Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1912 — T. A. Crockett Razes Ancient Log House. [ARTICLE]

T. A. Crockett Razes Ancient Log House.

T. A. Crockett has torn out the old house on his farm that he built 42 years ago of logs, hewing the logs as er the house was up, and some years later weather-boarding it. When Tom built the house he cut the logs from the large, heavy timber surrounding it. Since then the timber has all been cut off and the stumps grubbed out. The land is a part of that entered by Mr. Crockett's father when he came from Kokomo to Jasper county in 1852. Mr. Crockett, Sr. died in 1854, Then all the country south until one reached the May farm near Remington was wild and open prairie. What is now called the Wakarusa ditch, then called the “state ditch,” was being constructed by the late Charlie Platt, who was contractor for the ditch and was camped just south of where Mr. Crockett’s house is now located.

The work of digging the ditch, ws»ch was to be 30 feet wide at the top. was done by spade and wheelbarrow, and Charlie had a gang of about fifty Irishmen on the job and kept about four or five barrels of hiskey on hand to make the spades work easy and keep the Irishmen good natured. There was but two places to cross to the south before this ditch was built, on knobs, one east of Mr. Crockett's about two miles where Lecklider's water power saw-mill was located, and the other two miles west at what was known as Daugherty s Ford. The land in along this ditch was then practically valueless-. but Sir. Crockett has seen the country drained and developed until Itfod there has sold for $lO5 per acre, and none of it can now be bought for less than about $75 per ■acre.:- ''-‘r On the site of this old lo| house in which Mr. Crockett raised his family, he is going to- erect a new sjx-rootn frame house and is now haring the foundation put \n for same. Mr. Crockett's son George new- lives on the farm, the former living in lawn.