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 II > Part 35
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 II > Part 35
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William T. McCarty lived at home with his parents, at first in Ohio and afterwards in Newton County, until he was twenty-four years of age. In the meantime lie secured a fair amount of educa- tion, and has used good judgment in handling the emergencies of life as they came up.
On December 18, 1877, in Iroquois County, Illinois, he married Miss Eliza E. Flemming. To their union have been born cight children : Oscar, Mabel, Grant, Lillie, James D., Frank I., Nora M ... and Agnes. These children have been carefully reared and trained, and most of them are already doing well as individuals.
In politics Mr. McCarty is a stanch republican. He has done much for the welfare of his party, and is properly deserving of any honor to which he may aspire. In 1900 he was an unsuccessful candidate on that ticket for county treasurer. He is now serving as a member of the township advisory board and is also again a candidate for the office of county treasurer. He and his family are active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
GEORGE F. MERCHANT. 'A couple of years ago George F. Mer- chant celebrated his seventieth anniversary. He is one of the resi- dents of Newton County who have lived a full and honorable life time. He was a brave soldier in the trying times of the Civil war,
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and though not a native American he played his part faithfully on many a well fought battlefield. , He has been a resident of Newton County ever since the close of the Civil war, and has been indus- triously identified with its varied activities.
He was born in England November 9, 1844, a son of Joseph and Keziah (Hambridge) Merchant. His parents came to America in 1852 when he was eight years of age. They located on a farm in Preble County, Ohio, but in 1865 moved to Newton County, and buying land in Iroquois Township accomplished the task of the pioneer in developing a hitherto virgin wilderness. The father lived there until his death. He was a republican, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and a man who stood high in the esti- mation of his fellow citizens.
George F. Merchant, who was the oldest in a family of seven children, lived with his parents until he was eighteen years of age. He then volunteered his services for the preservation of the Union. He enlisted in Company D of the Ninth Indiana Cavalry, and was with that noted regiment until the close of the war. His command was in many of the severe battles and campaigns of the Rebellion, and among other places where Mr. Merchant was under fire was the critical battle of Franklin, Tennessee. Some years ago he visited the old Franklin battlefield. His recollections of that hard day's fighting caused him io examine minutely the details of the ground over which he had fought. In one part of the field he found a stable which had been standing almost half a century, and in which he had captured a Confederate soldier. That old building more than anything else served to freshen the memories of half a century past and brought back to his mind many other details of the engagement.
About the time he returned home from the South his parents located in Newton County, and as a veteran soldier he began his career on a farm here.
On October 15, 1871, Mr. Merchant married Miss Martha Bell, a daughter of Harvey Bell of Iroquois Township. Her father was born in Cass County, Indiana, and came to Newton County in 1865. Mrs. Merchant was one of a family of seven children, being second in order of birth, and one of the four still living. Her father died in 1865 and her mother in 1900. Mr. Merchant and wife became the parents of four children, and three are still alive, Jay M., Chloe B .. and Miriam.
JOUIN J. LAWLER. More and more in recent years the land of Newton County has become favorite feeding grounds for some of the large livestock interests of the country. Owing to convenience to the great central market at Chicago, and also to the fact that up to very recent years land could be bought very cheaply and fur- nished, even its wild condition at that time, an abundance of hay and other forage, progressive livestock men have seen the value in
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scctira these lands and employing them for fattening stock in readiness for the ultimate market.
Undoubtedly the presence of some of these stock men in the county and their holdings of land have had as great an influence on the development of Newton County as any other one factor. It is due to their progressive policies that ditching and tiling have been introduced, and as a result a conversion of vast tracts of low marsh lands, whose only product a few years ago was wild hay, into a wide expanse of fertile fields, producing some of the finest hay and grain crops in Indiana.
