Centennial History of Grant County Indiana, Part 14

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

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AMOS ARTHUR HOLLOWAY. In Grant county, as in many other sec- tions of the middle west, the day of the big farm and the loose farming methods have almost passed. Farming is now both a practical and scientific business, and many of the most successful are pursuing it according to the intensive methods, making one acre grow what the old- fashioned husbandmen produced on two or three acres. One of the prosperous little estates which well illustrates this principle is the farm of Mr. Holloway in Fairmount township on section twenty-seven. His acreage is only forty-two and a half. About ten acres of this is in native timber, and orchards, while the rest is highly cultivated soil. His crops are of a general nature, principally corn, but also oats and other grains. An orchard of three acres in apples, with other fruits produces a considerable share of his annual revenue. Nearly all the grain pro- duced on his farm is fed to his hogs, and he keeps some other stock. Mr. Holloway is a young and progressive farmer citizen of. Grant county, and his early prosperity is an indication of what many years will bring him in the future.

Amos A. Holloway was born on the farm he now owns and occupies on December 10, 1882. With the exception of two years his entire career has been spent in this one locality. His parents were Abner and Sarah (Rich) Holloway, natives of North Carolina, both of whom were almost children when their respective parents moved to Indiana. They married at Fairmount, and established their first home in this county.

For a number of years their residence was in Monroe township, after which they came to Fairmount township, bought and owned a large tract of two hundred and seventy acres. There the father passed away

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April 2, 1903, when more than seventy years of age. His church was the Friends, and in politics he was a Republican. His widow now lives with her children, and is a Quaker, and over seventy-three years of age. There were five sons and five daughters, eight of whom are living, and all are married and have children, being well settled and self-sustaining.

Mr. Holloway, the youngest of the children, was married in Monroe township, in 1904 to Miss Mary E. Fleming, who was born in Monroe township, May 28, 1885. She is a daughter of George and Susanna (Hollis) Fleming, who are now living in Monroe township, and both natives of Indiana, and married in Grant county. The Fleming family are members of the Methodist church. Mrs. Holloway is the second of three children. To Mr. and Mrs. Holloway have been born six children: Willard A., aged eight years; George, who was killed while playing on the railway tracks by a passenger train on October 5, 1908, at the age of two years; Clyde L., aged six years; Ruth D., aged four; Anna L., aged two; and Charles, now a few months old. Mr. Holloway is a Quaker, while his wife adheres to the Methodist church, and his politics is Republican.

GEORGE M. COON. For two terms prosecuting attorney of Grant county Mr. Coon is a capable young lawyer of Marion, has been identified with the local bar for fourteen years, and since beginning his active career has been very prominent both in politics and social circles in this county. which is his native home.

The Coon family has been identified with Grant county for three gen- erations, and has always occupied a prominent place in the citizenship. The origin of the Coon family is traced back to the German fatherland, and was established in Virginia, where men of the name were prominent as business men and citizens.

In the early industrial history of Marion, special distinction attaches to the members of the Coon family in this county, Jacob Coon being the grandfather of George M. Born in Botecourt county, Virginia, he came over the Alleganies and first located in Bellefontaine, Ohio, and then in 1842 came to Grant county, where he bought a tract of land now included in the city of Marion. He was a brick-maker by trade, and he has the credit of having put up the first kiln and manufactured the first kiln for brick in Grant county. It is said that he burned the brick used in nearly all the stores and residences of that material in Marion. For some years he was a successful manufacturer of brick, and was succeeded in the business by his son Michael. Jacob Coon married Melinda Wall, who was also a native of Botecourt county, Virginia. They became the parents of ten children, the oldest dying in infancy, and the others named as follows: Michael, now deceased; Andrew, deceased. a former resident of Brooklyn, Iowa; Benjamin, who died as a soldier of the Union at Sandy Hook, Maryland, at the age of twenty-six; Thomas, who died at the age of twenty; Elizabeth, Martha, Mary, Susellen, all now deceased; George Williams, mentioned below, who lives on a farm in Washington township. Jacob Coon, father of this large family, died in his seventy-second year, and his wife passed away in 1851.

