History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships, Part 53

Author: Tucker, Ebenezer
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : A.L. Klingman
Number of Pages: 664

USA > Indiana > Randolph County > History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships > Part 53

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Nathan Thomas, Wayne County, Ind., Anti-slavery Friend, was the third child of Benjamin Thomas, one of the pioneers of New Garden Township, Wayne Co., Ind. He was born about 1813, and was twice married, the last time to Mrs. Ann (Will- iams) Reynolds, who is still living, having been a widow since his death, nearly thirty years. Mr. Thomas had a large family of children, three of whom were by his last wife. He was wonder- fully active in religious and benevolent movements; was one of the chief actors in the "Separation," and a trusted leader among the Anti- slavery Friends. He was greatly interested in the free labor movement, and traveled extensively in the South and else- where to aid in encouraging the production of cotton and market- ing it by free labor. He was one of the Trustees of the U. L. Institute, and was greatly active in its support, and deeply in- terested in its success. His advantages in that early time had been but meager, yet he became an intelligent and influential man. His death occurred while he was still in the early maturity of manhood, when he was only about thirty-eight years old. The cholera swept him from among men in the fall of 1851. His early demise was indeed a severe loss, as men view things, to the community and to the country. His widow, Mrs. Ann Thomas, has been from her early girlhood a remarkable specimen of untir-

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ing Christian and benevolent artivity, restless and unceasing in her efforts to accomplish good, especially to the poor and friend- less. She was born and reared in Ireland, belonging to a family of distinction in that country. One of her brothers was for many years & British military officer in India. Another was, during his life, an English official in Australia. A third died on the plains while on the way to California during the early gold ex- citement about that region. She returned to her native island in 1879 to visit the scenes of her youth, and it is a somewhat curi- ous fact hat, through her means, a marriage was accomplished between one of her sons and a lady of that country. He crossed the ocean during the winter of 1879-80, claimed his bride, and, returning to America in the spring, resumed his business as associated press agent in the city of Chicago; and his mother is now spending with that son in that wonderful city a pleasant and tranquil old age, enjoying the retrospect of a life spent in the active service of the Lord, and the consciousness of the com- forting presence of her loving Savior.

Benjamin Thomas, Newport (now Fountain City), Ind., was born in North Carolina in 1782; came to Wayne County in 1812, being the second settler north of Richmond, Ind. He married Anna Moorman in North Carolina. Nathan Thomas, their third child, was the first white child born in New Garden Township, Wayne County. Benjamin Thomas had twelve chil- dren, six of them still living. He remained on the land he en- tered till his death, about 1851. He was prominent in the " Sep- aration " among Friends of the Richmond Yearly Meeting on account of slavery, in 1842-43, and was one of the principal founders of Union Literary Institute, a manual labor institution, established in 1845 and 1846, in Randolph County, for colored and other youth. He was active and influential among Friends during his whole life. He was mild and gentle in his disposi- tion, qniet in his temper, exemplary in his life, industrious and frugal, a consistent Christian, a worthy citizen and a generous- hearted, benevolent man.

John Thornburg, Friend-Methodist. Stony Creek, oldest son of Isaac Thornburg, was born in North Carolina, Guilford County, in 1794; came to Ohio in 1813; married Susannah Bales in 1815; came to Randolph County in 1824; entered 160 acres of land two miles south of Windsor, and moved to the county April. 1825. He had ten children, four born in Ohio and sit in Randolph County. Lemuel Vestal had undertaken to build a mill on Stony Creek, near Windsor. He had employed his work- men, and they had got out the timber, but he could not go on, and he sold out to John Thornburg, who put up both a saw-mill and a grist-mill, the latter grinding corn and wheat, bolting with a revolving hand bolt. That mill sawed the timber to build the first frame house in Muncie, the lumber being hauled to that place by ox tears. After owning the mills four years, he sold them to Andrew G. Dye, who, after several years, also sold to Moses Neely, who sold to Thomas W. Reese, and he built the mills anew. They have been owned successively since by Neely, Mark Patty, Johnson & Dye, William A. Thornburg, Reece & Sons, Mahlon Clevenger, John Thornburg, and now by Robert Cowgill. The mill is a good one, though it lacks power some- what. The water is not nearly so abundant and reliable as of old. The clearing-up of the lands has dried up the ground and lessened greatly the volume and steadiness of flow of the streams, and vastly decreased their value for propelling power. John Thornburg sold his land to Joseph Rooks, and the mills to Dye, and went farther up Stony Creek, and again entered 160 acres, and built a cabin, buying out also David Vestal, with twenty-five acres of cleared land, and there he remained till his death, in 1845. His widow is living yet, with Marion Hewitt, near Neff, eighty-four years old past. After her first husband's death, she married Thomas Clevenger, who was a widower with eight or nine children, only two or three of whom were grown; and so she has raised two large families, seventeen in all, and still survives to look back with thankfulness upon the way in which, though rough and rugged, yet gracious and merciful, the good hand of the Lord hath led her through all the days of her lengthened pilgrimage on the earth, and to look forward to her speedy and abundant entrance into the heavenly mansions.

