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 27
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Remus Burns, as the above paragraphs indicate, inherited some very excellent qualities from his sturdy and thrifty forbears. He grew up in Baugo Township, acquired an education in the rural schools, and also attended the Elkhart Normal. When twenty-one years of age he started to teach, and as an educator he has made his most important impress upon the world. He has taught a number of years, is one of the ablest men engaged in that work in Elkhart County, and has combined it successfully with agriculture. He is a student of modern problems, and particularly those connected with rural life. A few years ago he bought the old homestead farm in Baugo Township, and he now makes his home in that attractive place. He has increased the original acreage and now has 155 acres of highly improved land, with a good set of farm buildings, and everything needed for a good industrial plant and a comfortable home.
Mr. Burns has a nice family, and he and his wife are highly respected in social circles of this county. He was married May 8, 1900, to Miss Alma Gertrude Fulmer. She was born in Penn Town- ship of St. Joseph County, Indiana. Her grandfather, Martin Fulmer, was born in Germany, and on coming to America settled in Stark County. Ohio, whence he came to Indiana and lived his last years in St. Joseph County. He married Mary Cling. It was in 1846 that the Fulmer family came to Indiana, and Grand- father Martin died soon afterwards. Mrs. Burns' father was also named Martin Fulmer, and he was born in Stark County, Ohio, and was quite young when he came to St. Joseph County, Indiana. He afterwards bought a farm in Penn Township of that county. and lived there until his death in 1900. Martin Fulmer married Frances Chandler. She was born in Penn Township of St. Joseph County, in 1844, a daughter of Uriah and Mary (Hughes ) Chandler. The Chandler family were among the very early settlers of St.
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Joseph County. Mrs. Burns was one of three children: Minnie Belle, Mary Ellen and Alma G.
Into the home circle of Mr. and Mrs. Burns have come five children : Catherine, Martin, Clara, Eloise and Frances. Mrs. Burns is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
JOHN R. WIRLEY. The business of railroading attracts many young men when they enter upon their struggle with the world, and it has proven a rich field of opportunity to those who have been willing to labor industriously, disdain hardships, courageously face danger and prove fidelity to the systems that employ them; but rewards are not given by railroad corporations to those who have not thus proved deserving. Among the officials of almost every line will be found men of sterling character who would have succeeded, no doubt, in almost any line of endeavor because of this, but who, through natural inclination and lifelong training, have become par- ticularly competent trainmen and very often have reached high of- ficial position through their own efforts. In this connection may be cited John R. Wirley, roadmaster of the Waterloo-South Bend Division of the New York Central Lines, with headquarters at Elkhart, who has won promotion from the very bottom of the ladder through the possession of the qualities which are, as above noted, necessary in a railroad career.
Mr. Wirley was born in Wayne County, Ohio, March 10, 1846, and is a son of Rudolph and Mary ( Blattner ) Wirley. His father, born in Switzerland, was the son of a ribbon manufacturer, and in his native land learned the trade of metal engraving, which he followed at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on first coming to the United States when about twenty years of age. He was married there to a native of that city, Miss Mary Blattner, who had been born in 1815, and soon moved to Wayne County, Ohio, where he settled on wild land and hewed a home out of the wilderness. In later years he disposed of his Wayne County property and moved to the vicinity of Waterloo, DeKalb County, Indiana, and there con- tinued to be engaged in successful agricultural operations until his death, at the age of sixty-seven years. Mr. Wirley was a man of good education and among the people of his community was held in the highest esteem, being frequently called upon to serve in public office, principally as a member of the school board of his com- munity. Originally a whig, with the formation of the republican party he transferred his membership to that organization and re- mained true to its principles during the remainder of his life. Mrs. Wirley survived her husband a number of years, passing away in
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1901, when eighty-six years of age. There were seven children in the family, of whom five are living, and John R. was the first born.
