USA > Indiana > Decatur County > History of Decatur County, Indiana: its people, industries and institutions > Part 75
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.After three years in Pennsylvania, Richard Mulroy left Pittsburgh and came to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, by boat. From Lawrenceburg he walked to Indianapolis where he remained for four or five years, during which time he was engaged in railroad construction work, making Indianapolis his headquarters.
In 1857 Richard Mulroy was married to Bridgett Barrett, who was
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born in 1823 in Ireland in County Mayo within forty miles of the birth- place of her future husband. Born on the west coast of Ireland, she came alone to America in 1856, and after landing in this country canie direct to Greensburg, Decatur county, Indiana, where she had a sister living, Mrs. John Riley, with whom she made her home until her marriage in 1858.
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Mulroy came to St. Paul in 1858, where her husband lived until her death in 1906. He died on June 2, 1915, at the age of ninety years. During his entire active life he had been engaged in rail- road construction work and in stone quarries. He had been retired only five years. In fact, in 1914, at the age of eighty-nine, he planted and culti- vated a large garden. He was a stanch Democrat in politics, and a member of the Catholic church, as was his good wife also. They had four children. Anthony B., the subject of this sketch, of St. Paul; Edward, of St. Paul; Anna, who lives at home, and Margaret, who died in infancy.
Anthony B. Mulroy, who was born in St. Paul one year after his par- ents removed to this town, was educated in the common schools and when he was thirty-two years old, engaged in stone quarry work. At this time he was married to Henrietta Avey, the daughter of Daniel Wilson and Melissa (Pence) Avey, natives of Shelby county, Indiana, and old, well- established and highly respected citizens of this section.
As late as 1914 Anthony B. Mulroy was engaged in railroad construc- tion and stone quarry work. In October of 1914 he purchased the grocery and mercantile business of William Kelso, of St. Paul, and is today engaged in business for himself. He handles a complete line of dry goods and gent- eral merchandise. Within a comparatively short time he has built up a large trade in this community. Mr. Mulroy is a popular citizen and one with whom the people of this community naturally like to trade. He has been honorable and upright in all his relations with the public, and upon this basis his business has grown since he took possession.
Mr. and Mrs. Mulroy have had one son, John A. Mulroy, who was born on January 1. 1899. He was born on Sunday morning, the first day of the week and the first day of the year. Luck seems to have been with him, as he has never been sick a day since his birth. He is a young man of rare promise and is popular in this community. Having graduated from the common schools in 1914, he is now a student in the freshman year at the high school at St. Paul.
In a beautiful residence of St. Paul, Mr. and Mrs. Mulroy have their home. Formally speaking, Mr. Mulroy is a Democrat, but he is not quite so stanch a Democrat as was his father in his earlier years. Mr. Mulroy
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places the welfare of his country above the success of his party. He is a progressive citizen of the substantial and solid type and has a host of friends in this community. All his life has been spent in St. Paul. As a conse- quence of his industry and good management he has accumulated a sub- stantial competence and now owns considerable property in this section.
JAMES B. DAVIS.
An enterprising and successful farmer of Decatur county, Indiana, who lives three miles southeast of Burney, now living retired, and who has succeeded in life as a consequence of his own persistent industry and good management, is James B. Davis, a man who believes strongly in principles of right and justice, and who during his long life in this county, has been regarded as one of its very best citizens.
James B. Davis, who was born in 1848, in Union county, Indiana, is the son of Isaac and Martha (Barr) Davis, the former of whom was born in Butler county, Ohio, in 1803, the son of James Davis, Sr., who married Mary Taylor. They were natives of New Jersey. Mary Taylor was of Scotch-Irish origin, and James Davis was of German parentage. They were among the earliest settlers in Union county, Indiana, and lived the greater part of their lives in that county. They were very prosperous farmers, and at the time of his death. he owned approximately one thousand acres of land. They had eight children, of whom Isaac Davis, the father of James B., was the seventh child. He was born in Butler county, Ohio, and about 1803, when Isaac was born, the family removed to Union county, and there entered land, where they spent the remainder of their lives. Isaac Davis was a successful farmer and owned several hundred acres of good land at the time of his death. Until 1856, when the Republican party was organ- ized, he was a Whig, and he affiliated with the party of Lincoln, and remained loyal to it all the rest of his days. He was more of a patriot than a partisan and always had at heart the best interests of his country.
