USA > Indiana > Huntington County > History of Huntington County, Indiana : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume II > Part 9
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On the first day of June, 1897, his wife departed this life, and so loyally true was he devoted to her and her dear memory that he never
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fully recovered from the shock and the loss. Their married life was an ideal one. His wife was a woman of delightful presence, rare purity of character, and was always zealously loyal to his interests and to the interest of all good, true and worthy causes. Only two children were the fruit of the marriage of Judge Sayler and his wife-Samuel M. Say- ler and John M. Sayler, both of whom survive them. Both are in the active practice of law in the city of Huntington, Indiana.
Samuel M. Sayler was born in the little town of Winchester, Preble county, Ohio, on the seventh day of November, 1856. His early education was attaincd in the district schools, located on the site of the present William Street school in the city of Huntington, and in the academy on State Street in the same city, named the Rural Home Institute. This dis- trict school was typical of the common schools of that day, and reading, spelling and arithmetic were the principal studies. From 1873 to 1875 he was his father's secretary, while the latter was a member of Congress. This position gave him a wide acquaintance with the public men of that day. He spent part of the year 1875-76 in the high school of Huntington, but largely prepared himself for college. In the fall of 1876 he entered the classical course of Wabash College at Crawfordsville, Indiana, as a freshman, and graduated in June, 1880, with the degree of A. B. While in college Mr. Sayler was a member of the Greek Letter fraternity, the Phi Kappa Psi, and he was also much interested in the literary societies of the college, and in his senior year was one of the Baldwin prize orators. In 1883 Wabash College conferred on him the degree of A. M. The win- ter of 1880-81 he spent in Texas for his health, and during that time prosecuted the study of law.
On the appointment of Judge Sayler to the bench by Governor Por- ter in August, 1881, Samuel M. Sayler opened an office in the rooms which had been occupied by his father, and he has been in the active practice of law ever since that time. In 1888, on the retirement of Judge Sayler from the bench, a co-partnership was formed by him with his sons, S. M. Sayler and John M. Sayler, which continued until February 13, 1899. Since that time Mr. Sayler has not had any partner in business. In June, 1881, on the motion of his father, Judge James R. Slack admit- ted Mr. Sayler to the practice of law in the Huntington Circuit Court. On March 11, 1890, he was admitted to the bar of the supreme court of Indiana, on the motion of Hon. Edward Daniels of Indianapolis, and his name was placed on the roll of attorneys of the court without examina- tion, the committee appointed for that purpose recommending that it be done because of their knowledge of his worth as a lawyer. On the same day he was admitted to the bar of the Circuit Court of the United States at Indianapolis. On the fifteenth day of October, 1901, he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States on the motion of General W. W. Dudley, of Washington, D. C.
Mr. Sayler has been a member of the Indiana State Bar Association since 1903, and has been a member of the American Bar Association since 1890. At the annual meeting of the Indiana State Bar Association of 1904 he was elected a member of the International Congress of Lawyers
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and Jurists which met in connection with the World's Fair in St. Louis in September, 1904. In the American Bar Association he has been a member of the executive council, holding that place for four years, and only two other members of the association from Indiana are his seniors in length of membership-Hon. C. W. Fairbanks and Judge Robert S. Taylor. On the unsought recommendation of Governor Simeon E. Bald- win, of Connecticut, Mr. Sayler was nominated and elected a member of the International Society of Comparative Law and Political Economy of Berlin. This very distinguished and unsought honor, Mr. Sayler holds in very high esteem. He is also a companion of the Indiana Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, having been a companion in the inheritance rank until the death of Judge Sayler, when he became a companion of the first rank by succession.
On the fourth day of December, 1884, Mr. Sayler was united in mar- riage to Miss Luella C. Daily, a daughter of the late Hon. D. O. Daily, and his wife Anna A. Daily. Mr. Daily was a distinguished lawyer and public speaker who died in early manhood on the eighth of May, 1867. He was a graduate, with the highest honors of his class in 1853, from Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw University). In the year 1860 Mr. Daily was the presidential elector from this district on the republican ticket, and cast his vote for Abraham Lincoln for president of the United States.
Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Sayler: Oliver M., Isabella and Arthur. Oliver M. Sayler, born on the twenty-third of October, 1887, was educated in the city schools of Huntington and at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. He pursued the classical course and graduated fourth in his class of one hundred and thirty-three in the year 1909. He was elected a member of the Phi Beta Kappa society of Oberlin College, a society composed of the honor students of each class which is graduated from the college. He is now the dramatic editor of the Indianapolis News, and has also been the literary editor of the same newspaper. He was instrumental in the organization of the graduate chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at Indianapolis and is secretary of the chap- ter. Mr. Sayler spent the summer of 1914 in Europe to better equip him- self in his profession, and studied the theater in London, Paris, Berlin, Munich and Moscow. While in Europe he made extended excursions into Switzerland, Italy and Ireland. In Ireland he studied the Irish Theater and also made an extended study of west Ireland folk. Mr. Sayler ranks among the best dramatic critics of the United States. Isa- bella Sayler, born January 17, 1890, departed this life on the fourteenth day of November, 1903, just before she would have entered the high school. She was dearly beloved by everybody who knew her. Arthur Sayler, born January 18, 1894, is now a member of the junior class of Beloit College at Beloit, Wisconsin, and is the manager of the Glee and Mandolin clubs of the college. His early education was at the city schools of Huntington. He spent his senior preparatory year at Phillips Acad- emy, Andover, Massachusetts, graduating at that Academy in the class of 1911. His freshman year was spent at Oberlin College, but he went to
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Beloit College for his sophomore year and the remainder of his college course. He is a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity in Beloit Col- lege. He expects to study law and is interested in debating and public speaking.
Mr. S. M. Sayler has been an elder of the First Presbyterian church of Huntington since 1896. Fort Wayne Presbytery elected him a com- missioner to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., in 1913. As commissioner he attended the sessions of the General Assem- bly which were held at Atlanta, Georgia, and was a member of the judi- cial committee of the Assembly. Mr. Sayler is also a member of the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, and of the Knights of Pythias and of the Uniform Rank. He has been a member of the Cosmopolitan Club, the only literary club for men in the city since its organization in 1893. Mr. Sayler's life is an active one, and he has been identified with very many of the movements for the betterment of the city and county.
John M. Sayler, son of Judge Henry B. Sayler, was born at Hunting- ton, Indiana, June 12, 1866. He was educated in the city schools of Huntington, spent one year, 1886-87, at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana. While a student at Wabash College he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. After graduating at Huntington high school in the year 1855 he taught school in the common schools of the county dur- ing 1885-86. He studied law in the office of S. M. Sayler, his brother, and was admitted to the practice of law in June, 1888. Mr. Sayler has been a member of the bars of the Supreme Court of Indiana, and the Circuit Court of the United States for a number of years. In 1888, on the retirement of Judge Sayler from the bench, he became a member of the law firm of Sayler and Sayler, which continued to exist until Febru- ary 15, 1899, when the partnership was dissolved. Since that time he has not had any partner in business.
On the second day of October, 1890, he was united in marriage to Jennie Wampler, a daughter of Samuel Wampler and his wife, Agnes Wampler, of Montgomery county, Ohio. Mr. Wampler is one of the most substantial farmers of that wealthy county. Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Sayler : Agnes and Henry B. Agnes Sayler received her education in the city schools of Huntington, graduating in the class of 1908, and spent a part of one year at the Indiana State University, Bloomington, Indiana. On the fifteenth day of August, 1912, she was united in marriage to Howard T. Cate of Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Mr. Cate is engaged in the selling and distribution of the Children's Cyclo- pædia, published by the Dickson-Rucker Company of Chicago, with which company Mr. Cate holds a responsible position.
Henry B. Sayler, the second child of John M. Sayler and wife, was born at Huntington, Indiana, November 4, 1893, and received his early education in the city schools and the high school of Huntington. In 1910 he was appointed a cadet to West Point Military Academy by Hon. Albert J. Beveridge, United States senator from Indiana. He took his course, preparatory to examination for entrance at West Point, in Captain Braden's school at West Point.
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Mr. John M. Sayler is an ardent republican, not the least tinged with what he calls Bull Moosism. In 1910 he was a candidate for the nomina- tion for representative in Congress. The convention lasted for two full days and Huntington county gave to him its full number of votes for one hundred and twenty-six ballots, but the nomination finally went to John L. Thompson of Grant county, and he was defeated in the election. Mr. Sayler is a charter member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of Huntington, Indiana. He is engaged in the practice of law, and is particularly strong as an advocate in the examination of wit- nesses. He is a public-spirited citizen.
