USA > Indiana > Blackford County > Blackford and Grant Counties : Indiana a chronicle of their past and present with family lineage and personal memoirs > Part 55
USA > Indiana > Grant County > Blackford and Grant Counties : Indiana a chronicle of their past and present with family lineage and personal memoirs > Part 55
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While Mr. Butler has always been an active community business man, it is in connection with the Butler Music Company that he now cares to be remembered. His present business was established August 7, 1897, and has proved both profitable and pleasant. Mr. Butler was a member of the Chute & Butler Company, which manufactured organs at LaFontaine, later moving the factory to Peru, where the Chute & Butler pianos were manufactured. The Butler Stool & Bench factory in Marion is also his enterprise. For several years Mr. Butler operated a Butler music store in Wabash, until he sold it to his brother Tom. He is now owner of the Butler store in Kokomo which is carried on independently of the Marion establishment. In 1913 the Butler Music Company in Marion placed four hundred and twenty-seven pianos, besides all the sheet music and other instruments handled by the concern. The Butler store is well equipped, and a competent force is always at hand to look after the business interests of the company. While Mr. Butler is numbered among the original boosters of Marion developments, his efforts in subsequent years have not relaxed in that direction, and the Butler Music Company is not only a prosperous establishment, but is contributing to the larger development of Marion as one of the chief commercial centers in northern Indiana.
While the Butler family is not native to Grant county, it has a fine ancestral history. Mr. Butler is the oldest of three children born to John and Harriet (Wigmore) Butler. Harriet Wigmore Butler died in Marion, October 16, 1913. John Butler, ninety. years of age, is still living, and is fortunate in retaining his mental faculties to a remarkable degree. The other two children are: Tom Butler, of Wabash; and Miss Winnie Butler, of Marion, connected with the But- ler Music Company as bookkeeper. In her effort to establish the line of family descent, in order to become a Daughter of the American Revo- lution, Miss Winnie Butler made an exhaustive study of both the But- ler and Wigmore family history, and as a compliment to her brothers she presented them with copies of the family descent in artistic bind- ings, souvenirs which they all prize most highly.
There have been a number of Colonial and Revolutionary soldiers in the ancestry, and Miss Butler exchanged many letters with govern- ment, state and county officials while obtaining historical data of the family. Her father was born in Maine, and her mother in England. In establishing this family claim, Miss Butler discovered that the older ancestors never talked and the younger ones never asked questions, and yet she has accumulated a most interesting history. She found that both time and money had been spent by some members of the early ancestry in establishing facts, and in this family book Miss Butler wrote: "The work has been exceedingly fascinating, and I hope some- time to continue the search." In 1910 Miss Butler visited in Maine, carrying a camera, and she made many pictures of the Butler family
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homestead environment, among them the house in which John Butler was born. The Butler family tree is a result of Miss Butler's effort, and as she has made copies for each of her brothers, they have a price- less heritage.
Speaking of the Butler family in Maine, Miss Butler writes: "The history of our father's family in this country covers about three hun- dred years, and brings to mind very forcibly the strenuous military life of the Colonial and Revolutionary patriots. In our list of ances- tors are the names of eighteen men from whom we are descended in direct line, of these, twelve have military records. Our early ancestors were mostly English born and they all settled in the New England states. They must have been Puritans as they held office in a number of instances, and none but Puritans were allowed to vote much less hold office. The Butler family lived in Kennebunk, York county, Maine when father was a boy, and they had lived in that locality for several generations. Our two great-grandfathers, John Butler, Sr., and John Butler, Jr., served in the Colonial and Revolutionary wars. Our grandfather enlisted in the war of 1812 as John Butler III. His busi- ness was that of shipbuilder.
"Father left home at sixteen, going with a government crew to Louisiana to select live-oak trees for ship building. He returned to Boston by boat and wrote to his sisters. His father answered the letter, urging him to come home, but he never received the letter. The boat sailed out again and was lost at sea. As the family received no more letters, they finally believed that he must have gone down with the boat that was wrecked. However, his father remembered him in his will, leaving a field which was a part of the Butler farm. This has changed hands several times since and is now owned by a brother of the cousin who first wrote me. He said he thought his brother would give it up if we asked for it." Miss Butler further traces the career of her father to Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where he met Miss Harriet Wigmore in cherry-picking time, and on July 4, 1853, they were mar- ried and went to housekeeping. Later came their removal to Indiana, with seven years of residence at Laketon, and nineteen years in Wabash. The residence of the family in Marion followed soon after the older sou located here in the late seventies.
