From the Files of the Kosciusko County Historical Society

Editor’s note: This is a retrospective article that runs a few times a month on InkFreeNews.

Information for this retrospective series is courtesy of the Kosciusko County Historical Society. For more history of Kosciusko County in the news visit yesteryear.clunette.com

Dec. 7, 1981 — Forty years ago today the Japanese air raid on American military installations at Pearl Harbor began early in the morning. Memories are still vividly etched in the mind of a local man who was wounded, but survived, that bombing attack.

Furman C. Martin Jr., Rt. 6, Warsaw, was a corporal in the U.S. Army. Since he was trained as a mechanic, he was attached to Headquarters Squadron, 18th Bombardment Wing, U.S. Army Air Corps at Hickam Field. Little did he know that Dec. 7, 1941, was not going to be another routine day. “If I would have known 40 years ago what I know now, I wouldn’t have stayed at Hickam,” Martin said in a recent interview. “I would have went to the other side of the island.”

At 7:55 a.m. Dec. 7, 1941, Martin and a handful of military officers had moved an airplane from hangar No. 7 out onto the asphalt at Hickam Air Field and were preparing for a training flight.

The plane engine had been started and was warmed up, Martin recalled. The flight crew was nearly ready to enter the plane when the first Japanese bomber swooped down low over Hickam Air Field and dropped a bomb.

1859 — Silver Lake is the only village in Lake Township. It was surveyed and platted by Jacob Paulus in1859, and until the completion of Cincinnati, Wabash and Michigan Railway, was one of the most prosperous towns in the county. The original name was Silver Lakeville, but the latter syllable was dropped.

Jacob and Daniel Paulus were the first merchants of the village and in their log store house the first post office in the township was located. Jacob was postmaster and kept mail in a dry-goods box.

Dec. 6, 1852 — Pierceton, the second largest town in the county, was laid out Dec. 6, 1852, by Lewis Keith and John B. Chapman on the north part of the northwest quarter of Section 27, and christened Pierceton in honor of President Franklin Pierce.

John B. Chapman, one of its founders, inaugurated business enterprise by opening a general stock of merchandise in a small log house, on a farm outside the now corporate limits of the town.

In 1853, three frame buildings were erected and in the one that occupied the site of the building formerly owned by Lawrence Spayde & Co., a post office was established in 1854, with O.P. Smith as postmaster. Dr. William Hayes, one of the first medical men in the town, succeeded Smith as postmaster in 1855.

– Compiled by InkFreeNews reporter Lasca Randels