Actually, I was closer to my destination than that, but at the time that’s what I thought was ahead of me. My excuse: I was still riding in the Virginia Military District — land which was never surveyed into the neat grid of square mile sections that make it quick ‘n easy to estimate distances on a map.

googlemap

I wasn’t sure I would find a house with somebody out in the yard where I could ask for water, which is what I’ve done on some occasions like this. This was Amish country. Last time I stopped and asked for water at an Amish farm (three years ago) I realized I was causing more trouble than I wanted to. The people don’t have running water, and in that case it was a young couple just getting started. They had fewer household conveniences than most Amish households. They kept water in coolers in the house, and the pump was off somewhere in the yard.

I rode past another Amish farm with a sign out front advertising baked goods, nuts, and other goodies. Wait a minute! I turned around and went back. That seemed like the sort of place where it would be OK to ask for water. The sign by the door said to pull hard on the cord, which I did, and a few seconds later a young woman invited me to step in. I bought some cookies and cashews (the latter for Myra, who has since hidden them where other people can’t find them). There was a water pump just outside the door, and she pumped water for my bottles. I was glad to see it was one that was easily and quickly primed, compared to some pumps and wells like that which I have known.

Then the man of the house and two boys came around to talk. He joked about my air conditioning, asked where I was from, and where I was headed. I explained about Myra and the car, and pointed to a spot on the map. On some maps it’s labelled Pfeiffer, and on others it’s not labelled. Pfeiffer Station, he called it.

“And what do you expect to find when you get there?” he asked with a big grin. (Almost everything he said was with a big grin.) I was somewhat surprised by that question, because “find” was just the right word to fit what I was doing. “Maybe an old house,” I replied.

I wasn’t really sure what I would see there. The old county histories told about events that took place near where Judge Wheeler’s home stood. There was a good chance a judge from the 19th century would have built a brick home that was still standing, I thought, but I didn’t know for sure. It was at an old crossing point on the Scioto River. I wasn’t sure if the Judge had lived on the north or the south side, but whatever the case, I was going to see what there was to see there.

I told the man a little more of what I knew. I showed him the 1870-something map that showed that a Wheeler — probably a daughter or younger wife of the judge — had owned property near the crossing. And he told me about the old house there. There had just been an article in the paper telling all about its history. A lawyer lived there now, a man who was very interested in the history. The home had been a station on the Underground Railroad. I hadn’t known about that part, but I was pretty sure he was talking about the house I had hoped to find.

I told him that it was a place where Indians had been gathered before they were removed from the state. He hadn’t known about that, but was interested. He pointed out the road on the map — the one I was planning to take — explaining that it had once been an Indian trail. I tried to find the explanation in the notes I had with me, but couldn’t find them. I had him write his name and address in my notebook so I could mail it to him later. I’ve since found that information, and will put some of it in another post.

We also talked about other things — including Amish communities in Michigan that we both knew about. He was not familiar with the new one close to my home, though. We also talked about our gardens and how dry it had been, and what it was like to bicycle in such hot weather.

This is a photo of a farm a little further down the road from the one where I visited. During our visit I explained that I hoped to take photos of the old house and other things I hoped to find in the area, but I didn’t ask to take a photo of his farm.

I don’t like running low on water on hot days, but this wasn’t the only time that stopping to ask for water resulted in a good visit.

]]> http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/09/05/begging-for-water/feed/ http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/09/04/bellefontaine-to-peiffer-station/ http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/09/04/bellefontaine-to-peiffer-station/#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:37:09 +0000 Spokesrider http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/09/04/bellefontaine-to-peiffer-station/

This may look like a google map, but it’s just a screen shot of one, sort of. It shows the route of yesterday’s bike ride and all the places where I stopped to take photos. The temperature was in the 90s with a light wind out of the northeast (the direction where I was headed). Mileage total was about 43. I’m not sure exactly, because the bike is still on the car.

We’re back home now. I ended my bike ride in a drought-stricken area. An Amish farmer I talked to said it had never been that dry before. On our way home we drove through heavy rains in Indiana and southern Michigan — almost too heavy to be driving in — but at home it’s dry, too. We need rain.

I haven’t yet figured out how to take the data from my Sony GPS-CS1KA and move it to my regular googlemaps that I can post on the web, but the log files it produces seem to use standard GPS formats, so I have hope that it can be done.

