The Vidette-Messenger Centennial EditionThe 1936 special edition celebrating Porter County's centennial year . . . .
The following article has been transcribed from the August 18, 1936, issue of The Vidette-Messenger, published in Valparaiso, Indiana. This particular special edition focuses on Porter County's centennial celebration and contains a 94-page compendium of Porter County history up to that time.
Return to the index of articles from The Vidette-Messenger's Porter County Centennial special edition.
Source: The Vidette-Messenger, Valparaiso,
Porter County, Indiana; August 18, 1936; Volume 10, Section 4, Page 5.
FARM HOME OF A. CAMPBELL CENTURY OLD
BY MABEL BENNEY
One of the interesting spots in Porter county is the old Campbell place, a mile
and a half east of the court house on Lincolnway, in Washington township. Adam
S. Campbell was the first white man to settle in the neighborhood of Valparaiso,
he and his wife, Polly Adams Campbell, coming in 1833. They built their house
fronting south on the old Sac Trail, their barns some little distance to the
north of the house. Later the members of the family were buried on a plot of
ground north and east of the barns. Besides the family distant kin and some
strangers found a resting place there. When Samuel Campbell, a son, died in
1909, his children put a cement wall around the plot, that their pioneer kin
might rest there undisturbed till the Judgment Day.
The Sac Trail made a deep dip south of the Campbell house to some springs and
little water course where the braves watered their ponies, cooked their fresh
venison or bear meat, rested and often camped. From there it traveled west past
the old Farrington place, corner of Cemetery Avenue and Carfield, took a decided
turn to the northwest and came diagonally across two blocks to emerge on
Lincolnway at the corner of Greenwich.
When the old LaPorte Road was improved the commissioners decided to get rid of
dip and ran the road between the Campbell home and the barns and grave plot to
the north. A front door with ornate pillars and lintel became the back door
opening toward the pleasant slope to the spring; but the noble trees to the
north furnished a beautiful approach to the remodeled home, a house built on
colonial lines, four square rooms below and four above. It is still occupied by
one of the family, Mrs. Edna Campbell Cain, great granddaughter of Adam S.
Adam S. Campbell and his son Samuel belonged to the Masonic order. Under a pine
tree at the Campbell home in 1841 the first Blue Lodge of free Masons was
organized. Both the father and son, though they attended the Presbyterian
church, always insisted that a man who lived up to his obligations as a Mason
was as good as any churchman.
Samuel Campbell was the father of three sons, Marvin and Myron, manufacturers of
South Bend, Otto who remained on his father's farm and a daughter, Nettie
Campbell Eastburn. Otto is the only one of the children now living.
Article transcribed by Steven R. Shook