USA > Indiana > Miami County > History of Miami County, Indiana : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume II > Part 22
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thorough business man, and for some time was engaged in buying up claims, which had been taken up by people who at the time were dis- couraged with existence in that part of the country, and who wanted to get rid of their land, and either return to the east or go on further west. By trading and purchase, Andrew Gwinn at one time owned as high as thirty-one hundred acres of land. He was married in Douglas county, and the thirteen children in his family are named as follows : Louise Jane; Elizabeth Ann, deceased; Rachel Berry, deceased; Mary Matilda; Thornton William; Andrew Lonis, deceased; Lorenzo Howard, deceased ; Enos Prather, deceased; Samuel C., deceased; John Wilson, deceased ; Oliver M., deceased; Elmer Ellsworth; and Virginia May. The father was a very religious man and lived up to his creed. He was an old-fashioned Methodist, and served as superintendent of the Sunday school, and helped in all religious work. In Douglas county, he was one of the foremost in organizing a Methodist society, and building its first church. When his neighbors abandoned the work of construction, he not only gave additional financial aid, but also cut timber out of his own woods, so that the church might be completed. This church was built of logs. The first home in Illinois was also a log house. The father was reared under circumstances which prevented his securing a good education, and he began practical work when a young man, but lived to enjoy excellent success and the esteem of all his community. His death occurred in Illinois in September, 1905. Mr. Elmer E. Gwinn, spent the first fifty-one years of his life on the old homestead in Illinois, and he still owns between nine hundred and one thousand acres of land in that state. He bought his present place in Pipe Creek township about five years ago, and in November, 1911, moved here as his perma- nent home. The farm consists of two hundred and fourteen acres, and he owns about fifty acres adjoining. Mr. Gwinn has given much attention to the breeding of shorthorn cattle and recently of the Polled Angus, and of high grade horses, and is one of the most skillful stock raisers and handlers of live stock in Miami county. He is a graduate of the Chicago Veterinary College, with a diploma in veterinary surgery, and has practiced to some extent, though mostly has applied his skill in the treat- ment of his own stock.
On December 12, 1894, Mr. Gwinn married Miss Emma Burkey, a daughter of John Burkey, and a granddaughter of Jacob Burkey. Her mother's maiden name was Julia Ann Redman. Her ancestry is Swiss and German, and her family were previously residents of Ohio. Mrs. Gwinn is a native of the old Buckeye state of Ohio and was born June 22, 1869. She received a good practical education in the public schools, and was also a student in high school. She is a cordial, genial lady and has well filled her place as wife and mother. His beautiful home is one of the dearest places on earth to her.
Mr. and Mrs. Gwinn are the parents of one son, Andrew Burky Gwinn, who was born in Douglas county, Illinois, July 17, 1899. He received his diploma when he finished the eighth grade and is now a student in the Bunker Hill high school. Mr. Gwinn and family are members of the Methodist church, and he is affiliated with the Masonic order of Bunker Hill, Indiana, and the Modern Woodmen of America at Oakland, Ill. The pretty estate of Mr. and Mrs. Gwinn is known as "Maple Hurst.'
JOHN T. ARMITAGE. As a soldier, public official, business man and lawyer, the career of Mr. Armitage has been one of varied experience and exceptional interest. He has been a resident of Peru for more than forty-five years, is one of the best known citizens, and has identified him-
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self closely with the progress and development of this city since the time of the war.
