USA > Indiana > White County > A standard history of White County Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and county, Vol. II > Part 31
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active in public affairs, and is now serving his second term as town- ship trustee.
ELIHU B. DIBELL. An honorable business record of many years in White County entitled the late Elihu B. Dibell to a permanent record in the pages of this history. He was long associated with his brother E. J. Dibell, of Wolcott, and throughout his career he maintained a repu- tation for solid integrity and excellent business ability.
A native of Wisconsin, where he was born May 2, 1857, a son of Elihu L. and Elizabeth A. Dibell, record of whom will be found on other pages, Elihu B. Dibell was a resident of White County nearly forty years, and died at his home in Wolcott March 5, 1912. He received his education in the district schools and attended also Jennings Seminary at Aurora, Illinois. In 1875 he accompanied the family to White County, and for the next nine years was chiefly engaged in farming. 'In 1884 he bought the grocery and hardware store of A. T. Pitts at Wolcott, but sold the hardware stock in 1887 and thenceforward with E. J. Dibell, his brother, engaged in the general merchandise business. He also became an active factor in banking, and for many years, in fact until his death, was president of the Bank of Wolcott. The late Mr. Dibell was a repub- lican in politics and a citizen who could be relied upon to support every movement for the welfare of the community in which he lived. He was a member of the Masonic Order, and had filled all the chairs in the Blue Lodge. At Wolcott on February 6, 1883, he married Almira J. Gearhart, a daughter of George W. and Elizabeth Gearhart, who came from Ohio to Illinois and later to Princeton Township in White County. Mr. and Mrs. Dibell became the parents of four children: Oscar D., who died in infancy ; Earl B., who died at the age of fifteen ; Mabel E., who graduated A. B. from the Western College at Oxford, Ohio, took her Master of Arts degree at the University of Illinois and also pursued special studies in the Leland Stanford University in California, and is now instructor in the Biological Department of Western College. She resides at Wolcott and is a member of the Order of the Eastern Star. Harry C., the youngest of the children, is now a member of the class of 1916 at the University of Illinois. The late Mr. Dibell married for his second wife Vesta J. Lisk, daughter of William and Sarah Lisk.
CHARLES E. Ross. In the death of Charles E. Ross, White County was deprived of one of its most respected and trustworthy citizens; Princeton Township lost one of its most able and progressive agricul- turists; and, it is safe to say, in Wolcott, where the later years of his life were spent, none are more genuinely missed than he. A son of
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Charles and Sarah (Widney) Ross, he was born, October 16, 1840, in Pickaway County, Ohio, coming from Scotch-Irish ancestry.
Brought up and educated in his native county, Charles E. Ross, as a boy worked in his father's hotel at Delphos, Ohio, making himself gener- ally useful to the traveling public, but when ready to settle in life turned his attention to agriculture. He continued his residence in Ohio for sev- eral years after his marriage. Migrating to Illinois in 1885, he carried on general farming in Kankakee County for five years. In 1890 he came to White County, Indiana, locating in West Point Township, where he purchased 160 acres of land lying one mile south of Meadow Lake Cemetery. Energetic and wide-awake, Mr. Ross engaged in farming and stock-raising, and in the improvement of his property used excellent judgment, in addition to placing his commodious buildings in excellent repair tilling the land, rendering it fertile and productive. In October, 1894, Mr. Ross moved into town, and from that time until his death was numbered among the representative citizens of Wolcott. His fine estate, "Maple Hurst," is still owned by his widow, and is one of the most val- uable and attractive in the vicinity.
On November 14, 1865, Mr. Ross was united in marriage with Miss Caroline Bixby, a daughter of Horace and Rebecca (Moore) Bixby, the former of whom was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, while the latter was a native of Champlain, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Bixby settled in Ohio after their marriage, and there continued residents the remainder of their lives. Mr. and Mrs. Ross had no children of their own, but in the kindness of their warm hearts they reared a boy, Edward C., from six years of age until reaching man's estate. Edward C. Ross, who is an agriculturist, wedded Miss Addie Forman, and they have three children : Charles, a graduate of the Wolcott High School and now at home; Carrie, a member of the class of 1916 of the Wolcott High School; and Elizabeth, attending the common schools. Edward Ross conducts the farming operations on his mother's farm. Mrs. Ross is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to which her husband also belonged. Mr. Ross joined the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons in Ohio, and both he and Mrs. Ross became members of the Order of the Eastern Star.
