This Sunday was a perfect day for rest, and I indulged in a generous amount. Had breakfast at eight o'clock, after which I strolled through the streets of the Van Buren County capital, finding them generally like all other village streets, but with enough individuality about them to make them interesting. The High School stood, with the usual dignity of educational institutions, prominent among the neat cottages, and in the business portion two or three newspaper offices gave unfailing proof of local alertness.
The east and west branches of the Paw Paw River meet here and hurry on to pay their tribute to the Kalamazoo, offering their united strength to the business concerns which man has erected on their shores. The outlying farms thus naturally irrigated are very rich, and give, with the extensive lumbering interests, a very flourishing and prosperous appearance to this section of country and a certain briskness to the trade at Paw Paw.
On returning to my room I copied the testimonials given me by Colonel Curtenius and Major Judson of Kalamazoo, wrote several letters, attended to some neglected dates in my journal, and made my plans for the next few days. It was my intention to go to South Bend by rail the following morning, to lecture there in the evening and then proceed to Grand Rapids, where I was announced for Tuesday. My horse was in the meantime undergoing new and vigorous treatment which I hoped would permanently cure him.
One hundred and Second Day.
Grand Central Hotel,
South Bend, Indiana,
August Twenty-first.
At ten o'clock I left Paw Paw, reached Decatur at noon, registered at the Duncombe House and then continued my journey by rail. I hardly realized that I was out of Michigan in this town on the St. Joseph, for the river belongs to the "Wolverines" with the exception of the capricious South Bend, and the streets have the breadth and abundance of shade that have won so much admiration for the cities of Michigan. It has, besides, the Hoosier enterprise, and began to be an important manufacturing place fifteen years ago. The first settlement began in 1831 with a handful of houses and a population of a hundred souls. It has now reached over 10,000. Prominent among the resources to which its growth may be attributed is its proximity to the hard-wood forests of Northern Indiana and Michigan.
These woods have proven a bonanza to South Bend. Enterprising manufacturers have drawn from their unfailing source; prominent among them being the Studebaker Brothers, who have had an enviable career. These enterprising men started in 1852 with a cash capital of sixty-eight dollars, and a knowledge of blacksmithing which they had acquired at their father's forge on the Ohio. Thus equipped they went to work, turning out two wagons the first year. The present output makes that humble beginning seem almost incredible. Studebaker's wagons are famous and the firm controls capital stock amounting to a million of dollars. The other notable enterprise is the Oliver Chilled Plow Works, founded in 1853 by James Oliver, a Scotchman, who came to Indiana to follow the vocation of an iron master, and who ultimately had the satisfaction of exporting his manufactures to his native country.
The most distinguished citizen of South Bend at the time of my visit, and the most prominent man in Indiana, was Hon. Schuyler Colfax, whose career as a statesman was a singularly brilliant one. For over a quarter of a century he had been eminent in state and national politics. Beginning life as an editor he founded in 1845 the St. Joseph Valley Register, an organ of considerable popularity and which at the time had a strong influence in local Whig circles. His subsequent duties as Speaker of the House of Representatives and the friend and adviser of Lincoln, kept him out of editorial work, and later he was entirely engrossed with affairs of state. In 1868 he was elected to the office of Vice-President under General Grant as chief executive.