The Dayton Methodist Church

Figure 1. Dayton United Methodist Church today. Courtesy of http://www.umc.org website.

Methodist services were first held in Dayton in the school house by Rev. William Wilson in 1830 (Hatton). A Methodist class was also organized (Wheeler). In the early years the church was served by circuit riders. Dayton was on the circuit assigned to Rev. Hackaliah Vredenburg, who with Rev. James Armstrong, introduced Methodism to much of Northwestern Indiana (Detzler). The circuit rider came by every two to four weeks at this early date (Sweet). The ministers were usually assigned for a term of one year, though a few served for two years. They rarely lived in the community in these early days. The official name of the church at this time was the Methodist Episcopal (ME) Church, which referred to its method of governance.

In 1836 the Dayton ME Church was on the circuit assigned to Joseph White. A native of Pennsylvania, Rev. White is described by Jesse Wheeler in his history of the church as “an old time preacher on temperance.” The following year Rev. Hakaliah Vredenburg was assigned to this circuit. He traveled his circuit, which sometimes covered 300-400 miles, on horseback and on foot. He was not paid enough to support a family, and at one point he made a home from an old log barn (Wheeler).

The Methodists erected their first church building in 1843, a small (18×24 ft.) frame building with a bell on Lot 11 of Beara’s addition to Dayton, on the southwest corner of Harrison and Main Streets. In 1858-1859, the minster was Rev. Jesse Hill. In 1862, when local Civil War volunteers went into camp at Lafayette, they discovered that Rev. Hill would be their chaplain. After the War, from 1873 to 1874, he again served the Dayton ME Church.

Figure 2. Dayton Methodist Episcopal (ME) Church, 1866 building. Postcard owned by Susan Clawson.

In 1866, during the pastorate of Rev. John Demott the Methodists built a new brick church at the corner of Pennsylvania and Walnut, under the direction of James Cohee. David Bare (Bear) was the brick mason, and Michael McNulty was the hod carrier. The brass and copper bell from the 1843 church, probably cast around 1815, was moved to the new building. A bottle was buried (and not found until 1927) which contained a note that listed those responsible for the building, and named the local merchants: Ezra Frankenfield, V. S. Burton, James Cohee and Moran, and Jacob Kall (Kahl), hotel keeper (Sesqui 77).

From 1867 to 1869, the Dayton Academy, which was struggling financially in the aftermath of the War, came under the sponsorship of the Methodist Church Conference. In 1870 the principal was Rev. William M. Fraley, pastor of the local Methodist Episcopal church (Courier, August 16, 1870). The last couple of years it may have been integrated into the township school system. By 1873, the Academy had closed.

From November 8 to 11, 1870, Prof. J. A. Butterfield’s Musical Convention took place here, closing with a “grand concert” at the Methodist church (Courier, Nov. 12, 1870). This seems to be a series of music classes, concluding with a public performance. The newspaper pronounced it a great success.

At times the Dayton church shared a pastor with another church: 1882-1896, with Mulberry; 1898-1902 with Clarks Hill; and 1905-1910 with Buck Creek (Sesqui 77). In 1911 the church hired its first full-time minister, John W. Hangar. The Dayton Board found Rev. Hangar through an advertisement, and the Bishop approved the appointment (Wheeler).

Improvements were made to the church in 1908, when a balcony was added on the south wall and the front door was moved from the center to the east side of the front of the building. In 1915 a clock for the sanctuary was donated by J. M. Sieferts, a clockmaker in Mulberry. In 1927 more renovations were made. While excavating for a basement with teams of horses, the north wall of the church collapsed. One man suffered a broken leg, and a team of horses was killed. The work went forward nevertheless. The balcony on the south wall was removed and an educational unit was added. In 1936, an organ was installed. In 1940 and again in the 1950s, the interior of the church was redecorated.

Figure 3. Mrs. Dorothy Mays and beginners class, 1950s. Courtesy of Bob Mays.

A beloved pastor who served from 1950 to 1955 was Rev. W. Earl Moore. He was familiar to the congregation, since he had served neighboring churches. An addition was made to the north side of the church at this time.

The Dayton United Methodist Church purchased land south of town in 1968 and started a building project. This culminated in 1975 when the new church building was dedicated on May 3. Rev. Marvin Grooms was the pastor during this work. The new sanctuary would seat 280 with an overflow area seating 140. The building contained 14 classrooms, a pastor’s study, a large nursery, and a kitchen area (J/C, 9 Feb. 1968, 3 May 1975). The bell and the sanctuary clock were moved from the 1866 building. During Rev. Grooms’s pastorate, altar calls became part of the service and a mission titled Lay Witness was begun (Wheeler).

Figure 4. Rev. Walls as Methodist Circuit Rider,
Dayton Home Town Days 1988. Photo: Journal and Courier.

