History of Northeast Indiana : LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and DeKalb Counties, Volume II, Part 127

Author: Ford, Ira, 1848- ed
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 618

USA > Indiana > LaGrange County > History of Northeast Indiana : LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and DeKalb Counties, Volume II > Part 127
USA > Indiana > Noble County > History of Northeast Indiana : LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and DeKalb Counties, Volume II > Part 127
USA > Indiana > DeKalb County > History of Northeast Indiana : LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and DeKalb Counties, Volume II > Part 127
USA > Indiana > Steuben County > History of Northeast Indiana : LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and DeKalb Counties, Volume II > Part 127

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Mr. McClaskey was married on June 1, 1914, to Louise Hite Ferrell. She is a native of Louisville, Kentucky, and a daughter of Louis H. and Dorsey (Weatherford) Ferrell, both from old Kentucky families. Robert William and Louise (Ferrell) Mc- Claskey have one son, Robert Bruce McClaskey, born at Hutchinson, Kansas, on September 30, 1915 The McClaskeys live at 3510 North Meridan Street, Indianapolis.

JOHN A. SPERO was born at Applemanburg, in La- Grange County. September 28, 1854. In the course of a busy lifetime he has spent many years away from the scenes of his childhood, and there is prob- ably not a resident of LaGrange County who is more widely traveled and has seen more of the many sided culture and activities of this country than Mr. Spero. Again and again, however, he has re- turned to what he regards as the garden spot of Indiana, and to-day he is enjoying a quiet routine of activities on the land where he was born.

Mr. Spero prefers the simplified spelling of his family name, though many of them spell it Spearow. His father, John Spearow, was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, January 12, 1821, son of James and Susanna ( Stauffer) Spearow. He came to Springfield Township, LaGrange County, with his parents in 1846, and in 1854 rented land from Ben- jamin Jones, and two years later went out to Polk County, Iowa, where he lived for many years. Then after a brief visit to LaGrange County he and his brother James set out over the western trail for Pike's Peak. He was gone less than a year. John Spearow in the fall of 1861 enlisted in Company H. Forty-Fourth Indiana Infantry. He was in service until honorably discharged at Nashville on account of disability on January 20, 1863. In the meantime he did a soldier's part in the battles of Fort Don- elson, Shiloh and Perrysville. On returning home he worked four years for Peter Mckinley and then bought a farm in Springfield Township. For a num- ber of years he carried mail from Brushy Prairie to Kendallville and from Brushy Prairie to Lima, Indiana.

On October 24. 1853, John Spearow married Louisa J. Curtiss. She was born in Monroe County, New York, a daughter of Alanson and Paulina

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(Hall) Curtiss, formerly of New York. She died March 1, 1879, the mother of three children, John A. and James H., residents of Springfield Town- ship; and Schuyler C., of California. On June 13, 1880, John Spearow married Anna G. Maybee, a daughter of Cornelius Maybee, of New Jersey. John Spearow after leaving his farm in Springfield Town- ship lived for some time at Applemanburg, also at Wright's Corners, now Woodruff, and also had his home in Springfield Township, near the present site of Valley Bethel Church. For a number of years he was a resident of Kendallville, and while there was employed by Kriwvitz Brothers, mil- lers. He died very suddenly while on a visit to the old Rogers homestead in Springfield Township. Alanson Curtiss was a brilliant subject, his father being a prominent lawyer in Ireland. Alanson was an old-time school teacher, attorney at law, justice of the peace, postmaster, and took an active part in public debates. He was an ardent believer in the pure democratic principles. His wife, Paulina (Hill) Curtiss, was born in Vermont. Their son John was killed in the battle of Shiloh by the side of John Spearow, father of John A. John A. Spero grew up in LaGrange County, and during his boyhood days worked at farming. He attended the old Red Eagle schoolhouse in Springfield Town- ship, later the Mongo schools, and his last term of instruction was under the late Samuel Brad- ford, one of the best teachers LaGrange County ever had.

Mr. Spero was endowed with the gift of music, and that gift he improved by long study under some of the best masters, and for years he exercised his talents to cheer and entertain. As a boy he attended the old-time singing schools. During 1874-5 he was a student in the Fort Wayne Conservatory of Music. Later he took private lessons under Dr. Luther Orland Emerson of Boston, a cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson, under Dr. H. R. Palmer of New York City, and still later was a student of D. C. McAlister, who prepared him to sing at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. At in- tervals through all these years he was a teacher of music in Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska and Kansas. For two years he was associated with Mason Long in touring the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illi- nois, Indiana and Iowa. Mr. Spero organized the male quartet known as the "Hoosier Hummers," which sang at the Michigan State Prohibition Con- vention. Mr. Spero has composed the music for a number of song books in general use. He was a member of the Orpheus Club of Oakland, Cali- fornia, composed of 100 selected voices, the greatest male chorus on the Pacific Coast.

