USA > Indiana > Blackford County > Blackford and Grant Counties : Indiana a chronicle of their past and present with family lineage and personal memoirs > Part 51
USA > Indiana > Grant County > Blackford and Grant Counties : Indiana a chronicle of their past and present with family lineage and personal memoirs > Part 51
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Mrs. Lydia Carey was born in Wayne county, Indiana. She came to Grant county when five years of age, was reared within its confines, and she died here on the 6th of February, 1911, at the fine old age of eighty-eight years, having been born on the 11th of June, 1822. She was a daughter of Richard and Hannah (Thomas) Jones, old pioneer stock of Grant county and whose names will live in the community for many years to come. Like her husband she was a Quaker, and their lives were ideal in every respect. John Carey was for many years a Quaker preacher in his home community, and is still remembered for his life of singular clearness and devotion to duty and as a whole- souled Christian man. He was a citizen of commendable traits, and his loyalty and devotion to his home district was one of the fine things
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about him. None excelled him in his qualities of good citizenship, and he combined the duties of a preacher with those of a citizen in the most pleasing manner, in a day when it was quite generally held that a minister of the Gospel might not interest himself with material things to the extent of mixing in local politics. To these parents were born eight children, of whom seven are still living. John T. Carey was the second born as well as the second son in this family of five sons and three daughters.
John T. Carey was born on his father's farm in Fairmount town- ship on October 15, 1851, and was reared and educated in that com- munity. He has come to occupy a place of no little importance in his home township and has been more than ordinarily successful in his business activities. He has a fine farm of 135 acres, improved to its highest and most productive condition, and the buildings on the place are the kind that reflect genuine credit upon their owner. He owns ninety-five acres in Mill township, where he lives, the remainder lying in Fairmount township. Mr. Carey has inherited all the qualities of thrift and all the excellencies of character that marked his parents, and he is a man whose influence on the community is one of the highest order.
In 1875 Mr. Carey was married in Back Creek church to Miss Ruth T. Elliott, who was born in Miami county, Indiana, on Novem- ber 6, 1855, but when nine years of age she came with her parents to Grant county, where they located in Mill township. She is a daughter of Exum and Hulda (Knight) Elliott, both natives of Grant county and successful farmers of both Grant and Miami counties. They died in this county in advanced life. Mrs. Carey is a woman of exceptional character and qualities. Since she was eighteen years of age she has been a minister of the Friends church, preaching in the Back Creek church in Grant county, in the Friends church at Manton, Michigan, and in the Friends church at North Grove, Indiana. She has preached at many other places on occasions, and is known as one of the ablest cxhorters to be found among the ministers of the church body. Her work has reflected forth many excellent qualities that are inherent within her, and few have wielded a greater influence for good than has Mrs. Carey wherever she has gone.
Four children came to brighten the home of Mr. and Mrs. Carey : Maud, the first born, died in infancy; Ida, the second, died at the age of eighteen years; Gervas Albert Carey has been a pastor and minister in Friends church since twenty years of age, but is now a student and teacher in Friends' University, Wichita, Kansas. His wife was for- merly Amy Gitchel. They have two daughters, Ruth and Elizabeth. The youngest child, John Stanley Carey, is engaged in operating his father's farm and has demonstrated his capacity as an agricultural man and in no uncertain terms. He has given special attention to stock raising and his success has been praiseworthy. He married Callie Leota Thomas and they have one daughter, Pauline Louise.
It would be difficult, indeed, to estimate the genuine worth to any community of the lives of such people as these. Aside from his activi- ties in the interests of the church Mr. Carey has for the twenty-eight years been an ardent Prohibitionist, and he has accomplished much, not alone by the power of his splendid example, but in what he has been able to do in the way of showing the need and possibility of better civic conditions in the community. None is held in higher esteem than he, and none is more deserving of the high regard of his fellows.
AMOS OVERMAN. The family of Amos Overman comes of a fine old Virginia strain in its paternal ancestry, the name having been estab-
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lished in that state several generations ago, and having held to its Virginia habitat down to the present day, when many of the name may yet be found within the borders of that state. In writing a fam- ily review of the Overmans it must of necessity be a brief one, by reason of the slender records that have been kept, and for that rea- son the first of the name to have specific mention in this review will be Elisha Overman, the paternal grandfather of Amos Overman, whose name heads this review.
