Shipshewana Walldogs, Part Six: The Bank of Shipshwana

The Bank of Shipshewana mural is wedged between two windows, on the Hostetler Drug Store building on Main Street.  It pictures two men, identified as “Levi Miller, Cashier” and “Hewlitt Davis, President” and over their heads, “1904—Bank of Shipshewana.”

Hewlitt Davis was born in 1871.  He was the son of Shipshewana founder Hezekiah Davis, who is the subject of another Walldogs mural and another blog.  According to Ira Ford’s 1920 book The History of Northeast Indiana, at that time Hewlitt was president of the Farmers State Bank of Shipshewana and he was “a worthy representative of this sturdy old [Davis] stock.”

According to the book, Hewlitt finished high school and then attended business college in Toledo, Ohio.  Being the youngest of Hezekiah’s seven children, and Hezekiah having died in 1891, Hewlitt returned home to live with his widowed mother, Sarah Reynolds Davis.  Sarah ran the Bank of Shipshewana, organized by her late husband, with herself as president and her son as cashier, where Hewlitt remained until 1907. 

In 1907 the Bank of Shipshewana was reorganized and renamed the Farmer’s State Bank of Shipshewana, and Hewlitt at last had his own bank.  Through the years of his banking career, he also farmed 800 acres in the vicinity (Newbury Township), where he raised stock.

The 1910 census bears this out.  Hewlitt lives with his widowed mother in an expensive home on Morton Street.  Hewlitt is 38 and still unmarried, and his occupation is listed as “banker and farmer.”  As the youngest son, his mother must have remained his responsibility, even after he founded his own bank.

“Few banks,” said The History of Northeast Indiana, “have ever met with so many misfortunes…  It has been robbed four times…  In November 1897, when the safe was ruined and the contents all taken…  In 1905, when they did not try the safe and got only the change found within the vault…  In June 1916, the safe was not disturbed but they secured $1,100 in postage stamps in the vault…  August 26, 1919, when they made an attempt on the safe and ruined it, but were unable to get inside, but did get $200 in War Savings Stamps in the vault…        While the institution was yet the Bank of Shipshewana in July 1902, the bank was burned.”

In 1911 Hewlitt married Carrie Rogers.  The 1920 census shows them living with their daughter Sarah and son Herbert on Talmadge Street, and his occupation is “bank president.”  By the 1930 census, Hewlitt is 58 and has no occupation listed—he had retired.  (His next door neighbor is the wealthy Edward Wolfe, who I wrote about in another post.)  Perhaps his health was failing, as he died in 1935.  He was buried in Keightley Cemetery, where his wife Carrie joined him, but not before outliving him by 35 years.

And what of Levi Miller, the other man pictured in the mural?  According to The History of Northeast Indiana, he was from an old Shipshewana family whose Mennonite great-grandfather Christian Miller came from Germany to Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, and had over 700 American descendants by 1920.  Levi studied business at Valparaiso University and then in 1901 became assistant cashier of the Bank of Shipshewana.  The history section of the Shipshewana website says that until then, the bank was open only once in a while—but after Mr. Miller was hired, it was open every day.  When it was reorganized in 1907, Levi was promoted to cashier and in 1920 was “the genial and efficient man with whom most of the patrons have done business ever since.”

Shipshewana Walldogs, Part Three: Hezekiah Davis

One of the sixteen Walldog murals in Shipshewana depicts Hezekiah Davis.  The mural is found downtown in Morton Alley.  Who was Hezekiah Davis?  The name “Davis” seems to be everywhere in the town, even today.

The mural itself gives us some clues.  He was born in 1825 and died in 1891.  It says, “He ran the first reaper, harvester, binder, and feed mill in Newberry (sp) Township.  He owned a large farm and orchard.  Then sold the latest buggies, wagons, & farm equipment from his hardware store.”  But Hezekiah’s influence was so much more than that.

According to the 1920 book The History of Northeast Indiana, Hezekiah came to Lagrange County, Indiana with his parents when he was twelve.  He bought a farm there in 1851, and by the time of his death forty years later, he owned 1,400 acres of farmland.  He founded the town of Shipshewana in 1888.  In 1889 he founded the Bank of Shipshewana, which he ran until his death two years later.  (After that time, his wife Sarah ran it with son Hewlitt, until Hewlitt reorganized it in 1907 as the Farmer’s State Bank.)  He was also a county commissioner and built two churches.  It was said that “The principles of the Republican party found a strong advocate in Hezekiah Davis.”

The abovementioned book said that “He became a man of importance not just because of [his] business capacity, but on account of his sterling traits of character, which led him to use his wealth in furthering many worthy enterprises, and when bearing the responsibilities of public office, to labor conscientiously for the public welfare.” 

In the 1870 census, Hezekiah is 44 and lives with his wife and five children.  He is listed as a farmer.  Hezekiah’s land is valued at $58,750—an incredible amount of money in those days, and equivalent to around $1,066,000 of farmland in today’s dollars.

But Hezekiah was human, too, as evidenced by information found on the Shipshewana town website (www.shipshewana.org).  In the early days of the Shipshewana area’s settlement, Hezekiah owned all the land on the east side of what is now State Road 5, for a mile and a half from north to south.  His rival, Abraham Summey, owned the land across State Road 5 on the west side, from north and south for a mile. 

Both Summey and Davis wanted to found a town and begin to sell lots.  But the two men argued about where the main road should be, so Summey began laying out a town on the west side, and Davis laid out a town on the east side, in one of his 40-acre fields.

Summey’s first buildings were built along State Road 5, facing east.  But Davis, who named his town “Davis Town,” left a 150-foot wide strip of land vacant on his side of State Road 5, and he allowed nothing to be built there—thus creating a wide “no man’s land” between the two competing towns.  After the death of Davis in 1891, according to the website, the wide strip of land between the two towns was laid out in lots and sold at auction, and thus the feud ended.

Hezekiah Davis married Sarah Reynolds in 1851 and they had seven children.  Hezekiah died when the youngest, Hewlitt, was only six years old.  Hezekiah and Sarah are buried at Keightley Cemetery.