USA > Indiana > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery county, Indiana; with personal sketches of representative citizens, Volume II > Part 25
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weil whatever is worth doing at all, and this is one of the secrets of his large and ever growing success, which he deserves in every way. He is a booster for the city of Crawfordsville and has done much for its permanent de- velopment.
Mr. Coppage was born on July 25, 1876 in Hillsboro, Indiana, and he is a son of Llewellyn J. and Mary E. (Revercomb) Coppage.
Mr. Coppage of this review, received a good common school education in and near Crawfordsville. When eleven years of age he joined a theatrical troupe with which he remained some time, during which period he picked up a musical education, and later had charge of the Coppage Orchestra, a well known organization in its day, which for several years played for all local social and public functions, also furnished the music in the old Nutt House dining room. He later had charge of an orchestra at what is now Mudlavia, then went to Michigan City, Indiana, and taught music for two years with much success. While there he purchased a dry cleaning and hat manufac- turing business. He later went to Danbury, Connecticut, where he learned thoroughly the hat manufacturing business. That city is the center of the hat manufacturing industry in America, at least one of the principal, and Mr. Coppage still goes there once a year for the purpose of keeping fully abreast of the times in his chosen field of endeavor, and he thus keeps up with mod- ern styles and methods of manufacture. He understands every phase of the manufacturing of hats and is recognized as one of the best in his line, and, because of the superior quality of his products there has long been a great demand for them. He established his present business in Crawfordsville in 1906, his plant, which is well and modernly equipped, having a capacity of from twelve to fifteen dozen hats, the "Ben-Hur Brand," which has been very popular for the past six years all over the country. He has also been very successful in the cleaning business, and he purchased the Demas-Gilbert Block, in 1910, a splendid, substantial three-story building, with large floor space and with a commodious addition in the rear.
Mr. Coppage is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is Past Chancellor of the Knights of Pythias. He is now colonel of the Fourth Regiment of the Indiana Patriarchs Militant, is past chief patriarch of Bethesda Encampment, No. 15, is also past grand of Crawfords- ville Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is also a member of the Rebekahs, the Tribe of Ben-Hur, and he has the "Decoration of Chivalry," a high Odd Fellow distinction. He has long been very active and prominent in fraternal circles and is widely known throughout the state. He is a mem- 1
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ber of the State and National Dyers and Cleaners Association in which he takes a great deal of interest.
Mr. Coppage was married on September 30, 1902 to Bessie Mina Ryan, a lady of culture and the representative of a fine family of Michigan City, Indiana.
DAVID HICKS HOSTETTER.
The two most strongly marked characteristics of both the East and the West are combined in the residents of Montgomery county, Indiana. The enthusiastic enterprise which overleaps all obstacles and makes possible almost any undertaking in the comparatively new and vigorous states of the Middle West is here tempered by the stable and more careful policy that we have bor- rowed from our eastern neighbors, and the combination is one of peculiar force and power. It has been the means of placing this section of the country on a par with the older East, at the same time producing a reliability and certainty in business affairs which is frequently lacking in the West. This happy combination of characteristics was possessed to a notable degree by the late David Hicks Hostetter, for many years one of the leading agriculturists and stock men of the vicinity of Ladoga. Equally noted as a citizen whose career conferred credit on the locality and whose marked abilities and sterling qualities won for him more than local repute, he held for a number of decades distinctive precedence as one of the most enterprising and progressive men of his section of the county. Strong mental powers, invincible courage and a determined purpose that hesitated at no opposition had so entered into his composition as to render him a dominant factor in local affairs. He was a man of sound judgment, keen discernment, far-seeing in what he under- took. His success in life was the legitimate fruitage of consecutive effort, directed and controlled by good judgment and correct principles.
