USA > Indiana > Kosciusko County > A standard history of Kosciusko County, Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development. A chronicle of the people with family lineage and memoirs, Volume II > Part 1
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
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GENUGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00828 1641
A STANDARD HISTORY OF
KOSCIUSKO COUNTY INDIANA
An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial, Educational, Civic and Social Development. A Chronicle of the People. with Family Lineage and Memoirs.
HON. L. W. ROYSE Supervising Editor Assisted by a Board of Advisory Editors
ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME II
PUBLISHERS THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO AND NEW YORK 1919
1320399
J. J. Beyer.
History of Kosciusko County
JOHN FREDERICK BEYER. Kosciusko County could claim no bet- ter citizen and one of more distinctive achievements during the past thirty-eight years than John Frederick Beyer of Warsaw. It was Mr. Beyer who was the primary factor in establishing one of the largest provision packing and commission firms in Northern Indiana, and as this concern is still in operation in Warsaw, there need be no further reminder of his connection with that widely known com- mercial enterprise. However, Mr. Beyer has made more than a com- mercial success, and has been one of the vital energizers and np- builders in the county and the City of Warsaw.
A native of Germany, he was born in the Kingdom of Hesse Cassel, now a part of Prussia, October 17, 1850. He was one of a family of five sons, whose parents were Angust and Mary (Eckhart) Beyer. His father died when his youngest child was three months old, and the widow subsequently married George Pfeifer, by whom she had four more children.
Of the five sons, J. Frederick Beyer was the second. His older brother is still living on a farm in Germany. Reared in an attractive section of rural Germany, after leaving the common or volk schools he served a thorough five years' apprenticeship in the blacksmith's trade. In 1869, at the age of nineteen, he came to America to visit relatives. The steamer "Donan" on which he made the passage was twelve days in crossing the Atlantic. In his company was his brother Albert. He first went to Goshen, Indiana, where his relatives were living, and remained there seven years, a part of the time working at his trade. However, it was while at Goshen that he laid the foundation for his highly prosperous business career. He began on a small scale and with hardly any capital, to collect and handle butter and eggs, which he gathered up from local producers and
shipped to outside markets. This was the germ of the present wholesale packing business of Beyer Brothers, with three main offices at Warsaw, Kendallville and Rochester, and with commission houses in New York City, Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, besides nu- merous branch establishments throughout the country. It would be interesting if space permitted to give a detailed history of the growth
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HISTORY OF KOSCIUSKO COUNTY
of this industry. It was started by Mr. Beyer with a capital of only about $5,000 and with two wagons. It is now an incorporated com- pany under the title Beyer Brothers Company, has a vast capital employed, and its equipment ineludes hundreds of wagons and auto- mobile trucks, and an independent refrigerator line. In the course of time two more brothers, Christian C. and J. Edward, came to this country and threw in their energies with the business.
It was in February, 1877, that Mr. Beyer eame to Warsaw and extended his business to this town. In the early days he had mauy difficulties to surmount, but by hard work, good business manage- ment and indomitable energy sueceeded beyond his most sanguine expectations. Gradually, however, he withdrew from the active management of the packing business. It was not a retirement from business altogether, since in the meantime he eoneeived the idea of establishing an educational and pleasure park at Winona Lake. Toward that end he acquired extensive traets of land along the eastern shore of the lake, and then in 1888, with his brothers, founded Spring Fountain Park. Their first enterprise there was a creamery, and they also built a hotel. After a few years, in 1895, Spring Fountain Park was sold to the Winona Assembly and has ever since been the beautiful grounds of what is probably the most noted and best attended ehautanqua assembly in the country. Though he sold the property, Mr. Beyer was asked to remain as superintendent of the grounds. He has ever since been actively identified with the assembly, and mueh eredit is due him for the splendid condition of the park and facilities with which thousands and thousands of peo- ple become acquainted every year. In a hardly less important man- ner Mr. Beyer has been a prominent factor in the making of modern Warsaw. He has been a liberal contributor to all worthy enterprises. Coming to Ameriea with but little means at his command, unae- quainted with the language and customs of the people, he has been wonderfully prosperous, but better still has acquired an honest name and commands universal respect.
