USA > Indiana > Decatur County > History of Decatur County, Indiana: its people, industries and institutions > Part 112
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To Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Webster Elliott were born seven children, namely: Mrs. Minerva Alice Gardner, born on September 27, 1865: Mar- ion Monroe, a farmer, February 9, 1868; Cora May, November 18, 1870, married a Mr. Gant and lives at Columbus; Mrs. Rozenia Anderson, July 31, 1873. lives near Hartsville in Bartholomew county; Harry Clinton, March 19, 1876, lives in Elizabethtown, Indiana; Mrs. Lucinda Isophene Tremain lives at Adams : Mrs. Lena Osthimer lives at home.
Mrs. Elliott has thirteen grandchildren, a's follow : Mrs. Minerva Gardner has three children, Agnes Collins, Olsa and Dora; Mrs. Cora Gant has four children, Audrey, Guy, Gertrude and Kenneth: Mrs. Rozenia An- derson has three children, Garnet, Hazel and Opal; Harry has one daugh- ter. Thelma: Marion has one son, Lester, and Lucinda has one daughter. Margaret.
The late Daniel W. Elliott was a Democrat. He was a member of the
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Methodist Episcopal church, and was active in church work throughout his life, and was a steward at Wesley Chapel. He joined the church in Jan- uary, 1876, during the pastorate of Reverend Lathrop. Mrs. Elliott is a refined and cultured woman, a woman of exquisite tastes and one who is possessed of a keen sense for the beautiful. She is especially well known in Jackson township, as was her husband during his life.
JOHN S. OWEN.
A native Hoosier son, John S. Owen has been for many years a farmer in Jackson township, Decatur county, Indiana, where he and his sister own the old Owen homestead, comprising a hundred and twenty acres. He is one of a large family of children, of whom two brothers fought valiantly in the cause of their country during the Civil War, one of them giving up his life on the field of battle. These early days were associated with the first struggles of the Republican party, and with its first candidate elected to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln. It is not, therefore, surprising that he has been a Republican. His early recollections are associated with the enlistment of his two brothers and with their service during a period in which the new party and the beloved man it had elected to the chief execu- tive office of this land were on trial.
John S. Owen, now a well-known farmer and the joint owner of one hundred and twenty aeres of land in Jackson township, was born on Sep- tember 13, 1847, in Fayette county, Indiana. His parents, Thomas and Mahala (Walker) Owen, were natives of South Carolina and Pulaski county, Kentucky, respectively. The former was a son of Edward Owen, a native of Scotland, who came to this country with his parents and settled in South Carolina in pioneer times. Thomas Owen was one of a large family of children, who made his way northward from South Carolina to Indiana, and here married. In 1849 he settled on a farm in Decatur county. This farm was located in Jackson township, and here he built a log cabin, and proceeded to establish a home in the wilderness. Some years later, in 1866, he built a frame house. Two of his sons, William and Ander- son, served in the Civil War. William, who enlisted in Company D, Sev- enth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, was killed on June 18, 1864, at the assault on Petersburg, Virginia. Anderson was a private in Company E, Thirty-seventh Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry. Other children
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of Thomas and Mahala Owen, several of whom died in infancy, were Mrs. Polly Johnson, deceased; Louisa, who is the housekeeper for the subject of this sketch, and who with him owns the old home farm; Mrs. Matilda Jolin- son, of Greensburg; Thomas, deceased; Mrs. Fannie M. Lett, of California, and Richard M., who lives on the home farm. Thomas Owen died in Feb- ruary, 1884, at the age of seventy-seven, his wife surviving fourteen years and passing away at the age of eighty-four in 1898.
John S. Owen has always lived on the home farm, and until the death of his parents cared for them tenderly in conjunction with his beloved sis- ter. Mr. Owen is a good farmer and has a highly productive farm in this township, a man honored and respected by the people of his community, devoted to all good works and all worthy public enterprises. Although an ardent Republican, he has held only minor township offices. He is a mem- ber of the Free and Accepted Masons No. 36, at Westport. Neither Mr. Owen nor his sister, Miss Louisa Owen, has ever married.
JACOB LESLIE THURSTON.
