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 24
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At New Carlisle, Indiana, at the age of twenty-one, he married Miss Frances E. Kimball. Mrs. Caldwell was born in Michigan, a daughter of Benoni and Nancy Kimball.
LORENZO DOW VAN DORAN. One of the youngest veterans of the Union army during the Civil war now lives at Elkhart, where for a number of years he has been well and widely known as a popular auctioneer and business man. Mr. Van Doran was a mem- ber of a Michigan regiment during the great struggle for the integrity of the Union, and was about fourteen years of age when he gal-
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lantly volunteered his services. He has always taken an active part in Grand Army circles, and his business and personal career is one that deserves recognition in this publication.
His parents were pioneers at Kalamazoo, Michigan, where the son was born April 21, 1847. His father, William Van Doran, was born at Seneca, New York, February 10, 1820. The grandfather was Peter Van Doran, who was born in or near Seneca, New York, in 1775. The ancestry goes back to the great-grandfather, who was born at Rotterdam, Holland, and came to America in colonial days. During the Revolutionary war he was one of General Washington's aides. After settling in America he lived for a time in the Hudson River Valley, and then moved to the western part of the state and located in the vicinity of Seneca. This Dutch ancestor brought with him to America a razor from Holland, and it has now been in active use through four generations. Mr. Van Doran of Elkhart not only uses it but highly prizes this ancestral relic, and he would not exchange its keen and well tempered blade for any of the more mod- ern types of razor. The great-grandfather reared four sons and three daughters. Grandfather Peter Van Doran was a millwright and farmer, and spent practically all his life in New York, where he died in 1849, having reared four daughters and three sons.
William Van Doran, who learned the trade of millwright from his father, was a prominent pioneer in the early days of Western Michigan. In 1839, at the age of nineteen, he came west to the then new State of Michigan, having made the entire journey with team and wagon. Kalamazoo, where he located, was then a village sur- rounded by an almost unbroken wilderness. He assisted in build- ing a steam grist mill located on part of the ground now occupied by the Michigan Central Railroad Depot at Kalamazoo. He was a man of much enterprise, and subsequently was well known as a horse dealer and trader. From Kalamazoo he removed to Grand Rapids, and is also identified with the early growth of that city. In the early '50s, after the discovery of gold in California, he made several journeys across the plains convoying horses to the Pacific coast settlements. The last trip he made he took 200 horses, and in the party were eight large wagons loaded with grain and provi- sions. From the Missouri River to California the entire interven- ing country was at that time a vast unsettled plain and mountains, and the travelers frequently met large herds of buffalo, while it was not unusual to encounter parties of hostile or semi-hostile Indians. Mr. Van Doran accomplished all his journeys back and forth in safety, and after selling his horses and wagons in California he returned to the east on horseback. After these western experiences
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he engaged as a horse dealer at Kalamazoo, afterwards traveled about the country selling Yankee notions, and also lived for a time at Allegan. In 1865 he moved to Manleys, Michigan, and employed his time in getting out timber there until 1867, when he established a home at Paw Paw, Michigan, and lived there until 1871. His home was at Three Rivers until 1877 when he went to South Bend and somewhat later moved to Elkhart, where he died October 2, 1894. William Van Doran married Margaret Russell, who was born near Ludlowville, New York. Her father, Elihu Rus- sell, a native of the same state, learned the trade of millwright and was also an early settler at Kalamazoo, where he assisted in build- ing the steam mill mentioned above, but died before the mill was completed. Elihu Russell married a Miss Hemcka, who survived her husband and died in 1860, having reared seven children, four daughters and three sons. Mrs. William Van Doran who died March 10, 1902, reared two children, Lorenzo Dow and Sarah.
Lorenzo Dow Van Doran gained his early education in the com- mon schools of Michigan. He left school when fourteen years of age and on September 20, 1861, enlisted in Company G of the First Regiment Michigan Engineers. He was the youngest soldier in the regiment, and very few boys of his age were accepted so early in the war, and at the time he enlisted he was one of the very youngest soldiers in the Union forces. He went south with his regiment and did faithful and conscientious duty as a soldier through all the marches, campaigns and battles in which his command was engaged. After nearly three years he received an honorable discharge on June 14, 1864. Just a month later, July 14th, he again enlisted, this time in the United States Navy and was on board the Mississippi gunboats St. Clair and Volunteer until honorably discharged December 20, 1865. Thus for more than four years he performed a duty beyond his years and strength in saving the Union.
