Willard White: The story of the one-armed clock cranker

Willard R. White gained some notoriety in Indiana, despite the rather mundane job that he had as a winder of the great towering clock in the top of the Marshall County Courthouse.  It was, in part, because of the skill it took to wind that old clock as a one-armed man.

Mr. White's arm was amputated some time before he accepted the job as custodian of the Marshall County Courthouse in the 1930s.  Willard spent some time out west before moving back to Marshall County, after marrying his wife, Bertha, in 1915 in Missouri.  In 1920, he was employed as a book dealer.  In 1930, he hired himself out for odd jobs, common during the Great Depression.  The couple, who never had children, lived with her widowed mother on South Sixth Street.  Bertha died in 1940 at 53, leaving Willard classified as a widower on 1940 census.  His job was listed as "custodian-county courthouse".

A newspaper in Edinburgh, Indiana thought the story interesting enough to run an article about Willard in 1944.  The article states that he climbed the 75' tower weekly to wind the huge four-faced clock that sets the time for Plymouth.  This required 150 revolutions of a 2-foot long iron crank, then another 150 revolutions on the striking spring.  Mr. White lived only a few years more, dying in 1948 at 67 years of age.  The couple's final resting place is Oakhill Cemetery on the south side of Plymouth.  Is anyone in Marshall County familiar with this story?

The next time I'm in the tower, you can bet I'll think of Willard White.

Battle of LaPaz Junction

My grandpa was full of stories.

Some of those stories have proven to be made-up, like the one involving Cherokee ancestry, as much as I wanted it to be true.  But there were others, including one about a speed trap in LaPaz that caught the attention of prosecutors.  I racked that up to one of those he said was involved had a long-running feud with the family and rival in the truck stop business on the opposite corner of US 6 & US 31.  Now, delving into those headlines of papers long ago, I see that he wasn't making this story up.  But he failed to mention the role that the founders of our own establishment played in 1939.

The original Maddox Inn, built c. 1933 at 6 and old 31

As facts would have it, both Bert Albert, Constable of LaPaz, and Everett Maddox, Justice of the Peace of the same, were engaged in speed traps that resulted in exorbitant fines that the two accepted as payments for their services.  The "Battle of LaPaz Junction" as it became known as in local papers in 1939, finally came to a head when a defendant was not allowed a hearing with the county's prosecuting attorney.  Ultimately, the two seemed to cave under an ultimatum made by Judge Kitch that they resign rather than be brought to trial where they were faced with paying back to plaintiffs five-times the amount collected in the speed trap.

Everett Maddox established Maddox Inn on the southeast corner of US 6 and old US 31 when US 6 was completed through Marshall County as a coast-to-coast highway in 1932-33.  My grandparents bought the restaurant/filling station in the late 1940s, actually traded Maddox their farm for it, and renamed it Garner Inn.  It was razed when US 31 became a four-lane in 1956.  They opened the new truck stop in 1958 a mile east on US 6.  Harvey "Bert" Albert was part of the family that opened a filling station on the northwest corner of the intersection, along with the Alibi Restaurant and bowling alley, all of which opened after the road-widening in the late 1950s.

Next:  "Gramps, did your grandpa really kill someone with a pitchfork over a watering hole?"

Gafill Oil Company in Argos

My great-grandfather (above) may have started our family in the fuel business with his employment as the agent for an oil company in Argos during the 1930s-1950s.  Harley Garner became the manager for the Gafill Oil Company in Argos; the company had both a bulk sales and retail sales location in town.  The Gafill Oil Company was established in South Bend by J. Bruce Gafill in 1915 with capital of $10,000.  It was sold by about 1958 when many of the larger companies were buying up small distributors.  Gafill was no small operation though, their distribution was widespread through Northern Indiana and was a familiar sign seen along the Lincoln & Dixie Highways (Argos being on the latter) for tourists.  In 1940, both Harley and Merritt Garner (his oldest son) worked for the company's Argos location, as the New Year's greeting below demonstrates.