Elisha Overman was born in Virginia, of Quaker stock, and he himself was a stanch adherent of the church of the Friends all his days. In his native state he wedded Mahala Burson, also a Virginia product and of good Quaker stock, and some years thereafter they came north, locating in Clinton county, Ohio, and taking up life as farmers there. There Elisha Overman died in 1824 when he was yet in the prime of his young manhood, and in later years his widow married Amos Davis, who was not a stepfather to his wife's children in the generally accepted sense, but who performed the full duties of a parent to them. He was a thrifty man and one who possessed many excellent qualities of heart and mind, and made an excellent home for his family. When they had passed the prime of life, they came to Indiana, some of the children having come hither previously and settled on a farm in Centre township, as early as the forties. There Mr. and Mrs. Davis spent their remaining days. Mr. Davis died first, being then past seventy years of age, and his widow passed on some five years later when she was eighty-six years old. They had lived in their Quaker faith and they died happily and content with their achievements in life and the knowledge of duty well performed.
Besides the children of her first marriage, Mrs. Davis had a son, Henry, and a daughter named Melissa. The son, it should be men- tioned, lives near Sweetser, Grant county, Indiana, and is one of the most capable and successful farmers of the county. He is married and has two children. The daughter, Melissa, is the widow of Reuben Small, and lives in Kansas. She has one living son. By her mar- riage with Elisha Overman, Mahala (Burson) Overman Davis became the mother of Jesse, father of Amos Overman; Benjamin, who died following his third marriage in this county, leaving children by each marriage; Sarah, the wife of Pearson Hosier, who early settled in Indiana, and died, leaving a family; Matilda, who married George Iams and located in Iowa, and there died, leaving several sons and daughters.
Jesse Overman was born in Clinton county, Ohio, on December 1, 1814. He was but ten years of age when his father died, and he made his home with his mother and stepfather until he was about eighteen years of age. At that age he launched out into life on his own responsibility, and he made the journey on horseback from his Ohio home to Grant county, Indiana. The trip was made via Muncie, and with his uncle, Reuben Overman, he located at Marion, in a day when the present city was the merest village, comprising but one log cabin, and the only activity carried on there being trading. His uncle was a blacksmith, and the youth learned that trade with him. Later he entered land in Center township, securing an eighty there in the heart of the wilderness. He married early in life, as was the good old custom, and on his eighty-acre farm he and his young wife began to build them a home. Hard work availed them something and it was not long before that had made a fairly good showing on their new place. From then on he devoted himself to farming entirely, with the exception of an occasional instance when he returned to the anvil and forge for the accommodation of a neighbor, or for his own sake.
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In later years he disposed of the place by sale and came to Mill town- ship, here purchasing other land, and in the home he established there he died in 1891. His wife had preceded him in 1880, at the age of sixty-four years. She was, in her maiden days, Jane Griffin, and she was born in Preble county, Ohio, but reared in Grant county. She and her husband were of a fine and wholesome type of citizen, made of the stuff that pioneers, and successful ones, are built, and their lives were worthy examples of thrift, courage, honesty and all the sturdy Christian qualities that characterized many of our pioneers. They were highly esteemed in their various communities, and when they passed away there were many to mourn their loss.
Mrs. Overman was the daughter of James and Jane (Ricks) Griffin, born in Virginia, but pioneers to Ohio. Mrs. Jane (Ricks) Overman died in Ohio, when the mother of Amos Overman was a small child. James Griffin was also a pioneer to Indiana, Mill township, in Grant county, being his last earthly home. He was a sturdy and admirable man of his time, and it is but fitting that mention be made here of him. In his young married life he migrated to the north, making the jour- ney through many difficulties that would have worsted any less hardy and courageous then they. The roads in those early times were mere trails, and were traversed with the utmost difficulty and discomfort. Mr. Griffin made the long and tedious trip in a wagon loaded with household goods, and, in fact, all his earthly wealth. When he reached Ridgeville, Indiana, after many strenuous days of travel and nights broken by the unfamiliar sights and sounds of the camp, he built a flat boat and upon it loaded his wagon, team, etc., and this he poled up the Mississinewa river to a point in Jefferson township, Grant county, known as Wittank's Ford, where he entered land and planned the building of a mill on the place. Later he traded this property for stock in a proposed railroad, which resulted in the loss of all he had in the world in the way of material wealth. After some struggle he was able to build a small grist and saw mill, his being among the first in the county, and located on Walnut river, near what is now Marion, but then a mere wilderness. Here he cleared a spot of land and planted an orchard, which, when it came into bearing, produced a quality of apple from which he made an "applejack" that became very well known locally, and which was so potent in its powers as to result in much hilarity on the part of one who partook of more than a proper allowance, it is said. It had a wide sale and was said to be the best of its kind on the market in those days.