Isaac and Martha (Barr) Davis had eight children, of whom James B. is the fifth child. The father died in 1858. James B. Davis lived at home and worked on the farm until he was twenty-two years of age, when he removed to Decatur county, Indiana, and purchased a farm in Jackson township. In 1873 Mr. Davis was married to Martha C. Ewing, who was the daughter of Patrick and Lydia ( Morgan) Ewing.
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The Ewing family is one of the oldest and most prominent in Decatur county, and is descended from one Patrick E. Ewing, who emigrated to America from Ireland some time during the War of the Revolution. On the voyage a son was born, and on account of kindness shown to him by General Putnam, he was named for the general and to this day the name has been kept in the family. On Patrick's arrival in America, he settled in Maryland, near the Susquehanna river, some forty miles from Baltimore, where he died. His family consisted of four sons, Samuel, Joshua, Nathaniel and Putnam. The first three settled in Virginia, where they became prominent citizens. Their descendants have since migrated to Ten- nessee and Missouri, and have attained considerable prominence in different states. Putnam Ewing remained in Maryland until some time after his. marriage to Miss Jennie McClelland. the daughter of Doctor McClelland, of that state, and then came to Bourbon county, Kentucky, in 1806. Subse- quently, he settled in Bath county and there lived and died. He had ten children, namely : Robert, Patrick, Joshua, Polly, Samuel, Jennie, James, Eliza, George McClelland and Andrew Jackson. It was the Patrick Ewing of this family who was the father of Mrs. James B. Davis. He was born in Cecil county, Maryland, in 1803, and was three years old when brought by his father to Kentucky. He remained on the farm in Kentucky until after his marriage to Lydia Morgan, of Montgomery county, Kentucky. He was a member of the state militia of Kentucky and was married in September, 1826, to Miss Morgan. About 1827 he came with his wife and infant daughter to Decatur county. He was a hardy son of illustrious ancestors and was a man of exceptional native ability. He accumulated a large tract of land in this county.
Mrs. James B. Davis is a woman of rare intelligence and one whose conversation sparkles with wit and humor. She had only the meager advantages of the pioneer public schools as far as an education is concerned, but she is a woman of great native ability, and one does not have to listen to her conversation long before discovering this wonderful native ability. Her children can be justly proud to have for their mother a woman of her intelligence.
.After the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Davis, they lived in Jackson town- ship on a farm until 1883, when they sold out and purchased the farm they now live upon, three miles southeast of Burney. In the early years of their married life they had the usual experiences of the pioneer citizens. They lived in a log cabin for the most part, and both remember keenly the hardships. of this early life.
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Mr. and Mrs. Davis have had three children, George was born in 1874, and is a farmer in Decatur county; William, in 1875, and is engaged in farming with his brother, George, and Della is the wife of Samuel Hanks, who lives three miles northwest of Burney and who is a prosperous farmer. Della has one child, Mary C. Hanks. George and Will Davis lived on the farm at home until George was twenty-eight years old, when he decided to begin life for himself. At that time the parents gave to the sons, George and Will, a farm of one hundred and twenty acres with an incumbrance of some two or three thousand dollars. This was no small load, even for mature shoulders, but by industry and shrewd management they cleared the farm of indebtedness in sixteen months' time. They have prospered pro- portionately ever since, and are now large dealers in live stock. Their home is called "Bachelors' Hall."
James B. Davis had always been identified with the Republican party until 1912, when the new Progressive party was formed, with which he affiliated. He is a man who is little impressed by political parties or party emblems, but believes it is his duty, as a citizen, to support superior men and superior measures, rather than to cast his vote blindly without regard to platforms or principles, or the moral standing of the party's candidate. The sons are like their father in this respect. They are well respected in this community and favorably known.
Mr. and Mrs. Davis have lived honorable and upright lives and have set a worthy example for their children and for their friends in this com- munity. No word of suspicion has ever attached to the character of James . B. Davis. He is a manly man and a true Christian gentleman.
GEORGE S. CRAWFORD, M. D.
