USA > Indiana > Elkhart County > A standard history of Elkhart County, Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development, Volume II > Part 22
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Daniel Richardson married Nancy Moat, who was born in Pennsylvania, a daughter of Andrew Moat. She died when about fifty-five years of age.
The late John Richardson grew up among such pioneer scenes as prevailed in Elkhart County during the '40s and '50s. His education came from the local schools and he was still a youth under age when the war broke out. He soon afterward enlisted in Company E of the One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Indiana Volun- teer Infantry, went South, was in some of the great campaigns under General Grant, and altogether had about a year and a half of military life. On account of disability he was honorably dis- charged and then returned home.
Thinking that his destiny would be best fulfilled in some other occupation than farming he went to Chicago, when that city was still in its infancy, and learned the tailor's trade. However, he did not follow that occupation for long, but returned home and bought a tract of timbered land. Here he was soon busily engaged in the heavy work of clearing and improving, and in time he made a valuable farm and erected a set of substantial frame buildings. With the exception of two years spent in Elkhart he was a resident at the old homestead until his death on January 28, 1911. He stood high in his community, was a man of thorough integrity, had a great many friends, and his name will always be spoken with veneration by his children. On February 16, 1871, Mr. Richardson married Annie Eddleman. She was born in Stark County, Ohio. Her
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father, David Eddleman, was born in Franklin County, Pennsyl- vania, November 15, 1818, a son of Valentine and Sarah Eddle- man. Grandfather Eddleman died September 10, 1845, at the age of seventy-five, and his wife passed away August 21, 1841, aged sixty- five. The Eddlemans were very early settlers in Stark County, Ohio, and David continued to live there until 1856, when he brought his family out to Elkhart County and located in Jefferson Town- ship. There he purchased a tract of wild land, improved it, erected new buildings, but having sold out to advantage he then went to Michigan and spent two years there. He finally settled in Baugo Township and bought land in section 23. That was his home for a number of years, after which he moved to the village of Dunlap, and finally to Elkhart, where his death occurred at the age of eighty-three. David Eddleman's first wife, the mother of Mrs. Richardson, was Elizabeth Kennedy. She was born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, in June, 1816, and passed away at the age of seventy-two. The five children she reared were John H., Jacob, William, Mary Jane, and Annie.
To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Richardson were born the following children who grew to maturity: Charles, Hallie, James M., Floyd, Agnes and Orville. Mrs. Richardson still occupies the old homestead in Baugo Township and has around her her children and all the comforts required for her declining years. She is an active member of the Dunkard Church and her husband belonged to the same denomination.
HON. JAMES L. HARMAN. To his present office as judge of the Superior Court of Elkhart County Mr. Harman brought long experience as a lawyer, a spirit of disinterested service and a scrupulous honesty and fine sense of justice which have made him one of the most competent men in the annals of the bench of Elk- hart County. For more than twenty years Judge Harman has been identified with the bar and with municipal and county affairs, and is well known and esteemed all over this section of Northern Indiana.
Born at Mishawaka, St. Joseph County, Indiana, July 11, 1873, he is the only son and child of David and Carrie ( Mack) Harman. His father was born in Kentucky in 1836 and died in 1908, while the mother was born in Canada in 1852 and died in 1906. David Harman came to Indiana when a young man, locating at Mishawaka. He had been educated in Kentucky and throughout the course of his career followed the trade of cabinet maker and carriage builder. In 1875 he removed to Elkhart, and was an industrious worker and
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good citizen in that locality until his death. For some length of time he filled a position on the board of police commissioners at Elkhart. Fraternally he was an Odd Fellow and was a democrat in politics.
Judge Harman graduated from the Elkhart High School with the class of 1892. Nineteen years of age at the time, he had already fully determined upon his future career as a lawyer. Under the direction of Colonel R. M. Johnson he studied law with such enthusiasm and with such rapid progress that he was admitted to the bar on November 19, 1894. For a time he was associated with Colonel Johnson in practice and in April, 1897, the firm became Harman & Barney, but from August, 1899, to January 1901 Judge Harman was alone. He then became a colleague in practice with Edward B. Zigler, and the firm of Harman & Zigler was identified with much of the law business of the county for three years. During 1905 Judge Harman served as a member of the Metro- politan Board of Police Commissioners at Elkhart, and in that time did much to raise the standard of efficiency in the police department. Afterwards for one year he was prosecuting attor- ney of Elkhart County and in 1915 was appointed judge of the new Superior Court and was regularly elected to that office November 7, 1914, beginning his duties under the first elective term on Janu- ary I, 1915. Judge Harman has the temperament of the judge, and by more than twenty years of contact and association with the bar and the people of Elkhart County enjoys complete confidence for his capabilities.