Since the creation of the office of advisory board in Indiana some fif- teen years ago, a board whose purpose it is to keep tab on the expenses and expenditures of the county and township. it is a known fact that in the men who have been elected to fill this office the farmer as a class has been far in the majority. The farmer as a class is often the butt of the humorist and is the stock in trade for the slapstick actor and the funny- column writer, but when it comes to filling a place that is of particular importance from the standpoint of substantial honesty, the farmer is most often the man chosen, and so when Jackson township wanted a man of par- ticular honesty and substantial worth to fill a vacancy on her advisory board, she choose Jacob Leslie Thurston.
Jacob Leslie Thurston was born on November 4, 1869, one mile northi and one mile east of where he now resides, and when he was eighteen months old his father moved to the present site of the home of Mr. Thurs- ton in Jackson township.
Jacob Leslie Thurston was the son of William and Mary Jane ( Evans) Thurston. William Thurston was born on November 26, 1838. and died on September 11, 1897. and his wife, Mary Jane (Evans) was born on January 23, 1845, and died on August 27, 1897.
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William Thurston was the son of Lewis Thurston and Martha (Birch) Thurston. Lewis Thurston was born on January 1, 1806, in Pennsylvania, and came to Indiana when quite young and settled in Jackson township, where, on November 14, 1830, he married Martha Birch, who was born in Indiana, on May 31, 1813. To this union were born ten children, six sons and four daughters, namely: Elizabeth, who was born on August 15, 1831; Charles, January 14, 1834; Mary, August 31, 1836; William, the father of the subject of this sketch; Enos, July 4, 1841; Sarah, September 26, 1845 ; Benjamin, January 26, 1845; Thomas, December 19, 1848; Emily, May 28, 1852, and Morgan, January 24, 1854.
Lewis Thurston was one of the very earliest settlers in Decatur county and at the time of his death he was the owner of a fine tract of two hundred and seventy-five acres of land. William Thurston, who was the fourth child of Lewis Thurston, and the father of the subject of this sketch, was born and reared in Jackson township, and was the owner of two hundred and fifty-three acres of land. He was an active and stanch churchman and was an elder in the Christian church for many years. He married Mary Jane Evans on October 8, 1863.
Mary Jane Evans was the daughter of Ratcliffe and Melissa Lane (Vailes) Evans, who were married on August 7, 1829, and who were the parents of the following children: Laban, Daniel, Mary Jane, John Russ, Martha Ann, Sarah Ellen, James, William Calvin, Melinda Emeline, Thomas and Charles.
William Thurston was the father of the following children: Martha Helen Fear, who is the wife of S. W. Fear; an infant son, who died on March 29. 1866; Edward, who was born on April 23, 1867; Jacob Leslie, the subject of this sketch; Charles, March 31, 1874, and who is now de- ceased ; Clarence, July 22, 1882, and who is now deceased, and Ora, Jan- uary 6. 1892.
Jacob Leslie Thurston was educated in the common schools and began. at the age of twenty-two, to do for himself. He farmed on his own initia- tive on his father's farm for three years, and then, on January 12, 1895, he was married to Mabel E. Anderson, and they continued to live for another year with Mr. Thurston's parents, and then built a small cottage, in which they lived until the Thurston parents died, and the home place was then sold, and they purchased a portion of this (one hundred acres), on which Mr. Thurston, practically with his own hands, built one of the most bean- tiful farm houses to be found anywhere. This house is equipped with its
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own gas plant for lighting, with a water system, and it is heated by a fur- nace. A fine orchard is near the house.
Mabel E. (Anderson) Thurston, the wife of Jacob Leslie Thurston, was born in Bartholomew county near Clifty Falls on March 15, 1873. She was the daughter of Combs and Margaret Tetrick, natives of New Jersey and Ohio, respectively. Margaret Tetrick died on January 3, 1877, and her husband died on April 18, 1911.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Leslie Thurston are: Ruby May, who was born on March 25, 1897, and was graduated from the Greensburg high school in the class of 1915, and Marion Earl, who was born on Novem- ber 6, 1899, and who is now in the Waynesburg high school.
Mr. Thurston takes great interest in local politics and affiliates with the Democratic party. He was elected a member of the advisory board of Jack- son township in 1914. He is a deacon in the Christian church of Waynes- burg, and is a man of power and influence in his community.
NICHOLAS ANDERSON.