John R. Wirley was given a good education in the public schools of Wayne County, Ohio, and DeKalb County, Indiana, and was graduated from the Auburn High School in the latter county. He was reared in an agricultural atmosphere and remained under the parental roof until reaching his majority, and then embarked upon a career of his own as a farmer, being thus engaged for two years. Mr. Wirley's entrance upon a railroad career dates back to the spring of 1867, and since that time, through all the reorganizations, trans- fers and changes of management, he has remained with the same line, a record of nearly a half a century of faithful and efficient service. When he joined the line in the capacity of member of an extra track crew building the railway between Waterloo, Law- rence and Sedan, it was known as the Michigan Southern & North- ern Indiana Railway; later it became the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, and is now operated under the name of the New York Central Railway. Proving himself faithful, energetic and capable, he gradually arose in the service, each promotion bringing him to more responsible positions, until 1887 when he was made assistant road- master. This position he held only one year, for in 1888 he was made roadmaster, a capacity in which he has continued to act to the present time. Mr. Wirley built the Fort Wayne & St. Joseph branch, the Hillsdale branch, and the Kalamazoo & Grand Rapids branch, and was superintendent of construction in the building of the air line, in putting in double tracks from Waterloo to west of South Bend, and has been roadmaster of that division from 1888 to the present time. In railroad circles Mr. Wirley is held in the high- est esteem, while as a citizen he has won and retained the regard and esteem of his fellow townsmen. No man has given his time and talents more unreservedly than has Mr. Wirley during his almost fifty years of continuous service, to reach that great ultimate per- taining to any department of the service with which he has been connected.
Mr. Wirley was made a Mason at Waterloo, Indiana, when he joined Waterloo Lodge No. 182, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, but on coming to Elkhart demitted and became a member of Kane Lodge No. 183, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He also holds membership in Elkhart Lodge No. 425, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. His political views are those of the republican party, but he has never allowed politics to interfere with his career in railroading, and has found no time to seek public office. With his family, he belongs to the Lutheran Church.
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In March, 1865, Mr. Wirley was married to Miss Mary Amstutz, who was born in Wayne County, Ohio, daughter of Jacob and Mar- garet Amstutz, natives respectively of Switzerland and France. Three children have been born to this union: Harland, who died at the age of thirty-eight years, was married and engaged in the grocery, flour and feed business at Coldwater, Michigan. He had two children, Norma L., attending the Young Ladies' Seminary at Kalamazoo, Michigan, and John H., at Coldwater, Michigan; Nellie M., the wife of Arthur M. Posey, a conductor on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, has one son, John R. Franklin died at the age of seven years.
ELI WHITAKER. For more than half a century Eli Whitaker has lived in Baugo Township of Elkhart County. In that time he has been the witness to many important changes and developments. Much that constitutes real history has occurred during his lifetime, and he has not been altogether a silent witness nor a passive factor in the events which have transpired in this half century period. He represents some of the most substantial and prosperous family stock that have been identified with Elkhart County citizenship.
He comes of an old New York State family, with an important admixture of the original Holland stock. Eli Whitaker was born at Flat Bush, Ulster County, New York, in 1843. His father, John I. Whitaker, was born in the same locality, and the grandparents were also residents of Ulster. John I. Whitaker was a farmer by occupation and spent all his life in Ulster County, where he died at the age of sixty-eight. He married Miss Nellie Lewis. She was born in Ulster County of early Holland ancestry. In the Catskill Mountains game was very plentiful in the early years of the nineteenth century, and grandfather Lewis was a very success- ful hunter. While cruising in the woods one day a wild cat sprang upon him from a tree and killed him. John I. Whitaker and wife reared the following children : Fannie, William, Jacob, Lewis, Sam- uel. Uriah and Eli.
Eli Whitaker was reared and educated in his native county in New York State. From an early age he appreciated the value of industry and honesty as factors in his individual advancement, and he grew up in a community where most of the families were of the rugged and typical New York stock. He lived there until 1864. when he came to Elkhart County.
His wife's father had come to Elkhart County a short time before and had bought land in Baugo Township. Mr. Whitaker came out ahead of the family, accompanying the household goods. That was before the consolidation of railroad lines into continental
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trunk systems, and he was obliged to change cars several times, buying a ticket at each change. He spent two days and two nights coming from the East to Elkhart County. At that time the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern was a single track road, and only two passenger trains a day each way, with an occasional freight train. Elkhart was but a village, and most of the stores were one-story frame buildings. Mr. Whitaker recalls that he put up at the Wickwire, which was then the leading hotel of Elkhart. It was very simply furnished, wooden benches taking the place of chairs in the office, but the cookery was unsurpassed and there was a bounteous supply of wholesome food though possibly not of such great variety as would be served in a hotel of equal class at this time.