" Where she shall bathe her weary soul, In seas of heavenly rest ; And not a wave of trouble roll Across her peaceful breast."

Her husband, John Thornburg, was originally a Friend, but, believing in the nnity of all Christians, he was prominent in forming and maintaining a congregation in his vicinity on the ground of union. It was composed chiefly of Friends and Meth- odists, and was often called the "Friend-Methodist." Their church was called the Union Chapel, and the graveyard near where it stood is to this day spoken of as the Union Cemetery. Mr. Thornburg was himself a preacher, and while he lived the society flourished, but after his death it dwindled, and bas be- come extinct, most of the members joining other societies.

Rev. Ebenezer Tucker, Congregationalist, Union City, born in Cherry Valley, N. Y., in 1819, attended common schools and Cherry Valley Academy, 1826-29; Oneida Institute, New York, 1836-40; teaching winters, and manual laber summers; Auburn and Oberlin Theological Seminaries, 1841-44, graduating at Oberlin in 1844; married Lois Patchin, North Gage, Oneida Co., N. Y., September 25, 1844; Fredericktown, Ohio, 1844; Pastor Congregational Church eighteen months, 1844-46; Prin- cipal Union Literary Institute, near Spartansburg, Ind., 1846-54 (school mainly for colored youth, established largely by Anti- slavery Friends); farmer, Nora, Ill., 1854-59; President Liber College, Jay County, Ind., 1859-68; Principal Union City one year; lamp agency, 1869; New Orleans, Professor in Straight University, 1870; Tougaloo University, Mississippi, 1871-72; missionary, Raymond, Miss., 1872-73; Union Literary Institute, Spartanburg, Ind., 1873-79; Union City, 1879. He began teaching April 5, 1835, and has taught, in all, a time equal to forty-two years of eight months each. He has been a clergyman since 1844, preaching mostly without compensation, being Pastor eighteen months at Fredericktown, Ohio, and nine years at Liber, Ind. His teaching has been laborious and exhausting, but not without power for good. About four thousand youth have been members of the schools under his charge, and great numbers of young men and women in Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, New York, etc., ascribe to his counsels and instructions an impulse toward light and knowledge which has urged them onward to grander heights of wisdom and usefulness. He has had six chil- dren (four living), as follows: Granville Clarkson, Caroline Amelia, Julius Edson, Laura Frances, Charles Finney, Philo An- drew. G. Clarkson, farmer, teacher, soldier, miller, died 1882; Caroline A., died, Nora, Ill., 1858; Julius E., carpenter, mil- ler, cabinet-maker; Laura F., teacher, milliner: Charles F., teacher; Philo A., telegrapher. G. C. married Mary A. Pom- roy-Emma Teagle; Julius E., married Sarah Ellen Knight -- widower; Charles F. married Cinderella Maria Campbell: Philo A. married Janetta Clapp. Ebenezer Tucker'a parents were both of New England descent, his father having been born in Vermont. His maternal grand parents were natives of Connectient, the grandfather having been a soldier in the Revo- lutionary war at Stonington, Conn., and an early and active pio- neer of Cherry Valley, N. Y. His father's father was born in Marlboro, N. H., abont 1740, and his father's mother in Rox- bury, near Boston, in 1747, fifteen and eight years before the French and Indian war respectively. . His father was one of twins who were the youngest of nineteen children by one mar- riage, many of whom were born in the State of Vermont. Being married at sixteen, the mother bore nineteen children by one husband, and lived to be ninety-three years old, dying in Cherry Valley, N. Y., in 1840. They were married at Roxbury, Mass. ; kept house several years in Keene, N. H .; moved into Vermont, hauling their goods with oxen, and the married couple riding on the same horse 200 miles into the Green Mountain land. In about 1790, they set out for what was then called New Connecti- cut. and now Western Reserve, in the winter, npon a sled, with two horses, the group consisting of husband and wife and nine children, two being twins a year old. They crossed the Green Mountains; the, snow left them, and they left the sled and kept on with the two horses. One horse died, and they still pressed for- ward with the other. They pawned their things as they went on, the last thing disposed of thus being the woman's shawl, seventeen

Ebenezer Tucker

RES OF GEO. RICKERT, SEC.7, JACKSON TP, RANDOLPH CO. IND.

