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 42
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At the first call for troops in 1861 Mr. Tinstman responded and enlisted in Company A of the First Regiment of Indiana Volunteer Infantry. These recruits drilled for about two weeks, but upon the organization of the company only 75 of the 130 who en- listed were accepted, and Mr. Tinstman was among those rejected. Returning home, he re-enlisted in July of the same year, this time in Company A of the Twenty-first Regiment of Infantry. He went South and when the regiment was reorganized in 1863 he was at- tached to Company A of the First Regiment Indiana Heavy Artil- lery. From the time he entered the service in July, 1861, he was with his command in faithful performance of all duties and partici- pant in many campaigns and battles, until his honorable discharge January 21, 1866, a number of months after the close of actual hostilities.
When the veteran soldier returned to Indiana he found employ- ment as a wood turner in a factory at South Bend, and remained thereabout fifteen years. This was followed by about eighteen months at Bremen, at which time he returned to South Bend and remained until 1884. In that year Mr. Tinstman went to Arkansas and became an early settler in Cleburne County of that state. As his father had been an early settler in Elkhart County so he was among the pioneers in that part of Arkansas. He first took up a tract of donation or state land, but soon sold his interest in that and with
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land warrant granted him for service in the Civil war entered a tract of Government land in the same county. The land was twenty-four miles from any railroad, and he experienced a number of hardships and privations while living there. In a few years he had about thirty acres cleared, had built a house and barn and continued to live and work there until 1892.
Since the latter date his home has been in Nappanee. Here he identified himself with the extensive factory of the Mutschler Broth- ers, and has been one of the expert workmen for that concern until the present time.
At the age of twenty-six Mr. Tinstman married Nancy Boyer, a native of Ohio. She died eighteen months after her marriage. leaving a daughter Zebeedee. This daughter is now the wife of Charles Hedricks, and has a son Frederick Albert.
In 1871 Mr. Tinstman married Parlia McGowen, who was born in Locke Township of Elkhart County September 10, 1849, and represents one of the very early families of this county. Her father Isaac McGowen was born in Ohio and her grandfather James Mc- Gowen was a native of Pennsylvania and of Scotch-Irish parents. James McGowen came to Elkhart County late in life and spent his last days with his children. Isaac McGowen when a young man moved from Ohio to Elkhart County, accompanying the Truex family, which settled in this county during the '30s. Soon after- wards Isaac McGowen located on land in Locke Township given him by his father-in-law, and there put up the home in which he and his bride spent several years, and in which Mrs. Tinstman was born. This was a cabin built of round logs, with split clapboards for the roof, with a chimney built of sticks and plastered with mud, and for a time there was no door nor windows, blankets being hung over the openings to keep out the wind and any nocturnal visi- tors in the shape of wolves. The cabin had no floor for some time, and the mother of the household did her cooking by the open fire- place and spun and wove the clothes to dress her family. When Mrs. Tinstman's father was about thirty-five years of age he became a preacher in the Primitive Baptist Church, and at one time had charge of four different churches, making his rounds on foot, since the one horse he owned was needed to perform the farm work. He continued to live in Locke Township until his death in the spring of 1854 at the age of fifty. Isaac McGowen married Charlotte Truex, who was born in Ohio, a daughter of Abraham Truex, who came to Elkhart County and located in Union Township as one of the first settlers. Mr. Truex possessed considerable means, and bc- sides taking up a Government claim he purchased other tracts and
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assisted all his children to establish homes of their own. But like other early settlers, he and his family occupied a log cabin. Abra- ham Truex was a minister of the Primitive Baptist Church, and he organized this church in his locality, and donated a portion of his homestead in section 7 for a church building and cemetery. He put up the first structure used for religious purposes, a building of round logs, which was replaced a few years later by one of hewed logs, and still later by a frame building, which is still standing. Among the early members of that church were Elias and Levi Pitt- man, Charles Melott, Isaac McGowan and wife and the Truex fam- ilies. Abraham Truex was pastor of this church for a number of years. Mrs. Tinstman's mother died at the age of fifty, having pre- ceded her husband but a few months.
Two daughters have grown up in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Tinstman. Zoe Estella is the widow of Frank Baughman, and her four children are Nellie, Charles, Fern, and Vendetta. The daugh- ter Grace May married Charles Wilson and has a daughter, Zoe Frances. Mr. Tinstman is an active member of Berlin Post of the Grand Army of the Republic.