Judge Harman is a member of the Elkhart Bar Association, the County Bar Association and the State Bar Association of Indiana, and in 1912 was grand master of the Indiana Grand Lodge of Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In politics he is a democrat. On September 13, 1898, Judge Harman married Maude E. Cum- mins, daughter of Charles E. Cummins of Elkhart. She died in IQII, the mother of two children, Harold L. and Mildred. On January 19, 1913, Judge Harman married Bessie Mountjoy. There are also two children by this wife, Helen J. and Richard L.
DENNIS COOK. A scion of one of the sterling pioneer families of the fine old Hoosier commonwealth, Dennis Cook has fully upheld the prestige of the name which he bears and, after having devoted his attention for some time to successful work in the pedagogic profession, he found it expedient and satisfactory to renew his allegiance to the great basic industry of agriculture, of which he is now one of the substantial and progressive representatives in Baugo
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Township, Elkhart County, besides being known as a citizen of strong intellectuality, broad and well fortified opinions and dis- tinctive civic loyalty and public spirit.
Mr. Cook was born in Penn Township, St. Joseph County, Indiana. In the same township his father, John Cook, was born on the 8th of January, 1843, a son of Robert Cook, who was born in Lancashire, England, February 18, 1813, and who was there reared and educated, a sturdy and vigorous youth of that fine type that has made Lancaster famous for its strong and vital men. As a young man Robert Cook severed the ties that bound him to home and native land and set forth to seek his fortunes in the United States. He came to Indiana soon after his arrival in America and became one of the early settlers of Mishawaka, St. Joseph County, which now thriving city was then a mere hamlet. He established one of the first livery stables in the village and after conducting a livery business at that point for a few years he purchased a tract of heavily timbered land, three miles south of the village. In these later days it is almost impossible for the younger generation to realize how herculean was the task devolving upon the pioneer in the reclaiming of a productive farm from the virgin forest, but it is sufficient to say that both his mental and physical powers admirably equipped Mr. Cook for the arduous work and the mature judgment required in compassing the desired end. In 1849, moved by the tales emanating from the New Eldorado after the discovery of gold in California, Robert Cook yielded to the call of adventure and joined a party of argonauts who made the long and hazardous jour- ney across the plains to the newly discovered gold fields. The Indians were a constant menace and the great herds of buffalo roamed the plains virtually unmolested, so that new and varied experiences, including manifold dangers and hardships, fell to the lot of these and other immigrants who were making their way to the land of the setting sun. Mr. Cook remained about 21/2 years in California, and was not successful in his quest for gold. At the expiration of the time mentioned he returned to his home and resumed his active association with the work and management of his farm near Mishawaka. There he continued to maintain his home until 1883, when he disposed of the well improved property and came to Elkhart County and purchased a farm in Concord Town- ship. On this homestead this sterling pioneer remained until his death, in his eighty-fourth year, and, true and loyal in all of the relations of life, he commanded the respect and good will of all who knew him.
In St. Joseph County Mr. Cook wedded Miss Katherine Lichten-
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berger, who was born in Germany, on the 13th of November, 1823, and who was but two years old at the time of the family immigration to the United States. Her father, George Lichtenberger, obtained for the family passage on a primitive sailing vessel of the type com- mon to that period, and several weeks elapsed ere the family reached the shores of the land of their adoption. From New York City Mr. Lichtenberger came forthwith to Indiana, where he became one of the first settlers of Marshall County. Mrs. Cook still survives her honored husband, and their English-German alliance calls to mind forcibly how complex and interwoven has become the general element of American citizenship and how consistent is our nation's neutral status in the period of the terrific conflict between the armed forces of Europe at the time of this writing.
