History of Fayette County, Indiana : her people, industries and institutions, Part 104

Author: Barrows, Frederic Irving, 1873-1949
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis, Ind. : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1326

USA > Indiana > Fayette County > History of Fayette County, Indiana : her people, industries and institutions > Part 104

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To Hiram and Mary (Curtis) Shipley one child has been born, a daugh- ter, Elsie, who married Wilbur Gibbs and lives at Fairview, this county. Mr. and Mrs. Shipley are members of the Christian church at Fairview, as is their daughter, and Mr. Shipley for years has been the superintendent of the Sun- day school of that church, both he and his wife taking a warm interest in general church work.

ALVIN F. BARROWS.

Alvin E. Barrows was born in Dorset, Vermont, on February 9, 1843, and died at his home in Connersville, July 12, 1913. He was the son of Milutus Barrows, who was the son of Experience Barrows, who was the son of Solomon Barrows, who was the son of Lieut. Thomas Barrows, who was a son of Robert Barrows, who was the son of Robert Barrows, who was a son of John Barrow or Barrows, who arrived in Plymouth colony, Massachusetts, in 1637. His mother, Lucina Gray Barrows, was a daughter of Susannah Cleveland, who married Alvin Gray, she a daughter of Job William Cleve- land, a Revolutionary soldier, the fifth generation from Moses Cleveland, who came to New England in 1636 from Ipswich, England, who is also an ancestor of Grover Cleveland.

alvin, 6, Barrow sour

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The name Alvin, it may be seen, was derived from his grandfather, Alvin Gray, while the middle initial stood for Experience, the name of his other grandfather, Experience Barrows, who was the son of Lucretia Wales Barrows, she the daughter of Capt. Nathaniel Wales, an officer in the Revolu- tionary War, and Grace Brewster Wales, who was the daughter of Damaris Gates and William Brewster, who was the son of Elizabeth Witter Brewster and Benjamin Brewster, who was the son of Lydia Partridge Brewster and William Brewster, who was the son of Sarah Collier Brewster and Love Brewster, who was the son of Elder William Brewster, oldest and most dis- tinguished of the Pilgrims on their arrival in America.

Milutus Barrows, the father of the subject of this sketch, was twice mar- ried, first to Lucretia Gray, and afterwards, when she died, leaving a family of small children, to her sister, Lucina Gray, who was the mother of Alvin E. Barrows. When he was about seven years old, the family moved from near Dorset, Vermont, to Chautauqua county, New York, and were residing there at the outbreak of the war. In 1861 Alvin was employed on an oil derrick, just over the line in Pennsylvania. His father had been more or less active in the abolition movement, and upon the call for seventy-five thou- sand volunteers, he quit his job and went home for permission to enlist. At the battle of Fair Oaks, Virginia, he was severely wounded, barely avoiding the amputation of his left leg at the knee. In the same year he was again wounded. At the battle of Chancellorsville, where he was taken prisoner, he was officially commended for conspicuous bravery. He served a short time in Libby prison, but his conduct had won for him such attention as secured his speedy release. He served in the army more than four years, in the Seventy-second, One Hundred and Twentieth and One Hundred and Twenty-sixth New York Volunteers. When the war was over, he returned to his home in New York and attempted to do carpenter work and farm- ing. This his lameness made impossible, and he drifted into mercantile pur- suits, being for a time employed in the general mercantile business, but very soon turning to the business of writing life and, later, fire insurance. For forty years he was a successful fire underwriter, never ceasing this activity until, on June 9. 1913, he was stricken down at his desk. In 188t he left West Farmington, Ohio, where he had commenced in the insurance business, coming to Connersville, Indiana, and purchasing the insurance agency of Ignatius Zeller, forming a partnership with Charles B. Sanders, under the firm style of Sanders & Barrows. Until 1884 this partnership continued,

(67)

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when it was succeeded by the firm of Fearis & Barrows, which continued until 1887, when Col. J. H. Fearis withdrew to move to Minneapolis, Minne- sota. Mr. Barrows then associated himself in business with the late Charles Mount and the late Major Francis T. Roots, under the firm name of Mount, Roots & Barrows. The interest of Messrs. Mount and Roots was bought later, and for a number of years he did business under his own name until he transferred his business to the corporate form in which it now stands, The A. E. Barrows Company, with himself as president and treasurer and his son, Frederic I. Barrows, as secretary. It has thus continued for a number of years. In 1887 Mr. Barrows closed up the affairs of the stocking mill, act- ing as assignee of the Keatley Stocking Company. At the inception of the Fayette Banking Company he was one of the original partners, continuing with it and its successor, the Fayette National Bank, until 1906, when he sold his stock and became the vice-president of the Central State Bank. Later he succeeded to the presidency of this bank and was active in the discharge of his duties until the beginning of his last illness.

