The Mahon Brothers and the Lost Town of Mahon, Indiana
Canal boat, taken from a newspaper ad. This one was on the Erie Canal, but the Wabash and Erie Canal packet boats in Indiana were the same. Passengers could count on a slow but smooth ride.
Once there were four Mahon brothers who settled in Huntington County, Indiana from New York: Samuel, Archibald, William and Monroe. Samuel was the oldest. In 1838 he was 30, and the youngest, Monroe, was 15.
He and his brothers had been “engaged in the boating interests” of the Erie Canal. (1) Samuel supposedly also owned a hotel in New York said to have 300 rooms, a highly unlikely claim. Seized with “Western fever,” he came to Indiana to see what prospects he had with the Wabash and Erie Canal. Once in Indiana, he “became infatuated” with the countryside and the opportunities it offered. He purchased a large tract that had been Myaamia - Miami Indian - land, said to be three miles long, on the banks of the Wabash River in Jackson Township, Huntington County. (2) He intended to be the founder of his own town and named it Port Mahon.
Samuel was described as “a gentleman of culture and refinement, fastidious in dress, and courteous to his fellowman, but too reserved to mix very much with then-common old settlers.” (3)
With his brother Archibald, known as Arch, he formed a joint stock company, the Wabash & Erie Packet Boat Company in the early 1840s. Investors included noted names in Fort Wayne history, prominent men such as Francis Comparet and Isaac De Groff Nelson. (4)
The younger Mahon brothers joined Samuel and Arch, and all four brothers served as captains on the packet boats plying their way from Fort Wayne to Huntington. They owned four boats, the “Chief Richardville,” the “Indiana,” the “Clyde" and the “Wabash.” All had good reputations. They “performed admirably;” the boats were kept in fine shape, and they made money on the enterprise. (5) In 1851 the Huntington newspaper editor said of Arch Mahon that, “a more gentlemanly, kind and generous fellow than her captain has never ‘walked the plank.’
The creation of a new town was a slow business, however. The first residents were the Mahons and workmen on the canal. But the price of town lots was said to be too high. In general, huge swaths of land in northeast Indiana had been purchased by land speculators, which discouraged potential buyers. A historian said, “The large holdings of nonresidents of this state created a problem of taxation, and bred enmity between the citizens of the state and the speculators. The Logan Chief urged the recovery of these lands for the settler through a system of onerous taxation of unimproved lands.” (6) The Mahons weren’t absentee speculators, but the point is made. Men could go farther west and buy from the government more cheaply. Still, a post office was established there in 1839, and stayed in business till 1846. (7)
In 1842 at the first election in Jackson Township, the location of Port Mahon, William and Monroe were elected trustees and Samuel was elected township clerk. There was suspicion about election integrity, however, as more votes were cast than there were eligible men.
Samuel attempted to have a political career on a scale larger than township official. In 1849 he threw his name into the ring for congress running as a Whig, but was not nominated. A Fort Wayne newspaper editor described him as “an enterprising, energetic fellow, full of life and spirits and is favorably known to the traveling community as a pioneer on the Wabash and Erie canal, having been sort of a commodore on the first line of packets that run on the canal.” But he wasn’t a wealthy man, the editor said, and, “Money makes the mare go,” so he did not predict success. None was forthcoming. In 1856 Samuel accepted a nomination for prosecuting attorney in Huntington County, but he was excoriated in the Huntington newspaper and did not win.
The Creation of Mahon
In 1848 the town of Roanoke was founded about a mile away from Port Mahon. It was located on a lock of the canal, a decided advantage from the perspective of tavern and shop keepers, and became an immediate rival to the tiny Port Mahon. It took half an hour or more for the packet boats to get through a lock, allowing time for passengers and crew to patronize adjacent businesses. Mahon did not have a lock.
Arch was credited with being the official founder of Mahon (the “Port” was dropped) when in 1853, he laid out and platted a town that optimistically showed a town square, six streets and 94 lots. The post office was reestablished the same year. There were a series of general merchandise stores, such as one opened in September 1853 by Quincy J. Drummond. It featured dry goods, groceries, hardware, crockery, shoes, nails and glass. He advertised that he was willing to take all sorts of country products as payment, including ginseng, beeswax and wool.
