USA > Indiana > Wabash County > History of Wabash County, Indiana, Volume 2 > Part 18
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JOHN HARVEY SCOTT. The first of the Scott family to locate in Indiana was James P., the father of John Harvey Scott, but the family has, in its activities in various ways since it became identified with the Hoosier state, come to represent in numerous ways the spirit and pur- pose of the old pioneer settlers of the state, who first settled within its borders in the practically uncivilized days of her existence. Today men of this family are to be found living close to nature and giving freely of their time and talents to the cultivating and development of the nat- ural resources of the state, and not the least of these is John Harvey Scott, whose name initiates this brief review.
John Harvey Scott is the owner of a fine farm of one hundred and sixty acres in Lagro township, Wabash county, and his place is one of the most advantageously situated ones in the county, having its location on the west side of the Lagro and Manchester Pike, on the old Plank road, about three and a half miles north of Lagro. Mr. Scott is a native of Preble county, Ohio, where he was born on June 13, 1844, and he is
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the son of James P. and Elizabeth (Slippey) Scott, both natives of Pennsylvania who came to Ohio with their parents as young people.
The Scotts were people of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and in their early American life were seamen, for the most part. James Scott was the son of George, a sailor, as was also his grandfather, and he quit the sea when still a young man, locating in Pennsylvania. He married in that state, an English woman becoming his wife, and together they came across the Allegheny mountains in prairie schooners, the approved mode of traveling in that early day. They made the trip without escort, braving the possible dangers of the journey fearlessly, and deriving much genuine enjoyment from it, despite its untoward features. During much of their trip over the mountains they experienced the phe- nomena of living above the clouds, and many times saw rain falling beneath them, while they were in a dry and arid atmosphere. Reach- ing Ohio, they settled in Preble county, and there they spent their remaining days.
James Scott was reared in Preble county and he came to Indiana as a young man. He was first occupied in the construction work on the .canal, hauling timber and steel for the locks. His brother, George Scott, also came to Indiana about the same time, and he turned his attention to the business of trading. He amassed quite a fortune in his business relations with the Indians of the district, trading jewelry and such other gew-gaws as appealed to the credulous red men for their valuable pelts, so that he in time came to be quite wealthy. IIe learned the lan- guage of the various tribes with which he dealt, and was on the most intimate and friendly terms with them through all the years of his dealings with them.
James P. Scott learned much about the Hoosier state in those early years. While he was engaged in his work on the canal he was frequently compelled to make trips through Blackford county, a district that in those early days was mostly swamp, and most difficult to traverse. It frequently required as much as three days' time to get through "Kill Buck Swamp" as it was called in those days, and he too, in that time, familiarized himself to a fair degree with the Indian tongue. Later he returned to Ohio, not well enough pleased with the outlook in Indiana to continue there, and in Ohio, he married Elizabeth Slippey, bought a farm and settled down in Preble county, It was here, no doubt, that the sailor instincts of Mr. Scott began to show themselves, for he found him- self impelled by a desire to move about from place to place, despite the admonitions of his sturdy and sensible wife, who admonished him with the even then old saying that "a rolling stone gathers no moss." But Mr. Scott sold his Preble county farm and returned to Indiana, buying two hundred acres in Kosciusko county. At that time the county was wholly unsettled, one might say, and Mr. Scott's nearest neighbor, a Mr. Drake, lived ten miles distant from the Scott farm. Here again did Mr. Scott's ancestry cause him a great deal of uneasiness, for he was one who could ill endure the solitude of country life, with his nearest and only neighbor ten miles away, and against the advice of Mr. Drake,
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who insisted that the country thereabout was bound to settle up in a few years, he sold his place and returned to Ohio. A short time later he joined his brother Charles in Huntington, Indiana, but after looking the country over decided he did not want to buy there and went to Wabash county, where he bought the farm that is now occupied by his son, John H. For his farm of a hundred and sixty acres he paid a pur- chase price of $500, and became the owner of a tract of swamp and timber land, practically worthless in the state it was at that time. A small shack, made of poles, and evidently the rude shelter of hunters in the vicinity, was the only thing on the place that might be called a build- ing, and in it they began life in Wabash county.