SEXTON EMLEY. In the death of Sexton Emley on Ocotber 30, 1890, there passed away one of the ablest and best known of the old-time Huntington county citizens. He had lived here from the pioneer era, grew to manhood in this county, and for many years was identified with its life and affairs as a farmer and an official.
Sexton Emley was born in Salem county, New Jersey, July 30, 1825, and was past sixty-five years of age at the time of his death. He was the tenth in a family of fourteen children, seven sons and seven daughters, born to John R. and Mary (Cook) Emley. John R. Emley was born in Monmouth county, New Jersey, April 6, 1787, and the latter was born in Burlington county, November 6, 1790. The Emley family was notable for its longevity. Of the fourteen children, nine of them lived beyond middle age at one time, the youngest being about fifty-five and the oldest nearly eighty.
On the first day of October, 1834, when Sexton Emley was nine years old, his parents set out with two wagons to immigrate to the far west. On reaching Warren county, Ohio, they visited relatives for one month. Resuming their journey on January 6, 1835, they arrived in what was then the village of Huntington, containing perhaps a dozen houses. John R. Emley had previously entered a tract of two hundred and forty acres of woodland in section twenty-nine, Clear Creek township. His log cabin home then erected provided the first shelter for the family, who took possession on Washington's birthday in 1835. In that pioneer environment Sexton Emley grew to manhood and had very few advan- tages of schooling, getting a practical equipment for life from books read in his home, observation of men and affairs, and by the handling of tools and the experience of a pioneer farm. Being the youngest son, he lived with his father and mother until he reached the age of twenty- nine. On April 30, 1854, he married Lydia Margaret Creager, a native of Whitley county, Indiana, where she was born November 11, 1839. Her parents were Samuel and Mary Leslie Creager, both natives of Mont- gomery county, Ohio. Samuel Creager and wife were married in Mont- gomery county in 1837 and settled in the woods of Whitley county, Indiana, where they were living at the time of the birth of their daughter, Lydia Margaret. For two years after his marriage Sexton Emley con- tinued to farm the old home place in Clear Creek township. In 1857 he settled on a farm of his own, which he had bought in section twenty-
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eight of the same township. That was his home until the fall of 1869, when he moved to Tract thirteen in Huntington township, where the rest of the years of his life were spent. As a farmer and a stock raiser, he was regarded as one of the most successful in Huntington county.
Mrs. Lydia M. Emley died January 13, 1873. On the ninth of June, 1875, he married Julia A. Campbell. She was born in the city of Hunt- ington, May 12, 1849, the daughter of Joseph Campbell, who settled in this county about 1848. The late Sexton Emley was the father of nine children, the first eight by his first wife and one by his second marriage. These children are : Delano A. V., Henry L., Emma C., Olive A., Mary L., Tilman H., John R., Roscoe and Rudy L. Mr. Emley was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, while his second wife belonged to the United Brethren.
The political career of Sexton Emley will be found in the township and county official record. His allegiance was in early life given to the democratic party, but after 1856 he supported with ardor the principles of republicanism. In the spring of 1847, when but twenty-one years of age, he was elected clerk of Clear Creek township, and re-elected so that he served altogether nearly five years. He resigned as clerk to accept the democratic nomination for county commissioner, to which office he was elected as an independent candidate, receiving not only the support of the democrats, but also of the whigs. In the fall of 1858 he was nomi- nated by the republicans for re-election, but was defeated by his brother Samuel, the democratic candidate. Mr. Emley was elected trustee of Clear Creek township in 1860, and for ten successive terms served in that office, each time with increased majority. On moving to Huntington township he resigned the office in September, 1869. His preferment for the larger honors of county politics began in June, 1872, when the republicans nominated him for the office of county treasurer. In the following October, 1875, he received a majority of 130, the largest majority ever given a county officer up to that time. Every township gave him a majority of the votes except one, and that was lost by only one ballot. His old home township, Clear Creek, gave only forty-one votes to the opposition. In 1878 Mr. Emley was the candidate of his party for state representative, but was defeated by the democratic can- didate. In all his official capacities he discharged his duties with credit to himself and satisfaction to his constitutents. As a business man Sex- ton Emley gained many of the satisfying rewards of industry and ener- getic management. Before his death he owned a handsome farm in Huntington township of five hundred and twenty-six acres, most of it in cultivation. Fraternally he was affiliated with the Masonic and Odd Fellow Lodges, and had friends by the hundreds among all parties and all classes.
