USA > Indiana > Hendricks County > History of Hendricks County, Indiana, her people, industries and institutions > Part 60
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Mr. Montgomery was married in 1862 to Margaret Tharp, the daughter of James and Mary Tharp. A history of the Tharp family is given in the life of Joshua Tharp which is delineated elsewhere in this volume. To this first marriage there were born three children: George B. McClellan, who married Catherine Riggles, and has six children, Gertrude, Homer, Era, Harley, Lantus and Mary. George is now farming one mile west of New Winchester, but was formerly a merchant at Hadley and New Winchester. Louise Catherine, the second child of Mr. Montgomery, was the wife of John Neville, and died in November, 1900, leaving one daughter, Nellie. Nellie is the wife of Urban Olsen, of Pittsboro, and has one daughter, Louetta. The youngest child of Mr. Montgomery by his first marriage is Erasmus, who married Addie Patterson and has four children, Herschel, Lawrence, Clarence and Mabel. Erasmus is a farmer and lives in Union township near Montclair.
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The first wife of Mr. Montgomery and the mother of the three children above mentioned died in 1869, and on November 17, 1870, Mr. Montgomery married Sarah Baker, the daughter of Jesse and Margaret (Clark) Baker. She was born in Putnam county in 1853. Her father was born near Lexington, Kentucky, the son of Andrew and Martha (Griggs) Baker, was reared in his native state, married Margaret Clark, of the same state, in 1852, and im- mediately brought his young bride to Hendricks county. In the following year they moved to Putnam, but in a short time came back to Hendricks county. For fourteen years he was assessor in this county and then, after moving back to Putnam county, he was an assessor in that county for five years. He was also deputy assessor for a number of years under others who did not understand the work. He was regarded as the most expert man in this line of business that either county ever had. He was a Democrat and, with his wife, an attendant of the Regular Baptist church. He died February 22, 1909.
.By the second marriage there were four children, Nancy Jane, Oscar, Florence May and Charles Harlan. Nancy Jane was born June 17, 1872, and died June 18, 1890. Oscar was born April 14, 1878, and was married April 20, 1898, to Sallie Lane, the daughter of Thompson and Josephine (Creech) Lane. She was born in Tennessee and came to Hendricks county with her parents when she was five years old. They lived at North Salem until 1910 when they moved to a farm near Danville, where they now reside. Oscar and his wife have three children, Mabel, Gladys, Mary Blanche and Walter Raymond. Florence May has been married twice, her first husband being Otha Sheets, and to this union there was born one daughter, Anna Mae; the second marriage of Florence May was to Thomas Cox and to this union there have been born two sons, Roy Harlan and James DeWayne. Mr. and Mrs. Cox live in Indianapolis at the present time. Charles Harlan, born September 25, 1885, the youngest child of Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery, lives at New Castle where he manages a sales stable. He married Hallie Peyton and has one son, Donald Edwin.
James Montgomery began manufacturing tile about 1884 near his home and continued in that business along with his farming for eight years. Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery are both members of the Regular Baptist church and are interested in all the activities of their denomination. Mr. Montgomery is a genial and unassuming man whose friends are numbered by his ac- quaintances.
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COL. GEORGE C. HARVEY.
George C. Harvey, a prominent lawyer of Danville, was born on August 9, 1860, on a farm near Rockville, Parke county, Indiana, the son of George C. and Martha Ann (Thompson) Harvey, his father also being a native of Parke county, and his mother of Kentucky. His mother was the daughter of James L. Thompson, a very prominent Methodist minister and author of a volume of sermons. His father was a young farmer at the opening of the Civil War and enlisted for service on September 15, 1861, in Company I. Thirty-first Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry. He was mustered in as captain and participated in the battles of Fort Henry and Donelson in the spring of 1862 and was killed on the first day of the battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862. His mother was left with three small children and reared them to lives of usefulness and honor. She never remarried and is still living in Danville at the age of seventy-six. These children were James H., of Yazoo City, Mississippi ; Mrs. Mary T. Hadley, the widow of Otis C. Hadley, who is now a teacher of art in the public schools of Lebanon, Indiana. For a number of years she was at the head of the art department in the Danville schools, and also the Central Normal College. She teaches for the love of art and cares nothing for the financial side of the profession. The third child is George C. Harvey, the immediate subject of this sketch, who was only about one year old when his father was killed in battle.
