USA > Indiana > Hendricks County > History of Hendricks County, Indiana, her people, industries and institutions > Part 67
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and Mrs Wheeler both died when their daughter, Florence, was a small child and she was then taken into the home of Joseph Feree, of Danville, and there reared to womanhood.
After his second marriage Mr. and Mrs. Hamrick moved to the north- eastern part of Marion township, where they purchased a farm of one hun- dred and twenty acres, on which they now reside. They have one son, Clar- ence, born October 26. 1895, who graduated in the spring of 1914 in the high school at North Salem. Mr. and Mrs. Hamrick are both devout mein- bers of the Methodist Episcopal church of Danville and are active partici- pants in all of the various departments of their church work. Mr. Hamrick has never taken an active part in politics, or sought for public office, being essentially a domestic man of modest and retiring disposition. He is an entertaining conversationalist and often regales his younger friends with stories of the days when the old court house was being started, as well as the stirring incidents of the Civil War. He is a well read man and is well informed on all the current issues of the day. He has a large list of friends in the county who honor him for his many sterling qualities of character and upright manner of living.
DAVID A. CLEMENTS.
The biographies of successful men are instructive as guides and in- centives to those whose career are yet to be acheived. The examples they furnish of patient purpose and consecutive endeavor strongly illustrate what is in the power of each to accomplish. The gentleman whose life his- tory herewith is briefly set forth is a conspicuous example of one who has lived to good purpose and achieved a definite degree of success in the special sphere to which his talents have been devoted.
David A. Clements, the son of John N. and Mary V. ( Hendron) Clem- ents, was born in North Salem, Hendricks county, Indiana, on January 22, 1858. John N. Clements was born in Clements Valley, Kentucky, and grew up and married in that state. Mary V. Hendron was a native of Virginia. Immediately after their marriage the young bridal couple took their honey- 1001 trip to Putnam county, Indiana. They came through on horseback, following blazed trails, forded rivers and threaded their way through the wilderness. They located first in Putnam county, afterwards going to Boone county, this state, but after a short stay in that county, settled in Eel River township, Hendricks county, about one and one-half miles south of North
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Salem, in what was then known as the Round Town neighborhood. There they started pioneer life with their rude log cabin and all that went with it. They lived here until David A. was sixteen years of age, when they moved into North Salem and spent the remainder of their lives. The panic of 1873 brought disaster to the family and the farm had to be sold. John N. Cleni- ents and two sons, John E. and George H., were in the Civil War and served throughout that fierce struggle. John N. Clements enlisted three times and was wounded twice and permanently disabled. After the panic of 1873 he recovered his finances and died in comfortable circumstances. He was a stanch Republican all his life and active in the party organization. Relig- iously, he was a member of the Regular Baptist church from boyhood, his father being a Baptist minister. He lived to be ninety-one years of age, his wife dying at the age of sixty-five.
David A. Clements received his education in the district schools of his township, and when he was sixteen years of age he moved with his parents to North Salem, where he completed his educational training, after whichi he started to learn the trade of a machinist and for fourteen years was an engineer at North Salem in a flouring mill. He was then left without a position upon the burning of the mill. He came to Indianapolis, where he worked for about sixteen months in Wasson's department store, following which he was appointed superintendent of the Hendricks county poor farni and held that position for six and one-half years, his term ending March I, 1914. After leaving the county farm he purchased a farm near Browns- burg. where he now resides.
Mr. Clements was married September 14, 1880, to Lettie M. Waters, the daughter of Harney Waters, and to them has been born one daughter, Anna Maude, wife of U. W. Parsons, a lumber dealer of Brownsburg, and they have two children, David Vanuel and Beatrice Pauline. They also had a daughter, Maurine, who died on Christmas day, 1913, at the age of two years and seven months. Mr. and Mrs. Clements were the parents of three other daughters : Della G., who died at the age of two years; Nellie C., who died at the age of four, and Della C., who died at the age of two years.
