USA > Indiana > Blackford County > Blackford and Grant Counties : Indiana a chronicle of their past and present with family lineage and personal memoirs > Part 27
USA > Indiana > Grant County > Blackford and Grant Counties : Indiana a chronicle of their past and present with family lineage and personal memoirs > Part 27
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The children born to Ira J. Carter and wife were: Permelia J., who died in infancy; Harriet, also deceased in infancy; Gilbert, who did not survive babyhood; J. Newton, a carpenter, who lives in Upland, Grant county, and has a family; Olive, who is the widow of Jolin Kibby, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work; Levi L., who is a farmer in Delaware county, and is married and has one daugh- ter; Mary E., whose first husband was Noah Hardy, and whose second was Elmer Hiatt, and living now in Gary, Indiana, and there were three children by the second marriage. Isaac L .; Salina D., who died when seventeen years of age; Jerusha, who became the wife of John Croush, living in Clark county, Indiana, and they have two sons and three daughters; Anna A., the wife of Wood Helms, a farmer in Fairmount township, and their family consists of three sons and two daughters.
Isaac Lyman Carter was born in the house he still occupies, on October 30, 1860. That old homestead is in section twenty-one of Jefferson township. His home has always been in this locality and from boyhood he has followed farming successfully, and in a prac- tical, progressive manner, which marks him as a true son of the soil. His place of eighty acres is well stocked with graded sheep, hogs, and cattle, and he is one of the extensive feeders in this part of the county. His buildings are good and substantial, and represent prosperous management.
Near the old home, Isaac L. Carter married for his first wife, Miss Mary N. Wilcoxon, who was born in Delaware county in 1848, and who died at her home in Jefferson township, January 21, 1901. She was an active communicant of the Methodist church. Her six children are mentioned as follows: Glenn, whose home is with his father, and who is unmarried, is a graduate of Purdue University, and is now a seed and fertilizer inspector for the state of Indiana; Alivila Blanche, died at the age of fifteen months; R. Emory, who lives on a farm in Fairmount township, married Miss Lula Goodnight, and their children are John and Blanche; John Burl, who is a graduate of the high school in the class of 1909, lives at home with his father on the farm; Asa E. was graduated in the home schools, and is living with his father; Mary A. is a sophomore in the Matthews high school. The present Mrs. Carter was before her marriage Margaret Ann Fitch, who was born in Marion county, Indiana, February 26, 1869, was edu- cated in Wabash county, and is a woman of thorough culture and an excellent housewife and mother. Her parents were John and Sarah (Wiley) Fitch, who were born respectively in Kentucky and Indiana, were married in Marion county of the latter state, and most of their lives were passed in Wabash county. Her father died in Huntington
J. CLAY ROSS, M. D.
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county, in 1907, at the age of sixty-four, while his widow now lives in Andrews, Indiana, and is seventy-one years of age. The Fitch family are members of the Methodist church. Mrs. Carter is the mother of three children: Lewis H., in the public schools; Sarah Ethlyn, aged two years; and Edith M. Mr. and Mrs. Carter belong to Kingsley Chapel Methodist church, and Mr. Carter is a trustee and for a number of years was steward in the church. His political affilia- tions are with the Democratic party.
J. CLAY Ross, M. D. After graduating from the Louisville Medical College, at Louisville, Kentucky, with the class of 1906, Dr. Ross spent two years in that city as interne, in St. Anthony's Hospital, then estab- lished an office at Florence, Indiana, where he remained about four years, and since April 21, 1910, has practiced at Gas City. Dr. Ross has already built up a large practice, both in the city and country. He takes his surgical cases to the Marion Hospital in conjunction with Dr. C. O. Bechtol. Dr. Ross is a very genial, happy-minded gentleman of a very sociable nature, and has friends wherever he has gone. These personal characteristics combined with his thorough ability as a physi- cian have brought him a large business and he enjoys the confidence and respect of a large patronage and hosts of friends all over Grant county. He is a member of the Grant County and Indiana State Medical Societies and the American Medical Association.
J. Clay Ross, who comes of a fine old Kentucky family, was born in Gallatin county, Kentucky, October 17, 1877. He was reared on a farm until he was eighteen years old, and his first work was as a teacher, after graduating in the scientific course in the National Normal Uni- versity at Lebanon, Ohio. Through school teaching he paid his way through college and university, and on March 29, 1901, graduated from the Commercial department of the Kentucky State University. After that for a short while he was bookkeeper in the First National Bank at Vevay, Indiana. In his ancestry and family connections were a number of physicians, and this was one of the influences which prompted him to take up medicine as his chosen calling.
