USA > Indiana > Newton County > A standard history of Jasper and Newton counties, Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and country, Volume I > Part 34
USA > Indiana > Jasper County > A standard history of Jasper and Newton counties, Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and country, Volume I > Part 34
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
He has never aspired to political office, though for one term he was president of the board of education. Politically he is an independent democrat. He has filled chairs in both the Masonic and Knights of Pythias lodges in Kentland, and is a member of the Chicago Athletic Club and of the Lambs Club of New York. Mr. Kent regards with much satisfaction the development of athletics and outdoor recreation as an important feature of American life, and he himself participates in these sports, his favorites being fish- ing, hunting and golf.
In a business way much of his time and attention for a number of years have been taken up in the management of the landed interests, most of which were left in the estate of his father, Alex- ander J. Kent. He is also a member of the mercantile firm of J. W. Ryan & Company and is president of the Kent State Bank. This institution was founded in 1910, and is housed in one of the handsomest bank buildings in the State of Indiana. It is a solid and prosperous institution, and has made rapid progress under the management of Mr. Kent. In fact he has used his influence and means in many ways for the upbuilding of Kentland. He has contributed to every worthy charity, and public enterprises with- out number might associate his name with substantial gifts and influence in the course of their progress.
GEORGE B. PARKISON. Elsewhere in these pages will be found a number of references to members of the Parkison family, who have been identified with Jasper County since its early settlement. The pioneer of the family was John G. Parkison, whose grandson
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is George B. Parkison, who for many years has been closely identi- fied with the agricultural interests of Marion Township. The latter's father was the late William K. Parkison. The lives of these two old settlers and the story of their accomplishments are told on other pages.
Few of the first residents of Jasper County have a more intimate knowledge based on practical experience with the successive changes in agricultural industry that have occurred in Jasper County during the last fifty years than George B. Parkison. He was born on his father's homestead in Barkley Township in Jasper County May 5, 1850. As a boy he had his first experience in farm management in directing the course of a single shovel corn cultivator across the fields of his father's farm. From that instrument he graduated to the double-shovel plow, and later to the two horse single row culti- vator. Similarly he handled those primitive implements of the harvest field, the old fashioned cradle and scythe and has since introduced into his harvest field at successive periods some of the earlier types of the mowing and reaping machines, and still later the powerful and efficient self-binders, and the various other equip- ments which have lightened the labors of the farm. While farm- ing as conducted thirty or forty years ago meant almost constant toil not only in the fields of growing crops but also in the necessary work of improvement, Mr. Parkison as a young man enjoyed an average amount of the recreations which the young people had in those days, chiefly in hunting, fishing and other sports. The train- ing which comes from books and schools was not held in such high regard during his youth as it is in modern times, and perhaps was not so important a requisite in preparation for the stern duties to which boys were called when they reached manhood. However, Mr. Parkison attended the old district schools with more or less regularity, and when his services were required at home as his years and strength increased he gave his school attendance only the brief winter terms.
Mr. Parkison lived at home and was in partnership with his father in farming and stock raising until the latter's death. In the meantime, on August 13, 1879, he married Miss Ida A. Gwin, who died June 18, 1898. By their marriage there were three children, Clifford A., Mary Belle, now Mrs. James Monroe Yeoman, and one that died unnamed. On April 4, 1900, Mr. Parkison married Elizabeth Shook, who was born in Jasper County May 11, 1876, the seventh in a family of eight children, three sons and five daughters of William and Margaret J. (Dalton) Shook. All of the children are living, and reside principally in Indiana. Mr. Shook was born in Virginia, was an agriculturist, and was a staunch democrat in his political affiliations. Mrs. Shook was born in Jasper County, and both are now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Parkison are the parents of one son, Allen H.
Farming and stockraising has been his vocation since early man-
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hood. Prior to his father's death considerable attention was paid to the raising of thoroughbred Shorthorn cattle, but of late years Mr. Parkison has followed general diversified farming. He has one of the fine farms of Marion Township, comprising 285 acres, with an attractive home and all the facilities and conveniences that make country life comfortable. He is a republican in politics, though never a seeker for public office. Fraternally he is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and has been affiliated with that order for more than twenty-five years.