HENRY WELDY. The Weldy family is one of the most highly respected of Elkhart County, where Henry Weldy has spent the years of his life and in all the varied relations of a good citizen has given a good account of himself and has practiced and accepted such opportunities for service to the community and his neighbors as have come to him.
In the year 1880 he was ordained to the ministry of the Mennon- ite Church. In a business way he has prospered as a farmer and his own farm management has been an example and encouragement to others following that vocation in the community. Mr. Weldy has the distinction of possessing one of the best drained farms of the entire county. It is said that he has laid upward of $25,000 tile on his land, and has invested as heavily in that form of improvement as perhaps any other individual farmer of the county, and the net proceeds have been highly satisfactory.
His birth occurred in Locke Township April 23, 1862. He comes of fine old Pennsylvania German stock. His great-grand- father was Abraham Weldy, who in his time was a bishop in the Mennonite Church. He was born in Westmoreland County, Penn- sylvania, where he lived until 1812, and then with his family moved to Tuscarawas County, Ohio. There he spent his remaining years, and in that time hewed a farm out of the wilderness. Bishop Weldy married Elizabeth Overholt, a native of Bucks County, Pennsyl-
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vania, and they reared a family of nine children : Martin, John, Abraham, Christian, Elizabeth, Esther, Anna, Sally and Jacob. Five of these children, Abraham, John, Elizabeth, Christian and Anna, came to Indiana, while the others remained in Ohio.
John Weldy, grandfather of Henry Weldy, was born in West- moreland County. Pennsylvania, in 1798 and was about fourteen years of age when his parents removed to Tuscarawas County, Ohio. Afterwards he moved to Holmes County in the same state, but in 1851 accompanied his family to Indiana and lived in St. Joseph County until his death in 1871. He took an active part in the early Mennonite Church affairs of the county. John Weldy married Anna Kitch, a daughter of Martin Kitch, who was a blacksmith by trade and combined that vocation with farming until his death at the advanced age of ninety-three. John Weldy and wife reared the fol- lowing children : Abraham; Elizabeth, who married John Barkey ; Levi W .: Martin and Rebecca, both of whom died at the age of eleven : Susan, who married Christian Shaum; Esther, who married John Shrock; Keziah, who married Enoch Eby: John, who married Susan Mumaw ; and Jacob, who married Emma Kreider.
The oldest of these children was Abraham Weldy, father of Henry Weldy. He was born on a farm in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, January 3, 1827, and was about twenty-four years of age when he came to Elkhart County in 1851. He was at that time married and had one child. They all made the journey in a wagon, with some of their household goods, and they located in Locke Township, where Abraham bought the northeast quarter of section 3. The only improvements were a log cabin, log stable and ten acres of cleared land. Among their household goods there were only three chairs, and for want of a table they ate their meals on the top of a wooden chest. Locke Township was very sparsely settled in those days, and the present sites of Wakarusa and Nappanee were heavily covered with timber. With the vigor and enterprise of youth, and the ambition to provide well for his family, Abraham Weldy did a tremendous amount of labor during the following years, cleared off his land, and as his prosperity increased he invested in more land which he brought under cultivation, also erected a good set of build- ings, and was one of the very substantial and honored citizens of his section. He lived upon the old farm until 1809, when he moved into the Village of Wakarusa, where his death occurred January 29, 1900.
On June 21, 1849, Abraham Weldy married Nancy Yoder, a daughter of Samuel and Margaret ( Holdeman ) Yoder, and a grand- daughter of John Yoder. Her mother was a daughter of Christian
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Holdeman. All these were natives of Pennsylvania, and quite early established their homes in Columbiana County, Ohio. Nancy Yoder's brothers and sisters were: John; Elizabeth, who married Henry Smeltzer; Jacob, twin brother of Nancy ; and Samuel, a min- ister of the Mennonite Church, elsewhere referred to. Samuel Yoder died in Ohio, and his widow subsequently married Jacob Freed, and they came to Elkhart County. The children of the Freed marriage were: Catherine, who married Jacob Loucks ; Mary, who married Anthony Wisler; and Joseph, who died while a soldier in the Union army. Mrs. Margaret Freed died June 23, 1887, and her second husband passed away in 1869.