David H. Hostetter was a son of David and Mary ( Hicks) Hostetter. He was born near Circleville, in Pickaway county, Ohio, September 27, 1822, and his death occurred on July 1, 1910, when almost eighty-eight years of age. He was the youngest of a family of seven children, namely: Sherman, Beniah, Mrs. Mary Davidson, Mrs. Jane Hickathorn, Mrs. Zerelda Martin, and Mahala Hostetter who died in infancy. The mother of these children died when David H. was about two years old, and he lived several years with his sister, Mrs. Hickathorn. His father married again and together the family came to Indiama, when our subject was nine years old. Two children
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were born to the second union, Lewis who died when nineteen years old; and Lucky W., who died about 1897 at Wellsville, Kansas. There were three step-sisters, Mrs. Margaret Ashby, Mrs. Catherine Hedges, Mrs. Elizabeth Carlyle, and one step-brother, John Boyer. Our subject was reared with these children and the strongest ties of affection always existed between them. The family made the journey to Indiana in wagons. Some idea of the bad conditions of the roads may be gained from the fact that it required a week to travel from Indianapolis to Montgomery county, a distance of forty miles. The country was then practically a wilderness and sparsely settled. The ob- stacles encountered during that journey can hardly be imagined by those who now make the trip in two hours. The town of Ladoga was laid out five years after the family located here. The site at that time was a partly cleared farm. From the date of his arrival here David H. Hostetter spent the rest of his life within a mile and a half of the farm where his father first settled, until he moved into Ladoga about 1907. The family first located in the south half of Section 22, Scott township, which land the father had entered from the government, and there was only a small piece of ground cleared about the little cabin he had built. Here our subject grew to manhood and assisted with the hard work of clearing and developing the farm, and he received such education as the early day schools afforded.
On November 15, 1874. David H. Hostetter was married to Amanda J. Graybill, daughter of Samuel and Lydia (Arnold) Graybill. She was born and reared in Scott township in which her parents settled in 1836. Her father was born in Pennsylvania and was a son of Solomon and Mary (Cline) Graybill. He went to Roanoke, Virginia, where he and Lydia Arnold were married. She was a daughter of Daniel Arnold and wife. The Graybill family settled in the wilderness and cleared their land and lived among the other pioneers. The children born to David H. Hostetter and wife were three in number, namely: Lydia, Samuel Sherman and Emma Jane.
Mr. Hostetter became the owner of over three hundred acres of valuable and productive land and was a prosperous farmer. He did not purchase his success at the cost of the higher things of life, for he was a man of exemplary habits and fine character, and he was admired and esteemed by all who knew him. He believed thoroughly in the justice and wisdom of God and that true happiness came through obedience to divine principles. He obeyed the com- mand "Love thy neighbor as thyself." This, and his great honesty, clean habits and solicitude for his loved ones and faith in his Saviour was his re- ligion. His honesty, industry and temperate habits were rewarded by a long
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life and all the comforts of old age. His life has left many precious mem- ories to his family and his many friends and those who in distress sought the aid and advice, which to the worthy, was never denied.
Mr. Hostetter was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He had two brothers in the Indiana legislature, Sherman and Beniah, also one, Lucky, who became a member of the Kansas legislature.
Of the children of our subject, Emma Jane is the wife of Dr. H. K. Walterhouse, and they live at Oakville, Delaware county, this state, and are the parents of one son, David Kemper Walterhouse; Samuel Sherman Hos- tetter lives in Ladoga, married Lola Ronk, and he is farming the old home place in Scott township; Lydia makes her home in Ladoga with her mother.
David H. Hostetter took an active part in the development of this sec- tion of the state and he was an interested spectator of the transformation from the wild woods to the highly improved farms of a later day. He often related how he;and other pioneers drove their livestock to Lafayette, in Tippe- canoe county, where they sold them and with the money purchased groceries and other household supplies which they brought back on the return trip.
JACOB FRANK WARFEL.
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An honored and representative citizen of Montgomery county is Jacob Frank Warfel, for many years one of our best known and most successful educators, at present editor and publisher of the Ladoga Leader. He has been distinctively the architect of his own fortunes, has been true and loyal in all the relations of life and stands as a type of that sterling manhood which ever commands respect. He is a man who would have, no doubt, won his way in any locality where fate might have placed him, for he has sound judg- ment, coupled with great energy and honest tact, together with education and upright principles, all of which make for success wherever and whenever they are rightly applied and persistently followed. By reason of these prin- ciples he has won and retained a host of friends in whatever community he is known.
