USA > Indiana > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery county, Indiana; with personal sketches of representative citizens, Volume II > Part 35
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Mr. Baker was married on June 12, 1851, to Lucinda Clark, daughter of Willis and Hannah (Jones) Clark. Her father was born in Kentucky, where he grew to manhood, and there married. He moved with his family to Putnam county, Indiana, when his daughter, Lucinda, was six months old, and later they came to Montgomery county and established their permanent home in Clark township, where Mr. Clark spent the rest of his life. He was a hard-working, honest man, whom his neighbors respected, and he followed farming all his life. He was a Democrat and a member of the Christian church. His family was a large one, consisting of sixteen children, namely : Joseph J., the oldest; William T., Milton, Nathan, James M., Benjamin, Winifred, Oliver, John, Francis M. are all deceased; Lucinda, who married Mr. Baker, of this review; Sidney J., Susan C., are both deceased; Alexander C. is living ; Mary is deceased; Fanny, the youngest, is living.
Eight children were born to John S. Baker and wife, namely: Winifred is deceased; Harriet E. is living at home with her mother; Emma, Martha H., George, are all deceased; Mary A. is the wife of Walter Canine; William is deceased; and the youngest died in infancy, unnamed.
The death of John S. Baker occurred on June 12, 1897.
ISRAEL HARRISON WHITE.
The true western spirit of progress and enterprise is strikingly exempli- fied in the lives of such men as Israel Harrison White, one of Montgomery county's honored native sons, whose energetic nature and laudable ambition have enabled him to conquer many adverse circumstances and advance steadily. He has met and overcome obstacles that would have discouraged many men of less determination and won for himself not only a comfortable competency, together with one of the very choice farms of Scott township, but also a prominent place among the enterprising men of this favored sec- tion of the great Wabash Valley country, and now in the mellow autumn period of his life this venerable citizen can look backward over the long stretch of weary years without regret or compunction. Such a man is a credit to any community. His life forcibly illustrates what energy and con-
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secutive effort can accomplish when directed and controlled by correct prin- ciples and high moral resolves, and no man is worthier of mention in a volume of the province of the one in hand and of the material success he has achieved and the esteem in which he is hield.
Mr. White was born in section 9, Scott township, Montgomery county, March 17, 1839. He is a son of William S. and Amy (Watkins) White. The father was born in Greene county, Ohio, not far from the city of Day- ton, on March 6, 1817, being a son of Benjamin and ( Blair) White. About 1833 the family came to Montgomery county, Indiana, when William S. White was sixteen years old, and here Benjamin White bought a farm about two miles southeast of Ladoga. There they established their permanent home, developed a good farm and became well known. They worked hard, clearing the land of its virgin growth of timber and finally had one of the choice farms of the township. Their family consisted of twelve children, named as follows: Mrs. Eliza Kelsey, William, John, James, Mrs. Hannah Imel, Mrs. Elmira Elrod, Mrs. Charlotte Smith, Benja- min F., Thomas, and two who died in infancy unnamed.
Benjamin White, the father of this family, was the owner of half a section of land. He was a carpenter by trade, as was also his sons. He and his family were members of the Methodist Episcopal church and he was a licensed exhorter and class leader in the church in his earlier years.
When William S. White was about nineteen years old he married Amy Watkins, daughter of George and Rebecca (Kelly) Watkins. She was born near Dayton, Ohio, and her people moved here at the same time the White family came, a number of them coming together. The Watkins family set- tled in Section 3, Scott township, and there made their home until 1864. There were also twelve children in this family, namely : Mrs. Betsy Harri- son, Mrs. Amy White, Atchison, Mrs. Jane Custer, Mrs. Sarah Mills, Will- iam, Russell, Mrs. Rebecca Ann Barnett, Daniel K., and three other children who died young. The Watkins family were also active workers in the Methodist Episcopal church here in the early days. George Watkins was a soldier in the war of 1812.