Mr. Spero left San Francisco just ninety days before the earthquake of 1906. He then went to Montana and participated in drawing for the Flat Head Reservation. His ticket bore the number 992 and entitled him to 160 acres, but he never filed on the homestead. He came back by" way of Pike's Peak, climbing the old mountain over the same trail that his father and Uncle James had gone in the early '6os. Mr. Spero has spent much time in New Mexico, and in Florida looking after lands of his brother Schuyler.

In early life he learned the trade of painter, and followed it as a means of livelihood for forty- four years. He has done work on the finest resi- dences and public buildings in LaGrange County. In his happy environment in the country in Spring- field Township he has applied his energies suc- cessfully to the specialty of breeding fancy poultry, and his stock has won many prizes at the midwinter poultry shows. In politics Mr. Spero was for many years an active prohibitionist, but is now affiliated

as a republican. He is a member of the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows at LaGrange.

On January 1, 1878, he married Miss Alice Eliza- beth Deal, who was born in Springfield Township November 29, 1857. Mr. Spero built the house now owned by Howard Perkins at Applemanburg. He traded that to Doctor Sherrow for a drug busi- ness at Helmer, and after being in the drug busi- ness for a time traded for the Levi Deal farm in Springfield Township. Seven years later he traded that property for eighty acres, including the south half of the old Greenfield farm, and then traded with Dr. A. K. Hammond for property in Fort Wayne. On selling his Fort Wayne interests he bought the Brushy Prairie property, where he now resides, and which was his birthplace.

Mr. Spero and wife have two daughters: B. Inez, who was born February 2, 1881, at Appleman- burg, was educated in the public schools of that vil- lage and Helmer, and is the wife of Clyde E. Ham- mond, who is in the automobile business at Howe. Daisy Nevada, the second daughter, was born De- cember 8, 1886, was educated at Applemanburg and Helmer, and is the wife of Roy Vail, proprietor of the Omaha Tapestry Paint Company, a thriving local industry of LaGrange. Mr. and Mrs. Vail have a son, Ralph Spero Vail, born January 10, IgII.

Mrs. Spero was educated in the public schools and the Orland Seminary, tanght several terms of district schools and has shared her husband's tastes in music. She was of much assistance to him in his musical career and accompanied him on concert tours. She is a daughter of Henry and Helen (Wade) Deal. Her mother was a daughter of Robert Wade. Henry Deal was born in Marion County, Ohio, February 22, 1832, while his wife was born in LaGrange County May I, 1838. They were married January 1, 1855. Their two children were Alice E. and Willis H., the latter a prominent real estate man of Paulding County, Ohio.

Henry Deal came to LaGrange County in 1854 with his parents, Conrad and Elizabeth Deal. At the age of twenty-one he began learning the car- penter's trade and followed it until 1857, when he bought a farm of 120 acres in Springfield Town- ship. He improved this land, and he later moved to Applemanburg and built a fine residence and subsequently sold his farm. He and his son Willis attended the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876. He held the office of township assessor for several years and was a trustee of Springfield Township. Henry Deal died at the Village of Applemanburg December 28, 1913, and his widow is still living in that village.

BENJAMIN J. NORRIS. There are several branches of the Norris family in Northeast Indiana, including the well-known Clay Township farmer and land owner, Benjamin J. Norris, and these different fam- ilies trace their origin to Huntingdon County, Penn- sylvania, where the Norrises have been prominent as land owners and farmers since prior to the Revo- lutionary war.

Benjamin J. Norris was born in Penn Township, Huntingdon County, July 10, 1854. His great- grandfather was Joseph Norris, who married Eliza- beth Enyert. Their son, Joseph Norris, Jr., born in Huntingdon County, married Rachel Mason, a native of Bedford County, Pennsylvania. Joseph, Jr., also spent his life as a Huntingdon County farmer, and his children were Allison, Mary Ann, Jackson and Washington.

