After mentioning Charlie Hamilton’s Baseball Bike Tour in my last post, I went to his web site and read the articles he wrote for Boston Baseball Magazine. Very good! He had fun rating the fans at each ballpark. Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop until I finished.

It reminded me of my 1996 tour of the Midwest League, when I was in the radio announcer booth of the Michigan Battle Cats with Ken Ervin and Terry Newton. It was Ken who had first given me the idea of doing the tour. During one of the first road trips of the 1995 season, the first season for the Battle Cats, I was riding my bike near home while listening to Ken on the radio. He kept commenting on the view from the announcers’ booth, how he could see the boats out on the Mississippi. That and other observations he made about the various ballparks made me think I should ride my bike to see them all for myself.

That’s what I did the next year. I started and ended with a game at C.O. Brown Stadium in Battle Creek. At that last game I was chatting in the booth with Ken and Terry before they went on the air. We had in common the fact that we had all been to all of those ballparks. I was excited to have seen them all, but then Ken asked, “Is there any ballpark that just left you cold?” I hadn’t been thinking negative thoughts, but it took me only a second to reply: “Yes, Fort Wayne.” I had to admit it, even though the Fort Wayne Wizards were then a farm club of my Minnesota Twins. Ken nodded in agreement and then turned to his work.

I don’t know that the place was quite as dreary as shown in the above photo. Like I said, I took some really bad photos on this trip. But the huge masses of concrete didn’t make the place endearing.

Even the front row seats were high above the field, so I suppose that didn’t help make one feel close to the action. Note that the dugouts are not dug into the ground even a little bit. One of the reasons I like minor league ball is that you can often get seats close enough to get a good view of what’s happening. Watching a baseball game from far away does not have a lot of attraction for me any more (though back in the 1960s I did get an outfield view of some of Harmon Killebrew’s home runs at old Met Stadium.) But even where we were sitting in Fort Wayne, the game seemed farther away than it was.

On the plus side, the crowd at Fort Wayne sang the National Anthem better than I heard anywhere else. More volume, more energy, more musical. I wondered if it was due to the high concentration of Lutherans in that town.

I took two days to get to Fort Wayne. The first day I rode over 100 miles to Chain of Lakes State Park. This photo was taken where I was getting lost trying to find the entrance to the park. I eventually found someone to ask for directions. I rode the rest of the way to Fort Wayne early the next morning, and we spent the day doing tourist things. At one museum I saw the sword that George Washington had given to Little Turtle.

I had expected the riding through Indiana and Illinois would be uninteresting except for the physical challenge. The interesting countryside would come later in the trip, in Iowa and Wisconsin, I had thought. Little did I then realize that I was coming to like this Indiana and Illinois country best of all.

YTD mileage for 2009:  362

No bike rides for me last weekend. On Saturday Myra had an all-day church meeting near Howe, Indiana. She had had surgery earlier in the week and wasn’t up driving there herself. But she knows how much I like riding in that part of Indiana. She suggested I drive her down and spend the day riding. I liked the way she was thinking but the weather forecast didn’t cooperate. Strong winds, occasional rain, and temperatures in the mid-high 30s didn’t sound too inviting — especially the windy part. I suggested that I instead drop her off and spend the day at the Noble County library in Albion — doing research for future ride destinations.

Unlike in LaGrange County (where Howe is located) I know of no Black Hawk war anecdotes in Noble County. Noble County was mostly settled after the choice lands of LaGrange County had been gobbled up. There were a few settlers here in 1832, but there are no war scare anecdotes.

But I’ve often looked for excuses to do rides in Noble County anyway. The historical markers I’ve seen here and here got me started. The photo above is one from last year. I like these markers in part because they are not quite like the standardized metal markers that are sponsored by state historical societies. A little diversity in markers is good, and it’s also good to see something that’s so definitely the product of local people and interests.

I had learned that the Noble County Historical Society has published a book in which these markers, so that was one reason to go to the library. And of course there would be other local resources.