The father of Mrs. Clements was born in Kentucky December 7, 1842. and was the son of William and Julia Ann ( Waters) Waters. When he was a babe in arms his parents moved to North Salem, where his father followed farming all his life. In the fall of 1862 Nathan Harney Waters married Rosena Zimmerman, the daughter of John and Nancy (Myers) Zimmerman. He was born near North Salem, his parents coming here from
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Kentucky. The Zimmermans were a well-known pioneer family and reared a family of fifteen children. For the past ten years Mr. Waters has been sexton of the Fairview cemetery at North Salem. He and his wife are members of the Christian church and have been married for more than a half century.
Fraternally, Mr. Clements is a member of the time-honored order of Free and Accepted Masons, and he and his wife both belong to the Order of the Eastern Star. Religiously, Mr. Clements and his family are loyal and consistent members of the Christian church at North Salem and are inter- ested in all of the work of that church. They have a hospitable home and have a large number of friends and acquaintances who esteem them for their many good qualities.
WILLIAM R. BOWMAN.
Many states in the Union have contributed to the present population of Hendricks county, Indiana, but it is probable North Carolina furnished as many of the early pioneers of this county as any other state in the Union. Most of the people who came from North Carolina to Indiana in the early history of the state were members of the Friends church, who left the state of their nativity because of their opposition to slavery. When North Caro- lina changed her constitution in the early part of the nineteenth century, she permitted slaves to be held in that state, and as soon as the Friends found that slavery was to be tolerated they made preparations to leave the state. Wayne county, Indiana, was practically settled by North Carolina Friends, and other counties in the state received large delegations of native citizens of North Carolina. Wherever these native sons of North Carolina settled, they became prosperous and influential citizens.
Among the Friends of North Carolina who settled in Hendricks county, there is no one who has led a more highly respected and honorable career in this county than William Romulus Bowman, who was born March 22, 1850, in Guilford county, North Carolina. His parents were Richard and Polly Ann (Little) Bowman, natives of Guilford county, that state. Richard Bowman was a farmer in his native state and spent all of his days there. His wife was born in 1823, and died in October, 1910, in her native state. Mr. and Mrs. Richard Bowman were the parents of ten children : Leroy W .; Lysandry A., deceased ; Mary, deceased in infancy ; William Romulus, whose history is here presented; Cornelia, deceased; Edmond, a resident of North
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Carolina : Martha, deceased: Rufus, of North Carolina; Victor, deceased. and Mrs. Nanna Enima Hoggins, who lives in North Carolina. Richard was a great worker in the church, as was his wife.
William R. Bowman spent his boyhood days on his father's farm in North Carolina, but upon reaching his majority he came to Henry county, Indiana, and shortly afterwards went to Rush county, this state, where he remained a year. He then removed to Hamilton county, Indiana, and three years later came to Hendricks county, where he remained for the next three years, later going to Morgan county, Indiana, where he married, after which he returned to Hendricks county in 1881 and settled on his present farm.
William R. Bowman was married on December 12, 1878, to Jane Rachel McCollum, the daughter of Joseph and Matilda ( Weesner ) McCollum. Jo- seph Milton McCollum was born April 24, 1828, in Randolph county, North Carolina, and, when a young man, came to Guilford township, Hendricks county, Indiana, where he worked for Mr. Blair and others. When he came to the county he had sixty-five cents and two suits of jeans and spent thirty cents of his capital for a Bible. He worked for a short time in this county, then went to Morgan county, where he worked two years for Mr. Weesner, and while working there he became acquainted with Mr. Weesner's daughter, and subsequently married his employer's daughter in Morgan county, and began farming for himself in that county. He bought eighty acres of land in Monroe township, that county, and by diligent effort and thrift he and his wife accumulated nearly three hundred acres before his death, which occurred on July 15, 1908, at the advanced age of eighty. Joseph Milton McCollum was a great Bible student all his life and was a prom- inent worker in the Friends church at West Union, Morgan county. Throughout his life in that county he was an active worker in the church and attributes his success to the fact that he was one of the tithers of his denomi- nation. Mr. McCollum was a prosperous farmer and specialized in the rais- ing of Poland China hogs. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Milton McCollum were the parents of nine children: Mrs. Delphiana Lawrence, who is living in Kansas: Mrs. Elmina Johnson, of Liscomb, Iowa; Mrs. Mary Page, who re- sides on the old home place in Morgan county, Indiana : Jane, the wife of Mr. Bowman; Louisa, deceased; John L., who lives in Michigan, and twins who died in infancy. Mrs. McCollum, now eighty-nine years of age, is living with Mr. and Mrs. Bowman. She came from her home in North Carolina to Henry county, Indiana, when a small child with her parents and soon afterwards the family came to Morgan county, Indiana, where they
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both died. The father lived to the advanced age of ninety, and her mother passed away at the age of sixty-six. Mrs. McCollum is now an invalid, and has been for eight years, but is kindly cared for by Mr. and Mrs. Bowman.
