History of Northeast Indiana : LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and DeKalb Counties, Volume II, Part 19

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 19
USA > Indiana > Noble County > History of Northeast Indiana : LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and DeKalb Counties, Volume II > Part 19
USA > Indiana > DeKalb County > History of Northeast Indiana : LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and DeKalb Counties, Volume II > Part 19
USA > Indiana > Steuben County > History of Northeast Indiana : LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and DeKalb Counties, Volume II > Part 19

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E. F. Tinney was born at Ypsilanti, Michigan, on June 12, 1876, and is the son of James D. and Lottie (Sharp) Tinney, who are now residents of Tucson, Arizona. The youthful days of E. F. Tinney were spent in Pontiac, Michigan, where he received a common school education. He supple- mented this training by two correspondence courses and attended and graduated from business college. He then took a course in drafting, for which he had a natural aptitude, and for a time followed that line of work in a jobbing shop. He had a strong liking for machinery, in the handling of which he became an expert, and eventually was appointed superintendent of a carriage manufactory in Butler, with which he was identified until 1917. On July I, 19II, Mr. Tinney bought the controlling interest in the Butler Basket Company, one of the live and

prosperous concerns of that city. The company is incorporated and the official personnel is as follows : President, E. C. Miller; vice president, Jesse Ober- lin ; treasurer, L. C. Harding ; secretary and manager, E. F. Tinney; directors, in addition to the fore- going officers, Dr. A. A. Kramer and Walter J. Mondhank. Though but a comparatively recent comer to Butler, Mr. Tinney has made a favorable impression on the community and is identified with every movement for the advancement of the best interests of his town and county.

In February, 1898, Mr. Tinney was married to Jennie C. Capman, also a native of Michigan. Mrs. Tinney after completing the high school course at- tended a business college. To Mr. and Mrs. Tinney have been born three children, namely: Homer C., who is a high school graduate, was a participant in the World war, having served two years in France as an observer in the One Hundred and First Aviation Squadron, and Ruth and Margaret are students in the common schools.

Mr. and Mrs. Tinney are members of the Method- ist Episcopal Church, of the official board of which Mr. Tinney is a member. Politically he supports the republican party and takes an intelligent inter- est in the trend of public events. His record is that of a man who by his own unaided efforts worked his way from a modest beginning to a posi- tion of influence in the business world.

EUGENE SHARP. In the scheme of local govern- ment provided for Indiana counties one of the most important offices is that of township trustee. Prob- ably more care is taken to select men properly qualified to fill it, and the place is at once one of great responsibility and honor.

The present trustee of York Township, Steuben County, is Eugene Sharp, who is now in his second elected term. Mr. Sharp is a native of Steuben County, and has been known to his fellow citizens as a capable farmer, merchant and business man. He was born in Richland Township, July 7, 1864, son of Mortimer and Olive (Jackman) Sharp. His mother was born in Otsego Township of Steuben County, a daughter of Richard and Orilia (Aldrich) Jackman, numbered among the pioneer settlers. Isaac Sharp, grandfather of Eugene Sharp, was a native of New York, and for many years lived at Syracuse and managed the salt works at Liverpool. He married Melinda Schoville, and about 1852 came to Indiana and settled in Richland Township, where he acquired eighty acres of heavily timbered land. He had partially cleared this and improved it with buildings before he died five or six years later. His children were George, Adaline, Martha, Mary, Mor- timer and Volney. Volney died in childhood.

Mortimer Sharp, who was born at Syracuse, New York, was educated in the schools of his native city and also in Richland Township, where he first put his youthful strength to test as a farmer. In 1865 he moved to Smithfield Township of DeKalb Coun- ty, ran a farm there five years, after which he bought the old homestead in Richland Township, and lived on it until his death, September 11, 1880. His first wife died in 1872, the mother of two chil- dren, Eugene and Clyde F. He then married Amina Patterson, and had one other child, Eva. He was a member of the Methodist Church.

Eugene Sharp made good use of his early ad- vantages in the schools of Otsego Township and at Angola, and put his knowledge to work teaching school for two terms. He farmed the home place five years, had a farm west of Hamilton in Otsego Township three years, and for three years was a general merchant at Hamilton. His business train- ing was supplemented by thirteen months in the

HISTORY OF NORTHEAST INDIANA

grocery department of a department store at Angola, after which he returned to his farm in Otsego Township, and was busily engaged in its management for eight years. From there he be- came a resident of York Township by the purchase of a place of 120 acres. He raised ten successive crops on this land, and then retired and moved to Metz, where his home is today.