Abraham Weldy and wife reared eleven children : Elizabeth. who married Peter Blosser, and his children were Levi, Samuel, Barbara, Anna, Henry, Della, Lavina, John and Joseph, all of whom are now living with the exception of Barbara. The second daughter, Anna, married Peter S. Hartman, and her nine children are Aaron, Wil- liam, Martha, Amos, Amanda, John, Emma, Mary, Abraham and Cora. Margaret, the third child, married Henry Clay, and their six children are Martha, Nancy, Eva, Clara. Rhoda and Dora. Sarah married Valentine Hartman and reared seven children, named Clara A., Dora J., Leander, Harvey, Sylvester, Irwin and Phoebe A. Jacob married Hannah Null, and their children are Mary, Le- ander, Alma, Martha, Timothy, Irwin and Sylvester. The son John married Nettie Salsbury, and their family are Della, Alma, Ernest, Lloyd. Buel and Ruth. The son Levi married Alice Madlem. Emma married Samuel Madlem and has a child named Levi A. Joseph is a farmer in St. Joseph County, Indiana. Amos lives on the old homestead. The mother of these children was born in 1832 and has now reached the advanced age of eighty-four.
Henry Weldy grew up on the farm in Elkhart County and while attending school learned the practical duties of farm management. For two years after his marriage he operated his father's place and in 1885 rented from his father the farm which he now owns and occupies, it being the south half of the northwest quarter of section II in Locke Township. In the past thirty years he has been respon- sible for many improvements, some of which have already been men- tioned. When he took possession a small frame house and a stable stood on the land. In 1887 he bought this land from his father, and among other improvements which mark him as a progressive farmer he has planted fruit and shade trees, has a fine ninety-foot well of water, and in 1893 erected a commodious brick house in a modern style of architecture. Still later was erected a commodious frame barn, in addition to other necessary farm buildings. In company
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with his son Noah he bought eighty acres including the south half of the northeast quarter of section 10. In 1916 Mr. Weldy bought 221/2 acres of land and a set of buildings in Olive Township, and he has since occupied that place leaving his son Cornelius in charge of the homestead.
On July 15, 1883, Mr. Weldy married Alma Dolman, a native of St. Joseph County, Indiana, and a daughter of Joel and Martha (Moyer) Dolman. Her father was born in the locality known as Harmony, near Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, while her mother was a native of Columbiana County, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Weldy have reared six children, Sarah J., Emma Saloma, Clara Alice, Noah A., Cornelius S. and Anna Naomi, while another child, Albert Otis, died in his fourth year.
Of these children Sarah married George Horein and her three children are Hazel, Alma and Fern. Emma is the wife of John Mullet, and has four living children, Gladys, Alma, Treva and Mar- vin. Clara is the wife of Aaron Myers and her five children are Mabel, Kenneth, Roscoe, Bertha and Harold. Noah married Lillie Dintaman and has a son named Russell. Cornelius married Goldy Wenger and has a daughter Vivian. Della Loucks, now a girl of twelve years, has been a member of the Weldy household since she was five weeks old.
Mrs. Weldy was reared in the Church of the Brethren, while her husband grew up a Mennonite, and was ordained a preacher and joined the Indiana-Michigan Conference in 1889. For fourteen years he officiated as pastor of the Mennonite Church at Teagarden, Indiana, and for a number of years has been pastor of the Holde- man Church and also of Union Chapel in Madison Township.
PROF. J. EDWIN MCCARTNEY. An educator of long and suc- cessful experience, Professor McCartney has been superintendent and principal of schools in Indiana and also in the western states for a number of years, and is now in charge of the East Side School at Elkhart. He is well known in educational circles in many parts of Indiana, and his success is largely due to the fact that school work with him has been a profession rather than a stepping stone to some other occupation. Mrs. McCartney before her marriage was also a capable teacher and is a member of one of the pioneer fami- lies of Elkhart County.
Born in the Town of Ossian, Livingston County, New York, Professor McCartney is descended from one of three brothers, na- tives of the western part of Scotland, who came to America in colo- nial times and fought with the colonists for independence during the
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Revolutionary war. His grandfather James MCartney was born in New England, and from Vermont moved to Livingston County, New York, where as an early settler he bought land in the Genesee Valley near Nunda. By hard work he improved a farm of 250 acres and lived there until his death. He married a Miss Mcclellan.