For many years Mr. Barrows had been a close friend of the late William Newkirk, by the terms of whose will he was made joint executor with James M. McIntosh, of Indianapolis, a trust which he was executing up to the time of his death. Perhaps the business activity which brought him in .closest touch with the people of Connersville was his long and honorable service as a building association officer. Mr. Barrows was a pioneer in Connersville in providing means for home building to persons dependent on weekly sav- ings. In 1886, with Dr. A. M. Andrews, Thomas Downs, R. G. Wait and others, he organized the Connersville Building and Loan Association. This was an association of the old style where all the shares matured at one time. It was organized with a very limited membership and with great difficulty because there was local prejudice against building associations. The associa- tion, of which Mr. Barrows was always the secretary, was so satisfactorily managed that a year later a series association, the Fayette Savings and Loan Association, was established. As the first association met in Mr. Barrows' office on Monday nights, the new association met on Tuesday, for he was secretary for both. More than a quarter century has passed since the first association was organized and as it paid out it was compelled by its charter to disband. The second kept on maturing some twenty-five series, until, at Mr. Barrows' suggestion, it modified its rules to adopt the individual or per- petual plan. It now has assets in excess of half a million dollars, a monu- ment of faithfulness, persistence and prudence.

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In 1871, while living in northeastern Ohio, Mr. Barrows was married to Mary A. Peck. She was the daughter of Caroline Merriman Peck and Burton Peck, both of New Haven county, Connecticut, the latter being the son of Morab Moss Peck and John Peck, who was the son of Jerusha Hall Feck and John Peck, who was the son of Mary Parmalee Peck and Samuel Peck, who was the son of Susannah and John Peck, who was the son of Mary Moss Peck and John Peck, who was the son of Elder William Peck, one of the earliest New England settlers and a founder of New Haven. To this union were born four children. Frederic I., Burton Milutus, Caroline Lucina (Dixon) and Josephine. These, with two brothers, George A. Barrows, of Denver, Colorado, and Charles E. Barrows, of Greenville, Pennsylvania, and the children of his son, Burton M. Barrows, Marian, Joseph B., and Cath- erine, are the only members of his immediate family surviving.

Mr. Barrows had been, during nearly the whole of his life, an active member of the Methodist Episcopal church and on its official board for about thirty consecutive years, being both a trustee and chairman of the board of stewards. Mr. Barrows was always an active Republican, though never an office seeker. He served two terms as township trustee because two of his good friends, Charles Roehl and Moses Kahn, tied for the nomination, and then withdrew and asked him to be a candidate as a compromise.

At his death, the editor of the Connersville News wrote the following personal tribute. under the heading "\ Worthy Citizen": "In the passing of Alvin E. Barrows from this stage of action, Connersville and vicinity loses from its social, its business and its industrial life a unit of striking outlines. Since 1881 this man had been an active, steady, certain force in local affairs. His early life, and his army record especially, offer some glimpses of a powerful character. These were fully sustained by the life of Mr. Barrows here, and they present but a single aspect of a temperament of more than usual distinctiveness. Perhaps no man in Connersville was clearer of any suggestion of effeminacy than was .A. E. Barrows. Serious minded, his intellect bent itself. engine-like, to the work he set himself to do. The light, the frivolous, the foolish he would neither suffer in himself nor tolerate in cthers. His business in the world was to do things. Thus it came about that many a casual eye perceived the rugged husk which encased the actual man, and mistook the exterior for the entirety. Under the cloak of what might be taken for a blunt manner, there was a warmth of sentiment in A. E. Barrows which, undemonstrative as it was, was deep and earnest and forever

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in its place. Without the suggestion of ostentation, he was a deeply religious man. Without being loud, he was a patriot of the highest type. Without bold pretense, he was generous and philanthropic. Without a hint of weak- ness, he was no stranger to the truest and most enduring of affections. Thus it happened that Mr. Barrows' truest friends were those who knew him fully, rather than those who merely met him. But in the circle of those who were able to see and interpret the depths of his personality, he had such friends as men of superficial makeup never know.