George W. Coon, father of the county's prosecuting attorney, was born in Washington township of this county, January 8, 1844. When he was seven years of age his mother died, and three years later he went to make his home with William Middleton, in Center township, where he remained until he joined the Union forces. When he was about eighteen years old he enlisted and was assigned to Company I of the One Hun- dred and Eighteenth Indiana Infantry. His enlistment was for six months, but after being honorably discharged from that service he re-

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enlisted in August, 1864, in Company K of the Fortieth Indiana Infan- try. He was with his company in the battles of Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville, among the greatest and most important engagements of the war, and the Fortieth Indiana Regiment won many laurels in these battles. At Franklin he was struck with a piece of shell and captured. His captors then ordered him to the rear, but instead of obeying he went in the direction of the Federal forces and regained the ranks of his regi- ment, in time to take a gun and assist in the captue of seven hundred and fifty rebels. For some years after the close of the war George W. Coon was engaged in the livery business in Marion, and built a barn which occupied the present site of the Leader-Tribune Building. He was successfully identified with this enterprise for twenty-five years. In January, 1883, he moved out to his farm in Washington township, where he still resides.

Mr. George W. Coon was married August 30, 1868, to Amanda J. Marshall, daughter of John D. and Mary A. (Roberts) Marshall. The late John D. Marshall was for more than half a century intimately assoc- iated with the business and civic interests of Grant county. He was a member of the Indiana State Senate in 1862-63, and his vote was the deciding factor in the election of Thomas A. Hendricks to the United States Senate. The five children of George W. Coon and wife are named as follows: Stella and Mannie, who died in infancy; John W., a resident of Marion; Lillian E., wife of John W. Hayes, whose farm is five miles from Marion; and George M.

Born in the city of Marion, April 20, 1874, when quite young George M. Coon accompanied the family to the country and received his early education altogether in the country schools. He subsequently was a student in the Marion high school for three years and took a general and business course at the Marion Normal College. For some time he was engaged in teaching school, and then in 1897 began the study of law, and was admitted to the bar in October, 1899. On September 15, 1899, he received appointment as deputy prosecuting attorney, and filled the office for three years. After an interval of private practice he was again made deputy prosecutor in January, 1906, and gave two years service. For eight years Mr. Coon served as Republican Precinct Com- mitteeman. In November, 1908, he was elected as Republican candidate to the office of prosecuting attorney and was reelected in 1910.

On November 26, 1902, he married Samantha A. Leach, daughter of James Leach of Ohio. In fraternal affairs, Mr. Coon is very prominent. He is past chancellor of Grant Lodge No. 103 of the Knights of Pythias, and is a member of the Grand Lodge of Indiana. He was presiding chan- cellor commander of Grant Lodge when this organization acquired its beautiful new home in South Adams Street. Mr. Coon became a Knight of Pythias March 11, 1901, and has never missed a session of the Grand Lodge since leaving the office of chancellor commander. He has assisted in conferring rank in every lodge in Grant county, and in many lodges over the state. His other fraternal connections are with the Fraternal Order of Eagles in Aerie No. 227, and in 1908 represented his organiza- tion of Eagles at Seattle, Washington, which is the home of Aerie No. 1 of the Eagles. He is also affiliated with the Elks Lodge No. 195 at Marion, with the Benevolent Crew of Neptune No. 1, being a charter member of this lodge. He has membership in the Dramatic Order of Khorassan at Marion, and belongs to the Sons of Veterans, and the Marion Country Club.

JOHN H. CASKEY. The Caskey family have lived in Grant county since before the Civil war. All of its members have been substantial

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farmers and John H. Caskey, whose early career was divided between school teaching and tilling the soil now owns a comfortable estate in sections 26, 27 and 34 in Fairmount township.

