History of Montgomery county, Indiana; with personal sketches of representative citizens, Volume II, Part 41

Author:
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Indianapolis, A.S. Bowen
Number of Pages: 664


USA > Indiana > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery county, Indiana; with personal sketches of representative citizens, Volume II > Part 41


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in her native locality. For a sketch of her family the reader is directed to that of Thomas B. Turnipseed, her brother, appearing elsewhere in this volume.


Our subject and wife have one child, Truth Maurine, born May 21, 1908.


Mr. Custer has always been a farmer and a general stock raiser, raising a good breed of live stock, making a specialty of Red hogs, Black cattle and Langshang chickens. He is operating in a most successful and commendable manner the farm of one hundred and fifty acres which belongs to his father. It is all tillable but about twenty acres, and even this could be placed in cultivation. The farm is well improved in every respect and the substantial buildings were built by our subject's father.


Politically, Mr. Custer is a Republican. His wife belongs to the Potato Creek Methodist Episcopal church.


HARRY C. REMLEY.


Another deserving representative of the well known and popular Rem- ley family is the energetic young farmer and stock raiser of Wayne town- ship, Harry C. Remley. His people have been well established in Mont- gomery county since the early days, and they have borne excellent reputa- tions as private citizens, business men and advocates of good county gov- ernment, and they have done much in the general upbuilding of the locality. Our subject is living on the old homestead, which he has kept in fine condi- tion, fully appreciating the privilege and he is justly deserving of the con- tinued success that the years have brought.


Mr. Remley was born on June 14, 1873, in Wayne township, Montgom- ery county. He is a son of Ambrose Remley and wife, a complete sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this volume, hence will not be necessary to re- peat here.


Harry C. Remley grew to manhood on the home farm and spent his boyhood days in much the same manner as other sons of farmers, assisting with the crops in summer and attending the district schools during the win- ter months, at Wesley, in his native township.


On February 22, 1898, he celebrated the anniversary of the birth of the father of his country, by getting married, selecting as a life partner Alice L. Brown, who was born in Montgomery county, and here she grew to


HARRY C. REMLEY AND FAMILY


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womanhood and received her education in the public schools. She was the daughter of Solom and Mary J. (Hamilton) Brown, farmers of Union township. this county, near Roberts chapel. The father, who was a veteran of the Civil war and a Republican, died several years ago.


To Harry C. Remley and wife have been born one child, Mary Helen, whose birth occurred on March 11, 1908.


Mr. Remley has always followed farming and stock raising, and, tak- ing naturally to these lines of endeavor and having had a good preceptor in the same in the person of his father it is not to be wondered at that he has succeeded. He is living on his father's farm, which he has kept well culti- vated and well improved. He has built all the fences now seen on the place, remodeled the barns, built several sheds and made many other changes which have enhanced the general appearance of the place. He keeps an excellent grade of live stock and poultry on the farm, and everything round about denotes good management.


Politically, he is a Republican, but he has never been very active in public matters. His wife as a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.


ORPHEUS MILTON GREGG.


It is a pleasure to investigate the career of a successful self-made man of affairs. Peculiar honor attaches to that individual who, beginning the great struggle of life with honorable aims, gradually overcomes unfavorable environment, removes one by one the obstacles from the pathway of success and by the master strokes of his own force and vitality succeeds in forging his way to the front and winning for himself a position of esteem and in- fiuence among his fellow men. Such is the record. briefly stated, of Orpheus Milton Gregg, for several decades one of the most substantial, progressive and representative business men of Crawfordsville, and one of Montgom- ery county's most widely known citizens, and to a brief synopsis of life and characteristics the reader's attention is herewith directed. His protracted residence in the famous and beautiful Wabash section of the Hoosier state has made his name widely and familiarly known, principally as the head of the great Indiana Match Company and other large industries. His life and the history of this locality for a period of nearly a half century has been pretty much one and the same thing. He has taken a prominent part in the later-day growth of his city and county, proving to be one of their wisest