RES OF MRS LUCINDA BYRUM, JACKSON TP, RANDOLPH CO. IND.

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HISTORY OF RANDOLPH COUNTY.

miles from where they finally stopped. They quit traveling, because-because-well, because they could get no farther, end- ing their wearisome journey in Montgomery County, N. Y., re- moving shortly to Otsego County, N. Y., about fifty-five miles west of Albany. There they settled, and there they resided till they left the scenes of mortality, the husband in about 1822, and the wife in 1840, at the great age of ninety-three. Poor and destitute, they reached that hard and rugged region, and poor for forty or fifty years longer they continued to be, during their whole sojourn in this sublnnary sphere; that poverty and destitution made deeper and more desperate by the sad fact that twice in that country their house was burned to the ground, the last time escaping barely in their night clothes, losing every- thing in their dwelling. Thus did emigration tako place, and thus did emigrants live in those olden times in that Eastern land. Such a group as the one described -- man, wife, nine children, one poor, woe-begone horse, wandering, strangers in a strange land-would be a sight to behold! Yet of the great crowd of descendants of these poor emigrants, scattered east and west, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, the great body have always been, and aro to this day, upright, thriv- ing, respectable, industrious, intelligent, and by far the larger portion of the whole number God-fearing people. The tree was good, and the fruit has been good for many. generations. God bless and prosper the poor, but hardy and virtuous, emigrant, and let all the people say, Amen! Let no man despise the poor and the lowly, but let all conspire to favor and to encourage the humble and desolate, for out of such shall come, in the follow- ing years, through successive ages and generations, those who shall become the strength and substance of the nation, and the pride and glory of the land! The region of New York to which they came is famous in the annals of the Eastern land. Cherry Valley was settled in 1740, 142 years ago, by intelligent and pious people from Scotland. The winter after their establish- ment of the colony, the snow lay in immense depth for months upon the ground, and they came near starvation. A friendly Indian discovered their condition, and kept them alive by suc- cessive trips to the settlements on the Mohawk River, some fif- teen miles distant, traveling upon snow-shoes and carrying pro- visions upon his back for their sustenance, persevering in his friendly work till the return of spring enabled them to obtain their own supply. In the Revolutionary war, the town was burned, and the inhabitants were either killed or carried captive to Canada. One person, who was then an infant in his mother's arms, became afterward the distinguished Judge Alfred E. Camp- bell, of Cooperstown, N. Y., who became the author of the work entitled "Annals of Tryon County," embracing the whole of New York west of Albany County, a most valuable and interesting treatise, and crowded with information concerning those olden times. Cherry Valley was burned near the same time with the massacre of Wyoming, in Pennsylvania, both being in the Sns- quehanna Valley, the former town being at the head of. Cherry Valley Creek, one of the sources of that river, and Cooperstown being the residence of Judge Fennimore Cooper, the famous novelist, who immortalized that whole region by the productions of his vigorous and fertile brain. Some of the families of the original settlers 142 years ago still occupy the homesteads of their ancestors. The Campbell family in particular still remain where their progenitor established his home in 1740, after cross- ing the stormy ocean-wave from the rocks and mountains of his native Scotland. One of his sons was a Colonel in the Revolu- tionary army. Gen. Washington, in his Presidential tour through New York and New England, was a guest at the Campbell man- sion, and one little boy, a lad of some ten years, who saw Presi- dent Washington at his father's residence at that early time, lived to be more than ninety years old, and had the honor, in Gen. Grant's administration, to be able to say that he had seen the first President and the last. When President Grant visited Troy, in the State of New York, to attend the funeral ceremonies of Gen. Wool, Mr. Campbell, then above ninety years of age, made a journey from his home to Troy on purpose to have it to say that he had seen the first President and the last. Ho saw