James Griffin became a prosperous man for his time, and enjoyed a deal of prominence and popularity among his fellows. He was a soldier of the War of 1812, and fought with General Harrison at the battle of Tippecanoe, Indiana. He died in Mill township.
Jesse Overman and his wife had children as follows: Elisha, who died in infancy; Elizabeth, the widow of John B. King, a retired farmer, who died in Grant county. (A sketch of Mr. and Mrs. King appear in this book.) James died in November, 1911, in Mill town- ship. He was a blacksmith and a farmer, and he married Janie Lewis, who died, and he later married Rebecca Kidener, nee Camby.
Amos Overman, immediate subject of this review, is the youngest of his parents' children. He was born on February 14, 1848, on the Center township farm. He served in the Civil war, having enlisted on January 15, 1864, in Company C, Eighty-ninth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and his service continued until January, 1866, a few months after peace was declared. He saw much of real war, and was present and in action at the battles of Nashville, Tennessee; Guntown, Mis-
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sissippi; the siege of Mobile, and others. He escaped without injury, and when he returned he became the owner of one hundred and sixty acres of fine land in section 26, Mill township. The place he even- tually supplied with fine farm buildings of all kinds and a good, sub- stantial home, it being one of the finest that lay along the Walnut creek. Here he and his wife resided for years, busy with their farm, and in the time that passed he brought it up to a splendid state of productiveness and fitness. In 1911 they retired to Gas City, and here they occupy one of the fine homes of the city.
Mr. Overman was married in Mill township to the daughter of a neighboring family. Her name was Louisa Parks, and she was born on the old Parks homestead on August 26, 1852. She was reared by her grandfather, Silas Parks, who came here from Ohio and entered land on Walnut creek, Monroe township, there ending his days. Mr. Parks was one of the finest men known to this section of the country, and was held in the highest esteem by all who knew him, even remotely. He was for years a preacher in the New Light Christian church, and much loved of all. His wife was Sarah Frame, and she survived him for some little time, dying at the age of seventy-five years. She was a member of her husband's church. They were the parents of eleven children, of whom John Wesley, the father of Mrs. Overman, was one of the oldest. Two daughters alone survive of this large family.
John Wesley Parks long made his home on one of his father's farms in section 26, Mill township. He married Lydia A. Creviston, and she was all her life a faithful wife to him and a devoted mother. In later years they retired from the farm and settled in Marion, where they ended their days. He died on December 31, 1905, less than two weeks after she had passed away, her death having taken place in December 17th. They were fine Christian people, long mem- bers of the Christian church, but later adherents of the Baptist faith and members of the Marion church.
Mr and Mrs. Overman have only one child, Alverna, born on the home farm in 1882, and educated in the public schools of Gas City and Marion. She married B. B. Cross of South Carolina, a commer- cial man, and she makes her home with her parents. She has two children : Margaret, born on February 27, 1907, and Louise, born on October 22, 1908.
THOMAS J. CRANDALL. Although comparatively a newcomer to Grant county, Thomas J. Crandall has already made a place for him- self among the substantial citizens of this part of the Hoosier state. for he has demonstrated his ability as a farmer and stock raiser, his worth as a citizen and his fidelity and loyalty as a friend and neighbor. He is at this time the owner of a well cultivated tract of eighty-eight acres located in section 12, Mill township, and during the four years he has resided here has shown his progressive and enterprising spirit by the making of numerous improvements and by installing a number of innovations. Mr. Crandall was born March 30, 1859, in Cook county, Illinois, and is a son of Jonathan and Jane (Webb) Crandall.