Rev. John Walls came to Dayton in May 1988, and stayed until about 2009. He was a very popular minister, and under his pastorate the church was enlarged with a new sanctuary, a gymnasium, and other rooms. Until about 2018, the church operated a nursery school.

Sources:
1878 Atlas.
Anonymous [J.M.W.?]. “History of Dayton Methodist Episcopal Church.” Manuscript. Greencastle, Ind.: DePauw University, abt. 1919.
Detzler, Jack J. History of the Northwest Indiana Conference, 1852-1951. Nashville, TN: Parthenon, 1953.
Hatton, Israel. “_______ in Dayton, Indiana.” Manuscript. Greencastle, Ind.: DePauw University, 1939. (unsigned but internal references to Hatton and date)
Newspapers: Journal, Courier, and Journal and Courier.
Sesqui 77: “Methodist Church.” Dayton, Ind.: Sesquicentennial Committee, 1977.
Sweet, William W. Circuit Rider Days in Indiana. Indianapolis, Ind.: Stewart, 1916.
Wheeler, Jesse. History of the Dayton United Methodist Church. Dayton, Ind.: privately printed, 1980 and 1983.

The Lentz-Renwick House

Figure 1. The Lentz-Renwick house, when the Lentzes lived there. Courtesy of Dinah Edwards Thacker.

The Lentz-Renwick house stands on lot 12 of William Bush’s original plat for Marquis, now Dayton, and today has the address of 747 Walnut Street. The first purchaser of the lot was John W. Smith on 27 April 1830 (Deed Record). The first owners of the property listed in the abstract were “Elizabeth Baker, wife of William Baker, and Daniel W. Richison” (Sesqui 77). This is problematic since the wife of William Baker that we know of is named Sarah; Robert Baker’s wife was named Elizabeth. Next the property passed through the hands of William and Elizabeth Bush, David H. Crouse, and Andrew and Tena Carter (Sesqui 77).

It came to the Lentz family sometime after 1864 when relatives William (1835-1875, wife Medina) and Francis “Frank” S. Lentz (1846-1920, wife Miriam Johnson) took title and remodeled the house (Sesqui 77). Frank Lentz had a marble shop next door. He was an amateur magician and also had a grocery store two doors to the east of the house. Another Lentz brother, Sylvanus P. Lentz (1851-1932) and wife Florence Gladden, also operated the store in 1898. The house passed through the hands of Frank’s brother, Moses A. (1840-1934) and his second wife Laura Lentz. Moses Lentz had a long history in Dayton, operating a livery stable and hotel. His carriage factory started at the livery stable, then expanded to the old academy building in the middle of the first block of Washington Street. When the Panic of 1873 caused him financial problems, he sold the business to his employees, who moved it to the old Paden store on the corner of Walnut and Conjunction. When Moses got on his feet again, he took the carriage factory back and moved it back into the old academy building. Moses’s son Roy helped out, then started selling and repairing cars.

Roy Lentz (1884-1959) and wife Maude next lived in the house. A couple named Clark owned it, and finally Rankin and Agnes Renwick.

The house has a central two-story portion, flanked on either side by single-story rooms, with a single-story section behind. The front section has the look of what is called “Steamboat Gothic,” defined by Merriam Websters as “an elaborately ornamented architectural style used in homes built in the middle 19th century in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys,” so named from the homes of retired riverboat captains built to resemble the riverboats they had captained.

Renwicks painted the house white and enclosed the front porch sometime in the 1950s. The house has since had a succession of owners and renters. Today it is owned by Tina McClean and is again being remodeled. Before the present remodeling began, the house was painted a light yellow color. The present remodeling was occasioned by the need to put a new foundation under the house, while updating the interior.

Figure 2. The Lentz-Renwick house, in 1989. Photograph by Susan Clawson.

SOURCES: Sesqui 77: Dayton, Indiana. Deed Record; Findagrave; Dinah Edwards Thacker.

The Robert Baker House

Baker house 2017

Baker house, 1950s

The ground on which the Robert Baker house stands was part of an 80-acre plot entered by Dr. Timothy Horrom on 1 July 1829. He divided it into lots and filed a plat on 16 September 1829 for the town of Fairfield (now Dayton), just across the street from the plat filed on the same day by William Bush. The lot on which the house stood was lot 1 in Horram’s Original Plat. The first purchaser of lot 1 was A.W. Ingraham on 19 February 1831. Ingraham sold the lot on 16 March 1831 to Joseph Rycraft, with no mention of appurtenances. Rycraft died intestate about 1836, and in 1840 lot 1 was set off to one of the heirs, John Rycraft. John sold the lot with appurtenances and issued a mortgage to James Wood in 1845. In 1847 the lot returned to John Rycraft, who then sold it to Robert Baker.