and was glad, and in a short time he lay down to take his last earthly sleep, and was gathered to the sepulchers of his fathers. The ancestral graveyard in that village is, indeed, a most inter- esting spot, containing, as it does, the tombs of several genera- tions. In the fall of 1880, a centennial celebration was held, at- tended by perhaps twenty thousand people, and addresses were delivered by Gov. Horatio Seymour and other distinguished per. sonages of the State and region, commemorating the capture and burning of the town by the Indians under the famous Mohawk chief, Thayandanega, or Brant, and the cruel Tory partisan, Col. Walter Butler, who, in merciless ferocity, exceeded the savages themselves, and who was himself shot and tomahawked on the banks of Oneida Creek by an Indian, who cried, in answer to But- ler's appeals for mercy as the avenging savage took his scalp, "Remember Sherry Valley! Remember Sherry Valley!" The subject of this sketch was an early Abolitionist, joining that much abused and maligned group of men and women in his early youth, in 1835. He attended the Oneida Institute at Whitesboro (near Utica, N. Y.), the first collegiate school in the United States which opened its doors to colored youth. While there and at Oberlin, he became acquainted with many of the young men of color who have since become famous in the country. Among them were Messrs. Freeman, Sidney, Loguen, Whitehorne, Duy, Garnett, Crunmell, Rogers, Vashon, Allen, and others not now recollected. He gradu- ated with the class of 1840, a member of which class was Rov. Highland Garnet, then and ever since-till his death in Liberia, in 1882, whither he had gone by Presidential appointment as Con- sul to that African commonwealth-an energetic, talented, in- fluential and greatly successful clergyman, being, from his youth, remarkable for his oratorical ability. It is an interesting fact that Mr. Garnet was the first colored person who was permitted to speak in the United States Hall of Representatives, which he did, to a crowded assembly, on the 12th of February, 1865. He was Pastor of a church in Washington City at the time, and their choir also officiated upon the occasion. The spacious hall was crammed, both upon the floor and in the galleries, and the vast audience hung spell-bound upon his lips. One who heard the memorable discourse concludes an account of the remarkable ecene as follows: "It is needless to say more. Men who went to the honse to hear a colored man, came away having heard ? man in the highest and fullest sense. Many who went there with feelings simply of curiosity came away wrapped in aston- ishment. Not only a man, but a great representative man, had spoken, and they were amazed. In fact, Mr. Garnet was the finest colored orator in the land-far superior, not, indeed, in reasoning power, yet, in dignity and impressiveness of personal presence, in the graces of finished oratory, and in the grandeur of natural and cultured eloquence, to the far-famed Fred Doug- lass, for so many years a prominent personage before the Amer- ican public." As stated, Ebenezer Tucker graduated in 1840 from Oneida Institute, the class numbering eleven, most of whom are still living, after a lapse of forty-two years, but not one of whom he has ever seen in the flesh since the morning after the com- mencement, when that band of earnest young men took the parting hand and separated to their life-work for Christ and for the wel- fare of the human race. His business has been chiefly teach- ing, and, during the larger portion of the more than forty years spent in that employment, his work has been in institutions fully and warmly open to the youth who have been guilty of the hei- nous crime of possessing a " skin not colored like our own;" fif- teen years Principal at Union Literary Institute; nine years President of Liber College; and nearly four years in Straight University, New Orleans, and at Tougaloo University, Mississippi, bringing him thus in connection with some thousands of young persons of color, many of whom have since become prominent among their people and before the country. And, though still poor in purse, he feels rich in the reward of the es- teem and affection of his pupils now of the olden time, and the conviction that his hands have been enabled to scatter seed upon the furrows of the great world-field, which is even now yielding, and shall, in the growing future, continue still more largely to yield an abundant harvest for the garner of eternal life.

Rev. J. T. Vardeman, Nettle Creek, was born in Fayette Co.,

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Ind., in 1815; has had three wives-Martha Jenkins, Rebecca Jenkins and Sarah Boling-and has had eighteen children. He is a farmer, and a preacher in the United Brethren Church. He joined the church fifty-one years ago, and has been a member of the United Brethren forty-two years, and a minister among them thirty-eight years. He is now Presiding Elder (1880). He was once a Representative in the Legislature. Mr. Vardeman came to Randolph County in 1860. He is active and prominent in his denomination and in the community, residing northeast of Losantville.

