Centennial History of Grant County Indiana, Part 69

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

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John Kearns was born at Jonesboro in Mill township May 13, 1863. He represents an Irish family, whose founder arrived in this country an emigrant entirely dependent on the work of his hands, and who eventually acquired a place of influence as a citizen of Grant county, and was the owner of the estate now cultivated by his son. John Kearns has spent all his life in Mill township, and lived with the family for thirty-five years before he became owner of his present place. His parents were Thomas and Anna (Murphy) Kearns, both of whom were born in County Mayo, Ireland. His parents on both sides lived and died in their native land, and were tillers of the soil. The Kearns family stock is noted for its long lives. The father of Thomas attained to the wonderful age of one hundred and eight years. The religion of the family in all the various generations has been Catholic. Thomas Kearns, one of a family of children, was born in 1809, and in 1848 came to America. The sailing vessel on which he was a passenger encountered rough seas and variable winds, and was three months and thirteen days in crossing the Atlantic. When it landed its pas- sengers at New Orleans, the boat itself had several times narrowly escaped shipwreck, and its passengers and crew were suffering from ship-fever, and all of them nearly starved. Thomas Kearns was so weak when the vessel arrived at dock, that he had to crawl ashore on his hands and knees. He recovered and came north up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, and soon found work in railway construction labor in Ohio. For that hard manual toil he got fifteen dollars a month, and from those wages accumulated the little fund which gave him his real start in the world. Subsequently he came to Grant county, and here was employed in building ditches and digging wells. He was not only an industrious, but an economical man, and with his earnings finally went back to New Orleans to marry the girl whom he had known in Ireland, Miss Anna Murphy. After their marriage they came to Grant county and located at Jonesboro, where Thomas Kearns con-

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tinued his work and built up a prosperous business as a contractor for ditch and well digging. The accumulations from that business were finally invested in the one hundred and thirty-two acres of land now owned and occupied by his son. Thomas Kearns died near Gas City, in February, 1886, and his wife had passed away on the site of what is now Gas City in July, 1871. Her death occurred about the time Gas City was laid out and started as a village. Thomas Kearns owned sixty-two acres of land included within the present limits of Gas City, and he sold that to the company which started one of the best known little cities in the gas belt. Thomas Kearns and wife lived and died in the faith of the Catholic church. Their children were: Kate or Katherine, who is unmarried and lives on a farm in Mill township with her brother Joseph; Grace, who also lives with Joseph; William, who is unmarried and is in Illinois; Sadie, who is employed in Marion, but has her home with her brother Joseph in Gas City; Thomas, was acci- dentally killed near his home on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and was unmarried.

Mr. John Kearns was married in Gas City to Miss Maggie Riley, who was born in County Mayo, Ireland, about 1870, and when a young woman, seventeen years of age, she came alone to the United States and located in Grant county, where she has lived ever since. She is the mother of five children, namely : Thomas, Joseph, William, John, Michael. All but the youngest are of public school age. Mr. and Mrs. Kearns worship in the Catholic church, and in politics he is Inde- pendent.

ALFRED M. CURRY, An industry which more than any other has brought a large prosperity to Upland both in the way of population and increased means of supplying their wants, is the Upland Flint Glass Bottle Company. This company established its plant in Upland in the fall of 1911. Its superintendent and general manager is Alfred M. Curry, one of the best men in his business who has a practical knowl- edge of bottle making. in all its details, having become a glass blower's apprentice in boyhood, and having proved not only a skill in the trade but also an ability as a director of men. This corporation has its prin- cipal offices in Chicago, and the chief officers are Chicago men, as fol- lows: A. M. Foster, president; E. G. Foster, vice president; W. C. Forbes, secretary; E. N. Peterson, treasurer. The Upland plant has been working steadily since it was established, and has a large product, aggregating about six hundred gross of bottles every day. The bottles are of many sizes and sorts, and much of the output is of the finer grade required by apothecaries. The plant never stops operations either night or day, and about two hundred men and boys find their means of livelihood at this industry.