Mr. Sharp was first honored with the responsibili- ties of his present office in October, 1913, when ap- pointed to fill a vacancy. He served a year and three months by appointment. In the meantime, in the fall of 1914, he was regularly elected trustee and four years later came another recognition of the adequacy of his work when he was re-elected. Mr. Sharp has filled all the offices in the Knights of Pythias Lodge at Hamilton and has been a member of the Grand Lodge.

October 27, 1887, he married Miss Lillie A. Swift, daughter of Oscar F. and Dema A. (Ball) Swift. Their children are three in number: Guy B., Andra L. and Olive.

JOSEPH W. GOODWIN is one of the most extensive land owners and lumber men in northern Indiana. He has been identified with farming and lumbering the greater part of his active life, covering a period of over forty years.

Mr. Goodwin, whose home is in Fremont, was born in Ashland County, Ohio, October 18, 1853, son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Good) Goodwin. His parents were natives of Pennsylvania, his fa- ther born in 1817 and his mother in 1820. In May, 1854, the family came from Ohio and settled on a farm a mile west of Waterloo, Indiana, where Samuel Goodwin spent the rest of his days. He died in 1889 and his wife in 1865. In politics he was a whig and later a republican, was a member of the Evangelical Church, and finally became iden- tified with the United Brethren denomination. He had the following children: Ellen, Leander, Lewis and Francis, both of whom died in infancy, Joseph W., Lucy, widow of Stephen George, a soldier of the Civil war, and Alice. Samuel Goodwin mar- ried for his second wife Mrs. Mary (Prosser) Bru- baker. She died in 1917, at the age of eighty-nine. She was the mother of three children, only one of whom is now living, Frank, of Cincinnati.

Joseph W. Goodwin grew up at his father's home in Northeast Indiana, attended the public schools, and acquired very early in life a practical knowledge of both farming and lumbering. For many years he has been in the lumber business under the name of the Goodwin Lumber Company, both as manufacturers and as retailers. The com- pany has yards at Fremont and Pleasant Lake. Mr. Goodwin owns over 600 acres of land in Sten- ben County, Indiana, and in Branch County, Michi- gan. He has been useful as a citizen as well as in business affairs, and has lent his influence for the promotion of every worthy movement. In poli- tics usually a republican, he has frequently voted for the prohibition ticket and has always been a staunch temperance man. He and his wife are members of the United Brethren Church.

November 13, 1877, Mr. Goodwin married Miss Oliva Brown. Her father, Elder Joseph Brown, was one of the early preachers of the United Breth- ren faith in the North Ohio Conference. Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin have five children. Lillian is the wife of William Hampton, superintendent of motive power in the great steel works at Gary, Indiana. Charles, a Young Men's Christian Association worker still with the army in France, married Lorain Dalmage, of Des Moines, Iowa. Alta, the third

child, is unmarried. Olie is the wife of Wallace Pirrington and is the mother of three children, named Wallace, Jr., Joseph and Mary June. War- ren, the youngest child, married Louise Powers, and has one daughter, Margaret.

ISAIAH ALLESHOUSE came to Northeast Indiana when a boy, grew up in LaGrange County, and after varied experiences as a farmer in different localities, including a trial at homesteading in Ne- braska, he has lived for many years and propered as a farmer in Salem Township of Steuben County. He was born in Holmes County, Ohio, March II, 1855, a son of Adam and Rebecca (Lint) Al- leshouse. His parents were natives of the same county, were married there, and in 1862 brought their family to LaGrange County, buying in Milford Township what is now the Cornell farm. They sold this land to its present proprietor, Mr. William Cor- nell. Their next purchase was a farm in Spring- field Township, and Adam Alleshouse spent his last days in Michigan with his son George, where he died in 1904, at the age of seventy-eight. His wife died in Springfield Township of LaGrange County. They were members of the Reformed Church, and in politics he was a republican from the time that party was organized. Their children were: Ben- jamin, Isaiah, John, Lucy Ellen and Mary Jane, twins; George Washington, and Daniel.

Isaiah Alleshouse attended the public schools of LaGrange County after he was seven years old, and in early manhood he made his independent start by buying forty acres in Springfield Township. Sell- ing that he came to Steuben County, rented the farm of his father-in-law two years, and lived in La- Grange County two years on his own farm, and for two years rented the Newton farm in Greenfield Township. After this came his western experience in Nebraska, where he took up a forty-acre home- stead and went through all the trials and vicissitudes of homesteading and farming in the West for eight years. Selling out, he returned to Indiana, and has since been well contented with the climate, soil and opportunities of this section of the state. In Steuben County he located on forty acres which Mrs. Alles- house had inherited from her parents, and they also bought forty-five acres more, giving them the place which is still his workshop as a farmer and the home where his children have grown up and where he is content to pass his declining years. Mr. Alleshouse is a prohibitionist in politics and a member of the United Brethren Church.