Monroe opened a distillery and later took over a flour mill. He owned two farms and also did well raising and shipping hogs. They were fed on the waste products of the distillery and grew quite fat. Monroe built a large house, by local standards, in a grove just off Main Street and though this may have been exaggerated or relative to the time and place, was considered quite wealthy. (8) Also important to the town was a steam-operated sawmill that chiefly produced ties and other materials for the railroad. Samuel built a large warehouse to take advantage of this business. He and William were also attorneys. It seemed at last Mahon might come into its own.
Signs That Might Be Omens
William was noted for being a skilled hunter. But ironically, he lost his life in 1853 in what was ruled to be an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot while paddling his canoe on a hunting trip. He was found in the water next to the canoe. William was only 41. Was the death of such a noted hunter at his own hand a portent for the brothers and their business endeavors?
The Wabash and Erie Canal, built at such expense and arduous labor would also have a short life. It began operation in 1843, and after only a decade - indeed, when Arch Mahon was laying out his town - it had become evident that the canal was not to be a financial success. It required constant dredging to keep the channel open as the sides of the canal eroded steadily. But of course, it was the railroad that put the nail in the coffin for the canal business.
Here, though, Mahon still had an opportunity. The Wabash Railroad - officially the Lake Erie, Wabash and St. Louis - was coming. Every little town recognized the need to have this transportation wonder. It wasn’t enough to have the railroad go through town. What good was that without a depot? Roanoke was the competition, and the more logical choice. It had more businesses and the track could be laid straight through town. Laying track in Mahon required a curve.
Yet Mahon got the prize. Even decades later, there were stories and rumors about how that happened. There had to be something underhanded about it - right? One story suggested that Samuel’s two daughters, Adelia and Virginia, dazzled the surveyors, who were boarding at Samuel’s house while doing their work. “If Papa Mahon wanted to build a town on his land did not his daughters deserve that the Wabash should curve abruptly out of its course to pay them homage and obeisance?” (9) The fact that Virginia was only 12 gives doubt to this story. A more likely explanation is that Isaac DeGroot Nelson, an investor in Samuel and Arch’s Wabash & Erie Packet Boat Company, was an organizer of the railroad. Perhaps there was an unfair advantage from their relationship – or maybe not. In 1854, the railroad paid Samuel and Arch for land they owned, and that William had owned but which Samuel occupied. For a few years, the town benefited from railroad workers who lived and boarded there.
So the tracks were built; the depot was at Mahon, not Roanoke. Now Mahon would surely prosper – or would it?
In 1857 the editor of the Toledo newspaper took a train trip through Indiana, writing a travelog of sorts. He spent a day in Mahon. “It is a place which has improved very little until recently,” he said. “But Captain Mahon recently built a very large flour mill and there are other improvements going on which cannot but make Mahon yet an important place.” He noted that the town had two dry goods stores, a tavern and several branches of mechanical businesses. (10)
Samuel and Monroe were dealt a blow a few years before the editor’s visit. Arch caught a “severe cold,” contracted consumption and went to Florida in an attempt to regain his health. (11) Florida was far from the tourism mecca it would become, and travel was difficult, with only 56 miles of railroad line in the entire state by the end of 1856. However, it was already known as a haven for invalids. A change of climate did not help Arch, though, and he died there in 1855. His widow Mahala continued living in Mahon until her death in 1858. (12)
Decline
In fact, none of the brothers lived long lives. Samuel was the only one who lived past his forties. Not only did William, Arch and Mahala die in the 1850s, but Samuel’s wife Mary, too. Samuel went to Buffalo, New York where he married Martha A. Manley in 1857. He returned to Mahon with his new bride.
The town the brothers created had an even shorter lifespan than its founders. Mahon somehow continued struggling to attract residents and businesses. Some said Samuel never “boomed” the town. (13) The decline of canal traffic had an impact, of course, and the railroad somehow didn’t make up for it. Meanwhile, Roanoke residents successfully petitioned the railroad for a flag station in 1857.