Allison Norris, who was born in Penn Town- ship, married Elizabeth Hoover, a native of the same township and county, daughter of Ludwig

Goma J. Quien

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HISTORY OF NORTHEAST INDIANA

and Catherine (Grove) Hoover. Ludwig Hoover was a life-long farmer in Huntingdon County. By his marriage to Catherine Grove he had children named Elizabeth, Benjamin, Jacob, and Catherine, and for his second wife he married Mary Nicke- demus, and had three children, David, John and Sophia. From Pennsylvania Allison Norris came to Clay Township of LaGrange County during the spring of 1876, locating on a farm in section 28. He lived there until his death on August 22, 1902, and his wife passed away December 11, 1902. Their family were Susanna, Benjamin J., Joseph, Martha, Horatius, deceased, and Harry and Anna, twins, the latter deceased. Allison Norris was a member of the Lutheran Church, while his wife belonged to the German Reformed denomination.

Benjamin J. Norris acquired his education in his native township and county and was about twenty- one years of age when in November, 1875, he came to LaGrange County. In the following spring he went on the farm with his father in section 28, and he lived there continuously and operated the land as a practical farmer until the spring of 1918, when he rented his land and moved to section 25 of Clay Township, just outside the corporation limits of LaGrange. He has a pleasant home for his de- clining years, and his prosperity is well deserved. He still owns a 160-acre farm in section 28. Mr. Norris has been honored with official position, hav- ing served nine years in the board of supervisors in Clay Township.

He married Anna Fink, daughter of Jacob and Antha (Hall) Fink. Mrs. Norris died February 21, 1918, the mother of three children: Jacob Earl, who married Alta Mehl; David Clem, who mar- ried Della Johnson; while the youngest is Belva May, still at home with her father.

CHARLES EUGENE TALMAGE lived a life of quiet and effective purpose and for many years was one of the prosperous farmers of Springfield Township, LaGrange County.

He was born on the homestead of his father, Elisha Talmage, April 18, 1856, and died on the same farm June 24, 1910. Other pages contain reference to his kindred and ancestry. All his life he was a farmer, owned the old homestead in Springfield Township, and found his chief interest in his home and farm. He was a republican voter.

March 30, 1876, he married Emma Jane Joyce. She was born at Burr Oak, Michigan, a daughter of Dr. James William and Abbie Jane (Sherwood) Joyce. Her maternal grandfather was Isaac Sher- wood, a pioneer of LaGrange County. Mrs. Tal- mage had a brother, Charles Elliott, who is now liv- ing in Cass County, Nebraska. Charles E. Joyce married Grace Clizbee, by whom he had one son, James W., and for his second wife married Viola Calkins and their four children are Charles, James, Charlotte and Marjorie. William

The old Talmage hometsead is now owned by Mrs. Talmage and her daughter Lura, who is their only child. Lura was born January 27, 1877, and is the wife of Dr. Robert Wade of Fremont. Mrs. Talmage makes her home in Fremont. She was educated in public schools and the Orland Academy.

MILLARD F. OWEN became the first freight and ticket agent at Rome City, and for forty years held that position, and during that time his personal energies and influence have had as much to do with the upbuilding and broadening of Rome City as could be credited to any other one man.

Mr. Owen spent his early life in Michigan and is a native of Canada. He has an interesting ancestry. On his own account he has done much to add in-

terest to the early history of the family. A Cana- dian kinsman of Mr. Owen in a published work has had this to say: "This branch of the Owen family are noted for originality in devising methods, for love of variety in industrial pursuits, and a tendency to roam." Many of them have been in- clined to mechanical pursuits and there were a number of millers among the Owens. A few of them have taken kindly to the soil, a rural environ- ment not being in harmony with their tastes.

The original stock was an old and influential Welsh clan. Some of the more famous of the descendants were Dr. John Owen, the Non-con- formist divine; Richard Owen, the great naturalist ; Robert Owen, the distinguished organizer and social theorist; his sons Robert Dale Owen and Richard Dale Owen. About 1400 occurred the Owen Glen- ower's Rebellion, practically the last rebellion of the Welsh in the British Isles. This involved sev- eral members of the Owen family. Two and a half centuries later some of the Owens proved doughty Royalists, and held out to the last against Cromwell and his army.

It was as a result of the English revolution of that period that Ludlow Owen and his two sons Richard and George, came to America. Later gen- erations were divided in allegiance, some of them being staunch Tories while others were identified with the Colonies in their struggle for independence. There were two brothers of the family, Jesse and Abner Owen, who were on opposite sides at the battle of Lundy's Lane in the War of 1812.

