USA > Indiana > Grant County > Biographical memoirs of Grant County, Indiana : to which is appended a comprehensive compendium of national biography with portraits of many national characters and well-known residents of Grant County, Indiana. > Part 45
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ANTHONY SHOCKEY.
Anthony Shockey, of Franklin town- ship, Grant county, Indiana, was born De- cember 10, 1832, in Franklin county, Vir- ginia, and was one of a family of four sons
and four daughters born to Daniel and Sarah (King) Shockey. In 1850 he came with his parents to Grant county, locating in Franklin township. He remained at home until his twenty-sixth year, when he began working at anything he could find to do to turn an honest penny until August II, 1863, when he enlisted in Company I, One Hundred and First Indiana Volunteer Infantry, for a period of three years. He was in the thickest of the fight at the bat- tles at Milton, Tennessee, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, Ringgold, Georgia, and the sieges at Atlanta and Savannah, receiving: his discharge with the rank of sergeant in June, 1865. Returning home he moved to the farm upon which he has resided for thirty-five years. He has been a hard- working and filial son, upon whose shoul- ders fell the charge of caring for his par- ents and supporting his younger brothers and sisters, a duty which has been cheer- fully and faithfully performed.
Mr. Shockey has purchased and in- proved a farm of one hundred and forty acres, and is regarded as a model farmer. In 1890 he was joined in marriage with Miss Viola Hall, and four children have brightened the home with their presence, three of whom are living, namely: George, Albert and Warren. Mr. Shockey is a Re- publican.
ISAAC M. FUTRELL.
Isaac M. Futrell is a leading agricultur- ist of Franklin township, Grant county, In+ diana, and was born in Pleasant township January 2, 1850. His father, Abraham Futrell, is a well-known pioneer of this county, having located here in 1840. He
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was born May 28, 1820, in Northampton county, North Carolina, to Cullem and Lu- cretta (Nelson) Futrell, parents of four children-Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Mar- tha. The family remained in North Caro- lina a few years longer, when the allure- ments of the new country tempted the grandfather north, and they settled in Fay- ette county, Ohio, where they resided until 1840, when they came to Grant county, In- diana, and located in Center township, where they purchased eighty acres of second- hand land, upon which the grandfather died in his sixty-second year.
Abraham Futrell was a young man of twenty years when the family came to this locality, and he continued to remain at home for another three years. He had attended the subscription school kept in the little log school house where the children had to sit on split sapling seats with no support for the tired backs, and the heat was supplied by the mud and stick fireplace common to those days. After leaving school he began a systematic course of reading, adding each clay to his fund of knowledge until he be- came a man of great intelligence. When he started in life he was a poor boy, and his first employment as a wage-earner was in the Griffin mill, where he received six dollars per month and his board. At the end of a year his salary was increased to six and one-half dollars monthly, for which he worked two years more. He then went to Wabash county, where he worked on a farm for six months, receiving ten dollars a month wages. Thinking to do better in milling, he returned and rented the Griffin flour mill for two years, and at the expira- tion of that time abandoned that work for the pursuits of agriculture. He located in
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Pleasant township, where he rented for a few years and then purchased one hundred and eight acres of land in Richland town- ship, upon which he lived until 1854, when he came to this township and purchased one hundred and sixty acres of unimproved land, erecting thereon a log house of one room, eighteen by twenty feet in size. He cleared and improved this land, part of which forms the home of our subject, and engaged in general farming. He was a very successful man, and at one time owned five hundred acres of land, much of which has been divided among his children.