After coming to Elkhart County Mr. Whitaker located in Baugo Township and has lived on the old homestead there since 1866. He was married June 24, 1863, to Miss Jane E. Burhans. She was born at Kingston, Ulster County, New York, April 3, 1846. Her father, John E. Burhans, was born at Kingston in 1820 and was of early Holland stock. He became a contractor and builder and conducted a very successful business at Kingston and was a man of more than ordinary means and ability. He lived at Kings- ton until 1864. During the summer of that year he had visited a brother in Elkhart County. He became so favorably impressed with the country, not only as to its attainments at that time but as to its future possibilities, that he wrote to New York and asked Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker whether they would come West to live if he bought property in Elkhart County. An affirmative answer was soon received and in consequence he bought an improved farm of 157 acres in section 14 of Baugo Township. It was on that farm that Mr. Whitaker located with his family in September of that year. Mr. Burhans subsequently extended his investment to other lands in Elkhart County and also in St. Joseph County, and acquired much improved property in the City of Elkhart. He re- mained a resident of the old homestead in Baugo Township until his death on October 24, 1893, at the age of seventy-three. John E. Burhans married Sarah A. Elmdorf. She was born at Kings- ton, New York, in 1821, a daughter of Abraham and Elizabeth Elmdorf. She died January 24, 1803, in Elkhart County. In the Burhans family were four children: Jane E., Annetta, George WV. and Charles S.
Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker have one son and two daughters : John, Minnie and Nettie. The son John married Clara Sloat, and they have a son named Earl. Minnie married Cephas Cripe and at
Henry To Stephens
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her death she left a daughter named Pearl. Nettie still lives at home with her parents. The granddaughter, Pearl Cripe, mar- ried Lloyd Wood, and her two children, Elonine and Mildred, are great-grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker.
HENRY E. STEPHENS. One of the oldest and best known families of Elkhart is that of Stephens, which established its home here about the time the first railroad line was built through more than sixty years ago, and has kept an honored place in the community through all these years. For many years the leading undertaker of the city has been Henry E. Stephens, and it is a matter of interest to note that his father in the early days in his capacity as a cabinet maker manufactured many coffins for the burial of the dead, it being the custom at the time to make coffins to order.
Born in Elkhart July 3, 1864, Henry E. Stephens is a son of Andrew and Frances E. (Hall) Stephens. His father was born in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, in 1832, and died in 1903. The mother was born in New York State in 1837. and died in 1911. There were six children : Lillian, wife of Rev. F. M. Stone ; Luella, wife of E. K. Hibbin ; Henry E. ; Charles A. ; Pearl J., now deceased : and Edwin, who died at the age of eleven years. Andrew Stephens spent his early boyhood days on the Pennsylvania farm of his parents Andrew and Mary ( Braden) Stephens, both of whom were also born in Pennsylvania. However, he learned the trade of cabinet maker and joiner, and on coming to Elkhart in 1852 was well equipped and proficient in that branch of industry. As a cabinet maker he made a great many articles of furniture besides the coffins already mentioned, and also handled a stock of furniture for a number of years. He was also one of the early undertakers, and from this enterprise it is possible to claim for Henry E. Stephens' business the distinction of the pioneer undertaking establishment of the City of Elkhart. Andrew Stephens never cared for public life, and was merely a voter first in the whig party and later as a re- publican.
Throughout practically all his lifetime since birth Henry E. Stephens has been a resident of Elkhart, where he gained his early education in the public schools. At the age of seventeen he deter- mined to take up the same occupation and profession as his father had followed, and then began his experience in the furniture and undertaking lines, and he was soon made a partner under the name Stephens & Son. For the past fifteen years Mr. Stephens has con- fined his attention exclusively to undertaking, and the firm is still carried on under the name Stephens & Son. He has furnished a
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kindly and considerate service and there is hardly a business estab- lishment in the city with so many honorable associations as that of Stephens & Son.
Mr. Stephens is affiliated with Kane Lodge No. 183, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; with Concord Chapter No. 101, Royal Arch Masons ; with Elkhart Council No. 79, Royal and Select Mas- ters : with Elkhart Commandery No. 31, Knights Templar; with Elkhart Lodge No. 425, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; with Pulaski Lodge No. 50, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; with Elkhart Encampment No. 104 and Elkhart Lodge No. 75 of the Knights of Pythias, and belongs to a number of other fraternal orders. In politics he is republican.