In 1858 the editor of the Huntington newspaper sarcastically called Mahon a suburb of Roanoke, and further insulted the town calling it “moonshine city.” The newspaper item, aimed at Samuel and not the town, was titled, “A Richmond in the Field,” a Shakespearean phrase that means the appearance of an unwanted participant or attendee. The editor was Alexander Washington DeLong who was actually Samuel’s brother-in-law. (14) His vitriol towards Samuel, could well have been because just two years earlier Samuel ran against Alex’s father Isaac for county prosecutor.
Samuel moved to wife Martha’s hometown, Buffalo, New York where he was enumerated on the 1860 census working as an attorney. Then he was back in Mahon, where in August 1861 he wrote a long letter to the editor supporting Abraham Lincoln. In October, he and George Sommers Brinkerhoff organized the Mahon and Brinkerhoff Company, with Samuel accepting Union Army recruits in Mahon and Brinkerhoff in Huntington. This time the Indiana Herald editor praised him, noting that he’d lived in the county for more than a quarter of a century, and was “so well and favorably known that any recommendation of ours would be superfluous. Suffice to say, his energy and perseverance are proverbial and exactly fit him for the position of a leader.” Nothing seemed to come of this, however, and Samuel moved back to New York once more. This time, he put Mahon behind him. He and Martha had a daughter, Lillie in 1862; Martha died a year later.
He’d hoped to be a captain in his own company in Indiana in the Union Army. Instead, he was more successful in New York. He and his son Elam joined the Twelfth New York Cavalry, known as the Ira Harris Guard, most of which came from Erie County. He was 55 and Elam, 21. A brief piece in a Buffalo paper said Captain Mahon’s fine company “now numbers over eighty men,” with Elam as 1st lieutenant. The men of the Twelfth served their entire service in North Carolina. Elam was commissioned a captain. Samuel’s service is unknown as company records say, “Borne only on muster-in roll of Co. L, as captain, without remark. Not commissioned.”
Endings
After the Civil War, Mahon declined so much that in 1867 the post office was closed. Samuel’s warehouse burned down in a fire. He sold, bartered, and abandoned his properties and moved on to better prospects in Omaha, Nebraska, where he purchased a large piece of property. According to one source, he died suddenly a week later. (15) His death date, even the year, is uncertain; as late as July 1867 he sold a lot in Mahon.
Monroe, the youngest brother, didn’t outlive Samuel by much. Like Samuel he abandoned Mahon, going to Huntington to live. He died at the home of his cousin, Elizabeth Morgan DeLong, wife of publisher/editor Alex DeLong, in Huntington in February 1871 at age 47. The cause was consumption.
The Mahon brothers’ dreams of founding a city faded to the realm of forgotten history. Roanoke eclipsed the little village, though it too never grew to be more than a very small town. Today Roanoke has the largest population it’s ever had; 1,762 on the 2020 census.
In 1921, Elmer E. Mygrants and about twelve others filed suit in the Huntington County Circuit Court to quiet title to lands in and about Mahon. The Huntington Press said it was, “the closing chapter of the story of lost hope for a thriving municipality. The last chapter sounded the solemn knell marking the final disposition of the original plat of the town of Mahon.” There were 700 people named in the suit, most long dead. The Fort Wayne newspaper explained that Elmer and the other plaintiffs farmed the town lots by the river, but they wanted things straightened out legally. The reporter said, “The filing of the suit is regarded as the last chapter in what might be called the tragedy of the town…All that is left is a crossroads, with a few houses, some of them in ruins…”
The town was officially dissolved as a result of this court case.
Postscript
The Mahon brothers came to Indiana for the reason other white settlers came: for opportunity, and dreams. Some pioneers simply dreamed of successful and largely self-sufficient farms. Others dreamed of making a fortune. Some dreamed, too, of founding a great city, something they could never do back home.
Although he and his brothers did not, Samuel’s descendants did come into wealth and some fame. His daughter Virginia “married well.” Her husband was Alfred Douglas Allen, son of Augustus F. Allen. Augustus became very wealthy as a partner in railroads, a lumber mill, a woolen mill and other investments. He was elected to Congress in 1874. (16) On the 1870 census, newlyweds Virginia and Alfred lived in the family mansion with his parents. Augustus’ real estate assets were given as $135,000 and the value of his personal estate at $85,000. His wife Margaret had $7,000 listed as her personal estate. Alfred reported real estate worth $15,000. Virginia’s real estate value was $5,000. These are very significant sums for the time. Equivalency calculations to today’s value is imprecise, but $135,000 would be over three million dollars today.