John Cook, father of the subject of this review, was reared to manhood under the influences of the pioneer farm in Penn Town- ship, St. Joseph County, and after his marriage he engaged in farming in an independent way in that township. In 1879 he came with his family to Elkhart County and purchased a farm in section 26, Baugo Township, the place having been well improved and equipped with good buildings when it came into his possession. There he continued his successful activities as one of the represen- tative agriculturists and stock-growers of Elkhart County, until his death, which occurred on the 2d of March, 1914. He was a man of steadfast integrity in all of the relations of life; an exponent of loyal and appreciative citizenship; was a staunch democrat in politics, and held membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, as does also his widow, who still maintains her home in this county, and who is held in affectionate regard by all who have come within the compass of her gentle influence.
On the 15th of February, 1870, was solemnized the marriage of John Cook to Miss Geneva Tibbetts, who likewise was born and reared in Penn Township, St. Joseph County. Her father, Abner Tibbetts, was born in this state, of Scotch parents, and was reared to manhood in Penn Township, St. Joseph County, where the family home was established in the early pioneer days and where he eventually became the owner of a good farm, to the management of which he devoted his attention for many years, his death having occurred on this old homestead when he was of advanced age. He married Miss Mary Matthews, whose parents, Allen and Rebecca Matthews, were pioneer settlers in St. Joseph County. Mrs. Mary ( Matthews ) Tibbetts was comparatively a young woman at the time of her death, and was survived by five children,-Alvira, Lucinda, Louisa, Allen and Geneva. By a previous marriage Mr. Tibbetts
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became the father of three children,-Robert, Sarah Ann and Margaret,-and after the death of his second wife he contracted a third marriage, the three children of which were Charles, Nellie and Eva.
Mr. and Mrs. John Cook became the parents of ten children, and their names are here entered in respective order of birth: William D., Florence, Flora, Dennis, Luella, Grace, Ode, Nellie, Edna, and Martha. William D. married Miss Martha Holderman and they have had seven children: Earl, Warren, Mabel, Bert, Grace, Vesta and Lois. Florence is the wife of John Dunmier, and they have four children,-Roscoe, Pearl, Emma and Carl. Flora is the wife of Timothy Holderman and they have one son, Lowell. Luella is the wife of Edward Fields and their three children are Gladys, Zelma and Kenneth. Grace, who became the wife of Peter Moore, died on the 5th of May, 1907, and is survived by two sons, Thomas and Hugh. Oda is the wife of Edward Hoover and their two children are Lewis and Lamar. Nellie is the wife of Rollin Smith and they have three children, Clifford, Edith and Helen. Edna is the wife of George Huer, and Martha is the wife of Walter Eby. Dennis Cook, fourth in order of birth in the family of ten children, passed the period of his childhood and early youth on the home farm and acquired his preliminary educational discipline in the district schools. Thereafter he com- pleted a more advanced course of study in the Elkhart Institute, which is now known as Goshen College, and at the age of nineteen years he initiated his service as a teacher in the public schools. His pedagogic novitiate was served in the Claybank District, Baugo Township, Elkhart County, and he continued as one of the success- ful and popular teachers in this section of his native state until 1913. In the meanwhile he made good use of his earnings by purchasing a farm of eighty acres,-the north half of the south- west quarter of section 26, Baugo Township, and since his retire- ment from the educational field he has here given his attention to successful operations along the lines of diversified agriculture and the raising of excellent grades of live stock. He is one of the alert, progressive and scientific farmers of Elkhart County; both he and his wife are active and valued members of Maple Ridge Grange, Patrons of Husbandry; he is a staunch democrat in his political affiliations ; and he is recognized as one of the influential figures in community affairs in his township, where both he and his wife have a circle of friends that is limited only by that of their acquaintances.
