USA > Indiana > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery county, Indiana; with personal sketches of representative citizens, Volume II > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52
'His wife, Lydia Ann Watt, was a native of Circleville, Ohio, who came to Perrysville, Indiana, in 1834 with her parents, and here she and John F. Smith were married in 1835. She lived to a ripe old age, dying in 1894. She was a daughter of John and Judith Watt, both natives of Pennsylvania, from which state they came to Ohio and later to Indiana, and here they spent the rest of their lives, living to very advanced ages.
David C. Smith, of this review, received a good common school edu- cation, and before he could launch out on a business career the Civil war came on and he offered his services to his country, enlisting on July 22, 1862, in Company K, Seventy-first Indiana Volunteer Infantry, which regiment was afterwards known as the Sixth Indiana Cavalry. He served three years with much gallantry and credit, participating in a number of important campaigns and battles, and on August 6, 1864, the Confederates took him prisoner and sent him to Andersonville. He was captured near Gainesville, Georgia, while trying to get back from the Stoneman raid. Previous to that, when the regiment had only been in service twelve days, he was en- gaged at Richmond, Kentucky, where over half the regiment was captured and paroled. For some time he did scout duty in Knoxville, Tennessee, Kentucky, at Resacca, Cassville and Adairsville. He was in the Atlanta
863
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INDIANA.
campaign, and he was captured just before the fall of the city of Atlanta. Mr. Smith says words are inadequate in describing the horrors of Ander- sonville prison. There were thirty-three thousand of the Union men there at one time. He was released on April 29, 1865. He has also been in prison in Savannah, Millen, Blackshear, and Thomasville. He was honorably dis- charged from the Federal service on June 28, 1865.
After his career in the army he returned to Indiana and, desiring to complete his education, he entered Asbury (now DePauw) University, at Greencastle, where he remained one term, then went to Poughkeepsie, New York, and took a business course. He went to Minnesota in 1867 and there spent one winter, during which he canvassed the city of Minneapolis for a directory, then returned to Perrysville, Indiana, and took his father's place in the store, continuing to engage in general merchandising until 1883, or for a period of sixteen years, during which time he enjoyed an extensive trade and got a good start in life. Then he came to Crawfordsville and engaged in the lumber business, purchasing a half interest in a lumber yard with J. W. Stroh, which they conducted for two years, when Mr. Smith bought out his partner, then engaged in business for himself until 1888, when the firm of Smith & Duckworth was started, which has continued with uninter- rupted success. They enjoy a very extensive trade with the surrounding country and carry a large and well selected stock. Our subject has become one of the financially strong men of his town and county, and is deserving of much credit for what he has accomplished, having started at the bottom of the ladder. He is now advanced in years, but, having been a man of good habits, he is hale and hearty. He is a man who is popular with the people owing to his honesty, obliging nature and unfailing courtesy. He is a member of McPherson Post, Grand Army of the Republic, at Crawfords- ville. He belongs to the Masonic Order, and religiously, is a Presbyterian. Mr. Smith has done more work for the L. L. Culver Union Hospital in Crawfordsville than any other man.
On July 2, 1868, Mr. Smith was married to Caroline Sidney Evans, who was born in Fountain county, Indiana. November 13, 1841, and grew to womanhood and received her education in Indiana. Her parents were early settlers in that county and were well known there. She is the niece of General Evans, for whom Evansville was named. Her father, Jefferson Evans, was a prominent attorney and legislator.
Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, namely: Anna Mary, who is the wife of Frank P. McNutt, of Crawfordsville, and Agnes Neely, wife of Francis S. Cobb, of Boston, Massachusetts.
864
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INDIANA.
REV. HORACE CARTER HOVEY, D. D.