In polities he is a republiean, though he has never aspired for politieal office. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Proteetive Order of Elks. On December 15, 1877, he married Miss Anna M. Miller, daughter of Jacob Miller, who was born in Pennsylvania and spent many years of his career in Elkhart County, Indiana. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Beyer are: Mae E., Carl F. and Harold R. Mr. and Mrs. Beyer are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In later years Mr. Beyer has devoted much of his attention to farming and stock raising, and is one of the most extensive cultivators of crops and general agricultural enterprise in this seetion of Indiana. He owns abont 500 aeres, comprising a splendid country estate near Warsaw, where he spends most of his time, and he also operates about 700 other aeres, largely in Kosciusko County.
JAMES A. COOK. One of the first of the hardy pioneers to settle in what is now Koseiusko County was John Cook, who became widely
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HISTORY OF KOSCIUSKO COUNTY
known as a local preacher and exhorter of the Methodist Church, and whose descendants have borne a prominent part in the development and all the subsequent history of Kosciusko County. Before churches were built here John Cook preached in the cabins of the early settlers, in the open at camp meetings, in the isolated school house and wherever two or three came together for religious worship. His familiar figure, traveling about on horseback, was a welcome sight to the lonely settler. With his wife, whose maiden name was Ann Houston, John Cook set- tled in what is now Plain Township in 1834, when Kosciusko was still a part of Elkhart County. He then took up what was known as a "floater's claim" which, owing to uncertainty as to boundary lines, ultimately proved to have been previously settled upon. In this way he lost the claim and the round log cabin he had ereeted thereon, and then moved into the wilds of what is now Wayne Township, that being before Warsaw was platted as a town. He lived in Wayne the rest of his days, and because of his many admirable traits of character was universally esteemed.
In the second generation of the Cook family's residence in Kosei- usko County was John W. Cook, a son of John and Ann ( Ilouston ) Cook. John W. was born in Ohio, and was quite young when he came with his parents to Kosciusko County in 1834. He had much to do with those things which help make pioneer history. He was the first man appointed to the office of constable in Kosciusko County after it was organized. He assisted in making the shingles that served for a roof on the first frame house built in Warsaw. Like his father he was prominently identified with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and did much to keep up religious worship in a new country. He was a mem- ber of the first jury empanneled in the county, and he assisted in blazing the road to Rochester through swamps and around hills. He was a strong man in a community which especially needed strong men. He was a thorough Christian and a man who made his deeds conform to his beliefs. He gave liberally of his substance, aided many less prosperous than himself, and was the type of early settler whose character should be longest remembered by those who came afterward. John W. Cook married Ann Pettinger. Eight of his children were reared to mature years : Nicholas P., James A., Stephen N., Allen T., Henry, Mary D., Peter S. and William F. Peter and William were ministers of the Methodist Church and did pioneer missionary labors in Dakota Territory.
James Asbury Cook, at the time of his death perhaps the oldest representative of the Cook family living in Kosciusko County, was born when Kosciusko County was still a wilderness. He was born on his father's farm September 22, 1843, a son of John W. and Ann (Pet- tinger) Cook. As a boy he had the advantages of the country schools and for several terms taught school in the winter terms. His children and descendants will always be proud of the fact that he served as a soldier in the Civil war. He enlisted in February, 1864, as a member of Company A, Seventy-Fourth Indiana Infantry. That regiment bore its full share of campaigning in the march and siege of Atlanta, but just before the battle of Resaca in that campaign he was taken
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HISTORY OF KOSCIUSKO COUNTY
ill and sent to a hospital. He subsequently rejoined the regiment, was with Sherman in his triumphant movements through Georgia and up through the Carolinas, and after participating in the grand review at Washington was honorably discharged in July, 1865. During the last few weeks of his service he was a member of the Twenty-Second In- diana Infantry.
After the war Mr. Cook applied himself to the business of farming in Harrison Township. He was also active in that locality as a citizen, served in the office of constable, and in the spring of 1866 was elected assessor of Harrison Township for four years. He continued his career as a farmer until 1897, and then lived in Warsaw for a time, went back to his farm and managed it several years longer, but from 1902 was a permanent resident of the county seat. For a number of years Mr. Cook served as ditch viewer, and in that connection had much to do with county improvement. He served his second term as a member of the Warsaw city council. In politics he was a republican, was active in the Methodist Episcopal Church and affiliated with Kos- ciusko Post No. 114, Grand Army of the Republic. On September 6. 1868, only a few years after he returned from the war, Mr. Cook married Mary J. Huffer, daughter of Joseph Huffer. Five children were born to their marriage: John W., Jacob E., Anna B., Joseph M. and Matilda J. Two of these children, John W. and Joseph Merlin, are now deceased. Jacob E. is a stock buyer and farmer in Harrison Township. Anna B. is a deaconess in the Methodist Episcopal Church and for the past fifteen years has resided at Dubuque, Iowa. Matilda J. married Edward Levi, and they reside in Warsaw.