This was taken within about 10 miles of my finish. The finish was at a good history site, but I’ll have to leave that for later.

There are at least three things I like about this spot on the globe. (It’s in Logan County, Ohio.)

The road is a boundary between Virginia Military Reserve lands on the west, and lands on the right which were part of the rectangular survey system. The land on the west was surveyed according to a system of metes and bounds, which meant a lot of work over the years for lawyers.

But the rectangular survey of the land on the right, while part of a much more orderly system, wasn’t quite the usual. It’s a system of 6×6=36 square miles per township, but the numbering is different than the usual zig zag pattern that was used almost everywhere else. More on that another time.

The third thing is that it overlooks the Mad River valley. In 1812, General Hull’s army came this way on its way to Detroit, where Hull soon saw fit to surrender to the British. The army travelled from right to left on the valley below, and then made another turn to the left to go around the ridge on which I was standing when I took this photo.

googlemap

On this googlemap, I’ve marked the position where I was standing and I’ve marked in red the approximate path taken by Hull - a path that later became known as Hull’s trace. I must note, though, that not everyone seems to interpret the path quite as I’ve done here. It’s something I may have an opportunity to study further tomorrow, if I can work it in among more bike rides.

I must say that such descriptions of his route that I’ve read now make a lot more sense after seeing them from my bicycle today.

Today’s milleage total: a little over 57 miles.

We’re staying in Bellefontaine now — at a much nicer discount motel than where we stayed in Wapakoneta. There is good food in Bellefontaine, too.

On Saturday I rode from Wapakoneta to Fort Loramie to Piqua, this time not so much crossing the Greenville Treaty line but following it where I could.

googlemap

On the map, my route is shown in blue. The treaty line is in red. If you zoom in you can better see where there are pieces of road that follow the line.

It looked like one piece would cross I-75, but the roads dead-end on either side of the Interstate. When driving on I-75 one can see the road to the west, at least, but there is no historical marker to tell expressway drivers about it.

The treaty line makes a bend at what was called Loramie’s Store, and that was one of my major stops Saturday. It’s at a height of land between the Ohio River drainage and the Great Lakes drainage. Later, during the canal era, it was a connecting place, too. The canal is filled in now and made into a park to the right of the trees in the photo. There are old business places and homes on either side of the old canal, almost all of which are still in use and well kept up.

The red-brick building on the left is a museum that is open on Sunday afternoons during the summer. I rode through here on Saturday, then on Sunday afternoon we came by car to visit this museum and another one at Piqua, which was the end-point of Saturday’s ride.

The curator of the Fort Loramie museum, Jim Rosengarten, filled me in on a lot of new (for me, at least) information about Lorimer, the trader who gave his name to the place, and also told me more exactly where his store was. We had a great visit. I have more to say about it, but will save it for later. I’m heading off for another ride now, to parts of Logan County that I didn’t get to visit on that ride three years ago.

I’ve been through Wapakoneta twice before, once in 1985 on my way to DeGraf, and once last year. Each time I rode from here to the southeast, and that’s what I did last night and today, too. So some of the places are becoming familiar.

The wind was out of the northeast for much of the day, which made for some nice riding. My ultimate destination for today was to the southwest. But first I had a destination to the southeast — one I rode to last night after it was too dark for good photos. I took a slightly different route today, though.

I was trying to remember just which route I had taken three years ago when I came to this tree. Could this be a tree I remembered from then? That time I had done a lot of riding by the time I got here, and the day had been hot and muggy. The wind hadn’t been in my favor, either. I remembered stopping in the shade of a lone tree just for a little relief from the hot sun.

After getting back from today’s ride (about 56 miles) I took a look at my old photos. Sure enough. This was the very place.

That time I took a photo from the north while my bike got a little shade.

I always like riding to new places, but I also like making occasional contact with old memories, too, even if they’re no more significant than a lone shade tree.

googlemap

Here’s where it is. BTW, I didn’t even pay attention to what kind of tree it is. I noticed a fair number of hickories today, though — a lot more hickory trees than I would see on my rides back home in Michigan.

The ride south FROM Westpoint was better than the ride south to Westpoint from Granville. The wind was still from the south, but this was a lesser travelled road. On such roads where I’m not mingling with car traffic I don’t feel such a need to keep up appearances by riding at a respectable clip. I took my time and made more stops.