His grandfather, John Caskey, was born near the Natural Bridge in Rockbridge county, Virginia, between 1792 and 1795, of Virginia parents, and of Scotch-Irish ancestry. A brother of John was a soldier in the Mexican war. In Virginia John Caskey married a Miss Greenlee. His death occurred as a result of accident while he. was in the prime of life. In crossing the James River, with a flatboat loaded with flour, the boat was overturned, and though an expert swimmer he got tangled in his overcoat, and was overwhelmed by the water. His widow died some years later, though still a comparatively young woman. There were three sons and one daughter: James, who was a traveling dentist by profession, died in middle life, while a soldier in the Mexican war; Samuel, who died in Greensburg, Indiana, left a family of children; David is mentioned in the next paragraph; Mary, who died in Rush county, leaving a family of children, was the wife of George D. Glass, whose death occurred in Tipton, Indiana.

David Caskey, who was born on the old farm in Virginia, July 23, 1821, grew up and was very well educated for his time. Before his marriage, he came north during the forties to Rush county, Indiana, bought some land in Richland township, and a few years later during the decade of the fifties moved to Grant county. His purchase of land was made in Fairmount township, where the rest of his years were spent, until his death on June 2, 1905, when nearly eighty-four years of age. His was a career of substantial achievement and deserving of the high esteem which was paid him by his neighbors. The family religion had always been of the Baptist denomination, but later in life, David Caskey joined the Christian church, and was comforted by that faith in his last days. His politics was of the Democratic party. In Rush county he married Eliza Hite, who was born there, and her parents were from Rockbridge, Virginia. Jacob and Elizabeth (Lowrey) Hite were married in Rush county in an early day, and lived and died on their farm in Richland township, being quite old before death came to them. Jacob Hite was for forty years a justice of the peace, and only two of his decisions were ever reversed. Both were honored and upright people, and Mrs. Hite belonged to the Christian church. The grandfather of Mrs. Eliza Caskey was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. Eliza Cas- key died in Kansas in March, 1901, and was a devout member of the Christian church. Her children were: 1. John H. 2. Melissa, who became the wife of Charles M. Leach, whose family history will be found elsewhere in this volume. 3. Frances died after her marriage to E. O. Leach, and left no children. 4. William, who lived a few years in California, later moved to Kansas, where he died without issue. 5. James was accidentally killed in Hutchinson, Kansas, and left five chil- dren. 6. Minnie is the wife of L. A. Danton, of Waterloo, Iowa, and has one son.

John H. Caskey was born in Rush county, Indiana, February 19, 1847, and was still a child when the family moved to Grant county. Grant county has therefore been his home practically all his life. His education was much better than that received by the average young man of his time. From the public schools he entered the academy at Rich- land, Indiana, and with this equipment spent a part of the fifteen years in teaching. During each succeeding winter, he was master of a school, while the summers were spent in farming. Later all his attention and energies were given to the cultivation of the soil, and at the present time his proprietorship extends to one hundred and twenty acres of well

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improved and excellently managed land in Fairmount township. Be- sides his general operations as a farmer, his chief feature of his business is a dairy, and for a number of years he has kept a good herd of cows, and runs this branch of his business very profitably.

Mr. Caskey is well known for his participation in public affairs, and during 1882-84 served as deputy sheriff of Grant county. As a Demo- crat he has long been active, and for sixteen years was Democratic com- mitteeman of his township.

In Rush county in 1873 Mr. Caskey married Miss Eliza Scott, who was born in that county in 1851. Her death occurred in her native county while she was visiting there in 1877. The two children by that marriage were: Ina, wife of David Whybrew, and their children are Flossie, Bessie, Alice, Lola and John; Bessie died after her marriage to Jacob Corn, and left one son, Leonard. In Reno county, Kansas, in 1880, Mr. Caskey married Miss M. E. Atkins, who was born in Hunts- ville, Mississippi, September 9, 1860. When she was thirteen years of age her parents S. J. and Virginia (Curtis) Atkins, moved to Kansas and lived there from 1873 until the death of Mrs. Atkins twenty-two years ago. For the past five years, Mr. Atkins has made his home in Los Angeles, California, and is now seventy-six years of age. The Atkins family are communicants of the Christian church, and his membership has been in the church since 1866, and for fifty-years he has been prominent in Masonic circles.