At the age of twenty-seven years Mr. Cook wedded Miss Agnes
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Wenger, who was born and reared in Elkhart County and who is a daughter of Daniel and Anna E. (Holderman) Wenger. Daniel Wenger was born in Stark County, Ohio, and his father, Henry Wenger, was a native of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in which state his ancestors settled upon their emigration from Germany, the name fully denoting the Teutonic lineage. Henry Wenger established his residence in Stark County, Ohio, upon his emigration from the old Keystone State, and in that Ohio County he continued his residence until 1865, when he came with his family to Elkhart County and purchased a tract of land in Olive Township. Only a few acres of this embryonic farm had been cleared and the original habitation of the family was a pioneer log cabin that had previously been erected on the place. Mr. Wenger put forth characteristic energy and discrimination in the reclaiming of his farm, the major part of which he brought under effective cultivation, the while he erected on the homestead a good frame house and other excellent farm buildings. On this homestead he continued to reside until his death, at the venerable age of eighty years. The maiden name of his wife was Margaret Warner and she likewise was born in Pennsylvania. She resided in Elkhart County until her death January 26, 1916. She celebrated her eighty-first birthday anniver- sary in 1915. The names of her eleven children are here entered in respective order of birth: Samuel, Ann, Elizabeth, Susanne, Daniel, Henry, Abraham, David, Martha, Mary and Margaret.
Daniel Wenger is one of the prosperous farmers and highly esteemed citizens of Olive Township, this county and was a boy at the time of the family removal from Stark County, Ohio. His wife, whose maiden name was Anna E. Holdeman, was born in Baugo Township, this county, and is a daughter of Abraham B. Holdeman, who was born in Wayne County, Ohio, on the 4th of April, 1834. a son of Christian Holdeman, whom, it is supposed, was born in Pennsylvania, of German ancestry, and who was a resident of Wayne County, Ohio, at the time of his death. His wife, whose maiden name was Christina Buzzard, survived him and came with other members of the family to Elkhart County in 1849, the home being established on a pioneer farm in section 36, Baugo Township, where a primitive log house had been erected and a small clearing made as the initiation of the improvement of the embryonic farm. Mrs. Christina Holdeman reached advanced age and con- tinued to reside on this old homestead until her death.
Abraham B. Holdeman was the youngest in a family of twelve children and was fifteen years of age when he came with his wid- owed mother and the other children to Elkhart County, Indiana.
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He remained with his loved mother on the homestead farm until her death and then succeeded to the ownership of the property, on which he made the best of improvements, including modern and well equipped buildings, and there his death occurred in 1905. His second wife, the grandmother of Mrs. Cook, bore the maiden name of Mary Kilmer and was born in Ashland County, Ohio, a daughter of Isaac and Anna Kilmer, who were natives of Pennsylvania and who finally came from Ohio to Elkhart County, Indiana, in 1852, their home being established on a farm in Baugo Township, where they passed the remainder of their lives. Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Cook have one son, Wayne.
GRANT B. BUSHNELL. In Elkhart Grant B. Bushnell has been looked upon during the past ten years as the foremost representa- tive of the building and contracting trade and as an authority on practically all matters of building . construction. A large number of private homes and business and public structures attest his work in Elkhart and elsewhere, and out of experience and practical ability he has developed an organization capable of performing almost any contract in general building construction. The splendid City Hall at Elkhart, now in course of building, and which will cost about one hundred thousand dollars, will be another monument to Mr. Bushnell's building activities, since his organization is rapidly carrying out the details of the plan for that handsome public edifice.
The home at which Grant B. Bushnell was born was the farm originally settled by his grandfather in Branch County, Michigan. His parents were Ephraim B. and Esta Ann ( Bennett) Bushnell, both of whom were born in New York State, and they died in the same year when each was seventy-three years of age. Mr. Bushnell was the youngest of their seven children, three sons and four daugh- ters, all of whom are still living. Ephraim B. Bushnell went to Michigan when a small boy, his parents locating among the pioneers. in Branch County. He himself after reaching manhood cleared a farm from wild land, but after a few years of farming took up the contracting and building trade and continued it actively until some seven years before his death. His last days were spent on his old Michigan homestead. In politics he was a republican.
Grant B. Bushnell had the usual advantages accorded to farmer boys in the district schools of Branch County. The fact that his father was a builder and contractor no doubt had a strong influence upon his future career, though from an early age he has been a practical and self-supporting man. In fact, when only fourteen years of age, he started farming with his father, and also learned Vol. 11-14
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the carpenter's trade under the elder Bushnell's supervision. Hav- ing mastered the details of workmanship with building tools, he was taken into partnership with his father in the contracting busi- ness, and finally came to Elkhart and for about nine years was employed as foreman by Jacob Shilling, a well known contractor and builder. After that he was foreman for Ed Hall up to 1905, and has since been in business for himself.