This old concrete silo was a good enough excuse for a stop. Old silos are not quite like the abandoned ruins of old castles and churches that one finds throughout Ireland, but they serve a similar purpose.

googlemap

The next destination was Shawnee Mound in Jackson Township.

August 4, continued.

From West Point I was planning to ride south, but first I went on a half-mile detour onto what once was the Burnett Reserve. I wanted to see if the old farmstead of Patrick Henry Weaver was visible from the public road and recognizable in any form. It turned out it wasn’t hard to see at all, even though it is not close to the road. The residence is a newer one, but the grove of trees shown on the 1878 county atlas is still there!

Why was I interested in Patrick Henry Weaver? It’s because I think it is he who is listed in Carrie Loftus’s roster of Indiana militia people who served in the Black Hawk war. He is listed as P.H. Weaver, with the rank of private. I have already written about his father, Peter Weaver, who lived a couple of miles away. Peter Weaver’s home still stands, and is located just off the edge of Burnett’s Reserve. I’ve circled the location in green on the map above. His son, Patrick Henry, later had a farm at the location I’ve outlined in green. You can see the grove of trees on the map. (The map is from the 1878 atlas of Tippecanoe County.)

Sandford Cox told a story about P.H. Weaver drilling a company of militia. At one time I thought he had told that story about Peter Weaver. Peter was an officer in the War of 1812, and would have known a thing or two about military drills. He wouldn’t have been the only War or 1812 officer to be called on to train the militia during the 1820s and 1830s. But I’m not sure Peter Weaver ever used the initial H., and it’s entirely possible that the subject of the story was his son, Patrick.

My route for the day is marked in red on the map. A lobe of the Wea Prairie is also delineated on this map. I’ve shaded it in yellow. Note that both Weavers’ farmsteads were on the edge of the prairie. Those edge locations were considered prime real estate. The prairie was close at hand for crop farming, and so were trees for building materials and firewood.

Sometime I need to learn more about which Burnett it was who owned this reserve. But that will have to wait, because I’m busy getting ready for some bike riding in Ohio.

I got my Sony GPS unit today, in time for me to learn a bit about it before using it in Ohio. So far it has recorded my home location pretty well, though it shows me straying to some parts of the back yard where I never carried it it. It’s about the level of accuracy I had expected. I’m looking forward to giving it a real test.

(Late edit: I forgot the google map. Here it is. You can zoom in and switch to satellite view to see the grove of trees. Peter Weaver’s location is also shown, with a yellow pushpin.)

googlemap

]]> http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/08/27/patrick-henry-weaver/feed/ http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/08/27/west-point/ http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/08/27/west-point/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:57:14 +0000 Spokesrider http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/08/27/west-point/ After stopping on the Granville Bridge on August 4, I made the obligatory stop at the cemetery. But my photos weren’t as good as the ones I’ve already posted from the September 2006 ride.

Then I rode straight south to West Point. I was riding into a small wind and was feeling the effects already. It’s almost embarrassing to tell about it, but it’s true. I had only ridden 25 miles or so by the time I got to West Point, but I was in need of a rest and nourishment.

I usually expect to be more tired on the 2nd day. That’s why I had spent the morning in the library. Sometimes on a 2nd day I can’t get untracked until the afternoon, anyway. But even with a morning’s rest, the southward parts of this ride were laborious.

I finally got to West Point, a place where I had stopped on a ride 7 years earlier. I was disappointed to see how washed out the left part of this photo was. Now that I’ve looked at the historic maps more carefully, I’m even more disappointed. It’s just on the north side of the railroad track. In the full-size version of the photo, one can see the red railroad crossing light.

googlemap

The photo was taken at the point marked in the middle of the photo. The thing I just now realized is that the road here is one that follows an old reserve line. I knew I was going to be visiting Burnett’s Reserve. That was one of the goals of this ride. But I like to collect photos of roads that follow the old reserve boundaries, and here I was on the east boundary of the one I had come to visit, and didn’t realize it.

Here I’ve marked my route in red on a snippet of the 1878 atlas of Tippecanoe County. Burnett’s Reserve is the big partial-rectangle that isn’t square with the world. The location of the old store building by the railroad tracks is circled in blue.