On December 16, 1885. Mr. Stephens married Miss Margaret R. McElmoil. She was born in Osolo Township in Elkhart County. They are the parents of one daughter, Irma, wife of Dr. E. R. Borley of South Bend, Indiana, and they have one son, David Stephen Borley.
LEWIS M. SMALLEY is an old and highly respected resident of Elkhart, where, besides the esteem paid him for his many years spent in the business of contracting and building, he is widely honored as one of the veterans of the Civil war, and he fought as long and faithfully as any man in the ranks.
He comes of an old colonial family and is descended from Revolutionary stock. Born on a farm in Lemon Township of Butler County, Ohio, March 8, 1842, he is a son of Isaac Smalley, who was born on the same farm in Butler County August 8, 1818, a grandson of Jonathan Smalley, who was born in Pennsylvania, and a great-grandson of John Smalley. John Smalley, last named, was born in Scotland, and with his two brothers, Isaac and Jonas, emigrated to America in colonial days. All three of these broth- ers fought valiantly in behalf of the colonies during the Revolu- tionary war. The great-grandfather John Smalley afterwards moved from Massachusetts, following the death of his first wife, and after turning over his property to his children, went to Penn- sylvania making the journey on foot to that state. There he married a second time, and this wife died there. After her death he went to Ohio and became one of the first settlers in Butler County, where he secured a tract of 400 acres of land direct from the Government in the township adjoining Lemon Township. Here he married a third time, and devoted the rest of his days to the improvement of his land on which he lived until his death in 1831 at the venerable age of ninety-one years. In many ways he was
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a remarkable man. Besides his service as a soldier in the Revolu- tion and the hard work which engaged him in clearing up many acres of virgin soil, he also exercised his genius at the age of ninety in composing a poem, and Mr. Lewis M. Smalley of Elkhart now has a copy of that literary effort. By this third marriage there were three children named William, Jonathan and Annie.
Grandfather Jonathan Smalley inherited a part of his father's land in Butler County, Ohio, developed it to a first class farm and spent upon it his entire life. He died at the age of eighty-three. He married Phoebe Moore, daughter of Lewis Moore, who came from New Jersey to Butler County, Ohio. The grandmother died at the old home in Butler County, having reared nine children named Mary Ann, Rachel, John, Isaac, Brenema, Prudence, Mary, Elias, Sarah Jane.
Isaac Smalley grew up on the old farm in Butler County, but in 1846 moved to Shelby County, Ohio, buying a farm in Turkey Creek Township. That was his home until his death at the early age of thirty-seven. The maiden name of his wife was Abigail Madison, who was born in Hamilton County, Ohio, in 1819. Her father, Abram Madison, was of the noted Virginia family of that name and became an early settler in Hamilton County, where, while engaged in his vocation of flat boating on the Ohio River he was drowned when still young. His wife survived him many years and died in Shelby County in 1850. Mrs. Isaac Smalley died in 1874 at the age of fifty-five. Her eight children were Lewis M., Levi, Phoebe Jane, Jonathan, Rachel Ann, Sarah Elizabeth, Ange- line, and Isaac Willis.
Lewis M. Smalley was four years of age when his parents removed to Shelby County and he grew up on a farm there, attended the public schools, and possessing a natural instinct for mechanics he began when still a boy in his teens to work at the carpenter's trade.
