Centennial History of Grant County Indiana, Part 107

Author: Rolland Lewis Whitson
Publication date: 1914
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1034

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Homes Cretsinger was born July 6, 1853, in Licking county, Ohio, and is a son of David and a grandson of John and Mary Magdalena Cretsinger, of Virginia, who were of German descent. David Cret- singer, who was born in Virginia, removed to Grant county, Indiana, in 1857, although for some years he had made his home in Licking county, Ohio. While there he had worked hard as a laborer and care- fully saved his earnings only to lose his entire fortune when A. J. Smith's bank in Licking county failed. In 1849 he joined the rush to California in search of gold, and when he returned four years later he had earned enough money to buy eighty acres of land in Ohio. On moving his family to Grant county, he settled first on Hummel Creek, but afterwards sold and bought the Henry Prickett place of eighty acres, while a few years prior to his death he sold forty acres of that home- stead to his grandson. When he first settled here this land was in poor condition but he succeeded in putting it in a high state of culti- vation, and with the assistance of his industrious, hard-working wife and sons he succeeded in accumulating fifteen hundred acres of land and other large holdings. He died February 10, 1910, aged eighty- eight years, at the home of his son Homes, who cared for him for the last sixteen years. David Cretsinger married Nancy Wheeler, a native of Licking county, Ohio, born in 1828, and who died in August, 1896. She was the mother of three children: Homes, Mrs. Mary Ellen Goff, of Grant county, and David, Jr., of Marion, who is the proprietor of a horse sales barn and the owner of a large amount of property.

Homes Cretsinger attended district school No. 4 in Washington township for three months each winter up to the time he was twenty years of age, thus acquiring a fairly liberal education. When twenty- one years of age he began working for his father, receiving a salary of $200 per annum for five years. After his marriage he rented two

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hundred and forty acres from his father, on half shares, and his father two years before his death presented each of his sons with five hundred dollars in cash. After farming as a share renter for about six years Homes Cretsinger and his father bought the Sam McClure place, of two hundred and forty acres. This was later sold and the son then bought forty acres from John E. Smith and subsequently another forty acres from Bethuel Smith. In 1902 he became the owner by purchase of eighty acres of the home place, and at the time of his father's death inherited two hundred and forty acres from the estate. At this writing Mr. Cretsinger is proprietor of four hundred acres in section 18 of Washington township.

In 1912 he remodeled and greatly improved his modern residence, a handsome structure of twelve rooms. The main structure had been built in 1870. It now has cement porch and wash houses, running water from tank for bath and other domestic purposes, with excellent plumbing, and all the rooms neatly furnished for comfort and con- venience. The water.is pumped to the residence and barns by an engine which also churns the butter and washes clothes. Mr. Cret- singer has two barns and good outbildings, and on the old home place, now occupied by his son Floyd, also has a good residence and other buildings. At this time there are about one hundred acres in timber, but that is being cleared. In 1912 Mr. Cretsinger raised a thousand bushels of corn and a thousand bushels of oats, cut thirty tons of hay, and in 1913 planted one hundred and thirty acres in corn and thirty acres each in wheat and oats. Mr. Cretsinger keeps eighteen or twenty horses and colts, mostly of the Belgian stock, has forty head of cattle, forty sheep and sixty hogs, and is recognized as a skilled breeder and excellent judge of livestock. Although rated as one of the wealthiest farmers in the county, he has had no desire to retire from active labor, and still hale and hearty is able to handle his four-horse gang plow to break up meadow land and to cultivate his corn fields. His reputa- tion in his community is that of an industrious, energetic citizen whose strict integrity has gained him a firmly established position in the con- fidence of his fellow citizens.

On February 28, 1878, Mr. Cretsinger was married to Sarah Jane Martin, daughter of Philip Martin, of Wabash county, Indiana. It was a long and happy marriage companionship, and for thirty-six years they walked hand in hand and shared in common the duties and occupations, the joys and sorrows, of existence. On January 11, 1914, Mrs. Cretsinger was called to the life beyond, and her death has been a severe blow to her devoted husband and to her immediate family and the community in which she had long been a friend and kindly neighbor. To their marriage were born seven children, as follows: Clinton, a farmer of Washington township, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work; Frank, who died at the age of nine years; Ross, who is a substantial farmer living on the upper farm belonging to his father : Florabel, who married Mr. Pritchett and lives in Wabash county; Floyd, who resides on the old homestead farm; Cleo, who is now Mrs. Steuber of Grant county, and Minnie, who died at the age of four months.