It would appear that the first structure on the lot was probably built either by one of the Rycrafts or by James Wood. This is believed to have been a small house that is now the garage of the house with the address 740 Walnut Street and the building now known as the shop, and possibly connecting buildings. John Rycraft sold the lot and all the “improvements and appurtenances” to Robert Baker in 1847. Robert Baker built the house at 740 Walnut Street by building a two-over-two rectangular home in front of the original house, making a sort of L. By 1878, the picture of the Baker house in the 1878 Atlas shows the Baker house with the L. The attached outbuildings included a workshop, the shop, and a livery stable, all attached. Beyond the livery stable, a sort of lean-to, was a separate barn.
The kitchen and dining L that may have been the original house contains a narrow winding back stair in the back wall in a style characteristic of the 1840s. This stair leads to a bedroom above the old kitchen which could also be reached from the front bedroom by a stepdown entrance. There was a back porch with a swing off the dining room, and the well was in the back yard. This section was pulled off during the 1938 remodeling and made into a garage, but the back stair and attic bedroom remain.
The house Baker built was two rooms over two with a wide central hall, upstairs and down. All the original siding was walnut and poplar, and the interior woodwork was black walnut, all made from trees felled locally. Pilasters decorated three corners. The SE and SW pilasters were complete and the NW pilaster was only partial where it met the attached kitchen/dining room. The NE corner was in the backyard and did not have a pilaster on the corner. The house was painted white with green shutters.

Entering the recessed front door on the Baker part of the house, visitors found themselves in the front hall, with rooms to the left and right. The room on the left was originally the living room, and the one on the right was the parlor. A gently rising stairway led to the second floor with bedrooms on the left and right. The back bedroom, above the old kitchen, was reached from the left-hand bedroom by a step down, as already indicated. In the parlor was a built in corner china cabinet, and in the bedroom above, was a built-in bookcase.

Robert Baker had been a traveling United Brethren minister until a throat problem compelled him to retire from regular public speaking. He then returned to Dayton and purchased lot 1. He set up a carpentry business in the shop and stored wood and other supplies in the adjoining flat-roofed building. He built coffins and at some point began to act as an undertaker also. He continued to preach occasionally and preside at funerals. The Baker Funeral Home in Dayton counted its founding from 1849. His son Alvin became a registered embalmer and continued the business after the death of his father on 4 November 1899. Eventually the business was moved to a store front in Dayton and finally about 1937 a separate funeral home was built on the corner of Walnut and Market streets.
Robert Baker’s daughter and niece inherited the home. The niece, Mary Jane Slavin, died in 1908, and daughter Margaret Baker died in 1924. On 14 October 1925 the heirs of Margaret Baker—her brothers Wilbert and Alvin Baker and wives—deeded the property to Alvin’s son Otto C. Baker. Alvin used the outbuildings, but it is my understanding that the house was rented out. Sometime in the 1920s members of the family living there were killed in an Interurban wreck and the bodies were shown in the east front room of the house. The coffins had to be brought in through the windows because the front door struck the stairway newel post when the door was opened and the coffins could not be maneuvered around it.

The home stood vacant for some time before it was sold, about 9 August 1928, to Dale and Cora Yost. They moved in on 17 September 1928, their son Kenneth’s tenth birthday. Also in the family was a younger son, Robert. The house included a cellar under the kitchen. The house was heated by stoves, but the Yosts dug out another basement room and put a furnace in the basement. Later they enlarged the basement to extend under the entire house. The flat roofed building was used as a garage. Most of the wood floor was removed so a car could be parked inside, but sections along the edges were retained to provide a walk way to the shop, which could only be entered from that building.

When the Yosts moved in, Dale started a plumbing and heating business. When his sons grew up and joined him, the name was changed to Dale Yost & Sons. All three men were engineering graduates of Purdue University. The shop was used for inventory. The business continued until Dale died and both sons had retired. In 1989, the business, then called Dale Yost Sons, was closed.

In 1938 the house underwent a radical remodeling, adding two rooms down and two room up at the back of the house and inside bathrooms. The entire house was moved ten feet back from both SR 38 (Walnut Street) and Conjunction Street. The original kitchen and dining L was pulled off and made into a garage. The original walnut siding was retained and new was added to cover the addition. The new siding was not walnut. A pilaster was added to the NE corner and the one on the NW was completed. The windows were replaced with new ones specially made to fit the openings so that the siding would not have to be altered. They are the exact size and location of the original windows. Cora remodeled the house with the Longfellow house in mind. She added the front porch, eliminating the recessed door, and added the false gable in the front roof. The gingerbread roof decorations were removed from the eaves and used as supports for the flower boxes on the Conjunction Street side and elsewhere. Kenneth leaned the front door against the tree out front and removed five layers of paint so the door could be stained.

The building called the shop is thought to be the unfinished brick building with “sills” (the wood frame that sits on the foundation) and “sleepers” (horizontal beams to which the flooring is fastened) upon which listeners sometimes sat in the early 1830s to listen to sermons by Father James A. Carnahan before the Memorial Presbyterian Church at Dayton was founded in 1834. By 1878 if not before, the building was attached to the buildings on either side of it, New England style, so that one could walk from the house to the lean-to without going outside. The shop building has a basement with fireplace, which may have been original. The 1878 drawing shows basement windows, suggesting that the basement was present and may have been part of the original construction. In the back yard, there were an outhouse and a chicken coop. A large garden was often located in the back yard, too.

