USA > Indiana > Blackford County > Blackford and Grant Counties : Indiana a chronicle of their past and present with family lineage and personal memoirs > Part 58
USA > Indiana > Grant County > Blackford and Grant Counties : Indiana a chronicle of their past and present with family lineage and personal memoirs > Part 58
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Mr. and Mrs. Bradford have been the parents of three children: Grace, who married J. Edwin Price and is now a resident of Wayne township, Huntington county, Indiana; Eulalie, who married Chester Phillips and lives at South Marion; and Francis A., Jr., a farmer of Washington township, who married Edith Wildermuth. Mr. Bradford has always been a Republican, has taken an active interest in his party's affairs, and is known as a man of influence in his community. He is a great lover of home, and much of his time is spent in reading and study, and as a result he has not found a great deal of leisure for outside con- nections. With his family, he is a member of the United Brethren church.
GEORGE CLUDE FOWLER. There are now three generations of the Fowler family living in Grant county, and as one of the primary objects of this publication is to afford space for family memoirs so that poster- ity may have an adequate knowledge of their forebears, the following paragraphs are written as a brief memorial to the Grant county Fowlers and their immediate relationship. . George Clude Fowler was born in Jonesboro, Indiana, June 25, 1866. The family was founded in Indiana by his grandfather, William Fowler, who was born of Quaker ancestors in North Carolina in 1799. In early manhood he removed to Wayne county, Indiana, settling near Richmond, which at that time contained but two houses. He was engaged in farming and stock raising, later moved out to Iowa and Missouri, but returned to Indiana and died in Grant county at the venerable age of ninety-five years. His first wife was named Anna Cranor, who was born in North Carolina, and who became the mother of five children: Daniel, John, David, Mary and William, none of whom are now living. The second wife was Elizabeth Osborn, who was born in North Carolina in 1800, came to Wayne county, Indiana, in childhood, and by her marriage was the mother of the following children : Jonathan W., Lucy Ann and Rebecca. She died in Grant county at the age of ninety-four.
Jonathan W. Fowler, father of George C., was born in Wayne county, Indiana, in 1836, came to Grant county, for several years clerked in a general store and a drug store, became a farmer, and now lives retired in Jonesboro. He is a Republican in politics, has held offices in his town and township, and has been a member of the Masonic fraternity since 1861. His wife, Jessie L. Fowler, was born in county
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Essex, England, in 1840. Her grandfather, James Norton, emigrated to America in 1848 and settled in Mill township, Grant county, where he was joined in 1850 by his son, Major B. V. Norton and family, who arrived after a stormy passage, during which they were shipwrecked on the Azores Islands, and obliged to remain there several months. Mrs. Fowler's mother was Mary (Mann) Norton. Her father was engaged in farming for a time, afterwards in the mercantile business in Fairmount, where he died in 1898, while Mrs. Fowler's mother died in 1856. In the Norton family besides Mrs. Fowler were the following children, six sons and four daughters: Harry, George, Frank, James, Benoni and Mark, the first four of whom served in the Union army during the Civil war, and Harry died in the Andersonville prison, and James fell a victim to disease while in the army. The three daugh- ters besides Mrs. Fowler were: Emily V., Hephzibah Mary and Retta. Of all those children, only three are now living, Frank, Mary and Mrs. Fowler. Jonathan W. Fowler and wife had besides George C. Fowler two sons: Erastus M. and William R., and one daughter, Lula Anetta. Of these Erastus M. and Lula are still living, the former in Union City, Indiana, and the latter with her parents in Jonesboro.
George C. Fowler was educated in the public schools of Jonesboro, for several years was clerk in a grocery store, and the candy factory of F. M. Dilling in Marion, and in 1893 took a position with the Indiana Rubber and Insulated Wire Company of Jonesboro, where he has since remained, having been superintendent of the tire department since 1894. In this department are employed about sixty persons, with a product of about eleven hundred tires per day. He has always been a stanch Republican, working for the success of the principles of his party, but has never sought public office. The family worship in the Methodist Episcopal church and take an active interest in its affairs. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Tribe of Ben Hur, both of Jonesboro.
