Paul Miner

Delving Into Yester~Year

Local historian and writer Paul Miner takes items from The Republican’s Yester-Year column to develop an interesting, informative and often humorous article.

To the Editor:

Someone left switches outside “a certain man’s door” in Hazelwood in late March 1896. I wonder whether it was the White Caps, those self-righteous morality police known to whip, beat and even lynch people. “A few written words of explanation were left with the switches.” Was the man a slacker, a drunk, a wife-beater? Did he abuse his children or livestock?

It’s almost a certainty the neighbors knew.

Area farmer Carl Labertew bought “a small dirigible of the Zeppelin type” in April 1916. He denied plans to raid towns; instead, he hoped to make some money at county fairs. A southern Indiana paper reported Carl had “thrown the town into a fever of excitement.” Germany used Zeppelins beginning in 1915 to bomb English cities. The small unincorporated community had a post office from 1884 to 1937. As of 1914, Ethor Milhon had been postmaster for 20 years. The town’s leading merchant, before he was 30, he organized a private bank in 1898 that became Farmers Bank of Hazelwood.

He operated movie theaters in Hazelwood and Stilesville, and co-owned the community phone system for a while.

Two Farmers Bank hold-up men fled with nothing in May 1925 after one asked for change for a $5 bill. Just then, Milhon walked in, and one robber shouted, “throw up your hands.”

Frustrated when teller Emma Leitzman took too long, one bandit shot at her, hitting a comb in her hair and piercing her dress collar. The crooks jumped into a waiting Lincoln and eluded capture after a long pursuit.

Ethor died suddenly in October 1930 after arriving in Clayton to take a traction car to Indianapolis. Feeling ill, he saw a town doctor that morning, laid down and when the doctor checked on him 90 minutes later, he was gone, a year and a day after his son Emory had died.

A young Hazelwood man stole a horse and buggy from outside the Pabst Brewing Company in Indianapolis one Saturday night in January 1894, but detectives got a tip and caught up with him and the horse a day later as he and two young ladies arrived for Sunday evening church. The law took the handcuffed horse thief away “as the choir was singing the opening hymn.”

A 20-year-old tried to elope with a 15-year-old (three months shy of 16) from near Hazelwood in July 1897, but her father, persuaded to intervene, put an inglorious end to their aim.

The couple fled, planning to elope. They met at the Friends Church near town and drove to Amo, but missed the Vandalia train. They spent the night in Coatesville before boarding for Marshall, Illinois. Putnam County sheriff Richard Bunton caught them at Greencastle station. Charles carried nothing beyond a Hopkins & Allen revolver and a broken knife. “The cruel officers” fined the fellow $1 and costs for carrying a concealed weapon, totaling $9.

Charles only had $8.20, which the cops accepted, and he walked home to Clayton with his revolver in his watch pocket, “broken in purse, but not in spirit, as he vowed to have the girl the next time.” Mary’s father took her home. Mr. Thompson was eight years older than his wife, and their first child, Mary, was born when Mrs. Thompson was roughly 17 or 18. That’s immaterial, but interesting, nonetheless.

Greencastle’s paper reported the sheriff had interfered “in more than one prospective life-alliance of young people. He says he hates to do it, but can’t help it.” A reporter said Charles had undergone “a rather tough experience.” He was described as having “a very wide mouth and prominent ears, is not very handsome, was not over-dressed and was chuck full of talk when he got started.” Mary, who was “young and innocent” and “fairly good looking,” blamed her uncle for the couple’s trouble. The reporter declared Mary was “too young to bother long about the sudden stop put to her would-be wedding trip.”

Charles and Mary were married the following month. They had seven children. Charles died in 1950, age 74, and Mary followed 10 years later. They rest together at New Crown Cemetery in Indianapolis.

Paul Miner Lizton _____________________________________________________________________