A little time passed, and the wanderlust and discontent of which James Scott was so often a victim again seized upon him and he began to suggest a return to Ohio. Right there did the strong will and deter- mination of Elizabeth Scott assert itself. She was unwilling to return again to Ohio, without having made good on any of the ventures forth from the Ohio home. "I will go a thousand miles further west," she said, "but not back to Ohio again, a failure." Impressed but not convinced, James Scott hesitated a while, and then, still firm in his belief that for- tune awaited him in the old home state, he returned alone, expecting that his wife, when she saw he was determined, would follow him back to Ohio. But she was not one of those women who believed it her duty to follow blindly wherever her lord and master dictated, and in that instinct she was prophetic of a later generation, as is everywhere evi- dent today in a time when one finds the feminine element ruling in the home as often as the masculine. After several weeks of waiting about in Ohio, James Scott decided that his wife was a bit more deter- mined than he, and he returned to Indiana, fully determined to make the best of his Indiana farm.
That incident proved to be the turning point in his life. Up to that time the roving element had been uppermost in him, but when his wife took her stand for stability and effective work in the family, he buried the old desire to wander hither and yon in search of greener fields, and settled down to make a farm out of his swamp and timber land. The first thing he did that was indicative of the change in his spirit was to. build a homelike log-cabin on the place. In 1861, he decided to build a barn, and when all was in readiness, neighbors for miles about took part in one of the biggest barn-raisings ever held in the county. A company of cavalry riding past and witnessing the "raising," wheeled and saluted and announced their intention of coming back to have sup- per with the barn-raisers, for they well knew what a feast was in store for the men who had donated their services to the interests of their neighbor. "We'll go down and lick the Rebs," they said, "and be back in time for supper." They whipped the Rebels, it must be said, but they failed to get back from their task in time for supper.
The new barn was prophetic of better things for James Scott, and it was not long before the recurring seasons saw it filled to overflowing with bumper crops of corn, in a country where hitherto corn had fared
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but poorly. In the early days hereabouts tiling and ditching was prac- tically unthought of, and often the high water did much damage to the young corn crops. Mr. Scott was one of the first to begin ditching. In the early sixties, in a particularly wet season, he produced a bumper crop of corn which he marketed at a dollar a bushel, while the majority of his neighbors experienced a total failure in their crop because of the wet state of their land. They were quick to see that their neighbor was getting the best of them with his advanced ideas, and it was not long before every farm in the community was being tiled and ditched after the manner in which Mr. Scott had handled his land. The result was that this part of the county became famous for its phenomenal corn crops, and the credit for the achievement was rightly laid at the door of James Scott. So it was that a life that began without any great promise ended in a most successful and worthy manner, thanks to the determination of a proud woman who recognized the inherent qualities that lay dormant within her chosen mate, and by her decisive and un- precedented action called forth those qualities to the undying benefit of his community and his family. James Scott died in Lagro township at his farm home in 1883, and his wife survived him for ten years, their ages being seventy-two and eighty-two years, respectively, at the time of their passing.
To these parents were born six children. Wesley, the eldest, died in the service of the Union army during the Civil war. Mary Jane is also deceased. John Harvey is the subject of this sketch. Harriett is the widow of Samuel Pollet, and makes her home in Indianapolis. Ben- jamin and Eliza are both deceased.
John Harvey Scott, or "Harve" Scott, as he is more familiarly called, was a mere child when his parents made their first journey into Indiana. They made the trip with ox-team and wagon, and the father often found it necessary to go in advance of the oxen and cut down the young saplings that barred their progress on their way, so that their progress was necessarily slow. Among the earliest recollections of Mr. Scott as a child in their Indiana home is that of a little pole "shack" or house, and of at one time splitting his toe in an attempt to wield his father's axe. Other similar misfortunes of his boyhood, appearing with more than agreeable frequency, and one might almost say regularity, lead his par- ents and others to believe that his birth on June 13th was an ill omen. However, Mr. Scott avers that regarding his life as a whole, he has been more than ordinarily fortunate, and that he is in no wise justified in holding his birthday to have been an unlucky day.
Mr. Scott grew up on the farm there, barring brief periods when the family fortunes took them back to Ohio, and he attended the old log school at the cross roads. This was a primitive affair, indeed, and in the years that have passed since he first learned his A, B, Abs in that little cabin, he has witnessed the building of four separate schools on that spot, as the community grew and demanded better educational facilities for the youth of the township.
