Lake Maxinkuckee Its Intrigue
History & Genealogy

Culver, Marshall, Indiana

Maple Grove Farm or Maple Grove Hotel

Harvey R. Norris, Prop. Harvey R. & Louisa (Adler) Norris built Maple Grove in 1886; after living in a log house for several years. From 1890 to 1915 the Norris' operated it as a resort; room and board was $5 per week. It accommodated up to 25 guests. It had the longest pier on the lake.

Here is a section refering to Maple Grove from the 1900 topographical map by J. T. Scovell:

Norris Family of Union Township

....pioneers John and Lydia George Norris who came to the Maxinkuckee area in 1837.. Lorraine married Elisha Lake...Ransom married Mary Lewis....Ransom's son Rev. Schuyler Norris married Anna Wolley..Other sons of Ramson were: Gilson, Bert, William George, Nelson and Harvey, my grandfather, who married Loiusa Alder and had four children: Anna, Allen, William G., my father and Norman.

Anna married Rev. Samuel Zechiel....
Allen, a doctor in Elkhart married Dora Kelly....
Norman, a dentist, ...married Matilda Hawkins...
William, my father, married June Smith.

Harvey, Louisa, and the four children lived in a log house on the southeast shore of Maxinkuckee Lake until they built "Maple Gorve House" in 1886. It was operated as a resort from 1890 to 1915. Its letterhead read: "$5 per week (rooam and board)". William did the farming, and hauled the guest's luggage from the train at Culver to the resort while the guests came by steamboat to "the longest pier on the lake"! There was an ice house to supply the refrigeration of that time and all cooking was done on a wood-fired stove. Louisa and several hired girls did the cooking, laundry, and maid's work without inside plumbing for 15-25 guests. William built the next house east of the resore were he brought his bride...Before the advent of electric lights the installation of acetylene lighting at the resort was an important event. Harvey bought a Model T Ford back in 1909. The telephome enabled him to "broadcast: Edison phonograph music to the Culver telephone operators on winter Sunday afternoons.

....Eva Tellkamp

From Corwin's One Township Yesterday's

Here is one family of those that came to Union Township in '36, that did not come in from the south. The Norris family came through from Vermont, a northerly State in the New England group, and from the north their overland trek led ultimately to Union Township and to Maxinkuckee shores.

John Norris was the migrating ancestor who came from the rock-ribbed country of Vermont, a hill country that built sturdiness of body and of character. John Norris and his wife, with their eight small children, struck westward from Vermont. At length they came to the waters of the inland lakes. They crossed Lake Erie to Detroit. There, the father bought an ox team and a covered wagon. They were not content to remain; they would go farther. They journeyed in the covered wagon from Detroit in a southwesterly direction until they came at last to a point about three miles east of Lake Maxinkuckee, where, they stopped on land that is now the Ezra Hibray farm, not far from the Maxinkuckee village that was to be, a few years later. The Norris family arrived in 1836. The spot where they stopped looked good. They decided to make it the end of their long journey. They stayed. One of the eight children was named Ransom, and when he grew up he bought the farm adjoining his father's. This farm is now occupied by Everett M. Norris. It is located on the Norris Road and is known widely for its orchards. Ransom Norris purchased it from the Erie Canal Company and paid $1.25 an acre for it. The Canal Company had obtained the land from the government, it is asserted, as pay for digging the Erie Canal. The company got a tremendous tract when land was almost worthless. The name of Ransom H. Norris is given by the historian Thompson in the list of Union Township pioneers who settled prior to 1840.

The Norris Inlet, a stream tributary to Lake Maxinkuckee, was so named due to its nearness to the Norris land. A grandson of Ransom Norris and great grandson of the pioneer John Norris resides today in Culver, in the person of Dr. Norman S. Norris, a leader in the ranks of the dental fraternity. Dr. Norris has practiced in Culver since his graduation from the Indiana Dental College in 1904. He was born in West Township, September 6, 1879. His father, Harvey Ransom Norris, was born near Lake Maxinkuckee in 1851, and his mother, nee Louisa Adler, was a native of Stark County, Ohio.