Horace Carter Hovey, son of Professor Edmund Otis Hovey, D. D., and Mary Carter Hovey, was born near Rob Roy, Indiana, January 28, 1833. They moved to Crawfordsville in 1835 and for two years lived in the "Old Brick House," till, in 1837, they built the dwelling on a lot of the "College Reserve," which remained in the family till 1898, when sold for the site of a presidential residence. Among Mr. Hoveys earliest recollections are the felling of the great trees and the raising of the frame-house. He was baptized by Father John Thomson and joined the Center church, March 30, 1845. When only twelve years old he took a class in Sunday school which he kept for seven years, being absent only six times in that period. When sixteen years old he was chosen to lead the chorus choir, in which he had previously been a singer and flute-player. He was a member of the college band, and has kept up his flute-playing all his life. He belonged to the Euphronean society and the Lyceum, and was an honorary member of the Calliopean society. Subsequent to graduation he was made a member, and for three years the vice-president of the Phi Beta Kappa society, which he was ap- pointed to represent at the Ninth Triennial Council of the United Chapters at Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1907. For about two years after graduating with the degree of A. B., in 1853, he was tutor in the preparatory department of Wabash College; and he served one summer as Sunday school missionary in Fountain county, where he organized twenty schools, and devised a system of Sunday school mapping that has been since adopted generally. In 1857 he was graduated from Lane Theological Seminary, at Cincinnati; where he mainly supported himself by teaching music in the public schools. He also led a chorus choir, mornings and evenings, in the Eighth (now the Third) Presbyterian church, and sang in a quartette choir afternoons in a church of which Dr. H. M. Storrs was pastor. In the former church he preached his first sermon, November 20, 1856, on "Church Music," which was afterwards published in the Christian Herald. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Crawfordsville, July 11, 1857, and ordained by the Presbytery of Madison, April 16. 1858, his father preaching the sermon on the occasion. He served as home missionary at North Madison, Bryansburg and Vevay, and for a year as secretary of the American and Foreign Christian Union. While considering a call to the Presbyterian church at Coldwater, Michigan, the Civil War began. His sermons in that city on the National Fast-Day (January 4, 1861), and on the firing on Sumpter, in April, caused such agitation that the
Horace 6. Hovey
865
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INDIAN ..
pastoral call was declined, and Mr. Hovey accepted a call to the Florence church in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he stayed four years. While there he served twice as delegate of the United States Christian Commission, during "battlefield duty" during his first term, at the Wilderness, North Anna and Cold Harbor; and in the second term, after six weeks work in camps and hospitals at Washington, D. C., he went to Richmond, just after its surrender, and had the task of superintending the feeding of the starving people. His other pastorates were: Second Presbyterian church in New Albany, Indiana (1866-1869) ; Fulton Street Presbyterian Church, Peoria, Illinois (1869- 1873); First Presbyterian Church, Kansas City, Missouri (1873-1875) ; Pil- grim Congregational, New Haven, Connecticut (1876-1883) ; Park Avenue Congregational, Minneapolis, Minnesota (1883-1887) ; Park Street Congre- gational, Bridgeport, Connecticut (1887-1891) ; South Congregational Mid- dletown, Connecticut, as supply (1892); and First Presbyterian church in Newburyport, Massachusetts (1893-1909).
Dr. Hovey's ministerial labors have been rewarded by large accessions to the churches to which he has ministered, especially at New Albany, New Haven, Minneapolis and Bridgeport, in each of which places there were re- markable revivals. He retired from active pastoral labors at the ripe age of seventy-five years; and since then has done occasional preaching, and con- siderable literary and scientific work. First and last he has made his mark as a lecturer on popular and scientific subjects, having filled engagements in many of the principal cities in the United States and Canada, and at numer- ous chautauqua assemblies, as well as with colleges and seminaries. He re- ceived the degree of Master of Arts from Wabash College in 1857. Twice he has been honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity, from Gale College ( Wisconsin) in 1883, and from Wabash College in 1907. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a member of the Geological Society of America, of the National Geographic Society, of the International Geological Congress, of La Sociètè de Spèleologie (France), and a charter member of the Connecticut Sons of the Amreican Revolution. He has been for fourteen years the president of the Merrimack Bible Society, and of the Daniel Hovey Association for nearly as long a period. He has also held numerous offices in the ecclesiastical bodies with which he has been identified.
From boyhood Dr. Hovey has been interested in scientific matters. When but nine years old he found the first of the myriads of "Crawfordsville Crin- oids" that have enriched the museums of this and other lands, and for many
(55)
.
