Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1871 — Assessments of the K. V. D. Co. in Jasper County. [ARTICLE]

Assessments of the K. V. D. Co. in Jasper County.

Bolow we publish a list, of lnnd owner* in Jasper oonnly who reside Upon properly affected by the operations of the Kankakee Valley Draining Company together with the amount of benefits assessed against them: KEENER. Hams of Owasr*. acres. Dolt* Hear* Dorlnv 84 108 A H Fairchild U7O 1.17. r » Jorph Gnrria 156 530 liardr«M Hnwkiii* 280 2300 UhyMtt Kye* 40 M A L McDonald 40 120 A A Tvlcr 120 MOO Ara Tjlsr 70 IGO ClwrloUc Sc.lirrck Ml ItO KANKAKEE. EK A lliev ' 121 4SO S L 111 ii glum US I 240 G \V Contwcil 561 )8?0 Caleb Cooper 200 , 790 f.-ler Dunn .5.0 00 I D Dunn 9*l 8100 Klijnji Kergnaon 80 100 Allred Glazchrnoke 241) 400 Ix-roy S Gillc«pie 50 • 500 Ilerryin.in Joiien 110 1050 S R Jonce 40 350 Tho* M Jones ■ 80 120 O C Jones ' 40 050 .Matlieu M Jones 120 090 Elisabeth Kerr 40 2GO P JUne 40 GO. l'at Maloney 2tHI 1400 Pat .Maloy 53 GO James Poisel 20 30 C Rockwell 100 240 Oil Rockwell ICO 580 M S Seam .40 @1 Joseph II Smith 120 .100 Win Turner 40 200 FreJ Van Patton 007 690 Jonathan Williams ' 240 88(1 G TV EiconHi 80 120 Rebecca Graves 110 1100 \V HEATFIELD. ‘ Martin Adleinan 40 500 Simon S Bush 40 100 Tlios Deselms 120 00 Parley r inney 80 330 Stilman Gates 120 470 Noah H Gordon 80 100 Elizabeth Hilo 80 530 John tline 100 850 ~~lafayette KyeS 40 200 Hope KMe Neal • 40 20 Mnrv Mvers 80 050 W m H My era 40 250 John II Sliaffusr 448 .)2.'>o Elizabeth ijhrirer ISO 200 1 ‘ Ann L Smith 40 • 100 F C. Stephens 120 870 M M Stephens 80 280 Sophia Tiukhani 31) 195 WALKEK. James Cooper 40 80 4Jeo W F-rrill GO 70 David M Miller ' 400 2060 Henry Snyder 40 80 Sophia Snyder 80 240 Lorenzo Tlnkham 40 50 Geo Wessner 80 260 A large portion of this list is land rindor cultivation and much of it is rather too dry titan too wet, needing irrigation instead of draining. The ssnewsmenis upon this clans of lands are in many instances so high and so out of all jropuftioa with its market value bow or wh«t it will over be worth that few eras pay the aaseseineots levied on lhem and the result w ill be that the property of these people with limited capital will be aold by the sheriff the owners turned out of house and home, empty handed, to seek as beat they may some locality where infamous legislature* have not yet passed laws unfriendly to the actual settler. In numerous places in the county, lands lying in the Iroquois Valley, soytli of what is locally kn,o\vn us the Dividing Ridge—a chain of high barren sand knobs forming the separation between the .Kankakee and Iroquois Valleys—have been included iu the tract supposed to be beneficially affected by the lateral ditches of this proposed system of drainage. The larger portion of this 6aud knob region is worthless fjr agricultural purposes, producing nothing but straggling groves of stunted white and black oak timber.— 'Wherever the timber Las been removed from this land and the experiment of its cultivation made the result is a waste of drifting sand upon which no vogitation can grow without manure and constant irrigation during the'summer.— The assessments upon these lands average *2.12 j per acre. In the.-scope of country fixed upon hv the company as the scene of its operations in Jasper county every foot of land is placed under contribution except that owned by 3lr. L. C.* Janes in Kankakee township, which was omitted by an oversight, but which will yet be added to the list. The board of appraisers do not seem to have been influenced in their judgment of; benefits to accrue to these lands by their quality, and but little difference is made in the assessment of contiguous jack and white oak fiats, sand ridges or sloughs with w'atcr the, year round.— And it was impossible for the gentlemen f composing * the board to make disfittotions of this nature from tho fitet that they were ignorant of ftm topography of the coun. try. , Here was a scope of country eighty miles in length with an average Width Of not Ifess than twelve miles for them to assess. Had the appraisers made personal in•pecion of, each forty acre tract la order to form an intelligent opinion of its value* and the pretakfcle benefits to aecrna from