History of Marshall County Indiana Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986 (Taylor Publishing Co., 1986, Publication # 357 of 1422) Marshall County Historical Society pg. 328

Census data:

1900 -

1910 -

1920 -

1837 - June 30 - Land Patent to James F. D. Lanier
1876 - not stated
1880 - J. Bozarth - 68.40A [Joesph Bozarth/Joseph Bozart/Joesph Busart]
1898 - H. R. Norris 67.44A
1908 - H. R. Norris 67.44A
1922 - H. R. Norris 76.40A
1930 - Norris, Harvey
1936-1948 - Allen Borris
1956 - 1974 Ernest B. & Mary Lois (Given) Norris, MD; 46.7A

Tuesday, January 21, 1964 Rochester - Sentinel
Leo NORRIS, 77, R.R. 3, Rochester, died this morning at 3:10 o'clock in Parkview hospital, Plymouth, where he had been a patient since Nov. 10 with a coronary ailment.

Born march 5, 1886, on the east shore of Lake Maxinkuckee, he was the son of Nelson and Margaret McCROSKEY NORRIS. He had resided all his life in Marshall and Fulton counties, the Richland Center community.

His marriage was Dec. 24, 1907, at Richland Center, to Alice BOWEN, who survives. Mr. Norris had retired from farming five years ago. He was a member of the Argos First Baptist church.

Surviving, besides the wife, are two daughters, Mrs. Kenneth (Lucille) FISHER, Bremen, and Mrs. Robert (Betty) MILLER, Columbia City; four sons, Nelson [NORRIS], Wheaton, Ill.; John Cecil [BOWEN], Aurara, Ill.; Wendell [NORRIS], R.R. 3, Rochester, and Manford [NORRIS], Portage; nineteen grandchildren; twenty-three great-grandchildren; four great-great-grandchildren; four sisters, Mrs. Nellie BRUMFIELD, New Castle; Mrs. Reynold CROSSLAND, Fort Thomas, Ky.; Mrs. Milburn LAKE, South Bend, and Mrs. Lloyd OVERMYER, Argos; a brother, John [NORRIS], Bantry, N.D., and numerous nieces and nephews. Two sons, James and Woodrow [NORRIS], and a brother preceded him in death.

Last rites will be Thursday at 2 p.m. in the First Baptist church at Argos with the Rev. Charles DINWIDDIE, Jr. officiating. Burial will be in the Richland Center I.O.O.F. cemetery. Friends may call at the Foster & Good funeral home after 1 p.m. Wednesday until 11:30 a.m. Thursday and at the church an hour before the service.

Ernest B. Norris, M.D.
I am the son of Allen A. Norris, M.D. of Elkhart and was born in that city in 1907. My father taught one-room schools in Marshall county and later (1898-1902) was principal of the high school at Syracuse. This was before he became a physician and surgeon in Elkhart. He maintained a great interest in Indiana history and the New England Branch of the Norris family in America.

The youngest child of the immigrant Norris to Marshall county was Lafayette Norris who was a four year old when his father John S. Norris cleared land one mile wast of Lake Maxinkuckee and built his log cabin on what is now the Whitney Kline farm. That was a year before the Indians were removed to Kansas. In his later years Lafayette wrote many interesting letters to my father regarding his boyhood years from 1837 to 1850 in our county. Having inherited these and similar old letters I have maintained my inetest in Marshall county history where I lived from 1956 to 1970. My home amd medical office was at the south end of East Shore Drive, Culver, where my grandparents had operated the resort hotel known as the Maple Grove House.

One of the most rewarding moments of my life was in 1950 when I found the grave of my paternal great-great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Norris, soldier in the Revolutionary war, at Cornith , Vermont. It was his son, John S. Norris, who served in the War of 1812 and who is honored by a memorial plaque in Popular Grove cemetery, State ROad 10, east of Culver.

For many additional details regarding early history of Green and Union townships I refer the reader to articles in the Culver Citizen written in the 1940's by my father or write to me at my present address: 1614 Locust Street, Apartment 102 Elkhart. I will glady share genealogical and historical reocrds that I have. Ernest B. Norris, M.D.
History of Marshall County Indiana Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986 -, Taylor Publishing Co., 1986, Publication # 357 of 1422, Marshall County Historical Society pg. 328-9

This property 1968 came under the ownership of Jack E. and his wife Lelia they bought 80 acres of land over on the east shore with 1,000 feet of lake frontage in 1970. After five years of improvements to the site, including dredging a harbor, they moved the business now the Culver Marina Inc. to the site - 3000 East Shore Drive. On the 1996 plat map it is listed as the Jack E. Campbell Trust containing 64A

2805 - David Campbell & others
2845 ?
2900 - Susan L. (Campbell)
3000 - Culver Marina

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