866
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INDIANA.
years he owned the most noted of the Crinoid banks, known as Corey's Bluff. In 1871 he gave his cabinet to Wabash College, the gift being valued at one thousand dollars, and in 1887 he disposed of a collection of equal value to Carleton College in Minesota. In the summer of 1854 he made an indepen- dent geological reconnaisance of a considerable portion of Southern Indiana, reporting the result to the Indiana Geological Society and also sending a re- port to the New Orleans Academy of Science. In it he called attention to the now noted marble quarries, bituminous coal-fields, remarkable fossils of Spergen Hill, and the numerous caverns found in the Mountain Limestone. He explored that same year the wonderful Wyandotte Cave, of which he made a map, and he published his description in the Indianapolis Journal and the New York Tribune. Since that time he has visited more than three hun- dred caves and grottoes and gained especial distinction by his works on Mammoth Cave. In 1897 he joined a party that explored numerous can- yons and caverns in France, and he also visited Russia with a geological party that year, who were guests of the Tsar.
Dr. Hovey has been a frequent contributor to scientific and popular magazines, and more than a hundred articles from him have appeared in the Scientific American. He wrote a number of articles for the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He is the author of "Celebrated American Caverns" ( 1882) ; "A Guide-Book to Mammoth Cave" (fifteen editions) ; "Mammoth Cave Illustrated" (with Dr. R. E. Call, in 1897) ; "Hovey's Hand-Book of the Mammoth Cave" (1909) ; and a re- vised and enlarged edition of Hovey and Call's "Mammoth Cave Illustrated" (1912). He compiled in 1897 a work styled "The Origin and Annals of the First Presbyterian Church in Newburyport," that was published by Damrell & Upham, of Boston. More than thirty of his sermons, poems and addresses have been published in pamphlet form ; besides numerous minor contributions to the press. Jointly with Dr. Call he has compiled an exhaustive bioliography of Mammoth Cave, including 400 titles of works mainly in his own library, that will appear in 1913 in "Spelunca," a French periodical.
Dr. Hovey married, at New Haven, Connecticut, November 18, 1857, Helen Lavinia Blatchley, daughter of Samuel Loper Blatchley, Esquire. She was born at North Madison, Connecticut, April 23, 1830, and is directly descended fre tt Thomas Blatchley, who emigrated from Wales to Boston, in 1635, remover to Hartford in 1640, to Guilford in 1666, whence he returned to Boston, where he died. Her father went to reside in New Haven in 1846, where he became a well-known business man and had one of its principal
867
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INDIANA.
streets named for him. On her maternal side, Mrs. Hovey traces her ances- try back to the twelfth century. Her grandfather, Ebenezer Robinson, and her great-grandfather, Capt. James Robinson, were in the Revolutionary army. Previous to marriage she taught in the New Haven schools and also in Woodward and Hughes High Schools in Cincinnati. Dr. and Mrs. Hovey have had four children, namely, Mrs. Helen C. Ellinwood, wife of Rev. Henry F. Ellinwood, of Hamlet, North Carolina ; Dr. Edmund Otis Hovey, Jr., of New York City, who is general secretary of the Geological Society of America, and geological curator in the American Museum of Natural His- tory : Samuel Blatchley Hovey, deceased ; and Mrs. Clara Hovey Raymond, who, with her son, Horace Hovey Raymond, makes her home with her par- ents at Newburyport. Dr. and Mrs. Hovey celebrated their golden wedding November 18, 1907; shortly after which the following testimonial was pub- licly presented :
"The Presbytery of Boston take pleasure in presenting you, the Reverend Horace C. Hovey, D. D., this testimonial, containing a brief expression of their esteem for you, on having completed the jubilee of your ministry for Christ and His church. In doing so we wish to acknowledge the unfailing goodness of Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, whose hand has sustained you and your beloved wife in all your varied life and work. We also recog- nize with profound gratitude the signal honor conferred upon you by His grace in permitting you to serve as an ambassador of Christ for the excep- tional period of fifty years. We most heartily congratulate you and Mrs. Hovey on this consummation together of fifty years' service in the vineyard of our Lord. We appreciate fully the work and worth of such a term of service, and realize that for the ripe scholarship which has adorned your preaching, the pastoral care which has nurtured it, the irenic spirit which sweetened it, the consistent godly life which enforced it and the large meas- ure of success which has attended it, the whole Church of God, and the land you love are your debtors.