I’ve looked for more information about the Margaret Hall who owned property there, possibly including the building that’s marked on the map, but haven’t come up with much. The 1870 census lists a Maggie B. Hall in Union Township as someone who was then 29 years old, born in Ohio, “Keeping House,” and married to Benj.(?) J. Hall, whose occupation was listed as “T&Com. Mckt” according to my best attempt to read the handwriting. I suppose Mckt stands for market. It looks like there were two Halls in the exact same business — maybe this store was operated as a partnership between brothers?

Well, that’s not what I had come for. But before I got to the parts I had come for, I needed a bite to eat, if possible, and I definitely needed more to drink than the two bottles of water I had left the campground with.

I remembered this picnic table along the road from a memorable ride in May 2001. I was glad to see it was still there, and I was even more glad to see that there was a functioning convenience store. It doesn’t have as much character as the old store by the railroad tracks, but I was glad to see it. (It’s at the location marked by the 2nd blue circle on the 1878 map.)

I bought a cold sandwich, an ice cream bar, water, and iced tea. The day before I had gotten buy with skimpier amounts of food than that. The desire for more food is also typical of day 2 of my outings.

I took my time with my late afternoon meal before proceeding to my next stop.

The morning after the ride to Parish’s Grove and Iroquois was spent in the Tippecanoe County library. It turned out to be not one of my more productive library sessions, though I did get learn some things about the history of Fountain County, the county to the west, that would be worth a bike ride. That ride would wait a couple of days, though. This day there were a few places to visit on the Wea Plain.

To get there I rode west on county road 500N, then turned south on US-231. I took the above photo to document the fact that it’s fine for riding out here in the country, several miles from the Purdue campus, if one likes the open prairies. The terrain changes as one gets closer to the Wabash River, though.

This point is the beginning of a good downhill run to the river bottom.

Downhill-googlemap

Dan on Bike has some very nice photos of river taken from the Granville bridge. I didn’t have any of my own, despite having been here twice before. So this time I made sure to get one. It was a hot, muggy day and not the time of day for good photos. For that, visit Dan on Bike’s blog. But at least I have one of my own now.

On Wednesday August 6 I wanted to see if there was still a farmstead at a place in Fountain County, Indiana, where a false scare of Indian war had taken place in 1826. It was a place where other settlers were said to have gone for safety. I stopped here at a half-mile post along the road. The land ahead, to the south, had been bought from the government by the person whose farm other settlers were said to have gone to. I was hoping to find a farmstead in the next half mile and sure enough, there was one right ahead on higher ground among the surrounding prairie — just the sort of place an American farmer-settler might have picked.

Googlemap-newtown

It was easy to know where to look because the roads here, while not they don’t form a perfect checkerboard, do largely follow the section lines. The googlemap shows the land isn’t quite as squared off as the area around Parish’s Grove to the north, but it is full of rectangles that make it easy to find one’s way and to know where one is.

I’m planning some riding in Ohio where it won’t be quite that simple.

This snippet is from the Puetz map of Belmont County, Ohio. This area is part of the Seven Ranges — the first part of the United States that was surveyed according to the rectangular survey system. The survey here was in neat squares — well, not quite so neat, because bugs were still being worked out of the system. But there are square mile sections. The problem is, the roads don’t follow those section lines.

The blue square above is supposed to be for the first land patent that was granted under this system. I got that information from this web site, but haven’t yet been able to verify it with lookups at the online database at the Department of Interior. But supposing the information is correct, it’s interesting to note that there is now an airport on part of that land. Maybe a piece of flat ground among the hills — a place flat enough for an airport over a century later — was what made that land attractive to one of the first buyers.

I presume the hills along the Ohio River are in part what kept roads from being built along the section lines. Note, though, that the small piece I’ve marked in red does follow a section line. The concept isn’t completely unknown in that part of the world. But far, most of the roads do not follow section lines.

The area I’m planning to visit is not quite so extreme. It has a road network that is more rectangular than that in this area near the Ohio River, but it still isn’t as rectangular as that near Newtown, Indiana, much less that of Benton County, Indiana.

So how to know where I am when I’m taking photos? Until now I’ve resisted getting a GPS. I like to use paper maps to find my way. I don’t just want to know what road to take. I want maps that can tell me about my surroundings, too. But I’ve given in somewhat. I’ve ordered the above item for my bicycle — a Sony GPS (GPS-CS1KASP). After each ride I should be able to download the data and use it to label my photo collection. I hope to get it in time for my next trip.