corn and soybeans were pretty enough in themselves. I wondered how she convinced her husband to put up with the slight inconvenience of having to plant, cultivate, and harvest around them.

Mind you, I realize I’m stereotyping here. I don’t know for a fact that it was a wife who planted them. I mean, it could have been a woman who ran the farm while her good-for-nothing boyfriend planted flowers when he should have been working on his Great American Novel. Or it could have been the man who planted flowers so he could avoid going in the house to listen to his wife nag him about how he ought to be expanding the operation. But given the realities of farm life, I’ll put my money on a traditional farm couple who like each other well enough to indulge each other.

I stopped in Culver to get a bite to eat at a Dairy Queen – the only choice available as far as I could tell. I regretted my choice of burger most of the rest of the evening — too heavy and greasy. I still had almost 20 miles to go to the Tippecanoe State Park. The sun was getting low as I headed west-southwest towards Ora. In a couple of places I found myself on gravel, which I probably could have avoided if I had had better maps. The first stretch of gravel was on open prairie country. The 2nd was in heavily wooded country near the Tippecanoe River, with trees arching over the road. The sun was down by then, and I thought of those stories from out west where wildcats have found bicycle riders to be an entertaining type of prey.

Ora was the kind of place that… Well, while I was trying (unsuccessfully) to call Myra, an expensive-looking car from the west stopped. A man of about my age, but perhaps more of a country club type, asked for directions. For some reason people think bicycle tourers know the local directions, even when they are in strange country and are on the verge of getting lost themselves. There wasn’t much light left, I still had several miles to go, and wasn’t even sure where I needed to go (which was why I was trying to call Myra). But I decided I may as well be helpful. I told the guy I had come from Culver, but he probably didn’t want to go the way I had come. He said he would be glad if he could find Culver; he had been there before and would know where to go from there. He got out and we studied the map together. After he got an idea of where to go, he gave the town a quick lookover, which could be done right from where we were standing. North Carolina used to have places like this before it got all developed, he said, somewhat wistfully. We visited a few minutes longer, and then we each took off in our separate directions.

I then followed winding back roads that took me to Hwy 35, finally. It wasn’t really that many miles, but riding in the dark in strange country sometimes makes the distances seem longer. I headed south, still not sure where to get into the park. Here on Hwy 35 there was traffic, but my main concern was finding the park. Finally I got in touch with Myra. I still had trouble understanding where to go, so she drove out to the highway to pick me up. I had ridden about 90 miles for the day.