Alfred M. Curry has been with the company for a number of years. For six years he was one of the local officials in the company's plant at Mill Grove, Indiana. His practical experience in the glass and bot- tle making business covers about eighteen years. Mr. Curry was born in Hartford City, about fifty years ago, was reared and educated there, and since 1895 his activities have been chiefly centered at Mill Grove, at Mt. Vernon, Ohio, and at Upland. He was assistant superintendent at Mill Grove for the Foster Company.

Mr. Curry is a son of Aaron S. and Eliza (Ewing) Curry. His father, who was born at Columbus, Ohio, in 1823, was married at Old Steubenville, in Randolph county, Indiana, to Miss Ewing, who was born near Red Key, Indiana, in 1832. In Randolph county, Aaron Curry followed his trade as a tanner, and a short time before the war

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VICTOR FARM, SIMS TOWNSHIP, HOME OF MR. AND MRS. LEWIS C. PENCE

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located in Hartford City. A few years after the war he gave up the tanning business and moved to his farm at Mill Grove, where he lived until the death of his wife in 1890. After that he spent a number of years at his old home in Columbus, Ohio, and then returned to Indiana, and died at the home of his son in 1905. Alfred Curry is one of quite a large family, five sons and one daughter being still living, and all are married, and all are farmers except him.

Mr. Alfred M. Curry was married in Blackford county, Indiana, nearly thirty years ago to Miss Susan Edwards, who was born in Blackford county, Indiana. They are the parents of four children, as follows: Clyde E., a clerk in the office of the Upland Bottle Company, is a graduate of the Marion Normal College and the business college in the same city, and by his marriage to Mazie Bullock has one child, Rod- ney Earl. Murle who was educated in the Normal College at Marion, spent four terms in teaching, and is now the wife of D. D. Zimmerman of Muncie. Maybelle, educated in the Mill Grove High school and at the Normal college is a teacher of music in Upland. Mr. Curry's par- ents were active members of the Methodist church and he and his own family worship in the same denomination. In politics he is a Repub- lican and fraternally is affiliated with Wabasset Tribe of the Improved Order of Red Men at Mill Grove.

LEWIS C. PENCE. Now nearing the age of threescore and ten, Lewis C. Pence has spent all but about three years of his lifetime in Grant county, and is one of the best known of Sims township citizens. He has given his energies with successful results to farming, and is one of the men who had practically nothing to begin with and yet have established an enviable prosperity, and are now accounted among the most substan- tial men of their community. Mr. Pence has a fine farm located in sec- tions twenty-seven, twenty-eight, thirty-three and thirty-four of Sims township, this place being known all over the western half of the county as Victor Farm, located a mile south and a mile west of Swayzee, on the Curless extension gravel road. Although the farm lies in three sections the land adjoins.

Lewis C. Pence was born in Champaign county, Ohio, April 18, 1844. His parents were David and Anna (Smith) Pence. The father was born in the State of Virginia, April 3, 1813, and came to Ohio when a young man, where he met and married his wife, who was a native of Champaign county. In the fall of 1847, they moved from Ohio to Grant county, locating in Sims township, where the father entered eighty acres of wild land from the government. He was a man of great industry, and added to his first holdings, until at one time he possessed six hun- dred acres of land. Throughout this part of Grant county he enjoyed a large acquaintance and the respect of the entire community. He was one of the liberal supporters of the primitive Baptist church, and in politics a Democrat. He and his wife had thirteen children, six of whom are living in 1913. To each of his children he gave a start in life and helped them to acquire homes of their own. The living children are Andrew J .: Lewis C .; John S., of Sims township; C. G. of Swayzee; David S., of Sims township; and Mary E., wife of Josephus Gowin, whose home is near Wichita, Kansas.

Lewis C. Pence was reared on the old homestead in Grant county, attended a private school as a boy, and as a boy began working and giving all his attention to the farm. He continued at home until he was twenty- one, and in September, 1865, married Miss Mary J. Mauller, who was born in Grant county, and educated in the schools of this locality. In 1865 they moved to the farm in section thirty-four which has been the

