Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1912 — Sixty-Seven Years In Rensselaer. [ARTICLE]

Sixty-Seven Years In Rensselaer.

Sixty-seven years .ago yesterday W. F. Powers, Mrs. Mary Jane Hopkins and Mrs. Candace Loughridge landed in Rensselaer, coming here from Ft. Wayne. Mr. Powers was then but four years of age, and has but a dim remembrance of the overland trip. Then there were not over a half dozen houses in Rensselaer, and what farming was done in this vicinity was the raising of a little corn *and truck on the dry knobs. Game was plentiful, but watet was everywhere, and such a thing as a dredge or open ditch was unknown, Bridges were also unknown. The first ditch Mr. Power* ever saw was on the Welsh farm south of town, which was made with plows pulled by a capstan and a yoke of oxen for motive power. Rensselaer lhas been-the continuous home of Mrs. Loughridge since that time, and almost the continuous residence of Mrs. Hopkins and Mr. Powers. The changes wrought during these sixty-seven years seem almost marvelous to them, as they must to all old settlers.