No farmer of Jackson township is better known than Nicholas Ander- son, who has lived on the farm he now occupies for a period of forty-one years. He has lived in this community a life of rare consecration, not only to his life's vocation, but of rare consecration as well to the interests of his neighbors and fellow citizens generally. He has lived to rear three children. who are well established in homes of their own and have families of their own. He has assisted his children to get a start in the world as only a kind, loving and wise father could do. He and his good wife have always been hard workers and, as a consequence of their frugal living, economy in many lines and saving, they have prospered until now they have, aside from the help they have given their married children, a substantial competence which will keep them in comfort the rest of their lives.
Nicholas Anderson was born on October 1, 1844, in Jackson township. two and one-half miles north of Alert in a log cabin, the son of Charles and Lottie (Gross) Anderson, the former of whom was born in New Jersey. He was the son of Nicholas Anderson, the first to come to Decatur county at the time of the "Fallen Timbers" or during the thirties. Here he entered land and cleared it of the timber, establishing a home in the wilderness. Here Charles Anderson was reared and married to Lottie Gross, the daughter of
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Frederick Gross, a native of Germany, who came to this country when his daughter Lottie was a mere infant. Charles and Lottie Anderson had six children, of whom Nicholas, the subject of this sketch, was the eldest. The other children were Fred, John, Charles, Catherine and Margaret. John and Margaret are deceased. Charles makes his home with his brother. Nicholas. Catherine married a Mr. Irvin and lives in Nebraska. The mother of these children died in 1861 and after her death Charles AAnderson married Mrs. Louisa Coleman. By this marriage there were five children: Mrs. Mary Etta Tremain, of Columbus; Annie, who lives in Kokomo; William, who resides in Connersville: Mrs. Cora Swartz, of Hope: and James, who lives at Alert.
On February 8, 1877, Nicholas Anderson was married to Hannah L. Carson, who was born on October 22, 1858, in Geneva township, Jennings county, Indiana, the daughter of David and Hannah (Bennett ) Carson, the former of whom was a native of Pennsylvania and the latter a daughter of Samuel Bennett, a nobleman and excise officer, who, displeased with the government, left England quietly in 1820 and settled in Jennings county, Indi- ana. There he purchased over six hundred acres of land and became, within a few years, a famous leader of the people in his community. He was a justice of the peace for many years and, being a man of education and rare intelligence, transacted for the settlers of Decatur and Jennings counties all of their legal business. David Carson was the son of Hiram Carson, of Pennsylvania, who came to Jennings county in 1831.
Hannah L. Carson was one of eight children born to her parents, she being the seventh. The others were as follow: George, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, who served three years and eight months in the Sixty-eighth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War; James B., of near Celina, Kansas; Dr. C. H., who died in Kansas City, Missouri; Mary A., deceased ; David Taylor, deceased; Elizabeth, the wife of D. F. Shera, of Columbus ; and Mrs. Rachel Galloway, of Jackson township.
Mr. and Mrs. Anderson have lived on their present farm for thirty-eight years together and Mr. Anderson has lived on it for forty-one years. He bought his first tract of forty acres in 1874, when he had only five hundred dollars, paving fifty dollars an acre for the land. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are the parents of three children, namely: George E., who lives in the north- western part of Missouri, married Edith Strader and has four children, Jeannette, James, Marguerite and Mildred ; James D., of Jackson township, who married Mollie Beesley and has two children, Beatrice Elizabeth and Ruth Helen; and Leroy, who died in 1915. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson have
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given each of the two married sons forty acres apiece and, including the land which has been given to the sons, they have owned three hundred and forty acres altogether. Eighty acres of the farm land belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Anderson is located in Bartholomew county.
Democracy it seems is a political prepossession of the .Anderson family, the family having been Democrats for several generations, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are members of the Christian Union church. They have done their part not only to promote the physical development of the soil of Jackson township, Decatur county, but they have done their part to develop a whole- some and interesting community spirit. Mr. Anderson is a man of strong convictions and a leader in his neighborhood. He is a man whose opinions and belief are respected by all who know him.
SAMUEL KELLY.
The burdens of the Civil War were not alone on the men who went out in the field to fight, but often on the mothers and children who were left at home and in too many cases were orphaned and widowed. The immediate burdens of war are scarcely ever as terrible as the subsequent burdens that are .inflicted on its victims. Many a son is compelled in his early youth to take up the family burdens of a father lost in war. Such was the case of the subject of this sketch, Samuel Kelly.
