USA > Indiana > Hancock County > History of Hancock county, Indiana; its people, industries and institutions > Part 87
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George E. Condo obtained his schooling in the schools of East German- town and for a short time was occupied on his father's farm, but presently became employed by a furniture dealer in Indianapolis and was thus engaged for two years, at the end of which time he returned to East Germantown and was there employed for six years as a blacksmith. In the meantime he had determined to become an undertaker and went to Chicago, where he took a course in the Chicago Embalming College, one of the first institutions of that character established in the United States, from which he was graduated on October 22, 1898. Thus equipped for the practice of the calling to which he had devoted his life. Mr. Condo went to Cambridge City, this state, where for two years he was employed in the Wright undertaking establishment. After this practical experience he decided to enter business for himself and came to this county, locating at Wilkinson, where he opened an undertaking establish- ment in 1900 and has ever since been thus engaged in that thriving village. Mr. Condo is a Republican, but does not take an active part in political move- ments. He and his wife are members of the Methodist church and he is one of the trustees of the church.
Mrs. Condo, who was Nellie E. Lyons before her marriage, was born in East Germantown. this state, February 14. 1879, daughter of Henry and Eliza (Earhart ) Lyons, both of Dutch descent, the former of whom was born in
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Pennsylvania. She received her education in the schools of East German- town and was living on the parental farm near there when she married Mr. Condo. To that union two children have been born, Mary, born in 1903. and Harold. born in 1907. Mr. Condo is a Mason, a member of the Knights of Pythias, of the Odd Fellows and of the Red Men and has "been through the chairs" in the latter two organizations. He is regarded as one of Wilkinson's most active and progressive business men and takes a warm interest in all movements having to do with the advancement of the best interests of that village.
JOHN MARCEE SMITH.
John Marcee Smith, a well-known farmer and live-stock dealer, of Center township, this county, is a native son of Hancock county, born on the farm on which he now lives, January 6. 1853. son of Abner and Martha ( Griffith) Smith, the former also a native of this county and the latter of the state of Ohio.
Abner Smith was born on a pioneer farm in Center township. this county. August 31, 1831. and when five years old was bereft of his father by death. His youth therefore was marked by toil and he had little opportunity to secure an education. He became an expert woodchopper and when the rail- road was pushed through this county he secured the contract to supply wood for the locomotives, which at that time used wood for fuel instead of coal. The railroad company paid him in land which he thus cleared of the forests and he thus became a landhokler, obtaining a footing upon which his later success as a farmer was based. Abner Smith also secured the contract for grading the old National road through this section of the state and thus got a further start. On November 31, 1851. he married Martha Griffith, born in May. 1829, whose parents came to this county from Ohio in 1830, and to this union two children were born, the subject of this sketch having a sister. Margaret J., who married FF. L. Broughard, a prominent farmer of this county. Abner Smith was a Republican and his wife was an earnest member of the Methodist church, for many years being among the leaders of this congregation.
John M. Smith was reared on the home farm in Center township and has lived there all his life. He received his schooling in the district school in the neighborhood of his home and from boyhood was a valuable assistant to his father in the labors of the farm. He developed into an excellent farmer and has done well in his operations. In addition to general farming he long has
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been actively interested in the live-stock business and has been quite a success- ful dealer in that line. Mr. Smith is a Republican and gives earnest attention to local political affairs, but has never been a secker after public office. He and his wife are members of the Methodist church and take a warm interest in the affairs of their church.
Mrs. Smith, whose maiden name was Eldora Hauk, was born in this county on September 30, 1860. daughter of James H. and Mary Jane ( Mc- Amel ) Hauk, the former of whom was born in Ohio in 1824 and the latter in this county in 1829. James H. Hauk was but a boy when he came with his parents from Ohio to Hancock county and he grew up here on a farm and became a substantial and influential citizen. He was a Republican and a member of the Masonic order. He and his wife were the parents of nine chil- dren, of whom seven are still living, those besides Mrs. Smith being David F., Henry L., Anna. Catherine, George O. and Charles H.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith are the parents of the following children: Ilosia, Hazel. Herschell and Hallie. Hosia helps his father on the farm. Hazel married George Ashcraft and lives in this township. Herschell served three years in the navy and is at home. Hallie is also at home. . All the children attended high school.
