INTRODUCTION

When Indiana was established in 1816, Noble County was forest and swampland, inhabited by Pottawatomie and Miami tribes. Receding glaciers had gouged out many of the area’s lakes (called kettle lakes) and deposited rich soil as well as bogs of muck and peat. Noble County now has 117 lakes that were once connected by swamps that covered more than 10 percent of the land.

As part of an agreement with the local Native Americans, the federal government put up a brick residence/council house for Chief Wawaasaa, between 1816 and 1821. The building was destroyed by what was most likely a tornado. After the local tribes moved west, settlers repurposed the fallen bricks to use in constructing their home chimneys.

In April 1827, Joel Bristol and his family became the first recorded white settlers in Noble County. But they may not have been the first white people to see the area. Another settler later found a stone with an engraving that was carved by Andrew Clinton: “I was taken prisoner bey the Indians in 1776.”

The area was part of Allen County, having previously been in regions attached to first Randolph County, then Knox County. On March 1, 1836, just eight years after the Bristols set up a way station along the Fort Wayne–Goshen Road, Noble County was officially organized. By then, the new population had already reached about 2,000.

Some say Noble County was named after Noah Noble, Indiana governor from 1831 to 1837. However, historical documents indicate that the name came from his brother James, who served as Indiana’s first US senator from 1816 until he passed away in 1831.

Many settlers followed the Fort Wayne–Goshen Trail through the western part of the county. That would later become part of the first transcontinental road, the Lincoln Highway—the first national memorial to Abraham Lincoln. A 1919 Army convoy trip over that road inspired future president Dwight Eisenhower to champion a national interstate highway system.

With most of the population in the west, it made sense to place the county seat along the future Lincoln Highway. One of the three men appointed to settle the county seat’s “permanent” fate was, as fate would have it, a commissioner named George Fate.

The location chosen was Sparta, in the west central part of Noble County. One citizen even allowed his home to be used as the first courthouse, but the seat of government did not stay there for long. In 1837, it was relocated to Augusta, about five miles straight east.

Citizens in Augusta, though small in numbers, were quite open to the idea. In fact, just as a Sparta resident offered up his home as a courthouse, an Augusta property owner actually built a courthouse on his own land and presented it to county officials in 1840. The first taxpayer-funded building was a primitive log jail. Over the next few years, Augusta developed, gaining two hotels, stores, mills, factories, and several attorneys. A fire destroyed the courthouse in early 1843. Although the remains of the original jail’s cells remained as late as 1882, most of the surrounding land became the Augusta Hills Golf Course before being turned over for farmland.

Port Mitchell, less than three miles south of the county’s center, fought for and got the designation of county seat in 1844. Thanks to a dam, the town had the advantage of waterpower and soon boomed with woolen mills, sawmills, and flouring mills. Government buildings were constructed, and Port Mitchell was to be the final move—until the state legislature decided two years later to give the people of Noble County a final vote.

A spirited debate resulted over where to place the Noble County seat, with speeches and even a campaign song composed as towns vied for the honor. The first election led to a runoff in 1846, and the final vote resulted in none of the existing towns winning. Instead, the county seat would go—this time permanently, for real—to “the Center.”

The loss of the county seat, along with the collapse of a dam used to power mills, marked the end of Port Mitchell’s business interests.

The new county seat took its name from the hometown of one of the commissioners appointed to name it: Albion, New York. Town records were moved there in September 1847, and in 1849 a jail was built. In 1859, arson consumed the courthouse and almost took the town with it. In 1876, the jail was replaced with a building that now houses the Noble County Old Jail Museum.

The population of the town was about 70 by 1848, and two years later it topped 250 (many of them county officials and lawyers). Since Albion was platted right at the border between two townships, one square mile was taken from each and given over to Albion Township, making that the smallest township in the United States.

Albion might have dominated as Noble County’s major city, if not for the railroad. The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad was built through the northern third of Noble County in 1857, bringing sudden growth to communities like Kendallville, Brimfield, Wawaka, and Ligonier. Kendallville, at the junction of two railroad lines and the county’s main road in the east, became the largest community in Noble County.

Kendallville’s nearest competition, Lisbon, languished but became a station for the Underground Railroad that brought escaped slaves north. Augustus H. Whitford was the stationmaster and conductor in Lisbon.

Farther south, the Wesleyan church in LaOtto was also a station for the Underground Railroad, but that was not the only railroad to come through. While the town was founded as Simon’s Corners in the 1830s, the name morphed into Simonsville. It changed again to Grand Rapids Crossing after two railroad lines (the Grand Rapids & Indiana and the Eel River) intersected there. It was not until 1875 that Noble County commissioners approved a new name: LaOtto.

Besides Kendallville, the only other city in Noble County is in the northwest corner: Ligonier is a historic Jewish community featuring one of the few surviving 19th-century synagogues in the country. By 1900, Ligonier had 300 Jewish residents and was called “Little Jerusalem,” but that population later dwindled.

Railroads were more successful than the state’s failed attempt in the 1830s to build a series of canals, but a dam built for the canal project created Sylvan Lake. Noble County’s largest lake, the 669-acre body of water still exists decades later. In early years, the dam collapsed at least once, but was rebuilt and later reinforced.

Wildlife areas and vacation spots now dot Noble County, including the unique Black Pine Animal Sanctuary and the recreational jewel of Noble County, Chain O’ Lakes State Park.

This visual history of Noble County and its seat of justice, Albion, cannot begin to cover every detail of close to two centuries of settlement and progress. Instead, this volume is meant to be a slice of life—an overview of the area’s rich history.