- When was Medaryville founded?
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Medaryville was actually platted out early in 1852. A later plat, with
an unnamed "first addition," was done in February 1854. A beautiful
ornate ink drawing of the first plat is to be found in the Deed Records
of Pulaski County, Book C, page 263. Its name as written on the
original plat is "Medary Ville," and nowhere in any of the official
records does the common misnomer "Medarysville" occur.
- Why is Medaryville located where it is?
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The original plat of the town reveals that its site was chosen for a
trio of reasons: it was the point of intersection between the new
railroad and the existing road that settlers used to travel from
Rensselaer to Winamac. In fact, the "Winamac to Rensselaer Road"
followed exactly the path described by Medaryville's Main Street.
Additionally, this was the first point along the new railroad that was
"above" the great prairie that begin just north of Lafayette and
extended through the bank or ridge that is today "Ridge Street" in
present-day Medaryville.
- Is it Waldon, Walden, or Waldron?
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Spelling being what it was in the old days, the name of the owner of the
land East of the tracks in the new town of Medary Ville (Josiah Walden)
was variously spelled in each of the three ways shown above. A bit of sleuthing
reveals that "Walden" is the correct spelling. One widely-reported part
of the Walden myth is that he was "the first white child born in
Dearborn County, Indiana." A brief chat with the county historian there
reveals that Walden's birth, which was in 1805, was in fact not the
first in the county. While she was not sure of the exact name of that
person, it occurred before 1800, and was definitely not Walden.
"Waldron Street" in Medaryville is named based on one of the
misspellings of his name.
- Why does Medaryville have two streets named "Maple?"
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Because one of them, the North-South street just East of Waldron Street,
has had its name changed somewhere along the line from its original
name, which was "Metamonon Street." Metamonon is a corruption of the
Native American name "Metamonong," which was the name they used for the
Little Monon Creek which runs just North of town.
- What part of the current Shultz house was the original?
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A quick trip to the attic revealed the answer to this question. The
original house was what is now the north end of the current house. It
was oriented East-West instead of North-South, and from the outside the
old house encompasses the part including the first three windows from
the North on the upper floor. The roof of the original house is still
there, in the attic of the bigger house.
- When was the big addition made to the house?
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From the abstract of deed, which I was lucky enough to find in an
envelope in a bag of trash that was destined for disposal, it shows that
parts of Lot 4 where the present building sits had different owners
after Joseph Shultz sold it, until Michael Tetzloff became the owner of
both pieces in the mid-1870s. It is assumed therefore, since the
addition was complete when the first county history was written in 1882,
that Tetzloff undertook the addition sometime between 1875 and about 1880.
- Why are some of the lots of the original plat of Medaryville six inches shorter than the others?
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This is due to the differing measuring systems used by the surveyor who
platted the town and the ones who laid out the railroad. Medaryville's
original plat included lots of 8 rods by 4 rods, with streets 3 rods
wide and alleys 1 rod wide. A rod is 16.5 feet. But the railroad right
of way (including Railroad Street) is 100 feet, which is one foot more
than the 99 feet that represents 6 rods. So the extra foot was taken
off of each of the lots that abut the railroad right of way, making them
131.5 feet instead of 132 (8 rods) like the rest of the lots in town.