In 1928, when the Dale Yost family moved into the house, the brick shop was still attached to the buildings on either side of it. Attached on the north was a frame shack or lean-to where a hearse was kept when the Bakers of the Baker Funeral Home in Dayton owned the premises. Beyond that was a large, two-story barn. To the south of the shop was a frame workshop covered with shakes, and beyond that the house. The basement of the shop could only be entered from the workshop. The shop basement had a brick floor. The Yosts used the bricks from the floor whenever they needed bricks elsewhere. Under the bricks was sand, and young son Robert would play in the sand like it was a big sandpile. When the last bricks had been removed, the Yosts poured a cement floor in the basement.
In the first room on the main floor, the ceiling is a finished wood tongue and groove ceiling. The ceiling in the second room is plaster or cement. There has been a stove in the front room. The inside of the building is not finished, but is a brick wall. There are two rows of bricks, one outside and another inside with a slight gap between.

All of the original outbuildings except the shop have been torn down. The shop remains along with the cement-block two-bay truck garage built about 1944. About 1959 an addition was put on the two-bay garage so that it could house three trucks belonging to the Dale Yost and Sons business.

Susan Yost Clawson is the present owner of the house.  The house is rented to her daughter Jennifer and Jennifer’s husband Jim Murray. In 2013 the house was painted in colors reminiscent of the Abraham Lincoln house in Springfield, Illinois. The front door was painted red.

 

Paden-Russell House

The Paden-Russell House was built about 1860.  The style is Gable front/Greek Revival according to the Tippecanoe County Interim Report: Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory (1990).

David Paden purchased the lot from William Bush in 1831, lot 9 in Bush’s plat for Marquis. Paden, one of the first merchants in Dayton, built a two-story, frame general store on the east end of the lot (the side yard in the photo above). About 1860, he built the brick house that still stands today.

With the Crouse house, the Paden house is thought to be one of the oldest brick homes in Dayton (Biery). The walls of the house are said to be three bricks thick. Originally, there were several chimneys built along the outside walls (Biery). Later it was the home of Jerome and Louise Diebert. Jerome worked at the carriage company, and “Aunt Lou” was known for giving cookies to children who knocked on her door.

After Earl and Miriam Russell purchased the house, they decided to add the  porch that is there today. When they found an old picture of the house, they were delighted to discover that the original porch very nearly matched the one they had added (Sesqui ’77).

The store built by David Paden in the 1830s was operated by his son Marvin as late as the 1890s. During the late 1870s and early 1880s, it housed the Dayton Carriage works. During this time the business was operated by a  group of employees who purchased it from the founder, Moses Lentz, who had to sell it to cover the losses he suffered in the aftermath of the Panic of 1873. Eventually, Lentz was able to buy back the business and moved it to another location.  Several businesses have filled the old store building: a barbershop, a repair business, Marlott Rohler’s restaurant, Lentz and Bray auto sales, and the township trustee’s office. A drawing of the store appears in the 1878 Atlas, and a photograph of it in later years hangs in the Dayton Town Hall.  The store was torn down about 1940.

Paden Store on left, house on right. From the 1878 Atlas.

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography
1878 Atlas
Biery, Florence. “History of Dayton.” Mimeographed sheets.
Tippecanoe County Interim Report: Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory. 1990. House 064 in Dayton.
Sesqui ’77. Dayton, IN Committee, 1977.

 

Dayton, Indiana, Historic District

 

 

The Dayton Historic District, created in 2003, represents an early market town and transportation crossroads for pioneer settlement. The earliest settlers arrived in 1825 and by 1827 there were enough home sites to create the feeling of community. The first plats, for Marquis and Fairfield, were filed in 1829. In 183o a plat for an addition to the town of Fairfield was filed. As the community grew, it desired a post office. When it was discovered that the post office would not allow the use of the name Fairfield, the town’s name was changed to Dayton, thus avoiding the conundrum, which happened elsewhere, of having a town with one name containing a post office with a different name.

Walnut Street was a dirt road to begin with. Then it was a plank road, covered in boards or felled trees. Later, the Dayton Gravel Road company was created and the road was graveled. Eventually the road was handed over to the county, and in July 1931, the county paved it. In 1933 it became a state highway, as it is today, State Road 38.