William S. White, father of Israel H. White, had nothing of this world's good at the time of his marriage, but his wife and a knowledge of the carpenter's trade. He went in debt for one hundred dollar's worth of tools, and started out on his career in Ladoga. Their dining-room table was a dry-goods box. He was an earnest, hard worker and finally succeeded. He bought eighty acres of land in the northeast one-fourth of Section 9, in
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Scott township. Not a tree had been cleared from the land. He went to work with a will, cleared the ground and developed a good farm, establish- ing a comfortable home there. He prospered and bought more land until he became the owner of about four hundred and fifty acres of good land. He gave up carpenter work years before, although he was a very able man at framing with heavy timbers, bridge work, etc., and many of the old barns are still storm proof by reason of the substantial and skilful way he built them.
He, too, was the father of twelve children, as had been his father and his wife's father. They were named as follows: Mrs. Mary Rebecca Gar- man, deceased; Israel H., subject of this sketch; Benjamin F., who died during the Civil war while in the service of the Union ; Mrs. Elizabeth Mer- cer, of Ladoga; Sarah Hubbard, deceased; Elmira, deceased: George W. of Lebanon, Indiana; Josephine, deceased; Mrs. Susan Kelsey of Scott township ; Fredonia Alice is deceased ; John B., deceased, but his widow lives in New Market, this county ; Emma Caroline is deceased.
The mother of the above named children died April 24, 1896, when past eighty-four years of age. The father's death occurred on May 12, 1898, reaching the age of eighty-two years.
Israel H. White grew to manhood on the home farm, and he received his education in the common schools of his community. He learned the car- penter's trade under his father, who required of the boy the same strict accountability that he did of his other employes and paid him the same wages for the same work. Our subject also engaged in farming, and in 1873 he purchased the place where he now lives. The following fall the panic came on and made hard sledding for him, but he held on and in due course of time prospered through his close application and good management, and he now owns a valuable, productive and well improved farm a mile long in Section 4. Scott township, consisting of over one hundred and sixty-three acres.
Mr. White was married on January 5, 1881, to Elizabeth Dorothy Ellington, daughter of James M. and Eliza J. (See) Ellington. She was born in Nicholas county, Kentucky, September 30, 1852. When she was seven years old her parents removed to North Salem, Hendricks county, Indiana, where her father continued his trade of blacksmith. While living in Kentucky he had for years employed a negro slave, however he was op- posed to slavery, being very pronounced in his views against the system. He and his wife spent the rest of their lives at North Salem, and there Mrs. White grew to womanhood and was educated, remaining there until her
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marriage to Mr. White. To this union five children were born, four of whom are living, one, Fannie May, dying when nearly three years of age; Mabel Estelle is the wife of Perry R. Himes, and they live in Section 10, Scott township, and have four children, Norma, Audrey, Elizabeth and Amy ; Lolita Belle, second child of our subject, is the wife of Earl Lee; they live in Peoria, Illinois, and have two daughters, Florence Elizabeth and Mabel Cordelia the third child William Ashby White is at home and is assisting his father with the work on the farm; Ina Cordelia, the youngest child is attending school at New Market.
Israel H. White is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and his wife belongs to the Christian church. He became a member of the In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows many years ago.
CHARLES A. MINNICH.
Charles A. Minnich, one of the leading farmers and stock men of Wal- nut township, is one of those men of whom it is a pleasure to write. He is modest in the opinion of himself, not claiming the worth and importance that others are ready and anxious to ascribe to him. He is quiet and unas- suming in manner, as such characters always are, and holds the high place which has been given him in the public favor by right of what he is, and not of what he claims. It is a grateful task to write of such a one, and the only danger is, that sufficient merit will not be ascribed; yet the hearts of his friends, and they are very many, will supply any lack of words on the part of the writer, or any failure to express happily the true thought.