Your work as a Presbyter has been characterized by loyalty to Presby- terian principles ; your zeal for and unremitting toil in their advancement have been tempered with sweet reasonableness, and charity to Christians in other flocks. Your knowledge of Chruch Law has made you a safe councillor, and a leader in her courts; for all of which we tender you our most hearty thanks. It is the earnest prayer of our Presbytery that you and your life partner may be long spared to enjoy in health and peace the evening of life among your family and many friends; and when the dawn of the endless
868
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INDIANA.
day breaks and the shadows of this life flee away, you may have an abundant entrance into the inheritance of the saints in light, and receive life's crowning benediction from Him whose name is love, in His own immortal words, 'Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord.'"
Dr. Hovey, now an octogenarian, enjoys his full intellectual vigor, and is spending his declining days among his friends and former parishioners, at Newburyport, Massachusetts. Besides occasional use of his gifts as a preacher and a lecturer on scientific and literary topics, he has devoted his time to the congenial task of editing the "Hovey Book,' a volume of some 450 pages, with many illustrations, compiled under the auspices of the Daniel Hovey Association, already mentioned. This labor of love has brought him into delightful fellowship, personally or by correspondence, with a great number of kinsmen who claim descent from Daniel Hovey of Ipswich, as well as with many of the name abroad. Yet amid these diversified employments he cherishes the warmest devotion for his native state of Indiana, and retains a lively interest in all that concerns Montgomery county and its inhabitants, among whom he spent his boyhod and early manhood.
JESSE CARL ALFRY.
Life is pleasant to live when we know how to make the most of it. Some people start on their careers as if they had weights on their souls, or were afraid to make the necessary effort to live up to a high standard. Others, by not making a proper study of the conditions of existence, or by not having the best of all trainers-good parents-are side tracked at the outset and never seem thereafter to be able to get back again on the main track. Much depends on the start, just as it does in a race. The horse that gets the best start, all other things being equal, will almost invariably win the race. So in the race of life; if you are properly started with suitable grooming, such as good educational and home training, you will lead in the race in after years and enjoy your existence. Such home influences were thrown around Jesse Carl Alfry, well known business man of Crawfordsville, and a representative of one of the leading families of Montgomery county. Both father and mother were people of sound principles and exemplary habits, no word of re- proach being heard against either of them, being revered by all their many friends.
Jesse C. Alfry was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, November 2, 1881, and
869
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INDIANA.
he is a son of Henry and Nancy ( Drake) Alfry. In view of the fact that a complete sketch of Henry Alfry occurs in another part of this volume, an extended notice of this distinguished business man is not deemed necessary here. However, briefly, he was born in Mercer county, Kentucky, Septem- ber 15, 1837, the son of Kentucky parents, and Mr. Alfry spent his boyhood in his native state, remaining there until he was eighteen years of age when he came to Indiana and began working on a farm in Ripley county, and while living there married in 1857 his first wife, Lydia A. Selman, whose death oc- curred in 1874, leaving three children, William F., Etta Jane and Rose. The following year Mr. Alfry married Nancy Drake, mother of our subject. Her death occurred on August 8, 1909, leaving three children, Elenore and Harry D., besides our subject. When the Civil war came on, Henry Alfry enlisted, in 1861 in the Thirty-seventh Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and served gallantly for the Union until his discharge in 1864, having participated in many im- portant battles. After the war he returned to Indiana and in a modest way began the line of business that ultimately led to a fortune, lumbering, or more properly a department of lumbering, the heading business. He started this in the woods near Muncie, beginning making barrel staves, later made barrel and keg headings. He was successful in this from the start and his business increased with the years, having at one time five large factories, employing over two thousand men, in fact, he has handled millions of dollars and em- ployed many thousands of men, having been the undisputed leader of the head- ing business since 1857. Under his own management he has made and ship- ped fully 40,000,000 sets of all kinds of circled tight barrel heading from 1876 to 1912, having worked up in all his years in the business fully 400,000,- 000 feet board measure, or 16,666 carloads, or about 555 trains of thirty cars each, which would make a solid train 135 miles long. He has operated in various parts of the country, moving to Indianapolis in 1880, removing to Crawfordsville two years later, which city has since been his home and chief headquarters, although he has been in the South a great deal, looking after his interests there. He is still active in this business, but not so extensively as formerly. Through his energy, honesty and close application he has ac- cumulated a fortune, and is one of the best known and highly esteemed men in Montgomery county.