Abraham Futrell was married July 20, 1848, to Miss Jane Burson, a native of Preble county, near Eaton, Ohio, and a daughter of J. Thomas Burson, who came to Grant county in 1844 and located in Cen- ter township. Mr. Futrell is the father of seven children: Isaac M., the subject; Thomas, who died young; Emma J., wife of James Johnson ; Margaret A., deceased; Mary, deceased : Ella, wife of John Sutton, of Sweetser; and Jackson, who died at the age of thirty-six. He has been a life-long Democrat, and, with his wife, is an hon- ored member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
Isaac M. Futrell was born and reared on the farm, receiving his education in the district schools. He remained on the farm with his father until he was twenty-two years of age, when he was united in mar- riage with Miss Mary Bragg, by whom he had two children, both of whom died in in- fancy. In 1878 he was married to Miss Tamer Bragg, a sister of his first wife, to whom three children have been born. They are Bertie M .. James O. and Maude M., the latter dying at the tender age of four
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years. Soon after his first marriage he moved onto this farm, and in 1878 located on his present premises, where he owns one hundred and seventy-four acres, one hun- dred of which has been cleared and well improved by our subject. He has always lived in Franklin township except for a few years, from 1884 to 1890, when he was en- gaged in farming in Huntington county. He has one hundred and fifty acres devoted to general farming. He is a Democrat.
CAPT. JASPER NEWTON SEEGAR.
Among the respected native-born citi- zens of Grant county who are deserving of more than a passing notice is Captain See- gar, now living retired in Marion. He is truly a representative man of this section of the state, for, besides the important rela- tion he has borne to the development of the county's material interests, and being one of those whose lives were placed in jeop- ardy in defending their country's honor, he is a representative by the right of birth, be- ing now among those few who were born in the county more than sixty years ago. His birth occurred in Pleasant township April 15, 1837, his parents being Jonathan and Mary (Hendricks) Seegar.
Jonathan Seegar was born in Botetourt county, Virginia, and his wife near Fred- erick, Maryland, both being brought to Ohio when children, and were married in Logan county. In the year 1832 they came from Ohio, bringing their small effects in a wag- on, and secured the tract of land three miles north of Marion, in Pleasant township, that remained their home. He made the entry from the government and erected the old
log house in which Jasper was born. About 1845 he made the brick and built the com- modious brick house that remained his home. This is, without doubt, the oldest house in the township that is still used as a residence. It was the second brick house ever con- structed in the township, a part of the old Billie Prickett house having been erected before it. The lumber in it is all of black walnut and was all cut on the farm. Squire Seegar had been one of the most important and influential men of the township, and owing to his having served as justice of the peace for some years, the title of "Squire" ever clung to him. He had also served for years as a county commissioner, and was looked upon by the leading people of the county as a man of more than ordinary ability and determination. Being somewhat advanced in his views, he clearly saw the need of making progress in the methods of farming, and was the first to begin the breeding of short-horn cattle in this vicin- ity. He accumulated a very choice herd, and took great pride in exhibiting them at the various fairs, at which he was often quite successful in the winning of pre- miums. He was of a vigorous, pushing nature, and was quite fortunate in all finan- cial ventures, accumulating a handsome for- tune, having, besides the home farm of one hundred and sixty acres, a tract of four hundred and sixteen acres in White coun- ty, and that after he had already given a fine farm to the children. After a life passed in the vigorous exercise of the fac- ulties that nature had given him, which were improved by the ability to adapt him- self to the conditions surrounding him, Mr. Seegar passed to his richer reward in the land beyond, in the seventieth year of his
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age, in the year 1873. He was an ardent admirer of Henry Clay, but, with decided views on all public questions, did not be- come identified with the abolition move- ment. He espoused the cause with the Re- publican party, being one of the most pro- nounced in the support of the war, concur- ring in the going of his own son to take up arms for the preservation of the Union. He rendered aid in the raising of troops, and by word and deed used his influence to further the cause of the war. Like many of the early residents, he kept well informed on the events that bore on the progress of the country, and being well fortified with able and logical argument, was quite fond of using them on his obdurate neighbors. He was best at his own fireside, where he was seldom worsted on questions of public policy or of religion, having a fund of well- digested information ever ready at hand.
The mother of Jasper dying in 1848, his father married Mrs. Margaret Gard, whose death occurred some ten years later. He was subsequently married to Miss Sarah Osborn, of Center township, who died four years later. She was his fourth wife, the first one being Hope Inskop, who had three children : Louisa, who married James Cra- vens and died in Iowa; Nelson, of Lyon county, Kansas; and Martha, who married Levi Reed, she dying in Center township.
Five children of the second family lived to maturity: David died at forty; Jasper N .; Margaret wedded David Pigott and both died in Grant county; Mary Jane be- came the wife of Lieutenant L. H. Har- baugh, and resides at Chetopa, Kansas; and James died at seventeen years of age.