There were three domestic servants living in the home and a live-in teacher for the one child who resided there. Significantly, it was Virginia’s little sister Lillie, age 10, the child from Samuel’s second marriage. Lillie would stay with Virginia till adulthood. She later told reporters that she had grown up in luxury.
She was right about that, but Lillie did not tell the truth about her family or her past, as the orphaned daughter of Samuel and Martha Mahon. At the least, she did not correct newspaper reporters who claimed she was the granddaughter of a famous Irishman. Lillie made the newspapers in the 1890s as the composer of dozens of songs. Many were purchased as sheet music for “home talent” performances for the family gatherings around the parlor pianos. She studied abroad and in fact was in Europe in 1874 with Virginia and Alfred when her sister's father-in-law, Augustus, fell ill. They rushed home too late to see him alive, but to attend the funeral.
Virginia was a young widow in 1877 and never remarried. When she and her husband moved out of his parents' home, they lived in a house in Jamestown that a Buffalo newspaper described as one of the finest in town. Her husband Alfred was one of only two men in town who owned their own billiard tables, the item noted. In the 1890s, she made several trips back to Huntington County looking after her reportedly large landholdings, and visiting family and friends. In 1899 she sold land there for a total of $1,898 - about $70,000 today. Her only child who survived childhood was Augustus Franklin Allen, who graduated from Harvard and from Buffalo Law School.
Note: This is a story I took on although there is only the slimmest connection to my family tree. It came about after I made contact with my newly-found cousin Betsey. Betsey inherited her great-great grandmother's wonderful photo album with some family letters carefully saved inside. Special thanks are due to her for generously sharing a packet of these letters from the 1870s! (We share third great-grandparents, Myron F. and Jane Barbour.)
Included in the packet were a couple of letters between Myron F. Barbour and a young man named Alderman "Addie" Mahon. Florence Mahon was also mentioned. A few lines of background are needed to explain what Addie was writing about.
I’ve written quite a bit about my great-great-grandfather’s brother, Lucius Taylor Barbour. He served in the Union Army, was wounded twice, and suffered through nine months in Confederate prisons including the horror that was Andersonville. He almost certainly suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and self-medicated with alcohol. It was a tragedy and a crisis in the family. His father, Myron Fitch Barbour, tried to help him. Addie and Florence Mahon Seymour were Lucius' friends, and tried to help him too. Addie offered his home to Lucius, suggesting a stay of six to eight months and being kept constantly busy and constantly watched. Addie wrote to Myron suggesting his plan of help and giving the older man well-meaning advice on how to handle Lucius. (Be encouraging! Make him believe you believe in him!)
Who were these people, who were obviously so close to the family? I remembered the Mahon name from some of the oldest newspaper clippings I have about my third great-grandfather. In May 1859 Myron was appointed administrator of the estate of Archibald Mahon. In August 1859 he was appointed the administrator of Mahala Mahon's estate. There is a small side note, too, in that Myron F., who was a real estate dealer and investor, owned at least one lot in Mahon.
Betsey and I had fun playing detective and figuring out just who these Mahons were. Addie and Florence were Arch and Mahala's children. Still, I don't have all the answers to my questions. Addie was 11 when his father died and 14 when his mother died. Did the Barbours take care of them? Did Addie and Florence go to school with Myron's children? How did Myron have such a close relationship with Arch and Mahala to begin with?
Finding anything about the Mahon was like pulling teeth in the dark. It took so much time to find the information that I did, and to discover their vanished town.
Notes
1. Indiana Herald, originally published in Fort Wayne Gazette, 1872.
2. Henry C. Silver’s memory piece, “The Metropolis of the Day.”
Like the Mahons, Isaac D. Nelson was a New Yorker who came to Fort Wayne in 1836. He bought the Fort Wayne Sentinel and had a long and distinguished career as a Hoosier leader. He represented Allen County in the state legislature, was a member of the first Board of Trustees of Purdue University and helped organize the Wabash Railroad Company. He also was a key figure in getting Lindenwood Cemetery built. Incidentally, his granddaughter Eva Theodosia Nelson married Robert Blair Hanna. Robert was the grandson of Samuel and Eliza Taylor Hanna.
