History of Montgomery county, Indiana; with personal sketches of representative citizens, Volume II, Part 9

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 9


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Captain Carr. was born in Union county, Indiana, on July 8, 1841. He is a son of Thomas and Elizabeth Carr. The father came to Montgomery county in 1855 and here spent the rest of his life, his death occurring in 1876, in his seventy-ninth year. He was a minister in the Christian church for over sixty years, during which time he did an incalculable amount of good among the pioneers, among whom he was well known and held in the highest esteem, being a man of fine mind, charitable, helpful impulses and exemplary char- acter, always ready to assist those in need. He was the old-time type of preacher, the kind not frequently met with nowadays, that delighted in spreading the Gospel because he felt impressed to do so and not with a view of financial remuneration. Indeed, he never depended upon his work in the pulpit for support, during all his years in the work of the work, but followed all week long his trade of blacksmith and tool maker, preaching on Sundays. He was an ardent Republican.


Captain Carr was fourteen years of age when he removed with his par- ents from Union to Montgomery county and here he has since made his home. He received a fairly good education in the common schools, and spent two years in Wabash College. When only fourteen years of age he went to Cali- fornia, during the gold fever days, and there he spent four years, after which he returned to Crawfordsville. He talks most interestingly of his experiences in the Far West as well as of the great Civil war in which he has an enviable record, having enlisted in November, 1861 in Company K, Fifty-eighth Indi-


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ana Volunteer Infantry. For meritorious conduct and faithful service he was promoted from a private to orderly sergeant and finally to captain of his company, under General Buell, in Kentucky, and he served in this capacity during a number of important campaigns and battles, in a manner that re- flected much credit upon himself and to the praise of his superior officers and his men. In 1863 the regiment veteranized and Captain Carr returned to Crawfordsville and raised men for a one hundred day service, as Company D, One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Indiana Volunteer Infantry. He was honor- ably discharged and mustered out in September, 1864.


After his career in the army Captain Carr returned to Montgomery county where he turned his attention to general farming which he followed with continuous success until a few years ago when, having accumulated a competency for his old age, he retired from the active duties of life.


Captain Carr married Emma Jeanetta Baker, a native of Montgomery county, in 1866, and here she grew to womanhood and was educated. She was the daughter of J. G. and Eliza (Whetstine) Baker. He was a native of Ohio; his people lived in Illinois in early life and later came to this county, where they farmed for many years, moving to Wyoming in March, 1909. Both the father and mother of Mrs. Carr are living. He was always a farmer. He was a Republican, but not active in public affairs. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and active in work of same. He held many important offices in the church.


JAMES NOLEMAN SANDERS.


The Union soldier during the great war between the states builded wiser than he knew. Through four years of suffering and wasting hardships, through the horrors of prison pens and amid the shadows of death, he laid the superstructure of the greatest temple ever erected and dedicated to human freedom. The world looked on and called those soldiers sublime, for it was theirs to reach out the mighty arm of power and strike the chains from off the slave, preserve the country from dissolution, and to keep furled to the breeze the only flag that ever made tyrants tremble and whose majestic stripes and scintillating stars are still waving universal liberty to all the earth. For all these unmeasured deeds the living present will never repay them. One of this mighty host of heroes is James Noleman Sanders, who for many years was one of the leading farmers and stock men of Montgomery county and


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who is now living in honorable retirement in his pleasant home in the city of Crawfordsville, enjoying the fruits of his former years of toil and endeavor, and also enjoying the friendship and esteem of all who know him and who wish him many years yet of happy life.


Mr. Sanders was born on a farm in Adams county, Ohio, March 17, 1838, and is a son of John W. and Mariah ( Winters) Sanders. The father was born in the District of Columbia, July 4. 1792. His father was captain of a ship, and was lost at sea, thus leaving John W. Sanders, his son, an orphan. The latter remained in the East until 1818 when he came among the early pioneers to Adams county, Ohio. He was by trade a house joiner, mak- ing doors, sashes, etc. He was a soldier in the war of 1812, and fought at the battle of Lundy's Lane. His death occurred in Adams county, Ohio in 1877. Politically, he was a Democrat. His wife had died of the cholera in 1851, when that dread scourge swept the country. They were the parents of nine children, four of whom are still living.