Mr. Thad Butler was married December 1, 1881, to Miss Winnie Fleming, daughter of Riley and Catherine (Harry) Fleming. They are the parents of the following children: Harry who died in 1891; Bernice, wife of Earl Newhouse; and J. Edwin Butler, whose wife was Miss Clarice Hawkins. Mrs. Butler's mother, now the wife of William Hemphill of Washington, Kansas, is living, and since Mrs. Butler does not remember her own father, Mr. Hemphill seems like a father to her. Mrs. Butler is descended from a pioneer family on her mother's side, although her birthplace was at Mount Aetna, in Huntington county. Her grandfather, Jeremiah Harry, published the Marion Democrat-Herald, in 1842, the first newspaper p blished in Grant county, and he was identified with much of the development of the community. He had one son Edwin C. Harry of Wheeling, West Virginia: and three daughters: Mrs. Catherine Fleming-Hemphill, mother of Mrs. Butler, and of George Fleming, who lives in St. Joseph, Missouri; Mrs. Cornelia Sanders and Miss Mary Harry. Only Mr. Harry and Mrs. Hemphill survive. Mrs. Butler with her children are the last representatives of this pioneer family in the community where they were so well known and connected with community affairs. There are three houses and Mrs. Butler and her son and daughter all live on the original Harry family homestead property. The Butler family
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stands high in the community life of Marion, and its accomplishment has served to enrich the business and social life of the city.
ZENA M. NYE. Grant-county has reason to be proud of its farms and its farmers. The bone and sinew of the country are in the men and women who produce the crops, who help "feed the people" of the nation. And there is a higher average of material prosperity in the country than can be found in the city for all its superior facilities of urban life. What a progressive Grant county farmer can do and what he has to enjoy are well illustrated in Washington township at the place of Zena M. Nye, whose home is on section 11. He has a total of three hundred and twenty-eight acres as the basis of his agricultural industry. 179.75 acres in Washington township and the rest in Van Buren. On the farm in Washington township in 1912 he raised fifteen hundred bush- els of corn, and ten hundred and eighty-six bushels of oats; sent one hundred and fifty hogs to market and eleven head of cattle. At the present writing he has sixty-five hogs and fourteen cattle, the former being of the Duroc-Jersey breed, and the latter shorthorn and Polled Angus. He keeps on his farm ten horses of the Belgian and Percheron breed. For home comforts is a fine nine-room house erected by Elijah Creviston, father of Mrs. Nye, in 1874. The improvements are all mod- ern, and the home stands in the midst of a grassy and well-kept lawn. Near the house stands a large white bank barn, also erected by Elijah Creviston. Mr. Nye had the following acreage for 1913 crops: forty-five acres of corn, sixteen acres of oats, and twenty-two acres of wheat. For the convenience of his family, Mr. Nye keeps an automobile, and lacks few, if any, of the comforts and conveniences which are deemed essential to modern living.
Zena M. Nye was born in the state of Michigan, January 25, 1865, a son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Brown) Nye, both of whom were natives of Ohio. Benjamin Nye was born in 1814 and died in 1855, and his parents were Peter and Mary Nye, both from Virginia as their birthplace. The grandparents were pioneer settlers in Ohio. In that state, Benja- min grew up and married, and in 1835 transferred his home to Michigan, where he entered government land in Berrien county, spent a number of toilful years in clearing off the timber, cut and hewed the logs for his first cabin home, and spent the remainder of his honorable career in that state. He had one hundred and sixty acres at the start, and later gave his brother Jolin fifty, and made the remainder his homestead. Ben- jamin Nye and wife reared four children out of five born, namely : Milton, deceased; Henry, a resident of Michigan; Elizabeth, deceased; James H., of Benton Harbor, Michigan; and Zena M.