William R. Bowman and wife are the parents of five children: John Alfred, who died at the age of fourteen months; Urban, who married Elsie Thompson and has three children, William Harold, Blanche Maria and Rich- ard Merlin; Urban is a farmer living in Marion county, near Bridgeport ; Milton Richard, the third child of Mr. and Mrs. Bowman, married Ione Dillon; he is a skilled machinist at Bridgeport, Indiana; William Gurney died at the age of twenty years, and Jennie died in infancy.
Mr. Bowman and his wife are both faithful and loyal members of the Friends church and give to it their earnest and zealous support. Politically, Mr. Bowman is a Prohibitionist, feeling that the principles as advocated by that party, if put into effect, would insure the more rapid advancement of civilization in this country. Mr. Bowman has been a resident of this county for about forty years. and in that time has impressed his individuality upon his community. He is a man of generous impluses and a firm believer in those principles of honesty and integrity which he has always employed in his business. He is a man essentially of domestic taste and is devoted to his family and to his church, and because of the clean and wholesome life which he has lived in this county he has won the esteem of his friends and neighbors.
JAMES E. DAUGHERTY.
A farmer of Hendricks county, Indiana, who has attained to a position of influence in his community is James E. Daugherty, one of the native sons of the Hoosier state, whose life of more than three score and ten years has been spent wholly within this state, and he has been a witness of the remark- able growth which has taken place during that long period. He has always led a quiet life and during his long career he has never forsaken the soil and the independent existence which characterizes the successful farmer.
James E. Daugherty, the son of James and Mary Ann ( Mills) Daugherty, was born in Montgomery county, Indiana, February 8, 1841. His parents were natives of Kentucky, and came to this state and settled in Montgomery county in 1830. His mother died on July 31, 1872, at the age of sixty- six years, and his father died at Ladoga, Indiana, on January 9, 1891. Mr. and Mrs. Daugherty, Sr., reared a family of five children : Wesley W., who
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died March 10, 1902; Mrs. Nancy Lee Stover, who died March 12, 1908; Mrs. Catherine Bird, who died in August, 1881, and Mrs. Minerva Harsh- berger, who died March 12, 1906; James E., whose history is here presented.
James E. Daugherty was reared on his father's farm in Montgomery county, Indiana, and received his education in the schools of his home neigh- borhood. He was married May 27, 1869, to Eliza Jane McCoun, who was the daughter of John W. and Melvina (Talbott) McCoun, and born in Jack- son township, Hendricks county, on August 31, 1849. To this union were born the following children : Henrietta, who married Homer Paterson and died on August 21, 1890; Edgar, a farmer in Center township; Charles, Mary and Grace, who are at home.
In the fall of the same year he was married, Mr. Daugherty bought a farm in section 31, Center township, Hendricks county, Indiana, and he proved to be a very successful farmer from the start of his agricultural career. As a result of his thrift and economy he was able to add to his possessions from time to time until he is now the owner of five hundred and fifty-six acres of well improved land in the county. In addition to his heavy farming in- terests, he has engaged in the buying and selling of all kinds of live stock. He raises considerable live stock himself, making a speciality of pedigreed Shorthorn cattle and Poland China hogs.
Politically, Mr. Daugherty is a Democrat, while in religion the family are identified with the Christian church. Mr. Daugherty has given satis- faction as executor of several estates.
REV. PETER W. RAIDABAUGH.