James N. Sanders quit school when thirteen years of age, and began working on a farm, also in a saw mill, following these lines of endeavor until he was eighteen years old, when he went to Illinois and worked on a farm four years, then came to Montgomery county and worked on a farm for three years, after which he went back to Adams county, Ohio, and while there enlisted for service in the Federal army in Company A, Seventieth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, on February 28, 1864. He saw service in the Atlanta campaign, and was with Sherman on his march to the sea, and through the Carolinas, to Washington City. Although in many hotly contested engage- ments the nearest he came to being wounded was when a bullet was stopped by the folds of the blanket he carried on his back. He was honorably dis- charged from the service and mustered out on August 28, 1865. He returned to Ohio. Having in the meantime learned the carpenter's trade he worked at that for awhile. He later turned his attention to farming and handling stock for the market, and met with much success all along the line. He came to Montgomery county in the winter of 1869 and up to eight years ago con- tinued farming and stock raising on an extensive scale, with his usual success in Union township. Having accumulated a competency he retired from the active duties of the farm and moved to his pleasant and attractive home in Crawfordsville in 1904 where he is still residing.


Mr. Sanders is a member of the McPherson Post, Grand Army of the Republic. Politically, he is a Republican.


Mr. Sanders was married on January 1, 1870 to Susan M. Shanklin, of


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Montgomery county, her birth having occurred on June 23, 1842, and she is a daughter of a highly respected old family.


To our subject and wife four children have been born, namely: Etta May, wife of Frank Bennett, lives in Union township, this county; Ida, is the wife of E. Cowan; Elva, is the wife of A. Pruett; and Charles, who lives on a farm in this county.


HENRY J. ROACH.


The progenitors of Henry J. Roach, the efficient and trustworthy man- ager of the Crawfordsville Water & Gas Company, were, on the paternal side, natives of Ireland, in fact, no further back than the father, however, the major portion of his life was spent in the United States. However, our subject seems to have inherited many of the winning and commendable traits of the Celtic race.


Mr. Roach was born in Chicago, May 4, 1866, and he is a son of Henry J. and Sarah (Watt) Roach. Henry J. Roach was born in Cork, Ireland, and he was three years old when his parents brought him to America and here he grew to manhood and was educated. When a young man he took up rail- roading and, being alert and industrious as well as trustworthy, his rise was rapid and he followed this vocation all his active life, reaching responsible positions and becoming widely known as a railroad man in the Middle West. His last official position was that of division superintendent of the Logans- port, Detroit & Wabash Railroad, which responsible post he held for a long period with the usual satisfactory and laudable results. He is now living in retirement with his son, Henry J., in Crawfordsville. His wife passed to her eternal rest in 1891.


Henry J. Roach received a good common school education, and he began life for himself not by following in the footsteps of his father in a business way and entering the railroad field, but by taking up the water works question which he has continued to the present time, having mastered the various ins and outs of this line. For a number of years he had charge of gangs building water works plants at different places, such as Danville, Champaign, Aurora, and other places in Illinois and Indiana, and later he had charge of plants in these two states, also Ohio, giving eminent satisfaction in all of them. In 1912 he came to Crawfordsville as manager of the Crawfordsville Water & Gas Company, which position he is holding at this writing and he is doing much to improve the local plant and the service.


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Politically, he is a Democrat, but he has never been especially active in public matters. Religiously, he belongs to the Presbyterian church, and fraternally he is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.


Mr. Roach was married on December 23, 1893 to Dolly Campbell, of Logansport, Indiana, the daughter of Maurice and Mary Campbell, an excel- lent family of that city, where they have long resided.


To our subject and wife have been born three children, namely : Esther, Gladys and Mildred, all at home and attending the local schools.


