70 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



J. V. Johns was elected Sheriff this August election — 

 H. N. Brooks was his apponant. The election was con- 

 tested and created some excitement at the time. It cost 

 Brooks 40 or 50$ without gaining the office — a poor spec- 

 ulation for him. One witness testified that he would not 

 vote for either, because one was a drunkard & tother a 

 blackguard — too true. 



After Mr. Fowler abdicated the office of Crown Point 

 tavern keeper, Mr. Pelton took a wife & took the house 

 which he afterwards purchased & has occupied ever since. 



Dr. Lilley, who flourished at Cedar Lake as a merchant 

 & tavern keeper, builder of mills & founder of a town 

 &c &c &c & & & died this summer of the disease that 

 sweeps off so many of the lovers of strong drink, and the 

 place that in those days was so well known is almost as 

 dead as its former proprietor & as little known to the 

 present population. The change that a few years work 

 in a new country is indeed wonderful. The population is 

 continually changing — out of perhaps 20 families of the 

 original settlers around this Lake, only two or 3 remain.^ 



In the winter of 1839-40 an act was passed for a relo- 

 cation of the County Seat. The commissioners met in 

 June — The contest was strong between the centre and 

 Cedar Lake and the offers of donations very large. The 

 proprietors of Liverpool gave up when they found that a 

 large majority of the county was so strong against them. 



But Mr. McCarty having become a proprietor in place 

 of Dr. Lilley had laid out a town on the East shore of the 

 Lake, which he called West Point, made desperate efforts 

 to obtain the location there. It is a happy thing that he 

 did not succeed ; for as I before stated, the water of the 

 Lake could not be depended upon for use, and several 

 wells that have since been dug, have proved to be so im- 

 pregnated with some mineral that the water is an active 

 cathartic. 



^ After losing the county seat contest, the descendants of Obadiah 

 Taylor moved to Lake Prairie, about a mile and a quarter south of 

 Cedar Lake. They took the post office and the Cedar Lake Baptist 

 Church and Sunday School with them. The community is now 

 known as Creston. 