Zena M. Nye attained his schooling in his native county of Michigan, and remained with his father until the latter's death, after which he continued on the home farm, and managed it in his mother's interest until her death in 1892. He then bought off the other heirs and thus came into possession of the Michigan homestead. In the fall of 1900 Mr. Nye moved from Michigan to Grant county, Indiana, and in 1910 sold his Michigan property. The Grant county home farm is an inheritance to Mrs. Nye from her father. In 1910 Mr. Nye bought that portion of his estate which lies in Van Buren township, and on which his son resides.
Mr. Nye on June 13, 1888, married Miss Ella Creviston, a daughter of Elijah and Lydia (Whinney) Creviston. Elijah Creviston was born February 8, 1844, and died June 4, 1907. His father, Daniel Creviston, was one of the pioneers of Grant county, and the Creviston family have a prominent place in Grant county history. Elijah Creviston at the beginning of his career, received forty acres of land from his father Vol. II-24
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and used that as the nucleus around which he built up the large estate of which he was possessed before his death. He was regarded as one of the most successful farmers in Grant county, and in every other way was a good citizen. The three children of Elijah- Creviston and wife were Ella C., Otto M., and Harry L. The mother of this family died June 24, 1874. The three sons of Mr. and Mrs. Nye are Roscoe C., a farmer in Van Buren township; Arthur H., a farmer in Monroe township, and John Vernon, at home. In politics Mr. Nye is affiliated with the new Progressive party, and he and his family worship in the United Brethren church. Fraternally he belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks at Marion.
JAMES LAFAYETTE BARLEY. Death who is always sitting closely by the highways of human existence and removing one by one those upon whom its grim lot falls, selected a particularly conspicuous victim in the late James L. Barley, who died at Denver, Colorado, October 22, 1913. Mr. Barley had long been one of the most prominent and wealthy citizens of Grant county, and there were few men in the community more closely in touch with its affairs. While many of his interests were in Marion, his possessions and commercial relations extended out into Grant county, and to different points in the state and in other states. Mr. Barley had spent two months in a vain endeavor to restore his health in Colorado climate. Both before and after his death it was recognized that the city had in him a splendid man, one who did much to build up Marion, and give the city its high standing in the business world. While foremost in business enterprise, he was also a true friend, a kind neighbor, and a man liked by all who knew him.
James Lafayette Barley was born in Lugar Creek in Center town- ship of Grant county, April 5, 1851, and was thus in his sixty-third year at the time of his death. On October 2, 1872, he married Miss Louisa J. Gordon of Virginia, who was visiting relatives in Indiana, at the home of her uncle David Bish. The young couple began house- keeping in Jalapa, and after six years moved to Pleasant Valley. The old millsite and adjacent lands at Pleasant Valley were a part of the estate of Mr. Barley until his death. In 1880 the family came to town, and in 1904, moved into the Barley home on South Adams street, one of the finest residences in Marion, and a center of much social life.
While Mr. Barley was one of eleven children born to Henry and Mary (Snyder) Barley, his father was one of fourteen children born to the German emigrant, Nicholas Barley, who in 1784 first established the house of Barley in America. J. L. Barley was in the third genera- tion of Barleys in this country, and the second generation in Grant county. His brother Jacob S. Barley, and two sisters, Mrs. Aletha Blackman, and Mrs. Christiana Shira, are all that remain of his father's family.
While his ancestry had large families, Mr. and Mrs. Barley had only four children : Charles G. Barley, who married Miss May Har- wood; Albert C. Barley, who married Miss Mayme Brodrick; Miss Edith Barley, who married J. W. Stephenson; and Fred L. Barley, who married Miss Eva Shell. There are also some grand children. In the family of A. C. Barley are two, Albert C. Barley, Jr., and Anna Louise Barley. In the Stephenson family are four grandchildren, Helen, Dorothy, Mary Louise, and Mildred Verne Stephenson. The children and grandchildren all live near the Barley residence on South Adams street.
The late Mr. Barley spent his entire life in the vicinity of Marion, only for temporary absences, and as the community advanced he
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advanced with it. He was always fortunate in his investments, but his good fortune was due to his persistent energy, and his exceptional judgment in all business matters. While his interests were concen- trated in town for a number of years, for forty years he never missed a season operating a threshing machine, starting out July 4, 1872, and finishing the season of 1912, part of the time as chief owner, and part of the time with a partnership arrangement with others. Elihu J. Oren of Glen-Oren in Monroe township, had been operating a thresh- ing machine several years when Mr. Barley began, and at the latter's death the two were the oldest machine men in the county.