In the historical and biographical annals of any section, a review of the lives of leading physicians is interesting not only because of the pro- fessional service which this honorable body of men perform, but because, as a general rule, physicians attain the rank of leadership in public move- ments and public enterprises. This may be true because, aside from their professional education, their standard of intelligence and their breadth of information and sympathy are such as to uphold ideals which the various members of the community emulate. No one can ever take the place of the physician in the affection of the family or in the home, neighborhood, town or
George & branford CHO.
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city. To some extent the physician is the arbiter between life and death and upon his skill depends frequently the very endurance of human life. When the art of the good physician fails and life flows out, he, neverthe- less, remains as the comforter of loving and dear friends in times of sorrow and distress. No one can measure his influence, since it is of a most inti- mate and personal kind. Dr. George S. Crawford, a well-known physician of Milford, this county, who has practiced his profession forty-one years in this community, is the very type of man to attain a position of proud eminence in the community life. Day by day, week by week and year by year, he has gone about the homes of Clay and adjoining townships doing his duty in a professional way; but, what is far greater and grander, doing his duty as a sympathetic-minded friend and man.
George S. Crawford was born, on December 23, 1852, in Lawrenceburg, Dearborn county. Indiana, the son of Rev. James and Hannah F. (Robinson) Crawford, natives of New York and Madison, Indiana, respectively. When Doctor Crawford was an infant only three days old, he was bereft of the loving tenderness and care of a fond mother by her untimely death, and he was taken in charge by Mrs. Owensby, who had just lost her baby by death, and was reared by her until he was two years of age, the Owensby's home having been in Crawfordsville, this state. Subsequently, Rev. James Crawford remarried. his second wife having been Kate Woodfill, a sister of James M. Woodfill, of Greensburg, and after his death his widow made her home with Doctor Crawford. in Milford, for twenty-five years. Rev. James Crawford was a pioneer Methodist minister, had a large circuit in this section of the state and, during his life, filled many appointments. He was a man of noble and generous impulses, whose life seemed to be devoted to the service of his fellowmen.
When he was old enough George S. Crawford attended the typical Hoosier schools and there obtained the rudiments of a liberal education, later pursuing his education in Moores Hill College. At the age of twenty- one he was graduated from the Indiana Medical College at Indianapolis, and upon his graduation, came to Decatur county, locating at Milford, where he established himself in the practice of his profession. There he has remained for forty-one years, during which time he has built up one of the largest practices of any physician now living in Decatur county.
Doctor Crawford was not married until rather late in life. His wife, to whom he was married on July 6. 1898, before her marriage was Frances Olive Blackmore, who was born on October 19, 1867, on a farm five miles
(50)
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west of Greensburg, the daughter of Lawrence O. and Frances W. (Wallace). Blackmore, natives of Shelby county, Kentucky, and Rockbridge county, Virginia, respectively, the former being the son of Owen W. Blackmore, of Shelby county, Kentucky, who came to Decatur county, Indiana, in 1835. Mrs. Crawford's wife's mother was the daughter of John and Jane (Quig- ley ) Wallace, natives of Virginia, who moved to Decatur county in 1837 and settled in Washington township. This, was only two years after the coming of the Blackmores, who lived only a mile east of the Wallace farm.
Doctor and Mrs. Crawford have had no children. They are prominent in the social life of Clay township and both are well known in Greensburg and popular there. Both are members of the Presbyterian church at Greens- burg. Dr. Crawford is a member of the Masonic fraternity, having joined this lodge at Milford many years ago. He is a member of the Decatur County Medical Society and the Indiana State Medical Association. He is a Republican and one of the most uncompromising of men as far as his political belief is concerned. He believes in the principles of the Republi- can party and believes that this party is best equipped from tradition and from its record of past usefulness to administer the affairs of this govern- ment. A man who believes this as strongly as does Doctor Crawford is naturally well settled in his political belief. He is a grand and useful figure in the community where he has lived and worked so long and enjoys the universal confidence and esteem of the people.
JAMES M. SHORTRIDGE.
Among the better known and older citizens of St. Paul, Indiana, is James M. Shortridge, formerly a well-known hardware merchant of this community, who is now living retired. However, he devotes considerable time to the business of W. W. Townsend, a dealer of this place, and acts as a bookkeeper for him.