Dr. Ross comes of old Virginia stock, which was early transplanted into Kentucky. There is a family tradition that Betsey Ross who made the first American flag belonged to one of the earlier generations. The doctor's grandfather was Milton C. Ross, who was born in Gallatin county, Kentucky, in 1823. He married Nancy Hopkins, who was born in Carroll county, Kentucky, about the same time. Both were of Vir- ginia stock of Scotch-Irish people, and early settlers in Kentucky. The father of Milton C. Ross was rich in lands, holding a grant of ten thousand acres in Kentucky, had a great retinue of slaves who worked his plantations and attended to his household, and was an influential and wealthy citizen.
Grandfather Milton Ross died at the age of seventy-three years, while his wife passed away when seventy-nine years. They were mem- bers of the Christian church, and led lives of earnest Christian prin- ciple and usefulness.
There were thirteen children in the family of Milton Ross and wife. Of these the only ones now living are: Joseph, father of Dr. Ross, and Dr. John J. C. Ross, of Bloomington, Indiana. One son, Thomas, was a soldier in the Union army during the war in the Eighteenth Kentucky Regiment. However, grandfather Ross was a strong Confederate in his sympathies and had held slaves before the war, having inherited them from his father. Joseph Ross, father of Dr. Ross, has been a farmer all his life, and he and his wife now occupy the old Donley homestead Vol. II-12
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near the Ohio river in Gallatin county, Kentucky. He was born January 19, 1855, and all his years have been spent in the vicinity of his birth place. He has been a Democrat and locally prominent. He was married in Gallatin county to Mary Donley, who was born in the same county, May 19, 1855. They grew up in the same neighborhood, attended the same school, and have always lived in companionship and their married life has been a particularly happy one. Joseph Ross is a member of the Christian church, his family religion, but Mrs. Ross is a Catholic, and reared her children in that faith. Her parents were James and Margaret (Breen) Donley, who were born in County Wexford, Ireland, were married there, and some time during the forties embarked upon a sailing vessel which was three months in crossing the ocean to New Orleans, and from there came up the Mississippi River to Ken- tucky. James Donley and wife died when quite old, he at the age of sixty-nine and she when seventy-four, and of their nine children, eight are still living. Dr. Ross was the oldest of three children. His brother, Charles, who was born November 30, 1880, lives on a farm in his native county, and is married and has two children, Joseph J. and Robert L. The sister Margaret, born July 27, 1895, was educated in the public schools and in the Villa MeDonough Academy of Kentucky, and is now at home with her parents.
Dr. Ross was married in Hopkinsville, Christian county, Kentucky, to Miss Mamie Massie. She was born near Houston, Texas, August 10, 1884, grew up there and attended Texas schools and finished her education within six years in Washington, D. C. She is a grand- daughter of Dr. J. C. and Elizabeth (Sessums) Massie, the former a native of Virginia, and the latter of Tennessee, but they were married in Texas, and Grandfather Massie was a prominent physician at Houston for a number of years, but finally retired to his plantation near that city, and died there at the age of sixty years; his widow died June 27, 1913, aged eighty-eight. Joseph Massie, father of Mrs. Ross, was born and reared on his father's plantation in Texas, and married Mary Edmund- son, a native of Texas, a woman of many talents and of thorough educa- tion and culture, a graduate of Hollin's Institute of Virginia, and also of Vassar College. She was an accomplished musician, both vocally and instrumentally, having graduated from the Boston Conservatory of Music and spent two years in study in Europe. She died in 1890 in the prime of life. Her husband now lives in New Mexico, and is serving as county clerk of Chavis county, with home at Roswell, the county seat. The Massie family are all Episcopalian in religion, and Mrs. Ross' cousin, Davis Sessums, is Episcopal bishop of Louisiana. Dr. Ross and wife have one child, Marion E., born October 10, 1906. Mrs. Ross has membership in the Episcopal church, while he retains his affiliation with the Catholic church.