August 28, 1881, he married Miss Olive Eleanor Ransburg, who was born on the farm where she is now living June 8, 1862, a daughter of Leander and Harriet (Spangle) Ransberg, the father a na- tive of Frederick, Maryland, and the mother of Seneca County, Ohio. After their marriage in Ohio the parents moved to Steuben County, and her father became one of the very prosperous farmers of this section, owning 320 acres. He died in Henry County, Ohio, in 1904, and the mother of Mrs. Alleshouse, who was born in 1833, died January 2, 1909. Leander Ransburg first married Rachael Mithour and had one daughter, Rachael E. By his second wife his children were Chloe, Ella, Edith, Lewis W. and Olive Eleanor.

Mr. and Mrs. Alleshouse had five children, and now have numerous grandchildren. Their youngest child, Cecil Dale, died in 1905, aged two years one month and two days. The oldest, Charlotte Estella, is the wife of Albert Ulmer, and her children are Vivialeen Frances, Wellington W., Kenneth Roy, Velma Lucile, Maynard, Gayland, Iona Pearl, Law- rence and Wilbur. Ottomer Amos Alleshouse mar- ried Ulah Woodford, and their children are Russell

HISTORY OF NORTHEAST INDIANA

Raymond, Gladys, Dorothy, Gerald W. and Wood- ford W. Carl Sherinan Alleshouse married Francis Courtwright and has four children, Donald J., Rus- sell I., Dale Wesley and Berdina Gay. Rollie Roy, the youngest of the family now living, was in the army about six months during the World war, and was assigned to duties as a cook at Camp Taylor, Louisville, Kentucky. He married Lovisa Anstett and has a son, Burton Rollie.

AARON J. MOORE. Three generations of the Moore family in Wilmington Township have been regis- tered stock breeders. As a family they have some of the oldest herds of registered stock in the state, and the value of their enterprise in raising the standards of livestock husbandry is incalculable.

Aaron D. Moore, grandfather of the present gen- eration, had his Durham Shorthorn cattle, Spanish Merino sheep and Poland China hogs registered in the books of the official associations of those breeds. Aaron D. Moore was born in Stark County, Ohio, January 17, 1831, son of a shoemaker, and he grew up in a home of very modest comforts and early had to make his own way in the world. He worked as a boatman on an Ohio canal, and in 1854 came to DeKalb County and settled in the big woods of Wilmington Township. He built his log cabin and used his skill as a hunter to provide meat for his family. It is said that he paid his first taxes with hides and furs. Besides clearing a hundred sixty acres of his own he helped others to clear land and was in every sense a valiant pioneer, and had few equals as an axe man. In 1851 he married Rebecca J. Caldwell, of Stark County, Ohio. Their children to grow up were Hiram M., Margaret A., Ella, A. Alvin, George M. and John R.

A grandson of this veteran stock breeder is Aaron J. Moore, who makes a specialty of Shropshire sheep and Poland China hogs. He was born in Wilmington Township November 24, 1896, and is a son of John R. Moore and Cora B. (Shanklin) Moore. John R. Moore was born on the farm where his son, Aaron J., now resides October 30, 1869, and died there December 7, 1918. He continued the stock breeding enterprise of his father. His wife was born in Defiance County, Ohio, January 3, 1874, and died February 12, 1919. They had three children : Aaron J., Gladys, who died while in high school, and John R., Jr., who is a high school grad- uate, took normal training in the Tri-State College and is a teacher.

Aaron J. Moore has spent all his life on the home farm. He attended high school two years at Water- loo and he has done much to continue the family tradition and profession as a stockman. He owns eighty acres of the old farm and has a herd of forty head of Shropshire sheep, all pure bred, the herd being headed by A. J. Moore's Best No. 63. His big type Poland China hogs also contain some of the finest representatives of their class. For several years his animals have been exhibited at state and county fairs.

November 18, 1915, Mr. Moore married Estella M. Quaintance. They have two children: Phyllis E., born September 2, 1916, and Aileen, born February 12, 1918. Mr. Moore is a member of the Ancient Order of Gleaners and a democrat in politics.

HUGH W. DIRRIM is one of the honored veterans of the Civil war, has spent most of his life in North- east Indiana, and for nearly forty years was a suc- cessful farmer of Otsego Township in Steuben County. He is now enjoying the comforts of life in his home at Hamilton.