The mother of these children died June 5, 1883. In March, 1884, Mr. Cook married Mrs. Mary C. (Harter) Lehman, daughter of Mathias Harter and widow of Benjamin F. Lehman, reference to both of whom is made in subsequent sketches. Mr. Cook died on May 12, 1916.
MATHIAS HARTER, the father of Mrs. James A. Cook of Warsaw, was a prominent old settler in Kosciusko County. He was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1808, son of Christian and Eliza- beth Harter, and during his youth and early manhood he lived suc- cessively in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and Indiana. He was a blacksmith by trade. In 1833 he united with the United Brethren Church, and was one of its most earnest supporters wherever he lived. It was due to exposure while working on the camp meeting grounds at Warsaw that he was taken with the illness which brought about' his death on September 17, 1886.
In December, 1831, Mathias Harter married Mary Easterly. She was born November 27, 1812, in Pennsylvania, a daughter of Lawrence and Catherine Easterly. She was sixteen years of age when the family moved to Richland County, Ohio. Several years after their marriage Mathias Harter and wife came to Kosciusko County, and for many years he was one of the prominent residents of Harrison Town- ship. His home was in section 15, west of Warsaw, and he developed a large and valuable farm in that locality. He and his wife were the
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parents of eight children, and those who reached mature years were George W., Henry, Susan, Mathias, William and Mary C. Four of the sons of Mathias Harter were Union soldiers. One of them, Jona- than, died while in the army at Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 4, 1864. The oldest, George, entered the army in 1862, was advanced fron private to second lieutenant, to first lieutenant, and in March, 1864, was made captain in the Seventy-Fourth Indiana Infantry.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN LEHMAN, who spent nearly all his life in Kosciusko County, was a splendid citizen, and his record as a soldier during the Civil war should be especially remembered and made a matter of record in this publication.
He was born in Ohio, a son of John Lehman. The family came to Kosciusko County when Benjamin F. was a boy in his teens, and he grew up in this locality and acquired his education in the public schools. From the schools he graduated into the active work of the farm and continued that vocation until the outbreak of the Civil war. Then, when the country most needed defenders, in July, 1862, he en- listed as a private in Company A of the Seventy-fourth Indiana Vol- unteer Infantry. For a time he was in the instruction camp at Camp Allen at Fort Wayne, and was regularly mustered into service on August 21, 1862. He saw much of the ardnous campaigning through Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia, fought at Hoover's Gap, and in the great battle of Chickamauga was wounded in the left leg by a minie ball. He recovered in time to join his regiment immediately after the fall of Atlanta. Thence he marched with Sherman's splendid army to the sea, up through the Carolinas, and the last event of his service was the grand review at Washington. He received an honorable dis- charge at Indianapolis June 16, 1865.
After the war Mr. Lehman resumed his life as a farmer in Kosei- usko County. On March 10, 1872, he married Mary C., daughter of Mathias Harter. To their marriage were born two sons: Herbert C., who is in the railway mail service and has his home in Warsaw, and Edgar E., who is auditor of the Dalton Foundry at Warsaw. Both these sons made records in the Spanish-American war, the former as a private and the latter as sergeant in Company H of the One Hundred and Sixtieth Indiana Volunteer Infantry.
Benjamin Franklin Lehman died January 5, 1878. Ilis death was hastened by the wounds which he had received in the battle of Chicka- mauga and he practically laid down his life for the integrity of the Union. He was an active member of the United Brethren Church.
ALPHEUS B. ULREY. It indicates to a large degree the esteem in which he is held by his neighbors that Alpheus B. Ulrey was nomn- inated for the office of trustee of Jackson Township in 1918. He has also served as a member of the Township Advisory Board. He is a man of first-class ability and is known among his neighbors as a very successful farmer. The Ulrey home is in section 5 of Jackson Town- ship, two miles south and a mile and a half west of Sidney.