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home of Mr. Pence to the present time. He started with eighty acres, and is now owner of two hundred and nineteen acres. It is well improved land, is ditched and drained, and has first-class buildings, and is culti- vated to the most profitable degree. Of the two children born to Mr. Pence by his first wife, one only is living, Anna U., wife of L. E. Hum- mell, of Sims township, and Vieva, wife of David Knull, of Sims town- ship, is now deceased. After the death of the first Mrs. Pence, Mr. Pence, on April 24, 1874, married Christina Gowin, who was born in Ripley county, Indiana, was educated in the public schools and is a capable home-maker and very popular in social circles in Sims township. To this union have been born six children: Daisy May, wife of C. I. Goble of Sims township; Ernest, who married Pearl Outland of Sims town- ship; Winnie E., deceased; Emma P., wife of Joe Malston of Howard county ; Raymond V., a student in the University of Indiana; and an infant that died unnamed. Mr. Pence is a deacon in the primitive Bap- tist church, and in politics is a Democrat. For eight years he held the office of justice of the peace. He is one of the stockholders in the First National Bank of Swayzee, and enjoys the thorough respect of the busi- ness community.

J. E. SMITH. Few men have been able to devote themselves to two lines as widely diverging as those that have held the attention of J. E. Smith, of Gas City, Indiana, and accomplish real success in either or both of them. This, however, has been the unusual fortune of Mr. Smith, who as general agent for the Pennsylvania lines, with head- quarters at this point, is no less successful as a writer of feature arti- cles and short stories. Numerous magazines and journals have brought forth special articles from his pen, and the Railroad Man's Magazine especially has shown itself interested in his work. For seventy con- secutive months this publication has featured a four thousand word article of Mr. Smith's, and in addition to liberal remuneration for his work, the journal has given unstinted praise for the originality and general literary merit of his productions, which have made them so desirable in their columns. The Black Cat and other fiction magazines, equally well known have published his short stories, and he is recog- mized as one of the successful journalists of the times. It should he stated here that Mr. Smith devotes only his spare hours to this work, which has been a pastime with him rather than a business, and his duties with the Pennsylvania lines have had their full share in his attention.

Mr. Smith is a native son of Indiana, born near Greentown, in Howard county, Indiana, and he is a son of Reuben W. and Matilda E. (Franklin) Smith. The Smith family is one of the oldest of American families, and the line of descent from the first of this particular branch of the widespread Smith tribe is much as follows: John Smith, of English ancestry, about one hundred years ago settled in Richmond, Indiana, and he was there known as the first general merchant and blacksmith in the place, as well as being almost the first settler. He was one who had much to do with settling the community, and history has accorded to him his proper place in the annals of his time. His son Robert was followed by another, John, who became the father of Dr. Reuben Smith, father of J. E. Smith of this review. Thus is established, without going deeply into biography and history, the line of descent from the first John Smith of Richmond, Indiana, to J. E. Smith whose name initiates this review, and who has, like his ancestors, been identified through all his life with the state of Indiana.

Reuben Smith was a graduate in medicine from the Ohio Medical

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College at Cincinnati, and while there he met and married Matilda E. Franklin, a resident of that city. She was a woman of many talents, brilliant and pleasing, and it is generally believed that it was the mother who endowed Mr. Smith of this review with those literary tal- ents that would not be denied expression, and which have already brought him a generous measure of prominence in the literary and journalistic worlds. She was a daughter of Benjamin Franklin, who carried out the traditions of his honored name by identifying himself with the printing business, and was long known as the editor of the American Christian Review of Cincinnati. He was a direct descend- ant of Joseph Franklin, a brother of Benjamin Franklin, of undying name and fame, and was one of the most estimable and honored men of the city in his day.

Dr. Reuben Smith was for a good many years located at Converse, Indiana, where he was engaged in medical practice. He was born in Henry county, this state, and he died in Converse, Indiana, when he was sixty-three years of age. He was a man of many excellent qual- ities of heart and mind, and performed his full share in the humani- tarian labors that fell to the lot of the small town physician. When he died he was mourned of many, and his name is yet living in the communities where he was known during his active years.

J. E. Smith was born in Howard county, near Greentown, Indiana, in 1862, and he gained his early education in the public schools of his native community. He did not receive any training beyond that of the common schools, and his literary ability has thus proven itself to be a latent and not a cultivated talent. He has always been a student and a thinker, and has devoted much of his spare time to reading and study until he launched out into his literary efforts that have proved so successful. He has been in the employ of the Pennsylvania lines since he was twenty yers of age, and various places have represented his headquarters. For six years past he has been located at Gas City as general agent of the company, and he has held a position of trust with them practically through all the thirty years of his identification with the corporation.