Mr. Minnich is a native of the grand old state which has won the ap- propriate soubriquet of "the mother of Presidents"-eight of the nation's chief executives having first seen the light of day within her borders. He was born at Newcastle, Craig county, Virginia, June 26, 1852. He is a son of Andrew J. and C. Adeline ( Mills) Minnich. The father was postmaster at the town of Newcastle for several years before the Civil war. During that mighty conflict he was a soldier in the Twenty-eighth Virginia regi- ment, Company B, fighting for the Southern army, and he was killed during the seven days' battle around Richmond, or more specifically the battle of Fair Oaks, on June 2, 1862, when his son, Charles J., was scarcely ten years of age. The latter was one of three children, an older brother being John L., and Frances S. was a younger sister. The family came to Indiana in
CHARLES A. MINNICH AND FAMILY
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1872, landing at Mace, Montgomery county, on January 29th of that year. Andrew J. Minnich had quite a large estate in Virginia, which was sold after his death by the administrator and paid for in Confederate money, which had to be exchanged for a later issue of Confederate money, and this being finally of no value, the family was left almost penniless. They had but little to keep the wolf from the door when they landed in Montgomery county, but they went to work with a will and in due course of time were very com- fortably located. They first rented a little log house in the southern part of Walnut township, bought a team of horses and an old wagon and farmed on the shares for two years, then leased twenty-five acres of Joe Markey's place in the western part of Clark township, which was heavily timbered, having leased it for nine years. They cleared the land and improved it and from that got a new start. Charles sold his interest in the place to his brother in April, 1875, for four hundred dollars, then went to work for himself. In 1878 he purchased eighty acres in Section 29, Walnut township, at twelve dollars and fifty cents an acre. He paid five hundred and ten dollars down and went four hundred dollars in debt. His neighbors predicted that he would never pay out, but he did pay out and succeeded admirably. The same land at this writing would now be worth perhaps one hundred and seventy-five dollars per acre. He later purchased fifty-one acres across the road west of where he now lives, paying eighteen dollars an acre for it, but he failed to pay it out and finally sold it. About six years later he bought it back at forty dollars an acre, and he still owns it. He has since purchased additional land, now owning several valuable and productive farms, aggre- gating about two hundred and sixty acres. On this land are three different sets of buildings and modern improvements in general, all three residences being good ones. His land is thoroughly tiled and well drained; in fact, the cost of drainage was more than the cost of the land. He has always followed general farming and stock raising, and although he has met many reverses he has forged ahead despite all obstacles, and is now one of the substantial men of his township.
Mr. Minnich has long been active in the Republican ranks, in fact ever since he was old enough to vote. He was elected trustee of Walnut township in 1894, taking charge of the office in 1895, holding the same for five years, during which time he built the new school house that now stands in New Ross in 1898, selling the old school house and grounds.
On January 9, 1878, he married Isabelle Downing, daughter of Edward and Emily (Botts) Downing. She was born in Boone county, Indiana. Her
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father died when she was four years old, and she was about seven years old when her mother died. Edward Downing was a son of James and Avis (Gideons) Downing: Edward Downing was born on January 25, 1824. James Downing was born in Ireland, coming to America when a young man and here he met and married Avis Gideons, a native of England. Emily Botts was a daughter of William and Sarah Botts, who came to Boone county, Indiana, from Ohio. The other children of the Downing family are Well- ington, who lives in Indianapolis; Romulus, of Howbert, Colorado; Mary A., wife of Butler Neal, of Lebanon, Indiana; Ephriam D. lives at Home, Kan- sas ; Oliver M. lives at Hortonville, Boone county, Indiana.
After Mrs. Minnich's parents died she lived with an aunt in Hendricks county a year and later was given a home with James H. Harrison and family of Walnut township, this county.
Seven children have been born to the subject and wife, named as fol- lows: Andrew E., Harvey L., Clara D., Romulus D., Mary Avis, Charles Oliver and Frances Olive, twins.
Andrew Minnich owns a farm south of his father's. He married Lola Batman, daughter of Dolph and Ella B. Batman, and to this union two chil- dren have been born, May Isabelle and Dorothy Esterine. Harvey L. Min- nich married Iva Bowman and lives on a farm lying just east of that owned by his father ; he and his wife had four children, one of whom, Vera Lucile, is deceased; Ruth, Ralph and Neva are the living children. Clara Minnich married George E. Peters, and they live at Nespelem, Washington, both she and her husband being teachers in the Indian school there on the reservation ; they have two children, Harold Truman and Frances Minnich Peters. Romu- lus D. Minnich is connected with the A. S. Clements commission house in Crawfordsville, in which city he lives. Mary Avis Minnich married Ottie Douglas, and lives in North Dakota, just east of the Montana line on a home- stead. Their postoffice is Carlyle, Montana. They have one daughter, Olive Marie. Charles and Frances Minnich are both at home. Both were grad- uates from the high school at Mace.