There is no earthly station higher than the ministry of the Gospel, no life can be more uplifting and grander than that which is devoted to the amelioration of the human race, a life of sacrifice for the betterment of the brotherhood of man, one that is willing to cast aside all earthly crowns and laurels of praise and fame in order to follow in the footsteps of the lowly Nazarene. It is not possible to measure adequately the height, depth and breadth of such a life, for its influences continue to permeate the lives of others through successive generations, so the power it has can not be known until the "last great day when the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible." One of the self-sacrificing, ardent, loyal and true spirits that has been a blessing to the race, who has left in his wake an in-
REV. AND MRS. PETER W. RAIDABAUGH
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fluence that ever makes the world brighter and betters the lives of those who follow, is the Rev. Peter W. Raidabaugh, whose life forcibly illustrates what energy, integrity and a fixed purpose can accomplish when animated by noble aims and correct ideals. He has ever held the unequivocal confidence and esteem of the people among whom he has labored, and his career can be very profitably studied by the ambitious youth standing at the parting of the ways.
A man who has played a large part in the work of the Friends church and its allied organizations is Peter W. Raidabaugh, of Plainfield. A man of broad scholarship, fine business ability and lofty ideals, he has long occu- pied a conspicuous place as a churchman and as a citizen of the community where he has resided. He was born in Lewisburg, Union county, Pennsyl- vania, March 9, 1849, the son of Adam and Eve (Winegarden) Raidabaugh. Both of his parents were natives of Pennsylvania. his father being a plasterer and a man of more than ordinary ability. He was a prominent Mason and Odd Fellow and was an officer in the grand lodges of both orders. He had the reputation of being one of the best informed men on Masonry in the whole state. He died in the state of his nativity in 1892 and his widow sur- vived him just ten years. Mr. and Mrs. Adam Raidabaugh were the parents of six children, all of whom are living: George P., of Baltimore, Maryland ; Daniel, of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania; Charles A., of Atchison, Kansas; Mi- nerva, of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania; Henry W., of Baltimore, Maryland; and Peter W., the immediate subject of this sketch.
Peter W. Raidabaugh was educated in the public schools of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and very early in life decided that he would make the ministry his life work. When he was only twenty years of age he began to fill the pulpit in the Evangelical Association church and at the age of thirty-two he was the presiding elder of the Lewisburg district of the Central Pennsylvania conference, of that church. He continued in the ministry until 1883, when he was elected editor of the Sunday school publications of that church. He then moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he lived for the next ten years. In 1889, on account of a division in the Evangelical Association, resulting in two denominations, the subject did not feel clear to go with either faction and he united with the Friends church and was immediately installed as pastor of the society at Cleveland, retaining this charge for two years. The Publishing Association of Friends then put him in charge of the Sunday school and other publishing interests of the Friends church throughout the United States and Canada, and he located at Chicago. In addition, he was editor of the Christian Worker until 1894, when the paper was consolidated
(44)
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with the Friends Review of Philadelphia, and the two papers merged into the American Friend, the present church organ; and since that time Rev. P. W. Raidabaugh has given all of his time to the editing and publishing of the Sunday school literature of the Friends church, with his headquarters at Chicago. The business was removed to Plainfield in 1901 and remained there until 1913, when it was transferred to the Friends Bible School Board at Fairmount, Indiana. In 1904 he bought the Plainfield Progress and changed the name of the paper to the Friday Caller, and, with his son Walter as editor, the paper was a decided success. He sold the paper in 1910 to C. C. Cumberworth, but two years later he took it back again, and finally disposed of it in 1913 to Fred E. Warner, the present editor and owner.
Reverting to an earlier period in Rev. Raidabaugh's career, during the year 1885, while he was serving as Sunday school editor in the Evangelical publishing house at Cleveland, Ohio, a city election occurred, the question of closing the saloons on Sunday becoming the leading issue in connection with the election of councilmen. Rev. Raidabaugh being a resident of the twenty- third ward, the largest resident ward of the city, he was requested by a large number of citizens to stand for election to council on the Republican ticket. At the primary he was nominated over two other candidates and was subse- quently elected. For two years he was active in the affairs of the city, being chairman of the committee on printing and a member of the committees on fire and water and on ordinances. His voice and vote were constantly used in favor of a higher moral tone for the city.
After the incorporation of the town of Plainfield, Rev. Raidabaugh be- came the first treasurer of the town, and was re-elected, serving for six years, with eminent satisfaction to his fellow citizens.
