By A. M. Gibbons
People in Windsor, like people in all the area mapped to be flooded if the Army Corps of Engineers carries out the Parker reservoir project, are mostly waiting just now, to see what happens. The degree of their interest depends on the degree to which they are involved--their family roots in the area, their businesses, their homes. Most of them have been in to see the big surveyors' map in Silvers' general store on the north side of the main street. Mrs. Silvers personally visited the offices of the Army Engineer Corps at Louisville, Ky. to get the map and other information and she is sure that the project will go through--that its confirmation before Congress next year is simply a matter of routine.
Many of the older residents, although they will be sad to see their town wiped off the map, feel that, "I won't be around ten years from now anyway."
In his history of Randolph County, Ebenezer Tucker commented in 1882 that Windsor, like many other towns, showed great promise but lost its major hopes when the "Bee-line" railroad was located north of the town in the 1850's. Tucker notes that "Windsor seems to have been aspiring. . . but the sad facts for Windsor and its ambitious denizens can neither be ignored nor changed. . . and her people. instead of mourning. . . may be thankful that. . . the means of solid happiness they still possess."
All professor Tucker's musings aside, Windsor was at one time a very busy little town--a center for farmers, for business and social life. Furthermore, located on the "Muncie-Winchester pike" it saw a lot of traffic. In earlier days of slower vehicles this traffic provided much trade for the town. Now, cars and trucks roar through on the main street, but less often stop.
Although most of the buildings are of no particular era or design (excepting two big brick houses at either end of the village, one apparently dating back to the mid-1800's and the other probably after the Civil War) each has an intensely individualistic air, like an old coat, much worn and patched but tailored to suit the exact needs of its wearer.
The wide main street is usually empty, except for the impersonal through traffic. Children casually ride bicycles or stroll along its edges. Their elders amble back and forth to visit a grocery or greet a friend. Most of the inhabitants have a fair idea of where every one else is, most of the time. Long naps are popular. Generally, one or two elderly men can be found in good weather, sitting on an ancient church pew which serves as a "liar's bench" under a pine tree.
You approach the town from the Randolph county side on the Windsor orad, a winding, tree lined, river bordered country highway, swoop down and around the loop, across a pretty creek and new bridge, negotiate a last steep bend and climb up to the main street.
All this--river, road, hill and town--have been blueprinted to go under water.
Early history
Professor Tucker writes that Windsor is exactly on the Delaware, Randolph county line (just this side) and was recorded in 1832 by John Thornburg. A series of lots was laid out from then through 1877 by Thornburg, Jerry Smith, Stephen Dye and Thomas Reece. Streets platted were Mulberry, Oak, Main. The town is 5.4 miles west of Farmland and 9.5 miles north of Losantville.
Older residents recall that at some early time the town was called "Opal."
Tucker's history notes that the first business was a shoeshop (cobbler's) run by Isaiah Templin. Others were a small store and smithy operated by Andrew Knapp. The mill established by John Thornburg in 1827 was the only mill on White River. Later Windsor gained another "shoe shop." William Ludworth had the first wagon shop. At one time there were "three good stores and a grocery and other things to match."
Tucker adds that "merchants have been Garretson, Joseph and Moses Cranor, a goods stock; Stephen Dye grocery and dry goods." A man named Chandler had a "big business with two clerks." Other businessmen were listed as Andrew Dye, Lindle Thornburg, and John M Terrell, Nathan and Joel Thornburg, Joesph Johnson, Armfield Thornburg.
George Helm had the first hotel, which burned in 1856, but various owners continued to operate a hotel "to present time" (1882).
Tucker lists blacksmiths over the years as Knapp, Templin, T.W. Thornburg, Oliver BEck, A.J. Dickson, Davison, Hikus and Sudworth. Wagon shops were operated by Sudworth and George Dickson.
Doctors had been Dr. Davison, Dr. Farow and Dr. Chenoweth.
In 1882, there were two smiths, a dry goods store, two millinery shops, one wagon shop, one shoeshop, one tanyard, one sawmill (water and steam), one grist mill, one doctor, one post office, two churches, MEthodist and Christian; a schoolhouse; one IOOF lodge; 30 to 40 houses, and 134 people as of the census of 1880.
At that time, Tucker reports, Winsdor was a "quiet, orderly town with a people disposed to good things."
Remembers When. . .
Frank Jefferson, who now lives in Delaware county and has lived in and around Windsot most of his life, is 88, but despite some deafness gives a very clear account of past days in the town. Jefferson says his father, Joshua, operated a store in Windsor for years and the family lived there until 1907.