In 1946, Gafill built a new service station on the northwest corner of Church and Michigan (old 31) Streets in Argos.  The 60 x 56 building set back from the street and had concrete paving "improving the eye value of the location."  The new building offered "tile lined, sanitary restrooms to serve the traveling public." The company said the station with its bulk plant nearer the railroad was one of its main distribution centers.  Harley Garner and Herman Ault had the two delivery routes in that year.  HY Pershing owned the service station by 1947, though my great-grandfather continued on as the agent into the early 1950s.  The building was one of the best preserved relics of the town's Old 31 history, which was the second-most traveled highway in Indiana when the station was built.

When & how did Marshall County get its roads named?

I remember maybe 30 years ago flipping through the abstract of my grandparents' farm and truck stop property and seeing the name associated with the road their farmhouse was on was not one with which I was familiar:  McCullough Road.  Looking at older abstracts, that name was associated with some farms further south-which is no doubt why it got that name.

But that got me wondering, when did Marshall County adopt its road names?  Lately, I've been geeking out on a free service that provides historic newspapers on-line.  Argos, Bremen, and Culver are on that service-unfortunately Plymouth's papers are not.  Many of the early entries reference road names associated with early settlers in that region.  A handful are named for geographic conditions or villages to which the roads connected.

The answer to that question-through a lot of word combinations in the search field-was 1954.  Surprisingly late.  It appears that the county surveyor at that time had been advocating for a numbering or naming system for the county's roads since the mid-1940s, but the $6000 estimate to post signs (there had been no stop signs, let alone road signs) proved cost-prohibitive to the county.  Finally, my mid-July 1954 (the article below is from the Bremen Enquirer 22 July 1954), county road crews were installing signs that featured 3" tall black letters, a white field, and black border, all porcelain.  This style of sign was also adopted and installed in Bremen later that year, and no doubt throughout the other towns about that time.

I remember these signs, do you?  I know they lasted until at least the late 1980s because the one at the corner of Lilac Road and US 6 had gotten knocked by snow plowing and my dad gave me heavy gauge wire and told me to go put the post back up and fix it to the old concrete corner field post.  That means they lasted over 35 years.  They were replaced with green signs, which have now been recently replaced with blue signs.  I thought I had a picture of the old sign on Lilac, but could not find it.  The photo at the top is not from Marshall County, but is nearly identical to the old signs.  If anyone has a photo of the old signs-please share.  I don't believe any of the towns still have these installed.  If anyone has an actual sign from Lilac Road-I may be in the market for purchase.

The county surveyor recommended a naming system that, I believe, followed St. Joseph County's which had been adopted earlier with tree and shrub names on north/south roads in alphabetical order east to west.  And numbered roads, based on mile increments with designations of A, B, and C for roads closer together than a mile.  So, 1st Road and 2nd Road are a mile apart, going north to south, and 1A or 1B would be within that mile block.  The historian in me wishes that we had kept many of those old road names, but clearly from emergency response, a system makes sense.

A few road names did survive like Goshen and LaPorte written about previously.  Muckshaw was derived, according to early county historian Daniel McDonald, from farmers who hated the muck through which the road ran exclaimed "pssshaw!"  Another early road name which continues down from St. Joseph County is Miami Road, whose name is derived from the "old Indian trail" of the Miami Indians leading from the St. Joseph River to the Tippecanoe.  King and Queen Roads were supposed to be the leading north/south collector roads, spaced equally to each side of Michigan Road (the center spine of the county) and the county lines to the east and west.  If there are other road names not associated with the 1954 system that I am forgetting, please let me know-but for some reason, I am very familiar with our county roads-wink emoji.  Above is the 1954 article announcing the installation of the road signs.

The LaPorte & Goshen Roads' History

With the closure of the intersection of Plymouth-Goshen Road at U.S. 30, I thought it would be good to look back at the history of this road most of us probably are not aware of....and with it the parallel history of the Plymouth-LaPorte Trail.  Only the Michigan Road through Marshall County claims an older history as an established road.  I think sometimes it's hard for us to not think we're the center of the universe, here at the crossroads, but I'll take you back before there was a Plymouth.