Henry McCartney, father of Professor McCartney, was born in Vermont, but was reared on the New York farm in the Genesee Valley and was given a very substantial education for his time. A natural mechanic, he built a blacksmith shop on the farm which he built near the old homestead, and superintended both the farm and the shop and also conducted a considerable business as a contractor and builder. In his later years he moved to Nunda, where he lived retired and died at the age of eighty-seven. The maiden name of his wife was Amanda Prentice, who was born in Connecticut and died at the age of sixty-one, leaving six children.
It was on his father's New York farm that J. Edwin McCartney was reared, acquiring his early education in the district schools and also attending Danville Seminary. His career as school teacher be- gan at the early age of sixteen, when he taught his first term of school, and after continuing in that line of work for two years en- tered the State Normal School at Geneseo, where he was graduated in 1885. Since then for a period of more than thirty years he has been continuously identified with educational affairs, and at the same time has improved every opportunity to secure a higher education for himself and increase his individual abilities and attainments. On leaving the Geneseo State Normal he taught for one year in his native state, and then entered the University of Michigan as a mem- ber of the class of 1890. Subsequently he left Ann Arbor and con- tinued his college studies in the Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington, where he was graduated Ph. B. in 1894. In the mean- time he had alternated between university and the schoolroom as a teacher, and it was before graduation that he first became identified with Elkhart County, being in charge of the school at Bristol, and also serving a term as superintendent of schools at LaGrange. After graduating from Wesleyan University he went out to North Dakota, was superintendent of the Valley City schools five years, and re- mained in that state engaged in school work in other places until 1908. In that year Professor McCartney returned to Indiana, and after one year as superintendent of the schools at Waterford came to Elkhart, where he has had charge of the East Side School as principal for the past six years.
In 1895 Professor McCartney married Sarah May Bishop, whose family is one of historic interest and prominence in Elkhart County.
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She was born in Jefferson Township of that county, a daughter of Herbert A. Bishop, who was born in Middlebury Township of Elk- hart County, while her grandfather Daniel C. Bishop was born in Orange County, New York. The great-grandfather was Edward Bishop, who was born in the Town of South Hampton, Long Island, August 23, 1795, a son of David and Mary (Corwin) Bishop, a grandson of Timothy and Anna (Armstrong) Bishop, and on the maternal side a grandson of Daniel and Temperance (Bailey) Cor- win. Mrs. McCartney's great-grandfather Edward Bishop during his old age wrote an extended autobiography, and the principal facts contained therein are a matter of interest for insertion in this sketch. At a very early age he had a desire to become a sailor and finally embarked on a sailing vessel in the coasting trade. A short experi- ence as a seaman satisfied him and he then went to Orange County. New York, where he served an apprenticeship at the wagonmaker's trade with his brother-in-law Jonathan Mather. On September 23, 1812, he enlisted in Capt. James B. Wadsworth's Regiment of United States Volunteers for a term of one year. He was in active service with the command until the expiration of his enlistment, when he received an honorable discharge. In 1817, when the west- ward movement was at its height, the lure of the West caught him and he made an overland journey to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and thence traveled down the Ohio on flat boats as far as Wheeling and thence on to Cincinnati, then a small village. His next destination was Shawneetown in the Territory of Illinois, where he left the river boat and walked across the country to St. Louis. From there he proceeded up the Mississippi River a few miles to the little village located on the bluffs known as Alton and was living at that historic place at the time Illinois was admitted to the Union. The first governor of Illinois appointed him a justice of the peace. He also joined the state militia and was elected lieutenant of his company and later captain and continued in command until he returned East. In 1820 Captain Bishop sold his possessions in Madison County, Illinois, and made the entire journey back East to Orange County with wagon and team. In fact, unless he had chosen a river route up stream he could not have journeyed otherwise since there were no railroads west of the Allegheny Mountains at that time. In 1832 Captain Bishop again visited Illinois and again made the entire jour- ney with a team, traveling 950 miles in forty-seven days. Subse- quently he bought a farm six miles south of Dundee in New York State, lived there until 1836, and was again moving westward as a pioneer, this time to the Territory of Michigan, shortly afterwards to become a state, where he entered a tract of Government land in
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Hamburg Township, Livingston County. He settled there with his family in July of that year, but in the fall moved to Wayne, where he built a shop and set up a pioneer business as a wagon manu- facturer. In 1840 Captain Bishop returned to Hamburg Township and built a shop there, and while conducting his mechanical trade he also cleared up part of his land. After locating in Hamburg Town- ship he was commissioned colonel of the Forty-second Regiment Michigan State Militia, and in 1850 was elected sheriff of Living- ston County and re-elected, serving altogether four years. Subse- quently having sold the farm which he had first improved, he bought another tract of land in the same town, improved that, and thus through his business activities as well as his public service he played a very important part in every community of which he was a resi- dent. In Livingston County, where he had his home until his death, he also served as justice of the peace and highway commissioner.