The younger of these brothers was Rev. Jesse Owen, whose father Epenetus moved from New York to Canada about 1825, and was connected with a firm which erected mills near Simcoe, Canada. Epenetus was soon afterwards killed 'in an acci- dent in the mill. Rev. Jesse Owen was born at Chemung, New York, September 29, 1787. In 1807 he married Anna Winter. He moved to Canada in 1830. He was ordained a minister and was active in work until superannuated in 1852. He died in 1878 at the age of ninety-one. He and his wife had a large family of children, including Joel Winter Owen. Joel Winter Owen was born at the foot of Genesee Lake in New York state March 28, 1817, and died at Otsego in Allegan County, Michigan, March 3, 1902. He married Cynthia Kitchen of Province of Ontario, April 5, 1843, and she died in August, 1844. Their only son, Egbert A., who was born July 12, 1844, and died May 1, 1908, became a prominent business man and always remained a subject of the Queen.

August 14, 1850, Joel Owen married Mary Wood- beck. She was born in New York state, daughter of John and Jane Woodbeck, and died at her home at Otsego, Michigan, May 2, 1914. Joel W. Owen was first a cloth dresser by trade, but after his second marriage owned and operated a combina- tion of milling interests including saw mill, grist mill, carding mill, fulling mill, and spinning looms. For many years he lived and was in business at Nanticoke Falls, Townsend, Norfolk County, On- tario. He was appointed a crown official, but later became involved in some way in the Canadian rebel- lion, and in 1857 he sought a new home at Plain- well, Michigan, where he established the first mill. He was both in the lumber and flour mill business in Allegan County. In later years he was a member of the Congregational Church, in politics was a republican, served as a member of the Town Council on the prohibition ticket and was elected a justice of the peace. Joel and Mary Owen had the following children : Millard F .; Cynthia J., now living at Otsego, Michigan, wife of Eher W. Sher- wood; Jesse, born in 1858 and never married, has

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had a varied and successful business career as a flour manufacturing expert and in the course of his business and for pleasure has visited almost every section of the globe; Cora, wife of William Jones, living at Otsego, Michigan.

Mr. Millard F. Owen of Rome City was the first son of Joel and Mary Woodbeck Owen. He was born at Nanticoke Falls, Townsend, Norfolk County, Ontario, July 4, 1851, and was six vears old when his parents moved to Allegan County, Mich- igan. He lived in that county, in Kalamazoo County and Barry County during his youth, and received a common school education. At the age of twenty-one he had a responsible place in the flour , mills and warehouse business of his father. He learned telegraphy at Otsego in the office of the old Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, and began his practical career with the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, then known as the Conti- nental Improvement Company. He worked up and down the road while it was in process of construc- tion as an extra operator and agent until Septem- ber 26, 1874. He was an operator and ticket clerk -at Sturgis, Michigan, until December 16, 1874, at which date he was appointed the first freight and ticket agent at Rome City, Indiana.

During the long period of his service at this work Mr. Owen has given his best energies to building up and conducting the Sylvan Lake Resort. For years his official title. during the summer months was superintendent of grounds. For many years he has been secretary-manager of the Rome City Row Boat Company. He was president and manager of the Rome City Steam Packet Company during its life, and also auditor of the old J. H. House Boat Manufacturing Company. He was auditor of . the first telephone company at Rome City. He was first assistant secretary, then auditor, and then auditor and president of the Island Park Assembly Association. He has also been financially interested in the Rome City Ice Company and the Owen & Cobbs Ice Cream factory, and operated the Island Hotel and Restaurant from 1896 to 1916. He was interested in opening up and conducting the Spring Beach Hotel during its first years and was owner of the Sylvan Lake Hotel from 1901 to 1904. He was associated in the ownership of South Bluffs and Pleasant Point Cottage Plats, and for the last four years owned the Lakeside House.

While an active democrat, Mr. Owen has not been a seeker for official honors. However, he was honored with a place on the County Council four years and for one term was on the Orange Town- ship Advisory Board.

Apart from his material achievements and ex- perience Mr. Owen is a notable man for the diversity of his interests and avocations. He has accumulated a library of 400 volumes, mostly his- tory, travels and scientific works. Of especial in- terest in his home locality is his compilation of forty volumes of "Rome City Scraps," including much valuable information concerning all this part of Indiana. In fact he probably has more infor- mation, the result of years of collecting, on that vicinity than can be found in any other connec- tion in existence. For a number of years he has been compiling in manuscript form a continuous narrative gathered from these volumes covering a period of forty-four years. Mr. Owen possesses some very old publications, and books issued 100 years ago, and some nearly 300 years ago. He has also collected many implements and curios of the past, including wool and flax spinners, bronze lard lamps, tin lanterns, candle molds, forceps, pis- tols and other "painful instruments."