Imagine most of  Northern Indiana, north of Logansport to the south edge of the St. Joseph River Valley, was largely unsettled in the 1820s-early 1830s.  A few posts existed in Michigan City (due to the Michigan Road), LaPorte, South Bend, and by the early '30s, Goshen.  This great middle part of Northern Indiana between the Wabash River (canal) and St. Joe River lacked roadways which is why the Michigan Road became so important to the settlement of the state.  To understand the development of the LaPorte and Goshen Roads, you'd have to understand the Michigan Road's history.  Surveyed in 1829, the road connected Madison to Michigan City (established as a port at the northern terminus).  Construction of the road began in 1830 and by 1836 it was mostly complete (passable).  Plymouth was founded in 1836 by three men, one of whom was the chief superintendent of construction on the road-Mr. William Polke.  The road was originally conceived to go north from Logansport to LaPorte, but surveyors felt that the Kankakee Marsh proved too difficult to build through, so it doglegged and went northeast, then straight north toward South Bend.  Both Rochester and Plymouth followed the road.

Prior to Plymouth being established, both LaPorte and Goshen were interested in the construction of the Michigan Road as it came north from Indianapolis.  The Michigan Road brought trade and postal carriers, but more importantly, settlers to the region.  Because of the road's crossing of the Yellow River in what would become Plymouth, both Elkhart and LaPorte County Commissioners felt there was a need to tap into the Michigan Road at that point.  LaPorte County was first to do so.  In 1833, the LaPorte County Commissioners paid for the establishment of the "Yellow River Road" to go southeasterly out of LaPorte toward a crossing of the Kankakee River where a ferry was authorized.  The road also extended northwest from LaPorte to tap into the Michigan Road leading from South Bend to Michigan City.  A bridge over the Kankakee followed shortly after, and the road was planked by the 1840s.  According to Daniel's History of LaPorte County "the road and ferry did much to advance the county in population, as it made Michigan City the market for all the country as far south as Logansport."

Today, this route is part of the state highway system in LaPorte and St. Joseph Counties, but not in Marshall County.  State highway designations are U.S. 35 from its intersection with the Michigan Road (U.S. 20) south to LaPorte, then State Road 4 southeast of LaPorte until 4 turns toward North Liberty-the old trail follows State Road 104 to the west edge of Walkerton (which was not established until the early 1870s).  With some diligence, one can make out segments of the old Yellow River Road, which took on the name "Plymouth-LaPorte Trail" through the southwest corner of Walkerton, then into Marshall County.  While the route succumbed to some straightening on section lines, the old trail can mostly be followed to Plymouth where it enters from the west and becomes LaPorte Street ending just a half-block north of the Yellow River Bridge on Michigan Road.  While not evidenced as much in Marshall County, in LaPorte County the old trail features some of the oldest architecture in Northwest Indiana, including the Major Lemon House, built in 1837 at the crossing of the Kankakee.

The Plymouth-Goshen Trail has a similar history.  Elkhart County Commissioners set to building "highways" a term that literally means "roadways built on high ground" shortly after the county was organized in 1830.  The years 1831-32 saw considerable road building.  But, according to a news article, what became known as the Plymouth Trail was established on October 19, 1835.  The desire of Elkhart County Commissioners would have mirrored those of LaPorte's, to open up a direct route, at its shortest point, to the Michigan Road for settlers, commerce, and postal carriers.  Tapping into the route on the north bank of the Yellow River made the most sense, so the Plymouth-Goshen Trail stayed north of the river, only crossing it at its narrow fork width near what would become Bremen, then meandering southwesterly until it joined the Michigan Road about a mile north of the Yellow River Bridge.  The situation with this route, however, was a little different within the  boundaries of Marshall County because of Bremen being established within ten years of Plymouth, along this route.  That meant that a good trade route between the county's two largest villages was secured.