I forgot my computer at home, but had a productive day anyway. While working in the genealogy room, I got to meet Judy, the treasurer of the historical society, her husband, Bob, and their young granddaughter, who was photocopying documents for Judy. (She was being remarkably patient and persistent at it for someone of her age. And as with me, the effects of going without lunch to work on history got to be a little too much by the time the library closed.) Judy and her granddaughter took time out in the middle of the day to open up the Jailhouse Museum and give me a personal tour. I bought a copy of the historical marker book, and also a copy of an 1861 wall map of the county.

Several counties in our part of the world produced these maps around that time. Where they exist, they are usually the earliest plat maps available. They predate the county atlases that often came to be published in book form beginning in the 1870s. I had not known there was such a map for Noble County. It’s a color photocopy suitable for framing, in somewhat reduced form, but still mostly legible.

Judy has also produced some indexes to county histories. I wish I had had my computer with me, because then I would have looked up the Adam Engle whose name appears on the sign in the photo.

Last year I had sought out that road south southwest of Logonier, precisely because it was a piece of the old Fort Wayne to Goshen road that still follows the old path. But now I can’t quite see why the sign is located exactly where it is. Adam Engle entered several parcels of land from the government, but it seems none of them included this exact location. An Andrew Engle’s name is on the 1861 map, but not quite at this location. And there is an A. Engle on the 1884 atlas, but not precisely here.

So how did the local history people of Noble County know that the sign should go here? They may have had access to information I haven’t yet found. Maybe Judy’s indexes would have led me to the information they used.

The fact that Adam Engle seems not to have lived at the location of one of his early land entries is not particularly surprising. I often use those earliest land entries as a good first guess as to where someone lived — thinking that even if he bought several parcels of land over the years, he probably made their first choice at the land office very carefully because it would be his home and the location of his main farm operation. But land was bought and sold, and farmers did move around. One of the things that the rectangular survey system did was turn land into a commodity that could be easily identified, bought, and sold. Perhaps Adam Engle was someone who did a lot of trading in that commodity market.

YTD mileage: 213

I’ve already written about the surprise of my first-ever ride to Topeka in LaGrange County, Indiana. This was the road by which I rode on that day in 1997. The above sign about “Life in the Past Lane” wasn’t there back then.

This is downtown Topeka, facing west (again). Just down the street and on the right is a gas station/convenience store where I usually fuel up with a Subway BLT. I had timed my arrival in Topeka for a noon lunchtime break.

Topeka has a town marshall. (I also see that I took a photo of myself in the window.) I wondered if most Indiana towns have a “marshall” as opposed to police officers. It’s a term that seemed it would better fit Topeka, Kansas. But you never know. A great-grandfather of mine was a town marshall in Olivia, MN, back in the 1890s. So it isn’t just a term used out west.

Topeka had been called HawPatch until the railroad builders came through. The place reminded them of Topeka, Kansas, and the name got changed.

This was one of my destinations. Unlike Topeka (Hawpatch), it’s a place I had never been to before. It’s on State Hwy 5, just three miles southwest from Topeka, just across the line in Noble County.

Last year I had noticed the wooden historical markers like the above one elsewhere in the county. I learned that a lot of these markers have been erected, and that there is a book that lists them. The book isn’t available online, either for reading or purchase. I didn’t want to order one not knowing whether or not it contained much other information about the signs. I figured that someday I’d get to the historical museum in Noble County, and could take a look to see if it’s something I want. In the meantime, I can ride around the county and find them by the serendipity method.

I was looking for a marker at this particular site, though. The map below, from 1874, shows a place called Hawville in Section 3 of Perry Township. I figured something liked that would deserve a marker, and there was one. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t been looking for it, though.

(The map image is provided by www.historicmapworks.com. You can click on the map to go to the page containing the original image.)

Although the book about the markers (written by a Martha Bushong) is not available online, it so happens that a sample of it is — in a rootsweb page about Hawville.

I wondered why the sign says 1891 when the 1874 map clearly shows it in existence long before that. The article from the book contains interesting information, but it doesn’t explain that. It refers to a 1891 newspaper clipping saying the town had recently been platted. But it doesn’t say anything about its existence back in 1874.