JAMES P. FOLTZ. Distinguished not only as a veteran of the Civil war, but as a worthy representative of the able agriculturists of White County who have accumulated a competency, James P. Foltz is now living retired from active pursuits, having a pleasant home in Wolcott. A native of Pennsylvania, he was born, July 24, 1845, in Juniata County, a son of Joseph and Nancy (Sigler) Foltz, the former of whom was of German descent, and the latter of Welsh and Irish ancestry. Joseph
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Foltz died in 1849, and in 1862 his widow came with her little family to White County, and here resided until her death, in May, 1913, at Wolcott, where her body was laid to rest. She was the mother of four children, as follows: Thomas M., deceased; Anna, deceased; James P .; and John B.
Although yet in his teens when the tocsin of war rang throughout the land, James P. Foltz, fired with patriotic zeal, enlisted, August 12, 1861, at Harrisburg, in Company A, First Pennsylvania Cavalry, in which he served three years. Soon after being mustered out, he re-en- listed, becoming a member of Company K, Twelfth Indiana Cavalry, with which he remained until the close of the conflict. A gallant soldier, Mr. Foltz took part in many engagements of importance, including the Battle of the Wilderness, and those at Gettysburg, Cedar Mountain, Hampden Cross Roads, and others of equal note.
Receiving his honorable discharge from the army, Mr. Foltz joined his mother in White County, and embarked in farming in Princeton Township, in the management of his eighty acres of land meeting with exceptionally good results. He still owns forty acres of fertile land, but has given up active farming, since 1893 having lived retired in Wolcott. Mr. Foltz uniformly casts his vote in favor of the republican ticket. He is ever interested in the welfare of town and county, and has served as township assessor two terms, and as township trustee the same length of time.
Mr. Foltz married, January 16, 1870, Elizabeth Nordyke, and into the household thus established four children have been born, namely : Alta, deceased ; Effie; Gertrude ; and Edith. Mrs. Foltz is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but Mr. Foltz is not affiliated with any religious organization. He is a member, however, of Robert Spencer Post No. 432, Grand Army of the Republic, at Wolcott.
TRUMAN HOLDRIDGE. The general course of action in the life of Tru- man Holdridge, by whose citizenship the Town of Wolcott has profited greatly, has been an expression of practical and diversified activity, and in its range has invaded the realms of farming, merchandising and the various organized and co-operative movements by which a community gains its reputation for advancement and improvement.
The Holdridge family has been well known in White County since before the Civil war. The father of the Wolcott business man above named was the late George W. Holdridge, who was born in Monroe County, New York, April 6, 1839, a son of Jacob and Matilda (Heath) Holdridge. He was of combined German and Welsh stock. At the age of eighteen he began life for himself. He was a farm laborer and for
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about two years traveled in different sections of Canada. His arrival in White County was in the year 1859, when he found employment with Clark Johnson. His modest savings were next invested in five yoke of oxen, and with these he undertook the arduous task of breaking prairie sod. At that time the opportunities for such a business were almost unlimited, since vast tracts of White County landscape had known no other tending save that of nature since the beginning of the world. The five years he spent in that work contributed a large area of tillable land to the county. He next rented a farm and thereafter made that his principal calling. He was married April 13, 1870, to Miss Matilda Tem- pleton, a daughter of James and Mary Templeton. She died in 1883 and is buried in the Wolcott Cemetery. Her four children were : Leroy D., who now lives in Coldwater, Michigan, and married Lillian Robin- son, a daughter of Doctor Robinson, of Monticello; Emma, who married Clifford Bolden, and they now occupy the old homestead in Princeton Township; Truman, who is the next in order of age; and Theron, who lives in Princeton Township and by his marriage to Estella Fox has one child named George W. George W. Holdridge married for his third wife Lucy J. Lucas, who is still living in Wolcott. In 1870 George W. Hold- ridge moved into Princeton Township, locating northeast of Seafield, where he lived three years, then removed to Delphi in Carroll County, established a butcher shop and later continued the same line of enter- prise in Monticello. After that he bought a farm in West Point Town- ship, lived there about a year, and then moved to a farm in Princeton Township east of Seafield, and finally to his place of residence near Wolcott. George W. Holdridge died January 15, 1905, and is buried in the Wolcott Cemetery. He was a very successful business man, and prior to his death had accumulated about 550 acres of land. His varied activi- ties were not only the means of bringing many broad acres under culti- vation, but he also erected half a dozen or more substantial dwelling houses in different localities of the county. His belief was that of the Universalist Church, and in politics was a democrat.