Mrs. McCartney's grandfather Daniel C. Bishop was quite young when he accompanied his parents to Michigan, and he also learned the trade of wagonmaker. With that trade as his principal asset, he came to Indiana, and was one of the early settlers in Elkhart County, where he bought a tract of land, a part of it in Washington and a part in Jefferson Township. Somewhat later he moved to the City of Goshen, where he conducted a wagon shop, but afterwards established his home at Bristol, where he lived retired until his death. Daniel C. Bishop married Sarah Hill, who was born on the western shore of Lake Champlain, and her father, Mrs. McCart- ney's great-grandfather, was a farmer who subsequently brought his family to Indiana and spent his last days in this state.
Herbert A. Bishop, Mrs. McCartney's father, grew up in Elk- hart County, and after buying the old homestead on the line of Washington and Jefferson townships followed general farming and was also a well known dealer in horses. He lived on the old farm until his death in 1910. The maiden name of Mrs. McCartney's mother was Mary Judson, who was born in Burlington, Vermont, a daughter of William E. Judson. The latter was a tanner and shoe- maker by trade, and owned and operated a tannery at Montreal, Canada, but from there came to Indiana and located on a tract of Government land in Jefferson Township of Elkhart County, and after clearing up the place was a resident until his death. William E. Judson married Marion Bacon, who was born on the eastern shores of Lake Champlain, and spent her last days in Elkhart.
Mrs. McCartney's mother died in 1879 and her father married for his second wife Mary Pancost who died in 1912. Mrs. McCart- ney was an only child. After completing her work in the Bristol
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schools she taught for four years, the last two years in Elkhart. Mr. and Mrs. McCartney have reared a son and daughter. The son is Ward Bishop, now a student in the Illinois State University. The daughter Vera is attending the Elkhart High School. Mr. and Mrs. McCartney are members of St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, and both are affiliated with Starlight Chapter No. 181 of the Order of Eastern Star, while Mr. McCartney has affiliations with Kane Lodge No. 183, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.
CLAUDE A. LEE. Among the men whom Elkhart has learned to value and esteem is Judge Lee, now judge of the city courts and a capable and industrious young lawyer who in seven years has built up a good practice and a high reputation.
The family to which Judge Lee belongs is one of the oldest in Elkhart County, his paternal grandparents having located in Mid- dlebury Township at a time when nearly all this beautiful region was.in the condition in which nature and the wild Indians had left it. Claude A. Lee was born on his father's farm in York Township of Elkhart County March 9, 1879. His parents are Robert and Mary (Clark) Lee. His father was born in Middlebury Township March 1, 1842, and the family had been located in that vicinity for some years prior to his birth. The mother was born in Van Buren Township of LaGrange County, Indiana, November 28, 1847. Their four sons are: Claude A .; Alvin; Clarence; and Robert. Robert Lee, father of Judge Lee, received his early education in Middle- bury Township, and early in his manhood engaged in farming in York Township. He is one of the best known stock raisers and farmers in that part of the county. He is a democrat, but has never aspired to public office.
As a boy Judge Lee had the wholesome environment of a farm and country life, and refers with a great deal of satisfaction to the conditions of his early boyhood. He attended the country schools, and part of his legal education was acquired in the law school at Marion, Indiana. In 1908 he graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan, and at the same time was admitted to practice in all the courts of Michigan and Indiana. His career as a lawyer has been worked out in the City of Elkhart, and in 1910 he was appointed city judge, and in November, 1914, was elected to that office, beginning his duties after election on January 1, 1914.
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