Many of the town’s oldest structures are located along Walnut Street. The Robert C. Baker home on the northeast corner was built in 1847. The brick building behind it is thought to date from the 1830s, when Presbyterian missionary Rev. James A. Carnahan preached on the sills and sleepers of the unfinished building. Baker funeral home began in this building. The John and Susannah Pedan brick home (lately the Russell house) on the southwest corner is an excellent example of Greek Revival architecture. It was built in the 1860s. Pedan’s general store stood in the side yard. The David H. Crouse house (southeast corner) was built in 1859, with gas lighting. The porch was added later. The frame home on the northwest corner was built about 1910 by Fred and Florence (Rogers) Widmer.

SOURCES:
Tippecanoe County Interim Report. 1990.

Dr. David Hebison Crouse House

The Crouse house on the southeast corner of Walnut (State Road 38) and Conjunction streets was built about 1859 by David and Rachel (Baker) Crouse. One of the first brick houses in Dayton, it was built with no fireplaces. It was lighted and heated by gas piped in from Gas City, Indiana, until the gas ran out. The porch was added some years later. According to Donna Rowe, the family rooms were on the second floor and the main floor served as the doctor’s office. The central dining room was the surgery. The office was a small room to the west of the dining room. The front room was the waiting room. The doctor’s office was at times across the street to the west of what is now the old drug store.

David Hebison Crouse arrived in Dayton about 1840 from Marion County, Indiana when he was 23 years old. Dr. Crouse was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania on 18 Sept 1808. His parents, Henry and Salome (Hebison) Crouse. and family moved from Westmoreland County Pennsylvania to Germantown, Montgomery County, Ohio before settling in Marion County, Indiana,  in 1830.  In 1835 David Crouse married Rachel Gelwicks, of  Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The following year (1836) he began to study medicine in Indianapolis. On moving to Dayton, Indiana, Crouse set up a drug store business. In 1842 he studied at Jefferson Medical College, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He then opened his medical practice in Dayton. He followed the allopathic school of  medicine (“David H. Crouse”), that is, he treated patients with medicines and surgery (as opposed to homeopathy).

Rachel Gelwicks Crouse died in 1845, and Dr. Crouse married Rachel Baker. Left a widower a second time by the death of his second wife in 1865, Dr. Crouse married Mrs. Lydia Liebenguth Peter of Clinton County, who survived him, dying in 1911.

David Crouse had five surviving children and five who died young. His son Jerome (mother Rachel Gelwicks) fought in the Civil War, receiving a light shoulder wound. After the war, Jerome also studied medicine and joined his father’s medical practice. David’s son Meigs, by his second wife Rachel Baker, became a Presbyterian minister and administrator of the children’s home in Cincinnati. Other surviving children were Salome, who married Elijah Earl; Victoria V., wife of V. S. Burton, and Elda. The Crouses also took in Edward Kain, who arrived on the orphan train at age 11. Starting in the 1840s, New York orphanages, despairing of placing children with local families, sent groups of orphans on trains heading west in hopes families would take them in.

Dr. Crouse was one of the physicians who rushed to the train wreck in 1864 at nearby Culver’s Station (present day Crane), just southwest of Dayton on the Wyandotte Road. There were at least 30 deaths, mostly soldiers returning home on leave from the Civil War. The train collided head-on with a cattle train. The baggage car telescoped into a passenger coach, killing and crushing many passengers. Nearby farmers rushed to the aid of the injured, laying them out along the tracks until help arrived.

On 3 Nov. 1880, both Dr. David and Dr. Jerome Crouse were present in the Lucas farmhouse when the first caesarean section in Indiana was performed on Mrs. Luther Lucas on the kitchen table by Dr. Moses Baker. Five other physicians were also present, either assisting or observing (Kriebel).

Crouse was the first Worshipful Master at Dayton Lodge No. 103 F & A Masons. In 1855 he was elected State Senator from Tippecanoe County.

He died in 1884 and is buried with his first two wives in Dayton Cemetery, Dayton, Indiana. His third wife Lydia is buried in Fair Haven Cemetery in Clinton County with her first husband, Emmanuel Peter.

The Crouse house is presently the residence of Ken and Rita Taylor.

David H. Crouse Home, built 1859. the porch was added later.

Bibliography

Biographical History of Tippecanoe, White, Jasper, Newton, Benton, Warren, and Pulaski Counties, Indiana. 1899. p. 22.

DeHart, Richard P., ed. Past and Present of Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Vol. 2. Bowen, 1909. 585-89. Google Books

“Dr. David H. Crouse.” unidentified newspaper clipping dated 23 Nov. 1879 in the files of the Tippecanoe County Historical Association.

Federal Censuses for 1840, 1850, 1860, and 1880.

Findagrave: Dayton Cemetery, Dayton, Indiana. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Crouse&GSiman=1&GScid=293417&GRid=12588742&

Kriebel, Robert. “Dr. Baker Noted for Area’s First Successful Caesarean Section.” Lafayette Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN). http://www.cesareanvoices.com/history.html

Dayton Historic District

The Dayton Historic District was granted March 26, 2003 by the National Register of Historic Places.  The National Register of Historic Places now seems to be under the National Parks Service; this page lists Dayton: http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/listings/20030404.htm. The info below is copied from a  database listing now available at http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/in/tippecanoe/districts.html:

Dayton Historic District
(added 2003 – Tippecanoe County – #03000142)
Roughly bounded by Walnut, Harrison, and Pennsylvania Sts., Dayton
(100 acres, 82 buildings)

Plaque for Dayton Historic District, National Register, located in Town Hall.