When Mr. Scott was about twenty-one years old he took a contract
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to cut five hundred cords of wood for a man in the community known as "Old Christ Speicher," at a price of one dollar a cord. He began his work with a great good will and continued in the same same manner, but his enthusiasm was a little dashed by the fact that after he had cut a hundred cords his employer cut the price. He kept on, though a little discouraged, and when a second cut came, he threw down his axe and went home. For some time the young man had been cherishing a desire to "see the country," as so many young men have felt they must, and it is probable that the seafaring instinct of his forefathers was cropping up in another generation. The father, mindful of his own early experience, tried to discourage the idea of his son, citing his own case, and assur- ing him, as his wife had done in his own case years before, that nothing was to be gained by wandering about from place to place in search of greater opportunity. But young Scott was determined to at least see California, and it was only the pleadings of his mother that induced him to give up the project and stay at home. The father, grateful for his consent, made him a pleasing proposition and they two worked to- gether on the home place, each sharing in the profits, until the son married in 1868. On April 17th of that year, Lucinda Brechner be- came his wife. She was a daughter of John Brechner, an old pioneer of the state.
Mr. Scott, after his marriage, built a new house on the home place, just back of the big barn his father had built some years before. Here they began their wedded life, and in later years he moved the house near to the old home. After the death of the mother, John H. Scott and his wife assumed the entire charge of the old farm, buying the in- terest of the surviving heirs, and he has here since devoted himself to general farming activities, continued successfully in the work his father began and brought to a state of perfection that insured the family a permanent income and a comfortable home. Like his father, Mr. Scott is an enthusiast on the subject of proper draining and he has put into the place more than 3,700 rods of tile, as well as doing much to promote the interest and enthusiasm of his neighbors and others in the work. He is ably assisted in his work by his son, Charles Scott, who has elected to continue on the home farm with his father, and the two work in a perfect harmony that is conducive to the most successful outcome of every enterprise they enter upon. The Scott farm is one of the best kept in the township, and its buildings measure up to the highest standard of the county, in appearance, general service and up-to-dateness.
Nine children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Scott. Wesley, is the first born. Lavina married Dora Burnsworth. Sarah is the wife of James Murphy. Wilson married Iva Loop. Eva is the wife of William Bitner. Emma is Mrs. Thomas Buckley. Flora married Robert Derf. Fannie became the wife of A. Alexander. Charles, the youngest, is his father's assistant, as stated above.
The wife and mother died in 1904 after some years of suffering and continued ill health. The husband and wife had just completed plans to spend a year in the west, when the mother was seized by a sudden
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illness that ended her days. She was a woman of unusual popularity, and was widely known throughout the county. When she died her pass- ing was mourned by many in and about Wabash county who had known and loved her for her many endearing qualities of heart and mind.
Mr. Scott is a democrat in his political affiliations, and has served his township twice as supervisor. He is one who manifests a wholesome interest in the affairs of the town and county, and his position and standing among his fellow men is secure, and in every way worthy of him.
LEVI PATTERSON. Prominent among the earlier merchants of Roann, Paw Paw township, was the late Levi Patterson, a man of ability and integrity, whose influence for good has been felt throughout the com- munity in which he so long resided. He was born in Henry county, In- diana, January 4, 1842, and died July 14, 1912, in a hospital, at Hunt- ington, Indiana. He came of pioneer ancestry, his father, Daniel Pat- terson coming to Wayne county from the East in pioneer days, and for awhile taught school in Cambridge City, although he was later engaged in farming in Henry county.
Levi Patterson was reared to farm labor, and received his education in the rural schools of his native county. At the age of eighteen years he enlisted in the Second Indiana Cavalry, and did brave service for his country until the close of the Civil war. Subsequently clerking in a store at Wabash, Mr. Patterson became familiar with the details of mercantile pursuits, and later opened a store at Stockdale. Just after the incorporation of Roann as a town, Mr. Patterson established the first mercantile establishment of the new town, and for twenty-one years thereafter carried on a substantial business. Having accumulated a competency, he spent his last days retired from active pursuits, devoting his time to the care of his three farms, which were located in Wabash and Fulton counties. He was a self-made man in the broadest sense of the term, and was decidedly domestic in his tastes, preferring to spend his leisure with his family rather than in lodge or club rooms. He and his wife, who is a woman of great executive and business ability, man- aged the Roann Hotel for awhile, making it one of the most popular houses of the kind in the county. Mr. Patterson was a stanch republi- can in politics, and while in the store was elected clerk of the County Court, succeeding Mr. Brady, and served ably for one term, but refused a re-election to the same office.
