Handbook N-P - Fulton County Public Library

Pi
steam engine across northern Indiana. By the time she married Howard Utter in 1934, the sawmill
had moved to Jones, Mich., where Shambaugh joined them in 1935.
Shambaugh’s grandparents had been neighbors of John S. Pike, the man who introduced
the Pike name to Indiana’s lumber industry in 1853. His father had used horses and wagons to
haul logs for D. A. Pike, Helen Utter’s father, and later became a skilled tie hewer.
It was only natural that young Lewis Shambaugh, called Jack by everyone who knew
him, should follow his father’s footsteps by becoming a hewer affiliated with the Pike firm
“They paid me 23 cents an hour,” Shambaugh recalled. “The work was hard, but we had
fun.”
He remembered sleeping in bunk houses built on skids that were pulled by horses from
camp to camp. Asked what they did for relaxation, he confided, “We used to go out in the woods
at night and brew wine from berries and wild cherries.”
When the Utters decided to locate in Akron in 1937, Shambaugh was one of a three-man
crew that accompanied them. The others, Ernest Tucker and Lester Wood, along with Howard
Utter, preceded him in death. “Howard Utter used to tell me he’d push me around in a wheelchair
as long as I wanted to come visit,” Shambaugh said. “Only problem is, I outlived him.”
He never outlived his pride in the company he helped establish and that he saw evolve
from a tie-cutting operation to one propelled by 21st century technology that sells kiln-dried
lumber to an international market. “Rode the carriage there for 23 years, then I sawed and filed for
24 years,” Shambaugh said. “Working there was a good life. You had to know what you were
doing, but you were never alone. Everyone was like family.”
After Shambaugh retired he liked to boast, “I get a check (his pension) from Pike every
Friday and I go visit every Saturday.” That, plus daily trips to Rochester’s Burger King for lunch,
provided the nucleus of his life until illness sidelined him.
Shambaugh died last week at the age of 83, leaving Helen Utter as the only surviving
member of Pike Lumber Company’s original team.
“Jack was the last of a dying breed and certainly one of the last tie hewers,” said the
Utters’ son, Channing. “He saw sawmilling come into the modern era and he had very essential
skills and crafts. His was a rare talent, now long gone, a skill passed from father to son.”
While the old hewer is gone, the Shambaugh name remains on the Pike payroll. His son,
Fred, is employed there as a material handler. Another son, Jack, is a former employee.
[Rochester Sentinel, Wednesday, December 3, 1997]
PIKE MEMORIAL PARK [Akron, Indiana]
Located NE part of Akron. Founded by Howard and Helen Utter.
PILLOW FACTORY [Rochester, Indiana]
PILLOW FACTORY TO OPEN SOON
By next week Rochester is to have a new industry - a pillow factory - in full operation at
the corner of Main and Fourth streets.
Ab Berebitsky and E. Van Houten have fitted up a room 24x40 in the rear of the building
now used by Berebitsky and Marsh Hill as an office, and will start operations at once. The men
will secure their feathers from Beyer Brothers and Hasletts, will employ a few people at the start,
and make all sizes of pillows for all purposes.
The men intend to enter into an extensive advertising campaign in various towns and
cities, and if the business warrants, a new two-story building will be erected for it by Marsh Hill
next spring.
[Rochester Sentinel, Wednesday, October 22, 1913]
PINHOOK [Union Township]
Early name for Kewanna, Indiana