Several branches of the Ulrey family were among the early set-
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HISTORY OF KOSCIUSKO COUNTY
tlers and have long been well known in this southeastern corner of Kosciusko County. Alpheus B. was born in the township August 18, 1889, a son of Gabriel and Mary A. (Kreider) Ulrey. His father was born in Montgomery County, Ohio, four miles from the City of Dayton, December 26, 1839, and died April 23, 1914. His mother was born in Ohio July 27, 1843, and is still living at the advanced age of seventy-five. The parents were children when their respective parents came to Indiana and located in Kosciusko County, and here they grew up and married May 8, 1862. Gabriel Ulrey was an or- dained elder in the Church of the Brethren. His children were: Rosa, born August 23, 1863, wife of A. J. Wertenberger ; Anna, born October 10, 1865, wife of Jacob N. Miller; Lizzie, born September 1, 1868, wife of Jacob A. Metzger, of Jaekson Township; Alice, born March 19, 1870, wife of Albert Miller, and she died in February, 1903; Mattie, born Angust 20, 1872, wife of S. N. Hawley, living in California : Asa, born December 4, 1875, a farmer in Jackson Town- ship ; Alphens B. : and Ella, born April 4, 1882 ; wife of E. P. Tridle, of Sidney.
Alpheus B. Ulrey had as his boyhood environment the old home farm, and he learned the common branches taught in the neighbor- ing district sehools. At the age of twenty, on April 12, 1900, he married Miss Cora Ross, who was born in Jackson Township, Janu- ary 12, 1878, daughter of John and Jane (Stout) Ross. Mrs. Urey was educated in the public schools of Jackson Township.
After their marriage they rented the Ross farm for a number of years, but in 1905 moved to their present place of eighty acres, one of the high class and valuable farms of that township.
Mr. and Mrs. Ulrey have six children : Flossie, born March 13. 1902, a graduate of the common schools : Fern, born October 7. 1904, who has also completed the course of the common sehools; John A., born December 10, 1907; Irene and Pauline, twins, born April 20. 1911; and Gladys, born August 14, 1914. The family are members of the Church of the Brethren and Mr. Ulrey takes an active part in church affairs and is a deacon. Politieally his active part has been played as a republican.
REVRA DEPUY is one of the men who have helped to make War- saw an industrial center. He first located in this eity in 1896 and founded what is now the DePuy Manufacturing Company, a face- tory that turns out produets that are sold all over the country, employing a number of workmen, and the payroll is one of the im- portant assets of the community.
By birth Mr. DePuy is a Michigan man, having been born in Grand Rapids March 22, 1861. His father, James DePuy, was a lawyer in Grand Rapids, but when the son Revra was still a child he took his family to Canada, where he died. The mother subse- quently returned to the United States and lived in Marseilles, Illinois. ยท Owing to the early death of his father, Revra DePuy came face to face with hard circumstances in his boyhood. He lived in a num- ber of different localities and supported himself by many kinds of
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HISTORY OF KOSCIUSKO COUNTY
work. He was compelled to fight the battle of life unaided, and his education was largely such as he could piek up by an occasional term in the regular schools and by much reading and study in pri- vate. As a boy he worked as a clerk in a drug store, and this led to his taking a course in chemistry in the University of Toronto, from which institution he received his diploma.
On leaving the university he went as a traveling salesman, and it was while making the rounds of his customers that he first came to Warsaw. He came to that city with a purpose. He had conceived the idea and had carefully worked out a plan for manufacturing a fiber splint to take the place of the wooden splints which up to then were almost entirely employed for broken bones. On the basis of this idea, Mr. DePuy began in a very small way his manufacturing industry at Warsaw in 1896. He soon had the business on a profit- able basis. In 1901 he responded to some inducement and removed his factory to Niles, Michigan, where he ineorporated the company. However, the concern did not prosper there in accordance with his plans and expectations, and in 1904 he returned the business to Warsaw. He has continued with more than an average degree of success. With the progress of time the wood fiber splint, which con- stituted the basis of his manufacturing enterprise, gave way to wire cloth, and that is now the chief output of the DePuy factory. There are sixteen people employed in the local industry, and six of these are traveling salesmen.