R. T. Wheatley, Methodist, late of Union City, Ind., was born in 1825, in Montgomery County, Ohio, and his wife in 1830, in the same county. They were married April 30, 1851, and, in June, 1851, they removed to a farm two miles northwest of Union City, Ind. They attended meeting at Prospect Meet- ing-House, east of Deerfield, till the summer of 1852. At that time, a Methodist Episcopal society was formed at Union City. The first members were R. T. Wheatley, Class-Leader; Sarah Jane Wheatley, Henry M. Debolt (probationer), Martha E. De- bolt. These were the whole class at first. John T. Farson and wife joined in the fall, while the preacher, Rev. Colclazer, was absent at conference, and S. L. Carter at nearly the same time. They struggled along for awhile. Rev. Newton followed Rev. Colclazer, and he advised the society to disband and go back to their former connections, there being but six members. The next quarterly conference took away their Sabbath preaching and gave them only night preaching. The quarterly meeting struck a dividend and assigned the payment of their quota by the society npon a basis of eighteen members. They had seven- teen at the time, the average for the year having been nine. The class met their assessment at once, which no other class in the circuit did. The Presiding Elder said that Union Class was bound to live anyhow, and he gave the society Sabbath preach- ing again. Mr. Wheatley and his wife returned to Ohio in the spring of 1859, having been privileged to see Union City Class grown to the dignity of a station. They now reside at Dayton, clinging still to the Methodist Episcopal Church, and striving to do good as they have opportunity.

Rev. Willis C. Wilmore, Baptist, White River, was born in Am. herst Co., Va., February 17, 1801. His mother died when he was two years and seven months old. In two and a half years, his father married again. They lived in Virginia, among the mountains, till Willis was grown. In 1822, he came to Ross County, Ohio, and the next year he went to Gallia County, Ohio. In 1825, he married Sarah Love, and she is still living. In 1825, he was licensed to preach among the Baptists. He moved, in 1829, to Wayne County, Ind .; was ordained as a preacher in June, 1830, in old Friendship Church, Wayne County. He had taught school one term in Virginia, and he also taught several terms in Ohio and Indiana. In 1831, Mr. Wilmore settled among the green beeches of Randolph, in the southwest part of Greensfork Township. In February, 1932, he was struck down with what the doctors called the "cold plague," and he has never walked since. In 1836, he was elected Justice of the Peace. In 1839, he was chosen County Recorder, which office he held two terms, or fourteen years. Removing to Winchester in 1830, he was takon worse in 1848, and was brought to his present residence, which has beon his home to this day, except one year, about 1863, at Winchestor. Until 1848, he preached more or less, but for many years from that time he mostly ceased his labors in that field, until within some years past. They have had nine children. One died in infancy. Eight grew up, and have been married, and seven are living now-William H., five children, Ward Township, farmer; Lucinda S. (Monks), five children, White River, farmer; John L., six children, White River, farmer; Nancy A. (Adamson), ten chil- dren, White River, farmer; James W., dead, two children, den- tist: Jesse W., seven children, White River, farmer; Isaac N., died an infant; Benjamin F., three children, homestead, farmer; Mary J. (Engle), one child, White River, farmer. He has been owner of large tracts of land, having purchased mostly when land was low; and, after giving every child a farm, he has several hundred acres left. In politics, he is a Republican, inclining, of

Jate years, to Greenbackism. He is now in his eighty-first year, a cripple for the last fifty years, but checrfnl and happy, and otherwise healthy. His father, William Wilmore, had fourteen children, raising thirteen of them, being a lad during the Revolutionary war, born in 1769. He died in 1853, in Jackson County, Ohio, aged eighty-four years. He was married twice. The name of his first wife was Nancy Harrison, and her grand. mother died at one hundred years old. His second wife was Susan Grissom, who died at about eighty. The children were John H., born June 4, 1799, eleven children, died in Rockbridge County, Va .; Willis C., born February 17, 1801, nine children, living, Randolph County, Ind .; James, born March 21, 1803, eight children, living, Adair County, Ky .; Hezekiah, born Jan- uary, 1806, died an infant; Mary Ann, born January 19, 1808, nine children, died in Elkhart County, Ind .; Rosaline, born May 12, 1810, died in Gallia County, Ohio: Elizabeth, born Decem- ber 1, 1812, living in Jackson County, Ohio; 'Thomas, born Sep- tember 12, 1814, living in Jackson County, Ohio; Rebecca, born July 19, 1816, living in Jackson County, Ohio; William R., born May 30, 1818, living in Iowa; Robert, born May 14, 1820, living in Jackson County, Ohio; Nancy, born February 17, 1822, died in Jackson County, Ohio; Levi, born July 13, 1824, died in Huntington County, Ind. ; Stephen N., born September 9, 1826, living in Huntington County, Ind. So that the Wilmore connection are a great flock, and have been scattered into Vir- ginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana.

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History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships, Part 53

Author: Tucker, Ebenezer Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago : A.L. Klingman Number of Pages: 664

Author: Tucker, Ebenezer
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : A.L. Klingman
Number of Pages: 664