After the war he found a place as clerk in a hotel at Paw Paw and later in the Perkins House at St. Joseph, Michigan. He went from St. Joseph to Three Rivers, and while working at a hotel there he received injuries which incapacitated him for work for about two years. In 1876 he moved to South Bend and was employed there in the great Oliver and Studebaker plant until 1881. In that year he removed to Elkhart and for a time was employed in local fac- tories. Later he developed his talent as an auctioneer, and that has been his chief line of business in this section of Indiana for over thirty years.
On October 8, 1870, Mr. Van Doran married Kate E. Dame. She was born in Hesse Cassell, Germany, August 8, 1848. Her
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father, John Herman Dame, a native of Germany, was a sugar maker by trade, served as a soldier in the German army and died in his native land in 1854. His wife, whose maiden name was Sophia Winter, being left a widow, set out for America in 1856 with her only daughter, Mrs. Van Doran. In this country she joined a brother and sister at Milton, Indiana, where she died in 1865.
Mr. and Mrs. Van Doran have reared five children. Their names are William Henry, Eva, Beatrice, Helen and Lorenzo. The son William married Bertha Thomas, and their two children are Mary Catherine and Thomas F. Eva is the wife of Fred Prior. Beatrice married Charles Sigerfoos. Helen married Joseph Ives, and her three children are named Chester, William and Helen. Lo- renzo, the youngest son, married Marie Denke, and their one daugh- ter is named Theresa Marie.
Mr. and Mrs. Van Doran are active members of the First Breth- ren Church. In 1882 Mr. Van Doran was mustered in as a member of Elmer Post, Grand Army of the Republic, and for one year served as second officer of the guard and for fourteen consecutive years was officer of the day in the post. He was junior vice commander two years and senior vice for three years. Mr. Van Doran cherishes with proper pride a beautiful gold badge which was presented him by members of his old Michigan regiment in honor of his having been the youngest member. He was for eight years a member of Conn's Veteran Light Artillery of Elkhart, Indiana. There were sixty-one members of that order, but now only eight are living, and the organization has been disbanded. His son William H. has also added something to the family record for military activities, having served with the Danville Virginia Blues in the Spanish-American war. Mrs. Van Doran has some interesting relics of her family during its associa- tions with Germany, one of especial interest being a hymn and prayer book which her mother brought to America. It was published in 1776, and is in the German text. She also has another old volume which bears the date 1806.
LAWRENCE R. SIMONTON. For more than eighty years this family has been prominently known in Elkhart County, and in Osolo Township one of the beautiful lakes that adorn the landscape is named Simonton in honor of the first settler on its shores. Lawrence R. Simonton, who represents the third generation of the family here, has for many years been a resident of Elkhart and has been suc- cessfully identified with farming and with various business affairs.
He was born in Mason Township of Cass County, Michigan,
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a short distance north of the Elkhart county line, January 19, 1845. His great-grandfather, William Simonton was of Scotch-Irish ancestry and probably spent all of his life in Pennsylvania. His grandfather, Samuel Simonton, was a native of Pennsylvania, and early in life learned the trade of millwright. Having completed his apprenticeship he became an employe of Isaac Pierce in the District of Columbia. Not long afterwards he married Mr. Pierce's daughter, Annie. From the District of Columbia they moved out to Logan County, Ohio, then to Clark County, where Grandfather Simonton improved a water power and built a mill on Honey Creek. That was one of the first mills in that section of the country and he operated it and rendered a valuable service to the pioneer com- munity for a number of years. Having sold the property, and ac- companied by his wife, five sons and three daughters, he headed this little colony in its migration to Elkhart County, Indiana. He located here in 1832, and the county had been organized only a year or so, and they arrived in time to participate in the full tide of pioneer activities. The entire journey from Ohio was made overland, and the women and children rode in a carriage drawn by a team of horses, while another conveyance was a wagon drawn by oxen. Grandfather Simonton located on the north bank of Simonton Lake in Osolo Township, and as his was the most im- portant home in that community the lake was named in his honor. With the exception of a few thousand acres, almost all of Elkhart County was then owned by the government. Samuel Simonton purchased a squatter's claim to a tract of land bordering Simonton Lake and went to the land office at Fort Wayne to enter it. His family first lived in a log cabin, which was erected by their labor, united with the energies of some of the friendly settlers in the same community. Devoting his time to the development of his land, he made rapid progress, cleared up a good farm, and in time erected substantial frame buildings. His death occurred at the old home- stead on Simonton Lake in 1850, when seventy-three years of age, and his wife passed away in 1851. They reared nine children, named Isaac, Elizabeth, Samuel, Abner, David S., John, Hannah, Eliza and Telemachus.