Col. George C. Harvey was born in a log house which is still standing in Parke county about half way between Rockville and Bloomingdale. After his father's death in the Civil War, his mother, with her three children, moved to Attica, where they lived for a few years. Later they moved to Rockville, where they lived until 1875, when they came to Hendricks county. George C. Harvey then went on the farm of his guardian and remained there until the fall of 1879, when he entered Wabash College and completed the four- years course. He worked his way through college by putting in crops in the summer time and doing railroad contract work and, in fact, anything he could find to do. He at times worked in the auditor's office at Danville in order to make a little money to continue his course in college. While his vacation periods were as busy as they could possibly have been, he was not less employed while in school. In addition to carrying full college work and doing chores on the side, he read a great deal of law in the offices at Crawfordsville. In the summer of 1883, upon his graduation, he went into the office of Thaddeus S. Adams, of Danville, and continued with him until
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the spring of 1887, but not as a partner. He was admitted to the bar in 1884, but had been deputy prosecuting attorney before that time in the justice of peace court, and might have been admitted to the bar before 1884, but he did not care for his admission until he had had a case in the circuit court. In July, 1887, he formed a partnership with George W. Brill, the present judge of Hendricks county, and this partnership continued until Judge Brill was elected in 1912. Colonel Harvey has won an enviable name for himself in court and is known throughout the central part of Indiana as one of the best jury lawyers. He has had more than thirty murder cases in court, and has had a very large share of success in the general practice of Hendricks county. Recognizing his keen ability as a lawyer and as an analytical student of the law, corporations have frequently engaged him as counsel, and he has always been able to give good service to his clients.
Colonel Harvey was married November 8, 1887, in Flemingsburg, Ken- tucky, to Lillian D. Drenan, the daughter of James P. and Mahala Drenan, of that city. To this union there have been born four children, Drenan R., born April 6, 1889, who is now practicing law with his father; George R., born August 17, 1890, who is also associated with his father in the practice of law; Martha A., born April 22, 1895, and John Parke, born June 10, 1902. Mr. and Mrs. Harvey are justly proud of their four children, and they have given them every educational advantage possible in order that they might be the best equipped for their future careers. It is a satisfaction to the par- ents to know that their children have fulfilled their expectations in every way and are in a fair way to make themselves recognized factors in the community in the future.
Colonel Harvey was elected clerk of the city of Danville on four different occasions, a fact which attests his popularity in his home town. He was a member of the military staff of Governor Chase, and also of Governor Matthews with the rank of colonel. He has also been chief inspector of the infantry of the state. In 1890 he was elected colonel of the Sons of Veterans of the state of Indiana, and since that time has held the office of judge advo- cate general of the Sons of Veterans of the United States. He is a member of the Loyal Legion, the Free and Accepted Masons, both of the chapter and council, and while in college was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Greek- letter fraternity. In his political relations he is a member of the Republican party and saw no reason in the fall of 1912 why he should sever his connec- tion with that old and established party. Colonel Harvey is vice-president of the Klondike Milling Company, of Danville, and is financially interested in that company. He is one of the directors of the Columbia Club of Indi-
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anapolis and a stockholder in the same. Colonel Harvey has been a promi- nent figure in Hendricks county for many years and is still regarded as one of the best men of the Hendricks county bar. As he approaches the fall of life he will have the satisfaction of letting his mantle rest upon the shoulders of his two worthy sons, who are fast qualifying themselves to take up the work which their father has so well done in the past.
WILLIAM HUNT.
Hendricks county, Indiana, enjoys a high reputation because of the high order of her citizenship, and none of her citizens occupies a more enviable posi- tion in the esteem of his fellows than the gentleman whose name appears at the head of this sketch. A residence here of nearly seventy years has given his fellows a full opportunity to observe him in the various lines of activity in which he has engaged and his present high standing is due solely to the honorable and upright course he has pursued. As a leading citizen of his community he is eminently entitled to representation in a work of this char- acter .:
William Hunt, a gallant veteran of the Civil War and a prosperous farmer of this county, was born in Clay township, July 31, 1845, and has spent his three score and ten years in the county of his nativity. His parents were Albert and Lucinda (Hayworth) Hunt, his father being a native of North Carolina and his mother of Virginia. Albert Hunt came to this state when a small boy with his parents and located in Clay township, this county, where his father became one of the heaviest land owners of the county, having six hundred and forty acres of land at the time of his death, July 24, 1856. Albert Hunt was born August 10, 1818, and his wife, Lu- cinda Hayworth, was born February 18, 1821. They were married August 10, 1841, and to this union five children were born: Ira, who was killed in the battle of Gettysburg on July 3. 1863, was a member of Company I, Twenty-seventh Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry; Rachel died in child- hood; David married Melissa Hunt and has five children, Frank, Ira, Ida, Steven and Harry ; David died September 3, 1900; Beulah died when young ; William, the immediate subject of this sketch, was the third in order of birth of the five children born to his parents.