Mr. DePuy is married and is recognized as one of the substan- tial men of Warsaw and Koseiusko County. He is affiliated with the Masonic Order and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
OWEN S. GASKILL. Any history of the Village of Burket, which was established thirty-five years ago, must repeat the name of Owen S. Gaskill in connection with nearly all its leading interests and in- dustries. Mr. Gaskill is a pioneer lumberman, having been in the business for over half a century, and in the past has owned several of the mills which at one time gave to Burket its chief industry, humber manufacture. He is also a banker, practical farmer and stock raiser, and his long life has contained a succession of undertakings, beginning with the struggles of a poor boy and mounting gradually higher until they have become vitally identified with the entire com- munity.
Mr. Gaskill is president of the Bank of Seward, which was organ- ized with a capital stock of $10,000. The other executive officers are Mrs. Ida Huffer, vice president, and H. H. Roberts, cashier. The di- rectors of the bank are Mr. Gaskill, II. H. Roberts, W. S. Howard, George Alexander and Clem Jones, while the finance committee con- sists of Mr. Gaskill and W. S. Howard. Mr. Gaskill and his son, E. E. Gaskill, are also large stock holders in the State Bank of War- saw and his son is one of the directors of the bank. The business of lumbering is still carried on under the name Gaskill & Son. Mr. Gaskill and son have about 600 acres of land under their ownership in Kosciusko County.
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HISTORY OF KOSCIUSKO COUNTY
Mr. Gaskill was born in Stark County, Ohio, December 25, 1838, a son of Levi and Nancy A. (Maxwell) Gaskill. His mother was a native of Meadsville, Pennsylvania. At an early age Owen S. Gas- kill was thrown on his own resources. A limited attendance at dis- trict schools was all the education he was able to secure. For five years he worked from early morning to late at night on a dairy farm. He also had another youthful experience as a laborer in a brick fac- tory. As a youth he was modest, quick in comprehension, thrifty and industrious, and naturally gained the sympathy aud earned the as- sistance of the people around him. While he was attending school at Marlboro, Ohio, a proposal came to him to move to Indiana and teach a term of school. In the fall of 1858, at the age of twenty, he arrived at Bourbon, Indiana, and taught there during the following winter of 1858-59. Altogether he taught four years. After his first term he had no difficulty in securing a school. His first license for two years was renewed for two years more. He invested some of his first earnings in a tract of land and has never been without some practical interests in agriculture and land development.
In 1863 Mr. Gaskill was drafted for service in the army and was with Company C of the Eighty-Third Indiana Infantry until the close of the war. He brought back from the army only $37.50. Returning to Bourbon, he joined his brother, who had come from Ohio in 1860, and built a sawmill near that town. Mr. O. S. Gaskill acquired a half interest in this mill and at the end of two years sold ont and realized a cash capital of $3,700. He used $2,700 of this to buy a hardware store at Bourbon, The next ten years were spent in the hardware trade, but despite his best efforts his business failed to prosper. Having lost all his capital, he had to begin all over again. Here again he resorted to farming, buying thirty acres and paying for it out of the proceeds of his labor. Some friends who recognized his sterling honesty and industry supplied him with the capital to get into the lumber business again, and from the stumpage of a tract which he bought he cleared up a good profit and that started him again on the road to prosperity.
In the fall of 1880 Mr. Gaskill came to Burket, which, however, had not yet been established, and acquired a half interest in the saw- mill through the backing of Mr. C. L. Morris. In 1881 he moved into the Village of Burket, and has been his home now ever since. As a sawmill man he has cleared off and converted into lumber many tracts in Northeastern Indiana. In 1883 he bought ninety-four acres near Burkett, and that was one among many profitable enterprises.
Mr. Gaskill married Mary J. Collins, who died in 1893, and was the mother of Mr. E. E. Gaskill of Warsaw. For his present wife Mr. Gaskill married Hattie Elliott, of New York.
Mr. Gaskill is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Burket, is affiliated with Bourbon Lodge of Masons and is a former master of the lodge. In politics he is a republican, and has filled positions on the township advisory board.
Ander & brood
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HISTORY OF KOSCIUSKO COUNTY
ANDREW GEROW WOOD, the dean of the Kosciusko County bar, not long ago celebrated his eightieth birthday anniversary. While there are many men who reach the age of fourscore, comparatively few make these years significant by such experience and achievement as have been the lot of Captain Wood. He earned a captain's com- mission by service in the Civil War during the dark days of the sixties. For fully half a century he has practiced law at Warsaw. His fellow citizens in Kosciusko County do not need these statements of fact in order to appreciate his sterling character and his value as a citizen. As a matter of permanent record for the future, how ever, something more concerning his career should be noted here.
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