John T. Armitage was born on a farm in Jay county, Indiana, on July 17, 1848, and is a son of Seth and Louisa (Timberlake) Armitage. Reared in his native county, he attained a primary education in the district schools and subsequently attended an Academy. From the time he was thirteen years old the war between the states was in progress, and with such mighty events occurring he found it almost impossible to direct his attention to the prosy studies and early in the war made two attempts to join the army. In each instance his service was rejected, but on November, 1863, he succeeded in getting himself enrolled in Company B of the Eleventh Indiana Cavalry. He was sent to the south in time to see service under General George H. Thomas in the last great campaign through Tennessce, and his first important engage- ment was at Franklin, one of the hardest fought and most sanguinary battles of the entire war. After that he was with the forces which fol- lowed up Hood's receding army into Alabama and Mississippi and was engaged in general cavalry service under the declaration of peace. His taste for military life was given ample satisfaction, since his service continued for some time after the close of the Civil war. At Eastport, Mississippi, his command was conveyed by boat to St. Louis, during the spring of 1865, in that city new mounts were supplied, and from there the cavalry proceeded across Missouri into Western Kansas, where they were posted upon the frontier. It was a rare experience and one that few men of the present time have witnessed, to have served along the western borders of American civilization during the late sixtics. His service consisted chicfly in the guarding of immigrant trains, in doing the post duty, and in keeping the Indian tribes in proper subjection. The buffalo herds at that time were still the monarchs of the prairies, and it was his lot to witness these countless droves in their feeding and in their passage from one range to the other. At the conclusion of this service he received an honorable discharge at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, September 19, 1865. Mr. Armitage belongs to a military family, being one of four brothers who served the Union cause during the Civil war. Two of these died in service, and two are still living.
Upon his return home Mr. Armitage learned the trade of carpenter and followed that occupation for several years. He located at Peru in 1867, and in this city engaged chiefly in the insurance business. During that employment he took up the study of law, was finally fitted for his examination and was admitted to the bar in 1899. Since then he has been engaged in practice and has enjoyed a fair share of the local clientage. In 1900 he was elected to the office of prosecuting attorney, and served as such for one term. Mr. Armitage is a Republican in politics, is a popular member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and also affiliates with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
On December 30, 1869, he married Miss Louisa V. Vandevender, and they are the parents of two children, namely, Pearl E. and Gracie. Mr. and Mrs. Armitage both worship in the Methodist church.
BRENTON WEBSTER LOCKRIDGE. The Lockridge family has been identified with Miami county since the decade of the thirties. Its members bore their full share of the work during pioneer times in clear- ing the forest and making homes in what was then a wilderness, and in later generations the family has been honorably represented in the agricultural and business activities, in the professional and public affairs, and one of the best known and most respected names of Miami county is that of Lockridge.
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Brenton Webster Lockridge, now residing in Peru, was born in Richland township, Miami county, May 29, 1850. James Allen Lock- ridge, his father, was born in Virginia, in 1813, and came to Miami county, Indiana, in the latter part of the thirties. He bought land in Richland township. He was a man of superior education for those days and had taught school in his native state. When coming here the county was yet in a primitive condition and he participated actively in the transformation period that caused this locality to immerge from its wild condition and become a popular and prosperous community. James A. Lockridge was noted as a hunter, and was known to have brought in three deer as his showing for a day's work. On October 5, 1837, he married Nancy Hall, who died August 10, 1845, after being the mother of four children. On January 16, 1847, her husband married Mrs. Delana (Butler) Tackett, and they were the parents of six children. Mr. Lockridge passed away on February 22, 1856, but his widow sur- vived until February 15, 1899. They were Methodists in religion.
Brenton Webster Lockridge was born to his father's second marriage and has always made his home in Miami county, with farming as his regular vocation. When a boy he attended the neighboring district schools at a time when he could be spared from helping in the farm work. He continued to reside on the farm until September, 1903, when he moved to Peru, which has since been his home.
On March 11, 1875, he married Miss Charlotte A. Wray, and the following are their children : Maude, who died when sixteen years old; Ross F., now attorney for the State Board of Corrections and Charities at Shawnee, Oklahoma, formerly principal of the high school at Peru, and also ex-judge of the Circuit Court of Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma; Robert Bruce, who served a period of enlistment in the Spanish-American war, and who lacked but one term of graduation from the Indiana State University when he was accidently killed during a track meet at Louisville, Kentucky; George, who died when one year old, and Ray, who, died at the age of eight years; Earle B., and Marie Delane.