Mr. Smith feeds about one hundred and fifty or two hundred hogs a year and about sixty head of cattle. The beautiful home was erected before Mr. Smith bought the place, but the large barns and outbuildings were erected by him. He specializes in shorthorn cattle.
JOHN F. CUSHMAN.
Jolin F. Cushman was born in Vernon township, at the Cushman home. east of Fortville, March 2, 1847. He is a son of Isaac and Sarah J. ( Pritchett ) Cushman, his father a native of Pennsylvania, his mother of Ohio. His paternal grandparents were Thomas and Elizabeth ( Jenkins ) Cushman. Thomas Cushman was born in England and came to America with four broth- ers about 1832, he located in Pennsylvania and his brothers in New York and other eastern states. He engaged in farming in Pennsylvania for several years, and, in 1838, removed to Hancock county and bought a farm cast of Fortville, adjoining the farm on which the subject of this sketch was born. and on which he spent his boyhood years. On the maternal side. George and Nancy (Caudell) Pritchett were the grandparents of the subject of this
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sketch. They were both natives of Ohio, but came to Indiana in early times. about 1838, locating in Vernon township. Hancock county, in the neighbor- hood of the Cushman home. George Pritchett was a soklier in the War of 1812.
Isaac Cushinan was educated in Pennsylvania and came to Indiana with his parents when he was about twenty-one years old. He located in Vernon township, bought a farm and built a home and engaged in farming. He had a farm of one hundred and forty acres on which his home was located. and also owned another tract of eighty acres, which is now owned and occupied as a home by his son. John F. Cushman, the subject of this sketch. The other members of his family are Diana Houp and Mary Bolander.
John F. Cushman was educated in the schools of Vernon township. His school advantages were somewhat limited because of his father not having good health, making it necessary for the boy to do a good share of the farm work. From the time he was eleven years old he worked on the farm and took entire charge of the farm before he had attained his majority. He cleared nearly all the land on the old home place and contributed a full share of the work in converting the unbroken forest into cultivated fields. He now owns the farm of one hundred and eight acres on which is located his present home- stead, and a forty-acre tract near by, all of which he cultivates in general farm- ing. Mr. Cushman has been twice married. His first wife was Mary C. Moon, daughter of William Moon, of Madison county, to whom he was mar- ried in 1871. To this union four children were born: William, Sarah 11 .. Harry and Anna M. He was married, secondly, in 1890, to Mary J. Price, daughter of Thomas Price, of. Buck Creek township. Hancock county. The first two children by this marriage. Hla and John, are dead : Russell is the only living child. Mr. Cushman's affiliation is with the Baptist church.
ISAAC W. CAHILL.
Isaac W. Cahill, son of John and Jane (Wilson) Cahill, was born in Greenfield, Indiana, May 31, 1856. His father was a native of Ireland and his mother of Ohio. She was a daughter of Isaac Wilson, who came from Ohio to Center township, Hancock county, in the early days and located on eighty acres of land in Center township, on which he built a home, cleared and improved the land and engaged in farming. Here he and his wife both clied.
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John Cahill was educated in Ireland and came alone to America. in 1848. when he was seventeen years old. Dependent entirely upon his own resources. he started to make his own way in the new country to which he had come. He began this undertaking on a tract of unimproved land in Hancock county, a large part of which was considered untillable because of being wet and swampy. By underdraining, tiling and ditching, this land was made tillable and became highly productive, equal to the best in the county. By industry and enterprise John Cahill accumulated a farm of two hundred and ten acres. He built a good home and other necessary farm buildings and continued to live here until his death. In his early days he worked for a time in county offices, in Greenfield, but practically all his life was spent on the farm. He served for a time as township supervisor, and was always active in township affairs. During the last year of the Civil War he served as a soldier in the Union army. He was the father of six children, four of whom are still living : Mary R .. Isaac W., John and Ellen.