Byron and Sarah composed the second family. The former lives in Grant county
and the latter is the wife of Dr. William Davis.
Edwin, of Franklin, and Benton, of Delaware county, were the children of the last marriage. Besides rearing all these of his own, he took into the family four grandchildren, whose mothers were his daughters, Martha and Margaret, and gave them the same care and attention that his own had received.
Jasper remained at home until the age of seventeen, when he went to Iowa, where he remained for two years. Returning home he determined to read medicine and went to Ohio for that purpose. After read- ing for a year his funds became exhausted and he again went to Iowa, working in that state and Illinois until the outbreak of the war demanded the services of the young men of the country. In response to the president's call for seventy-five thousand men for three months' service, the Eighth regiment was within a week drilling at In- dianapolis. Company B was from Grant county, and in this Jasper enlisted, O. H. P. Carey soon being promoted to the cap- taincy. In June the regiment was sent to Clarksburg, West Virginia, and from there it followed the Rebels to Buckhannon and Rich Mountain, where was fought the first battle of consequence of the war. This was fought on the 11th of July, and Company B took a conspicuous part. The term of service expiring, the regiment was mus- tered out on the 24th of July. The follow- ing September the Thirty-fourth regiment was raised, Robert B. Jones and Jasper N. Seegar being commissioned by Governor Morton to raise a company, which was des- ignated as Company F, and of which Jones was elected captain and Seegar first lieu-
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tenant. The command was assigned to the brigade of General Nelson in Kentucky, where it passed the following winter, be- ing then sent to the west, and was recog- nized as one of the best regiments Indiana ever had in the field. Mr. Seegar was dis- charged, however, while the regiment was in Kentucky, owing to serious disability from continued sickness.
Not yet being fully satisfied with his former service he, as soon as his healthı was sufficiently restored, rejoined the old Eighth as a recruit, taking twenty-three men with him. He overtook the command in Arkansas, where it had been placed un- der General Steele. The regiment had seen much interesting service in the mean- time, being in the campaigns of Missouri and Arkansas, and participating in the bat- tle of Pea Ridge. It was kept in Missouri until the spring of 1863, and then sent to assist in the subjugation of the enemy in Mississippi. It was in the battles of Port Gibson, Champion Hills, Black River Bridge and the siege of Vicksburg. In an assault on the enemy's works it lost one hundred and seventeen men in killed and wounded. The regiment was then sent to participate in the famous campaign of the Teche under Banks, and next to Texas, where it had a serious time on the gulf, the severe storms driving the vessel out of its course and compelling it to land at the mouth of the Rio Grande, where the fleet of the usurper, Maximillian, lay, the land- ing being made in the midst of that fleet. Marching back, they assisted at the capture of Fort Esperanza, on Matagorda bay, and wintered at Indianola. Here the regiment was reorganized, and Mr. Seegar was al- lowed a veteran furlough which enabled
him to spend some time at the old home. The following August the command was transferred to Washington and sent into the Shenandoah to assist General Sheridan in the campaigns against General Early, be- ing in the engagements at Fisher's Hill, Winchester and Cedar Creek. After the issue of the Virginia campaign it was sent to re-enforce Sherman in Georgia, where it remained on duty until mustered out the following August. From the time of the reorganization of the regiment Mr. Seegar had been assigned to the duty of regimental quartermaster, and so continued to the ex- piration of the service. Ever since the war he has kept in close touch with the old comrades by attending many of the reun- ions and by the association afforded by the Grand Army of the Republic, in which he has taken an active part, being the present commander of General Shunk Post.
He was married on the 22d of October, after his discharge, to Miss Lydia Frazier, daughter of Nathan W. and Martha (Boots) Frazier. She was born on the farm where the Matter park is now located. Her mother was the daughter of Martin Boots, the founder of the city of Marion, and whose value to the town has been rec- ognized in many ways. Her mother died in 1864, and her father remained at the old home until his own death, in 1875.