He recalls that at one time, Windsor was noted for the number of its lodges and secret societies with one of them meeting almost every night. He thinks that the town was then about the same size as now, possible larger by four or five houses.
Jefferson remembers hearing of one particularly exciting experience Windsor had back 80 or so years ago, when the Barnum and Bailey circus came through town. It didn't stop, just passed through, by-passing Muncie, but the event was as good as a performance. The circus traveled by wagon, and elephants were used to push the wagons in steep or muddy spots.
When Jefferson was a boy, he recalls, Billy Davis owned a general store in Windsor and there was also a blacksmith shop, a wagon shop (Milo Davison's) and paint shop for buggies and wagons.
Jefferson remembers the old brick Christian church at the southeast edge of Windsor (now demolished) where the congregation at revivals went into trances and "jumped the benches." This church has been replaced by the frame Christian church on Main street, where services are quieter. There was also then, as now, a Methodist church. In Jefferson's time, "Old Doc" Nelson Chenoweth was the town physician and lived in the brick house he had built at the west edge of the town.
Jefferson also recalls the big political rallies of election time with fireworks and "exploding anvils"; and Decoration Day ceremonies with a parade out to a grove west of town where the band and fife and drum corps music entertained the crowd.
The first telephone in Windsor, Jefferson remembers, was a toll phone in his father's store installed by the Bell company.
Around 1907, Jefferson recalls, Windsor almost came to a fiery end. The fire started in his father's store and excitement was increased by a stock of fireworks his father had bought which went off in all directions in the middle of the conflagration.
Other Recollections
Harvey Patty, who at 82 still runs a barbershop in Windsor and has spent all his life in the area, remembers that 50 years ago the town had two blacksmith shops tun by Jake Dickson and Albert Nestor and that in that general period there were three barbershops, three stores, and many lodges. Windor also was visited by an ice wagon, which brought ice all the way from Mills lake six miles to the east.
Now, Patty estimates, Windsor has around 45 houses, half a dozen trailers. The town also has two garage filling stations, one general store, one grocery, one barbershop. A modern restaurant prospered in the past decade but closed around three years ago. The population runs to around 140. Farmers from the surrounding area provide most of the business. By and large, Windsor exists very well, adapting to the modern world as much as necessary but maintaining a certain individual character not always to be found in today's small towns.
Both Frank Jefferson and Harvey Patty, however, raise some doubts about Professor Tucker's description of Windsor "back then," as a "quiet and orderly" town. Jefferson recalls that Windsor was "always wide open at midnight." Patty remembers a popular hang-out called 'The Blue Goose' which existed half a century ago and attracted the male population. Playing cards and shooting pool were always favorite pastimes. And some older people insist that at one time in the not too distant past, Windsor still had such a split personality that people going to church on Sunday morning had to walk around the crapshooters left over from the night before and still intent on a big game.
Many Lodges
The lodge ceremonies and entertainment added to the excitement. In the post Civil War days and up to the early 1990's, Windsor had more than its share of the then flourishing secret societies: The Odd Fellows, the Mason, the Red Men and their women's auxiliaries were among the groups which owned meeting places in the town and added to the social life of the entire area.
All that is gone now, but the little town still has a penchant for fun. Fiddle and guitar music are popular and it is reported on good authority that a card game can be found without too much trouble on some nights. As somnolent and quiet as Windsor is in the daytime, it still does not shut up shop as early as might be expected, and it still proves a certain amount of social life for the farmers of the area.
Many of the early names associated with the town can still be found either in or around Windsor--Thornburg, Reece, Dickson, Huston, in a network of interrelated families who have lived or owned land in Stoney Creek township or Windsor since its founding.
Occasionally, in flooding an inhabited area, the Army Corps of Engineers will move an entire village to another location. Even if they attempted this with Windsor, it couldn't be done. Windsor's entire reason for being, the surrounding farmland, will also be under water, as will its history and traditions. Once the water covers the present location of the town, the delicate fabric of history, custom and inertia which holds this little town together as a useful and functioning unit will be gone.
Meanwhile, on the bench under the pine tree, in the stores on Main street, and in the small houses and trailers, people wait, speculate, and shrug their shoulders to indicate their feeling of helplessness in the face of such large governmental doings.
"Men cannot lose what they never had so Windsor has not lost a greatness which she never possessed," Professor Tucker philosophized 90 years ago. But great or small, if the reservoir is built, what has existed now for 140 years, will most certainly be lost.
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