William Hunt was educated in the district schools of his home town- ship, and since he was only sixteen years old when the Civil War broke out,
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he was not old enough for service. However, as soon as he reached the age of eighteen he enlisted in Company B, One Hundred Seventeenth Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and served for about eight months. At the close of his service he returned to his home county and worked at farm labor in his home township for about two years. He then married and went on to a farm of fifty-two acres, which he had inherited, and here he continued to reside for the next twenty years. He then moved to Amo in his home town- ship, where he lived for the next fourteen years, at the expiration of which time he bought the farm of ninety-five acres on which he is living at the present time.
William Hunt was married September 7, 1869, to Sarah E. Benbow, the daughter of Elam and Anna (Harley) Benbow, and to this union there has been born one child, Ettie, who married William E. Christie, and is the mother of four children, Iso, Blanche, Hubert and Christine. Iso married Stanley Hadley and has one child, J. Edward. Mrs. Hunt's father was a native of North Carolina, and her mother of Virginia. Elam Benbow came to Hen- dricks county about 1826 with his parents, who settled west of Amo, and he remained on the same farm until his death in 1892. His wife died in 1852, leaving a family of five children: Harvey, who married Louisa Atkins; Thirza, the wife of Woolson Bryant ; Nancy J., the wife of Eli Duffey ; Sarah E., wife of Mr. Hunt; Rhoda, the wife of George W. Tincher. The maternal grandparents of Mr. Hunt were Asher and Rachel (Johnson) Hunt. They reared a family of seven children : Elizabeth, wife of Ira Carter; Caleb, who married Mary Dickson; Eletha, the wife of Aaron Benbow; Albert, father of the immediate subject of this sketch; Margaret. wife of Mordecai Carter; Cynthia. wife of Newby Hodson; Beulah, who married Newton Carter, and Elmina, the wife of Jay Kersey.
Mr. Hunt's wife died March 14, 1907, since which time he has been making his home with his children. He has been a life-long Republican, and his party recognized his sterling worth by electing him as township trustee for a term of six years. Religiously, he is affiliated with the Friends church, and has been an overseer in this denomination for the past twenty years. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and is one of the most active members of the post at Amo. William Hunt has spent a busy and useful life and now, in the declining years of his career, he can look back over a life which has been one of usefulness to his fellowmen, and his career during the long years of his residence in this locality has won for him a host of warm friends.
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GUY HARLAN.
One of the best known and enterprising of the younger agriculturists of Hendricks county is Guy Harlan, now in the very prime of life and use- fulness, and his influence as an honorable, upright citizen is productive of much good upon all with whom he comes in contact. His past success gives assurance of something yet to come, and he is evidently destined to continue a potent factor for substantial good for many years to come. He lives on a fine farm in Franklin township, this county, which he conducts in a manner that stamps him as fully abreast of the times.
Guy Harlan, the son of Smith and Barbara (Masten) Harlan, was born in Franklin township, Hendricks county, Indiana, June 24, 1885. Both of his parents were also natives of Hendricks county, his father having fol- lowed the occupation of a farmer all of his life until his retirement in 1913, when he moved to Indianapolis. To Mr. and Mrs. Smith Harlan were born four children : Harry, who married Daisy Quirk; Londa married Sylvia Hurst; Carey, unmarried, and Guy, the immediate subject of this review. The paternal grandparents of Guy Harlan were Jesse and Elizabeth (Boar- ders) Harlan, and to them was born one son, Smith, the father of the sub- ject.