In 1869 Mr. Seegar removed to Lee county, returning to the Frazier farm in 1873, and after the death of his father pur- chased the old homestead; this he still owns and operates. He has made many impor- tant and valuable improvements, rebuilding the house and barn, extending the drainage and otherwise adorning and beautifying the place. For the past three years he has
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lived in Marion, taking the comfort that many years of close application has entitled him to. He is the owner of the "Brookside" dairy, but has it operated by other parties. A Republican from boyhood, he takes keen interest in all that tends to advance the in- terests of the party, being often a delegate to some of the conventions that formulate its plans of action. He was in attendance at the national convention that nominated James G. Blaine, and assisted materially in the campaign that followed.
The children of the Seegar family are three : Nellie, the wife of A. W. Friermood; Frank F .; and Gertrude, the wife of Ross A. Heavelin, an attorney of Marion.
HON. JAMES F. MOCK, M. D.
Hon James F. Mock, M. D., of the firm of Mock & Mock, physicians at No. 4137/2 South Washington street, Marion, is a na- tive of Rush county, Indiana, born July 28, 1838, and is a son of John and Clarissa ( Parsons) Mock, who were natives of Ken- tucky and the parents of five children, of whom Dr. James F. Mock is the only son and next to the youngest in order of birth. John Mock, the father, was a farmer and distiller by calling, and came to Indiana in the 'twenties. He died in Rush county in 1842, at the age of thirty-six years. His widow, Clarissa, survived until seventy-two years old, and died in Howard county, In- diana.
The early life of Dr. James F. Mock was passed on the Rush county farm in the hard work necessary to agricultural pur-
suits in those early days. After attending the country schools of Rush county a proper length of time young Mock began reading medicine under Dr. Wall, of Rush county, and Dr. Lewis, of Henry county, and after due preparation entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, from the medical department of which he was graduated in 1861. In April of the same year he began practice in Rigdon, Grant county, whence he moved to Alexandria, Madison county, and then to Huntington, thus confining his practice to Grant county and vicinity for nearly twenty years and traveling thousands of miles in his pioneer practice, which he discontinued in 1880.
In early manhood Dr. Mock became ad- dicted to the use of tobacco and followed the pernicious habit for a number of years; finally he decided that the use of the weed was doing him an injury, and at the age of twenty-seven years abandoned its use, the result being that in six months his avoir- dupois had increased fifty-two pounds. This episode is mentioned simply to show that Dr. Mock was fully capable of following the mandate, "Physician, heal thyself."
In 1883 Dr. Mock settled in Marion, .where he has since been in active practice as a specialist in rectal disorders and dis- eases of women, being the first specialist in these lines in the state and being successful in both, professionally and financially.
Dr. Mock was most happily married, in 1859, to Miss N. J. Davis, a native of Rush county, Indiana, but whose parents were born in South Carolina, her father being a distant relative of Jefferson Davis. To South Carolina, also, the ancestry of Dr. Mock is traceable, although of German ori- gin, and in the Palmetto state the name of
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HON. J. F. MOCK, M. D.
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BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS.
Mock has been prominent for generations. To the marriage of the doctor and Miss Davis have been born four children: Dr. Albert D., the eldest, now associated with his father under the firm name of Mock & Mock, was professionally educated at the Indiana Medical College in Indianapolis and at the Rush Medical College in Chi- cago; is married and has one daughter, Blair. The second born is also married, is a stock-dealer, and is interested particu- larly in fast horses, in the handling of which he has been more than ordinarily success- ful. Rose A. and Mattie B., as yet unmar- ried, have their home under the parental roof. Mrs. Dr. Mock is a member of the Christian church, but the doctor himself is not connected with any religious body. Fraternally the doctor was an active Odd Fellow for many years of his mature life, but with this order also he has ceased to affiliate.
Politically Dr. Mock has been a life-long Democrat. While a resident of Madison county, Indiana, he was elected to the state legislature in 1869, and during the session of that year the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the Uni- ted States was brought up for consideration by that august body. Parties were very close- ly divided on this question, and to break the quorum Dr. Mock resigned. This act was so satisfactory to his constituents that at the next election the doctor was reurned to his seat by a largely increased majority. For many years past, however, the doctor has been entirely out of politics, excepting a quiet discussion now and then of the is- sues of the day with his personal friends and the unfailing exercise of his franchise at the polls.