P. M. LAYNE, M. D.


Dr. P. M. Layne's name will be held in lasting honor as long as the his- tory of Montgomery county endures as one of the ablest physicians that ever gave loyal service in behalf of suffering humanity, for his long life has been characterized not only by the most adroit professional ability, but also by the most profound human sympathy which overleaps mere sentiment to be- come an actuating motive, for when a youth he realized that there is no honor not founded on genuine worth, that there is a vital purpose in life and that the best and highest accomplishments must come from a well trained mind and altruistic heart. Those who know him well are unstinted in their praise of his genial disposition and his superior ability, his kind nature and his broad- mindedness. Older men in the profession here relied upon his judgment and younger ones frequently sought his counsel, all admitting his eminence. He is now living retired, after a praiseworthy career, and is enjoying the fruits of his former years of service to suffering humanity, being one of the vener- able citizens of this locality. He is now eighty-six years old, and his long life has been due, no doubt, in large part, to his clean living and right thinking, and the young man might well pattern his life after him, certainly making thereby no mistake.


Dr. Layne was born in Kentucky in 1827, and is a son of Elisha Layne and wife, and he came to Indiana with his father, locating in Montgomery county as early as 1830, when the country was wild and inhabitants were few, and of those strange times he now tells many quaint and interesting stories. The Doctor's father was a farmer and school teacher. He was a native of Virginia where he was born November 10, 1777. He was a man of rugged honesty and courage. Jacob Layne, his grandfather, was a native of Eng- land and came to America in an early day. He also taught school.


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Dr. Layne obtained his early education in the woods, according to his statement, and this constant contact with nature, was good, for it taught him lessons first handed. Those who live much with Mother Nature act naturally and gain much that those who shut themselves up in cities do not. When only thirteen years of age he began the study of medicine, and two years later began reading under Dr. S. W. Bennage, who began practice in Crawfords- ville in 1847. In 1855 our subject bought out the practice of his tutor, and he remained in active practice here up to a few years ago, being for many de- cades one of the best known medical men in this section of the state, always enjoying a very wide practice. He is a doctor of the old school, and most of his practice was made on horseback in the early days. He had great success.


Dr. Layne was married in 1856 to Minerva J. Hughes, whose parents were among the early settlers in Montgomery county. To this union three children were born, namely: Elisha William, born 1863; Elizabeth Julian, born December 18, 1857; John Franklin, born 1869.


The Doctor's first wife dying in 1875, he married, two years later, Louisa Downing, a native of Michigan. They had one child, Minter DeWitt, born 1880.


Dr. Layne belongs to the Masons, including the Knights Templar. The large success which crowned his life work, coupled with his ripe experience and kind heart, enabled him to bring comfort, hope and confidence to the sick room and he brought sunshine into many a home through his long years of practice.


PROFESSOR EDMUND OTIS HOVEY, D. D.


Edmund Otis Hovey, son of Roger and Martha Hovey, was born on July 15, 1801, and died March 10, 1877. His immigrant ancestor, Daniel Hovey, was a native of Essex county, England, being the son of Richard Hovey, and was baptized, August 9, 1618, in the Waltham Abbey, a church dating from Saxon times. He was the youngest of nine children, and the only one of them that came to America. On his departure, the rector gave him a bulky volume of poems by Du Bartas, to be seen in the Boston Public Library, with a record of the above statement. Daniel Hovey, at the age of seventeen years, settled in Ipswich, Mass., in 1635; where he had a land grant, built a dwelling-house and an adjacent wharf, still known as Hovey's Wharf, and his name is given to a street in the town, and to an island near by. For a time he lived at Brookfield and later at Hadley ; but finally ended


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Odmund Q. Honey"


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his days at Ipswich, where a bronze tablet is erected to his memory. He married Abigail Andrews, a daughter of Captain Robert Andrews, who com- manded the ill-fated ship, "The Angel Gabriel," that was wrecked off Pema- quid, Maine. Her oldest brother was Lieut. John Andrews, who presided at the meeting that resisted the tyranny of Sir Edmund Andros, in memory of which the Ipswich seal bears the motto: "The Birthplace of American Independence, 1687." Another brother, Thomas Andrews, was the first schoolmaster of the colony.


On his maternal side, Edmund Otis Hovey sprang from the families of Freeman, Otis, Moody and Russell-names famous in early annals. Rev. John Russell harbored the Regicides for ten years; in the study of his son, Rev. Samuel Russell, Yale College was founded; and Rev. Joshua Moody, another ancestor, declined the presidency of Harvard College, preferring to be pastor of the first church in Boston.