HENRY L. EMLEY. The second son of Sexton and Lydia (Creager) Emley, Henry L. Emley, has been for upwards of forty years identified with banking affairs at Huntington, and is now vice president and cash- ier of the Huntington County Bank. All his life has been spent in this
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county. He is a product of the public schools and left the farm to take his first position and gain his first experience in a bank at the county seat. To his management and his genial personality is due much of the suc- cess of the solid old institution through which he has rendered service to the business community for the past quarter of a century.
Henry L. Emley was born on his father's farm in Clear Creek town- ship, Huntington county, March 4, 1859. Reared as a farmer boy, he attended the country schools and later was educated in the schools of Huntington. On leaving the high school he took a commercial course at Dayton, Ohio, and in 1876, at the age of seventeen found employment in the First National Bank of Huntington as a bookkeeper. His work with the First National continued from 1876 to 1887. In the latter year he was made cashier of the Huntington County Bank, and has since advanced to a place among the stockholders and official and executive directors of the institution.
On October 26, 1881, Mr. Emley married Miss Cassie Brown, of Huntington, a daughter of Henry and Sarah A. (Pomroy) Brown, old residents of this city.
Three children have been born to their marriage : Neil B., now in the employ of the Erie Railroad Company ; Don Pomroy, formerly a clerk in the Huntington County Bank, but now with the Erie Railroad En- gineering Corps; and Paul Emley, with the Western Electric Company of Chicago. The mother of these children died June 9, 1912. Fraternally Mr. Emley is affiliated with Huntington Lodge, No. 805, B. P. O. E., and with LaFontaine Lodge, No. 42, I. O. O. F. He is recognized as a shrewd and enterprising business man of Huntington, has lived here and enjoyed the confidence of the community through all his active life, and is one of the leaders in affairs. His church where he worships is the Central Christian, and being an amateur in musical matters he is a mem- ber of the church orchestra.
JOHN R. EMLEY. Few Huntington county families have been so prominently identified with the agricultural and business interests and civic affairs, since pioneer times, as the Emleys. Mr. John R. Emley is one of the best known bankers in the state, his standing and popularity being shown by his choice as the head of the state association. When a boy he started his career as a clerk in one of the local institutions, and now for a number of years has been cashier and chief executive head of the First National Bank of Huntington. His brother, Henry L. Emley, is cashier of the Huntington County Bank, so that the family is represented in two of the most substantial financial institutions of the county.
John R. Emley was born in Clear Creek township of Huntington county, October 6, 1869. His parents were Sexton and Lydia (Creager) Emley. Sexton Emley, who died a few years ago, was long prominent in Huntington county, not only as a farmer, but as a business man and public official. His career is given appropriate mention and somewhat in detail on other pages of this work. Mrs. Lydia Emley was born in Whitley county, Indiana, a daughter of Samuel M. Creager, who later became one of the early settlers in Huntington county.
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Marion B. Stuks
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John R. Emley grew up as farmer boy, had a district school edu- cation, and all his early experience was bounded by the horizon of the home farm. At the age of eighteen he entered the employ of the Hunt- ington County Bank as bookkeeper. Two years later he was advanced to the position of assistant cashier, a position in which he gave efficient service for twelve years. In 1902 Mr. Emley was elected cashier of the First National Bank, and has enjoyed the confidence of his associates and by his considerate treatment of patrons and liberal but conserva- tive management of affairs has done much to give the First National Bank its high standing in local banking circles.
In October, 1892, Mr. Emley married Miss Lucy L. Lans, of Hunting- ton, a daughter of H. D. Lans, of La Porte, Indiana. Mr. and Mrs. Emley are the parents of one daughter, Ruth. She is a graduate of the Huntington high school and is now a student in the La Salle Seminary, an exclusive girls' school near Boston, Massachusetts.