Guy Harlan spent his boyhood in the manner of lads who are reared on the farm, attending the district schools of his neighborhood in the winter months and working on his father's farm during the summer. After finish- ing the course in the schools of Amo, Indiana, he worked as a lineman for the Big Four and the Terre Haute & Eastern Railway Company for three years He then began farming as a hired hand and worked for various farmers in his home locality until March, 1913, when he moved on to his father's farm. He is now improving this farm and bringing it to a good state of cultivation. He has started a system of crop rotation which will increase the productivity of the soil, and in the short time in which he has had the management of the farm he has shown that he will be a successful farmer in the future.
Mr. Harlan was married October 3, 1908, to Ella Underwood, the daugh- ter of George and Nancy (Scott) Underwood. His wife's parents were natives of Kentucky and were married in that state, living there until 1902, when they located south of Clayton, Indiana. Mr. and Mrs. Underwood were the parents of nine children : Rosa, the wife of George Bennett; Mary, deceased; James, deceased; Georgia, the wife of David Dispain; Maria, the
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wife of Joseph Ratliff; Mattie, who married John Van Cleave; William, who married Emma Scraggs; Ella, wife of Mr. Harlan; Emma, wife of Isaac Hendren. Mrs. Harlan's grandparents were Isaac and Maria (Druin) Underwood, and to them were born the following children: Nancy, Hiram, Thomas, Sallie, Ulysses, William, Martha and George.
Mr. Harlan is a Socialist in politics, because he believes that the unrest and distress in this country is due to the unjust advantage which is taken of the laboring class by the capitalists of the country. He feels that in the tenets of the Socialist party there are the principles which, if judiciously applied, will alleviate much of the suffering in this country. Owing to the fact that his party is in a minority in his home county. he has never had any opportunity to hold public office, and, in fact, never expects to. He is a member of the Improved Order of Red Men and the Knights of Pythias, and takes an active interest in the workings of these fraternal organizations. Mr. Harlan is a man who has worked for what he has and knows how to sympathize with the laboring man. He is a man of such genial disposition that his friends are as numerous as his acquaintances. By his upright manner of living he has justly won the esteem of all of those with whom he is as- sociated.
AMOS KERSEY.
The Union soldier during the great war between the states builded better than he knew. Through four years of suffering and wasting hard- ships, through the horrors of prison pens and amid the shadows of death, he laid the superstructure of the greatest temple ever erected and dedicated to human freedom. The world looked on and called those soldiers sublime, for it was theirs to reach out the mighty arm of power and strike the chains from off the slaves, preserve the country from dissolution, and to keep furled to the breeze the only flag that ever made tyrants tremble and whose majestic stripes and scintillating stars are still waving universal liberty to all the earth. For all their unmeasured deeds the living present can never repay them. Pensions and political power may be thrown at their feet; art and sculp- ture may preserve upon canvas and in granite and bronze their unselfish deeds, history may commit to books and cold type may give to the future the tale of their sufferings and triumphs; but to the children of the generations yet unborn will it remain to accord the full measure of appreciation and un- dying remembrances of the immortal character carved out by the American
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soldiers in the dark days of the early sixties, numbered among whom is the gentleman whose name appears at the head of this sketch.
Amos Kersey, the owner and proprietor of three hundred and forty acres of land in Clay township, this county, was born October 10, 1843, in the township where he has lived all his life. His parents were James and Elizabeth (Hodson) Kersey, both of whom were natives of North Carolina, his father being born in that state on February. 22, 1801. James Kersey was educated and married in North Carolina, coming to Indiana about 1830. He and his wife first located in Wayne county, this state, and in 1832 James came to Hendricks county and located in Clay township, where he entered three hundred and twenty acres of land from the government. Shortly after com- ing to this county he took up the study of medicine and studied under Doc- tor Parker, of Winchester, Indiana. After completing his course he prac- ticed his profession in this county until his death, in 1883. To Dr. James C. and Elizabeth Kersey were born nine children; Jesse, who died at the age of nineteen; Abigail, the wife of Peter Elliott; James, deceased. who married Elmina Hunt, also now deceased; Rachel, deceased; Mary, who became the wife of Abraham Williamson; Isaac, who married Cassie Storms; Jonathan, who married Anna Jane Benbow, and, after her death, Addie Cressin; Ezra was killed in the Civil War, and Amos, the immediate subject of this sketch.