Mr. Smith began his literary work as a contributor to the Railroad Man's Magazine, of the Frank A. Munsey Company, and he has pro- gressed steadily into other fields in recent years. As a fiction writer he already has a secure reputation, and his feature articles are sought by many journals who devote space to that class of work. Character sketches have found artistic handling by him and his descriptive work is excellent in its quality and tone. Mr. Smith has added very materi- ally to his income as a result of the few hours he spends monthly in this work, and as an avocation it has the added virtue of being remun- erative as well as pleasant.

In 1884 Mr. Smith was married at Bunker Hill, Indiana, to Miss Katherine Mowry, who was there born and reared, and to them have been born four children. Mrs. Smith is a daughter of Henry Mowry, a prominent and prosperous farming man of Bunker Hill vicinity, now deceased. The mother of Mrs. Smith was in her maiden days Miss Sarah Dice, of Peru, Indiana, who came of one of the earliest fam- ilies of that city, having had its location and establishment there as long ago as during the building of the Erie Canal.

The four children of Mr. and Mrs. Smith were as follows: Donald M., born in 1886, and died in 1899; Dorothy, born in 1890, and died in 1895; Dwight Mowry, born in 1893, and Donalda, born in 1900, are now students in the public schools.

It can hardly be said that Mr. Smith is allied to any particular

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church or political party. He seeks to do what little good he can as he passes along, and gives his time and efforts to the uplifting movements of his day. He regards the final state of perfection of the human race as a slow but sure evolutionary process that is often retarded rather than accelerated by hard and fast connections either religiously or politically.

WILLIAM T. S. STRANGE. One of the fine country homes of Grant county, which for years has given a distinctive character of prosperity and well ordered enterprise to the country life of Monroe township is the Joshua Strange farm, now occupied and managed by William T. S. Strange, a son of the foremost citizen who for so many years has filled a large place in Grant county affairs and who now lives retired in the city of Marion. The son has all the spirit of enterprise of the modern stock farmer, and his own career has been remarkably suc- cessful.

The estate on which he lives is situated in section ten, and com- prises one hundred and sixty acres of land. His first home farm, which he still owns is in section three of Monroe township and con- tains a little more than seventy-two acres of land. Mr. Strange is engaged in the cultivation and operation of five hundred and twenty acres, owned by his father Joshua Strange. He carries on farming on a business-like basis, and the Strange estate produces every year boun- tiful crops both in grain and stock. Mr. Strange has at the present writing, twenty-eight horses, twenty-eight cattle, seventy hogs, and markets about eighty hogs each year. During 1912 his crops amounted to three thousand bushels of corn, thirty-two hundred bushels of oats, sixty tons of hay. His residence is known as the Joshua Strange House, a fine old brick building fronting the roadside, and nearby is a large bank barn, with a generous equipment of other outbuildings. The progressiveness of Mr. Strange as a farmer, and an indication of his success is the fact that he uses a Cadillac automobile for both business and pleasure. On his upper farm of seventy-two acres, he also has a good house and outbuildings.

William T. S. Strange was born on the Strange farm in section eleven of Monroe township, August 13, 1866, a son of Joshua and Eunice (Leonard) Strange. The career of his father, and many inter- esting items concerning the Strange family, will be found on other pages of this publication. The son was reared in Monroe township and as a boy attended the school known as District School House No. 2. That school house, which he attended as a boy, and about which so many of his memories center, is now standing on the home farm and is used as a grain house. For many years the building stood in the vil- lage of Arcana, and was not only used as a school, but also was the meeting place for the Arcana Lodge of Masons for many years. At the age of twenty, Mr. Strange began farming on his father's old home place in section thirteen, where he lived for two years. He then bought seventy-two acres of land in section three, and that was the scene of his industrial labors until the fall of 1903. At that time his father moved to Marion, and the son took his place as active manager of the estate.