Isaac W. Cahill was educated in the common schools of Center township. and worked on the farm when not attending school. He lived on the home place until he grew to manhood when he began farming on his own account. He now has two hundred and ninety-one acres, one hundred and thirty of which are part of his father's old farm. He has been engaged in general farming for many years, but is now retired from active work, his farm being cultivated by renters. The Cahill family are members of the United Brethren church.
JOHN P. BLACK. M. D.
Dr. John P. Black, well-known physician and oculist at Greenfield, this county, who has been engaged in practice there since the year 1800, is a native Hoosier, having been born in the village of Jay, in Jay county, February 8, 1853, son of Michael and Jeanette ( White ) Black, both natives of Ireland, who later became well-known residents of this county, the former for many years being one of the best-known ministers of the Methodist church in this part of the state.
The Rev. Michael Black was a native of County Sligo and he grew to manhood there, being trained to the tailor's trade. He married Jeanette White, who also was born in County Sligo, and immediately thereafter he and his wife came to the United States, landing at the port of New York after a three-months trip on a sailing vessel. Upon their arrival in this country,
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Michael Black and his wife located at Morristown. New Jersey, where for some time he conducted a tailor shop, presently coming to Indiana and settling at the village of Pennville, in Jay county. About that time Michael Black had become converted to the Methodist faith and so strongly was he influenced by his new faith that he felt it his duty to become a preacher of the Gospel. He was a man of much reading and of natural eloquence and soon became known as a preacher of power. Upon his admission to the northeastern
Indiana conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, the Rev. Michael Black was given charge of a circuit comprising a number of charges in and about Hancock county and he then, in the late fifties, established his home in this county, where his wife died in 1867. she then being fifty-three years of age. In 1870 the Rev. Michael Black left Indiana and went to Florida as a mission- ary of the Methodist church, where he spent the remainder of his life. devot- ing his best energies to the extension of the cause of Methodism in that state, his memory being cherished there as one of the most active influences in the general establishment of the church in the state. His death occurred in 1887. he then being eighty-one years of age, and he had been active in his ministry almost to the last month of his life. During the Civil War Mr. Black recruited a company for service in behalf of the Union cause, but there was no call for the same. He was an ardent Republican and for years was an active member of the Masonic order. He and his wife were the parents of nine children. namely: William, of Danville, Ilinois : James B., a residem of Indianapolis : George W .. deceased: Margaret E., widow of W. W. Willing, of Indianapolis : Richard .A., deceased : Levi Robert, deceased: John P., the immediate subject of this biographical sketch : Martha, of Indianapolis, widow of F. M. Gipe, and one who died in infancy.
John P'. Black received his early education in the old Greenfield seminary and afterward extended his schooling in various other places. He then took a course at Hanover College and later entered the Indiana Medical College. from which he was graduated in 1880, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. With a view to a further extension of his medical studies. Doctor Black then went to New York City and entered the Polyclinic Institute, from which he was graduated in 1885. Thus equipped for the practice of his profession. Doctor Black located at Peabody. Kansas, where he remained for three years. at the end of which time he went to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he was engaged in practice for two years. He then, in 1800, returned to Greenfield and opened an office in the Lee C. Thayer building, where he ever since has been located and where he has built up a fine practice. Doctor Black, though actively engaged in general practice, makes a specialty of treatment of dis-
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cases of the eye, car, nose and throat and as an oculist has practically all the business in that line in Greenfield. Doctor Black is secretary of the local board of health and is president of the Hancock County Medical Society. During his residence at St. Paul he also was an active member of the Minne- sota State Medical Association. The doctor is a Republican and has ever given a good citizen's attention to local political affairs.