Mr. Crandall comes of an old and honored family, being a direct descendant of Elder John Crandall, who came from England to America during the sixteenth century and established the name in Vermont, from whence it spread to the surrounding New England states. The great-grandfather of Mr. Crandall, John Crandall, was born in Vermont, where he married Eada Austin, and they subse- quently moved to Franklin county, New York, where the great-grand-
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grandfather died at the age of eighty-nine years and five months. Among his children was Philarmon Crandall, who was born in Vermont, and also died in Franklin county, New York, at the age of fifty-four years. He married Eliza Hapgood, a native of the Green Mountain state, and she died in Franklin county, New York, in 1876, when seventy-two years of age, having been the mother of twelve children.
Jonathan Crandall, the father of Thomas J. Crandall, was born in Franklin county, New York, October 16, 1825, and was there reared and educated. He married Miss Jane Webb, who was born in the same county and in the same year, and after the birth of their first child they went to Cook county, Illinois, where they remained three years, then returning to their native county. There they spent the remaining years of their active lives, the mother passing away on the home farm in 1887 and the father in November, 1892. They were the parents of six children: David, who is a Wisconsin farmer and mar- ried : Cornelia, single, a resident of Chicago; Thomas J .; Orpha, now Mrs. Price, of Granville, Illinois, and the mother of one daughter; Victoria, the widow of John Goodrich, of Richmond, Indiana, and the mother of one daughter; and John I., an engineer on the Lehigh Val- ley Railroad. residing at Sayre, Pennsylvania, and married.
Thomas J. Crandall was sixteen years of age when he embarked upon a career of his own. He had been given ordinary educational advantages in the public schools of the East, and had been reared to habits of industry and integrity, and thus felt himself well fitted to grapple with the problems and battles of life. He first chose as his field of endeavor the state of Illinois, but after a short stay removed to Keith (now Perkins) county, Nebraska, where he entered a home- stead of 160 acres. This he improved and fitted out with substantial buildings, and after disposing of his interests therein at a good profit went to Wisconsin, and in 1890 became identified with the lumber business as a logger. He spent the following eight years thus engaged in Chippewa and Forest counties, and in 1898 went to Ford county, Illinois, and again turned his attention to agricultural pursuits, remaining in the Prairie state for four years. Succeeding this experi- ence he went to Miami county, Indiana, and purchased 120 acres of fine land, which he operated for five years, this property being now worth $200 per acre. On disposing of this tract he went to Dawson county, Nebraska, where he bought 160 acres of good soil, but in 1909 returned to Indiana, and for one year operated eighty acres of land in Starke county, of which he is still the owner. In the meantime, in 1909, he had purchased his present land in Mill township, Grant county, and on March 1, 1910, settled thereon, this having continued to be his home to the present time. Mr. Crandall has decided to remain here permanently, and has made numerous improvements which have added materially to the value of his home. His residence was built by Jolın Mason in 1908. Mr. Crandall is a man of great energy and enter- prise, of force of character and resolute purpose, and at all times his business has been conducted along the lines of commercial honor and integrity. He has won the confidence and respect of the people of his new home locality and is well deserving of mention among the repre- sentative citizens of Grant county.
While a resident of Illinois Mr. Crandall was married to Miss Eva Crandall, who was born, reared and educated in Cook county, that state. Four children have been born to this union: Fayette, who is residing on his father's farm, in Starke county, is married and has two children, Robert and Thomas F .; David C., also a farmer, is mar- ried and has two children, Robert and Thomas F .; David C., also a
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farmer, is married and has two children, Eva and Helen; Gladys, who has been given excellent educational advantages, being a gradu- ate of the Marion high school and of the schools of Kearney Junction, Nebraska, and she is now a teacher in the schools of Howard county, Indiana; and Lydia, who was given the same training as her sister, and like her is also a teacher in the Howard county schools.
GEORGE G. RICHARDSON, M. D. County health officer of Grant county, Dr. Richardson is one of the young and progressive members of the pro- fession in this county, and during his eight years' practice at Van Buren has proved exceptionally capable and has what his friends and associates regard as a "fine practice." As health officer for the county he has been alert in safe-guarding the community, not only from the more routine sources of contagion, but has used his efforts to extent the knowledge and practice of the fundamental laws of sanitation and personal health.