Mr. Warfel was born in Marion county, Indiana, on May 3, 1857. He is a son of Martin B. and Indiana ( McClelland) Warfel, and is of Pennsyl- vania Dutch ancestry on the paternal side. Martin B. Warfel died when our subject was ten years old, and the lad was compelled to hustle for himself. He soon began to work out at farming, at first for his board and clothes and
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later for wages. Continuing thus until he was nineteen years of age he then came to Ladoga in 1876, and there attended the Normal school for two years, then became a teacher in the same, in a few branches, although he con- tinued as a teacher, and was later given larger duties, remaining there as a teacher continuously many years, giving eminent satisfaction in every respect and finally became president of the school. Leaving the Normal he went to Indianapolis where he taught a year in the Hadley & Roberts Academy, then went to Frankfort, Indiana, and became principal of the high school while Prof. R. G. Boone, a noted educator, was superintendent of the schools there. A year later he returned to Ladoga and became superintendent of schools, which position he continued to hold in a manner that reflected much credit upon himself and to the eminent satisfaction of the board and pupils, for a period of twenty-three years, his long retention being sufficient evidence of his popularity. During that period he taught, during the latter years, the children of some of his former pupils, finally resigning as superintendent in 1908. His great force of character and ripe scholarship, together with his ability as an organizer enabled him to bring to his work in Ladoga the results of his professional experience with marked effect, and it was not long until the schools under his supervision advanced to the high standing of efficiency for which they are now noted. Many things tending to lessen the teachers' labors and at the same time make them effective were introduced; the course of study throughout modified and improved, the latest and most approved appliances purchased and everything in keeping with modern educational progress, tested and where practical retained. Continuous application through a period of more than a quarter of a century gave him a clear and compre- hensive insight into the philosophy of education and the largest wisdom as to methods of attainment of ends, while his steady growth in public favor wherever he has labored and his popularity with teachers and pupils have won for him educational standing that is state wide and eminently deserving.
On December 1, 1890, Mr. Warfel bought the Ladoga Leader, which he had managed for a period of eighteen years during the period that he was connected with the schools here, and since resigning from the schools has · devoted his entire attention to this popular and rapidly growing paper, which equals any of its type in this part of the country. It is all that could be de- sired from a mechanical standpoint, has become a valuable advertising medium and prints the latest and best news of the day and its editorials carry weight in promoting the general affairs of the community which it serves.
For a period of eleven years while engaged in school work, Mr. Warfel
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was instructor in teachers' institutes in Indiana, in which he was regarded as a most potent factor, being thus engaged during the summers, instructing the teachers in forty-two counties. He received a life teacher's certificate in 1884. which relieved him from all necessity of subsequent examination. No one in the state is more deserving of such honor.
Fraternally, Mr. Warfel belongs to the Masonic order, and has been master of the Ladoga lodge. He is a member of the Knights Templars at Crawfordsville of which he was Eminent Commander. He is also active in the Knights of Pythias in which he has instituted two lodges and, as pre- siding officer, has taken one hundred and sixty-two men through the three ranks to full membership. He is widely known and influential in fraternal circles.
Mr. Warfel was married in 1882 to Lizzie Huntington, of Ladoga, a lady of talent, education and refinement, a daughter of Hiram S. Hunting- ton and wife, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in these pages.
Five children have graced the union of our subject and wife, namely : George, an electric engineer on the Union Pacific Railroad at Kearney, Nebraska, is married and has two children, Louise and Minnie; Herbert is in the engineer's office of the Central Union Telephone Company at Colum- bus, Ohio; Nellie is at home with her parents in Ladoga; Louise and Charley died in childhood.
Mr. and Mrs. Warfel are both members of the Presbyterian church. He has retained his vitality and intellectual vigor to a remarkable degree. He is a most genial and pleasing gentleman personally.
ROBERT F. HICKS.
Farming seems to be what some would call "second nature" with Robert F. Hicks, of Clark township, Montgomery county, and while he doubtless could have succeeded in other lines of human endeavor, he is doubtless making a greater success as a tiller of the soil than he would in any other line, for he not only likes it but devotes his every care and atten- tion to it.