In 1886 Mr. Barley entered into partnership with R. J. Spencer in the Barley & Spencer Lumber Company, and few partnership arrange- ments had a longer or more profitable duration in the county. Sawmill- ing is an old business in the Barley family. The mill property-Bar- ley's Mill, because Mr. Barley always owned land about it-was built in 1846, and in 1912, it was razed, the material being utilized again in a cattle barn on the farm in Franklin township. Samuel Campbell, who is now a nonogenarian, and his brother "Sash" Campbell were the millwrights when that old land mark which stood there sixty-six years ago was built, and thus an early flouring mill went out of local history. Mr. Barley owned the bottom land along the Mississinewa at that point, and men employed in the Pleasant Valley garden occu- pied the houses there. Mr. Barley was extremely fortunate in his southern investment, the timber country at Bay Minette, Alabama. Time was when the old Barley Mills in Grant county were designated as the "Coffee-Pot," but the firm of Barley & Spencer became recog- nized as one of the strongest engaged in the timber business anywhere in the country.
When Mr. Barley first engaged in the lumber business at Japala he went into the woods with an ax and saw, and for twelve years drove a team, and he knew conditions when timber was on the market for miles around. In later years Mr. Barley left his home for business in a seven-passenger Lexington car with a chauffeur-quite a contrast to his days on the log wagon, but he was the man to come to the rescue if a driver had trouble with his load or a mishap of any kind befell him. He never forgot how to rig up "block and tackle" in an emerg- ency, and if his automobile needed attention, the chauffeur was not the only man who understood its mechanism.
Mr. Barley was always a busy man, and identified with many large organizations. He was one of the promoters and organizers and a large stockholder in the Marion Ice and Cold Storage Company, was identified in a similar capacity with the George W. Steele and Com- pany, flour manufacturers, and had an interest in the manufacturing company of Haas, Spencer & Barley at Vincennes. Mr. Barley was one of the directors in the Boston Big Store Corporation, and within the year preceding his death became owner of the Glass Block, one of the finest business and office buildings, of Eastern Indiana. The Franklin township farm remained as an investment and source of food supply to the family, furnishing vegetables and other articles fresh from the garden. When the Marion Commercial Club went out of active service, so many of the stockholders having been called from earth, Mr. Barley was chosen president, and through that organiza- tion and in other ways he interested himself personally in the com- munity development. When the Rutenber Motor Works were located in Marion, the Barley family had just disposed of its large southern timber interests, and therefore invested heavily in the factory stock. A. C. Barley who was then president of the Marion Chamber of Com-
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merce had been instrumental in securing the motor plant for this city.
The late Mr. Barley always was actively connected with the Barley organized family affairs, although most of the meetings are held else- where, brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, to the number of one hundred and seventy-five persons coming together annu- ally, and at one time or another he served the family organization as president. Mr. Barley was a stalwart Democrat, though never in poli- ties for office. While Dr. Stoner, a Marion druggist, was the first man in town to own an automobile, the Barley family came in second, and in later years there were from one to half a dozen cars in use by the family all the time. When Mr. Barley went to San Antonio, Texas, for the winter of 1911, he shipped his car there and left it for the 1912 season. When W. J. Bryan visited Marion in the 1908 campaign, the Barley car was at his disposal, Mr. Barley driving it himself, and when President W. H. Taft was here in 1911, Mr. Barley carried the secret service men accompanying the party. For more than forty years Mr. Barley had as his companion and counselor, a wife who performed well her many duties as manager of the household and as a unit in social affairs. Mrs. Barley is of domestic nature, and like the woman in Proverbs "She looketh well to the things of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.'