It would take a great deal of space to describe in detail all of Mr. Bushnell's important work as a builder at Elkhart. Some of the more notable among the successful contracts which he has han- dled are the handsome residence of Hon. A. R. Beardsley and some twenty-five or thirty other homes, costing from twenty thou- sand to thirty thousand dollars each. He also constructed the Elkhart General Hospital, the Elkhart Home Telephone Building, the Foster Manufacturing Plant, the Sidway Mercantile Building, the Elkhart Water Company's Building, and the High School Build- ing at Middlebury, Indiana.
Fraternally Mr. Bushnell is a Thirty-second Degree Mason, and a popular member of Elkhart Lodge No. 425, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Politically he is a republican. In 1890 he married Miss Lillian L. Link. She was born in Branch County, Michigan, and died in 1897, leaving three children: Marjorie, who died in infancy ; Vance B. and Elmo. In. April, 1914, Mr. Bushnell married Margaret Griner. Mrs. Bushnell is a native of Indiana.
BLOOM BACHMAN is the head of one of Elkhart's most respected families and for many years he has been in business in that city as a painter and decorator.
Of old Pennsylvania German stock, he was born in York County, Pennsylvania, in November, 1862, a son of Joseph Bachman, also a native of Pennsylvania, and a grandson of Gabriel Bachman, who was born in Germany and on coming across the water located in Pennsylvania where he spent the rest of his days. Joseph Bachman in early life spent an apprenticeship at the cigar maker's trade. From York County he removed to Bainbridge in Lancaster County, conducted a cigar factory there, and later established him- self in business at Selins Grove in Snyder County, Pennsylvania, which was his home until his death. Joseph Bachman married Elizabeth Bowers, who was born in Pennsylvania, a daughter of Adam and Polly Bowers. It is probable that Adam and Polly were natives of Germany, though most of their years were spent in York County, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Joseph Bachman died at the age of thirty-two.
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Bloom Bachman had a common school education in Pennsyl- vania. As a boy he worked under his father at the cigar maker's trade, but never followed 'that as a regular business except for three years under his father and at short periods since. Mr. Bach- man was twenty years of age when he first came to Elkhart, and some years later he removed to Armourdale, Kansas, near Kansas City, where he learned the trade of house painter and decorator. After a year he returned to Elkhart, was active in his trade for four years, and then returned to Kansas City, where he resumed the same vocation and lived for eight years. Since then his home has been in Elkhart and he has enjoyed a prosperous business as house painter and decorator.
In 1900 Mr. Bachman moved into the house he now owns and occupies on East Marion Street, and has a very comfortable home. In May, 1894, he married May Cathern Matthews, who was born at U'tica, Missouri. Her father, Adam Poe Matthews, was born in Wayne County, Ohio, and the grandfather, John Matthews, was a native of Pennsylvania and an early settler in Wayne County, Ohio, where he improved a farm and occupied it until late in life, but spent his last years in Michigan. John Matthews married a laughter of Adam Poe, who is famous in the Indian annals of the Middle West as a scout, hunter and fighter, and is a perma- nent figure in the history of Ohio. Adam Poe Matthews, father of Mrs. Bachman, went out to Pike's Peak, Colorado, during the gold discoveries in that state, and some years later returned East and located at Utica, Missouri, where he owned and operated a flour mill and also conducted a ferry over the Grand River. He remained a resident of that Missouri village until his death in 1874 at the age of fifty-five. Adam P. Matthews married Mary Eliza Martin, who was born at Utica, Missouri, daughter of Norborn and Emily (Goodman) Martin, the former a native of Virginia and the latter of Kentucky, and both of them early settlers at Utica, Mis- souri. Mrs. Bachman's mother died in 1903, having reared three children.
There are three daughters in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bach- man : Clara, Fleeta and Hazel. The daughter Clara is married and has one son named Kenneth Dederlion.
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