Earle B. Lockridge, an ex-surveyor of Miami county, and well known as an engineer, was born on the same farm as his father, in Richland township, Miami county, on July 7, 1885. He attended the Roann high school for three years and in 1903 was graduated from the Peru high school. In the fall of the same year he entered the State Uni- versity at Bloomington, where he specialized in mathematics. He engaged in teaching during the fall and winter of 1905, then reentered State University and during his university career was employed as assistant in the engineer's office at Bloomington. In 1906 he was nominated on the Democratic ticket for the office of county surveyor of Miami county, being still a minor at the time of the nomination. He was elected only a few weeks after he had passed his twenty-first birth- day, and was reelected in 1908 and again in 1910. Mr. Lockridge resides with his parents in Peru, and is affiliated with the Masonic Lodge of this city. The grandfather of Earle B. and father of B. W. Lockridge, also followed the profession of surveying, and the grandson has in his possession a surveyor's book published in 1821.
MICHAEL BURKE. A life that has been marked by definite and worthy achievement and by impregnable integrity of purpose is that of this well known and highly esteemed citizen and representative business man of Peru, where he is a successful contractor in street and sewer construction and improvement. He is one of the sterling and ambitious men given to America by the fair old Emerald Isle, and while he owes
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and accords loyalty to the land of his nativity he is most insistently appreciative of the institutions and advantages of that of his adoption, and stands exemplar of the staunchest of American citizenship.
Mr. Burke was born in fine old county Tipperary, Ireland, on the 18th of November, 1852, and is a son of Cornelius and Catherine (O'Meara) Burke, both likewise natives of county Tipperary and repre- sentatives of staunch old Irish stock. Of the seven children all are living except one. Michael Burke was reared on a farm in his native county and his educational advantages in his boyhood and youth were those of the national schools of Ireland. His loved and devoted mother died on the 10th of October, 1863, when he was a lad of about eleven years, and in 1871 the family severed the ties that bound them to the Emerald Isle and came to America. They landed in the port of New York city and a few days later went to Toronto, Canada, where they remained a few months, at the expiration of which, in the autumn of 1871, they came to Indiana and established a home in Peru. Here the father passed the residue of his life, a man of uprightness and alert mentality, and here his death occurred on the 16th of October, 1885, both he and his wife having been devout communicants of the Catholic church and their children having been carefully reared in the faith of this noble mother of Christendom.
A sturdy youth of about nineteen years at the time when the family home was established in Peru, Michael Burke soon obtained employment in connection with railway service, and for five years he was thus en- gaged in the blacksmith shops of the Wabash and the Indianapolis, Peru & Chicago railroads. His next occupation was in the employ of Jeremiah Morrissey, who was engaged in public contract work and for whom Mr. Burke eventually became foreman. His effective services gained to him the confidence and high regard of Mr. Morrissey, and he was eventu- ally admitted to partnership in the business, of which he became the general manager. About the year 1884 he began contracting in an en- tirely independent way, and through effective and honest work in the handling of all contracts he built up a substantial and profitable enter- prise, which he continued in an individual way until 1898, when Moses Rosenthal was admitted to partnership, under the firm name of Burke & Rosenthal. This alliance continued until 1904, at the death of Mr. Rosenthal, and Mr. Burke since that time has been without a partner. The firm has done a large amount of important contract work, especially along the line of public improvements, with the result that it has become one of the foremost of its kind in this section of the state. The principal lines of the excellent sewerage system of Peru were installed under contract by Mr. Burke and other public utilities have been signally furthered through his effective interposition in the handling of important contracts.
Since 1903 the firm of Burke & Rosenthal has also conducted a thriv- ing business in the handling of coal, wood, cement, sewer pipe, etc., and its members are known and honored as progressive and representative business men of Miami county. Mr. Burke is essentially liberal and public-spirited and takes deep interest in all that touches the welfare of his home city and county, especially in view of the fact that here he has found opportunity for the gaining of definite success and pros- perity through well directed endeavor. He is a stalwart in the camp of the Democratic party and since 1909 he has served as earnest and valued member of the Peru board of education.
On the 3d of May, 1881, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Burke to Miss Anna O'Brien, daughter of James O'Brien, of Wabash county, and the three children of this union are Catherine, Mary and Cornelius James.