In 1892 the late Michael Lawler, Sr .. one of the veteran traders at the Union stockyards at Chicago, first became interested in Newton County lands. He bought about 1,300 acres south of Rose Lawn. That land he subsequently deeded to his son John J. Lawler, who is its present owner. At various times John J. Lawler has added to these holdings, having purchased some 5,000 acres of the Gregory land from the Gregory estate, and about 10,000 acres of the Kent land from C. C. Kent. Various other parcels have been added at different times. While a part of this land has since been sold Mr. John J. Lawler at the present time has about 13,000 acres in one body-lying south of Rose Lawn and adjoin- ing and west of the Town of Fair Oaks. This body of land lies altogether in one body and is some cight or nine miles long and four miles wide at its widest point and a mile and a half at the narrowest. In 1903 or 1904 Mr. Lawler bought some 4,000 acres lying in a single body north of Morocco, so that his entire holdings in Newton County aggregate some 17,000 acres.
When the Newton County land was bought, it was for the most part unimproved, had only a few crude buildings here and there and the greater part of the arca was marshy, growing wild grass and in portions of the year was very wet. At first these tracts were used exclusively for ranching purposes, large numbers of cattle being grazed upon them, and large quantities of wild hay being cut and stored for forage. From the ranges of the West hundreds of carloads of cattle were brought to Newton County and were grazed during the summer season.
In the course of twenty years Mr. John J. Lawler has effected some wonderful improvements in the lands under his control. Big dredge ditches have been constructed, many open lateral ditches have been added and some parts of the land have been tiled so that great tracts are tillable and thousands of acres are used for growing corn and small grains and tame hay. Other thousands of acres are heavily set to blue grass. These blue grass pastures fur- nish grazing for from 2,000 to 4,000 cattle and from 1,000 to 2,000 hogs every year. Year by year there has been effected a transformation which is undoubtedly one of the most pregnant events in the history of Newton County. Where once was all waste, are now seen fertile farm lands, with commodious and sub-
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stantial buildings, and some of the most modern farms found in Northwestern Indiana. Great areas have been reclaimed from the unproductive swamp, and land that formerly produced only grass and was suitable only for grazing purposes during a few months in the year, are now divided into farms, with tenants culti- vating the soil from spring until fall, and the fact that all the grain and hay produced is fed to livestock means that the fertility is being replaced and the land is becoming more valuable every year.
Naturally other improvements have followed. Highways have been opened on section lines, and an extensive system of ditches and roadbeds has been made. More than twenty miles of gravel roads have been built through these bodies of land. The tracts are fenced and cross fenced with woven wire, supported by cedar posts, and out of the general improvement have been produced a number of moderate sized farms and pastures. The Lawler holdings now comprise about ten sets of complete farm improvements includ- ing large silos. Every one of these farm groups represents the highest standard of management and maintenance. It has been Mr. Lawler's aim throughout to improve the land and bring it to the highest state of cultivation and productiveness, and every year he is giving his best efforts toward that end.
As a result of his example the entire north end of Newton County has been vastly improved and developed. In this laudable work he has been associated with several other progressive land owners, and their united efforts have constituted a work whose benefits can already be realized. On account of the progressive policies he has carried through Mr. Lawler has naturally been the object of much admiration and respect by all the people of that section, and the policies he has put in practice are important not only for the material upbuilding of the county but also in the well being of the people, and the tenants on his land are among the most contented and satis- fied people of Newton County. Mr. Lawler is one of the men who from the first understood the great future awaiting this section of the county, and his foresight enables him to look forward to still greater improvements which will come along with more intensive farming methods and the handling of livestock. The wonderful results can even now be seen in the heavy crops of corn and small grain grown every year, and these crops compare favorably with similar crops in the older and more favored sections of Indiana.