James Hovey, son of Daniel, was killed in King Phillip's War. His family then moved, first to Malden, Mass., and later to Mansfield, Connecti- cut. Edmund, the son of James, married Margaret Knowlton. Their son, Roger Hovey (so named for Roger Williams), after serving twice as a soldier in the Army of the Revolution, married Martha, the daughter of Hon. Edmund Freeman, a Harvard graduate, who owned one thousand acres in Mansfield. Mr. Freeman also received, in recognition of his public services, a noble land grant from George III, including in all twenty-four thousand four hundred acres, on both sides of the Connecticut river, which was later subdivided into the four towns of Norwich and Hartford (in Vermont) and Lebanon and Hanover (in New Hampshire). A singular stipulation in this land grant was that there should be paid to the Crown, "one ear of Indian corn only, on December 25th of each year, if demanded." Edmund Free- man's name, and those of his five sons, head the list of names on the original charter of the Hanover colony, dated July 4, 1761. There were fourteen heads of families named Freeman in 1770 when Dartmouth College was located at Hanover, with a royal grant of five hundred acres; all white pine trees being reserved "for His Majesty's Navy." Forty years after Hanover was settled there were only twenty families there, all living in log cabins, with a log meeting house, whose pulpit was a segment of a hollow basswood tree. The first college buildings were also of logs.


Dartmouth Hall was begun in 1786, a brick edifice, one hundred and fifty by fifty feet in its dimensions, and three stories high. The historian of the college records the fact that "The handles on the doors, with all the ironwork,


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were made by Roger Hovey, a blacksmith, who had a shop on the Parade at the Centre." We do not exactly know when he joined the colony, but it is recorded that he married Martha (Otis) Freeman, daughter of Edmund Freeman, in Hanover, February 6, 1783; and it is the legend that he bought his first stock of iron with the wages paid for his services in the Revolutionary Army. He not only shod horses and oxen, but made the hinges, andirons, and indeed all the ironwork of the colony. His smithy "on the Parade" was a rendezvous for the villagers, whose farm-talk and doctrinal discussions chimed in with the blows on the anvil. Dartmouth had a stormy infancy, and we may gladly pass in silence its voluminous controversies ; but we rejoice that the principles for which it stood were so firmly planted in the community, and so nobly transplanted at a later day to take root in Montgomery County and the broad Wabash valley. Roger Hovey was the father of ten children, all baptized by Dr. Eden Burroughs, pastor of the Presbyterian church in Hanover. Five of them died before the year 1800, victims of an epidemic ; and the remaining five all lived to be more than seventy years of age. In 1813 Roger Hovey and his family removed to Thetford, Vermont, where he bought a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, and built a house and black- smith-shop. He spent his old age with his eldest son, Frederick Hovey, at Berlin, Vermont, enjoying a moderate pension from the United States government as a Revolutionary soldier. He died, May 19, 1839, at the age of eighty years. His wife, who survived him, died at Berlin, April 6, 1841, aged eighty-two years.


In company with Colonel Israel O. Dewey, U. S. A., the writer visited old Hanover in 1877. We were the guests of Deacon Isaac Fellows, a vigor- ous octogenarian who had known Edmund Otis Hovey from boyhood, and promptly answered our inquiries, always speaking of him as "Otis." He said: "Otis was active, of good habits and a diligent scholar, very manly, and highly courteous." "Had he no faults?" asked Col. Dewey. The Deacon's eyes twinkled as if at some droll recollection.


"Otis had a vein of humor," said he. "A big snow-ball once came down on his teacher's head as the latter was leaving the old red schoolhouse; and as no other lad was in sight, Otis was accused of having hit the master. He denied the charge, but explained that he threw the ball into the air and the force of gravity drew it down on the teacher's head. This reply started a discussion as to whether the boy had prevaricated or only given an extremely exact statement of facts. That same school-master had a way of punishing boys by slinging them over his shoulder and letting them hang head-down-


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wards. He tried this one day on Otis, but the struggle ensuing was such that he never tried it again. The boy was too much for the man."