HENRY JACKSON CALLANTINE.
Among the truly up-to-date farmers of Grant county, and one whose efforts liave long been directed to a more advanced sys- tem of agriculture, is Henry Jackson Cal- lantine, whose well-improved and highly- cultivated farm, located on the Washington pike some six miles northeast of the county scat attracts the eye of the traveler, excit- ing commendatory expressions touching its neat and model appearance. This is the farm upon which his father had settled in 1849 upon coming to the wilds of Grant county, and which Henry himself assisted largely in clearing. He had purchased it in 1872, it having passed into other hands after the death of his father. The old place had ever seemed like home to him, and he was governed somewhat by that sentiment in deciding to pay a price that was several times what his father had paid. Lying in a flat section of the township it required an immense amount of drainage and tiling to bring it into the present state of cultiva- tion, fully one-third of it having been re- claimed by such effort from a worthless con- dition, that which required the greatest ef- fort to drain being now the most produc- tive. He has erected a good house and barns, with other suitable outbuildings, so that to-day it is not only one of the best improved, but is also one of the most fer- tile and one of the most attractive farms of which Washington township can well boast.
Henry J. Callantine was born in Guern- sey county, Ohio, on the 25th of April, 1832, being the eldest of a family of eight, of whom Abraham and Susan (DeViney) Callantine were the parents. The father
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was likewise a native of the Buckeye state, but of Dutch stock, his father, Henry, hav- ing come to Ohio from Pennsylvania pre- vious to the opening of the nineteenth cen- tury. He was a typical frontiersman, hav- ing the heart to make a second farm after losing the first on account of defective title. He was a large and fleshy man, though never sick, and lived to the age of eighty years. Susan DeViney was born in Vir- ginia, where her father, James, a native of Maryland, was a shoemaker. He also pos- sessed the virility of the old Dutch stock, though it is thought he was more of a Frenchman, and lived to the great age of one hundred.
In 1848 Abraham Callantine, wife and five sons and two daughters came to Grant county, having but a few hundred dollars with which to operate. This cash he in- vested in eighty acres of wild land, paying three hundred dollars for the tract. He erected a hewed log house and began to improve a farm under what would now seem most difficult conditions. Five years after coming his wife was taken from him, and he found a mother for his children in the person of Mrs. Susan Cross, with whom he lived several years. He was called upon, however, to part with her also, and later in life he wedded Mrs. Ash, who survived him. After getting his farm fairly well improved he gave it to the children, passing the latter years with a son in Wabash county, where he died at the age of seventy-five. Of the family of seven, Henry J. is the only one remaining in Grant county. As a lad he was set to work at heavy farm labor, his wages being sadly needed to assist the fa- ther in the support of the family. Having a desire for an education, he attended the
district school as much as possible, even going on such days as he could not work and studying diligently at the fireside. The last term of the primitive school that he attended was after he had reached his ma- jority. For some years thereafter he con- tinued at various lines of work, the greater part being in the timber, splitting rails, clearing, log rolling and everything pertain- ing to the making of a new farm in the wilderness. Thinking that the west might afford better openings for the poor man, he spent the year 1859 mainly in Missouri, though he visited Illinois, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. The rumblings of war made everything unsettled and he returned, se- curing in the latter part of 1861 what is known as the Thompson mill property, lo- cated on the Huntington pike.
On the 27th of June, of the same year, he was united in marriage with Miss Mar- tha A. Dicken, daughter of Richard and Ma- tilda (Cook) Dicken, who was born in Fay- ette county, coming to this vicinity when a child. Her parents had become well known in this community, where both died at the age of seventy-seven.
For the next seven years Henry J. Cal- lantine operated a saw-mill, with the excep. tion of the time he served in the army. All of the five brothers had seen service. Evan had been in the fleet under Burnside at the time of the famous expedition, as well as thereafter; David was in the One Hundred and First Indiana regiment, as was Joseph, the youngest, though he was discharged on account of failing health; William had gone out in the Eighth Indiana Volunteer Infant- ry, among the first to enlist for the full three years. Henry J., feeling that the family had already been well represented,
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