In November, 1881, Dr. John P. Black was united in marriage to Clara Hart, who was born at Knightstown, this state, in 1859, daughter of Andrew J. and Viola ( Haynes ) Hart, the former of whom was a cabinet-maker and photographer at Knightstown until he moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he now lives, and to this union five children have been born, all of whom are living, as follow : Walter A., an electrical engineer at Indianapolis : James B., a civil engineer at St. Louis : Laura B., who married Virgil Leech and now lives in Boston, Massachusetts: Margaret, librarian of the Brightwood branch of the Indianapolis public library, and John Nelson, a student at Pur- due University, all of whom were graduated from the Greenfield high school before taking up their more extended studies. Doctor and Mrs. Black and their children are members of the Presbyterian church and have ever taken an interested part in the various social and cultural activities of their home and are held in the highest esteem hereabout. Doctor Black is the official physician of the local lodge of the Order of Eagles.
JOHN BOYD HINCHMAN.
John Boyd Hinchman. city attorney of Greenfield. former mayor of that city and one of the best-known lawyers of Hancock county, is a native son of this county, having been born in Greenfield, where he now resides, May 13. 1876, son and only child of John M. and Emma R. (Boyd ) Hinchman, both natives of this county and prominent residents of Greenfield, who are still living there, hale and hearty at a ripe old age.
John M. Hinchman was born in Center township. this county. in the immediate neighborhood of Greenfield, Son of John Hinchman and wife. Virginians, who had settled bere at an early day and had become well-known and influential residents of this community. John M. Hinchman was traine.1 to a commercial life in his youth and has been engaged in business in Green- field all his active life, being now the oldest merchant in continuous service in the city. His wife also is a member of one of the old families of the county
HANCOCK COUNTY, INDIANA.
and both have been active in good works for many years, enjoying the esteem and respect of the entire community. John M. Hinchman is an ardent Re- publican and in his earlier years took a prominent part in the political activities of the county. He is a Mason and for years has taken a warm interest in the affairs of that ancient order in Greenfield.
John B. Hinchman was reared at Greenfield, receiving his elementary education in the public schools of that city, and was graduated from the Greenfield high school in 1895. following which he spent a year in the Indiana University at Bloomington. He later took a course in the Indiana Dental College and for three years practiced that profession in his home town. He then was elected mayor of Greenfield and for four years served very accept- ably as chief executive of the city, during which time he gave his attention seriously to the study of the law and at the conclusion of his term of mayor abandoned his dental office and actively engaged in the practice of law, in which he has been engaged ever since. Upon leaving the mayor's office Mr. Hinchman was appointed deputy prosecuting attorney for this judicial district ungler Prosecutor Edward T. Quigley and after two years of this connection he and Mr. Quigley formed a partnership for the practice of law, which was successfully continued until in June. 1915. Ile then was appointed city attorney, for a term of four years, and is now serving the city in that im- portant capacity. Mr. Hinchman for years has been one of the leaders of the Democratic party in Hancock county and for some time was chairman of the Greenfield city central committee of that party, in which position he ren- dered valuable service in behalf of the party.
On December 6, 1899. John B. Hinchman was united in marriage to Bess Burge, who was born at Mt. Carmel, Indiana. December 13, 1877. daughter of Robert and Alice Burge, the former of whom is a well-known photogra- pher in that city. Mr. and Mrs. Hinchman have a very pleasant home at 114 Fifth street and long have been regarded as among the leaders in the social and cultural life of the city, being held in high esteem by their many friends throughout the county. They are attendants at the Presbyterian church and take a proper interest in all worthy movements having to do with the advance- ment of the general welfare. Mr. Hinchman is a thirty-second degree Mason. a member of the blue lodge of that order at Eden, this county : a member of the chapter of the Royal Arch Masons, at the same place ; a member of Green- field Commandery No. 39. Knights Templar : a member of the Indianapolis consistory of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite Masons, of the valley of Indianapolis, and of Murat Temple. AAncient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of the oasis of Indianapolis. desert of Indiana. He is a
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charter member of the Eagles lodge at Greenfield : a member of Eureka lodge. Knights of Pythias, in the same city, and of the Greenfield lodges of the Red Men and of the Haymakers. Mr. Hinchman is also a member of the college fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta, a relation established during his university days at Bloomington, and continues to take an active part in the deliberations of thet popular fraternity.