Samuel Kelly was the son of John W. and Harriet ( Russell ) Kelly. natives of West Virginia, who came to Decatur county at the time of their marriage. John W. Kelly enlisted in the Eighty-third Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry and contracted measles at Memphis, Tennessee, in 1865. and died. Harrie: ( Russell) Kelly died in 1901.
John W. and Harriet ( Russell) Kelly were the parents of six children. all now deceased except Samuel and Matthew. There were three sons. Samuel. Joshua and Matthew, and three daughters, Minerva, Mary A., and Anna.
Samuel Kelly, after his father's death, lived with Matthew Kelly, a great-uncle of his father, south of Waynesburg until he was twenty-one years old. He then took employment in Columbus for a year with Mooney & Company, tinners. He then married and settled two years in Grant county and then came to Alert and engaged in a profitable nursery business which he conducted until 1912, when he sold out this business and engaged in the grain
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and coal business in Alert until in the spring of 1914, when he again sold out his business and worked for the company to which he had sold until Novem- ber at which time he was elected to the office of township trustee for Jackson township. His term of office was not to begin until in January of 1915, but on account of the death of Trustee Evans, he was appointed to fill the vacancy caused by Evans' death and so began his duties as township trustee at once.
Samuel Kelly has been an active worker in the Democratic party in Jackson township for many years. He has served as township chairman of his party and was elected and re-elected to the office of township assessor for a period of ten years and was four years a deputy in this office. He is always present at township and county conventions of his party and has served more than once as a delegate to state conventions. He is a member of the Methodist church, and is an active and loyal lodge man, holding mem- bership in the following fraternal organizations; the Free and Accepted Masons, of Alert and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Westport.
Samuel Kelly was married on March 16, 1880, to Cynthia A. Hamilton, a native of Decatur county, and the only living child of William and Nancy Hamilton, who came to Decatur county from Kentucky and settled in Sand Creek township.
Samuel Kelly is a fair type of the citizen who has struggled against hardships and has won a position of trust and influence among his neighbors.
JAMES HAMLIN SHAFER.
One of the well-known farmers of Jackson township, the proprietor of "Maple Leaf Farm," located one-half mile south of Alert, a man who is well known in this part of Decatur county, and who comes from an old family, is James Ilamlin Shafer.
James Hamlin Shafer, who was born on the old Shafer homestead in a covered log house on May 21, 1853, is the son of a pioneer Methodist minister in this section, Rev. Daniel W. Shafer, who was born in 1817 and who died in April, 1897. He was a native of Franklin county, the son of John Shafer. of Pennsylvania, and came to Decatur county with his father at the same time the father of W. M. Shafer came here. James H. is a cousin of W. M. Shafer, of Westport. After coming to Jackson township about 1848, the Rev. Daniel W. Shafer became a prosperous and well-to-do citizen of this
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community. He assisted in the building of Wesley Chapel and also of Mt. Olivet, located near his home, as well as in the construction of several neigh- boring churches, all of which he served as a minister. Before the breaking up of the Whig party, he was firmly attached to the principles of this party and when the Republican party was organized, he became a Republican and remained so all of his life. In 1878 he built a fine large house which is now occupied by his son. The home of James H. is just across the road from the old Shafer homestead, and the log house in which many members of the family were born and reared is partly standing today. Rev. Daniel W. Shafer married Audriah Shera, a native of Ireland, who was born in 1815 and who died in August, 1892. They were the parents of six children, all of whom are living : William Glover, a veteran of the Civil War, who lives in Kansas City, Missouri; John Whitmore, who lives at St. Paul, Minnesota ; Mrs. Eliza Ann McGaughey, of Rogers, Arkansas; Sarah Ellen Shafer, of Indianapolis; Mrs. Julia Frances White, of Albany, Indiana ; and James H., the subject of this sketch. At the time of his death, Rev. Daniel W. Shafer owned one hundred and sixty acres of land and his son, James Il., received a sixth interest in this estate and, after eighty acres were sold, purchased the interest of the other heirs in the remainder. He has fifty-eight acres of land in his present farm and one hundred and sixty acres in Colorado. In 1910 Mr. Shafer and his wife went to Colorado and homesteaded a quarter sec- tion of government land. It is a splendid farm and is located near Ft. Morgan, Colorado.
James Hamlin Shafer received a liberal education early in life and for seven years was a teacher in the public schools of Decatur county. His edu- cation having begun in the common schools of Decatur county, it was finished in Hartsville College.
