50 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



A Lecture upon the Early History of Lake Co., Ind 

 by Solon Robinson 



[From transcript of Ms, in possession of Amos Allman, 

 Crown Point'] 



[April ?, 1847] 



The early history of most communities, great or small, 

 is wrapt in obscurity. Within a few years past, great 

 efforts have been made to rescue the early history of some 

 of the towns of Massachusetts, and other places from the 

 darkness in which they were enveloped — Circumstances 

 that in their day excited no curiosity, after the lapse of a 

 couple of centurys are sought after and read with avidity. 

 What has been, may be again. The trifling every day oc- 

 curances in the first settlement of this county, an hundred 

 years hence may be sought after with the same interest : 

 but where shall their history be found recorded? Shall I 

 attempt this task? I have done so, and I now lay them 

 before you in the form of an address, not so much for 

 your edification, as to ask you to correct my errors, and 

 continue the record. I assure you that the time will come 

 when such matter will be interesting. I shall proceed in 

 that familiar style that I should do in writing a letter to a 

 distant friend, or as if all my facts were as strange and 

 new to you as they will be to those that fill our places an 

 hundred years hence. 



I have lately read the travels of Stephens, in the south- 

 ern part of North America, among the vast fields of ruins 

 of temples and palaces, of a people that have left no writ- 

 ten language to tell of the wonders which the traveler 

 sees around him. Here, we have no monuments of stone, 

 but yet we can leave a more enduring remembrance be- 

 hind us, upon these few sheets of paper. 



Fancy then that this is the year 1947 instead of 1847, 

 and let us call upon the days and years of "Auld Lang 

 Syne", and display before us the early history of Lake 



^Printed in History of Lake County, 35-64 {Publication of the 

 Lake County Historical Association, volume 10, Gary, 1929), from 

 the Lake County Star, Crown Point, September 8, 15, and 22, 1916. 