The ruts of an old cart-road led from the "Parade" to the red clover patch where once stood the smithy. A few gnarled apple trees were all that remained of the "choice orchard" that once surrounded the Hovey home. Moose Mountain loomed up not far away ; and more remotely were discerned the blue Thet ford hills, to which the family removed when the subject of this article was about twelve years old. The lad remained, however, for a while at Hanover as the pupil and guest of his uncle Jonathan Freeman. After- wards he went to the Thetford school, his teacher being a Mr. Hubbard. Much reading was done in the long winter evenings, by the light of the blaz- ing fire or of dip candles economically used. Among works thus early per- used were Rollins' Ancient History, the Works of Flavius Josephus, Bruce's Travel's, Cook's Voyages, Young's Night Thoughts, Milton's Paradise Lost, the biographies of Washington and Franklin, and for light reading Addison's "Spectator" in sixteen volumes. There was decided piety in the home of Roger Hovey. The boys took turns at family prayers, and the children were all drilled in the Shorter Catechism. Six days were given to farm-work, shop-work, in-door duties and the duties of the school-room; and then came a sweet, quiet, unbroken Sabbath. When seventeen years of age Edmund became an eager reader of "The American Journal of Science and Art," from which he got the impulse that led to his career as a scientist.


When eighteen years old Edmund went to the Thetford Academy, of which the Rev. John Fitch was principal. He earned the money to pay his tuition by teaching during his vacations at Thetford and Norwich. He joined the Thetford Congregational church in 1821, of which Dr. Asa Burton was pastor, with Rev. Charles White as colleague, who became at a later period the second president of Wabash College. Young Hovey's zeal and various talents induced the church to adopt him as a beneficiary with the ministry in view. The members "boarded him around" and paid for his text- books; and the ladies "cent society" undertook to clothe him. His uncle Otis gave him a calf which was sold and the money applied for tuition. Mean- while, as we regret to say, Roger Hovey objected to all this. He offered to give him the home and the farm if he would relinquish his plans and care for his parents in their declining years. Finally, as an older son accepted this parental offer, the father said to his younger son, "Well, Edmund, I will give you your freedom," meaning his time till he was twenty-one years of age; the mother slipped ten dollars into his hand, and at last the way was clear for him to gain a liberal education.


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Now came a new trial. So ardently did Edmund enter on his prepara- tory studies that his health gave way and the church discontinued its aid. His physician, Dr. Kendrick, advised a journey on horseback, generously add- ing, "Do not spare money if you can regain your health." He went to Sara- toga, and thence to Sandwich on Cape Cod, where he was the guest and patient of his uncle, Dr. Nathaniel Freeman, who had been a member of the Continental Congress, a brigadier-general in the Revolutionary Army, and was a competent guide to various localities of historic interest. Health and vigor thus regained Edmund resumed his preparatory studies, being aided financially by Judge Joseph Reed and others.


In the spring of 1825, Mr. Hovey entered as freshman at Dartmouth College, and wrote to his parents formally announcing it to be thencefor- ward "the great object of life to benefit mankind." He was graduated with honor, in 1828, being a Phi Beta Kappa man, in a class of forty-one, more than half of whom entered the Gospel ministry. His theological studies were pursued at Andover Seminary, where he mainly supported himself by his skill as carpenter and blacksmith; also doing mission work during vaca- tions in Vermont and Canada. Many of his college classmates were with him at Andover; but the most intimate friend of them all, Caleb Mills, de- ferred entering the Seminary two years in order to take a Sabbath-school agency at the West, thus being graduated from Andover in 1833, while Hovey was graduated in 1831, and was licensed to preach November 27, 1830.


On a frosty Monday morning, September 26, 1831, six young men walked from Andover to East Bradford, where, in what is now known as the Groveland church, they were ordained as home missionaries, by the Presby- tery of Newburyport, "to go into the Western country," namely: Daniel Cole Blood, Asaph Boutelle, Nathaniel Smith Folsom, Edmund Otis Hovey, Benjamin Labaree and Jason Chapin. Dr. Gardiner B. Perry presided and made the consecrating prayer ; the sermon was by Rev. Mr. Storrs; the charge was by Dr. Daniel Dana; and the right hand of fellowship was given by Rev. Mr. Phelps.


The plans of "The Western Band" were sadly broken into by the sudden death of Dr. Cushman, general agent for the West. Medical men told them that they and their wives would sink under the climate in a year. A man who had gone five hundred miles on horseback in Indiana reported its main features to be "bad roads and fever and ague." On the other hand, Boutelle, who went among the Ojibways, wrote back that it was "no farther from




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