Mr. Patterson was twice married. He married first, in 1869, Harriet Thacher, who died in 1875, leaving two children, namely: Luther, who died at the age of sixteen years; and Thomas, who is engaged in the asphalt business in Chicago, Illinois.
Mr. Patterson married second, March 2, 1876, Elsbie Shiveley, a daughter of Henry Shiveley. Her father came to Indiana with his family when Mrs. Patterson was eighteen years old, and was for sev- eral years engaged in farming near Stockdale. On retiring from agri- cultural pursuits, he lived first in Cambridge City, from there moving to
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MR. AND MRS. LEVI PATTERSON AND SON H. F. PATTERSON
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decided upon their permanent location, but did not find time to start a building until the fall of the year. In the meantime the household con- tinued to live in the big wagon, which had served them in their various removals towards the west. Besides their bed clothes, the two hound dogs and flint-lock gun already mentioned, they had four horses and a good set of carpenter tools. Besides the immediate family, there was a hired man. The land selected by Andrew Frushour was all covered with wood, and the nearest neighbor was about four miles away, near Lagro village. The canal at that time was just being constructed through Wabash county. In this connection one fact deserves mention. The building of a canal, unlike railroad construction, proceeded very slowly, and the force of workmen usually camp in a sort of temporary village along the right of way for several seasons before the work has proceeded so far as to justify their stage of advance. Many of the workmen there- fore utilized their farm in cultivating small gardens and farms along the canal route. Andrew Frushour in this saw an opportunity to make some ready money which was then a very scarce commodity in Wabash county. He and his hired man each took a team, and secured contracts to plant corn for the canal builders, and later in the season did the harvesting. This work kept them away from home several days at a time, and the mother and children, of which there were several by this time, were left alone. Though the family had but little money and only a small store of provisions, the abundance of game in the woods prac- tically supplied the table with fresh meat, and it was necessary to hunt only an hour or so in order to secure enough game to last a week. At the same time the wolves were numerous, and often became so bold that they would chase the dogs into the big wagon, where the family still kept house, and then stood on guard and howled throughout the long dark night. On one occasion the family, while the men folks were away, almost ran out of provisions, and for four days the mother had nothing to offer her children except baked potatoes, however, it was a clean, healthy outdoor life they were all leading, they had keen zest for any plain food, and continued to eat their potatoes with great relish.
After Andrew Frushour and his hired man had finished harvesting for the canal men, they started the construction of a log house on the eighty acres which he had bought, paying only forty dollars for the land. He designed this habitation as a temporary structure, and with the thought in view that he would in a few years probably put up a better residence, he built the log house in such a position, on the side of a sloping hill, that later it would not interfere with the building of a larger and better house on the top of the slope. In building the log house no door was constructed at first in the side of the building. One wall rested flush on the ground at the upper side of the hill, while the opposite wall, in order to be made level, rested on high piles, and steps were made and a sort of trap-door was cut in the floor to afford means of egress and entry. The principal timbers for the building were of split logs, all cut and hewed with an ax, while the roof was covered with clapboards, each four feet in length. Nails, and in fact practically all
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articles of iron were very scarce in Indiana at that time, and in order to secure the clapboards they laid across them long poles, to weight and tie the roof, each end of the poles being fastened with a wooden pin. Somewhat later the house was improved by the construction of a door in the side, and a more homelike appearance was given the rude habitation. In those days the most convenient grist mill was located at Goshen, in Elkhart county, and a good many miles from Lagro town- ship. When Andrew Frushour wanted to take some grain to be ground at this mill, he put a tongue in the rear axle and wheels of his wagon, put a box upon the gear, and in that way had a much lighter vehicle for travelling over the rough roads to the mill. Gradually, however, they cleared up the land and got it under cultivation, and since those humble beginnings of seventy-five years ago many hundred rods of tile has been laid, and the eighty acres for which Andrew Frushour gave forty dollars in 1836 would now bring at least one hundred and fifty dollars an acre. On that old homestead both Andrew and Sarah (Spohr) Frushour died, she on June 7, 1853, in her forty-fourth year, and he on May 25, 1873, at the age of seventy-three. They were the parents of ten children who grew to maturity, namely: Mary Virginia; Susan, deceased; Angeline, deceased; Calvin G .; Eliza Jane, deceased; Edward; Charles; Francis, deceased; Andrew C .; and Theodore, deceased.