Mr. Emley is one of the directors of the First National Bank. He belongs to the local banking association, and was chosen president of the Indiana State Association for the years 1912-13. Fraternally his associations are with LaFontaine Lodge, No. 42, I. O. O. F. and Encamp- ment, in which he has passed all the chairs, and for a number of years served as treasurer of Huntington Lodge, No. 805, B. P. O. E. In poli- tics he is a Republican. At 336 West Matilda Street he and his family reside in a modern and substantial brick residence, one of the best homes in Huntington. He was a member of the School Board for three years and served several years as treasurer of the Huntington County Repub- lican Central Committee.
MARION BEST STULTS. A lifelong resident of Huntington county is Marion Best Stults, for the past thirty years a builder of individual business success and promoter of everything for the betterment of his community. His record as county school superintendent is remembered to his credit; as a member of the school board he has assisted in the advancement of the Huntington schools, and belongs to the group of local citizens whose influence and activities have done most to keep up the standards of social and civic culture and well being in the county.
Born in Clear Creek township, Huntington county, May 13, 1855, Marion Best Stults is of substantial and thrifty German ancestry. His great-grandfather, George Stults, came from his native fatherland to America some time between the years 1740 and 1750, settling in North Carolina. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and died a short time after the winning of independence.
John Harmon Stults, the grandfather, was born in North Carolina, June 10, 1779, while the Revolutionary war was still in progress. From North Carolina he moved into Pennsylvania where in 1806 he married Catherine Smith, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1783, a daughter of George Smith, who was also a soldier of the Revolution, and was taken prisoner by the British during that war. John H. Stults, in 1816, moved to Stark county, Ohio, where he lived until 1848, in which year he moved
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to Whitley county, Indiana. In 1855 he became a resident of the county of Huntington, where he died ten years later at the good old age of eighty-six. His wife died in Huntington county in 1862.
Next in line of descent comes Jacob Stults, father of the Huntington merchant. The ninth in a family of ten children, Jacob was born in Stark county, Ohio, February 3, 1824. His early boyhood and youth were spent upon a farm. When he was twenty-one years of age, in 1845, he began teaching school, and was identified with that high and useful calling twenty-one years. In the meantime, about 1850, he moved to Huntington county, Indiana, and while teaching during the winter sea- sons, also operated eighty acres of land which he had bought in Clear Creek township. That continued to be his home until 1888, when he retired from active life, and thereafter had his home in the city of Huntington until his death, October 10, 1897, at the age of seventy-three. On March 25, 1852, Jacob Stults married Miss Margaret E. Best, a daughter of James C. Best of Huntington county. She was born in Kentucky, but when a child her parents moved to Indiana, the date of their arrival in Huntington county being September 15, 1839. She died in Clear Creek township in 1855, at the early age of twenty-nine years. The only child of Jacob and Margaret Stults with Marion B. On May 18, 1856, Jacob Stults married Miss Harriet Kennedy, of Virginia, a daughter of John and Ann (Lyle) Kennedy. Their union resulted in four children: Maggie E., Sherman P., Addie B. and Howard B. In politics Jacob Stults first voted in behalf of the whig party, and re- mained a republican from the beginning of that party until his death. He was active in the Methodist church. His record was one of con- siderable prosperity from a material point of view, and he always possessed and deserved the esteem of his community as an upright and exemplary citizen.
Thus it is seen that the Huntington merchant first named in this article comes of a long line of thrifty and honorable ancestors, and in his own career has lived up to the standards of his forbears. He was two weeks old when his mother died, and he was reared under the care of his step-mother. With a boyhood spent on a farm he learned the lessons of industry, and had a wholesome environment that gave him a physical constitution equal to the exigencies of business life. From the local public schools he afterwards entered the Northern Indiana Normal School at Valparaiso, where he was a student two years, his purpose then being to take up the profession of teaching. From the fall of 1873 until 1881 he taught in the districts schools, and in 1879 was elected county superintendent of schools of Huntington county. He held that office for one term of two years, and was instrumental in that time in intro- ducing many important reforms in the local system of education. He had and still has high ideals as to the place that public schools should fill in any community, and has contributed more than an average individual share to making the Huntington county schools the best in the state. In November, 1882, on leaving school work, Mr. Stults engaged in the furniture and undertaking business at Huntington. Through that line
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