INTRODUCTION 17 



As county clerk Solon Robinson played an important 

 part in the governmental life of the community. He kept 

 his records with meticulous care and according to law- 

 yers of present-day Lake County, they were written 

 with a fullness, clarity, and neatness which has not been 

 surpassed. 



Establishment of a permanent county seat in Lake 

 County was delayed for several years because so much 

 of the land remained unsold. Finally, in 1839, the town 

 of Liverpool was designated, but this aroused such dis- 

 satisfaction among the citizens of Lake that the legisla- 

 ture of 1839-40 ordered a relocation. The commissioners 

 appointed for the purpose, in June, 1840, selected Lake 

 Court House. 1 The site of the town, which was laid out 

 at this time, included some forty acres of Robinson's 

 land. This tract, with the holding of Judge William 

 Clark, was divided into lots. Robinson generously do- 

 nated half of his lots to the county for public use and 

 added twenty acres adjoining for a like purpose. Lots in 

 twenty acres retained by Robinson within the townsite, 

 were then offered for sale, and in 1840, and subsequently, 

 he sold a number of them. The selection of a name for 

 the new county seat was left to the decision of George 

 Earle, Solon Robinson, and Judge Clark, who chose 

 Crown Point, and Lake Court House thereupon became 

 Crown Point and has so remained to this day. 2 



A new mail route from Michigan City to Peoria, which 

 passed through Robinson's Prairie, afforded Solon a wel- 

 come opportunity in 1836 to become a postmaster for a 

 second time. He applied to the Indiana senators, William 



1 See Shockley, Ernest V., "County Seats and County Seat Wars 

 in Indiana," Indiana Magazine of History, 10:no. 1:34-35; Good- 

 speed and Blanchard (eds.), Counties of Porter and Lake, 426-28. 



2 Ball, op. cit., 85-87 ; Robinson, Solon, "History of Lake County, 

 1833-1847," in History of Lake County (Publication of the Lake 

 County Historical Association, volume 10, Gary, 1929) ; statement 

 of Robinson in A. O. Luther Scrapbook. The name Crown Point 

 was adopted locally in 1840, but the post office designation was not 

 changed until June 26, 1845. 



