Wheeling On A Bumpy Road

In years gone by, it was not unusual for newspaper articles to be published with no byline. Contemporaries may have known the author, possibly the editor, but no identification for later readers to identify them.

Such is the April 24, 1880, article in The Muncie Daily News. Said author and a small entourage apparently went for a leisurely drive out Wheeling Pike one Tuesday afternoon. Published was a fairly long and nicely detailed description of the landscape as they made their way though Fairmount. Below is an excerpt regarding the Delaware County portion of their trip.

A Trip To the Country
The Crops, Roads, Men and Things

The writer left Muncie about half past one o'clock Tuesday afternoon in a buggy drawn by two of Smith & Gilbert's best bays. The afternoon was delightful. We traveled north on the Wheeling gravel road, which is just now about as rough as is has been for years. The trees were just beginning to out on their summer clothes and field of wheat and grass were robed in green. Plowing, harrowing, hauling and sowing seeds was being done on almost every farm. The woman were busy too, making garden, while some were making soap. Not a field of poor looking wheat is to be seen except where water stood in the winter, between Muncie and Hackelman, five miles west of Fairmount in Grant County. Many farmers are pasturing their stock on their wheat fields. Such flattering prospects for an immense wheat crop, has never been witnessed in this section of the country. The only thing farmers fear is that the growth is too rank, but is there is not too much rain and the weather keeps dry and cool they do not anticipate any serious damage to... [illegible]...but little flax seed being sown between this and Wheeling, only a field now and then. Much sod ground has been broken for corn. Many fields of new ground are being cleared off and plowed for the first time since the world began-at least so far as heard from. A great deal of new fencing has been done, and a majority of the farms appear improved in many respects.

The town of Wheeling, in appearances, is the worst dilapidated place in all of Delaware County. Every house in it seems to be decaying. There is a lack of paint everywhere; then the carpenters have neglected to make any repairs for years, and unless something is done soon, some of the old land marks used as dwelling houses, will crumble to dust and tumble to the ground, and be known no more forever. The fact that the citizens have never enough pride and enterprise to gravel the streets insode the corporation limits, is a shame and a disgrace to somebody. The Muncie and Wheeling turnpike extends from Muncie to the south corporation limit of Wheeling. The travelers going north after riding twelve miles on a good gravel road, plunge suddenly into Wheeling, and at the same time, into the wet season, a mudhole.

Then we leave that village, and travelling, what is in the winter season, one of the worst roads in the country, the Jonesboro road, which is, perhaps, in about as good a condition now as it has even is at this season of the year. After passing the "Black Hills," and a short distance beyond the Wheeling Cemetery, in which lies the early pioneers of that locality, we come to a comfortable looking farm. It is the home of Mr. Samuel Gregory, brother of R. S. Gregory, of  this city. A half mile or so further on is the Judge McCormick old farm, not the home of Next McCormick, a well-to-do farmer, and widower of several years' experience. He still lives in the old house and looks well after his herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. He knows as well how to save a dollar as he knows how to make it. Last summer the spirit of improvement got hold on him, and the result was a nice new barn. Between his place and the county line of Grant County, there is nothing of interest, except to note that the ancient mudhole remembered by every one who has traveled that way, is now repaired, but for the general swamp-like appearance on either side of the grade, one would not recognize the locality. We finally reach the county line road along which we pass between Delaware and Grant. 

The article continues a play-by-play of the trip as the travelers continued northwest describing more fields as the trip continued into Wednesday. It is hard, in the modern day and age, that a half day's ride only landed them ten mile south east of Fairmount where they spent the night. Names mentioned in passing in the remaining portion of the article include farmers George Smiley, John Jones, W. W. Hoover, John D. Kirkwood, William Millspaugh, Leander Millspaugh, Isaiah Howard, Eig Richards, and Daniel Richards. The party seemed to go no farther than the settlement of Hackleman, and there is no discussion about the return trip or the reason for going at all.

The writer certainly presents a harsh visualization of Wheeling. It is almost hard to balance the description with the quiet, well-kept hamlet we know today. I will same that some things have not changed. There are certainly some stretches of payment in need of attention. But progress in a variety areas has turned their 30 mile two-day ride into a easy trip taking less than an hour.

Partying Hard in Bucktown

It is hard to imagine that the tiny, quiet, well-kept hamlet of Wheeling was once a bubbling little town. Wheeling of 2020 has no businesses, no school, and a 'maybe' on a church. Those of us in the 50-60 year old range may recall an arcade in the storefront of the two-story building that once graced the northwest corner of the intersection of Wheeling Pike and Eaton-Wheeling Pike. South is Muncie, West is Jonesboro and East is Eaton. Not exactly a hub of humanity. In an earlier time, the town was a fair amount livelier as described in this commentary in the Fairmount News of 28 May 1891.

In the old quaint village of Wheeling, consisted of clapboard houses and rickety hen coops reposes a suburb known as Bucktown. This Bucktown also has a very commodious saloon known as the Growler. And many are the citizens that rush this self same Growler, where whiskey runs free as the waters on the beautiful Mississinewa and is dished out to the young and old in any shape or quantity. Free for all fights are engaged in freely without extra charge. Dances are frequent, and can-cans are by no means a new feature. It looks to repectable citizens from a stump near by, that such a nuisance ought not to be tolerated in a decent locality. "But sich is life."

I am still stuck on the fact that Wheeling had a 'suburb'.