David S. Simonton, father of Lawrence R., was born in or near Springfield, Clark County, Ohio, in 1817, and was about fifteen years of age when he came to Elkhart County. After his education was completed in the pioneer schools, he learned the trade of carpenter. At the time of his marriage he located on a portion of the home farm just across the state line in Cass County, Michigan, lived there until 1853, and then sold out and bought his brother's Vol. II-15
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farm in Osolo Township. In 1856 he moved into Elkhart, which was then a village with about sixteen hundred population. Here he took up his trade as carpenter, soon developed a business as contractor and builder, and for many years continued in that line, and erected a large number of store buildings, churches, school- houses, residences and barns all over this section of Indiana. . He was successful and left a large estate at the time of his death at the age of eighty-four. David S. Simonton married Emily Allen, who was born in Chautauqua County, New York. Her father, Luke Allen, a native of Connecticut, moved out to Cayuga County, New York, later to Chautauqua County, and in 1834 he pioneered westward and for a time lived at Edwardsburg, Michigan, in Cass County. He then made an overland journey to Illinois, but soon returned and entered a tract of government land in Mason Town- ship of Cass County. He improved this land by erecting a log house which was the family home for several years, and it was then re- placed by a more substantial and comfortable frame dwelling, in which Luke Allen lived until his death at the age of seventy-one. The maiden name of his wife was Catherine Hunsicker, who was born in New York State of Holland ancestry, and was left an orphan at an early age. She survived her husband and died at the age of seventy-nine. Mrs. David S. Simonton died when seventy- three years of age.
Lawrence R. Simonton gained his early education in the City of Elkhart. He attended the only schoolhouse then in the village, a four-room frame building, and he has some interesting recollections of life and manners in the country around Elkhart sixty years ago. As a boy he also gained an ample experience in the practical work of farming on his father's place.
In 1878 Mr. Simonton married Alice Carpenter, a daughter of Charles Carpenter, a native of Pennsylvania, and whose parents removed from that state to Stark County, Ohio, where Grandfather Carpenter improved a farm at New Berlin, but late in life moved to Summit County and died at the home of a daughter near Akron. Charles Carpenter was reared to the life of a farmer, and lived in Stark County until 1858, when he came to the village of Elkhart and followed different lines of work until he engaged in business as a dealer in livestock, shipping to the Chicago markets. Four years before his death he returned to New Berlin in Stark County, Ohio, and died there at the age of sixty-seven, while his wife passed away at the age of sixty-two. Mrs. Simonton was one of three children, Susan, Alice and William, and her sister Susan is the wife of J. S. Lloyd, while her brother William is a resident of Chicago.
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Mr. Simonton for many years devoted his time and energy to the development and management of his farm, and is still the owner of extensive farm property in Osolo Township and also city real estate. For a number of years the family home has been at 215 West Franklin Street. Mr. and Mrs. Simonton have one son, named Harold Lloyd.
CRATON URSA WILLIAMS. For the past thirty-five years a sub- stantial and well known business man of Elkhart, Craton Ursa Wil- liams has led a very active career and has always found a way to employ his energies profitably and usefully.