Charles A. Minnich and all but one of his family are members of the Methodist Episcopal church, he being trustee of the church of this denomina- tion at Mace. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias.
Mr. Minnich's mother and his sister removed to Kansas in 1878, and the mother died there on October 27, 1888, and is buried in Linn county, Kan- sas. The sister married William Hinkle, and they live in Stillwater, Okla- homa. The brother of our subject is now at Lordsburg, California.
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CLIFTON G. HILL.
The name of Clifton G. Hill, a venerable and highly esteemed citizen of Clark township, Montgomery county, of which township he is trustee, needs no introduction to our readers, for here much of his interesting and indus- trious life has been spent and here he has labored to the general good of the community, his work not by any means being without fruits, as all will tell you who are in any way familiar with his career. Such men are valuable to any community and their lives might be held up as examples for the young men to pattern after.
Mr. Hill was born in Franklin county, Virginia, August 29, 1839, being the scion of a fine old family of the Old Dominion, and a son of Collin and Julia L. (McCrosky) Hill, the father having been of Scotch descent and the mother of Scotch-Irish extraction. The father died when our subject was four years old, and he was only eighteen when his mother was called away by death. Ten children were born to these parents. When the mother died the two eldest were married and gone, and our subject and one brother had to care for the family. The children were reared on a farm. After he grew up, Clifton G. Hill worked out one year for the sum of one hundred and eight dollars, and he saved nearly all of it. He then went into business with his brother and another man as photographers. They had a car on wheels and traveled about through the country just before the war. When hostili- ties began all three joined the Confederate army, our subject choosing Con- pany K, Forty-second Virginia Volunteer Infantry, in which he saw much hard service and made a very faithful and gallant soldier for the stars and bars, participating in about thirty-two engagements, many of them the fiercest of the war. He was captured at Manassas Junction, or Second Bull Run. He was in command of an advanced squad in a railroad cut, helping a wounded comrade, when the enemy rushed them and captured him. During another charge they rushed over him, he pretending that he had been killed, and although he was badly trampled he escaped. The following day he was wounded by a piece of bomb-shell which struck his canteen and cut it in two ; however, it did not so much as break the skin on him, merely shocking him and making his leg turn black its full length, the bruise and concussion being severe. He was again captured at Monocacy in Maryland, while in command of his company, he having gone to an exposed place for the pur- pose of reconoitering and was returning when he was shot through the hand. Sharp shooters kept peppering away at him and he had to lay low
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to avoid them and soon became weakened from loss of blood. But he finally got his wound dressed and had one finger cut off. He refused to take ether, sitting quietly on a piece of timber while the surgeon operated. After his regiment was driven out and, not having enough ambulances to move all the wounded, he was left behind and captured. He was taken to the stockade in which his own regiment had camped for some time and finally escaped from it by a way previously used by the boys when they "slipped out" during the night for the purpose in going to the town nearby "for fun." Mr. Hill was also wounded at the battle of Sharpsburg or Antietam, in Maryland, where he was shot through the hip. He was carried off the field on a stretcher and narrowly escaped capture again. He was also shot in the chest by a spent ball at Cedar Mountain, where he also had sixteen holes shot through his clothes. Of fifty-two in the company who were in advance, all but twelve were killed or wounded in a terrific fight. He remained in the service until the close of the war, and was always at the front except when he was wounded. He was with the great fighter, "Stonewall" Jackson, and neces- sarily saw the hardest of fighting, but he never faltered.