]]> http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/06/10/hawville/feed/ 0 http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/03/08/ripley-indiana/ http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/03/08/ripley-indiana/#comments Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:54:54 +0000 Spokesrider http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/03/08/ripley-indiana/

After leaving the Turkey Creek valley I did stop for a few photos on my way to the Wabash River (on October 10, 2004). This was taken a couple of hours after leaving that road along Turkey Creek.

Just looking at these photos makes me wish the snow would go away so I could go riding in places like this again. Sometimes people look at me funny when I say things like that. I suspect this type of landscape doesn’t have the same appeal for everyone else. Maybe it’s why I run into very few bicyclers on my rides.

A town that didn’t come into existence until 1875 is way too new to be of much interest to me, but I took a photo anyway. I just now got around to looking for information about it. It wasn’t easy to find anything, partly because there is another Ripley in Indiana, along a railroad line in Pulaski County.

I probably have a map somewhere where I marked my route, I recall approximately where I went. From the timestamps on the photo, figuring I probably average about 10 mph, including the occasional stop for photos, I decided it must be somewhere between Avilla and Albion, in Noble County. Then I went to the Noble County genweb site and did a search for Ripley. I found this page about train accidents, and learned that a few had taken place here at Ripley:

A wheel broke on one of the cars on an eastbound freight near Ripley Sunday morning about 4 o’clock, and delayed train Number 5 which throws mail off at this station. A number of freight trains were compelled to lay on the side track at this place. The wrecking train was summoned and the track was not cleared for traffic until 9 o’clock this forenoon. The Albion Democrat, January 20, 1898

Quite a disastrous freight wreck occurred on the B&O railroad at Ripley, east of this city, Friday morning shortly after midnight. An eastbound freight was on the main track waiting for a westbound freight to take the side track, but the westbound train was running rapidly and as there is a steep down grade, the air brakes would not hold and the engines collided with terrible force. Each train had two engines and all four locomotives were badly wrecked along with a number of the cars. An engineer on one of the freights jumped and his skull was fractured, but it is thought he will recover. Homer Braden was conductor on the west bound freight and Carl Talbert was conductor on the east bound. The Albion Democrat January 26, 1899

Train number 17, due at Albion at 12:01, was more than an hour late Saturday on account of a wreck at Ripley. The Albion Democrat, October 21, 1903

There was no such excitement when I was there. It was a quiet afternoon.

Back on August 12, I did a ride to the Tamarack House on the south edge of LaGrange County (Indiana), then followed a windy road (perhaps an old Indian trail?) to Kendallville where Myra was to pick me up. On the way, I encountered this historical marker.

I don’t know much about the early history of Noble County, where this sign and Kendallville are located. It’s outside the range of the Black Hawk war scare history, so I haven’t paid much attention. I take pride in being able to connect almost anything to the Black Hawk history and 1832, if you allow me a few degrees of separation, but so far I haven’t tried to work Noble County history into it.

Myra told me she had seen similar signs on US-6. So that got me to wanting to learn more.

I especially like signs that are outside a state’s system of Official Historical Markers. Michigan has a system of historical markers, as do most states, and it has some good points. To get one of these markers the history has to be verified for accuracy, sometimes to the annoyance of locals whose cherished local narratives don’t altogether stand up to scrutiny. But the state sanctioned version of history is not the only one that’s possible, so it’s interesting to see other interested groups do their own history.

The Official Markers are also fairly expensive — $2000 is a price I heard for one for the Noonday grave (which as of yet does not have one). And Michigan requires a place to park a car. I don’t like that. It often means placing the marker in places less connected to the actual history that is commemorated, just for the sake of car parking. Another example: A number of very old historical markers about Black Hawk’s retreat in Wisconsin have been moved from their original, historical locations just for the sake of car parking! Yuck. With a bicycle, you can generally stop anywhere. Who needs cars?

I am going to have to wait to learn much more about these Noble County signs. But I’ve learned that there are 71 of them (!) and there is a locally published book about them. Maybe I’ll plan a bicycle outing in Noble County for next year and buy a copy for myself by way of preparation.

I’ve also learned of this web site that an Ian Histor has put together to guide one to various state marker programs and others such as the Noble County one. It’s a worthy project, but I see that some of the web links are broken. A site like this could be a useful bicycling resource.