I found the above item as I was searching through very early Rensselaer newspapers looking for some obituaries. I could not find any obituaries--apparently it was not something the papers covered back then. I was struck by how little local news they had. Most of the coverage was for national and political news, and the papers also included stuff that was not news at all, things like humor and other bits of entertainment. The local news was confined to a column. Here are some of the things in the local news column from Feb 24 of the same newspaper (which seems to have been at best a weekly);
As for obituaries, the library is working on an index of obituaries published in local papers. They have a list of obituaries that were published in the Rensselaer Republican from 1910-1939 and from 1950-59 and are working on other decades. It takes a lot of time to go through ten years of newspapers searching for obituaries and then entering the basic data into a spreadsheet.
Growing up in Newland, North Barkley Township in the 1950s, I knew the "Pinkamink River" of the article as the "Pinkamink ditch."
ReplyDeleteMy mom just recalled a story this week about the Pinkamink area. She lived nearby and she remembered some time around 1939 the horses having rubbed bark off of a tree and human bones fell out. There were many arrowheads found in the area over the years. I can only imagine how long it must have been inhabited by Native Americans before expansion.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Salem Twp., and I remember my father taking us from rural Francesville area to the Pinkamink to do some fishing. It must have been early 1950s, and I recall it was more like a "ditch" and probably not suitable for much fishing. I don't think we stayed very long! I know we didn't catch anything. Perhaps during a time of heavy rains, it might have served well for fishing. I mention this because I've heard it called a "river" or a "settlement." Y'all need to find some real oldtimers in the area to see if they remember family stories about the Pinkamink, what and where it was, what (if anything) happened there, and the origin of the name (maybe Indian?).
ReplyDeleteMy family owned a big whitehouse on a hill . They called it Davis or Davison Settlement. It was on a curve of the “Pinkamink”, supposedly across from a Native Trading Post.
ReplyDeleteA lot of that area was once marshy, after irrigation it became farmland. So our eyes can’t imagine what it may have looked like way back. It may have been more river like at the time. My mom is nearly 90 now, so she’s an old timer and her parents lived in the area for 60+ years. The stories are fading though.
ReplyDeleteMy grandparents & greataunts & uncle owened separate farms north of Rensselaer. My grandfather was born in 1880 & told many stories of people being hanged in Hanging Grove. Some of the prominent men in Rensselaer confirmed this as fact. They say some were hanged for horse or cattle stealing. After my grandparents & mother passed away, my brother & cousin kept the farm until the 1990's when it was sold. I love the area & remember walking through the old cemetaries & picking up many arrow heads. It's a great place to live.
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