Historic Significance: Architecture/Engineering
Architectural Style: Greek Revival, Late Victorian

Area of Significance: Architecture
Period of Significance: 1825-1849, 1850-1874, 1875-1899, 1900-1924, 1925-1949, 1950-1974
Owner: Private, Local Gov’tHistoric Function: Commerce/Trade, Domestic, Funerary, Religion
Historic Sub-function: Mortuary, Organizational, Religious Structure, Secondary Structure, Single Dwelling, Specialty Store
Current Function: Commerce/Trade, Domestic, Funerary, Religion
Current Sub-function: Mortuary, Organizational, Religious Structure, Secondary Structure, Single Dwelling, Specialty Store

The district includes buildings on the streets named as the rough boundaries. The town recently put up brown street signs calling attention to the historic district.

This status was applied for in 2002 by the Wabash Valley Trust, which asked me to talk to them about the houses in town to help with the application. I answered questions about some of the houses, including the Baker-Yost house at 740 Walnut Street, where I was living at the time. Other significant old homes would be the Crouse House (1859), the Paden-Russell House (1864), and other homes from the 1830s and 1840s, as well as the 1910 store/bank building (now the town hall), the 1905 Widmer drug store, the Presbyterian Church (1899), and the funeral home (1930s). They asked what significance the area had besides the examples of old architecture. I told them that I believed it was on the path of migration into the area at the time of settlement. The first settlement in the township (which was one of the earliest in the county) was in 1823 at Wyandott, to the south, and soon after (1825) spread to the Dayton area, as well. Settlers came through here also on their way to Clinton and Carroll counties. A few of the buildings in the district are pictured below.

Robert Baker-Dale and Cora Yost House, 740 Walnut St., about 1847.

Town Hall, former Rohlers’ Grocery and Dayton Bank building, about 1916,

David Crouse House. Built about 1859. Porch was added later

Widmer Drug Store. Built about 1905 by Fred Widmer. Wikipedia.

Baker Funeral Home. Est. 1847? This funeral parlor was built in the 1930s by Dwight Baker. John G. Widmer was one of the carpenters

Dayton Memorial Presbyterian Church, 1899 building. Est. 1834 by Father James A. Carnahan. Memorial added to church name in memory of Father Carnahan. Wikipeida.

What’s in a name? Or Fairfield, by any other name

The first plats for the town now known as Dayton were both filed on the same day in 1829, although  settlement began before that. The town picked 1827 as the date to celebrate its Sesquicentennial. I am sure William Bush and family were here in 1827 (they had arrived by about 1825) and Bush had been selling a few lots, but it looks as if he hadn’t filed his plat until Dr. Timothy Horram, who came a few years later, decided to plat lots on his land on the other side of the State Road, now State Road 38. It looks as if they got a surveyor to lay out two plats (the same one did both plats), then went into Lafayette to file them. Bush’s Marquis appears on the books first, then Horram’s Fairfield.  At first I thought it might have been a race to get to the recorder’s office, but it looks more like a cooperative effort. I don’t think the town was ever called Marquis, at least not after the filing. It was called Fairfield when David Gregory platted his “Addition to Fairfield,” and the name was changed to Dayton when the town tried to get a post office and was denied use of the name Fairfield because there was already a post office by that name in the state.

The original Fairfield was in Franklin County, although it was flooded in the 1960s to build a lake. An attempt has been made to relocate the town on higher ground, called New Fairfield. Read about the original town of Fairfield on John Updike’s site here:  http://www.fairfieldindiana.com/index3.htm

Curiously, Dayton isn’t the only town to try to use the name Fairfield and run into trouble getting a post office in that name. There is another Fairfield near Kokomo in Howard County that also couldn’t get a post office under that name because it was already taken; they compromised by naming the post office Oakford but kept the name Fairfield for the community.  Read more about it on  John Updike’s site here: http://www.fairfieldindiana.com/otherfairfield.htm

It seems we outlasted both of them. We even beat off the attempt to build Lafayette Lake on the edge of town (water seems to threaten towns named Fairfield!). If the lake had gone through, the cemetery would have had to be relocated. And so we head into another century, in the walnut grove on the rise above the Wildcat Creek, facing Wildcat Prairie.

SOURCES:

County histories: 1878, 1899, 1909.

Plats in the Tippecanoe County Recorder’s office.

Sesqui 77: Dayton, Indiana. Dayton, Ind.: Sesquicentennial Committee, 1977.