5. Reminiscence, 1872. Other sources say Asa Fairfield built and operated the Indiana. Fairfield was a very wealthy former sea captain from Maine, and an early investor in Fort Wayne. Could it be possible that there were two canal boats named Indiana? Or did they serve as the operators?
Bash, Frank Sumner. History of Huntington County, Indiana, Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1914.
Doherty, Jr., Herbert J. “Florida in 1855,” Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 1, Article 7, 1956.
“Francis Comparet, 1796-1845,” Canawlers At Rest, The Hoosier Packet, July 2003, https://indcanal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Comparet-Francis.pdf
History of Huntington County, Indiana. Chicago: Brandt and Fuller, 1887. (p. 650)
Kirby, Sarah A.V. “Mahon (Ghost Town),” Clio: Your Guide to History, 25 May 2021.
Mahon, Alderman David. Letter to Myron Fitch Barbour, 10 Dec 1873.
Mahon-Siegfried, Lillie, composer and Walt McDougall, lyricist. “Buy and Buy,” New York: William A. Pond Company, 1895.
Memorial Record of Northeastern Indiana, Chicago: The Lewis Published Company.
Twelfth Cavalry Roster, https://dmna.ny.gov/historic/reghist/civil/rosters/cavalry/12thCavCW_Roster.pdf
Van Bolt, Roger H. “The Indiana Scene in the 1840s,” Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 47, No. 4 (December 1951), pp. 333-356.
WHO'S WHO IN NEW YORK A Biographical Dictionary of Prominent Citizens of New York City and State, Edited by Herman W. Knox; 7th Edition (1917-1918) Who's Who Publications, 115 Broadway, New York City; transcribed by Vivian Nichols.
Woodworth, Lura Case; Farirbank, Carolyn Randall and Martha Brandriff Hanna. Reminiscences of Old Fort Wayne, 1906.
Newspapers
“Captain Sam Mahone,” The Indiana Herald (Huntington, Indiana), 18 April 1849, p. 2.
“Packet Boat Noble,” The Indiana Herald, 30 April 1851, p. 2.
“New Town and New Store,” The Indiana Herald, 13 July 1853, p. 2.
“New Store at Mahon!” The Indiana Herald, 14 Sept 1853, p. 4.
“To All Whom It May Concern” (Lake Erie, Wabash and St. Louis Railroad Company), Indiana Herald, 11 Jan 1854, p. 4.
“Rewarded At Last,” The Indiana Herald, 20 Aug 1856, p. 2.
“New Store At Mahon,” The Indiana Herald, 20 May 1857, p. 2.
“Notes of a Traveler,” The Indiana Herald, 20 May 1857, p. 2.
“New Mill At Mahon,” Indiana Herald, 8 Aug 1857, p. 2.
“A Richmond in the Field,” Indiana Herald, 1 Sept 1858, p. 2.
“Attention the Whole,” Huntington Democrat, 17 Oct 1861, p. 3.
“Another Company,” Indiana Herald, 1861, p. 3.
“Deserved Promotion,” Buffalo Daily Republic (Buffalo, New York), 2 Jan 1863, p. 3.
From “Reminiscences”: Indiana Herald, 5 June 1872, p. 2.
"Town Talk," Buffalo Sunday Morning News, 25 June 1876, p. 3.
Virginia Visits: The Daily Democrat (Huntington, Indiana), 2 Oct 1891, p. 3.
"Real Estate Transfers," Daily News-Democrat (Huntington, Indiana), 12 Aug 1899, p. 5.
Silver, Henry C. “The Metropolis of the Day,” The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, 20 Aug 1909, p. 19.
“Suit Recalls Mahon Hope Not Realized,” Huntington Press, 31 July 1921, p. 1.
“Town of Mahon Dwindles Away,” The Fort Wayne Sentinel, 1 Aug 1921, p. 9.
“Roanoke - Stories of Striking People Center About Little Town in Wabash Valley,” Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, 22 April 1923, p. 3.
“Wabash Railroad Factor in County Growth,” The Huntington Herald, 7 Aug 1928, p. 38.
Copyright by Andrea Auclair ©2023
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