James M. Shortridge was born on November 6, 1849, in Johnson county, Indiana, the son of John and Ellen ( Smock) Shortridge, the former of whom was born in 1822 and who died in 1899. The father was a native of Wayne county, Indiana, the son of George Shortridge, Sr., a native of Kentucky and an early settler in Wayne county. The parents of Ellen Smock were also natives of Kentucky. Her mother died in 1885 at the age of over ninety years.
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The parents of James M. Shortridge moved to Greenwood and retired late in life and there died. The farm located near Greenwood, Johnson county, was purchased by James M. and his brother, George, and was farmed by the latter until his death. There were three children in the Short- ridge family, George, now deceased; Mrs. Vandelene Washard, of Green- wood, and James M., the subject of this sketch.
When a lad of twenty-two years, James M. Shortridge became a brake- man on the Pennsylvania railroad and followed this occupation for four years. He then took up carpentering and house building in his home local- ity and also worked for the railroad as a carpenter. He was for four years employed by the Lake Erie & Western railroad as a bridge carpenter.
On November 26, 1879, Mr. Shortridge was married to Allie Martin, of St. Paul, the daughter of Ralph Martin, an early settler of Decatur county. After his marriage, Mr. Shortridge engaged in the hardware busi- ness. He bought out the store owned by John Buell and remained in busi- ness for thirty years, having been very successful. In 1909 MIr. Shortridge sold out the business. He has extensive real estate holdings in St. Paul, owning a two-story brick building on Main street, a one-story stone build- ing and residence property. He also has two lots and fifty-five acres of farm land, beside other personal investments.
Mr. and Mrs. Shortridge have had four children, Elmer, who is a motorman on the Indianapolis & Cincinnati Traction line and is a machinist by trade; Mrs. Hazel Clark, of Indianapolis; Irene E., who is a teacher in the public schools and lives at home, and Helen, who also lives at home and is a student in the high school.
James M. Shortridge was reared a Republican as was his father before him, but late in life the father voted the Prohibition ticket. Mr. Short- ridge voted for Horace Greeley and was a Democrat until 1896, when he refused to subscribe to the free-silver doctrine of the Democratic party and voted the Republican ticket, which he has voted ever since. Mr. and Mrs. Shortridge are members of the Christian church, in which he is a trustee. Fraternally, he is a member of the Free and Accepted Masons and is a mem- ber of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Masons of Indianapolis and also the Murat Temple, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, at Indianapolis. He is a member of the Baldwin conunandery and the Knights Templar at Shelbyville. In May, 1915, he attended the golden jubilee of the Scottish Rite Masons at Indianapolis. In addition to these fraternal relations, Mr. Shortridge is a member of the Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks No. 475, at Greensburg.
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Of Mr. and Mrs. Shortridge's children, Elmer married a Miss Hess and has one child, Priscilla. Mrs. Hazel Clark also has one child, June Ellen.
It will have to be admitted that the life of James M. Shortridge has been a distinct and unqualified success, that he has accomplished a reason- able measure of the things he set out to do, and that, in his declining years, he may enjoy the comforts of life without the necessity of the toil which characterized his earlier years.
JOHN JOHNSON.
The Union soldier during the great war between the states builded wiser than he knew. Through four years of suffering and wasting hard- ship, through the horrors of prison-pens and amid the shadows of death, he laid the superstructure of the greatest temple ever erected and dedi- cated to human freedom. One of Decatur county's highly respected citizens who had a part in this memorable struggle is the venerable John Johnson, a retired farmer of Burney. He remembers very well the Polk and Tyler campaign.
John Johnson is the son of Richard and Fannie (McKee) Johnson, the latter of whom was a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1805. Richard Johnson was born in Kentucky in 1799, and, after emigrating to Indiana, settled near Vevay, Indiana, in Switzerland county, the home of Colonel Welsh and Edward Eggleston. He died in 1857 in Decatur county, Indi- ana, thirty-two years after coming to Decatur county, where he entered land near the town of Burney. He made the trip with an ox team in a covered wagon, camping in the woods on the way. At the side of a giant poplar tree he and his wife built a log cabin, where they lived when John Johnson was born. Decatur county was an unbroken forest at the time, there being no roads and scarcely any paths. Such as were used and passable were designated by marked trees. The wolves were thick in this county at the time and many a time chased the father of John Johnson into his cabin. On one occasion a deer came up to the Johnson cabin with the cows.