George G. Richardson was born at Laurel, in Franklin county, Indi- ana, on Christmas Day of 1880. His parents were Dow L. and Sarah (Lockwood) Richardson, both of whom were natives of the state of Ohio. Dow L. Richardson was born in 1833 and died in 1881, was a farmer by occupation, moved from Ohio to Franklin county, Indiana, and died at Laurel. He left ten children, named as follows: Elizabeth Cregor, of Indianapolis ; Dow, of Seattle, Washington; Frank S., of Fayette county, Indiana; Phoebe Snider, of Dublin, Indiana; Austin, of Rushville, In- diana; I. P., of Dunreith, Indiana; Emma Murphy, of Glenwood, In- diana; Thomas, of Glenwood; Lamont, of Connersville; and George G. After her husband's death, the mother moved to Glenwood in Rush county, and there reared her family. Her death occurred in 1899, and she was a member of the Christian church.
Dr. Richardson as a boy attended the Glenwood schools and was very liberally advantaged as to education, although he attained most of his equipment in that way through his own labors and economy. From the Glenwood schools he was a student in the Marion Normal Col- lege, and then was in Hiram College in Ohio, the institution of which former President Rutherford B. Hayes was once at the head. For six years he was a school teacher, and with the means obtained in this way defrayed expenses through medical college. He entered Indiana Medi- cal College at Indianapolis in 1901, and was graduated M. D. in 1905. In the same year of his graduation he came to Van Buren, and has since enjoyed a good practice. He belongs to the Marion County, the Eleventh Congressional District and the State Medical Societies, and the Ameri- can Medical Association. His church is the Christian. Dr. Richardson has been county health officer for the past three years. In August, 1900, he married Miss Jessie Leas, of Van Buren. Their two children are Dow and George G., Jr.
VERLIN R. SPURGEON. The Spurgeon family has many interests in Grant county and Verlin R. Spurgeon is one of its younger repre- sentatives and has been chiefly identified with banking, being now cashier and one of the stockholders in the First State Bank of Gas City, and also occupying the same position with the Citizens Bank of Jonesboro. These two banks were established in 1906, resulting from a reorganization of two other institutions. The banks have had the strongest of backing, and it is said that the collective responsibility of the officers and stockholders of the institution represent the total sum of two millions of dollars. The first officers of the banks were: J. Wood Wilson, the prominent banker of Marion, who was president; L. C. Frank, a Gas City business man; R. T. Calender, now cashier of the
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Farmers Trust & Savings Company of Marion, and president of the two banks at Gas City and Jonesboro. In November, 1912, Mr. Spur- geon took over the interests of Mr. Wilson in the Gas City and Jones- boro banks, and has since been cashier and is practically manager of both institutions. The board of directors is now made up of the fol- lowing: Edward Bloch, a Gas City merchant and vice president of the bank; R. T. Calender; DeWitt Carter, who was formerly cashier and is now with the Indiana Insulated Wire & Rubber Company of Jonesboro; O. Gordon, a furniture merchant at Gas City; John Malay, a grocer and farmer of Gas City; A. R. Leisure, superintendent of the United States Glass Company of Gas City; William E. Mason, a farmer of Mill township; V. R. Spurgeon; and John L. Thompson, president of the Thompson Bottle Company. The capital stock of the Gas City bank is $25,000, and its deposits in September, 1913, amounted to $182,000, figures which indicate the confidence of the patrons in the stability of the institution. Both banks have been steadily grow- ing since organization.
Verlin R. Spurgeon is the young man whose success as a banker has not come as a matter of chance or fortune, but is due to his sound intelligence, business judgment, and remarkable energy in everything he undertakes. Previous to his locating in Gas City, Mr. Spurgeon was connected with the Rush County National Bank at Rushville, and for about five years was with different traction companies operating in this state, at one time being with the Indianapolis & Cincinnati Trac- tion Company. He was born in Grant county, October 9, 1877, had a public school education and training in the Normal College of Marion, and since leaving school has led a busy and successful career in busi- ness affairs.
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