He was married at Jonesboro in 1891 to Miss Avilla Winslow, who is the daughter of Daniel and Sarah (Howe) Winslow, and was born in Mill township. Her parents were early settlers of Grant county, and were prominent members of the Friends church. She was educated in the public schools of Grant county. They have one child: Russell W., who was born in Jonesboro February 22, 1902, and is now attend- ing the public schools of that town.
ABRAHAM B. RICHARDS. Apart from the piling up of great wealth or conquering high position in the public view, there are distinctions of a quieter or more satisfying kind that are none the less difficult of attainment, and yet are possible to a long and well ordered life such as has been that of Abraham B. Richards, one of the oldest natives of Grant county, whose growing youth witnessed the introduction of the first railway locomotion in this section of Indiana. His young manhood fell during the war in which he served, and he had already reached the summit of life and had his children grown or growing up about him when the first of the remarkable changes of a modern electric railway were ushered into Grant county.
Abraham B. Richards belongs to that stock of hardy physical stock and moral character, whose members are frequently met with in this section of Indiana, and frequent reference is made to the name in this history of Grant county. Mr. Richards is a grandson of Henry Richards, who was born in Pennsylvania, and of old Pennsylvania stock, the name originally having been spelt Rickards. Henry Richards was married in Pennsylvania to Sarah Tom, also of German stock.
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Henry and wife lived in Pennsylvania for some years after their mar- riage and there probably all of their three sons and three daughters were born. Of these, John, the oldest, and father of Abraham B. was born in 1809, and was still a boy in his teens when the family during the latter twenties moved to Ohio, and located in Guersney county. In that section John Richards grew up and married Miss Effie Roberts, and during their residence in Guersney county, three children were born, two of whom died there. The year 1833 marked the introduction of the Richards family to the wilds of Grant county. At that time John Richards, with his wife and one living son Henry, and with the parents of John and other members of the family, all came to Indiana, and located on the Mississinewa River in Jefferson township. Both John and his father, Henry, entered government land, each taking up two hundred and forty acres, and their location was in the midst of the wildwoods, where few neighbors were settled and where wild game of all kind abounded, where the Indians still prowled through the forest keeping company with the wolf and the deer, and where, though Grant county had been formerly organized as a civil government two years before, white men and civilization had made very little progress. Henry Richards and his wife spent the rest of their days in an old log cabin home, Henry passing away at the age of seventy-eight, while his wife was forty-six years old when death came to her. The old cabin in which they dwelt had its old fashioned puncheon floor, and not a nail or piece of iron of any kind entered into the construction of the house or its furniture, and in that way resembled some of the most improved of modern arts and crafts furniture.
Rev. John Richards, father of Abraham, was about twenty-four years old when he came to Grant county, and before his young manhood stretched away a long vista of years filled with hardest kind of works in the woods and in the fields, and the task confronting the pioneer settler of that day is one that is almost inconceivable to the modern resident of Grant county. With his labors as a husbandman he com- bined the vocation of preaching the gospel under the auspices of the old-school Baptist church. He was called and preached in nearly every section of the state and organized many classes and churches in Indiana. He was one of the organizers of the old Harmony Primitive Baptist church at Matthew. Back and forth across the country, and over its rough roads he rode horseback, and is said to have worn out several horses and more than one Bible in his itinerant labors. He farmed and preached more than thirty years, his age and health finally compelling him to withdraw, and he died in 1863. He was a man of strong spiritual influence and did much good in his evangelical work. In politics he was consistently a Democrat, and a worker for good government as well as for good morals. His wife died in 1847, and she was the mother of nine children, five sons and one daughter of whom are yet living and all are passed sixty-five years of age. All are married and have children of their own. Rev. John Richards married for his second wife, Isabell Gregg, who died the mother of nine children, only one of whom is living and who is married and has a family.
Abraham B. Richards was born about three years after the family located in Richmond county. His birthplace was in Jefferson township, and the date was November 11, 1836, in a pioneer community, with the most primitive of surroundings, he grew up, and his home has always been within the limits of Jefferson township. His recollections include acquaintance with nearly all the old-timers of Grant county, he knows all about the days of the log cabin, the early schools, the blazed trails through the woods, the canal epoch and overland transportation, was
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a farmer when the cradle was used for reaping grain, and the flail for threshing it, and has witnessed the introduction of practically every modern labor-saving device now found on every farm in Grant county. By economy and industry and honorable dealings, he has himself reaped a substantial material prosperity, and at one time owned two hundred acres of land and proved himself a successful farm manager. He later sold his land and is now living retired within the corporate limits of the little city of Matthews, where he owns eleven acres adjacent to the Harmony Primitive Baptist church grounds.