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counselors and hardest workers. He is known to be a progressive man in the broadest sense of the term; realizing the wants of the people, and he has tried to supply the demands of the vicinity honored by his citizenship generously and unspairingly. His has been a long business career of honor and trust, and no higher eulogy can be passed upon him than to state the simple truth that his name was never coupled with anything disreputable and that there has never been the shadow of a strain upon his reputation for integrity and unswerving honesty. Mr. Gregg is a consistent man in every- thing he undertakes, and his career in all the relations of life has ever been utterly without pretense, and for his genial nature, obliging disposition and un failing courtesy he enjoys the confidence and god will of all classes, and the city of Crawfordsville and county of Montgomery can boast of no better man or more enterprising citizen.


Mr. Gregg was born in Scott township, Montgomery county, Indiana, October 7, 1848, of Scotch-Irish ancestry. He is a son of Samuel H. and Sarah Louisa (Christman) Gregg. The father was also born in this county, the date of his birth being June II, 1827, and was a son of Alpheus and Cynthia (Kelsey) Gregg. Alpheus Gregg was born in Warren county, Ohio, on January 29, 1801, and he came to Scott township, Montgomery county. Indiana, in early pioneer days, when this region was a wilderness and here he established the future home of the family, through hard work, enduring meanwhile many hardships, as ever befalls those who invade the frontier. Here he spent the rest of his life engaged in general farming. He is remembered as a kindly and hospitable man, and was well versed in the Bible, often quoting whole chapters. He was not only up on religious matters, but was a well read man on general affairs of his time. His death occurred on September 9, 1864, his wife having preceded him to the grave in 1842. Three children were born to them, namely: Amos, Phoebe Ann, and Samuel H., father of our subject.


Samuel H. Gregg grew to manhood on the old home place, where he worked during his boyhood, assisting in developing the same. He received, at that period, such education as the early schools of his district afforded. When a young man he took up farming for a life work and lived in Scott township, later on near the village of Mace, which his father-in-law had entered from the government. However, he decided to abandon agricul- ture, when twenty-four years old, and turn his attention to the business world, and with that end in view he came to Crawfordsville, where, in part- nership with his brother-in-law, Harvey N. Christman, and Jesse W. Cum- berland, opened a hardware store on the site where the first court house of


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Montgomery county stood. The firm was one that commanded respect and trade. Part of the time Mr. Gregg was sole owner. He continued to be actively engaged with this firm, with the exception of six months, when he went to Oregon, by way of New York City, the Atlantic ocean, crossing the Isthmus of Panama, and thence by the Pacific ocean. He went with the intention of locating in the far West, and he had quite a party of people with him, including. his son, O. M. Gregg, then only sixteen years old. On ac- count of being so well known in Montgomery county, and not finding con- ditions entirely to his liking in Oregon, Mr. Gregg decided to return to his native heath; whereupon he purchased the store, and in 1870, upon the graduation of his son, our subject, took him in as a partner, which firm, en- joying the distsinction of being, with one exception, the largest of its kind in the state, continued successfully until 1881, when Samuel H. Gregg was forced to retire on account of failing health. About that time he was paten- tee on barbed wire fencing, and the Indiana Wire Fence Company was organized, of which the elder Gregg was a large stockholder and director and continued as a director in the same until his death. He was one of the leading business men and citizens of his day and generation, was widely known and highly esteemed by all. Politically, he was a Republican, but made no effort to be a public man. . Fraternally, he belonged to the In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows in his earlier life, and religiously he was a Methodist.


In 1847 Samuel H. Gregg and Sarah L. Christman were married. She was a daughter of Jacob and Mary ( Phillips) Christman. She was born in North Carolina. Her parents were early settlers here, Jacob Christman having opened farms in Walnut and Union townships, living there many years. He was very active in politics, and was county commissioner from 1841 to 1847, and was at one time a delegate to a national Republican con- vention. He was a very strong abolitionist and had much to do with "under- ground railroad" work during the period of the War of the Rebellion. He was a successful farmer and was well known throughout the county, where he was a leader in public affairs.