"Rugged, tenacious, severely methodical and unbendingly honest, Alvin Experience Barrows long ago compelled for himself a high place in the affairs and in the eyes of men. This place, by the sheer might of him, he held to the end of his life. The recollection of his virile manner and uncom- promising self-reliance somehow lends a peculiar depth. of pathos, for who- ever really knew him, to the realization that his work is done and that he is gone."

SCOTT E. CALDWELL.

Scott E. Caldwell, one of Harrison township's best-known and most progressive young farmers and the proprietor of beautiful "Caldwell Home Farm" in the southwest quarter of section 33 of that township, a tract that has been in the possession of the Caldwells from the days of the beginning of settlement hereabout, is a native son of Fayette county and has lived here all his life. He was born on a farm in section 32 of Harrison township, the place now occupied by Cleve Caldwell. March 24, 1881, son of Enoch and Sarah Jane (Scott) Caldwell, both now deceased, who also were natives of Indiana, the former born in this county and the latter in the neighboring county of Wayne. .

Enoch Caldwell was born on the pioneer farm now owned and occu- pied by his son, the subject of this sketch, October 27, 1833, son of Joseph and Asenath ( Powell) Caldwell, the former of whom was born in Preble county. Ohio, August 15, 1809, a son of Joseph and Miriam Caldwell, natives of North Carolina and members of the Society of Friends, who became numbered among the earliest settlers of this county and here spent their last days. The elder Joseph Caldwell was a son of James Caldwell, who was born in 1749, and who, in company with his son came over into Indiana Territory in the winter of 1811-12, locating in Fayette county, where

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for a time the Caldwell family found protection against the threatened depredations of the Indians in the old block house that had been established on the present site of the city of Connersville. On August 31, 1813, Joseph Caldwell entered from the government a tract of "Congress land" in the southwest quarter of section 33 of Harrison township and there established his home, he and his wife spending their last days there, active and influen- tial pioneer residents of that part of the county. Their son, Joseph, was about four years of age when they settled on that homestead tract and there he grew to manhood, thoroughly familiar with pioneer conditions of living, and in turn established his home on that farm, remaining a farmer and stockman and becoming prominent and influential in the affairs of that neighborhood. He was several times elected to offices of public trust and in many ways made his influence manifest for good. He cast his first Presidential vote for General Jackson and voted with the Whigs until the formation of the Repub- lican party, when he became an earnest adherent of the principles of that party and so remained the rest of his life. As a member of the Baptist church he took an active part in church work and was an earnest promoter of all agencies designed to advance the common good in this community during his generation. He died on October 5, 1894, and was buried in Lick Creek cemetery.

Joseph Caldwell was twice married. On January 31, 1833, he was united in marriage to Asenath Powell, and to that union four children were horn. Enoch, Martha, who married Buel J. Thomas, Caroline and Alexander. The mother of these children died on November 3. 1844, and on October 7, 1847, Joseph Caldwell married Salenah Saxon, who was born in this state and who survived him, and to that union two children were born, Horace F. and Alice, the latter of whom married Homer M. Broaddus. Following the death of Joseph Caldwell in 1894 a local newspaper remarked that "he was widely known and respected. In his death one of Fayette county's oldest and best citizens is lost."

Enoch Caldwell, eldest son of the junior Joseph Caldwell, grew to man- hood on the farm on which he was born and in his young manhood taught school for several terms, teaching both before and after his marriage and doing much to advance the cause of education in this community. After his marriage in 1864 he lived for a few years on the farm now occupied by Cleve Caldwell, in section 32 of Harrison township, and then moved to a farm two miles south of Bentonville, but after awhile moved back to the place where

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he had begun keeping house and there he and his wife spent the remainder of their lives. Enoch Caldwell was a good farmer and also did much to promote. the raising of pure-bred live stock, giving much attention to his Poland China hogs and registered cattle. He died in 1884 and his widow survived him until March 11, 1895.

