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Newspaper article from the 1950's titled "Huntington Founders'Descendants To Meet":
"Over a century and a quarter after Champion Helvie came to settle in the Wabash valley, the Helvie family reunion calls about 150 descendants of the Helvie brothers to the annual family reunion. It will be in Hier's park, Huntington, with the usual noon basket dinner followed by an afternoon of reminiscences and visiting. Over one hundred atended last year's reunion, and more will be present this year, as folk not here last year will come from the vicinity of Ashland, Ohio, Dalamazoo, Michigan and elsewhere."
A History of Huntington County edited by Frank Sumner Bash of Huntington contains the following information:
"Civilized history of Huntington begins with settlement of two brothers, Joel and Champion Helvie (spelled "Helvey") when, according to the history they selected a tract of land in what now is the heart of the city, and built in 1831 a log double house of two stories. This rambling structure afterward became known as the Flint Springs Hotel, one of the first hotels between Fort Wayne and Logansport.
Surveyors for the Wabash and Erie canal reported in 1826 that between Ft. Wayne and the mouth of the Tippecanoe river they found six white settlers, one of them Champion Helvie, whose cabin was near the mouth of the Salamonie River. The site of the city of Huntington was part of a grant by congress to Indiana in 1827 to aid in building the Wabash and Erie canal; the fact tat the canal was to pass this way perhaps influenced the Helvie brothers in locating their establishment here. Official surveys had not been completed when, about 1828, John Tipton obtained a patent for the land from the state. He evidently acquired the interest of the Helvies in a manner satisfactory to all concerned, states the historian, as the two brothers went a short way east of their original tract and chose another, where they built the inn.
An older brother, John, lived in Ohio. Four of his sons came to locate in Indiana, Sol near Peru, Reuben in what now is Rock Creek twp, Jack near the present town of Bippus and Thomas where now are Brown's Corners."
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