Updike, John C. “Fairfield, Indiana.” http://www.fairfieldindiana.com/index3.htm

James Paige (1773-1830) b. NH;  Hannah Kingsley (1781-1860) b. Rutledge, VT; arrived 1823

James Paige was born in New Hampshire. He was raised a Presbyterian and
studied to become a Presbyterian minister, but became interested in
Universalism and ended his studies when he converted to Universalism. He
married Hannah Kingsley, who was born in Rutledge, Vermont. Their surnames
suggest they were of English descent.

Came to Indiana, Strawtown, lost land
James and Hannah settled in Rutledge, Vermont, where James was employed in
a mill, and started a family. In 1819 they moved to Strawtown, Hamilton
County, Indiana. The area was part of the New Purchase, the
8.5-million-acre piece covering most of central Indiana that had been
purchased from the Indians by a series of treaties the preceding year. They
settled on land that had not yet been surveyed or offered for sale, opening
a mill there. When land sales were begun, the Paiges discovered that,
contrary to local custom which gave the resident first chance at the plot
he had settled and improved, someone had bought their land, refusing even
to pay for their improvements. This sounds like an incident involving John
Connor, an Indian trader who had a trading post at Connorsville. The Paiges
were forced to move on. Several other families who came to Dayton about the
same time were listed on the same page of the 1820 census: Paige, McGeorge,
Bush, and Horram. Perhaps all four came here because of this incident.

Moved to Sheffield twp, spring 1823
In the spring of 1823, the Paiges moved to Sheffield township, settling
near an Indian village called Wyandott. There were two families already
there whose names were not recorded. The Richard Baker family arrived about
the same time as the Paiges. Since Baker is in Switzerland county in the
1820 census, it appears that they did not come together but just happened
to arrive at the same time.

Problems in swamp
After selecting a home site, James returned to Hamilton County to load up
his household goods and with three of his sons, Charles (18), Phineas (11),
and Edward (9), started back west. They probably followed the Strawtown
trace, which approximated the later route of State Road 38, as far as
Frankfort, then took a route that became what is today called Newcastle
Road into Tippecanoe County. In the Black Swamp in present-day Boone
County, the overloaded wagon became mired in the mud. It was decided to
unload part of the goods and leave the two youngest sons, Phineas and
Edward, to guard them. James and Charles would take the wagon with part of
the goods on to the chosen site, then return for the belongings left behind
and the two boys. James had to go to act as guide, and Charles was needed
to drive the wagon and, probably, to help unload.

Settled in Indian village
They delivered their load and returned to the swamp for the two boys and
the rest of their household goods. They built a cabin at the Indian
village. This has always been thought to have occurred at Wyandott, but
actually the Indian village was about a half mile north of the eventual
site of Wyandott, at the mouth of a small spring or run in Indian or
Kingston Hollow. The Paige cabin was either at the Indian village or at the
location of the future town of Wyandott. About where Wyandott cemetery is
today there was a trading post run by Simon Peter Langlois, either a French
trader married to a Potawatomi woman or their son. The Indians probably had
access to trade goods, and therefore would have been using some metal and
pottery utensils and have had some cloth garments. Their village was a
combination of wigwams (the traditional rounded hut) and cabins without
chimneys.

Left Phineas at Indian village to go back for rest of family
After building the cabin and planting some corn, Paige returned to
Strawtown for the rest of the family. Phineas was left alone in the cabin
to keep an eye on things. Presumably his neighbors kept an eye on him.

Land on an Indian reserve; trip to Fort Wayne to secure land
When the time came to secure ownership of his land, Paige discovered that
it was not government land after all, but was owned by the children of a
Miami chief, Jean-Baptiste Richardville, son of a French trader and a Miami
woman, the sister of Chief Little Turtle. Paige contacted Indian agent John
Tipton and made a trip to Richardville’s village at Fort Wayne and made
arrangements to stay on the land. No record of a deed to James has so far
been found. Perhaps he decided to have the land put in his son’s name, for
Charles took title to a plot, but it is not on the Richardville Reserve,
although it is on the northern border of the Reserve. Or perhaps he merely
made some arrangements to stay on the land without legal ownership, for the
entire reserve was sold in 1829 to Samuel McGeorge. Paige died in 1830.

Firsts
The Paiges are given credit for several firsts: first ground broken, first
corn planted, first wheat planted, first Fourth of July celebration (1824),
first religious services in their home, first deaths in their home (the
Thompson family), first brick house (1827), first rail fence. In addition,
Mrs. Richard Baker delivered the first white child born in the township and
taught the first school (a subscription school in her cabin) and the first
Sunday school.

Children
The Paiges had a number of sons and daughters. Buried at Dayton with James and Hannah are Charles M. Paige (1805-1871), Franklin K. Paige (1809-1866), Phineas D. Paige (1812-1894) and John O. Paige (1822-1845). Buried in Vermont before they left there was an infant named Franklin Kingsley Paige (1802-1807). Other children included James Sullivan Paige (1810-1867 d. Boone Co, Iowa), Edward (1814-?), George (1816-?), and at least one daughter (1818-?).

