(La Porte, IN) - Old homes are full of stories. “If these walls could talk—” as they say. La Porte’s Christmas Candlelight Tour has become a showcase of old homes, and not just the structures themselves, but the stories they have to tell.
In 2023 the tour returned from a pandemic hiatus for its 20th edition. Co-organizer and local history enthusiast Tim Stabosz uncovered a piece of lost history involving a home that was one of the first built by the Larson Brothers (a forerunner to Larson-Danielson).
This year, seven historic structures were featured—five homes, a church, and a storefront. One of the residences, Stabosz discovered, held another historic surprise.
On 1209 Michigan Avenue, across from the police station, sits a blue house in the Queen Anne style with Gothic detailing. It is currently owned by Christopher Evans and Catherine Abbs. Two years ago, the house, and downtown La Porte, received national attention as a feature on an episode of A&E’s “Move or Improve” television show. But once upon a time, it was the abode of one of this area’s founding families. “I was overwhelmed,” Stabosz said, “to find out that 1209 Michigan Avenue was built in 1883 for Dr. George Andrew, and his wife, Catharine Piatt Andrew.”
Those names might not mean much to a modern La Portean, but Stabosz recognized their place in local history.
Catharine Piatt Andrew traced her lineage back to Scottish ancestors, one of whom was purportedly held captive by pirates off the Barbary Coast before settling down in New Jersey. Catharine’s great-grandfather was a physician who served with George Washington at Valley Forge and was present at the surrender of British General Cornwallis. Her father and uncle, who had migrated to the Cincinnati area, were an enterprising pair. They managed to secure a building contract with the state of Indiana. That’s where Stabosz picks up their trail:
“Catharine Andrew’s father, James Andrew, was one of the co-founders of the City of La Porte and La Porte County. In 1829, he and his brother, Captain A.P. Andrew, won the bid to build the first 15 miles of the Michigan Road, a State of Indiana project which ran from Madison, Indiana, through Indianapolis, to South Bend, then to (the not yet incorporated) Michigan City. The road was generally considered to be the state’s first super-highway.”
After two years of hard work, the Andrew brothers went to Indianapolis to collect payment on their $7,474 contract, only to discover that the state had no money, only land rights to some northern Indiana wilderness. Stabosz continues:
“After completing their commission in 1830-1831, and finding that the treasury for the road had no money, the brothers were paid in land scrip. While they originally planned to sell the scrip for cash, after a scouting mission up here, and finding the land both beautiful and suitable for settlement, they used the scrip to bid on the ‘wild lands’ of today’s La Porte.”
In September of 1832, eight-year-old Catharine and her family made a grueling ten-day trek on horseback to their new home. Her father and her uncle took turns carrying her, and she would stand up behind them and peer over their shoulders as they traversed vast woods and prairies.
Years later she remembered seeing few white faces after passing through Indianapolis, then Muncie. “I have a dim recollection of passing an Indian village on the way,” she wrote. “The chief was pointed out to us. The only human being we met after leaving South Bend was a young Indian. He had feathers flying from his hair and his blanket flying behind as he rode his pony. As he passed us, he called out in bad French ‘Bo jou.’”
The Andrews headed west from South Bend along the old Sauk Trail until they reached a clearing with a single cabin in what would become La Porte. Life in the cabin was hard, Catharine later said, with no other children around and only a chalk slate and a lump of wax with which to occupy herself. There was a set of books by Shakespeare, but crickets ate the bindings off, she remembered. The family had constructed a saw mill, and their cabin doubled as a dry goods store, the sales counter also serving as a bed.
Stabosz says the Andrews wasted no time joining with other settlers to establish a town:
“Partnering with Hiram Todd, James Walker, and Walter Wilson, they organized the county (which was split off from St. Joseph’s county), and platted the town of La Porte. The consortium donated a central square for a courthouse, along with the proceeds of each alternating lot, in order to fund the building of it. As an interesting aside, the extra width of La Porte’s 4 original ‘main streets’—eventually to become Michigan, Indiana, State and Main (now Lincolnway)--was directly attributable to a decision by the Andrew brothers, and is an important legacy of their sound planning.”
Catharine grew up as La Porte did. When she was 20, Catharine married.
“Her husband was just as prominent as she was,” Stabosz said. “Dr. George Andrew, besides being a lifelong MD here, worked with the Sanitary Commission of the U.S. Army during the Civil War (a privately overseen aid group, akin to the modern Red Cross), and led relief work at both Fredericksburg and Antietam, even making camp and sharing in the mess with General Grant. Additionally, his 1911 La Porte Herald obituary indicates ‘he was a leading factor in the establishment of Pine Lake Cemetery, whose beauty is largely owing to his artistic conception and almost every existing feature of the Cemetery Beautiful was developed from plans drawn by his hands.”
In a fascinating historical twist, George and Catharine shared a branch on the family tree. His grandfather and her great-grandfather were the same person, the aforementioned Dr. John Andrew, who served with General Washington. According to Stabosz, this common relation made George and Catharine Andrew first half-cousins once removed.
It wasn’t until about 38 years later that they built the home on Michigan Avenue on land they had purchased from Andrew and Abby Osborn years prior.
The Andrews lived at 1209 Michigan for only ten years. When Dr. Andrew retired in 1893, the couple sold the house to another prominent La Porte pioneering family name, Jeremiah Ridgway Jr. The Andrews then moved to Chicago just blocks away from Jackson Park, where the famous Columbian Exposition was in full swing. In 1905, having soaked up the arts and culture of the big city, the Andrews returned home to La Porte, taking up residence just two doors down from the 1209 Michigan house. George died in 1911. Two years later their two surviving daughters (and two of their friends) died tragically in an automobile accident at a railroad crossing, leaving Catharine with nothing but memories.
In her later years, Catharine was highly regarded locally as a living almanac, always willing to share stories of the past. She recorded her recollections in a book, which is available at the La Porte County Historical Museum.
When Catharine Piatt Andrew died in 1925, aged 100, the first chapter of La Porte’s history closed. Her cousin Charles Cochran was working at the Library of Congress when he heard of her passing, which he said closed the era of the pioneers. His words provide a fitting epitaph to her memory:
“She has long survived all the others. She came as a little girl riding with her people westward over the site of the town to their cabin home. Tuesday her body was carried across the trail to its final resting place. She had been a remarkable woman in many ways and was a centenarian, and they are few enough in any community. There was something epic in her long survival of her contemporaries and it was not alone great age that distinguished her. Her wonderful memory spanned La Porte’s history.”
