A Bold, Fearless Man

  The first Hubers in America, Kurt Huber and his sixteen-year-old bride Inge, arrived in the Whatsit Valley from Germany in 1730, at just about the time when the first members of the Studebaker family were settling in Pennsylvania. In Germany, the Hubers had been farmers. History does not record what reasons Kurt Huber had for choosing Chacallit, but, to judge from the poor soil and steep slopes, he certainly can’t have intended to farm there. At the time,fur-trapping was really the only industry, but Kurt seems to have worked as a road builder. A history of Chacallit published in 1866 says of Kurt, “It is to him that the town is indebted for some of its handsomest streets.” That history also says, “He was a bold, fearless man who refused to remove to the fort, where the other settlers fled on account of the Indians.” Inge was known for her caustic wit and dark beauty. An admiring but wary diarist of the time marveled, in a sketch of Inge, that “so sharp a tongue should lurk behind such plump, alluring lips.” Kurt Huber died just two months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Following his death, many objects of value that had been presumed stolen by Indians during raids were discovered among his road-building tools and supplies, and as a result Inge and her eleven children lived under a cloud for the rest of their days.