Like his father, who voted for Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Cretsinger has always been a Republican in national affairs, while in local matters he takes an independent stand, believing it the best plan to support the man most worthy of office regardless of party lines. Fraternally his membership is in Marion Lodge of Odd Fellows, in which order he has numerous friends. Mrs. Cretsinger was an active member of the Christian church, to which her children belong, and Mr. Cretsinger united with the same denomination on July 6, 1913.

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Mr. Cretsinger saw the first car come. to Marion on the Pan Handle and Big Four railroads; he saw the first street car put in opera- tion in that city, and at one time knew every man, woman and child within the limits of Marion. He has seen three jails built at the county seat during his lifetime, and assisted in hauling the stones for the sec- ond jail, with Jack Baldwin. In the early days he was a great friend of Nelson "Tan Toi" and son of Chief "Shingle Macy" of the Miami Indians. He relates that when a boy and young man he was greatly afraid of the old chief, as was shown by his actions on an occasion when Tan Toi was sick. When Mr. Cretsinger went to see him, the old chief stood in the front yard of Tan Toi's home and forbade him to enter, intimidating him in various ways. Tan Toi's wife came to the door and insisted on the old chief allowing the young man to stay and see his friend and remain for dinner, and this he did, but during his entire visit kept his eyes on the old savage, who sat by the wall of the house glowering at him. At length the old chief called out: "White boy, ugh! You go! I kill!" Mr. Cretsinger. relates that his hair fairly stood on end and that it was all he could do to make himself stand his ground, which he did nevertheless, but not until Tan Toi arose in bed and roundly scolded the old chief, who then subsided.

This is but one of a number of interesting incidents of the early days in Grant county, as related from personal experience by Mr. Cretsinger, who is a pleasing conversationalist and has an excellent memory for old days. His life, from pioneer times to the present, has been an active and useful one, and he may well be remembered among those who have borne their full share in the development that has given Grant county such unquestioned prestige as a center of popula- tion and general advancement in eastern Indiana.

JOHN A. BOWMAN. Daniel and Mary (Henry) Bowman came from Virginia to Clinton county, Ohio, when their son Daniel Wash- ington Bowman was a young man. In Clinton county the latter met Miss Patsy Melissa, daughter of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Kim- brough) Howell, and early in their married life they moved to Indiana, locating in Grant county at the Bowman homestead in Lib- erty. Except one child that died in infancy, and Mary Elizabeth, who married C. W. Gibson, all their children were born at the old homestead. The only son to carry the name of the family is John A. Bowman, proprietor of the stock farm known as Banner Land, than which there is none better in Liberty township. After Mary Eliza- beth, the children in order of birth ran as follows: Samanatha, who first married John Woodward and second N. M. Bealls; John A., Martha A., wife of L. O. Lines; Loretta E., wife of Frank Gibson; and Elmire M., wife of W. H. Young.

John A. Bowman married Flora Hungerford on June 29, 1887. A daughter of John and Carolina (Carpenter) Hungerford, Mrs. Bow- man came as a child with them from Rush county. Her brothers are Stanley Hungerford, who married Julia Newton, and Branson Hungerford, who married Goldie Beck, and her sister is Lillie, who married Luther Jackson. Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Bowman, Paul and Nonnetta Marie. The Bowman and Hungerford family homestead are not far apart, and Banner Land-the home of John A. Bowman-is half way between them, while Mr. Bowman's parents and his stepmother, Mrs. Margaret Kaufman Bowman, are dead, Mrs. Bowman's parents live in Marion, having left the farm several years ago.