Though he has spent most of his life in Indiana, he was born at Cold Creek in Erie County, Ohio, April 24, 1853. His father, Wil- liam Williams, was born in the Province of Ulster, Ireland, and being left an orphan at an early age, when only nine years of age he shipped as cabin boy on a sailing vessel bound for the United States. Arriving in this country, he continued for several years as a sailor on the Great Lakes, and finally located in Erie County, Ohio, the home of so many men formerly identified with the lake marine. There he found employment in a flour mill at Cold Creek, and sub- sequently bought the mill from his employer and operated it until 1856. Having sold the property, in April of that year he moved to Indiana and located in LaGrange County, buying a farm six miles from the historic old center of White Pigeon, Michigan, and three miles south of the Michigan state line. Early in 1862 William Williams enlisted in the First Indiana Cavalry for nine months. He went to the front and was with his regiment in its various move- ments, not only during the term of his enlistment, but for several months afterwards. Having been discharged with the regiment, his patriotic loyalty permitted him to spend only a few months at home before he again enlisted, this time in the Twelfth Indiana Cavalry. He went South with his regiment, and helped to make its notable record on Southern battlefields and in many scouting ex- peditions and campaigns. He was disabled eventually by the fall- ing of a horse, and though incapacitated for active field service he remained in the army until the close of the war, and was then given an honorable discharge. After his return to Indiana he resumed life as a farmer and made that his regular vocation until his death in 1874 at the age of sixty-four.
The mother of Mr. Williams of Elkhart was Achsah Kelly. She was born in Pennsylvania and was a third cousin to John Quincy Adams, the noted statesman and former President of the United States. She survived her husband many years and died
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at the advanced age of eighty-five. Her five children were Susan, Nelson, Edward, Victoria and Craton Ursa.
Craton Ursa Williams acquired his early education in the rural schools of LaGrange County, and he also attended public school at Elkhart. His early life was spent on the old homestead until about 1875, in which year he moved to Lima, Indiana, and became identi- fied with the provision business. After a few months he moved to Hillsdale, Michigan, and kept a provision store and bakery there for about two years. He then gravitated into what has proven a permanent vocation, that of a house mover, which he first followed at Redding, Michigan. From that town he came to Elkhart in 1880, and for the past thirty-five years has handled a great many con- tracts as a house mover and has also profitably engaged in the related lines of contracting.
In 1893 Mr. Williams married Mary Belle Billings. Though her family had some pioneer connections with Elkhart County, she is herself a native of Faribault County, Minnesota. Her father, Levi Billings, born in Cleveland, Ohio, was one of the early settlers of Faribault County, having bought a tract of wild prairie land about a mile and a half from Blue Earth City, when that section of Oklahoma was little advanced beyond the stage of Indian occu- pation. Levi Billings was a very energetic citizen and farmer, and besides improving a large tract of land he was an extensive dealer of live stock. He finally sold his property in Faribault County and moved to Northern Minnesota, and from there to North Dakota, in which state he spent his closing years. Levi Billings married Roxsenia Sailor. Mrs. Williams' mother was a native of Elkhart County, Indiana. Moses Sailor, her father, was born in Monroe County, Ohio, in 1808, was reared and married there, and in 1832 came as one of the first men into the wilderness of Elkhart County, and for about twenty years utilized his energies in developing this part of the frontier. He was in every sense a pioneer, and like many of that class was animated by a spirit of restlessness which made it difficult to accommodate himself to the growing conveniences of civilization. As soon as settlement had well caught up with him, he was on the move to a point further west, and in 1854 he made an overland journey as far as Chicka- saw County, Iowa. He spent the winter with his family at Brad- ford in that county. In the spring he set out with two companions, going on foot across the trackless prairie to the territory of Minne- sota. The year 1855 is considered one of the important starting points of real history making in the Northwest, and at that time St. Paul was only a village and Minnesota was known as St.
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Anthony. Moses Sailor followed the beaten and unbeaten tracks of civilization as far as Mankato, where at that time stood about a dozen houses. Having learned where the Winnebago Indians had selected their reservation he then retraced his steps toward the southern line of the state, and made claim to a tract of govern- ment land in Township 102, Range 27, in what is now Faribault County. Having taken such steps as were necessary to secure this land and having sown a crop of grain, he rejoined his family in Iowa, and returned with them to his new location. The Sailor family was the first white settlers in Faribault County. After returning with his family he tended and harvested his crop of grain, and the family lived in a wagon and tent until he could put up a log house in the fall. When the county was organized Moses Sailor was elected one of the first county commissioners and served in that position for a number of terms. Gradually his land underwent many improvements, with a good set of buildings, and he lived the honored life of the pioneer until his death on February 14, 1896. Hon. J. A. Kiester, who wrote the history of Faribault County, in 1806, gives a long article describing the early incidents of Mr. Sailor's experience as a pioneer of that section of Minnesota.