Dr. Ross is very popular and active in fraternal matters, being a member of the Knights of Columbus Council at Marion; the Elks Lodge No. 195; the Orioles No. 9; the Lodge of Moose No. 253; and the Nep- tunes, the Mother Lodge of which order is at Marion. Dr. Ross in politics is a Democrat.
B. FRANK DULING. Since the pioneer settlement of Grant county, three generations of the Duling family have been identified with the industrial and social community in a way to promote the welfare and improvement of this locality. They assisted in the clearing of the wil- derness during the early days, and in the quieter years that have followed their lives have been led along the paths of industry and prosperity, and as farmers and good citizens they have done their full share for the enrichment of community life.
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Representing the family in the third generation, B. Frank Duling is one of the leading farmer citizens of Jefferson township. He was born in Fairmount township, January 11, 1869, a son of William and a grandson of Thomas Duling. William Duling was born in Coshocton county, Ohio, in 1838, and the grandfather, Thomas, a native of Vir- ginia, settled in Ohio at an early date, and lived there until most of his children were born. When William was still a boy less than nine years of age, the family started west and finally reached Grant county. The grandfather bought land in Fairmount township, erecting a log cabin, started to battle with the frontier hardships in the midst of the green woods. The Duling family had their full share of pioneer expe- riences and hardships, and Thomas Duling had the satisfaction of replacing his old log cabin with a substantial frame house, and seeing his family grow up about him in peace and plenty, and as factors in the community. He died at the end of a long and useful life, at the age of eighty-four, and his wife preceded him when about seventy years of age. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Muskimmons. They were both members of the Methodist Protestant church, and among the organizers of that faith in Fairmount township.
William Duling was one of the following children: Oliver, John, William, Thomas, George, Mary, Barbara Ann, and Elizabeth, both the last named dying in infancy. Oliver, William and Thomas are still living, and Oliver is a bachelor.
William Duling grew up on the old home farm in Fairmount town- ship, and subsequently bought sixty acres of land near the old estate, and started out as an independent farmer. That continued to be his home until 1876, when he left Fairmount township and bought the James Nottingham farm of one hundred and six acres in Jefferson township. That is his home down to the present writing, and he is also the owner of eighty acres nearby in Fairmount township. William Du- ling and wife have well deserved their prosperity, since they were hard workers from youth up, and by thrift and good management acquired a property aggregating at one time more than six hundred acres. They are members of the Methodist Protestant church. They were the par- ents of eight children, and they are briefly mentioned as follows: Mary A. is the wife of Oscar Lewis, a farmer in Delaware county, and has two children; John lives in Fairmount township, is married but has no children; Flora is the wife of Calvin Jones, and their chil- dren are : Myrtle, Clarence, Walter, Effie and Mary. The fourth in the family is B. Frank Duling. Nettie is the wife of Rev. C. M. Hobbs, an active minister of the Methodist church, and their children are Donald, Sedrick and Malcolm. Elmer is the Delaware county farmer, and by his marriage to Emma Dunn, has one baby son. Effie is the wife of Frank Wright, an undertaker in the city of Washington, D. C. Glenn is a farmer in Fairmount township, and married Juanita Kuntz.
Mr. B. Frank Duling, after growing to manhood entered upon his career as a successful farmer, and his prosperity has been such as to make him one among the leading farmers of Grant county, and give him a distinctive place in affairs. At the present time he is the owner of two farms, each comprising eighty acres, and all the improvements and facilities for modern agriculture and stock raising are to be found there. In the little city of Matthews, Mr. Duling owns a nice home, and also has a stock and grain barn in the town, forty-four by one hundred and thirty-two feet in floor dimensions. His live stock comprises fourteen head of horses, and also hogs and other animals. Since 1909, Mr. Duling has made his home in the town of Matthews, and operates his farms from that point.
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Mr. Duling was married in Washington township of Delaware county to Miss Amanda Dunn, who was born and reared and educated in that township. They are the parents of four children, one of whom died in infancy, the others being: Lloyd, aged seventeen; Marjorie, aged thirteen; and Norwood, aged eighteen months. Mr. Duling is a Republican in national affairs, and always interested in good govern- ment as applied to his home community.
DR. ELI MENDENHALL WHITSON, who died in Jonesboro, November 7, 1905, belonged to the pioneer Whitson family, and had lived in the community since 1844, when he came as a child with his parents from Clinton county, Ohio. There is mention of the Whitson family in the Mill Township chapter.