Mr. Richards has been a member of Harmony church since the first Sunday in March of 1859. When he joined there were fifty-four mem- bers and not one of those except himself is yet living, so that he is the oldest of the congregation. His politics has been Democratic all his life, and he has voted regularly with that party for more than half a century.
In 1858, Mr. Richards was married in Delaware county, Indiana, to Martha A. Denoy, a daughter of John Denoy, who was one of the old settlers and old farmers of Delaware county, and who died there in 1864. The married life of Mr. and Mrs. Richards was one unusual in its length and in its happiness, and the greatest bereavement of his life was the death of his beloved companion on June 3, 1913, after they had completed fifty-five years of life's journey side by side. Mrs. Richards was a noble wife and mother, was a member of the Harmony Baptist Church from the time of her marriage, and born in 1842, attained the ripe age of seventy-one years. She was the mother of ten children, who are named as follows: 1. Angie, wife of Sylvester Dunn, a Dela- ware county farmer, has three children, Fannie, Lola, and John. 2. George, who resides on a farm near Box Elder, in Montana, is married and has children, Ethel, Jesse and Russell. 3. J. Parker, is a teacher in an Oklahoma high school, is married and his two living children are Homer and Hugo. 4. Henry, a farmer near Grandbury, Iowa, is married and has a family of children, those now remembered being: Clifford, Lotta and Maria. 5. Anna, is the wife of Jackson Nelson, who lives in Jefferson township, and their children are Emerson, Neva, Bessie, Ernest and Elsie. 6. Laura, is the wife of Charles Kirk, who is employed with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and their children are Floyd, Mabel, Drexell, Crystal, and Annabelle. 7. Olie, who is the wife of Lewis Feveri, a resident of Portland, Oregon, has children Justus, Louise and Helen. 8. Dora, who like the rest of the children had an education in the public schools, is the wife of Glen Kilgore, of Grant county, and their home is with Mr. Richards, her father, and they have one son, Wayne R., 9 and 10. Lois and Lavina both died in infancy. The living children are all members of the Primitive Baptist Church. Mr. Richards in 1863 was drafted for service in the Civil war and did garrison duty for one year, being honorably discharged and returning home to take up the quiet vocations of civil life.
S. FRANK JONES. Representing one of the old families of Grant county, a former newspaper editor and publisher, and for some time engaged in the Federal civil service in the Philippines, Mr. Jones is now secretary of the Sims-Glass Works.
S. Frank Jones was born in the old MeClure homestead, located on the public square in Marion on June 8, 1869. His parents were Byron Horace and Rosetta (MeClure) Jones. His father was born near Cov- ington, Ohio, April 20, 1833, and the mother was born in Marion, a member of the old McClure family, which has been so prominent in pioneer history of this city, her birth having occurred in what was then
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the village of Marion, November 19, 1838. The marriage of the parents occurred April 27, 1864, and their two children are Orlando Shunk Jones, born June 6, 1865, at Marion, and Samuel Frank, whose name heads this article.
Grandfather Daniel Jones was a surveyor by profession, and also a millwright, and his family history is very closely linked with that of the city of Jonesboro in the south end of this county. The father of Mr. S. Frank Jones was reared chiefly at Jonesboro, where he worked at the trade of jeweler, and later came to Marion and entered the employ of his cousin Robert Jones, who was at that time county clerk. Robert Jones went to the war, and Byron H. Jones, as his deputy, served out the official term and was then elected county clerk. His death occurred September 7, 1892. His wife passed away on November 13, 1899.
S. Frank Jones received his education in the schools of Marion and was graduated from the high school class of 1887. He won an honor scholarship by his high school work and in the same year entered the University of Indiana, where he was graduated in 1891, having given particular attention during his college career to both clerical and civic subjects. On leaving college, he began his career as reporter for the Marion Leader, and followed that occupation for one year, at the end of which time he became city editor of the Marion Chronicle. As city editor he made a successful record as one of the newspaper men of Marion, and was in that office from 1892 to 1900. During that time, he was elected secretary of the Republican County Central Committee, and was three successive terms chosen to the same position in 1894, 1896 and 1898.