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REUBEN C. HARRISON AND BENTON HARRISON. A history of Miami county will best fulfill its purposes which preserves an enduring record of the largest number of careers of those men who as pioneers, as original settlers, laid the foundations of the solid prosperity and affluence which this western country has in recent years proceeded to enjoy as a harvest of early toil and hardships. Among the names most entitled to the dis- tinction of such record is that of Harrison, which has been identified with Miami county for more than seventy-five years. In the three quar- ters of a century which elapsed since the first of the name located in this county, practically all the development of progress and civilization have taken place and have been consummated in this region.
Reuben C. Harrison, who settled in the woods of Richland township of Miami county in 1837, was born February 2, 1805 in Cynthiana, Har- rison county, Kentucky, and was a son of Lawrence Harrison. Lawrence Harrison had served the colonies as a captain during their struggle for independence. Few families have been more intimately identified with pioneer movements in America than that of the Harrisons. The original seat of the family was in Virginia, and from that old commonwealth, after the Revolution, members of the family moved over the Alleganies into Kentucky during the dark and bloody days of that state. They settled in that portion of Kentucky which now has a county memorial- izing the name Harrison. Lawrence Harrison, the Revolutionary pa- triot, was an own cousin of William Henry Harrison, the hero of Tip- pecanoe and subsequently president of the United States. Lawrence Harrison died in Kentucky, and by his marriage with Mary Moore were born four children. One of their sons, William, served in the war of 1812.
Reuben C. Harrison, the third in the family, spent the first sixteen years of his life in his native state, and all the education that he acquired was that obtained by observation and self study. At the age of sixteen he went to Louisiana, where for several years he was engaged in chop- ping wood on Folly Island on the Mississippi river. This wood was used by the steamboats which plied up and down that great chain. He then came up the Mississippi Valley as far as Galena, Illinois, where he was engaged at work in the lead mines. His next removal was to Warren county, Ohio, where he was employed as a "framer." This name has very obseure meaning at the present time, and the occupation is practically unknown at the present day. The work of a framer con- sisted in preparing the frame work in connection with earpentering. While engaged in that occupation in Warren county, Ohio, Reuben C. Harrison married in December, 1830, Judith A. Keever. The two chil- dren born to them during their residence in Ohio were William J. and Julia A. They subsequently moved to Wayne county, Indiana, and from there in 1837 to Richmond township, Miami county.
In that township he bought eighty acres of school land, a tract that was heavily timbered, and there in the midst of the dense woods began his pioneer efforts in making a home. He built a log cabin which was the first shelter of himself and family, and when that work of necessity was completed, he began clearing the timber and grubbing the stumps in preparation for planting a crop. The round-log cabin eventually gave place to a more pretentious hewed log house, and that in time to more modern and comfortable structures.
Reuben C. Harrison along with his hard pioneer work also took an active part in public affairs. During his residence in Ohio, on August 22, 1831, he was appointed by Governor McArthur as captain of the Seventh Company, Second Regiment, Second Brigade in the First Divi- sion of the Ohio State Militia. Both physically and mentally he was the
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Pugsley
PHOTO
"WEASAW RESERVE STOCK FARM" RESIDENCE OF MR. AND MRS. SOLOMON D. RABER
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type of man which the modern student likes to associate with the repre- sentative old settler. He was more than six feet in height in his stocking feet, was broad shouldered, rather spare of flesh and though his hair was black, his complexion was fair, and his beard sandy and eyes grey. In politics he gave lifelong allegiance to the Democratic party. In 1840, after his settlement in Miami county, he served as tax collector. In the possession of his son Benton there is a receipt dated December 23, 1840, from the State Auditor, for the amount $495.15, showing the amount paid by him and credited by the state department. In November, 1842, he was elected a justice of the peace and commissioned as such by Governor Bigger. Then in 1848 he was elected and commissioned by Governor Whitcomb as probate judge of Miami county. He held that office until the position of probate judge was abolished under a new law. As a result of his service as probate judge he was ever afterwards almost universally known as Judge Harrison. In 1856 he was elected to the state legis- lature. He held the office of county commissioner in 1868, and continued in the same office by reelection for six years.