Mr. Hicks was born on January 8, 1871, in Clark township, this county. He is a son of Preston and Martha Ann (Utterback) Hicks. He grew to manhood on the home farm, assisting with the general work there, and in the winter months he attended the neighboring schools.
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On August 23, 1894, Mr. Hicks married Ella Hulett, daughter of Nathan Hulett and wife, a complete sketch of whom appears elsewhere. After his marriage Mr. Hicks went to farming for himself on the place he now owns in Section 35, Clark township, and here he has continued to re- side, his finely improved and productive farm here consisting of one hundred and sixty acres, also owns forty acres not far south of his home place, two hundred acres in all. His land is under a fine state of improvement and cul- tivation, and he follows general farming, raising considerable live stock, buys and feeds cattle and is quite successful as an agriculturist and stock man. He has made many of the important improvements on his land himself. He remodeled both the house and barn, also built a large barn and in addition a cow barn, and he now has one of the choice farms of the township.
Mr. Hicks is a member of the Knights of Pythias, and he and his wife belong to the Christian church. They have one daughter, Lena Hicks, whose twin sister died in infancy. Lena is now in her third year in high school at North Salem.
IRA COX.
It is indeed a rare pleasure and privilege to be able to spend our old age in the house where we spent our childhood. There is, as all will agree, a cer- tain "atmosphere" pervading the old home which is very noticeably absent from any place else, no matter how much finer and costlier may be our resi- dence in later life, and no matter how very humble may have been the home in which we first opened our eyes to the light of day. Ira Cox, one of the well known farmers, now retired, of Franklin township, Montgomery county, is one of the fortunate ones in this respect. . He has lived to see wonderful changes in this locality since he first sent his infant cry out on the air in this old homestead nearly seventy-three years ago, and he has not by any means, been an idle spectator to these changes with advancing civilization, but has been a very potent factor in them, having always stood ready to put his shoulder to the wheel of local progress. He has led a life for which no one can upbraid him now that it is drawing toward the silent twilight.
Mr. Cox was born on October 1, 1840 in this township and county, as above stated. He is a son of William and Hannah (Pickett) Cox. The father was born on July 23, 1814 in Richmond, Indiana, and he moved to Montgomery county when a boy, when this section was a wilderness and in- habitants were few, and here he devoted his life successfully to general farm-
IRA COX
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ing, and reached an advanced age, passing away on June 29, 1903. The mother of Ira Cox was born on September 18, 1813 in North Carolina and when a young giri she moved with her parents to Montgomery county, Indi- ana, and here spent the rest of her life dying on September 10, 1893.
To these parents six children were born, three of whom are still living, namely : Catherine, Jeremiah are both deceased; Ira, of this sketch; Emily, Elwood is deceased; and Albert, the youngest.
Ira Cox grew up on the home farm and there did his full share of the work when a boy, and he received his education in the local district schools. He has remained unmarried, and has always farmed on the home place, keep- ing it well improved and so skilfully cultivated that it has retained its original fertility.
Mr. Cox is owner of three hundred and twenty acres, two hundred and sixty of which is tillable, fairly well ditched and otherwise in good condition. He raises a good grade of live stock.
Politically, Mr. Cox is a Republican, but he has never sought office, de- siring to lead a quiet home life, like his honest, hard-working father before him. He is a member of the Friends church and a trustee in the same.
BENJAMIN F. CARMAN.
The most elaborate history is perforce a merciless abridgment, the historian being obliged to select his facts and materials from manifold de- tails and to marshall them in concise and logical order. This applies to spe- cific as well as generic history, and in the former category is included the interesting and important department of biography. In every life of honor and usefulness there is no dearth of interesting situations and incidents, and yet in summing up such a career as that of Mr. Carman the writer must needs touch only on the more salient facts, giving the keynote of the character and eliminating all that is superfluous to the continuity of the narrative. The gentleman whose name appears above has led an active and useful life, not entirely void of the exciting, but the more prominent facts have been so identified with the useful and practical that it is to them almost entirely that the writer refers in the following paragraphs.