Mrs. Levi Billings, the mother of Mrs. Williams, died in 1884. leaving seven children: Henrietta, George, Moses, Lena, Jestina, Mary Belle and Levi.
Mr. and Mrs. Williams have one daughter, Roxsenia, and Mrs. Williams and her daughter attend the Episcopal Church. By a former marriage Mrs. Williams has four sons: Arthur, Sidney, Ursa and Ernest. Mr. Williams is a member of Elkhart Lodge No. 425 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
GEORGE J. MANNING. For more than four score years the name Manning has had its full share of honors and distinctions associated with the presence of useful men and women in a single community. The Mannings were pioneers in Elkhart County, having come when most of the county was a wilderness, and the pioneers of the name supplied much of the constructive and mechanical enterprise so much needed in the development of a new country. George J. Man- ning is of the third generation of the family in this county, and for a number of years has conducted a prosperous business as a dairy. man and also as a local real estate dealer at Elkhart.
He was born in Cleveland Township of Elkhart County Sep- tember 26, 1872. His great-grandfather came from Virginia to Ohio and was one of the first settlers of Piqua. He secured the land upon which the modern city of that name is built and laid
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out the townsite. His original business was as an Indian trader. and he dealt with the Indians residing about Piqua before the influx of any considerable white population. He continued to reside at Piqua until his death.
Elias Manning, grandfather of George J., was a historic figure in early Elkhart County. He was born in Piqua, Ohio. After fin- ishing an apprenticeship at the millwright's trade he followed his vocation in Ohio until 1834, when he emigrated to Elkhart County, making the journey with wagon and team and accompanied by his family. At that time the City of Elkhart was only a hamlet, and much the greater part of all the land in Northern Indiana was still owned by the government. His own location was a tract of land near Waterford, in Elkhart Township. A millwright was greatly appreciated in any new country, and Elias Manning did most of his constructive work in the erection of eight of the first flour mills in this section of Northern Indiana, including the noted old Beards- ley Mill. He was still at work on that mill in 1843 when he started on a return trip by horseback to Piqua, and was taken ill and died while enroute. Elias Manning married Mary Frost, who was born in Piqua. Her father, Ebenezer Frost, a native of New Jersey, was an early settler at Piqua, and improved a farm now included in that city, and still occupied by a descendant bearing his family name. Mrs. Elias Manning survived her husband a number of years, then with her children removed to Osolo Township, where she bought a farm on which she lived until her death.
John Manning, father of George J., was born at Piqua, Ohio, February 27, 1826, and was eight years of age when brought to Elkhart County. Thus his earliest recollections were of a country still primeval and showing evidences only here and there of the presence and activities of the sturdy white settlers. Many years passed before the first railroad line was constructed throughout that county, and nearly all transportation was by teams or by boat down the river. John Manning took a very active part in this pioneer transportation, and operated regularly on the route between Fort Wayne and Niles, Michigan. His father had constructed a mill at Fort Wayne and the son loaded his wagon with flour there and brought it west as far as Niles, Michigan, for distribution, and then on the return trip would load up with groceries and other supplies. He also acquired the trade of millwright and worked at that trade for a number of years. In 1865 John Manning went out to what was then the uttermost limits of the Northwest, the recently organized territory of Idaho. As there was no railroad across the great western plains at that time, he went east by rail
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as far as New York, went down the Atlantic coast by boat to Pan- ama and thence to San Francisco, and after a tedious journey and many varied incidents arrived by stage and burro in the Salmon River Valley of Idaho. There he put up a smelter, for which pur- pose he had made the long journey. After completing the mill he returned and with the proceeds of the undertaking he bought a farm on the Edwardsburg Road in Cleveland Township of Elkhart County. There he lived following his peaceful vocation as an agri- culturist until his death on June 12, 1890.
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