Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1877 — STATE NEWS. [ARTICLE]

STATE NEWS.

Bedford receives returned Californians with prayer meetings. Zionsville is the most musical town of its size in the country. Ligonier boasts a citizen whose beard is twenty-one Inches long. A woman at Plymouth caught a 10-pound pike on a recent Sunday. Over 2,500 persons have signed the Red Ribbon temperance pl edge in Indianapolis. Shelbyville, the home of Hon. Thos. A. Hendricks, went republican at the late city election for the first time in many years. One hundred and fourteen dollars’ worth of fox scalps were harvested, cured and marketed in Spencer county last year. Bowen’s paper mill at Delphi, valued at $25,000 to $30,000, wax burned Wednesday (night of last week. It will be rebuilt. Vanderbilt promises to bnild a depot at South Bend for the benefit of his railroad, wherest the local papers are much rejoiced. It is announced that Hon. Frank H. Hurd, late member of congress for the Toledo, Ohio, district, will probably the commencement oration at Notre Dame. St Joseph county papers begin to tell of old farmers up that way who have been hording their wheat for four years now crawling out of their hiding places and sniffing the market air. On the 6th instant, George Halstead, a well-known citizen of Harmony, suicided by shooting himself in the right tertiple. He died al-, most instantly. Financial embarrassment is the supposed cause. J. M. Parvin, a leading merchant of Carlisle, shot himself through the mouth with a Derringer, on the morning of the 7th instant, before he arose. He stood high with his neighbors and acquaintances. Cause supposed to be the disgraceful conduct of a son. Michigan City Odd Fellows have decided to build a brick house three stories high, forty by ninety feet on the ground, this season. The ground floor will be occupied by stores, the second floor will be arranged for a public hall, and the third floor devoted to lodge use. It is announced that the plan ot the harbor at Michigan City is to be changed. The breakwater will be extended to the west pier, dosing up tho present entrance, but leaving a wider one near the east pier. The Enterprut says this would Require a change of the beacon light. At Indianapolis on the Ist instant in a difficulty growing out of a misunderstanding of an order for a breakfast, Ed. P. Johnson, a colored waiter in a fashionable boarding house, shot and mortally woun'ded William Brown, a cook. The deed was cold-blooded, and, after its commission, Johnson made his escaoe. Brown cannot recover.

A Benton county John Myers is mqch exercised because a Lafayette paper published that he had been up to Lowell in Lake county and murdered a man named Blachley. It was an instance of confusion ot persons from a similarity of names. The Benton county John Myers is an innocent man, while the Lake county John Myers has confessed his crime and been sentenced to the penitentiary for life. At Twin Lakes, three miles south of Plymouth, John Appleman and Jackson Kepler were killed by lightning, at 8 o’clock Saturday afternoon. They were engaged in clearing a piece of land, and had taken refuge under a large tree from the heavy thunderstorm prevailing at the time. The lightning struck the tree, killing both instantly. Appleman was forty-five years of age. He leaves a wife and five children in good circumstance*. Kepler was twenty-two year* of age and unmarried. Professor and Mrs. Vander \Velpen, who were arrested in Goshen and taken away by United States officials on a requisition from Belgium and about whom the Goshenites raised a small rebellion, have returned. The charge was forgery, committed yeara ago; but there was a hitch in tbe extradition treaty and the Vander Valpens were discharged. They immediately returned to their adopted home io Goshen, where they Were joyfully received by the friends that a correct life there bad raised up around them. They were met at the depot by tbe cornet band, of which the professor was leader at the time of his arrest, and given a complimentary concert in tha evening,— South Bend Herald.