Calvin Frushour was six weeks old when the family moved from Randolph to Wabash county in the big wagon. At the old home place just described, and in the midst of an environment which was being rapidly changed as a result of the labors of many pioneers, he grew to manhood, and did his full share in clearing up the land. As the oldest son, from the time he was big enough to wield an ax, much of the rough work of the place fell to him, and he is one of the few survivors among the early citizens of Wabash county who can recollect actually ever sharing in the development of this region. By the time he was old enough to attend school, some eight or ten families had settled in that immediate vicinity, and their children went to school in a little log house about a mile distant by a path cut through the woods and north of the Frushour farm. The house in which school was taught had been abandoned by a settler who came out from Ohio and finally became dis- couraged and left the country. It was fitted up with a mud and stick chimney, and light came in through greased paper stuck over openings between the logs. For seats, rough benches were hewn out of logs, and a rough plank was placed on wooden pins driven into the wall to serve as a desk. Probably not a person in that community in that day dreamed that half a century later a comfortable bus, tightly screened against the storm, and with provisions for heat in the cold weather, would drive daily along the hard pike road, collecting the children in the morning and carrying them to school, and then in the evening taking them back to their home.
When Mr. Frushour reached the age of twenty-one, his father told him he was free to do or work as he pleased, but offered him a posi- tion at ten dollars a month to remain on the home farm, this offer was
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accepted, and he continued with his father for fourteen months. In that time practically every cent of his wages was saved, and this thrift gave him his first practical start in the world. About this time Mr. Frushour married Anna Brechner, whose death occurred a few years later, after the birth of two children, as follows: Lenora, wife of James Hippen- steel, of Wabash county, and they are the parents of twelve children and several grandchildren; George Wilson, who married Etta Ramey, and they also live in Wabash county, and have eight children.
On April 10, 1864, Mr. Frushour married for his second wife Catha- rine. Good. She is the daughter of Peter and Catharine Good. The only child of this marriage is Dellie. She married Professor Noble Harter, who at the time was superintendent of the Warsaw, Indiana, public schools. Later they moved to Pasadena, California, where Professor Harter became identified with the city public schools, and he died while at Pasadena, leaving his widow and twin daughters: Mary, who died in 1912, and Catharine. Both these daughters also became teachers and were connected with the schools of Pasadena. Soon after his first mar- riage Mr. Frushour moved to his present farm, it was then owned by his father who had acquired possession of about two hundred and forty acres in Lagro township. The only improvement on the land which Calvin Frushour came to occupy was a little log cabin, and about ten acres cleared. Then followed a number of years of hard work, industrious management, and a steady thrift, at the end of which time practically all the farm had been cleared, the old house had been remodeled and made thoroughly comfortable, much tile had been laid in the low places, and the farm was developed until in its improvements and productive- ness it ranked second to none in the township. After the death of his father Mr. Frushour bought the interests of the other heirs in the eighty acre farmstead. Besides managing his farm, Mr. Frushour, who in his earlier years was an indefatigable worker, spent about fifteen years in the employ of the Wabash railroad, and was one of the crew of eleven men who did construction work of bridges, stations, and other similar work along the line between Toledo, Ohio, and Danville, Illinois. Mr. Frushour made it a point whenever possible to get home over Sunday during this employment, but in the meantime Mrs. Frushour practically had the actual supervision of the farm alone, and its gradual improve- ment, its yearly productive harvest, and the increasing prosperity of the family, were in no small measure due to her judgment and sagacity and untiring efforts. She and her daughter put in many days in the field, and did work that would be a credit to any man.
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