Melvin Amos Halsted

Melvin Amos Halsted
Born	March 29, 1821 Rensselaer County, New York
Died	March 24, 1915 Auburn, Kansas
Spouse(s)	Martha Foster
Children	4 (William; Theron H.; Mary Theresa; and an infant daughter)

Melvin Amos Halsted (March 29, 1821 - March 24, 1915) was the founder of Lowell, Indiana.

Melvin Halsted was the child of William Halsted and Patty Haskin. Melvin lived in New York with his parents on a farm along the Hudson River until the age of 13, when he moved to Montgomery Country, Ohio, where he began to farm.

In 1842, Halsted married Martha C. Foster, daughter of Elijah D. and Ruth C. Foster of Troy, Pennsylvania. Soon after their marriage they moved to Lake County, Indiana.

In 1845, Melvin and Martha settled in Lake County, Indiana. Melvin bought an eighty-acre farm about five miles west of Lowell on Belshaw Road In 1848, Halsted and his business partner, O. E. Haskin, built a water-powered saw mill in present-day Lowell. Halsted and his family moved from the West Creek farm to a cabin near the present railroad depot in Lowell the following year. The town was officially incorporated in 1852.

Halsted traveled throughout the country after founding Lowell. He helped create a village in southern Illinois and another town near San Francisco. In 1850, Halsted went to California in search of gold, and developed a small fortune there. He came back to Lowell, and funded a trail that would lead from Lowell to the neighboring town of Crown Point, Indiana.

Melvin's wife, Martha, died in 1899. In 1913, at the age of 92, Melvin Halsted made his seventh trip to the west, going alone. Melvin died on March 24, 1915 at the home of his son William, in Auburn, Kansas. He was buried in the West Creek Cemetery beside his first wife, Martha Foster Halsted.

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