Three children were born to Jacob and Mary Christman, namely : Caroline, who died when seven years old; Harvey N., who was in partner- ship on a farm with Samuel H. Gregg, also in the hardware business with him; and Sarah Louisa, mother of the subject of this sketch; her death occurred in 1861.


Orpheus M. Gregg received a good common school education in his native community, later attending Wabash College here, where he made


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an excellent record and from which he was graduated with the class of 1870 and at once began his long business career, which has been spent in Crawfordsville. At that time his father was proprietor of a large hardware store in the building now occupied by the furniture store of the grocery firm of Barnhill, Hornaday & Pickett, and the son was taken in as a partner. Our subject practically had charge of the business the last five years preceding 1881, when the store was sold. They were also at that time part owners of Seawright & Company for about three years. It was at this time that O. M. Gregg's career as a manufacturer began, and it has continued ever since, and if the total pay-roll of the concerns he has fostered and promoted were to be given it would be an enormous sum and would to some extent show what he has done for the laboring class of Crawfordsville. On the or- ganization of the Indiana Wire Fence Company, he was made treasurer and manager of the company, which responsible position he continued to hold in a manner that reflected credit upon himself and to the satisfaction of the stockholders until 1900, when it was sold to the American Steel & Wire Company. Mr. Gregg was president of the Columbia Wire Fence Company, of Chicago, a corporation owning all the patents on barb wire and on ma- chinery for making barb wire. The firm was ably managed and was in fine condition. The firm started several young men in life. During this period our subject was also one of the leading spirits of the Dovetail Buggy Com- pany, and one of the most heavily interested financial backers of the same. This firm made buggies, the bodies of which were put together by a pat- ented process of dovetailing instead of screwing and nailing. He was one of the promoters of the organization of the Crawfordsville Wirebound Box Company, besides many other smaller financial enterprises. He was a director of the Elston National Bank from the time it was organized a few years ago until recently, when he resigned. He was largely instrumental in the organization of the Gregg, Coutant & Gregg mitten and glove factory, which began operation in the Y. M. C. A. building a few years ago and grew to large proportions later, when it was removed to the present factory building on East Main street. Mr. Coutant retired a few years ago and the company has since been known as the Gregg Glove Company. It recently was disposed of along with two other factories belonging to the same com- pany, each employing about one hundred people, to the Boss Manufactur- ing Company, of Kewanee, Illinois. Charles M. Gregg, son of our subject, who was the manager and secretary of these three plants, was retained by the Boss company to manage the three plants.


The Indiana Wire Fence Company mentioned above, was the first large


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concern in which our subject proved his superior business acumen. He made it a great success, manufacturing wire under the patents perfected by his father. This company started operations in a small way in a part of the building now occupied by the Smith & Duckworth planing mill and later grew so rapidly that the buildings which now serve as the factory of the Indiana Match Corporation were constructed and occupied. Here the busi- ness was materially enlarged by the addition of more barbed wire machines. Wire nails, staples, and woven wire fence were added to the output of the factory. This company enjoyed a large and lucrative business all over the country for a period of ten years, when it was sold, as stated above, to the trust, in 1889. The new owners removed the machinery from the buildings and ceased operations. This threw a large number of men out of employ- ment.


This condition made the organization of a new company very desirable. and O. M. Gregg decided to form a match company, which he did. The new company took over the property of the Indiana Wire Fence Company and began the manufacture of square matches and continued with very gratify- ing success until the trade on the square match fell off until it was not profit- able to manufacture them any longer. The new Indiana Match Corporation was then organized to take over the property of the old Indiana Match Com- pany, and at the commencement of the year 1912 the subject of this sketch retired from the active management of the concern when the prospects for the new company were very bright as a result of his able management and wise foresight, he having been the president and general manager of the old match company from first to last. The firm has made an excellent show- ing since the organization of the present company and began making round matches. The pay-roll of the Indiana Match Company for the past ten years has been eighty thousand dollars per year. That does not include the pay-roll of the Gregg Glove Company which has for the last several years kept about one hundred employes at each of their three plants. From this concern our subject retired in 1911, in which year he also retired as director of the Elston National Bank; but for a period of forty years there was no Jet up in his strenuous endeavors. There have been few working days that he has not been at the helm and there were few evenings that he did not visit his office. For several months prior to January, 1912, Mr. Gregg has been systematically retiring from the active business of a man who for more than forty years has been one of the strong moving forces of the commercial life of Crawfordsville. His work has been of a kind that has made Craw- fordsville a better town, both morally and physically. His voice has always