When Mr. and Mrs. Bowman were married they lived a few years

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at the Bowman family homestead, but they soon went into debt for land and bought and sold two or three places, always at an advance until in 1902 they located at Banner Land, This is right in the heart of the old colored settlement (See chapter on Negro in Grant county), and they bought the Steele, Ward & Harris land, which Major G. W. Steele declared was the "Garden Spot of Grant county" when he owned it. The Weaver school occupies a corner of that quarter sec- tion. Mr. Bowman has added to this investment until he now owns more than three hundred acres, and he operates a part of the Hunger- ford land near Banner Land. Intensive agriculture along extensive lines is his general plan, and he has the faculty of getting results both as a stock and grain farmer. Mr. Bowman is a mechanic and saves many nickels and dimes by doing his own blacksmithing in a little shop on the farm, although he does not bid for custom work at all. Since Banner Land had been a tenant farm, there was a good barn, but a poor house when they moved there, and since then many improvements have been added and there is no better appointed farm house in Grant county.

When Mr. Bowman wants to use cement he mixes and lays it him- self. Due to the liberal use of this material, and by careful planning in construction the stables are out of the mud, although the farm is level and it required considerable engineering to install an effective water system with pressure sufficient to force water to all the pasture tanks and to the stalls in the barn, but little difficulties like that do not disconcert him. Mr. Bowman has always employed labor, and the few colored men about Weaver always know there is a day's work awaiting them at Banner Land. When the exodus from Weaver to Marion depopulated the colored community described elsewhere in the Centennial history, the white families occupied the land until only a few negroes remained who depend upon the surrounding farms for employment.

Mr. Bowman has always bought and sold anything and everything farmers have use for, and has cleared considerable money at it. He has always handled live stock. He is an exceedingly shrewd busi- ness man, and has always kept himself at the head of the procession. He was among the first Grant county farmers to own an automobile, and when anything is wrong with the machine he knows how to fix it himself. Mrs. Bowman has always delivered produce to private families, and with an automobile at her disposal delivery is a small matter and a great economy of time and effort. She has every dairy convenience and the revenue from this source has relieved her hus -. band of all family expense accounts. While Mrs. Bowman has made butter for the market, the beef type of cattle predominates, there being only a few Jerseys in the herd, with some shorthorn dairy cows. When Mr. Bowman was superintendent of the cattle department in the Marion fair he secured the best exhibits in the whole country, and now that he has been elected president of the Agricultural Asso- ciation he will still be alert for the success of all its departments. While he always feeds out from one hundred and fifty to two hun- dred hogs, when the cholera does not strike them, Mr. Bowman's live stock specialty is the horse (see chapter on Live Stock). His Char- mont, a fine Belgian stallion, imported by Crouch & Sons, is one of the finest animals ever brought to Grant county. Charmont was first and champion winner in the 1911 Indiana state fair, and he won the honors at the International Live Stock Show in Chicago in the class of four-year-old and over, and took second place in the free for all show at the International. He is registered in the American Associa-

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tion and weighs 2,400 pounds when in normal condition. Banner Land is one of the best equipped farms in Grant county.

PALMER R. EDGERTON. Liberty township has in Palmer R. Edgerton a farmer who has brought to his work in the agricultural enterprise a comprehensive knowledge of the subject, applying in his daily tasks an understanding of the science of the farm that has given him a place in the community that may not successfully be challenged. Intensive farming is demonstrated to the highest degree on his place, and in the breeding of pure bred horses of the Percheron and Bel- gian breeds he is admitted to be one of the most successful men in the county. Duroc-Jersey hogs also have been one of his special- ties in the breeding feature of his business. It is to men of his stamp that the advance of agriculture in Grant county must be largely ascribed. Others, with a lesser regard for the scientific side of the subject, have blazed trials that have opened up the county widely and prosperously, but the men who have regarded their work as a science, rather than as a hit and miss business, dependent largely upon the proper proportions of sunshine and rain, have carried for- ward the status of the agriculturist in Grant county as have none other. As proprietor of the "Wastena Stock Farm" Mr. Edger- ton has been active in farm circles since 1906, in which year he con- cluded his college training, and his place in section one of Liberty township is one of the highly creditable ones of the district.