After the death of his mother in 1899 Mr. Jones secured an appoint- ment on January 30, 1900, to a position in the post office department at Manila, Philippine Islands. He arrived at Manila February 14, 1900, and was soon made superintendent of the dead letter office in the Island possessions. He has the distinction of having installed that branch of the mail service in the Philippines and made the first entries in the records of that department. Mr. Jones remained in the Islands for two years, and came home by way of the Suez Canal. After this interesting experience abroad, he resumed his newspaper work, and became identified with the Tribune, and then was associated with Mr. A. C. Alexander and Mr. George B. Lockwood in purchasing the Chronicle. Mr. Jones was given all the active management of this paper for some time, since his partners were otherwise engaged, Mr. Alexander as secretary of the Indiana World's Fair Commission and Mr. Lockwood as private secretary to the then Governor Durbin. Mr. Jones was manager of the Chronicle for three years, until he and Mr. Alexander sold their interests to Mr. Lockwood. After a short engage- ment with the Indianapolis Star, Mr. Jones became associated with his father-in-law, Andrew Schick, who had recently bought the Sims Glass Works, and he has since been secretary of this important Grant county corporation. The plant of the Glass works is located at Sims, twelve miles from Marion, and it is considered among the industrial resources of the county as described on other pages of this work. Mr. Jones on February 16, 1904 married Miss Nelle Schick, daughter of Andrew and Rose (Schempf) Schick. Mrs. Jones was born in Bellaire, Ohio, July 27, 1875. Mr. Jones is an active Republican, and is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, the Elks, the Masons, and the Marion Country Club. Mrs. Jones belongs to the Presbyterian church.
MILO NELSON. The business of modern stock farming has a fine exam- ple on the cstate of Milo Nelson in section twenty-seven of Washington
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township. Mr. Nelson, who is one of the younger generation of Grant county citizenship, belongs to a family which has been here from the early days, has applied business system and common sense industry to agriculture, and has made it pay just in the same proportion as he would have made any other business which he had undertaken profitable and successful. His farm consists of two hundred and twenty-two acres of land, with a twelve-acre timber lot, and most of it is fine pasture land. He raises high grade live stock, both cattle and horses, and does a large business in the buying and selling of cattle and horses. About his home are collected some excellent barns and other buildings, and the entire estate shows the thrift and progressive ideas of a modern farmer. The Nelson home is located on the Hillseimer Road.
Milo Nelson was born in Monroe township, Grant county, April 15, 1872, a son of Martin Nelson, and a grandson of Martin Nelson, Sr. The senior Martin was one of the pioneer settlers of Grant county. Martin Jr., who was born in Ohio in 1833, and died in Grant county in 1911, was a boy when he accompanied his father to this state, and spent all his active career in Monroe township. He was a soldier of the Civil war, and was always known as a man who could bear the responsibilities of citi- zenship with credit to himself. He married Olivia Coulter, daughter of James Coulter, another early settler of Grant county, who entered land, one hundred and sixty acres from the government in Center town- ship. The mother is living with her children. The children in the family were : Mary B., who died in infancy ; Mrs. J. B. Strange, of Monroe township; Lucy, wife of Geo. Stout, their home being near the Canadian line in North Dakota; Milo; Charles, who is in the hardware business in Marion.
