The Starke County Historical Society’s annual meeting is this Thursday, November 17th at the Knox High School Cafeteria.
The carry-in meal begins at 6:00 p.m. You bring a covered dish, and the Historical Society will furnish the meat, beverage, cups, silverware and plates. A short business meeting will be held at 6:50 p.m. with the election of officers and various reports.
The entertainment for the evening will be from Susan Ruth Brown. Susan will bring back many songs from the era of the Civil War. As multi-instrumentalist and songstress, Susan often performs on fretted dulcimer, guitar, zither, autoharp, piano, penny whistle, recorder and various rhythm instruments. She is known for expressive vocals; from Celtic tunes to hard-hitting country songs.
Whoa — what is velocipede? Generally it was an old term for a bicycle or a vehicle on wheels propelled by a human being. It also describes a vehicle used by the railroad industry for rail inspectors – see attachment. It was a light enough vehicle that the operator could easily pull it off the tracks if a train approached him.
In his book, McCormick’s Guide to Starke County (1902), Chester McCormick talks about the different factories in Starke County. North Judson had two pickle factories, an artificial stone factory, a wholesale frog and turtle industry, a cigar manufacturer. Knox also had two pickle factories, a handle factory, a lumber mill, two grain elevators, a tomb stone factory and a velocipede factory. His little book is online and you can read about some of these items on pages 18. The attachment can be found here.
A velocipede factory ????? You know factories and other businesses come and go. One sees this all of the time on the Radio, TV or in the newspaper. Well, apparently, Marion McCormick’s Velocipede factory came and went, also. I can’t find any reference to a velocipede factory in any of the the other history books. So, what does one do when looking for a velocipede factory in Starke County? You Google it, of course. And finally, there it was – the U.S. Government patent for Mr. McCormick’s Velocipede. What he was making was a kit that you could put on your bicycle to be able to travel the railroads. Think about this. Some of the towns in the county had stone roads – some may have had brick streets in the downtown area. But most of the county didn’t have solid roads – most country roads were still sand roads. Did you ever try to peddle a bicycle through loose sand? So, if you had Mr. McCormick’s bicycle attachment and wanted to go from North Judson to Knox, you could hop on the railroad track and start peddling. Ah, a nice, smooth ride. But, watch out for trains!
In finding his patent, we also now have all of the other government patents in our files for Starke County. See attachment for the velocipede patent’s front page.
One of the exhibitors at Sunday’s Starke County Historical Society’s Ice Cream Social will be Wayne and Marilyn Alberding, showing their 1937 Chevrolet truck. It was originally owned by Cox Brothers as a gas delivery truck and has been converted to a flat bed truck.
The annual summer Old Fashioned Ice Cream Social at the Starke County Museum is set for Sunday, July 3rd from 1:00-3:00 p.m. CT. Members of the Starke County Historical Society will be hosting the event.
The event provides a good opportunity to see all three floors of the museum’s exhibits and displays as well as the special exhibits on display outside in the yard.
IHS Board of Trustees Chair Thomas Hoback and Marvin Allen
Marvin Allen of Knox is this year’s recipient of the Indiana Historical Society’s Hubert Hawkins History Award. The presentation will be made during the Society’s annual Founders Day Dinner at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, located at 450 W. Ohio St. in downtown Indianapolis. The Hubert Hawkins History Award is made annually to a local historian for his or her distinguished service and career in local history.
The members of the Starke County Historical Society are inviting the public to a Christmas Open House on Sunday, December 5th at the Starke County Museum at 401 South Main Street in Knox. Ed Hasnerl and his guests will lead the visitors in Christmas carols. The Open House is from 1:00-3:00 p.m. CT with singing at 2:00 p.m.