Amos Kersey was educated in the common schools of his home township and worked on his father's farm until the opening of the Civil War. He then enlisted in Company I, Twenty-seventh Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infan- try, and served a little more than three years. His regiment was trans- ferred to the Army of the Potomac and participated in the first and second battles of Bull Run, Winchester, Antietam and in the three-day struggle at Gettysburg in July, 1863. His regiment was then transferred to Sher- man's army and he made the famous march to the sea through the state of Georgia and participated in all the battles of the famous Atlanta campaign. Upon returning from the war he engaged in farming with his father and continued in partnership with him until the latter's death, in 1883. He then bought two hundred and ten acres of his father's farm and began to build up a landed estate of his own. He has added to his possessions from time to time until he now has three hundred and forty acres of land in this town- ship.
Mr. Kersey was married on September 24, 1867, to Mary Catherine Cas- sity, the daughter of Lewis Clements and Ann Jane (Knetzer) Cassity, and to this marriage there have been born eight children: Ann Jane, the wife of William Powers, of Plainfield, who has four children, Ernest Gladys, Hor-
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ace, and one who died in infancy; Ernest married Eunice Montgomery and has two children, Kathleen and Beryl; David is unmarried and living in the West; Ezra is unmarried and is still at home; Clarence married Florence Hodson and has four children, Gladys, Theodore, Virgil and Lucile; Eva married Claude Henderson and has four children, Hazel, Cecil, Clyde and Carroll; Charles married Menti Seckman, and they have two children, Naomi and Edna; Carrie married Arthur Brooks; Mary is unmarried and still at home. The Cassity family is of Irish descent. Lewis Clements Cassity was born near Owensville, Montgomery county, Kentucky, on October 31, 1822, and died at North Salem, Indiana, in April, 1905. He was the son of David Cassity, whose father emigrated with Daniel Boone from Virginia to Ken- tucky, where he reared his family. He married Polly Clements and their seven children were Lewis C .. Levi, Elizabeth, Emma, Mary and two who died in infancy. Polly Clements Cassity was the daughter of Roger and Hannah Clements, of Bourbon county, Kentucky. Roger Clements was a large slave- holder, and at his death all but four of the slaves were dispersed with, the widow bringing two of them to Indiana. She settled in Boone county, near her two sons, Phillip and John, where she died. Grandmother Cassity also brought two of the slaves to Indiana. Lewis C. Cassity's maternal grand- mother was a Hathaway. In 1834 David Cassity came to Indiana, locating in Putnam county, three miles southeast of Bainbridge. Lewis C. Cassity was brought to Putnam county, Indiana, in childhood, and was there reared and married. His wife, Ann Jane Knetzer, was born in Mason county, Kentucky, in 1827. Her paternal great-grandparents were natives of Ger- many, who, upon their emigration to America, first settled in Virginia for a short time, and there was born Charles Knetzer, Mrs. Kersey's grandfather. Later the family moved to Kentucky, where the parents died on the same day from cholera. Charles Knetzer, who was born on August 18, 1793, married. in Kentucky on September 23, 1819, Catherine Gill, of German descent, who was born June 23, 1804, and died January 9, 1879. The latter's mother, who was of Welsh stock, bore the family name of Moss, her grandparents having settled on what was known as the Lockridge farm near Greencastle, Indiana. Their daughter, Lydia Ann Moss Bradley, died at Peoria, Illinois, about ten years ago, at the age of ninety-four years, leaving an estate valued at four million dollars, which she willed to the city. Catherine Gill's parents remained in Kentucky, where they owned slaves, and upon their deaths, their children all came to Indiana excepting a son and a daughter who remained at the old homestead, retaining their slaves until emancipation.
To Lewis C. and Ann Jane Cassity were born five children: Mary Cath-
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erine, the wife of Amos Kersey; David, deceased; Andrew, who married Margaret Snyder; one who died in infancy and Levi, of Montana. The mother of these children died in April, 1858, and Mr. Cassity afterwards married Pauline M. McCoy, the daughter of George and Julia (Raglan) Mc- Coy, who were natives of Kentucky, but married in Indiana. To this second marriage thirteen children were born: Armilda, the wife of William Weller, died in May, 1878, about seven months after her marriage, her husband being now deceased; Cyrilda, the wife of James Johnson; Lodusky, who be- came the wife of Walter Pugh; Lucretia, the wife of William Robinson, who died and she afterwards married Andrew Bales; Emma, the wife of James Owen; Jacob; Cassie, who married James Horton; Lewis; Albert M .; Otho, who died at the age of two years; Oscar, who married Miss Robinson; Ambrose, who married Miss Aggers.
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