In June of the Centennial year, Dr. Whitson married Miss Annie Watson, daughter of Lorenzo D. and Elizabeth (Carroll) Watson of Jefferson township. The Watson family had interests in three adjoin- ing counties, both Blackford and Delaware counties lying adjacent to their community in Grant. The four Watson daughters, Mrs. Whitson, Mrs. Margaret Craw, Mrs. Minerva Lewellen, and Mrs. Virginia Beuoy, were all well known young women, and their acquaintance was not limited to their immediate community. Mrs. Whitson died in 1893, at her home in Jonesboro, and because of an ante-nuptial agreement with her mother, Dr. Whitson buried her at Olive Branch, the Watson burial plot, near the old home in Jefferson. Dr. Whitson and wife had two daughters: Mrs. Elizabeth Mabel Hill, and Miss Georgia Gladys Whitson. He later married Miss Emma Coleman, who, with his daughters, survives him. His grave is in the Jonesboro cemetery.
Few men live in a community and have higher tributes paid to them than Dr. Whitson. He was always identified with its every interest, and he had a wide professional acquaintance. He visited his patients on horseback, riding a sulky, and finally having buggies built to his order. When his services were desired, he did not always investigate the possibilities of the family from a financial standpoint. Dr. Whitson acquired considerable farm land, and had business interests besides, but at his death, since he had no son, and his daughters and Mrs. Whitson did not want to live in the country, all the farm land as well as the home in Jonesboro was sold. He had always been very watch- ful of the farm interests, and knowing his reputation as a careful farmer, they did not want to see the property depreciate. Old Dick, the horse he had driven for many years was a problem, and he was left to end his days on the farm.
Dr. Whitson was abreast of the times in both professional and social ways. As his friends gathered at the funeral, and while viewing the remains, a relative (Mrs. Beuoy) unconsciously paid him the highest tribute, saying: "It was always one cheerful place to come to." And what better thing can be said of any man or family? What higher tribute? While Dr. Whitson often reviewed his war record, three years of active service in the One Hundred and First Indiana Regiment, he did not have any more pride in it than in his citizenship in the community. He was a faithful member of the Jonesboro Meth- odist Episcopal church, and his name is on the cornerstone as a member of the board of trustees and building committee. When he died the church members felt their loss, and along at that time there were other losses in the same circle, but there are always others who assume the responsibilities laid down by those who die or leave a community.
Elizabeth M. Whitson, the older daughter of Dr. Whitson, was married in the Century year to Daniel W. Hill, a son of Nathan and
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Emaline Hill, and he had a position with the American Tin Plate Com- pany when it first located at Gas City. When the company's offices were moved to the east he went along, and he and his family have lived twice in New York city and twice in Pittsburg, and now occupy their own home on Linwood Avenue at Bay Side, Long Island. Mr. Hill is with the American Can Company in New York city, and is one Jonesboro young man who has made a success of business while living in the American metropolis. Their two little boys are Robert and Howard Hill.
Thirteen years separated the birthdays of Dr. Whitson's two daugh- ters, and he used to say he supposed the second one would go as far west as the first had gone east, and his prophecy has been fulfilled. While Miss Georgia Whitson always called Jonesboro her home, she made several trips back and forth to Pittsburg and New York city. In 1911 she graduated from De Pauw University at Green Castle, and she was for two years teacher of Latin in the Thorntown high school, and in the fall of 1913 she matriculated in the Southern California University, her purpose being to secure a degree from that institution and become a teacher in the western country. She spent two months with her sister on the Atlantic coast, and crossed the continent to Los Angeles, bathing in the surf of the Atlantic and Pacific in the same season. An education would have been her father's highest ambition for her. When he graduated from a school of medicine, he knew the handicap of poverty-his best coat when he finished having been his second best when he entered college. But fortune favored him and his daughters have had the benefit of his professional success. While Dr. Whitson accumulated considerable property at Jonesboro, it has all been converted into money, and his family have the advantages from it. The daughters still own a farm in Jefferson township, and Mrs. Emma C. Whitson still represents the household in Jonesboro.
Concerning the earlier generations of the Whitson household, it is noteworthy that ten children comprised the original family, but smaller families have been the rule in later generations. Tradition has it that three Whitson brothers went west from Pennsylvania, one to Indiana, another to Kentucky, and the third to Tennessee. It was the family of John and Sarah (Kimbrough) Whitson that located in 1844 at Jonesboro, where for three score and ten years their pos- terity has continued its existence. Some of the Whitson children were born at Jonesboro, and all but one died there, a record not shown by many pioneer families.