Burial
The Paiges are buried in Dayton Cemetery: James:  http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Paige&GSiman=1&GScid=293417&GRid=24771058&
Hannah: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=24771100

James Paige and Hannah Kingsley Paige stone in Dayton Cemetery. The wording at the bottom tells of their early arrival as some of the first settlers in the county.

SOURCES:

Findagrave, Dayton Cemetery.

Ilgenfritz, Eleanor. “Life of the Indians and Early Settlers at Wyandotte: Notes obtained from Mr. Elmer Waters, South Raub.” Paper prepared for 4th annual Sheffield Township Community Day Picnic and 2nd annual Pioneer Day of the Tippecanoe County Historical Association, Aug. 17, 1934.

The John Tipton Papers. 3 vols. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1942.

Keppler, C. J., ed. Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties. Washington, DC: GPO, 1904.

McCollough, Alameda. “Peter Longlois’s Trading Post.” Tippecanoe County Historical Society, Alameda McCollough Research Library.

Sesqui 77: Dayton, Indiana. Dayton, Ind.: Dayton Indiana Sesquicentennial Committee, 1977.

Tippecanoe County Historical Association, Alameda McCollough Research Library, censuses, local records.

Tippecanoe County, Clinton County, and Hamilton County, Indiana published biographies.

William H. Harrison Papers. Washington D.C.: Library of Congress, 1958.

David H. Gregory and wife Mariah Wilson Gregory

David Hiram Gregory platted the first addition to the town of Fairfield and renamed the town Dayton in return for donating a lot for a school when the three plats were joined. The story goes that the post office wouldn’t grant an office by the name of Fairfield because there was already one by that name in the state, so a change of name was required. Gregory donated a lot for a school in return for the honor of renaming the town. But Gregory Drive was disallowed by the County Area Plan Commission because there is another Gregory street, in Lafayette, near the Aloca aluminium plant. Therefore Marquis was substituted for it at the last minute.

David H. and Mariah Wilson Gregory

arr ca 1828 (1801–84; 1806–72)

David Gregory came from a Virginia family who moved to southern Ohio via Kentucky. His father was said to have known Daniel Boone and General Anthony Wayne. David Gregory was born in Butler County, Ohio. His mother was Margaret Warwick, his father, David Gregory. He had relatives who were residents of Hamilton County in the early 1820s, which ties him in with the earliest families in Dayton.

In Ohio, David married Maria Wilson and with her brother Jesse worked at digging the Miami Canal. He and Maria decided to move west, to the land his Warwick cousins and a brother had purchased for them in Dayton. When they arrived in 1828, they settled in the cabin that had been prepared for them by these relatives, who had come a few years earlier.

Gregory plats an addition to Fairfield

He found that his land adjoined a town platted in two parts in 1829, and in 1830 he divided a portion of his land into lots. His 24-lot plat is recorded as an addition to Fairfield, suggesting that the settlement was going by that name. When the town applied for a post office, the name was rejected because there was already a post office named Fairfield in the state. Gregory suggested calling the settlement Dayton, probably after Dayton, Ohio, a large town on the northern edge of the area of Ohio where many of the settlers had originated. The suggestion was accepted. One version says Gregory offered to give land for a school if the town were named Dayton, and he did deed a lot to Dayton School District in 1831 (lot 19 Gregory’s 1st addition).

Family

The couple raised a family of six children on their farm on the northern edge of Dayton. Their home stood east of Dayton Road, perhaps on the northeast corner of Dayton Road and College Street. Gregory was a Mason and a Democrat who became a Republican when Lincoln ran in 1860. They were both members of the Universalist church. Both David and his wife Mariah are buried in Dayton Cemetery, Dayton, Indiana. David: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Gregory&GSiman=1&GScid=293417&GRid=23726458&

Maria (Mariah): http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Gregory&GSiman=1&GScid=293417&GRid=23726561&

 

SOURCES:

1878 Atlas.

bio from 1878 Atlas, found online 19 September 2013 at http://www.ingenweb.org/intippecanoe/bios9.html

Cleek, George Washington. Early Western Augusta Pioneers: Including the Families of Cleek, Gwin, Lightner, and Warwick, and Related Families of Bratton, Campbell, Carlile, Craig, Crawford, Dyer, Gay, Givens, Graham, Harper, Henderson, Hull, Keister, Lockridge, McFarland, and Moore. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1957.

Deeds. Registrar’s Office. Tippecanoe County, Indiana.

Gregory Cemetery, Hosted by Rootsweb, 27 August 2009. Accessed 29 August 2013. http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohbutcem/LibertyTwpCem/Gregory/GregoryCem.htm

Sesqui 77: Dayton, Indiana. Dayton, Ind.: Dayton Sesquicentennial Committee, 1977.