SAMPSON RAVENSCROFT. Few people have continuously witnessed and participated in the development and change that have occurred in Carpenter Township during the past six decades. It is the distinction of Sampson Ravenscroft and of his venerable mother, now a nonogenarian, to have lived on one farm, only a few miles from the Village of Remington, ever since the fall of 1855. Sampson Ravenscroft at that time was only a child, but he has a keen recollection of many items in the pioneer experience and has himself done not a little toward the breaking up of wild virgin soil, the felling of timber, the clearing up of ground and planting it for the first time in grain and making it over to the uses and benefits of civilization.
His father was the late Edward Ravenscroft, a son of John Ravenscroft, who was of German descent. Edward was born in Virginia, November 25, 1811, and for a number of years lived in Hampshire County in that part of old Virginia subsequently detached and made into the new state of West Virginia. From Hampshire County he brought his little family in the fall of 1855 out to Carpenter Township, Section 17, Range 6, West, and located on the very farm where his son Sampson and his venerable widow now reside. Edward Ravenscroft was a farmer nearly all his life, voted the republican ticket after the organization of that party, but aside from casting his ballot as intelligently as possible took no part in politics. He and his wife were members of the United Brethren Church. Edward Ravenscroft died May 26, 1900, when well upwards of ninety years of age, and was laid to rest in the Reming- ton Cemetery.
On August II, 1842, in Hampshire County, Virginia, Edward Ravenscroft and Sarah Flick were united in marriage. She is also of part German descent, and a daughter of Henry and Nancy (Spencer) Flick. To their union were born eight children: Mary J. married J. F. Irwin, and they live in Rensselaer ; David married Sophia Cross, and they live in Gray, Oklahoma; Sampson was the third in order of birth; Sarah A. is the wife of J. F. Rank, and living in Chicago; Nancy C. married A. M. Horner, and they live at Kingman, Kansas; Henry K. lives in Bentonville, Arkansas, and married Hattie Cross; Jasper B. is now deceased; Isabella M. is the wife of G. L. Parks and lives in Milroy Township.
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There is no person now living in Carpenter Township who surpasses in length of years Mrs. Edward Ravenscroft, who was born April 27, 1822, and is now in her ninety-fourth year. James Monroe was President of the United States when she was born, and in the span of her life the American frontier has been extended from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast, and all the great inventions and improvements which have transformed the world have taken place.
Sampson Ravenscroft, who still occupies the old farm and lives with his mother, in deference to whose wishes he has never married, was born in Hampshire County, Virginia, December 5, 1848. Farming has been his chosen vocation, and he has been known as an upright, industrious and capable citizen, as a boy he remembers the old time wagons with their linchpin and recalls the introduction of practically every improved device for cultivating the land and harvesting the crops, from the cradle and the wooden moldboard plow down to the modern self-binder and the gasoline tractor. He and his mother have a fine farm of eighty acres situated 21/2 miles northeast of Remington. When they came to this com- munity sixty years ago there was only one close neighbor, a Mr. Kennard and family. Mr. Ravenscroft is a republican, but never sought office, and has no membership in secret orders or church.
LEWIS S. ALTER. By his character and achievement this well known citizen of Jasper County has upheld and advanced the prestige of a family name that has been significantly prominent and influential in connection with civic and industrial development and progress in this favored section of Indiana, and that has been worthily linked with American annals since the Colonial era of our national history. He whose name initiates this paragraph resides on the old homestead farm which was the place of his birth, in Section 21, Range 7 West, Carpenter Township, Jasper County, and he not only owns and gives supervision to one of the valuable landed estates of his native county, but has also held for many years distinct precedence as one of the representative surveyors and civil engineers of Northern Indiana, his services in his profession having extended greatly beyond the limitations of his native county. Both as an honored and influential citizen and as a scion of one of the sterling pioneer families of Jasper County is he specially entitled to recognition in this publication, and it may further be said that he has shown deep interest in his family genealogy, has devoted much time and attention to tracing and recording interesting ancestral data, and is at the present time historian of the Alter family organization, the annual reunions of which have become occasions of more than ordinary historic interest. Mr. Altar has at the present time the distinction of being the oldest native-born resident of Carpenter Township. He was born on the 22d of June, 1851, and is a son of John and Mary Ann (Chamberlin) Alter.