Again, much like the LaPorte Trail, the Goshen Road follows a southwesterly route from Goshen ignoring cardinal points of a grid, much less section lines.  The trail is intact, for the most part, with its current designation of State Road 119 between Goshen and State Road 19.  However, it suffered from rerouting onto designated county roads as well.  The Plymouth-Goshen Trail is fairly obvious in the northeast corner of Marshall County, and from its intersection with State Road 106 west of Bremen to King Road where it follows about two miles directly south before it cuts off to the southwest again north of King Road's Yellow River Bridge.  Older maps would likely give a better idea of the route before it was conformed to the grid.  The State of Indiana felt that the old route was important enough still to maintain it as an overpass for the new U.S. 31 northeast of Plymouth, however, with the number of accidents occurring now at its intersection with U.S. 30, the road was cut off.  I recall a vote while on the Plymouth Plan Commission when the state asked us which intersection was the most important to address for safety (in about 2005), and we indicated U.S. 30 and Plymouth-Goshen.  And since that time, they've improved three other intersections on 30, but not the one we requested.

If you imagine Plymouth, as a county seat, being connected to all of its neighboring county seats and mostly larger population centers, due to these roads, we should have had greater prosperity.  We had direct routes, the best of their time, to Goshen, South Bend, LaPorte/Michigan City, and Rochester/Logansport.  When the Yellowstone Trail was established in the early 1900s, we were also connected to Warsaw/Ft. Wayne and Valparaiso/Chicago.  I did wonder, though, why the routes in Marshall County were never designated state routes when they were in LaPorte and Elkhart Counties.  So, I did a little investigation that yielded only a little information.  Evidently, when the state highway commission began in earnest designating state routes, Highway 17 had been proposed between Logansport and Goshen, following its current route from Logansport to Plymouth, but then following the Plymouth-Goshen Trail for its last leg.  This was being promoted, particularly by Bremen, as early as 1929 (photo above).  Why it never occurred, and why only the portion of 119 was designated (by 1940), is a mystery to me.  Marshall County was left out.  The Plymouth-LaPorte Trail's lack of designation in Marshall County is also strange.  During the early 1930s, the old trail was considered an "improved" county road in all three counties it touched, however, Marshall County's segment was of a lower quality construction.  This remained true in 1940, though in all counties, the construction improved.  But by 1945, both State Roads 4 (between LaPorte and North Liberty) and 104 (south to Walkerton) had been designated.  It remained a county road south of Walkerton. This may have been in part to the development of the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant during WWII, just west of these routes in LaPorte County.  Left out again.  Did the lack of designations in the 1930s-40s have an economic impact on Marshall County?  It's hard to say.  Being the crossroads doesn't necessarily put you at the center of the universe, even as we sit here now at the crossing of two of Northern Indiana's most important highways: 30 & 31.

On Center

This past Sunday, pastor brought to consciousness in a new way-at least for me-the importance of Jesus in the role of human history.  He stands at the very center of it.  Nothing before or after could carry more weight for all creation than what Christ completed on the cross 2000 years ago.  All of the war and sorrow, human development and ingenuity leading up to and away from the cross all take a knee to the redemption power that struck the earth on a hill outside of Jerusalem.  And the power flowed down and dripped into the earth so that no despair or counter-power could ever reverse the finished work of redemption.  Nothing before, nothing that came after-human history centered on the cross.

And that got me thinking about where Christ stands in my life.  Center or standing off to the side?  Does the cross pierce through me in the same way it does human history-does Christ stand at my core, or is the cross just something I lean on, run to?  Does all my life-the actions, decisions, relationships-balance on Jesus who stands in me or is He just someone I consult with?   In order for me to be in balance with my Creator-He has to stand at my core in the same way a pin works in a hinge.

2020 promises to be one of the most divisive years in recent American history, certainly since the fight for civil rights merged with growing unrest over Vietnam.  As Christians, I think we need to be very conscious of  how we engage in this coming year.  Will our words and actions be balanced on Jesus standing in us, or will our words fire out of us while He stands off to the side?  We do Christ no favors "defending" Him if He is not in the very breath we use to speak.  Will the cross pierce us to become the pin on which we hang our words and actions, or will our politics in 2020?  Those with Christ at their core will not get whipped into the frenzy or cast off fellow believers who stand balanced on Christ-the Gospel.  They will not get tugged into debate that seeks to divide.

Let us allow Jesus and His words stand at the center of 2020.  If it doesn't reflect Him, don't place it in His stead.  If we do this, 2020 could be the most healing, most effectual year the Church in America has ever had.