June 26, 1876, Mr. Owen married Mrs. Mary Houghton, daughter of William R. and Amanda Truesdale. She was born in December, 1850, at Norfolk, Ohio, and died at Rome City July 4, 1898. There are three living children of this marriage. Lura De, born April 11, 1877, at Rome City, mar- ried October 2, 1895, to Clement G. Routsong. Mr. and Mrs. Routsong were railway agents and tele- graph operators for the Baltimore & Ohio until four years ago, and are now merchants at Wolcott- ville, Indiana. They have two daughters, Pauline De, born September 30, 1896, at Rome City, Indiana, and Maxine, born December 6, 1901, at Albion, Indiana. Jessie M., the second child of Mr. Owen, was born April 19, 1880, and is the wife of James W. Isley, manager of Isley lumber busi- ness at Dodge City, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Isley have one daughter and two sons, Philip Henry, Mary B., and Gene Walter. Vera T. Owen, third child of Mr. Owen, is a graduate trained nurse of Sioux City, Iowa, was assistant matron in a hos- pital at Seattle, Washington, until her health failed, and is now a bookkeeper with the Isley Company at Dodge City, Kansas.

May 24, 1903, Mr. Owen married Mrs. Roma J. Coates at Rome City. By her first marriage to Lintsford B. Coates, of Frederick, South Dakota, November 30, 1886, she has two sons, Glenn N., born in South Dakota, September 20, 1887, now train dispatcher at Fort Wayne for the Grand Rapids and Indiana and Boyd C. Coates, born August 31, 1899, at Frederick, South Dakota. Their father, Lintsford B. Coates, is buried at Otsego, Michigan. Glenn Coates was married April 6, 1910, to Bertha Gilbert and they have three daughters, Roma, born February 16, 1912, Helen M., born October 15, 1914, and Mildred Janet, born April 20, 1917. Boyd Coates married at Rome City May 19, 1909, Dell Sunday, and is now one of the firm of Burke, Coates & Burke, of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The only son and child born to Mr. and Mrs. Owen was Meredith F., who died October 3, 1905. Mrs. Owen is the oldest daughter of Hon. Samuel and Sarah (Coates) Johnston. Her father, a vet- eran of the Civil war, was born in Scotland, was a former representative on the South Dakota Legis- lature. Her mother was of a Kentucky family. Her father died at Houghton, South Dakota, August 12, 1908, and her mother at the same place October 20, I90I.

Mr. and Mrs. Owen are members of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church. He is a past master of Rome City Lodge No. 451 of Masons, of Kendall- ville Chapter No. 64, Royal Arch Masons, and he and his wife are active in the Eastern Star, and Mrs. Owen is a member of the Pythian Sisters.

Through her ancestor Asa Branch of Revolu- tionary fame, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, she has established a valid claim to the society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and is a member of Mary Penrose Wayne Chapter, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Her national number is 148,086.

Mr. Owen is also working on his side of the house which will result in his daughters receiving these high honors as well, through Lieutenant Epe- netus Owen, his Revolutionary ancestor.

As Mr. Owen looks back upon his own history and that of his family he is reminded that the "great whirligig of human events brings about a wonder- ful variety of combinations and conditions in the affairs of families and men." Thus while he is descended from a family that has had a recorded history for centuries, there is now not a single male descendant of the name of Owen in his particular branch of the family.

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HISTORY OF NORTHEAST INDIANA

FRANK P. SANDERS, in association with his father and other members of the family has played : varied, a long and prominent part in the business affairs of Wolcotville. He is president of the State Bank of Wolcottville, having been one of its organizers, and was elected president by the first board of directors.

The Sanders family was well known in DeKalb County before they moved to LaGrange County. Frank P. Sanders was born at Auburn, in DeKalb County, September 5, 1854, son of Samuel P. and Susan (Parnell) Sanders. His parents were both natives of England. His mother came to the United States with her parents, who settled in DeKalb County, where she grew up. Samuel P. Sanders came to the United States when a boy of thirteen, also lived in DeKalb County, was educated in pri- vate schools, and after his marriage settled on a farm near Corunna. A few years later he left the farm and engaged in the general merchandise busi- ness at Auburn, and the greater part of his life' was spent in merchandising. From Auburn he moved to Wolcottville in 1870, and was the leading hardware merchant of that village until his death in 1885. He and his wife were very active mem- bers of the Baptist Church, and he was a repub- lican voter without aspirations to hold office. Samuel Sanders and wife had twelve children, only three of whom are still living: George W., a business man of Wolcottville; Mary, wife of George Tem- ple of Stroh, Indiana; and Frank P.

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History of Northeast Indiana : LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and DeKalb Counties, Volume II, Part 127

Author: Ford, Ira, 1848- ed Publication date: 1920 Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 618

Author: Ford, Ira, 1848- ed
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 618