Milo Nelson was reared on the old farm in Monroe township. His schooling was that afforded by the district institutions of the country, and he was a scholar in Center school, then in the Mills school for one term, and finished in the Liberty school in Monroe township. When he was twenty-one years of age his father gave him forty acres of land in Monroe township, as his capital for making a start in life, and he soon afterward bought forty acres so that he possessed an excellent little farm of eighty acres. After his father moved to Marion he bought another eighty acres of the old estate, and this quarter section of land he sold in the spring of 1904, and then bought the farm which has been above described. This place was known as the old Nelson Turner farm, which had been entered by its proprietor from the government many years before. At the time Milo Nelson acquired it, it was in a very run down condition, and the present owner has spent several thousand dollars in improvement, remodeling and repairing the house and putting up im- proved buildings and equipment all about the place. His two harns are especially well built and equipped for the purpose of a stock farm, and in the summer of 1913 he erected a silo with a capacity of 100 tons. Since moving here he has also cleared off thirty-five acres of timber land. Mr. Nelson makes a specialty of raising high grade Percheron registered horses, and has some of the finest specimens of that breed in eastern Indiana. His big horse "Ben" weighs nineteen hundred pounds, and is valued at twelve hundred dollars. Another is "Cleon," a four-year old registered Percheron stallion, valued at one thousand dollars. In 1912 his horses took two ribbons at the Chicago International Stock Show, and was third in the Championship entries against all ages. He also took fourth place in the three-year-old class. Mr. Nelson raises four colts each year, and has made horse breeding a very successful feature of his enterprise. Mr. Nelson and Frank Lenfesty own in partnership the old Coulter farm in Center township which his grandfather, John Coulter, entered. This farm consists of 1611/2 acres.
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In 1895 he married Miss Stella L. Lieurance of Center township, daughter of Elisha L. Lieurance. Their three children are Lesta, aged seventeen ; Fred, aged fourteen, and Glen, aged twelve. Politically he is a Democrat, and he has fraternal membership in Lodge No. 253 of the Loyal Order of Moose at Marion, and in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
JOSEPH PENDLETON WINGER. The genealogy of Joseph Pendleton Winger of Pleasant is the same as that of D. O. Winger of Richland, both being sons of Joseph Winger. J. P. Winger on November 9, 1890, married Miss Amanda Ellen Shoemaker, of Delaware county, and all of his lifetime has been spent within less than one mile of his birthplace.
Mrs. Winger is a daughter of David and Leah (Deeter) Shoemaker, natives of Pennsylvania and Ohio, but a pioneer Delaware county family. Her brothers and sisters are: Sarah, George, Hettie, Levi, Solomon, Anna, John, Harrison, Ira, Oliver, Fred, Mary and Ephraim. The Winger family belongs to the German Baptist or Church of the Brethren community centering at Vernon in Wabash county with a branch church at Cart creek, while Mrs. Winger came from a similar commu- nity in Delaware county.
The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Winger are: Alva M., Lewis D., Jesse E., Anna L., Raymond A., Joseph R., Ruth E., Mary E., Orval J., Herbert M. and Edith L. The son Alva M. is married to Miss Mabel E. Patterson and has one child, Alva Carl. There has been very little sickness in the family, and the children have been given educational advantages beyond the Cart Creek school, the oldest son having attended North Manchester German Baptist College, of which a cousin, Otho Winger, is president (see article, Church of the Brethren). Four of the children are in Sweetser high school, Lewis D. and Jesse E. being seniors there.
While Mr. and Mrs. Winger have their family about them, they have had the necessary comforts of life which are so often acquired after the children quit the parental roof, and all the advantages found in any rural community are found at the Winger homestead. The modern farm machinery, manure-spreader, milk separator, incubator,- all came in turn. Just as their father, Joseph Winger, had the first Star cornplanter drawn by two horses, some of the sons have been among the first to use the automobile, and for two years the Winger place has been lighted with electricity generated from a dynamo stationed in an enclosed porch, and enough current is generated on wash-day when the power is in use to light the house, barn and out- buildings, even a light in the silo. Each member of the family is taught economy-turn off a light when done with it.
The Winger house was modern a few years ago, and has been doubled in size. With cement walks, electric lights and a complete water system, there is little to be desired in rural life that is not installed in the household. The original Winger homestead was a splendid farm with improvements abreast of the times, and all the children have remained near it and all have up-to-date improvements. The water-shed between Pipe creek and Cart creek is on the J. P. Winger land, and part of his drainage is into the Wabash and part into the Mississinewa. Before his farm was drained the water from the two creeks would sometimes overspread and reach, and it would require only a short drain to connect them at any time, the land being level in that vicinity. There is no more productive farm land in Grant county than in this Pipe creek and Cart creek basin, and the Wingers all understand about maintaining soil fertility-are all of them scien- tific farmers.
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