Jasper County has also benefited by the enterprise of Mr. Law- ler. About 1896 he acquired his first holdings in that county by the purchase of an interest in some lands about two miles east of Rensselaer. From time to time he has bought other land until he now has about 3,500 acres in one farm a few miles cast of Rensselaer, and about 1,800 acres in a farm just west of the city. Here again he has carried out the same ideas and policies of land improvements which have had such notable results in Newton County. He has erected several sets of farm improvements and silos, and has tiled,
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dredged and cleared the land. These two tracts in Jasper County are now fully improved. Hedge fences have been pulled up and replaced by modern woven wire fences. Buildings have been overhauled, new ones erected, and nothing has been neglected to put the land in the most profitable and productive condition. While the work on his own land constitutes a great public enterprise, Mr. Lawler has been equally public spirited in assisting every general com- munity enterprise for new and better roads and ditches and has worked hand in hand with other progressive citizens in bringing about a transformation of Newton and Jasper counties for modern farming. His individual part has been a direct influence for good in every line of progress. Under his leadership grain grows where nothing of value was produced in former years, and many hundreds of cattle and hogs are fattened for the markets here on pastures and feeding grounds which at one time constituted wild game preserves.
Mr. John J. Lawler was born in Chicago February 14, 1866, and Chicago is still his home. His parents were Michael and Kath- erine ( Mooney ) Lawler. His father, a native of Ireland, came to America in the early fifties. He came to this country with his sister, Julia. The family first located in Patterson, New Jersey, where they resided two or three years. Moving to Chicago, Michael Lawler, Sr .. engaged in the blacksmith business. In Ireland he had been in the cattle business. That experience opened the way for his real vocation in Chicago. After a few years he again took up that business at the old stock yards. Only a few people of this generation are aware that there were several stock yards in Chicago at the time Michael Lawler, Sr., began his operations there. One of these yards was at Twenty-second Street and Archer Avenue, another at Thirty-first and Cottage Grove, and still another on the west side. These three yards were subsequently merged into what is now the Union Stock Yards.
When mere boys John J. Lawler and his brother Michael, assisted their father in handling cattle at the Union Stock Yards and learned the business from the bottom up. Their father was one of the early traders in the Union Stock Yards and there are hun- dreds of old time cattle men throughout the country who have pleasant memories of their business dealings with this trader. About 1893 he retired from active business, and his two sons, John and Michael, succeeded him under the firm name of Lawler Brothers. In 1901 Michael, Jr., retired from the firm, and since that time Mr. John J. Lawler has been one of the prominent cattle dealers at the Union Stock Yards, continuing the business under his individual name. His brother Michael died in 1911. Michael Lawler, Sr., died in- 1915, at a venerable age and after a lifetime of worthy suc- cesses. llis wife died in 1871. There were five children in the family, and four are still living. Two of the sisters are now living with Mr. John J. Lawler at his home on Grand Boulevard in Chi-
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cago. These sisters are both unmarried, and the other sister, now married, is also living in Chicago.
WILLIS HURLEY is connected with the development of the re- sources that nature has provided so luxuriantly in this section of the state, being well known as a representative of the agricultural interests of Barkley Township in Jasper County. A native son of that county he has spent his entire career within its borders and from modest beginnings has worked his way to a position of inde- pendence, being now proprietor of an excellent farm homestead near the Village of Parr.
Born June 14. 1865. in Jasper County, he is a son of William B. Hurley, Sr., and Eliza Jane ( Marion) Hurley, who were mar- ried in 1843. William B. Hurley, Jr., came to Jasper County with his parents in 1844, from Macon, Ohio, and located on 160 acres in Barkley Township, getting the land direct from the Government at the regular price of $1.25 per acre. William B. Hurley, Jr., was one of six children, the others being named Jacob, Mary, deceased, Saralı Ann, deceased, John B., deceased, and Gilbert Henry, deccased. William and his two brothers Jacob and John B. all served in the Civil war in Company H of the Forty-eightli Indiana Infantry as privates. William B. was with Sherman ou his march to the sea, took part in the great battle of Gettysburg, and was also in at the siege of Charleston. His brothers, John and Jacob, fought at Bull Run and Lookout Mountain and were also at Gettysburg. After the war William B., Jr., located on the Hurley homestead with his family. and there he and his wife reared their six children, namely: Mary, deceased : Anna, Willis, Rose, Laura, and Silva, deceased. Those living are all residents of Jasper County except Ann, whose home is in. Porter County.