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been raised in the interest of the church, the Young Mens Christian Associa- tion, the Civic League and similar organizations. He was president of the local Young Mens Christian Association for a period of fifteen years, and in that time saw its organization, witnessed its growth and passed through a strenuous debt paying campaign. He has served two terms as president of the state Young Mens Christian Association and is still director of that organization, being one of the two directors who has served the longest. He has done a most noble work for the youth of the state in this connection and has received the praise of every one having knowledge of the same. He has long been an active member of Center church and was one of the prime movers and most active workers of the Civic League as well as in the fight for the cause of temperance in Crawfordsville. He is and has been for years a trustee of Wabash College. He was for years a member of the school board of Crawfordsville, and did much to help develop the present unexcelled school system. He was elected prior to the completion of what is now known as the old Central building, and during his tenure of office the Mills building and the Lincoln school were erected, the old Willson school property was purchased, and extensive repairs were made. When the Orphans Home was established, Mr. Gregg was active in the industrial work and was elected its first secretary and was closely allied with the work for the fatherless for many years. He has been active in the work of the Mission Sunday school.


Politically, Mr. Gregg is a Republican, but has never sought political honors, preferring to devote his time exclusively to business and other affairs. He belongs to the Ouiatenon Club, also belongs to the Country Club, of which he was one of the organizers. He is at present a member of the Com- mercial Clubs of both Crawfordsville and Indianapolis. He was formerly a member of the University Club of Indianapolis.


Mr. Gregg was married on March 7, 1872, to Julia B. Mills, a lady of culture, education and refinement, who has proven to be a most faithfful helpmeet, whose sympathy and encouragement have gone far toward the large success of her husband. She is a daughter of the distinguished Indi- ana educator, Prof. Caleb Mills, a complete sketch of whose life and family appears on other pages of this column.


To Orpheus M. Gregg and wife have been born three children, namely : Frederick Marshall, born January 23, 1873, and died January 12, 1910 at the age of thirty-seven years, when in the very prime of life and when giving great promise of a brilliant business career ; at the time of his death he was secretary of the Indiana Match Company, treasurer of the Central States


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Life Insurance Company, and was popular about the city of his nativity. He graduated from Wabash College in 1893. He belonged to the Masonic Order, and the Center Presbyterian church. He was a director and presi- dent of the Young Mens Christian Association. He was married to Minnie Smalley, who, with an infant daughter, Caroline, survives. Charles Moores Gregg, our subject's second child, was born on October 4, 1875, and has be- come one of the leading business men of Crawfordsville of the younger generation. He is at this writing manager of the Boss Glove Company, of which mention has previously been made in this sketch. He is prominent in Masonic circles, having attained the thirty-second degree; he is a Knights Templar, and belongs to the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is a member of Center Presbyterian church. He graduated from Wabash College in 1895. He married Alta J. Rusk on November 1, 1900. Caleb Mills Gregg, the youngest of our subject's children, was born June 6, 1881, and died on May 6, 1908,, when twenty-seven years of age. He too, was a young man of fine mind, good address and of much promise. He graduated at Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, from the mechanical and electrical engineering departments, with the class of 1903. He was in the employ of the Public Service Corporation in New Jersey for three years. giving eminent satisfaction, until his health failed, being seized by walking typhoid fever and pneumonia from which he did not recover.


