Mysteries of Warren County, Indiana: Panoramic Photographs of Steam-Powered Threshing (Last Installment in This Series)

In 1999, my father and I drove in search of the locations of four panoramic photographs of steam-powered threshing taken by Lighty Photo Company of Williamsport, Indiana: a studio recognized for its panoramic images, many of which are in online collections. Brothers Lewis E. and Charles A. Lighty were the photographers. I had obtained prints of the panoramic photographs in Lafayette from Berry’s Camera Shop, which, incidentally, went out of business in 2012 after sixty-four years. My father and I found where three of the four photos were taken. The location of the fourth remains a mystery.

In the time when Lighty produced the photos in the county seat of Warren County, steam engines that powered threshing machines traveled from farm to farm on a ring, or run. The threshers separated grain from the stalks on which it had grown and cleaned the grain, such as wheat or barley. Long thereafter, the generations that had participated in steam threshing, or “thrashing” as the word was often spelled, fondly recalled the season. Families collaborated in the harvest and sat down to tables laden with food during “dinner,” which took place when the whistle blew at noon. My book entitled The Harvest Story: Recollections of Old-Time Threshermen (Purdue University Press, 2001) commemorated the threshing era in all its glory. The Lighty images captured much of the excitement of yesteryear on Hoosier farms.

(Above) Gus Gephart’s J. I. Case Steam Engine

And His Nichols & Shephard Red River Special Threshing Machine

At the Clapham Farm on Bethel Road East of Attica, Indiana

Photograph by Lighty Photo Company, Williamsport, Indiana

(Below) My Photograph of the Same Location in 1999

My father and I discovered that the J. I. Case Threshing Machine Company engine and two-wheel tender, and the Nichols & Shepard Red River Special thresher belonged to Gus Gephart. Gus had the outgoing personality of a promoter. In the 1909 Case catalog, Gus is quoted as saying, “The Case coal tender and tank are convenient, and you never need to wait for water. I would not be without a 2-wheel tender tank if I owned a dozen outfits.” Gus hailed from a farm near Otterbein in Benton County, and he rented a farm near Attica in Fountain County. The photo was taken at the Clapham Farm just west of Bethel Cemetery and east of Attica. In the late 1920s, Gus moved back to the Gephart homestead near Otterbein. Gus held rodeos on the family farm and hired Charles Albert “Charley” or “Cobbie” Cobb’s band to perform music for the rodeo crowd. Charley was my grandmother’s brother. As I recall, the name “Bethel” was written on the back of the original panoramic print. Given that clue, my father correctly guessed that the Lighty image was taken near Attica.

(Above) E. H. Wilson's Baker Steam Engine Threshing

At Charles Weigle’s Farm Near Green Hill, Indiana

Photograph by Lighty Photo Company, Williamsport, Indiana

Photo Reproduced on Pages 102 and 103

In The Steam Tractor Encyclopedia: New Expanded Edition

By John F. Spalding and Dr. Robert T. Rhode

Available on Amazon

(Below) My Photograph of the Same Location in 1999

Barn and Silo Hidden Behind Trees

Charles Weigle’s farm, three quarters of a mile east of Green Hill, was the location of Lighty’s photo of a Baker steam engine and accompanying machines owned by E. H. Wilson. My father knew where Charles Weigle had lived, so it was easy to find where Lighty set up his camera.

(Above) Keck–Gonnerman Steam Engine Threshing

At Henry Lohmyer’s Farm in Warren County, Indiana

Photograph by Lighty Photo Company, Williamsport, Indiana

Photo Reproduced on Pages 42 and 43

In The Harvest Story: Recollections of Old-Time Threshermen

By Robert T. Rhode

Available on Amazon

(Below) My Photograph of the Same Location in 1999

Henry Lohmyer’s farm was the scene where a Keck–Gonnerman outfit was threshing. While my father napped in the car beside the Williamsport–Washington Township Library, I researched the location of the Lohmyer farm and found it in a turn-of-the-century map. The Lohmyer home was two miles north of Hedrick and two miles west on the Illinois state line. We drove directly to the site and recognized it at once.

(Above) Nichols & Shephard Steam Engine Threshing

At Unknown Location in Warren County, Indiana

Photograph by Lighty Photo Company, Williamsport, Indiana

The background of the unidentified photo features a road that runs between a fine brick house at the left (a small part of which can be seen close to the smokestack of the Nichols & Shepard engine) and a white house with a porch and two dormer windows at the right. If anyone recognizes where the photograph was taken, let me know.