The home farm on which Truman Holdridge was born July 13, 1878, was in section 19, range 5 west in Princeton Township. His early life was that of the average farmer boy, varied by school attendance and by work with the various implements and duties of farm management as his strength permitted, and after graduating from the Wolcott High School in 1898 he spent two terms in the Commercial High School at Logansport, and for six months was in Nelson-Myers law office at Logans- port. At Wolcott he found an opportunity to get some practical experi- ence in business as clerk in W. C. Kinney's hardware store, where he remained two years. After that he returned to the country and for two
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years was a practical farmer. He then became permanently identified with the mercantile affairs of Wolcott by purchasing a furniture store, and subsequently acquired the furniture and undertaking business of H. C. Westfall in 1909. His is now one of the conspicuous establish- ments in that village, known as Truman Holdridge's Furniture, Under- taking and Jewelry business. He has no failures recorded against him as a merchant, and has steadily progressed in favor and patronage and is not only successful in himself but lends a liberal hand to the promotion of movements which will make Wolcott a more liveable center of business and population. On June 6, 1906, Mr. Holdridge married Miss Maude A. Galloway, a daughter of Martin and Isabel Galloway of Wolcott.
Mr. Holdridge is vice president of the Wolcott Utility Company, which has recently completed a fine system of water works for the town. Local citizens pay him a special tribute of gratitude for his effective leadership in providing a public swimming pool, which has also been completed just recently. He carried around the subscription paper and by his own enthusiasm and persuasion succeeded in raising all the money required for that excellent improvement. While a democrat, Mr. Hold- ridge has no ambition for the honors of office, and is able to do a great deal for his community without assuming the burdens and cares of poli- tics. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Church, and both are also members of the Order of the Eastern Star and the Rebekahs at Wolcott. Mr. Holdridge is past master of Wolcott Lodge, No. 186 F. & A. M., and is affiliated with the Royal Arch Chapter at Monticello, with the Council at Monticello, and with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, No. 598, at Wolcott.
LOUIS HINCIIMAN. Representing an old established family in Prince- ton Township, Louis Hinchman was born and reared in the Wolcott community, and for many years has been identified with the business enterprise of that village, and is now cashier of the State Bank. His has been a career in which industry, good judgment and integrity have been prominent factors, and his high standing in the community is also attested by various honors paid him as a citizen.
His father was the late William Hinchman, a pioneer of Princeton Township, and whose death in July, 1912, removed one of the fine old citizens of that locality. William Hinchman was born in Cabell County, West Virginia, August 1, 1830, a son of William and Elizabeth (Symms) Hinchman. His grandfather came from England, and there is also an admixture of Irish stock in the family. William Hinchman, Sr. was quite an old man when the war came on and was at that time living in West Virginia, and on account of his positive expressions in behalf of
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the Union was made a prisoner by the Confederates and confined at Salisbury, North Carolina, where the hardship he endured caused his death. William Hinchman, Jr. obtained his education in the old field schools of Western Virginia, and early in his career was impressed with the increasing prosperity of the country north of the Ohio River as com- pared with the slave states, and on October 13, 1854, arrived in White County and began settlement on section 29 of Princeton Township. In early life he acquired the trade of carpenter and used that skill to good effect in the construction of his farm buildings. In the course of time he acquired 270 acres of land in Princeton Township, and was not only a prosperous but influential citizen. In his time he was probably the chief apiarist in White County and for a quarter of a century or more made bee keeping a specialty. Though a member of the minority party, the democratic, he was elected township trustee in 1860 for one term, and in 1877 received the nomination for county treasurer, but was not elected. On December 18, 1856, William Hinchman married Miss Rhoda Nordyke. In 1893 William Hinchman removed to the Village of Wol- cott, and died there and is buried in the Meadow Lake Cemetery. His widow is still living at Wolcott. To their marriage were born seven chil- dren, a brief record of whom is as follows: John, now a retired farmer, married Ella Primmer; Emma Elizabeth is the wife of George Ferguson, proprietor of the Ferguson Hotel at Wolcott; James, who lives in La- fayette, has been three times married and has a son Fred by his second wife; Mary is the wife of Henry Waymire, a retired farmer living at Wolcott, and they have four children; William Jr. has been twice mar- ried and has two children by his second wife; Anna is the wife of A. U. Lux of Wolcott, and has five children; the seventh and youngest child is Louis Hinchman.
