Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1905 — VIEWS OF RENSSELAER AND VICINITY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

VIEWS OF RENSSELAER AND VICINITY.

Photo try Joe Sharp. The picture from which the above cut was made was taken by the late Joseph Sharp some 25 or 30 years ago, and two of the parties in the boat are Noble J. York, now a residnt of Rensselaer, and Sylvester Buck, who at that time was a clerk in Kannal’s drug store. O. P. Robinson, who run the mill for several years, is standing in the doorway. The woman in the boat and the man who is about to push it from the bank we are unable to learn the identity. “The old mill” will be remembered by all the older residents of Rensselaer and Jasper county. It was erected about 1855, and stood just south of where Sharp’s photograph gallery is now located. It was used for a sawmill only a few years, but was used for various other purposes until about 1880, when it was torn down, being at the time the property of George Robinßon. There used to be quite a bank of earth just east of it, where the brick livery barn now stands, and on this bank the earlier jolifications and bonfires used to be held, especially so during the civil war. We have not the space to enter into an extended write-up of this old land-mark of the early history of Rensselaer at this time, but the above picture will call up many early recollections among the older residents of our city.

The “Old Mill,” Rensselaer, Ind.