After the war Mr. Hill took up farming, spending one season on the home farm, and in the spring of 1866 he came to Ladoga, Montgomery county, Indiana. He worked out for seventeen months, never losing a day. He had only twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents when he came here. He saved his money and later bought a farm, and then for ten years he rented a farm southwest of Roachdale. In 1878 he bought eighty acres in the southern part of Clark township, on which he moved and a year later he met with the mis- fortune of having his house burned, with no insurance and when he was in debt eleven hundred dollars. Nothing daunted, he borrowed funds and re- built his dwelling, and, managing well and working hard, he prospered with advancing years, and from time to time has added to his original holdings until he is now the owner of five hundred and twenty-two acres of valuable and well improved land and carries on general farming and stock raising on a large scale, having long ranked among the leading and most substantial farmers of the county. For a period of twenty years he has also bought and shipped live stock. He was also for sometime a manufacturer of carriages and buggies in Ladoga, building up a large business in this line, building the factory that is now run by William Rapp. Owing to the high grade of his output his vehicles were in great demand.
Politically, Mr. Hill is a Democrat, and has been active and influential in local affairs. For the past five years he has been trustee of Clark town-
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ship, and he has two years more to serve of his present term. He has given eminent satisfaction in this position to all concerned. So well did he dis- charge the duties of his office that in 1910 the field examiners for the state board of accountant wrote of him as follows: "He is one of the most care- ful, exact and conscientious business men that we have found in the office of trustee. He gives personal supervision to all of the details of both his civil and school township work. His report was exact in details and conclusive in all its findings. We have only words of commendation for the trustee of Clark township."
Mr. Hill was married on December 12, 1867 to Hattie P. Hymer, who was born in Putnam county and is a daughter of Jesse P. and Eliza (Gill) Himer. She grew to womanhood and was educated in her native county and there resided until her marriage. Her parents came from Bath county, Ken- tucky, in the early days and settled in Franklin township, Putnam county, west of Roachdale.
Five children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Hill, one of whom died in infancy; the living are : Otro, married Ella Ashby, daughter of John Ashby and they have one son, Earl Hill; Cecil, married Mary Christy, and they have had three children, Carl, Gladys and Glen, the latter dying when three years old; Eva Lee is at home; Clemmie is the wife of H. O. Botman and lives in Bainbridge.
Fraternally, Mr. Hill belongs to the Scottish Rite Masons, the Com- mandery at Crawfordsville, and the Murat Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Indianapolis: he is also a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Mr. Hill is one of the best known cattle men in the county, and is now making a specialty of breeding short-horn cattle. At this writing he has a herd of over sixty pure bred short-horns. In fact, he has been in this busi- ness ever since he began farming, even when a renter, and he attributes much of his success to raising such stock. He has won a great reputation in west- ern Indiana with his short-horns and they are in great demand and bring fancy prices owing to their superior quality. He is a scientific farmer, em- ploying such modern methods as are applicable to the land and climate here, and his farm now produces nearly double what it formerly did. He is cer- tainly entitled to a great deal of credit for what he has accomplished, having worked his way up from the bottom of the ladder in the face of all kinds of adversity.
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TAYLOR THOMPSON.
Many elements contribute to the development of a new country, but no one thing plays so large a part as sterling worth and character. It is to the rugged, steadfast men and women who come into its domain that the new land must look, and it is most often the plain, blunt men of business and every-day affairs who most affect a new country's history. Among the families of Montgomery county who have contributed their share of in- fluence and labor toward its development is the Thompsons, members of which family came here in an early day, and throughout the years that have passed since then they have played an important part in the affairs of the community of their residence during the most momentous period of this locality's development, and one of the best known of the family of the present generation was Taylor Thompson, of Crawfordsville, the secret of whose popularity lay in the fact that he was always allied with those things which tended toward the advancement and betterment of his native county. While a careful and straightforward business man, he was never a dollar worshipper or permitted the lust of greed to eradicate his higher ideals, be- lieving that life held much of greater value than mere wealth of estate.
Mr. Thompson was born on December 31, 1854, in Ripley township, Montgomery county. He was a son of William and Margaret (Mumfort) Thompson. They were both natives of Ohio, from which state they came to Montgomery county, Indiana, when children, and here they grew to maturity and were married. William Thompson learned the carpenter's trade when a young man, which he continued to follow in connection with farming in this county. His earlier life was spent in Ripley township, and his later days in Crawfordsville, in which city his widow is still living, he having passed to his eternal rest on March 10, 1890. He and his wife had only two chil- dren-Taylor, of this review; and Anna, who married A. E. Livengood, he being now deceased; she was born in 1864, and is living in Crawfordsville.
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