Louis Hinchman was born on the old farm two miles east of Wolcott, September 7, 1868, and has been a resident of Princeton Township prac- tically all his life. While growing up on the farm, to the duties of which he was well trained, he also attended the common schools in Wolcott and completed his education by several terms in Valparaiso University. He has to his credit five years of successful teaching, two years in Honey Creek Township and three years in Princeton Township. Following this he was appointed deputy postmaster at Wolcott, and held that office from 1893 to 1897. On retiring from office Mr. Hinchman became associated with W. C. Kinney in the hardware business at Wolcott and they were in partnership until 1903. Since that year Mr. Hinchman has been identified with the State Bank of Wolcott, and has had a large share of the responsibilities of its management in the post of cashier since 1904.
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He is also a member of the firm of Nordyke & Company, well known Wolcott druggists.
Mr. Hinchman is a man whose character and activities have been such as to command the confidence and respect of the community, and evidence of this is found in his service as town treasurer for nine years from 1901 to 1910. As a democrat he was nominated in 1906 for the office of county treasurer, but was unable to overcome the normal repub- lican majority of that year. His church home is the Baptist.
On October 26, 1897, Mr. Hinchman married Miss Anna J. Stahl, who is of German family and a daughter of Carl Stahl, of Remington, Indiana. They have one of the comfortable homes of Wolcott and it is cheered by the presence of one daughter, Frances L., who has received her diploma from the public schools and is now in her junior year of the Wolcott High School. She has also taken instrumental music. Mrs. Hinchman is a native of Germany, born November 19, 1871, and was only two years old when her parents came to America. She was educated in the common schools. In 1912 Mr. Hinchman built a beautiful resi- dence in Wolcott, Indiana, which is the abode of hospitality and good cheer.
EDWARD HEMPHILL. Though still an active factor in the business affairs of Wolcott, Edward Hemphill has reached that time of life where he can be said to have earned the right to leisure and the enjoyment of the fruits of a well spent career. Mr. Hemphill is one of the surviving Indiana veterans of the Union army, has spent nearly all his life in White County, has been prospered as a farmer and business man, and has a high place in popular esteem.
Though now past the age of three score and ten Mr. Hemphill belongs to such a long lived family that he may still be considered a young man. His father, Andrew Hemphill, was born in the Territory of Ohio in 1797, several years before Ohio became a state, and died in 1870. He married Mary A. Bible, who was born in 1810, and whose father, Louis Bible. a native of Germany, lived to the patriarchial age of one hundred eleven years. Andrew Hemphill was an early settler in Indiana, locating in White County, and on September 19, 1847, arriving at his chosen loca- tion in section 1, range 6 west, in Princeton Township of White County. He was a farmer and miller by occupation, and at the time of his death his visible prosperity was indicated by the ownership of 440 acres. His success was well earned, he was honest, upright and an industrious worker, lived quietly with his neighbors, was never sued and never prose- cuted a suit in all his life, and though a democrat in politics never sought any official honors. He is buried in the Hemphill Cemetery in Prince-
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ton Township. He and his wife became the parents of eleven children. The two now living in White County are Mary A., widow of Ambrose Moore, and Edward. Another son, George A., lives near Remington, in Jasper County.