draining, it would have required not less than four years , time; hut they contented thciusclr.cs with a glance at its general outlines and completed their work in ahoht one year. That the assessments arc outrageous is sliown from‘the fact that at least two prominent members of the Draining Company were so disgusted w ith the ijhscssments upon their lands that they declared they could never pay them and threatened to lmj-rt up the organization it collections were enforced. This being true of wealthy men interested in the corporation, docs it not seem that the weight would be felt with more crushing force by the poor man owning but forty, ejghty, or one hundred and sixty acres, and who has no revenue from which to support his family, pay his taxes and pay the assessments levied by the appraisers other than the labor of his hands? Although the board of appraisers are men for whom wc entertain the highest personal regard and whose judgment of real estate ought to be, and probably is, as good as that df any three men in the State, yet wc , think if they had taken pains to have given these lands that inspection the magnitude of their work and the importance of their position would seem to demand, or if they had even taken time for reflection upon their assessments there certainly could not have been the wide, and wo may say glaringly unfair, difference in the estimates of benefits to accrue to lands in adjoining counties by the operations of this company; From the prospectus of the Kankakee Valley Draining Company recently published it is found that the schedule for Lake county embraces 01,438 acres of laud, tlie aggregate present value of which is appraised at >498,009, to which will result net benefits of $597 ; 794, or nearly 124 per cent. Nowton county has 79,854 acres of laud valued at >345.030 with >513,950 of benefits, or nearly 149 per cent. — Stark has 153,625 acres valued at $097,406 with resulting benefits of $801,278, or nearly 124 per cent. — Porter has 75,543 acres valued at $750,295 upon which the benefits are appraised at $580,074, or 77 per cent. Laporte lias 124,253 acres valued at $903,405 with benefits amounting to $1,098,725, or 114 percent. St. Joseph county has 39,633 acres valued at $290,892 upon which >ho assessment of benefits are $302,034, -or 130 per ceut. Jasper county has 90,457 acres of land valued at $252,225, upon which the benefits assessed are $620,321,'0r about 246 por oenL Wo can see no good reason for this groat difference against Jasper county.

While ail mast admit that a thorough drainage of the great Kankakee Valley as contemplated by the company would bo of incalculable houelit to the northwestern portion of Indiana,' transforming, as it would, a vast miasmatic district of wet land into a healthful tract of fertile fields, a largo portion ol the country laid under contribution iu Jasper county needs no draining more than it has naturally, and a still more extensive portion is nssessed a sum of benefits which added to its present value is more than it will be worth half a century hence even if the expectations of the most sanguine friends of the company are realized. e A meeting of nonresident owners ol land affected by the operations of the Kankakee Valley Draining Company, representing about 000 acres, was held at the Bates House, Indianapolis, last Tuesday. The object of the meeting was to perfect a united opposition to tlie scheme of the draining company and appeal to the courts for a restraining order to prevent the company issuing bonds or commencing work. The prime movers of the meeting were Aqttilla Jones, formerly Auditor of State, who came into possession of his interest iu Kankakee Valley lands by the swamp land swindles of Gov. Willard's administration, and Stephen 11. Moore, of Illinois. It is understood that the firm of Hendricks, Herd & Hendricks are retained as counsel by the laud owners. If the assessments of the draining company could be confined to the lands of such sharks and speculators as were the leading spirits of that meeting there would be no objection urged by those living in the affected district, for the reason there is a possibility draining company may do soiqe public good with the money collected from their assessment of these lands, while as the lands are now situated they benefit no ono but tend to retard the Settlement and development of the country where they are locatod. ; 4

“They may already know it, hut if they don’t, we can tell the people of Jasper county that a county officer of theirs has been getting a large per cent on all tho orders ho gave for blank books and stationery furnished to that county, from a certain house iu Indiana, und that this houso charged this per cent back to the county, in their bills.” —Keutland Gazette. , Just name out that county officer and the stationery house, Brother Connor; we don’t believe the report, but if you knoto it don’t hesitate to speak right out in meetin’.