In 1889 Rev. Raidabaugh was sent as a delegate from the state of Ohio to the first world's Sunday school convention, held in the city of London, England.
Rev. P. W. Raidabaugh now finds himself out of active business for the first time since early manhood, although he is still the pastor of the Friends church at Bridgeport, Indiana, and has been in charge of that church for the past ten years.
Rev. P. W. Raidabaugh was married October 15, 1872, to Sarah W. Walter, of Union county, Pennsylvania, and to this union there have been born three children: Walter, who was a very promising young man and as- sociated with his father in the newspaper at Plainfield, and died in 1910; Mrs. Elizabeth Newsom, of New York city, and Helen, deceased.
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Rev. P. W. Raidabangh has lived an eminently useful life. He has al- ways been calm and dignified, never demonstrative, yet his life has been a persistent plea, both by precept and example, as well as by written and spoken word, for the purity and grandeur of right principles and the beauty and ele- vation of wholesome character. He has always had the greatest sympathy for his fellow men and has ever been willing to aid and encourage those who were struggling to aid themselves against adverse fate, yet in this, as in every- thing else. he was entirely unostentatious. To him home life has been a sa- cred trust and the church a sanctuary of faith, and nothing has ever been able to swerve him from the path of rectitude and honor.
WILLIAM HENRY ARNOLD.
Practical industry, wisely and vigorously applied, never fails of success. It carries a man onward and upward, brings out his individual character and acts as a powerful stimulus to the efforts of others. The greatest results in life are often attained by simple means and the exercise of the ordinary qualities of common sense and perseverance. This everyday life, with its cares, necessities and duties, affords ample opportunities for acquiring ex- perience of the best kind and its most beaten paths provide a true worker with abundant scope for effort and improvement. The fact having been recognized early in life by the subject of this sketch, he has seized the opportunities that he encountered on the rugged hill that leads to life's lofty summit where lies the ultimate goal of success, never attained by the weak, am- bitionless and inactive. Mr. Arnold is carrying on the various departments of his enterprise in Hendricks county, Indiana, with that discretion and energy which are sure to find their natural sequence in definite success, and in such a man there is particular satisfaction in offering in his life history justi- fication for the compilation of works of this character-not necessarily that the careers of men of Mr. Arnold's type have been such as to gain them wide reputation or the admiring plandits of men, but they have been true to the trusts reposed in them, have shown such attributes of character as entitled them to the regard of all and have been useful each in his respective sphere of action, while at the same time he has won and retained the esteem of all with whom he has come in contact as a result of his industrious and upright career.
William Henry Arnold was born on September 15, 1852, in Putnam
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county, this state, the son of Richard and Levina ( Potts) Arnold, the for- mer of whom was a native of Kentucky and came to Harrison county, this state, with his parents, Richard, Sr., and Rebecca Arnold, being but five years of age at that time. Richard, Sr., was born in Kentucky on March 15, 1765, and Rebecca was born in the same state in July, 1773. Their mar- riage took place in 1790 and Richard, Jr., was born August 1, 1805. He grew to manhood in Harrison county, this state, and was there married on November 10, 1825, to Levina Potts. His life-long vocation was that of farming and at an early date in the history of this section he came to this county, settling on what is now known as the old Bowen farm. Here he probably entered about a quarter section of government land. He was a hard working man and cleared up his land, nicely fencing it and preparing it for cultivation. He remained on this farm for several years and then sold out and moved to Arkansas. He made the trip overland in a covered wagon, but so disappointed was he with the prospects upon arriving there that he did not even unload his wagon, but after a short rest started back to the good old Hoosier state. He went to Putnam county, where he obtained a farm and where he remained for several years and reared his family. He later disposed of this property and returned to this county, taking up his resi- dence in Franklin township. Near the close of his life he retired from active farm work and went to Stilesville to live, his death occurring there. Levina Potts, his wife, who was a Kentuckian by birth, also died at their home in Stilesville. They were the parents of fifteen children, Jacob, Beckie, Mar- garet. Nancy, Maria, Rebecca, Richard, Malinda, John, Vina Ann, Colum- bus, and an infant, all deceased. These living, besides the subject, are George and Alonzo.
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