Edward Hemphill was born near Attica in Fountain County, In- diana, September 30, 1843, and the family removed to Princeton Town- ship too early for him to have any definite recollections of that event. He attended some of the old time schools kept in the township during the '40s and '50s, gained physical strength by active contact with the duties of the farm, and was a vigorous youth of eighteen when the war broke out between the North and South. Three years later, in 1863, he enlisted at Lafayette in Company K of the One Hundred and Six- teenth Indiana Infantry. In 1865 he re-enlisted at Reynolds, and was assigned to Company G of the One Hundred and Fifty-seventh Indiana Infantry, continuing this second service until his honorable discharge at Indianapolis in the fall of 1865. Though he participated in several im- portant campaigns during the war and was present at a number of bat- tles, he escaped without wounds and capture.
With the consciousness of patriotic duty well done, Mr. Hemphill applied himself vigorously to his business as a farmer, which was his principal calling up to eight years ago when he moved into the Town of Wolcott and has since been proprietor of the Hemphill Feed Stable and Tie Barn. In addition to this he is the owner of some town property, and has a finely developed farm of 120 acres in Princeton Township.
In 1867, about three years after he returned from the army, Mr. Hemphill married Miss Harriet A. Dobbins, daughter of William and Elizabeth Dobbins of Princeton Township. For nearly forty years they traveled life's pathway together, sharing and dividing their experiences and burdens, and Mrs. Hemphill passed away December 4, 1906, and was laid to rest in the Dobbins Cemetery in Princeton Township. There are five children who survive and honor the memory of their mother and the example of their honored father. James T., the eldest, is a traveling salesman with home at Monon, and by his marriage to Leota Haskins has three children, Bervin, Mark and Gwendolin. Francis E. is the only one of the children now deceased. Gracie B. is the wife of Ed Right of Princeton Township, and they have a child named Philip. Jessie E. is the wife of Fern Kerr, a surveyor at Wolcott, and their two children are Hope and Nina. William H., who lives at Wolcott, married Leota Baxter, and they have a little daughter, Wilma.
In 1867 Mr. Hemphill joined the Masonic Lodge at Wolcott, and for many years has been a member of the Grand Army Post at Rensalear. He belongs to the Christian Church and is a republican who cast his first
,
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ballot for Abraham Lincoln and has supported every presidential can- didate of that party since. It should be said that Mr. Hemphill has gained all his prosperity through his own efforts, having inherited only forty acres of land from his father's estate.
STEWART C. UHL. The Uhl family have been identified with this section of Northwestern Indiana for more than half a century. An earlier generation furnished loyal soldiers to the Union army during the Civil war, and patriotism, stanch civic loyalty, and business integrity have been characteristics of all members of the family. The best known representative of the name at present in White County is Stewart C. Uhl, who for the past fifteen years has been engaged in business at Wol- cott where he is proprietor of a cigar factory and also operates the chief automobile garage and supply station.
His father was the late George Uhl, whose name will always be asso- ciated with White County affairs during the years following the Civil war. He held the office of county auditor a number of years, and after seven years of almost constant suffering from wounds which he had received as a Union soldier died on June 9, 1893. He is buried at the Monticello Cemetery, but after more than twenty years his memory is still enshrined in the grateful hearts of his fellow citizens.
One of five children born to John and Eva K. Uhl, George Uhl was born at Asch, Austria, July 21, 1842. A few years later his father and two other children died, and the widowed mother then brought her three sons, of whom George was the oldest, to America in 1854. She lived on a farm in Huron County, Ohio, until 1857, and then moved to Tippe- canoe Township in Pulaski County, Indiana, where she bought a tract of swamp land and began its improvement into a farm. Mrs. Eva K. Uhl was a splendid type of the pioneer woman. Her death occurred in Pulaski County in 1901. For her second marriage she became the wife of Henry Crites. She had brought her three sons to America in order that they might avoid the compulsory military service of the old country, but her sons had hardly reached maturity before two of them volunteered for service in the Union armies. Of these three sons only one is now living, Herman, whose home is seven miles northwest of Winamac. An- other son, John, died while a soldier in the Civil war.
Twelve years of age when brought to America, George Uhl had re- ceived some training in the common schools of his native country, also attended school in Ohio and Indiana, and after the war was for two years a student in the old Male and Female College at Valparaiso. He was about nineteen years of age when the war broke out, and from Pu- laski County he went to Reynolds in White County and joined Company Vol. II-19
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