Mysteries of Warren County, Indiana: Kickapoo Falls

I include Kickapoo Falls in my series of mysteries because I regard the place as mysterious. In the 1960s, my parents took my brother and me to see the cliff, which was on Kickapoo Creek deep in a forest across the Wabash River from Attica, Indiana. The rocky cleft loomed up from the shadows and impressed my young imagination as ancient and elemental: a defile formed from cosmic clashes. I saw no water splashing from the heights, but I guess that rivulets might cascade from the stone precipice during rainy weather. My father warned us children not to circle around to the top of the falls—a proposal from my brother, as I remember—because someone long before had slipped and died. I needed no further persuasion, as I was fearful of heights anyway. I felt relieved when we returned to our car.

Kickapoo Falls in Warren County, Indiana

In his article entitled “The Potawatomi Reservations in Benton, Fountain, Warren and Tippecanoe Counties,” published in The Indiana Magazine of History, Attica attorney and historian J. Wesley Whickcar (occasionally spelled Whicker—which is a mystery to me) said that Sheshepah, or Little Duck, the representative of the Kickapoo and Potawatomi, was the son of a Potawatomi father and a Kickapoo mother. Sheshepah was born at Kickapoo Falls. He signed the treaty at Greenville, Ohio, on July 22nd in 1814 as chief of the Kickapoo and affixed his signature to three subsequent treaties. Allegedly, he lived to be 110, when Nankuah murdered him at Nebeker Springs near Covington in Fountain County.

When my family visited Kickapoo Falls, the site was on private property. After I had left for college, the cliff became a destination for rock climbers, and the landowner did not want to be held responsible for any injury; accordingly, the falls were closed to visitors.

My father was right (as he nearly always was): a person had died at the falls. She was Elizabeth Jean Cecil, age 24. She perished on Halloween in 1942. She had taught social sciences and physical education classes at Attica High School for only a year. She and Harold Bowman, a high school student, visited Kickapoo Falls “on a bicycle outing,” according to her obituary posted on Findagrave.com. The obituary continues, “She was gathering moss when she lost her footing and fell.”

I saw Kickapoo Falls only once, but, to this day, I recall the place as exceedingly somber. Edgar Allan Poe’s poem entitled “Ulalume” mentions a “ghoul-haunted woodland.” I consider Kickapoo Falls such a ghastly place.

Mysteries of Warren County, Indiana: J. Frank Hanly

“He remains one of Indiana's most controversial governors.” So Wikipedia summarizes the public service of James Frank Hanly, the 26th Governor of Indiana from 1905 to 1909. “J. Frank” was from Williamsport, the county seat of Warren County. I grew up in Pine Village, a town in the same county.

What made Hanly so controversial? We will soon see.

J. Frank Hanly

Governor of Indiana from 1905 to 1909

Born in a log cabin in Champaign County, Illinois, in 1863, Hanly was the youngest of seven children. He attended a rural school near Homer. Eventually, he enrolled in Danville’s Eastern Illinois Normal School. He moved to Warren County, Indiana, and taught public school. Married to Eva A. R. Simmer in 1881, Hanly studied law and entered Judge Joseph M. Rabb’s law office in Williamsport in 1889. Of the Hanlys’ five children, only one lived beyond childhood.

Hanly served in the Indiana State Senate. He won election to a term in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1899, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. Hanly delivered fiery, sanctimonious speeches to defeat his Democratic rival and to become Governor. In Indianapolis, he charted his own course without conforming to the wishes of the Republican Party that had nominated him. He championed temperance and prohibition and warred against such corruption as gambling. He worked to ensure that government offices would perform their functions in a non-partisan manner. He required the state to begin keeping accurate financial records. It was during his administration that Indiana mandated sterilization of various individuals in custody, but the law was overturned two years later. Hanly put many state officials on trial for embezzlement.

While Hanly was Governor, public officials were caught paying gambling debts with government expense accounts at French Lick’s resort hotel, which was owned by Thomas Taggart, chair of the Democratic National Committee. Hanly authorized the state police to raid French Lick, where slot machines, roulette wheels, and other gambling paraphernalia were seized. The suit that Hanly brought against Taggart became bogged down until it was dropped after a Democratic governor was elected.

After his governorship, Hanly lectured on prohibition. He became the Prohibition Party’s candidate for President of the United States in the 1916 election, receiving approximately 1.2 percent of the vote; President Woodrow Wilson was elected to a second term. In 1920, Hanly won a case before the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages. Through a public referendum, Ohio had tried to overturn the amendment. On a speaking tour during the same year, Hanly passed away from injuries received when a Pennsylvania freight train struck the automobile in which he was a passenger near Dennison, Ohio. He lies buried at Hillside Cemetery in Williamsport. In keeping with his morality, his marker is understated.

Hanly’s public life can be summarized in the noun “crusader”: hence, his status as a controversial figure!