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The original American projenitors of the Alter family came from Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, and they were George Heinrich Alter, who was born in or near Hesse-Darmstadt, and his two sons, Johan Jacob and George Friedrich. George Heinrich Alter was born about the year 1720, as nearly as can be determined by records extant, and in 1753 he came with his two sons to America, the voyage hav- ing been initiated when they embarked at Rotterdam, Holland, on the sailing vessel that bore the name of "Beulah," and that was commanded by Captain Rickey. On page 380 of Volume XIII, Pennsylvania Archives, it is recorded that Johan Jacob and George Friedrich Alter were qualified as citizens, at Philadelphia, September IO, 1753. Johan Jacob Alter took the oath of allegiance at Euphrata, as of Cocallico Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1788, as shown on page 46 of the same volume of the Pennsylvania Archives; and in Volume X, page 414, Second Series of the Penn- sylvania Archives, it is shown that he was enrolled in the Army of the Revolution, in the Second Battalion, Pennsylvania Line, United States Infantry. Johan Jacob Alter seems to have eliminated his first personal name and the greater part of the official records per- taining to him designate him simply as Jacob Alter. From the report of the committee on history of the Alter family presented at the family reunion of 1900, and subsequently issued in pamphlet form, are taken the following pertinent statements: "In the Third Series of the Pennsylvania Archives, Volume II, page 608, in the list of 'Soldiers Entitled to Donation Lands,' for military services, we find 'Jacob Alter, private Second Infantry, 200 acres.' We have not been able to find any record at Harrisburg showing that this land was ever taken, and we may assume that our ancestor did not care to be compensated for serving his country."
Between the years 1760 and 1767 Jacob Alter married Margaret Landis, daughter of Henry and Veronica (Graafe) Landis, and of the ten children of this union John, the second in order of birth, was the grandfather of him whose name initiates this article. John Alter was born September 13, 1771, and he married Helenor Sheets.
Concerning the children of Jacob and Margaret (Landis) Alter the following authentic data are entitled to preservation in this connection : Veronica, born October 9, 1769, married Lawrence La Fever; John, born September 13, 1771, married Helenor Sheets ; Jacob, born January I, 1773, married Elizabeth Foutz; David, born February 7, 1775, married Elizabeth Mell; Esther, born February 28, 1777, married Michael Baer; Samuel, born March 17, 1779, died young; Susanna, born October 30, 1780, married Joseph Ritner ; Henry, born October 25, 1784, married Maria Elizabeth Reinhard; Abraham, born March 13, 1787, died unmarried; and Margaret, born March 23, 1790, became the wife of a Mr. Mccullough. Margaret (Landis) Alter, mother of the above named children, was a daughter of Henry and Veronica (Graafe) Landis. Henry Landis was a son of Benjamin Landis, who came from Switzerland
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and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, prior to the year 1720, and who took up 800 acres of land; he was a preacher of the Mennonite denomination. The wife of Henry Landis was a daughter of Hans Graafe, who came from Switzerland in 1696, first locating in Philadelphia, and eventually becoming an extensive landholder and influential citizen of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Jacob Alter disposed of his holding in Lancaster County, Penn- sylvania, in 1779, when he removed with his family to Cumberland County, where he established a mill and acquired large tracts of land, a portion of which is still in the possession of his descendants. Within the first decade of the nineteenth century Jacob Alter removed to Washington County, where he purchased property and where he died prior to August, 1815. He represented Cumberland County in seven consecutive sessions of the Pennsylvania Legisla- ture, 1799-1805. It may be noted that his son-in-law, Joseph Ritner, was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 1835, and served until 1839. His name, it has been said, "will be classed by Pennsylvania among the noblest on her long list, for his well-timed and determined sup- port of the free school." In his annual message of 1836 he discussed the slavery question in a manner that caused the poet Whittier to write a stirring lyric of appreciation and addressed to Governor Ritner.