In politics Mr. Strange is a Democrat, and attends the Disciples church. He is affiliated with Van Buren Lodge No. 496, K. P. In 1886 he married Miss Josephine Nelson, a daughter of John W. Nelson. They are the parents of five sons and three daughters, and this fine family of children are mentioned as follows: Cecil is the wife of Roscoe Smith, living one mile north of her father. Ancil J., born

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August 24, 1888, educated in district school No. 2 and the Upland high school for three years, and also attending the Marion Normal for two terms, has taken up farming as a regular vocation, and is now occupying his father's old estate of seventy-two acres. Ancil J. Strange married on May 9, 1912, Miss Brook Camblin, a laughter of John C. Camblin of Van Buren township. The third child is Curtis Orr, who is in the creamery business in Van Buren township. He was born August 3, 1890, and was educated in district school No. 2, Upland and then spent two years in high school and two terms in the Marion Normal. On June 9, 1912, he married Miss Edna Merrill of Van Buren, a daughter of Mrs. Lena Merrill. Donald lives at home at the age of nineteen and. has recently graduated from the Van Buren high school. Lydia is a graduate of the Monroe township schools in the class of 1913. Merritt, George, Alta, and J. Herbert complete the fam- ily circle. The daughter Cecil was for two years a student in the Marion Normal College and Mrs. Curtis Strange for four years taught in Van Buren township, and the wife of Ancil J. Strange was also a teacher for four years.

ASA NORDYKE WIMPY. Those who know him best think of Asa N. Wimpy, teller in the First National Bank, as a member of the Jona- than Hockett family (see Friends Church Chapter), in which he and his brother Francis H. Wimpy were reared. There have also been two half-brothers: Henry T. and William, and four half-sisters: Myda, Lillian, Eva Myrtle, and Edith. His mother Sarah (Hockett) Wimpy died when he was two years old, at the birth of Francis H. Wimpy. The father, Robert F. Wimpy, married again and died at Winchester, and the older Wimpy boys and his second family of chil- dren did not grow up together, and they do not often meet. Francis H. Wimpy met an accidental death, January 25, 1907, and thus A. N. Wimpy is the only representative of his father's family now living in Grant county. The two older Wimpy boys, Asa and Francis grew up on a Mill township farm, and their aunt, whose life story is else- ·where told, was as a mother to them. Mrs. Esther Hester had a sad bereavement herself, and these two nephews were her consolation. She cared for them and educated them as if they had been her own children.

The grandfather, Jonathan Hockett, was a typical Friend-the sort of Quaker whose word was as good as his bond. The Hockett and Ellis families were all related, and all came about the same time into Grant county. They came direct from Ohio in 1853, Jonathan Hockett having come from North Carolina, crossing the Allegheny mountains the day he was twenty years old. The institution of slavery was very distasteful to him, and when he located west of Jonesboro he was right in a hot-bed of anti-slavery sentiment, and he had his part in under- ground railway affairs.

A. N. Wimpy has not departed from his early training, although his life has been cast in a different mold from that of his grandfather, Jonathan Hockett. Mr. Wimpy entered Fairmount Academy, Sep- tember 24, 1885, the day it was opened for the reception of students, and he was in the first graduating class receiving all its training in the academy, and taking the full three years' work, previous gradu- ates having had other credits before entering the Academy. Those who graduated in 1888 with Mr. Wimpy were W. W. Ware, and Dr. Milo Ratliff. He later graduated from the Teacher's Department of the Marion Normal College, earning this college degree by attending school in the vacation time while teaching, which profession he followed for Vol. II-30

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eleven years. Before entering active business life, Mr. Wimpy gradu- ated from the Indianapolis Business University and he is well qualified as an accountant, bank clerk and teller.

On December 24, 1896, Mr. Wimpy married Miss Millie Small (see sketch of Otto Small), who was a Marion high school graduate in the class of 1891, and who came of Orthodox Friend training. They are active in the First Friends' church, Mr. Wimpy serving as an elder and member of the meetings of ministry and oversight. For several years he was superintendent of the Sunday school. Two children, Orville Robert and Sarah Marie, have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Wimpy. Their home is at 616 West Sixth street in a house built by them, and Mr. Wimpy now owns the Jonathan Hockett farm where he was reared, and where he has had one tenant fifteen years.

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Centennial History of Grant County Indiana, Part 69

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

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