Palmer R. Edgerton was born on the farm which now represents his home and the scene of his business activities, on December 28, 1884, and he is the son of Jesse and Sarah (Shugart) Edgerton. The father was born near Amboy, Indiana, in 1858, and his mar- riage to Sarah A. Shugart, of Grant county, occurred in 1878. The father is now deceased, but the mother still lives and makes her home in Monroe township. They were the parents of two children, Sula E. being the wife of Dr. Thomas J. Carter, of League City, Texas, and Palmer R. Edgerton of this review. The daughter was educated in the schools of her native community, finishing in Fair- mount Academy, and is a woman of talent and culture. The son was reared on the home farm to the age of fourteen years, at which age he entered Fairmount Academy, and was finished there when he was seventeen years old. He then entered Purdue University and was graduated therefrom in 1906, with the degree of B. S. in Agri- culture. He came back to the home farm with his mother who had accompanied him to school, settling down to farming in real earnest, and two years later he married Mary Zoe McConnell, a native daugh- ter of Franklin township, and a graduate of Fairmount academy. She was further trained for three years in the subject of domestic science in the Agricultural College at Lansing, Michigan, and is one of the most successful and capable home-makers and keepers to be found in these parts. She is a daughter of John N. and Ellen Bur- rier McConnell, and with her husband, she has membership in the Friends Church. Both are highly esteemed in the township and have a host of genuine friends throughout the community. Mr. Edgerton is non-partisan in his local application of politics, but favors the Pro- hibition party in matters of state and national import. His farm proper, or that portion of which he is the owner, is made up of fifty- five acres, the remaining part of the one hundred and sixty acres which he works belonging to his mother, now Mrs. William E. Stout of Monroe township.

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CAPTAIN AND MRS. JJOSEPH LUGAR NILINVA CINY

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CAPTAIN JOSEPH LUGAR. One of the largest land owners in Grant county, Captain Lugar began his career as a wage-earner at farm labor, went to the war where he earned his title by gallant service, came home, bought land on time, and by hard work, good management, and honorable dealings has become one of Grant county's most fortunate and esteemed citizens.

Captain Lugar was born in Grant county, October 16, 1840, a son of Joseph and Mary ( Wilson) Lugar. Joseph Lugar was born in Giles county, Virginia, a son of George Lugar, who was one of the very first pioneers of Grant county, settling on Lugar Creek in the year 1828. That was three years before Grant county was formally organized. George Lugar filed on government land, and also farmed land, which is now included within the city limits of Marion. Joseph Lugar, Sr., father of Captain Joseph, was also one of the early settlers who got his land direct from the government and in his time he cultivated land which is within the present city of Marion. He was one of the large land own- ers of his day, and in 1848, he took up his residence on a place in Wash- ington township. His death was the result of an accident. He fell off a farm building where he was giving his assistance in the raising, and his death became one of the tragedies of the community, and marred an occasion which was usually celebrated with much festivity in early com- munities. His wife, Mary Wilson, was a daughter of John Wilson, also an early settler of this county. Joseph Lugar and wife reared eleven children, named: John, Sarah Ann, Jane, James, William, Joseph, Maude, Andrew Jackson, Minerva, Barney, and one who died in infancy.

Captain Lugar as a boy attended some of the early district schools of Grant county. He has been a farmer and stock dealer all his life, and at the age of eighteen left school and began working at wages of thirteen dollars per month for Mr. Bradford and for Nathan Frazier. He had just about attained manhood when the war came on, and he was one of the Grant county youths who volunteered to preserve the Union. He enlisted in May, 1861, in Company I of the Twelfth Indiana Infantry as a private. His first service was in Virginia, and he fought at Manassas and in the battle of Winchester, and did considerable campaigning in the Shenandoah Valley. He was raised to the rank of lieutenant for personal bravery in battle and in 1863 was made second lieutenant of Company D of the Thirty-Fourth Indiana Regiment. He served his enlisted term out with that regiment, and early in 1865 returned to Grant county, and raised Company D, of the One Hundred and Fifty-Third Indiana Volunteers. Of this company he was made captain, and led his company until the close of the war. In his later service he was in the armies of the west, and for forty-four days participated in the siege of Vicksburg. After the surrender of that river citadel he was sent to New Orleans and was in many skirmishes and on much arduous duty during the rest of the war. He was finally returned to Indianapolis, and there received his honorable discharge.