Reuben C. Harrison passed away on March 15, 1881, and in his death Miami county lost one of its finest types of pioneer citizens. His wife died August 1, 1886. After their settlement in Miami county six chil- dren were born to them, in addition to the two already named, these six being as follows : Mary J., Thomas Stanford, Frances, Benton, Lawrence and Ida M. Of all the children, only two are now living, namely, Benton and Ida M. The parents had a long and felicitous mar- ried life, and one of the impressive events in the social circle of their old home community was the celebration of their golden wedding on December 2, 1880.
Mr. Benton Harrison, the last surviving son of the pioneer above sketched, was born on the old home farm in Richland township on June 22, 1845. As a boy he grew up and came to know by actual experience much that was typical of pioneer life in this county. He attained his education from the neighboring schools, such as were then provided, and at the age of twenty-one started out for himself by renting his father's farm.
On February 1, 1872, he married Melissa A. Nicholson, a daughter of George and Emily (Beers) Nicholson, of Erie township, Miami county. In 1873 they moved to the farm of George Nicholson, Mr. Harrison's father-in-law, in Erie township, and as a renter operated that place until 1875 at which time the thrift and industry of himself and wife had enabled them to procure a farm of their own consisting of one hun- dred and sixty-four acres in Erie township. That remained his home continuously up to 1902 at which date he sold the old place and bought one hundred and thirty-three acres in Cass county. Though he has since owned the Cass county farm, he has not resided there but has made his home in a comfortable residence at Peru.
Mr. Harrison in 1882 served as assessor of Erie township, and in 1884 was elected township trustee, being reelected in 1886 and serving four years altogether. He has always been an active supporter of the Democratic party. He is affiliated with the Masonic Order. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison are the parents of seven children, namely : William J., Jessie, now deceased; Reuben C .; Emily M .; George W., deceased ; Julia A. ; and Leona May, now the wife of Russell Packard, of Detroit.
SAMUEL RABER AND SOLOMON D. RABER. Among those sturdy, ener- getic men who put up the sign posts of civilization in Indiana, Samuel Raber, of Miami county, is indeed worthy of mention. Settling in this section in an early day he won the regard and respect of everyone by
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his strong character, his devotion to duty, his honesty and uprightness and his respect for the rights of others. He lived his entire life as a farmer also carpenter and joiner by trade in this section and he was successful in a worldly way. It was his pardonable boast that he always made good in anything he undertook, and that this was true was due to the fact that he went into everything with a fixed determination to win. His death was a great loss to the county and the township with whose affairs he was for so long identified.
Samuel Raber was born in Schuykill county, Pennsylvania, on the 12th of July, 1834. His father was a farmer and he grew to manhood on the farm, but he learned the trade of a carpenter and in his early life he combined carpentry with farming. In the spring of 1854 he, in company with two other young men, set out for the West, their desti- nation being Council Bluffs, Iowa, which was at that time one of the trading posts of the frontier. He had about four hundred dollars in his pocket, this being the proceeds of the time which he had spent as a carpenter in a ship yard in Pennsylvania. On his way he stopped in Miami county, Indiana, to visit some old friends, and while here he renewed his acquaintance with Miss Sarah Ann See, a daughter of Charles See, who had come from the East and settled here a number of years before. The attractions of this young lady proved stronger than the wilderness ahead of him, and on June 19, 1856, they were married. Buying eighty acres of land in Union township, he settled down to the work of clearing and improving the land and establishing a home. Here he passed the remainder of his life, becoming one of the leading citizens of the community. He and his wife became the parents of twelve chil- dren, eight sons and four daughters, and the remarkable feature about this is that with the exception of one daughter who died in early child- hood, all of these children are now living. The mother died on the 15th of March, 1886. She was a member of the Lutheran church as was her husband, and she was typical of those strong, self-reliant frontier women who were the mothers of the best of our Middle Western men of today. On June 19, 1887, Mr. Raber was again married, his wife being Miss Catherine English, who has since died.
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