Jesse C. Alfry was educated in the schools of Crawfordsville, and was graduated from the Culver & Howe Military Institute in September, 1910, after which he formed a partnership with J. C. Treadwell in the Crawfords- ville Fruit Company, and in 1912 he purchased his partner's interest, and is
870
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INDIANA.
doing an extensive and satisfactory business, handling fruits of all kinds, cigars and confectionery.
Fraternally, Mr. Alfry is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
Mr. Alfry was married on December 23, 1909 to Beatrice Agnes Daley, a native of Brooklyn, New York.
WALTER LAWRENCE HUNT.
It is a good sign when so many residents of a county are found to have been born there. It indicates that they have found right at home all the opportunities necessary for the gratification of their ambitions in a busi- ness, political or social way, and it also indicates stability. One is reminded that "A rolling stone gathers no moss." That young man is the wisest who, when conditions will permit, remains in his native locality and addresses himself to the improvement of conditions he finds there and to his personal advancement along such lines as he may choose, selecting that for which he is best fitted by nature. One of this class is the successful and well known undertaker and funeral director, Walter Lawrence Hunt, of Crawfordsville, representative of an honored old family of Montgomery county.
Mr. Hunt was born in Mace, this county, on November 28, 1874, and he is a son of Samuel F. and Jennie (Coulter) Hunt. The father was also a native of Montgomery county, Indiana, having first seen the light of day at the old Hunt homestead in Walnut township, on May 3, 1848. He was a son of Ephraim Hunt. Ephraim Hunt was a native of Ohio, where he spent his childhood and from there came in a very early day and entered from the government one hundred and sixty acres in Walnut township, when the famous Wabash valley was practically an unsettled wilderness. He worked hard developing this land and established a comfortable home, later moving to Mace, spending his declining years in retirement in that village, and there his death occurred in the seventies, an honored and well known pioneer.
Samuel F. Hunt, father of our subject, grew to manhood on the home farm in Walnut township, where he found plenty of hard work to do when a boy, assisting his father with the general duties of the farm, and he re- ceived the usual education accorded country boys of that early period. Early in life he began farming for himself and soon had a good start, eventually
871
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INDIANA.
becoming one of the leading farmers and stock raisers of his part of the county, and he continued to make these lines his chief life work until his retirement, in the year 1906, when he left the farm and moved to a com- fortable home in Crawfordsville, where he is spending his old age in quiet and in the midst of plenty. He is well known throughout the county and is respected by all who know him, for his life has been characterized by indus- try and honesty. Politically, he is a Democrat, but has never been especially active in public affairs. In religious matters, he is a member of the Metho- dist church.
In the early seventies, Samuel F. Hunt married Jennie Coulter, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1852, from which state she came to Walnut township, Montgomery county, Indiana, with her parents when she was young. Her father purchased the land on which Ehpraim Hunt first settled, and here her family became very comfortably established and favorably known. Mrs. Hunt received a rural school education.
To Samuel F. Hunt and wife six children were born, namely: Minta is the wife of B. Coombs who is farming in southern Indiana; William lives in Red Wing, Minnesota; Lena is the wife of Allen Arnold, of Crawfords- ville; Florence is the wife of Alvin Powers, of Ladoga; Harley lives in Crawfordsville; and Walter L., of this sketch, he being the eldest of the children.
Walter L. Hunt grew to manhood on the home farm, and there made himself generally useful when a boy. He received a good common school education in his neighborhood, and he continued to work on the farm until 1899, when he attended the Askins School of Embalming in Indianapolis, where he made a splendid record, graduating from the same in 1912, having become quite proficient in the modern methods of embalming. However, prior to that he had maintained an establishment and had charge of funerals, etc., enjoying a good business, which is now very rapidly increasing, his neat and modernly appointed establishment being now located at 122 North Washington street.
Mr. Hunt was married on September 20, 1896, to Georgina Bowman, who is a native of Boone county, Indiana, her birth having occurred there on April 8, 1872, and there she was reared and educated. To this union four children have been born, namely: Ruth, who is now attending high school; Edith is in her seventh grade in school; Esther is doing fourth grade work; and Lester, third grade in the local schools.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.