On May 17, 1864, Enoch Caldwell was united in marriage to Sarah Jane Scott, who was born in the neighborhood of Jacksonburg, in Wayne county, this state, well-known residents of that community, and to that union five children were born, of whom the subject of this sketch was the last-born, the others being as follows: Cora, who married L. K. Tingley; Sylvia, who first married Wellington Beeson and after his death she married Omer Don- icher ; Myrtle, now deceased, who was Omer Donicher's first wife, and Alice, who married Fred Hackleman.

Scott E. Caldwell was about three years of age when his father died and after the death of his widowed mother in 1895, he then being about four- teen years of age, he made his home for some years with his sister, Mrs. Sylvia Beeson. Before reaching his majority he married and began farming for himself on the farm where he was born and where he remained until in May, 1914, when he moved to his present beautiful home, "Caldwell Home Farm," the place entered from the government by his great-grandfather, Joseph Caldwell, the senior, in 1813, and the sheep-skin deed attesting that transfer is now in his possession. Mr. Caldwell is the owner of one hundred and fifty-eight acres of "Caldwell Home Farm" and a tract of fifty-three acres cornering the same, and is regarded as one of the substantial farmers of that part of the county. He brings to his farming operations modern methods of agriculture and is doing very well, both in his general farming and in his stock raising.

On December 24, 1901, Scott E. Caldwell was united in marriage to Evelyn M. Stone, who also was born in Harrison township, a daughter of Edwin M. and Indiana ( White) Stone, and who completed her schooling at Purdue University, where she took an agricultural course, including domes- tic science and kindred subjects, and is an admirable helpmate to her hus- band in the operation of the home farm. Mr. and Mrs. Caldwell had three children, Joseph L., Mark Stone, who died August 13, 1908; and Helen Louise. They have a very pleasant home and take a proper part in the general social activities of the community in which they live, helpful in promoting all movements having to do with the advancement of the common welfare.

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HENRY MAURER.

Henry Maurer, a well-known farmer and stockman of Harrison town- ship, this county, and the proprietor of a well-kept farm about four miles northwest of Connersville, is a native of Switzerland, but has been a resident of this country, since he was nineteen years of age and of Fayette county since he was about twenty-one, hence has spent the greater part of his life in this community. He was born on January 18, 1852, son of Crist and Susie (Russell) Maurer, both natives of Switzerland, the latter of whom died when her son, Henry, was four years of age, the father dying about fifteen years later.

After the death of his father, he then being nineteen years of age, Henry Maurer left his native Swizerland and came to this country, locating at Hamilton, Ohio, in the vicinity of which city he worked for three seasons as a farm hand. He then came on up into Indiana and for five years there- after was employed on the farm of William N. Huston, in this county. He married in 1880 and established his home on the Shields farm, just south of East Connersville, which he farmed on the shares and where he made his home for thirty-four years, at the end of which time, in March, 1912, he moved to his present farm in Harrison township, four miles northwest of Connersville, where he is now living and where he and his wife have a very pleasant home. Upon locating in Harrison township, Mr. Maurer bought a farm of ninety-six acres, but he later sold fifteen acres of the same and now has about eighty acres, which is well improved and on which, in addition to general farming, he gives considerable attention to the raising of high-grade live stock. For years Mr. Maurer has been well known as a breeder of pure- bred Shorthorn cattle and has also kept Percheron and French Coach horses. He is now the owner of a fine Belgian stallion and has done much to improve the strain of horseflesh in this county ; he also has a fine jack He has often exhibited his cattle at fairs and stock shows and generally has taken most of the prizes for stock in his class. He showed some fine horses at the first Con- nersville free fair and has exhibited live stock there every year since with the exception of one year.

In 1880 Henry Maurer was united in marriage, in this county, to Ida Hine, who was born in Harrison township, this county, a daughter of Herman and Adeline (Frink) Hine, who came to Indiana and settled in Fayette county before the days of the Civil War. Herman Hine was born