The children of Mr. and Mrs. Caskey are mentioned as follows: 1. Lew, born in 1881, is now rural mail carrier on route number twenty- two out of Fairmount; he married Clara Stephens, and they have two children, Myrtle and Ruth. 2. William, whose home is in Columbus, Ohio, married Gertrude Cummings, and their children are Helen, William and Margaret. 3. Clyde, a young unmarried man, lives at home and assists with the management of the farm. 4. Gus died at the age of two months. 5. Florence was graduated in 1907 from the Fairmount high school, is a devoted student of music, and at the present time is organist in the Christian church at Fairmount. 6. John, also a graduate of the high school, is now a junior in the Ohio State University, being a member of the class of 1915. 7. Nettie F., aged eighteen, a studious and earnest girl, in the high school class of 1915, has for several years been a local heroine in Grant county. On March 19, 1910, she performed an act which is proof, not only of personal courage, but of that extreme unselfishness which is the highest attribute of character. Her niece, a little child of three years, had wandered away from home, getting on the Pennsylvania Railway tracks nearby, and was more than half a mile away before she was missed. With complete unconsciousness of danger, she was walking between the rails of the road, when Miss Caskey happened to observe her. A fast passenger train was approaching and could be heard in the distance. Getting out on the track, and pursued by the ever nearing train, Miss Caskey flew on wings of fear for the child, but without a thought of self, and finally breathless and almost at the end of her strength she gathered the child in her arms and swept her off the track just as the engine flashed by. Hardly the margin of a second separated her from the awful death which threatened both. The engineer, a Mr. Pardee who was a veteran railroad man of eighteen years' service failed to see the small child, and stated that he expected Miss Caskey to leave the rails at every moment, and remove herself from the danger. When he finally discovered the baby ahead he reversed the engine and applied the brakes, and this very brief pause was probably just sufficient to enable the girl to get out of the way in

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safety. For her bravery Miss Caskey received from the McNeil Under- writers Association, a beautifully inscribed and embossed medal, made from one hundred dollars worth of pure gold. In recognition of her brave and unselfish act there was also given her a bronze medal from the government with a letter from President Taft. The engineer, Mr. Pardee, stated afterwards, considering all the circumstances, that it was the bravest act he had ever witnessed or read of. 8. Minnie D. lives at home, and is a member of the high school class of 1915. Mr. and Mrs. Caskey and all the children are active in church work, and belong to the Christian denomination in Fairmount. In politics Mr. Caskey is a Democrat.

WILLIAM (WICK) O. LEACH. There are many families of Grant county who have lived here through three generations,-the first having come as pioneers, the second having carried on the development through the later decades of the last century, and the third now bearing the heat and burdens of the day, but under conditions far more pleasant than those surrounding their predecessors. With fewer obstacles to contend with, this third generation is in many cases showing all the greater progressiveness and enterprise and is wresting crops from the land which would have astonished their grandfathers. It is to this modern generation that Wick O. Leach belongs, and his name in Fairmount township suggests farming on a big and profitable scale, along lines of the maximum productiveness consistent with the proper conservation of the resources of the soil for the future yield.

Mr. Leach is cooperating with his father in the management of a farm of two hundred and sixty acres, situated in sections three and thirty-four of Fairmount township. That is acknowledged as one of the best country estates in the township. To a great many people it is familiar under the name of Maple Grove farm. Some of its more conspicuous improvements are two large red barns, one of them a stock barn, and the other for the storage of grain chiefly. A ninety- ton silo is a further evidence that farming on the Leach homestead is conducted according to modern principles. One of the barns has ground dimensions of thirty-six by forty-two feet, and the other thirty- eight by sixty-two feet. Mr. Leach allows very little land to go to waste, and practically every bushel of grain produced on the farm is fed to his stock. A fine drove of red Duroc swine is one of the sources from which he gets his annual revenues, and he also keeps a good dairy herd of ten Jersey cows. His horses are both Percheron, Norman and Belgians. Mr. Leach believes in the rotation method of cropping. His wheat is nearly thirty bushels to the acre, his oats about forty bushels, and his corn yield is on the average of about sixty bushels. Other crops which are a part of his rotation scheme are alfalfa and clover, and at the present writing he has twelve acres in alfalfa and twenty in clover. Mr. Leach has managed this estate for four years on his own account, and is one of the young men who are proving that it pays to stay on the farm.