GILDEROY C. WINSLOW.
Gilderoy C. Winslow, county surveyor of Hancock county and who for fifteen years was one of the best-known school teachers of this county, is a native son of Hancock county. He was born on a farm in Jackson township on February 2. 1877, son of Henry and Sarah ( Clayton ) Winslow. the former a native of North Carolina and the latter of Iowa, long prominent residents of Center township, this county, where they are still living.
Henry Winslow was two years old when his parents came from North Carolina to Indiana and he has made his home in this state ever since. The family first settled in Henry county, but presently came over into Hancock county and settled in Jackson township, where a permanent home was estab- lished, and there Henry Winslow was reared. He became a farmer and has remained so all his days. In 1863 he enlisted for service in the Union army during the Civil War and served for two years as a member of Company B. Twenty-second Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry. Upon the completion of his military service he returned to Hancock county and began farming in Center township, continuing thus actively engaged until his retirement. Mrs. Winslow was but a child when her parents came to Indian from lowa and she was reared and educated in Hancock county. Mr. Winslow is a Democrat and for years has taken an interested part in local political affairs. He is an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic, in the affairs of which he takes a warm interest. To him and his wife seven children were born, of whom the subject of this sketch is the third in order of birth, and all of whom are living save one.
Gilderoy C. Winslow was reared on the paternal farm in Jackson town- ship and received his early education in the district schools in the neighbor- hood of his home. As a young man he began teaching school and was thus engaged for fifteen years, teaching in the schools of Center township. during which time he turned his attention to civil engineering. He was graduated from the engineering course of the International Correspondence School and
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for about nine years served as deputy county surveyor of Hancock county, in this capacity helping to lay out many of the roads in this county. In Novem- ber, 1912, Mr. Winslow was elected surveyor of Hancock county, as the nomi- nee of the Democratic party, and in 1914 was re-elected to that important office.
On October 6. 1895. Gilderoy C. Winslow was united in marriage to May VanMeter, who was born in Jackson township, this county. December 19, 1878, and to this union one child has been born, a son, Ralph, who was grad- uated from the Greenfield high school and is now' attending Indiana Univer- sity. Mr. and Mrs. Winslow take a proper interest in the general social activities of their home town. Mr. Winslow is a member of the Greenfield lodge of the Improved Order of Red Men and takes a warm interest in the affairs of that organization.
JOHN A. TURK.
John A. Turk, custodian of the Hancock county court house and one of the best-known men in this county, is a native son of Hancock county, having been born on a farm in Center township on March 11, 1865, son of Moses and Rachel E. ( Meek) Turk, the former a native of Virginia and the latter of this county. Moses Turk, who was born in the early twenties of the past century. came to Indiana from Virginia when a young man and settled in Wayne county, later coming over into Hancock county, where he married and estab- lished his home in Center township, where he spent the remainder of his life. his death occurring when he was sixty-five years of age. He was a Mason and he and his wife were members of the Methodist Protestant church. Mrs. Rachel E. Turk was the daughter of Jeremiah Meek, one of the pioneers of Hancock county, who donated to the county the ground on which the Hancock county court house stands. Moses Turk and wife were the parents of six children, of whom but two now survive, the subject of this sketch, who was the last born, having a sister. Minnie, wife of W. W. Eastes, of Owen county. this state.
John A. Turk was reared on his father's farm and received his schooling in the district school in the neighborhood of his home and in the Greenfield schools. He grew up as a farmer and was engaged in that vocation until he was twenty-eight years of age, when he sold his farm and moved to Green- field. having married in the meantime, and has made his home in that city ever
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since. For the first two years after moving to Greenfield Mr. Turk was engaged in the sale of musical instruments. He then became the proprietor of a laundry and was thus engaged for five years, after which he was engaged in various enterprises until his appointment to the responsible position of custodian of the Hancock county court house in 1913. which position he still occupies. Mr. Turk is a Democrat and for years has given thoughtful atten- tion to the political affairs of the county.
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