On December 29, 1887, Willis Hurley married Miss Rachel L. Call, daughter of George W. and Delila ( Price) Call, who were numbered among the old settlers of Barkley Township. Mr. and Mrs. Hurley became the parents of seven children. Their names are : Elbert, Lilly, Mae, Eliza, Laura, and Della and Mella, twins, both now deceased. The son Elbert, married Ivy Swain, while Lilly married Herbert Dariott.
In his political affiliations Willis Hurley is a republican, and the confidence and esteem which he enjoys among his neighbors and fellow citizens have been increased by five years of successful service as township supervisor. He is a member of the Christian Church, and is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, while Mrs. Hurley is a member of the Rebekahs. Mr. Hurley has many interesting recollections of Jasper County during its development from little less than a wilderness condition, and in his boyhood he rounded up the live stock from the prairies and woods, since very little of the land was fenced and the country was practically an open range.
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FRANCIS M. HERSHMAN. Perhaps no name recurs more fre- quently in the early and later annals of Walker Township in Jasper County than that of Hershman. There was both the old and the new llershman schools, which were attended by a great many of the substantial men and women now found in different parts of the county. The Hershman family was an excellent type of the pioneer stock. What some of the carlier generation won by hard work and privation from the dominion of the wilderness, others have subse- quently enjoyed in a quieter and more up to date age. One of these is Francis Al. Herslunan, who was an infant when brought to Jasper County and in his earlier years went through a great deal of hard labor in order to lay securely the foundations of his own career. He is one of the valued and prosperous residents of Walker Township.
Born October 12, 1852. in Coshocton County, Ohio, he is a son of John L. and Maria ( Davisson ) Hershman, who were married in 1851 in Jasper County. Indiana, where they and their respective families had lived from the very earliest pioneer times. After their marriage they went back to Ohio, remained there two years, and in 1854 permanently located in Jasper County. Here John L. Hershman acquired eighty acres of Government land, for which he paid $1.25 per acre. While his career was that of agriculture, in the early days he was well known as a hunter and trapper, and did much of that typical work in order to provide a livelihood for his family. He was a democrat in politics, and should be remembered for his'splendid service to Walker Township as its trustee, an office he held for twelve years. While he was in that office he built the new Walker, the Schneider and the Hershman schools, all of which at the time they were built represented the latest and most approved standards of public school architecture and equipment. John L. Hershman was one of the truest exponents of the American educa- tional ideals. He not only supported schools but all other public enterprises, and was a man whose influence is not likely soon to be forgotten in Jasper County. He was a member of the Christian Church. He passed away at the end of a long and honored career in November, 1909.
There were twelve children in the Hershman family, their names being set down as follows: Francis, John S., deceased; Sarah C., James R., Walter H., Charles E., Mary B., Enuna May, George Elmer, deceased : Alva D., Lilly A., deceased, and William II. All the living children are married and have homes of their own. These children attended school and got their education in Walker Township. This schooling began in the old Walker School when Miss Mary Kessler was the teacher. The children had to walk a distance of five miles night and morning in order to reach this schoolhouse. It was a characteristic schoolhouse of the times. Built of logs, had split log benches without backs and a broad board extending around part of the room as a writing desk. Later, the
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children attended the Hershman, and finished their education there.
When he was quite a young man Francis M. Hershman started out on his own resources. For several years he dealt in stock, and also operated the old home farm. Farming has been his real sub- stantial vocation all his active carcer, and many will be found to say that the county has no more progressive agriculturist than this resident of Waller Township.
On the 12th of January, 18844, Mr. Hershinan married Mary Hofferland, daughter of Joseph and Annetta (Saddler ) Hofferland. To their marriage have been born five children, Charles Edward, Florence Marie, Dolly M .. Frederick Abel and Paul. The three older children are now married. In politics Mr. Hershman is a democrat, and like his father before him he served as township trustee for one term. He has done his part in building up and maintaining good schools and has seldom neglected an opportunity to do what he could to advance the community welfare.