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in New York state, or in Pennsylvania, on February 17, 1822, and who was married on April 15, 1846, at Montrose, Pennsylvania, to Adeline F. Frink, who was born at that place on March 10, 1828. Following their marriage, Herman Hine and his wife made their home in New York state until about 1857, when they came to Indiana and located on a farm near the Yankee- town school house, in this county. In 1862 Herman Hine enlisted for ser- vice in the Union army and on January 27, 1863, died at a hospital at Ashland, Kentucky, as the result of exposure endured during his service. He also had a son, Lyman Hine, who enlisted for service during the Civil War and who died in a hospital at Indianapolis on September 15, 1864. After the death of her soldier husband, Mrs. Adeline Hine continued to make her home in the Yankeetown neighborhood. in Harrison township, keeping her five children together and sewing and doing anything she could to maintain her home. There she spent the rest of her life, her death occurring on January 29, 1892, she then being sixty-three years of age. Mrs. Hine was a devoted member of the Baptist church and was a kind and helpful neighbor, highly esteemed by both old and young throughout that community for her many excellent traits of character. Despite the affliction which beset her own life, she was ever cheerful and was always ready to help others who were afflicted or in need.

JOSEPH DALE FLOREA.

Joseph Dale Florea, one of the oldest and best-known farmers of Fay- ette county and the proprietor of a fine farm home in Harrison township, northwest of the village of Harrisburg, is a native son of Fayette county and has lived here all his life, having thus been a witness to and a partici- pant in the development of this region since pioneer days; now in his seventy- ninth year forming one of the few remaining living connecting links between the present period of development in this county and that period of the county when much was still in a formative state hereabout in the way of social organization. . He was born on a pioneer farm in the immediate vicinity of his present home on March 24, 1838, son of Lewis C. and Eliza (Dale) Florea, who were among the most influential pioneers of that section of the county and whose last day's were spent here.

Lewis C. Florea was born in Woodford county, Kentucky, in 1808, a son of John Florea and wife, the latter of whom was a Collins. His mother died when he was but a child and when he was thirteen years of age he

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accompanied his father up into Indiana, the latter settling in Fayette county, where he died not long afterward. After the death of his father Lewis C. Florea returned to Kentucky and there made his home with a cousin, George Cleveland, until he had attained his majority, when he came back to Fayette county, bought a farm about a mile north of the village of Harrisburg, in Harrison township, and there spent the remainder of his life, becoming a well-to-do farmer and landowner, the proprietor of between four hundred and five hundred acres of land in that part of the county.

Not long after returning to this county to make his permanent home here, Lewis C. Florea married Eliza Dale, who was born in Franklin county, this state, in 1814, daughter of Joseph and Polly ( Bradburn) Dale, who had come up into this county in 1815 or 1816 and had settled on a farm one mile west of Harrisburg. There still were many Indians in this part of the state when the Dales settled in this county and the Indian children at once made playmates of the Dale children. One of the squaws took a great fancy to little Woodford Dale, then two years of age, and stole the child, with an apparent view of rearing the boy in the tribe as a child of her own. The kidnaping was quickly discovered, however, and after a hurried pursuit Mr. Dale recovered his little son. Mrs. Dale was a daughter of Doctor Bradburn, who was well known in the country northwest of Connersville in pioneer days and who, in self-defense, was compelled to kill a couple of men who had broken into his house at night with ulterior purpose, while under the influence of liquor. The Doctor attacked the intruders with one of his surgical knives and inflicted upon them injuries from which they later died, although he bestowed upon their wounds his best surgical skill after he had rendered them hors de combat. Joseph Dale built a distillery on his farm in the early days and the same was extensively patronized, not only by his pioneer neighbors, among whom the constant use of whisky was not regarded in the same bad light as at present, but by the Indians, who would call at the distillery to have their buckskin bottles replenished with "fire-water." Eliza Dale was but an infant when her parents came to this county from Franklin county and after her marriage to Lewis C. Florea continued to make her home here, living to be eighty-three years of age. her death occur- ring on October 26, 1897, being at that time one of the oldest continuous residents of Fayette county.

To Lewis C. and Eliza (Dale) Florea seven children were born, six sons and one daughter, of whom six are still living, those besides the subject of this sketch, the second in order of birth, being Albert, who is living at

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Coffeyville, Kansas, now past eighty years of age; John, of Eldorado, Kan- sas; Fannie, wife of John Murphy; William, deceased; Lewis, of Texas, and George, a well-known attorney at Connersville.

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History of Fayette County, Indiana : her people, industries and institutions, Part 104

Author: Barrows, Frederic Irving, 1873-1949 Publication date: 1917 Publisher: Indianapolis, Ind. : B.F. Bowen Number of Pages: 1326

Author: Barrows, Frederic Irving, 1873-1949
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis, Ind. : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1326