Benjamin F. Carman, who for many years has been recognized as one of the most substantial citizens of Montgomery county, was born in Clark
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township, this county, on the 8th of August, 1860. He comes of a long line of sterling ancestry, his family, on the paternal side, having been established in this country for over two hundred and fifty years, while in England the family line is traced back through several centuries. The first representative of the family in America were John and Florence Carman, who left Naz- ing, England, with a party of pilgrims, including John Eliot and the wife of Governor Winthrop, landing at Roxbury, Massachusetts, on November 2, 1631. The descendants of John and Florence Carman are scattered all over the United States, members of the family being also found in Canada, Mexico and South America.
The first official record of the Carman family shows that at the time of the Norman conquest, in 1066, they owned eighty-two acres of land in Wiltshire, England, also a mill, a tenant and three slaves. Another refer- ence to the family is, about 1400, of a priest who ministered at the Win- farthing church for thirty-eight years. From 1408 to 1470 William and Catherine Carman owned the manor of Patesley, in Norfolk. During the reign of "Bloody Mary" at least five members of the Carman family met death, being burned at the stake, martyrs because of their religious belief, and the record says they met their fate bravely, even joyfully.
From such stock came John Carman, the pregenitor of the family in America. He has prospered here in his worldly affairs, becoming quite well- to-do, and was prominent in public affairs in Connecticut and Long Island, being a deputy to the general court of the colony in 1634. Two hundred and fifty years after he landed at Roxbury, five hundred of his descendants met at Hampstead, Long Island, to celebrate the arrival of the family in America.
Among the children of John Carman was Caleb, who was the father of James, who was the first pastor of the Baptist church at Highstown, New Jersey, in 1745. Rev. James had a son Caleb, who was the father of Joseph. The latter was born in 1745 at Bordentown, New Jersey, moved to the in- terior of Virginia, and in 1768 he married Mary LaRue, a French girl. Jos- eph Carman was a soldier in the American Revolution, having enlisted in 1776 as a private in Captain William Croghan's company, Eighth Virginia Regiment, commanded by Col. Abraham Bowman, to serve until April, 1778. In 1779 he and his family, in company with followers of George Rogers Clark, came down the Ohio river on flat boats, and located at a fort in Shelby county, Kentucky. Joseph Carman was killed by Indians along Carman's creek, in Henry county, Kentucky, in 1786. He was the father
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of seven children, of whom the second in order of birth was Isaac. Isaac Carman married Mary Hughes, who died of cholera in 1833. He was a Baptist preacher in Shelby county for many years, and was well known and highly respected. His death occurred in Indiana in 1854. To him and his wife were born ten children, the youngest of whom was William N. Carman, father of the immediate subject of this sketch.
William N. Carman was born in Shelby county, Kentucky, but in 1834, when he was but seven years old, his father brought his family to Montgom- ery county, Indiana, where he entered three eighty-acre tracts of land, one for each of his three daughters, and also bought one hundred and sixty acres of land from Joseph Staten, who had entered it from the government in 1831. This land has remained continuously in the family, being now the property of the subject. Here William N. Carman was reared to maturity and eventually married Ann E. Harrison. She was born in Clark township, this county, on October 1, 1832, and was the daughter of John and Mary (Ashby) Harrison. Her parents were natives of Kentucky, who located in Harrison county, Indiana, where John Harrison served as judge of the county court. His wife was the daughter of Lettice Ashby, whose family came to Montgomery county in an early day, or at about the same time as the Harrisons. Here John Harrison carried on farming pursuits the rest of his life. He also had two brothers, Eli and Joshua, who came to this county.
William N. Carman lived on the old homestead in Clark township until the mother's death in 1899, after which he made his home with his son, Benjamin F., until his death, which occurred in August, 1910. They were the parents of seven children, of whom two sons died in infancy, two daughters, Mary E. and Martha, died in childhood, while those living are: Priscilla A., the wife of John F. Zimmerman, of Ladoga; Sallie F., the wife of Joseph Albert Smith, of Jamestown, and Benjamin F. ,of Ladoga. William N. Carman always followed the vocation of farming, in which he was successful, being energetic and practical in his efforts. Religiously, he was one of the charter members of Bethel Christian church, of which he was elected elder and to which he donated an acre of ground on which to build the church. He owned altogether about four hundred acres of land, which, before his death, he divided among his childrtn.
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