Coming home Captain Lugar had only his reputation and record as a soldier, and at once turned his industry and ambition to acquiring busi- ness prosperity. He bought his farm on time, and paid for it in install- ments. His first purchase was one hundred and forty acres at thirty dol- lars an acre, the farm on which he has ever since lived. He next bought some more land at forty dollars an acre, and his entire estate is now worth an average of two hundred dollars for each and every acre. The estate of Captain Lugar in Van Buren township deserves more formal description. His home is in section thirty, and there are three hundred and ten acres in the home place. Altogether he owns four farms, the one Vol. II-46

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of three hundred and ten acres, another of one hundred and sixty acres, both lying in Van Buren township, one of twenty-one and a half acres, which is in Washington township, and the fourth contains forty acres, located in Monroe township. This brings the total of land owned by Captain and Mrs. Lugar up to five hundred and thirty-one and one- half acres. In 1912, his farm produced one thousand bushels of corn, sixteen hundred bushels of oats, and ten tons of hay were cut. He is one of the large stock raisers; raises and sells more than two hundred hogs every season, and since 1912 has carried over to the present year one hun- dred and eighty-five hogs, and has two hundred and ten young shoats in the spring of 1913. Captain Lugar makes a specialty of the Jersey Red hogs, a very hardy breed for large droves. He has thirty-nine brood sows of this strain. During 1912 he ran a flock of one hundred and fifty sheep, all of which he sold. In 1912 he also sent forty head of cattle to market, and has about thirty head on his pastures in 1913, these being of the Shorthorn and Jersey varieties. Captain Lugar has one of the most attractive rural homes in Grant county, a residence of sixteen rooms well built and furnished which he erected in 1905. It is surrounded by an attractive lawn, and all the comforts of a rural estate. A part of his equipment which indicates the substantial character of the whole are three big red barns, and he has three drilled wells on the farms to supply water for stock and domestic purposes.

In 1865, Captain Lugar married Miss Mary A. Hayes, a daughter of William H. Hayes, also a pioneer of Van Buren. Their eight children are mentioned as follows: Morris, of Van Buren township; Mrs. Emma S. Weesner, of Washington township; Mrs. Sadie Corey, of Washington township; Erastus, of Van Buren township, a large stock dealer; Riley W., of Van Buren township; Wilson, on the home farm; Mrs. Nettie Nye, a resident of this county, and Clyde, of Marion. Captain and Mrs. Lugar have sixteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Captain Lugar has been a Republican since casting his first vote dur- ing the war time. For six years he was honored with the position of county commissioner, from 1894 to 1900, and has been placed in various local offices by the vote of his fellow citizens. He is a very public-spirited man, and one of the best known citizens of Grant county. He has always been a dealer as well as producer of live stock, and has bought and sold large quantities. Fraternally he is an active member of the Marion Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, and his family attend the Methodist church.

THOMAS SHEEDY. One of the most attractive rural homes of Lib- erty township is the place of Thomas Sheedy, comprising three hun- dred acres of the fine soil in southwestern part of Grant county. That place represents and is a monument to the labors of a citizen who began his practical career when nine years old. Of Irish par- entage, he had the liberality of his race, and the hard labors of his earlier years vanished without any permanent accumulation, but he has more than made up for it in the esteem and lasting respect of friends and neighbors, and in addition has long since passed the point where he might be considered prosperous, and is now as sub- stantial and well fixed as the best of his friends in his section of the county.

Thomas Sheedy was born in the state of Louisiana, March 17, 1847, a son of Theodore (better known as Teddy) Sheedy, who came from Ireland. He married Margaret Cravens, and when they came to the United States they landed at New Orleans, where the father

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soon afterwards died of the yellow fever. The widow then brought her children to Indiana, locating in Fayette county, which was her home until death. She became the mother of seven children, three by her marriage to Mr. Sheedy. Thomas Sheedy has a brother, James Sheedy, who was a soldier in the Civil war, and is now in the Soldiers Home at Marion.

A boy when the family moved to Indiana, Thomas Sheedy spent his early years on a farm in Fayette county, had a meagre schooling in the district schools, and left home at the age of nine years, and was taken into the household of William Dickey, of Fayette county, Indiana, for whom he worked for six dollars a month. He con- tinued with Mr. Dickey for five years and afterwards got higher wages, but as he was liberal in helping others he had practically no capital by the time he attained manhood. After that he married and by the industrious efforts of himself and wife was in a few years on a fair way to substantial prosperity.

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Centennial History of Grant County Indiana, Part 107

Author: Rolland Lewis Whitson Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1034

Author: Rolland Lewis Whitson
Publication date: 1914
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1034