LEO NUSSBAUM. Actively identified with the business interests of Marion for more than a quarter century, Leo Nussbaum, president of the Canton Glass Company, has also been identified conspicuously and worthily with the moral and educational advancement of the com- munity, as well as its industrial growth and advancement. He has been a member and director of the Marion Commercial Club and Chamber of Commerce for a number of years. His business career in Marion dates from the year 1886, when he established the Trade Palace, a dry goods store, in the Wilson block. He operated this business suc- cessfully for about ten years, then sold it and embarked in the manu- facture of iron bedsteads. He organized the National Metallic Bed- stead Company which was the first company to manufacture that line of goods in Indiana, and later disposed of it and started the Indiana Brass and Iron Bed Company, which plant he continued to operate for two years and then sold advantageously. In 1902 he organized the Pacific Oil Company, purchasing leases on about five hundred acres of land and on fifteen producing oil wells, the property of the Citizens' Gas Company. After operating the property for some eighteen months, he sold his holdings that he might devote more of his time to the inter- ests of the Canton Glass Company, which he had organized in 1902, and of which concern he was secretary and treasurer, and is now president.
Mr. Nussbaum installed the first gas producer in Indiana, where gas had been used in manufacturing, annealing and finishing glassware, and has been a leader in introducing new methods into the business in which he is chiefly interested.
The Canton Glass Company manufactures a fine line of table ware, druggists, confectioners and photographers ware, sidewalk and deck light ware, novelties of many descriptions and private mould work. The company has been very successful and gives employment to a considerable number of skilled workmen during about eleven months of each year, one of the summer months being given to the workmen for a vacation season.
Mr. Nussbaum is president of the Manufacturing and Business Men's Association, and is a director of the Farmers' Trust and Sav-
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ings Bank at Marion. He is engrossed in the direction of the affairs of his company to a considerable extent, but gives a generous portion of his time to the civic interests of the community, and is known as one of the more valuable citizens of Marion. He was appointed in January, 1914, by Mayor J. O. Batchelor as Commissioner of Public Works. He is a man of wide experience and culture, who has traveled exten- sively, and applies advanced ideas in the conduct of his everyday busi- ness life.
In 1886 Mr. Nussbaum married Miss Etta L. Michaels, of Logans- port, Ind., and to them have been born four children,-Berthold M., Selma and Helen. Carl Nussbaum, the second born, died aged four months. The first named is a graduate of Howe Military School and of Harvard University, and the others have received excellent educational advantages. Berthold M. Nussbaum was a pupil of P. L. Nussbaum of Marion, Ind., and Prof. Singer of Stuttgart, Germany, the noted violin- ist, and while he is a very prominent violinist he does not make that his profession. He is now a stockholder and the manager of the Boston office of the Alexander-Hamilton Institute whose headquarters are in New York City. Selma Nussbaum, now a student in the Boston Con- servatory of Music, studied two years in Paris under noted vocal in- structors. Helen Nussbaum, the youngest, is a graduate from the Marion High School and Glendale (Ohio) College and was also a student at Lausanne, Switzerland, for one year, studying the languages, -French, German, etc.
E. H. JOHNSON. Newspaper men must always be influential forces in the life of a city, and especially in that of the smaller cities of the country, and E. H. Johnson, of Marion, Indiana, is no exception to the general rule. As president and general manager of the Leader-Tribune, of Marion he is one of the prominent citizens of Marion.
Mr. Johnson was born on September 8, 1853, in Cattarangas county, New York. He received his education in the public schools of Paines- ville, Ohio, and in 1876 went into business. He was engaged in the manufacturing of butcher's skewers in Painesville, Ohio, until 1889, when the plant was moved to Marion. In 1894 the plant was moved to Tennessee when he ceased to take active part in its management. On the 1st of January, 1909, he was appointed receiver for the Leader Publishing Company, publishers of the Marion Leader. He was receiver for this company until October, 1910, and in June of the fol- lowing year he purchased the plant.
In March, 1912, he purchased the News-Tribune. The two papers were consolidated and the first issue appeared on March 17, 1912. Since then the paper has been made very successful.
CHARLES F. BOXELL. No life is fuller than that of busy and prosper- ous farming communities, such as those of our Middlle West and Missis- sippi Valley states, where good roads and rapid transit have brought the farmers into close communication with the outer world, and yet here we find the very busiest men with time for public affairs, taking a keen interest not only in matters of local interest but also in national affairs. Such a man is Charles F. Boxell, one of the prominent farmers of Frank- lin township, Grant county, Indiana. Owner of a large farm and a successful stock raiser, he is also one of the most publie spirited men in the community, and has always taken an active part in political and fraternal affairs.
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