10/10/2025
In a 1936 report, Valparaiso University professor Alfred H Meyer described Baum’s Bridge as “the most historic spot along the Kankakee in the marsh proper.” Through my studies I have researched many landowners, particularly those that owned the parcel where the Collier Lodge would be built. William P. Betterton was one of the more significant landowners.
William Pitchard Betterton was born in 1858 in New Albany, Ind to Charles and Christina Oatman Betterton — the youngest of six children. In 1871 the Betterton family moved to a farm a mile west of Kouts. In 1888 Charles bought the future Collier Lodge property from Elizabeth Ryder.
William married Marguerite Lauer in 1880; in1886 William and Marguerite moved to the 156 acre farm adjacent to the lodge parcel. Soon after Charles’s death in 1891 William became the owner of the Betterton family “river farm” property. In 1935 William was interviewed by A J Bowser of the Vidette – Messenger. Much of this column comes from the resulting “Siftings” article.
Betterton told Bowser that he “spent thirteen years on the river farm, and like most of the other inhabitants of the river country, I did my share of hunting and fishing. General Lew Wallace had a houseboat on the river and for some time made his headquarters near Baum's Bridge. With his son Henry, the general came every spring and fall to hunt and fish, and write and rest.” Betterton became friends with Wallace and remembered him as: “a tall, well-built man, with an iron gray moustache and goatee, a military bearing stamped indelibly upon him, a very genial man who would set at ease anyone who came in his presence, regardless of his station in life. He was especially gracious to the local folks.” Betterton overheard Wallace say that the Kankakee “was the most beautiful river in the United States before it was destroyed by the hand of man.”
Betterton was in mid-life when the Kankakee Marsh was drained and channelized. He said: “The digging of the big ditch, spelled the doom of this hunter's paradise, and with its completion came the end of the famous hunting camps of this region.”
The previous owner of Betterton’s river farm owned and operated a sawmill on the property. Like most farmers of the area Betterton was a man of many talents. He operated the sawmill at Baum’s bridge until he exhausted the nearby timber; he then operated a portable mill moving it when a new timber supply became available.
Betterton sold his river farm before the river was channelized. He moved to Kouts where he opened a general store. During this time he also owned and operated a steam threshing machine. The threshing machine was so huge that it required a 35-man crew to operate it. Betterton stayed in the threshing business for 50 years until an injury ended the venture.
William Betterton was an ambitious and hardworking man. With all of his enterprises and obligations he even held the office of Pleasant Township trustee from 1914 to 1918. William passed away in 1938 at the age of 79. Marguerite was to follow in 1941.
They are buried in the Kouts Graceland Cemetery.
Betterton is pictured in the center of the group image.