Personally, Orpheus M. Gregg is a man whom it is a pleasure to meet, being a companionable, genial and fair-minded gentleman, always polite, obliging and charitably inclined, and he numbers his friends only by the limits of his acquaintance, and that indeed, is quite extensive.


WILLIAM MELVIN HATTON.


No man in Montgomery county is more deserving of the high esteem in which he is held by the general public than William Melvin Hatton, one of the able and popular, faithful and conscientious county commissioners, and for many years one of our leading agriculturists. He is a man of broad mind and correct habits, believing in progress in all lines of endeavor, and is an advocate of good government and clean living.


Mr. Hatton comes of a fine old family of the Wabash country, and while much of his life has been spent in and about the town of Wingate, this county, he is a native of Fountain county, his birth having occurred in Logan


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township, on October 6, 1849. He is a son of Thomas Schooley Hatton and Julia Ann (Swank) Hatton, and the grandson of William Hatton and wife, natives of Ohio.


William M. Hatton was reared on the home farm where he worked hard when a boy, remaining in this line of endeavor until 1878. He received his education in the common schools. When about thirty years old he pur- chased a farm in Fountain county, which he managed with much success until 1887 when he sold out and purchased his present fine farm in Coal Creek township, Montgomery county, which he has since operated on an extensive scale, keeping it well improved and under a high state of cultivation, and handling an excellent grade of live stock. He moved to his pleasant home in Wingate in 1905.


Mr. Hatton has long taken an abiding interest in the affairs of his county, and in 1910 he was elected county commissioner which position he has since held in a most acceptable and praiseworthy manner, doing much in the meantime for the permanent good of the county. He however, will not be a candidate for the office again, much to the regret of his constituents and friends. He is loyal to the Democratic party. Fraternally, he is a member of the Knights of Pythias, and is a member of the Masonic Order, also be- longs to the Methodist church.


Mr. Hatton was married on March 27, 1873 to Nancy Catherine Houts, a native of Fountain county, Indiana, of Pennsylvanian ancestry. Her birth occurred on December 17, 1850, and she grew to womanhood and was edu- cated in Fountain county.


To Mr. and Mrs. Hatton have been born two children, Charles E., who is farming in Coal Creek township; and Clarence Lee, who is a hardware merchant at Wingate.


CHARLES M. GOFF.


A worthy representative of the Goff family that has played such an im- portant part in the upbuilding of Montgomery county during the past half century or more is Charles M. Goff, a prosperous farmer and business man ยท of Wingate, Coal Creek township, near where he has a well stocked and equipped farm, which is in a good state of cultivation, and its improvements are of a high order, and the place is adorned with a neat and well-built resi- dence, and there are commodious barns and other convenient outbuildings. Grain and all products common in this part of the country thrive on the rich


CHAS. M. GOFF AND FAMILY


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soil of the farm, and our subject raises standard stock of various kinds. He has accumulated his valuable property himself by judicious management of his affairs. Personally, he is very genial, with a cheery word for all, and his neighbors and associates generally find in him a warm and steadfast friend, whose many fine traits of head and heart make him thoroughly respected and esteemed throughout the community where his entire life has been spent.


Mr. Goff was born on December 23, 1869 in Montgomery county, Indi- ana. He is a son of Edward and Mary J. (Shelley) Goff. The father was born in the state of New York on June 18, 1834, and there he grew to man- hood and received his education in the early schools. He remained in the Empire state a number of years coming to Indiana in 1856 while still single, and here he spent the rest of his life, dying in 1909. In early life he taught school awhile, but later turned his attention to farming which he made his chief vocation through life. He was a man of good intellect, a hard worker and honorable. His wife, mother of our subject was born in Montgomery county, Indiana, in 1844 and her death occurred in 1888. Five children were born to these parents, four of whom are still living.


Charles M. Goff received a good common school education, and he grew to manhood on the parental farm where he worked when he became of proper age, during the crop seasons. On December 23, 1891, he married Matie Alex- ander. She was born August 24, 1872. She received a good common school education.




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