Mr. Dirrim was born in Harrison Township of Carroll County, Ohio, April 13, 1837, a son of James

Dirrim and a grandson of Richard Dirrim. Richard Dirrim was born in Delaware, served in the War of 1812, and in September, 1815, moved to Stark County, Ohio. James Dirrim was born in Pennsyl- vania, August 11, 1809, but was reared and educated in Stark County, Ohio. In May, 1845, he brought his family to Franklin Township of DeKalb County, Indiana, and settled on a tract of heavily timbered land in section II. He made a good farm there, and spent the rest of his life in that locality. He was twice married. April 15, 1835, he married for his second wife Hannah Gillespie, a native of Ireland. They had a family of eleven children, and several of the sons fought in the ranks of the Union army. The children were: William, Sarah, Hugh W., James, Isaac, Richard, Margaret E., Hannah D., Elizabeth Ann, John and Milton.

Hugh W. Dirrim was about eight years old when he came to DeKalb County, and he received his edu- cation in the schools there. In November, 1862, he enlisted in the Forty-Fourth Indiana Infantry, and was in the battles of Stone River, Chickamauga and several other engagements. He was in the army until the close of hostilities in April, 1865. He re- turned home to take up farming and in 1873 re- moved to Otsego Township of Steuben County, where he acquired 133 acres. He developed that land, putting on the building improvements, and lived there with increasing prosperity for many years. In 1901 he retired and moved to Hamilton, and in 1908 sold his farm.

He married for his first wife Catherine Spiece, daughter of John Spiece. She died in October, 1900, the mother of six children, Orlando, Lincoln, Clar- ence, Jordan, Nettie and Emma. Nettie is now deceased. Mr. Dirrim married for his second wife Mary Spiece, sister of his first wife.

EARL L. HALL has had an active share in the busi- ness affairs of Fremont for a long period of years, and has been chiefly identified with the management of the local milling interests. He is manager of the Hammel Milling Company there, and is widely known among the grain raising farmers over a large surrounding territory.

Mr. Hall was born at Fremont, October 6, 1866, a son of Joseph H. and Delia (Beach) Hall. His father was born in Washington County, New York, August 24, 1824, went to Michigan at the age of twenty and about ten years later came to Fremont, Indiana, where he opened a harness shop and was one of the first business men in that town. He died April 23, 1904. His first wife was Mary Beach, by which union there are two living daugh- ters, Effie and Ida. His second wife, Delia Beach, was a daughter of Samuel and Irene (Lawrence) Beach. They came from New York to Saline, Mich- igan, about 1833, and in 1836 settled in Branch County, that state, and took up government land there. Samuel Beach died there when about forty years of age and his wife also died young. Their children were named Cephus, Charles, Frank, Wil- liam, Edward, Emily, Sarah, Delia and Catherine. Samuel Beach served as a justice of the peace in three different townships in Michigan, though all the time living in the same house. That was due to the fact that the county was rapidly settling and the large townships were being cut up and subdivided.

Earl L. Hall was reared in Fremont and attended the local schools and also worked on the farm with his father for nine years. He was also with his father in business for a time, afterward was engaged in the meat business for about eight years, and then engaged in the milling trade, working for

HISTORY OF NORTHEAST INDIANA

Otis Hammel. After a year and a half he took still a different line, the lumber trade, and followed that a year and a half. But for the past ten years Mr. Hall has been steadily engaged in the manage- ment of the Hammel Milling Company at Fremont.

In politics he is a prohibitionist, though formerly a republican. Mr. Hall owns sixteen acres of land adjoining the corporation limits of Fremont, which is known as a part of the Erastus Farnham farm. Mr. Farnham built the Hammel mill, also the railroad depot and the house in which Mr. Hall and family reside. Mr. Hall is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and is liberal in his religious views.

October 11, 1903, he married Miss Ida Bailey. She was born in Scott Township of Steuben County January 4, 1869, a daughter of John and Jane (Dy- gert) Bailey. Her father was born in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, October 8, 1830, and her mother in Scott Township of Steuben County Feb- ruary 6, 1844. Mrs. Hall's maternal grandparents were Abraham and Abigail (Barnes) Dygert, who came to New York State and were among the ear- liest settlers of Steuben County. John Bailey came to Steuben County with his parents, Michael and Catherine (Weaver) Bailey. John Bailey died Sep- tember 30, 1903, and his wife on March 23, 1906. They have had two daughters, Lucy and Mrs. Hall. Lucy was born December 14, 1866, and died in May, 1867.