John Alter, Jr., son of John, who was a son of Jacob mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, on the Ist of July, 1801. He was reared and edu- cated in the old Keystone State, where he continued his residence until 1836, when he came to Indiana and numbered himself among the pioneer settlers of Greenfield Township, Hancock County. He and his family removed to Howard County about 1840, and he himself, with the other members of his family, settled in Carpenter Township, Jasper County, in 1858. But his two sons, John and David, came to Jasper County in 1846, and they were the first to settle on the Grand Prairie and at some distance from the timbered sections of the county.
John Alter (II) first married Miss Charity Van Ausdall, and they became the parents of eight children, concerning whom the following brief data are available: Helen M. was the first ordained female minister of the Methodist Protestant Church in the United States, and continued her active service as a minister for nearly thirty years prior to her death; John W., Isaac V. and David are deceased ; Mrs. Esther Smith is a resident of the State of Colorado; and Hannah, Jacob and Benjamin are deceased.
After the death of his first wife John Alter (II) wedded Lucinda J. Black, daughter of Samuel Black of Howard County, and they became the parents of two children, Isabel J., who is now deceased, and Nancy J., who died in infancy. The second wife did not survive many years, and on the 4th of January, 1749, John Alter was united in marriage to Miss Mary Ann Chamberlin, daughter of Joseph
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and Margaret Chamberlin, of Tippecanoe County, her father having been the first hotel-keeper at Bradford, now the City of Monon, White County. Of the eight children of this marriage the first- born, Joseph L., died in infancy ; Lewis S. is the immediate subject of this review; Catherine L., Margaret L. and Martha D. are deceased; James L. is a member of the family circle of his brother Lewis S .; Lacy E. is a resident of the City of Boise, Idaho; and Mrs. Mary C. Tolles maintains her home at Lansing, the capital of the State of Michigan.
John Alter (II) was a man of strong and vigorous mentality and his life was ordered upon the highest plane of integrity and honor. He had served zealously as a preacher of the Methodist Protestant Church, was an implacable adversary of the liquor traffic, and in the climacteric period leading up to the Civil war he was an ardent abolitionist. This honored pioneer of Jasper County died on his old homestead farm, in Carpenter Township, on the 15th of October, 1876, and his mortal remains rest in the old family graveyard, on the homestead place. It may consistently be noted that his brother, Dr. David Alter, with the assistance of his niece, Miss Helenor Alter, invented and placed in operation successfully, in Greenfield, Hancock County, Indiana, in 1837, an electric tele- graph system, this being six years before Morse obtained his patent for similar instruments. At a later date Doctor Alter made import- ant discoveries in spectral analysis, and he published a treatise on the same, though Professor Wykhoff, of Germany, received credit for the discoveries, notwithstanding that his experiments and research were made several years later. Dr. Simon Alter, a younger brother, became a prominent physician and representative citizen of Rensselaer, Indiana.
Prior to her marriage Mrs. Mary Ann (Chamberlin) Alter, a woman of most gracious personality and of excellent intellectual attainments, had the distinction of being the teacher of the first school established south of Renssalaer in Jasper County. This was a subscription school and its dignified sessions were held in a primi- tive log house about three miles northeast of the present Village of Remington, in the year 1848. The first definite school house erected for the purpose south of Rensselaer was a log building situated at the crossroads in Section 13, Range 7 West, Carpenter Town- ship, where Moses Sigo now has his substantial farm residence. In 1858, 1859 and 1860 Mrs. Mary Ann Alter taught school in her own home, and in the summer of 1860 she presided over the classes in a public school maintained for two months in the barn on the Alter farm. Her death occurred March 22, 1889, and her remains rest beside those of her husband in the old family cemetery in Carpenter Township.