At the outbreak of the Civil War the venerable John Johnson tried to enlist under Colonel Welsh in the Seventh Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, but was rejected on account of his eyesight, being blind in one eye. He then joined the Seventy-sixth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry,
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by resorting to a trick. In order to get past the inspection officer he changed sides with a man next to him and was successful. The Seventy-sixth Regi- ment performed valiant service in Kentucky. Mr. Johnson for the most part performed scouting and picket duty.
After the war, Mr. Johnson came back to Decatur county, and resumed farming on the old Johnson homestead, entered from the government by his father. This tract, originally comprising one hundred and sixty acres, was later enlarged by the addition of forty acres, making two hundred acres in all. He lias always been a farmer and very successful in a business way. At the present time he is living with his youngest daughter.
In 1871 Mr. Johnson was married to Sarah Jones, a daughter of the Rev. Preston Jones, and a native of Decatur county. Mr. and Mrs. John- son have had two children, namely : Mrs. Lilly (Johnson ) Miers, the wife of Willard Miers, and Fannie, a teacher in the Burney schools, who lives with her father.
Mr. Johnson's father was a Whig politically, but upon the organization of the Republican party identified himself with that political organization. John Johnson, who was formerly a Republican, now is a Prohibitionist. For many years he has been prominent in the fraternal circles of this sec- tion, being a member of the Masonic lodge at Milford and a charter member of the Knights of Pythias lodge at Burney, Indiana. On March 4, 1913, Mr. Johnson had the misfortune to lose his wife, who passed away quietly, and whose remains are buried at Milford. At the present time he is in fair health only, but nevertheless his mind is clear and active and he has a vivid and accurate memory of the many stirring incidents of his life. He has been a useful citizen in this county and a man who well deserves the respect, which, in his declining years, is showered upon him by the people of Clay township.
JOHN T. CUSKADEN.
John T. Cuskaden, postmaster at St. Paul, Decatur county, Indiana, farmer, school teacher and real estate dealer, prominent Democrat and public-spirited citizen, was born on July 6, 1858, in Clay township, south- east of Milford, the son of George W. and Charity ( Bartley) Cuskaden.
The paternal ancestry of John T. Cuskaden came to America from Ireland. George W. Cuskaden was a native of County Donegal, Ireland, who came to America about 1850. IIe landed in New Orleans, and after some wandering located in New York city, where he became an Irish linen
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peddler. This was the foundation of his business fortune, which has been one of more than ordinary success. After peddling and walking across the country he finally landed in Greensburg, where he abandoned his pack and went to work on a farin for Hi Alley, for whom he worked some one or two years, after which he was married to Charity Bartley in Jasper county, Illinois.
After his marriage George W. Cuskaden purchased eighty acres of land in Illinois. He came back to Decatur county and began the usual life of a man on a rented farm in Clay township. After renting land for about two years, he purchased a farm just west of Milford, comprising one hundred acres, and located on the Shelby county line. Here. he lived for about ten years, when he sold out and moved to Oregon. After remaining in Oregon a year, he came back to Indiana and purchased a large farm in Shelby county, Indiana. A few years before his death, which occurred in March. 1914, he traded the Shelby county farm for city property in Shelbyville, where he lived the last years of his life.
George W. Cuskaden was a prominent Democrat in Shelby county, and was honored with four terms as county commissioner of that county. He was a man of keen perceptions and had a broad knowledge of human nature. He was a member of the Episcopalian church. His good wife, Charity Bartley, was a native of Shelby county, born near St. Paul and the daughter of Jonathan and Elsie (Allen ) Bartley, of Shelby county. The Allens of Shelby county are descended from early settlers in this part of the country who came from Massachusetts. They brought with them from old England considerable pewter plate which was later molded into bullets for self-defense. The present Cuskaden family has in its posses- sion only one plate of this original collection. George Washington is sup- posed to have been served on this plate while in Trenton, New Jersey, some time during the Revolutionary War, by Mrs. Cuskaden's Grandmother Allen.
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