On April 20, 1886, James Hamlin Shafer was married to Kate Wright, who was born on September 6, 1860, near Burnsville in Bartholomew county. She was the daughter of John H. and Ann (Brown) Wright, natives of Delaware and Ohio, respectively. Both are now deceased, the father having died in August, 1892, and the mother on April 21, 1885. Mrs. Shafer's mother belonged to the Randall family, an old and wealthy family of Revolu- tionary ancestry. Mrs. Shafer had four brothers in the Civil War: Dr. Charles H., who died near Madison, Indiana, and who was an orderly ser- geant ; George Washington, who was captain of an Indiana company: John Francis, who was a teacher for many years and who was a corporal in the Union army, now lives at Topeka, Kansas; and James Kellogg, who was also a soldier and who died at the age of twenty-two years. Mrs. Shafer also
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had two sisters: Mrs. Mary J. Shafer, the wife of William Shafer, of Kan- sas City ; and Sidney Ann, who died in 1910.
With the exception of nine years in which Mr. Shafer was engaged in the furniture business at North Vernon, he has lived on his present farm practically all of his life. James Hamilin and Kate (Wright) Shafer are the parents of seven children. as follow : Daisy B., who is at home; Edna A., who is a teacher in the Amora schools; Lloyd Hamlin, who was a student in Moores Hill College and was graduated with the class of 1915; Ruth, who is a teacher at Sunman, in Ripley county ; Sydney Daniel, who is a student at Moores Hill College; Olive and Irene, who are students in the school at Alert. Mr. Shafer's eldest son served one year in the United States army.
Mr. and Mrs. Shafer have lived to rear a splendid family of children and one of which they have every reason to be proud. All of the members of the family are bright and capable young men and women who will undoubtedly achieve for themselves marks of no small importance. In Jackson township, the Shafers are well known for their interest in education, Mr. Shafer having been during all of his life, one of the ablest and ardent exponents of public education. The Shafer family stands very high in this community.
CALEB STARK WRIGHT.
Few men now living in Clay township, this county, have exerted a wider or more beneficent influence therein than Caleb Stark Wright, former town- ship trustee and one of the most prosperous and progressive farmers in the western part of Decatur county. Mr. Wright has a fine farm of one hun- dred and fifty-three acres in Clay township, on which he has erected one of the best farm houses in this part of the state, his home being one of the pleasantest and most delightful homes thereabout. The mammoth barn and large silo, together with the other outbuildings on the place, bespeak the enter- prise of the owner and attest his excellent business qualities: for Mr. Wright looks upon farming as a business instead of a mere haphazard proceeding in which the elements of nature are expected to relieve the tiller of the soil of any responsibility in the matter. The hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Wright is of that type so often referred to as real "old southern hospitality," and their home is one of the most popular gathering places in that whole neighborhood. In his public service Mr. Wright placed Clay township under a debt of obliga- tion which never properly can be paid and his fellow citizens hold him in
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the highest esteem, his counsel and advice being sought generally on matters of public concern. He is warmly interested in the educational affairs of the township and during his administration of the office of trustee devoted the most thoughtful care to the interests of the schools, it being his theory that in the education of the children none but the very best and most approved methods should be employed. It was during his administration that the fine high school building at Burney was erected and the people of Clay township are unanimous in the declaration that the schools of the township were very largely advanced by reason of his constant application of sound business principles thereto.
Broad in his views and liberal in his dealings with his fellow men, Mr. Wright has a well-deserved popularity in the part of the county in which he resides, this popularity having been proved upon the occasion of his election to the office of trustee. Though the head of the Republican ticket carried the township by a majority of about thirty-five, Mr. Wright, who stood for elec- tion on the Democratic ticket, was elected by a clear majority of twenty- seven votes, amply attesting the esteem in which he was held. The same broad business policies enter into his transactions in connection with his extensive farming interests. Ile believes in handling only pure bred stock and his sales of live stock prove the soundness of his judgment in this direc- tion, his stock invariably bringing fancy prices ; a policy which has proved highly profitable to him. Mr. Wright has his own gas well on his farm and the question of light and heat, so far as he is concerned, is thus effectually solved. Energetic, industrious and capable, Mr. Wright, now in the sixth decade of his life, finds himself quite well circumstanced and capable of enjoy- ing life to the full. Full of the zest of living, he takes a close interest in current affairs and is fully informed on all matters of public concern, being a most entertaining conversationalist and a right genial gentleman.
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