MEDDIE SEGO. Among the men of Newton County who have long been identified with agricultural pursuits and whose labors are reflected in the beautiful country homes and productive farms which give this locality prestige among the farming communities of the state. Meddie Sego, present county commissioner from Jefferson Township, is worthy of more than passing notice. He comes of an Illinois family and since coming to Newton County thirty-three years ago has manifested not only his commendable industry but also a fine integrity and capability in his relations to the public welfare.
He was born March 31, 1859, in Kankakee County, Illinois, a son of Louis C. and Mary (Thaleurs) Sego, both of whom were natives of Canada. His father came to the United States some time in the '30s and died about twenty years ago.
In the Illinois home of his parents Meddie Sego was reared, received a common school education, and lived there until he was twenty-three years of age. On Christmas day of 1882 he married Miss Mary O'Donald. They were married in Kankakee County, Illinois. Into their household have come by birth eleven children. Seven are still living, named Martin L., Meddie, Mary, Arthur, Anna, Agnes and Loretta.
In 1883, the year following his marriage, Mr. Sego brought his bride to Newton County and located in Jefferson Township, with which locality his activities have since been so creditably identified. For the first twelve years he was a renter and he and his wife practiced thrift as well as industry in laying the foundation of a permanent prosperity. Mr. Sego then bought eighty acres in section 27 of Jefferson Township and has called that his old home- stead for the past twenty-one years. His success has enabled him to acquire other tracts of land, including a second eighty acres, and also a farm of 160 acres in Grant Township. His home place is
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located two and a half miles cast of Kentland. Mr. and Mrs. Sego have one of the very attractive rural residences of this beautiful farming community. The home sits back some distance from the road in order to command a broad and entrancing view of the sur- rounding country. In front passes the main gravel road between Kentland and Goodland. The farm is noted for its fine style, for its excellent products, and has thorough equipment in the way of machinery, buildings and other facilities.
Recognized as one of the public spirited men of Newton County, Mr. Sego was elected in 1912 to the office of county commissioner. He has given a very successful administration, and has used his influence in every way to promote the general improvement and advancement of his home county. He was elected as a democrat. Mr. Sego is a member of St. Joseph's Catholic Church at Kentland and is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus and Independent Order of Foresters. He is a lover and breeder of fine stock and his farm is the home of some excellent cattle, hogs and horses.
WILLIAM MARTIN. As a rule only men of exceptional fitness and responsibility are elected to the office of township trustee in the State of Indiana. It is one of the most important offices in the county government. The present incumbent of that office in Jeffer- son Township in Newton County is William Martin. Mr. Martin is a practical and progressive farmer. He has also had experience as a merchant. He represents one of the old family names of Newton County and people have confidence in him for his name and also for his individual accomplishments since he started out inde- pendently.
He was born March 11, 1879, in Jefferson Township. His par- ents are Charles T. and Sarah ( Herriman ) Martin. Both of them were natives of Warren County, Indiana, but Charles T. Martin has been a resident of Newton County since 1852. This county was practically a wilderness when he came, and he has witnessed its remarkable development for more than sixty years. He is now living in Kentland.
The fourth in a family of nine children, William Martin grew up on the old homestead, attended the common schools, and re- mained under the parental roof until he was twenty-one years of age. His enterprise then led him to engage in the hardware busi- ness at Boswell in Benton County, Indiana. He was a member of the firm of Harris and Martin there for three years, at the end of which time he sold out and returned to the old home farm in Newton County. Here for a dozen years or more he has shown the qualities of management which make a success of farming in this section of Northwest Indiana, and his name is also noted among the leading stock raisers of the community. His specialty is the breeding of Hereford cattle and he also has eighteen head of high grade horses
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on his form. Mr. Martin is a member of the Corn Growers' Asso- ciation and also belongs to the Hereford Cattle Association.
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