He was about twenty years of age when he responded to the call to the higher duty of patriotism and enlisted on August I. 1862, in Company B of the Fiftieth Ohio Infantry. He was with this regiment in all its campaigns and battles until after the close of the war, excepting four months in 1863. His first major en- gagement was at Perryville, Kentucky, and he subsequently took part in that exciting chase after John Morgan through Southern Indiana and Ohio and helped to effect the capture of this noted Con- federate cavalryman. He was the personal guard of General Morgan during his court martial trial at Cincinnati. Mr. Smalley also participated in the siege and capture of Knoxville, Tennessee, Vol. II-17
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and on May 5, 1864, his regiment, then a part of the Twenty-third Army Corps under General Schofield, joined Sherman's command and began the steady advance from Chattanooga to Atlanta, a cam- paign which continued for more than a hundred days, every day being marked by severe fighting. He was present in nearly all the important battles that marked the progress toward Atlanta and was at the siege and capture of that city. He was also at the battle of Jonesboro, and then went back into Tennessee with the troops under General Thomas in pursuit of Hood's army and fought at Franklin and Nashville, two of the most sanguinary and decisive battles of the war. The battle of Nashville practically completed the conquest of the Mississippi Valley by the Union armies, and his regiment then marched to the Tennessee River, took boats to Cincinnati, and from there rode in a train of cattle cars to Baltimore, Maryland. There they embarked on schooners and put out to sea. A severe storm overtook them and they were tossed about on the waves for five days, with nearly every soldier on board seasick, and finally effected a landing at Fort Fisher immediately after the fall of that important post. From there the reigment marched to Goldsboro and joined Sherman's victorious command, continuing on with that army to Washington and participating in the Grand Review. Mr. Smalley was honorably discharged with his comrades in July, 1865.
After this long and honorable service as a soldier in the war for the perpetuation of the Union he returned to Shelby County, Ohio, but in 1866 moved to Indiana, locating at Ligonier. In 1872 Mr. Smalley came to Elkhart and took up his business as a con- tractor and builder. It is by that vocation that he became widely known, and before he retired he had constructed a large number of buildings, residences, barns and other structures in and around Elkhart.
On September 21, 1865, only a few weeks after his return from the army Mr. Smalley married Julia A. Trine. She was born in Butler County, Ohio. Her father was William Trine, who mar- ried a Miss Teft. Mr. and Mrs. Smalley have reared one daughter, Lillian M. Mrs. Smalley is an active member of the Congregational Church. On September 21, 1915, they celebrated that impressive ceremony that marks the completion of fifty years of wedded life, and a large number of relatives and friends gathered to congratulate them on their golden wedding and gave them many tokens of their esteem. Mr. Smalley is affiliated with Shiloh Field Post, Grand Army of the Republic, and is also prominent in Masonry, having affiliations with Kane Lodge No. 183, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Concord Chapter No. 101, Royal Arch Masons, Elkhart
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Council No. 79, Royal and Select Masters, and Elkhart Comman- dery No. 31, Knights Templar.
PAYSON E. SCHWIN. Eighty-two years ago saw the advent of Jacob and Anna Schwin of Switzerland into this country. They came in the quest of a greater liberty than they had known in their native land, and they gladly availed themselves of such privileges as America offered to such as they. They brought with them their son John, who became the father of Payson E., of this review, and who was, at the time of their emigration to America, only five years old. The family left their native land on a sailing vessel, embarking at Havre de Grasse, and they were thirty-six days in making the trip from port of sailing to New York harbor. From New York City they sailed up the Hudson River, coming through the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes to Cleveland, Ohio, and thence to Wayne County, Ohio.
Jacob and Anna Schwin were the parents of eleven children, of which number John, father of the subject, is the only one living at this writing. The Schwins were pioneers in Wayne County, and there they spent the remainder of their lives in farming. Jacob Schwin served in Napoleon's army, and fought in the battles of Waterloo and Moscow. He left Switzerland to rid himself and his family of an oppression that was not conducive to any great free- dom of mind, and the spirit that prompted his emigration has ever characterized the family and its activities in the land of its adop- tion.
John Schwin passed his boyhood days in Wayne County on his father's farm and it was in the late '50s when he came first to Elkhart County. He was born in Switzerland, on April 16, 1827. it will be remembered, so that he was of mature years when he left Ohio and settled in the district that has since been represented by that family. He settled in Middlebury Township in a day when practically no improvements had been made in an agricultural way. and as a pioneer he is properly deserving of some mention in this work. In the early '6os Mr. Schwin ran a threshing outfit, a primi- tive affair, indeed, but calculated to serve the needs of the farmers of that time. It was, in fact, the first to be operated in Elk- hart County. In 1900 Mr. Schwin retired from active farm life, and he has since made his home in the village of Middlebury. He has always been a republican, and he served as township assessor for some years. He married Mary Ann Speicher in young man- hood. She was born in Wayne County, Ohio, his early home, on November 14. 1834, and she died in 1906. To them were born
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