FRANK T. DOLE. The family of Dole has many relationships with Steuben County people and affairs. Frank T. Dole of Angola is former county treas- urer and has been an intelligent and influential factor in the business life of the community for over thirty years.

Mr. Dole was born in York Township, Huron County, Ohio, June 1, 1858, a son of John and Susannah (Kirkwood) Dole. His parents arrived in Salem Township of Steuben County in the spring of 1861 and settled in the midst of the woods where the wild deer and wild turkey disported. They bought 101 acres and improved much of it into fields. Later this farm was rented to his son, Lewis Dole, and John Dole moved to Hudson, lived there six years, was then retired at Salem Center with his daughter, Mrs. W. E. Kinsey, and died at the Kinsey home in 1907, at the age of eighty-six. His wife passed away in 1904, at the age of eighty. John Dole was a son of Daniel and Elizabeth (Stratton) Dole, who also came to Steuben County. They were natives of Columbiana County, Ohio. Elizabeth Stratton Dole died in 1889, at the venerable age of ninety-six years. Her children were John, Hannah, Elwood, Mary, Joel and Lewis. John Dole along with farming followed the trade of carpenter for many years. He was a democrat, served as trus- tee of Salem Township several years, and he and his wife attended the Methodist Episcopal Church. Susannah Kirkwood was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, of Irish extraction, one of her brothers being a native of Ireland. John Dole and wife had a family of six children; Frank being the youngest. Daniel M. lives at Hudson, Indiana ; Lewis, who died in 1910, at the age of sixty-two, left a widow, Mrs. Kate Ann (Greeno) Dole, now a resident of Angola; the third child, Charles, died in infancy; the fifth in the family was Sarah, who died in 1891, the wife of J. H. Woodford, of Salem Township. Special interest attaches to the fourth child, Elizabeth Dole, who is the wife of Mr. W. E. Kinsey, now living in Arizona. W. E. Kinsey was a son of Dr. Joseph E. Kinsey, and together they were merchants at Salem Center for a number

of years. William E. Kinsey and Elizabeth Dole were married in 1872 and their daughter, Lois I., was married in 1895 to Thomas R. Marshall, then a rising young Indiana lawyer, later governor of the state, and now vice president of the United States.

Frank T. Dole received his education in the pub- lic schools of Salem Township attended the Angola High School, and at the age of sixteen was working as a carpenter. He followed that mechanical trade until 1891. After that for a few years he was a merchant at Salem Center, and on moving to Angola entered the employ of Mr. L. C. Steifel, with whom he remained seventeen years. He then resumed the role of an independent merchant and in 1912 was called to the duties of county treasurer, an office he filled with signal usefulness and efficiency for four years. Since retiring from office he has been connected with several business enterprises and is now engaged in the canning business. He owns a beautiful home on North Wayne Street in Angola.

A republican in politics, he served six years in the City Council of Angola. He is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Rebekahs, and he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1878 Mr. Dole married Miss N. Ellen Kinsey. She was born in Salem Township November 6, 1857, is a sister of William E. Kinsey, above noted, and a daughter of Dr. Joseph and Mary (Dill) Kinsey. Doctor Kinsey was an early settler in Allen County, Indiana, moved from there to De- Kalb County and in 1855 to Salem Center, where he established a large practice as a physician and was also associated with his son in the general mer- cantile business. He and his wife spent their last years in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Dole, where Doctor Kinsey died in 1910, at the age of ninety-two, and his wife in 1905, aged seventy-eight.

Mr. and Mrs. Dole have four children. William Earl, born in 1883, has for a number of years been clerk in the Angola postoffice. He married Edna Cowen, a daughter of Elmer Cowen, and has a son, William Earl, Jr. Floyd J. Dole, born in 1886, is manager of the express office at Continental, Ohio. He spent about eighteen months in the army, being head cook for the One Hundred and Thirty- Seventh Field Artillery, and going overseas to France in December, 1918, returning to this country in February, 1919. The third child, Cora Mildred. was born in 1890, and is the wife of Wayne Mc- Killen, and has a son, James Franklin. Lewis Pyrl Dole, born in 1894, spent three and a half months in training at Camp Grant toward the close of the war.

JOHN MOUGHLER is a well known DeKalb County resident, his home being in the southwest corner of Troy Township. He is one of a rather numerons group of farmers who earned their prospertly largely as renters. He farmed rented land for thirty years or more and in that time reared and provided for his family, and his later years are now being spent quietly, prosperously and busily on a farm of his own.

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History of Northeast Indiana : LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and DeKalb Counties, Volume II, Part 19

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