Wick O. Leach has lived in Grant county all his life, and was born on the farm he now occupies, October 25, 1879. He is the son of Charles M. Leach, a grandson of Edmond Leach, and a great-grandson of William Leach, all of a family which has been identified with Grant county from pioneer times, and the careers of these older members are described elsewhere in this volume. Wick O. Leach was reared and educated in Fairmount township, getting a public school training. He attended Grant school No. 3, which is located on his farm. When he was twenty-four years of age, on October 25, 1902, he married in

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Jonesboro, Miss Dolly C. Jones. Miss Jones was born in Fairmount township, June 25, 1876, a daughter of Hiram A. and Annie (Hardy) Jones both natives of Jefferson township in Grant county. The Jones family is likewise of pioneer Grant county stock, and its records are found written on other pages. Mrs. Leach was educated at the old Liberty school, district No. 7.

Mr. and Mrs. Leach have the following children: Hazel M., born June 14, 1903, and now in school; Hiram A., born December 14, 1907; Charles Kenneth, born December 5, 1909; and Robert O. born October 30, 1911. Mr. Leach has membership in the Baptist church, while his wife belongs to the Salem Methodist Protestant Society. In politics he is a Democrat.

ALEXANDER M. DEEREN. This name bespeaks a large family relation- ship with pioneer settlers in eastern Indiana, chiefly in Delaware, Madi- son and Grant counties. The Deeren, Van Meter and Suman families had their share in pioneer things, agriculture has been their chief vocation, and an examination of the records show them to have been staunch de- fenders of their country, upholders of morality and religion, and people of intrinsic neighborliness and usefulness.

The late Alexander M. Deeren, who died July 3, 1896, was born in Guernsey county, Ohio, April 14, 1839. He grew up in his native lo- cality, and when a young man enlisted in an Ohio regiment for three months' service in the Civil war. At the end of his service he was hon- orably discharged, and then returned to Ohio. Some time later he moved to Grant county, and followed the occupations of school teaching, clerking in a store, and farming.

He was first married in Jefferson township of Grant county to Melissa Brown, who was born and reared in that township, coming of a family of early settlers. She died about five years after her marriage, at the age of twenty-five, leaving three children, Minnie, Annie, and Martha E. Minnie and Annie are twins. Both married and now live in Jefferson township. Minnie married Charles Curtis, a farmer, and they have one son and a daughter. Martha E. was one year old when her mother died, and she was reared by her stepmother, Mrs. Deeren, and has never married.

In Fairmount township, on March 26, 1876, Mr. Deeren married Mrs. Naomi L. Suman, nee Van Meter. Mrs. Deeren was born in Dela- ware county, Indiana, July 11, 1838, was reared there, and for her first husband was married on November 1, 1859, to Absalom Suman. Absalom Suman's father was born in Maryland, was a young man when he came west to Indiana, and lived in both Madison and Delaware counties. Absalom Suman was born in Madison county, Indiana. The Suman family were among the early settlers in that section. After their mar- riage Mr. and Mrs. Suman lived in Madison and Delaware counties on a farm until March 3, 1864, when they came to Grant county and bought one hundred acres of land in Section thirty-six of Fairmount township. Their land adjoined the present village of Fowlerton. It was on that farm that Mr. Suman spent the remainder of his days. A hard worker, he made many improvements, and prospered steadily. His death oc- curred January 24, 1874, and he was born December 10, 1838. His church was the Methodist Protestant. Absalom Suman was a son of John and Elizabeth (Van Meter) Suman, natives of Maryland and Ohio respectively. John Suman was an early settler in Madison county, Indiana, where he entered land from the government, getting two hun- dred and seventy-five acres on White River, for his homestead, and two hundred and sixteen acres farther up the river in Delaware county,

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north of the village of Daleville. On the Delaware county land, he erected a large flour and saw mill, and that enterprise was just well started at the time of his death. He was then past sixty years of age. His widow married for a second time Dazzell Neely, and they lived together until his death. She later went out to California, where her death occurred when past ninety years of age. They had no children by the Neely marriage.

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Centennial History of Grant County Indiana, Part 14

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

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