It was the privilege of Lewis S. Alter to be reared in a home of distinctive intellectual atmosphere and marked refinement, and in addition to profiting duly from the lessons received at the hands
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of his devoted mother he availed himself fully of the advantages of the schools of his native county, besides which his studies in higher and technical lines gave him his ultimate facility and prestige as a surveyor and civil engineer, the work of his profession having re- ceived his attention for fully thirty-five years. He served six years as county surveyor of Jasper County ; for four years he had virtual charge of the office of county surveyor of St. Joseph County, in the City of South Bend, where he served simultaneously as assistant city engineer; and for three years he held, under the administration of Edward Hamilton and the latter's son, John J., a similar position in the office of the county surveyor of Newton County, besides which he has been retained as an authority and expert in practical engineer- ing in several other Indiana counties, his work having thus covered a large field and much of it having been of important order.
In 1882 Mr. Alter was the dominating figure in effecting the organization of the Indiana Engineering Society, whose membership comprises the various county surveyors and other civil engineers of the state, and this has the distinction of being one of the oldest and most vigorous in the United States. He was elected the first vice president of the society and thereafter served several years as its secretary. He is now a retired honorary member of this organization. Mr. Alter is historian of the Alter family, and is at the present time engaged in compiling a comprehensive and authoritative genealogical record of the various branches of the family. He has been a close and appreciative student from his early years to the present time, and his private library is the largest and most select to be found in Carpenter Township. It may be noted that his cousin, Hon. George E. Alter, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is serv- ing as speaker of the House of Representatives of the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1915 and that his name is being prominently brought forward in connection with the republican nomination for governor of the old Keystone State. John E. Alter, a nephew of the subject of this review, is possessed of much literary ability and is the author of several volumes, written under the nom de plume of "Bill Bat."
For seven years prior to engaging in the work of his profession as a civil engineer Mr. Alter was a successful and popular teacher in the public schools, having taught one year in the State of Iowa, and the remaining six years in the district schools of his native county. He has been in the most significant sense the artificer of his own fortune, for he received by inheritance from the family estate only $125. He is now the owner of a valuable landed estate of 280 acres in Jasper County, and this includes the old homestead of eighty acres which his father purchased from the Government at the rate of $1.25 an acre and which constitutes his present place of residence, on Rural Mail Route No. I, from the Village of Good- land. The present stone house occupied by him was completed in 1861, and was the first stone dwelling erected in the county. It is known for its hospitality. As a citizen Mr. Alter has been insist-
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ently progressive and public-spirited, and his co-operation has been given in support of measures and enterprises advanced for the gen- eral good of the community, his political allegiance being given to the republican party. He has long been an influential and zealous member of the Mount Hope Church, Methodist Protestant, of which he is a trustee, and his devoted wife likewise was an earnest member of the same for many years prior to her death, which occurred June 21, 1913, the mortal remains of this gentle and loved woman being interred in the family cemetery of which mention has been made in preceding paragraphs. Mr. Alter is affiliated with both the lodge and encampment bodies of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Remington, and has passed the various official chairs in the same.
On the 17th of February, 1879, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Alter to Miss Sarah Ellen Nash, a daughter of James and Minerva J. (Keesling) Nash, of Gillam Township, Jasper County. Of the ten children of this union all survive the devoted mother with the exception of the ninth child, Jesse. The names of the others are here entered in respective order of birth: John J., Mary B., Charles B., Minnie D., Christmas E., Lewis F., Myrtle E., Lacy H., and Lester D. Mary B. is the wife of Robert H. Stanley, and they reside at LaCrosse, LaPorte County; Lewis F., who resides in the vicinity of Burge, Nebraska ; Minnie D. is a trained nurse by profession and resides in the City of LaFayette, Indiana. Mr. Alter wedded for his second wife Mrs. Cynthia A. (Musgrove) Price, February 17, 1916. She is a native of Howard County, Indiana. Her first marriage was with Mr. E. Price, and two living children, both daughters, were born. The eldest is Marie, the wife of Walter Baugher, of Kokomo, Indiana, a plumber. They have one son, Ray- mond. Dorothy resides with her mother. Mrs. Alter is a member of the Holiness Church.
WILLIAM DARROCH. As a mark of their appreciation for his services as supervising editor for Newton County in the prepara- tion of this publication, the publishers desire to present, among many other sketches, the following outline of the career of William Darroch, who has been identified with local citizenship the greater part of his life and whose place and standing in the community are too well known to require comment.
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