John Whitson went to the Chicago horse market in June, 1855, with a consignment of horses. He encountered "lampers" in the horse market and there being no demand for animals he left his string of horses, going back in September for settlement, and he was never seen again by his family. The wife (see Mill Township chapter) died at the family homestead in Jonesboro in 1892, her life having long been saddened by an unexplained absence. She had reared her own children, and some of her grandchildren had their homes with her, and she had a mother heart for all of them.
For many years all the Whitson family enjoyed a dinner together, January 11, the anniversary of "Grandmother's" birthday, coming so soon after the holidays when there were divergent family associa- tions, marriage with other families causing the separation at Christ- mastide, and all were glad to come together again on her natal day when she laid aside her kitchen apron and allowed the younger women the right of way in the household-only for the day, and then she was mistress again. The monument at her grave is one half of an
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octagonal block of granite, and it bears three inscriptions-her own, and two unmarried daughters, Margaret Ellen and Ann Eliza, a trio that had maintained an open door for all the relatives and orphan children in the family. For many years those two daughters conducted a millinery store, and had patronage from all over Grant county. Even now people say to Rolinda: "We used to get such pretty hats from the Whitson girls." Their trade in Quaker bonnets was not limited to Grant county. Before being milliners they had been tailors, sewing for Hudson Stewart, who was for years the most fashionable tailor in Grant county, attracting much patronage from Marion. It was with the needle that the daughters earned the money to embark in the millinery trade. Of the John and Sarah Whitson family, two children, Sarah and Lewis, died in infancy. The others were: Mary Jane, who married Herman Wigger and is survived by one daughter, Mrs. Nora A. W. Tucker; David Miller Vore, who married Verlinda Jay and Asenath Winslow, and is survived by three sons, Rufus Alden, Rolland Lewis and Irvin Whitson; Ira Kimbrough, who married Sarah Harte, and is survived by his widow and a daughter, Mrs. Lula Agnes Davison, and a son, Fred Kimbrough Whitson; Martin Van Buren, who married Mary Esther Barnard and is survived by a son, Elvie C. Whitson, and a granddaughter, Miss Mary Clarissa Adams; Dr. Eli Mendenhall, whose family relationship has already been explained ; James Lindley, who married Lucy Ann Amelia Hoover, and is survived by one son, Dr. John Samuel Whitson. There were twelve grand- children and a number of great-grandchildren with the fourth and fifth generations represented in the Whitson family. Some of them are scattered far from the original threshold, and while once many Whitson family households were grouped abont Jonesboro, the original circle about the hearthstone has been completely broken and its members have all "gone to the bourne from whence travelers do not return. ''
RUFUS ALDEN WHITSON. Since June 22, 1913, the date of the death of Martin V. Whitson, who was the last of the original Jonesboro Whitson family, Rufus Alden Whitson, the oldest grandchild in either the Whitson or Jay pioneer relationship, has been the senior member of both families in Grant county. His parents, David Miller Vore and Verlinda (Jay) Whitson, were married November 18, 1854, at the David Jay family household near Jonesboro. The father was one of ten, and the mother one of nine children, and though only sixty years, seant two generations have passed since their marriage, their generation is extinct in both families. The deaths of M. V. Whitson already men- tioned, and Elisha B. Jay on April 7, 1904, marked the passing of both the ancestral families. Thongh both the families have thus disappeared in name, they were people of such sterling character as to leave their distinctive marks, and some of them were nseful as long as they lived in the community.
David M. V. Whitson, born November 3, 1832, in Clinton county, and Verlinda Jay, Jannary 7, of the same year in Miami county, Ohio, met in Jonesboro when they were children, grew up together and were married there. To them were born four children : Rufus A., Rolland L., and Irvin : and one daughter, Sarah Jay Whitson. Verlinda Whit- son, the mother, died October 27, 1869, and the father was married December 30, 1870, to Asenath Winslow daughter of Daniel and Rebekah (Hiatt) Winslow. To this marriage Eli Allen Whitson was born. The father died July 10, 1876. The daughter, Sarah Jay, who was married January 7, 1885, to Joseph A. Jones, died February 8,
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