USA > Indiana > Wabash County > History of Wabash County, Indiana, Volume 2 > Part 31
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Mr. Gretzinger is a stanch democrat, fairly active in politics, and he is a member of the German Evangelical church, as is also his wife. The children that have come to him and his wife are six in number and are named as follows: Peter, who is his father's assistant on the farm and who married Elizabeth Schnitz; Adam, married to Cecil Kanour and the father of one child, Lucile; William, married to Mattie Ziner; Frank, Maggie and Laura. Maggie is the wife of R. Meyers and has one child,
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Wilbur. Laura, the youngest child of Mr. and Mrs. Gretzinger, resides at home.
JOHN F. MURPHY. Born more than three score and ten years ago in Lagro township, John F. Murphy has not only lived through all the scenes from pioneer times to the more modern electric age, has witnessed such transformations as few other men now living can recall, but at the same time has fought a good fight all his own from poverty to a pros- perity only a little short of wealth. It is a story of individual, hard-won success, and is not without its lesson and inspiration.
Mr. Murphy resides five miles east of Urbana, on the Murphy Pike, and owns four hundred acres, one hundred and sixty acres situated in Chester township and the remainder in Lagro. His parents were Oliver P. and America (Flora) Murphy. The former was born near Cincin- nati, Ohio, and the latter in Fayette county, Indiana, coming to Wabash county with her mother and a half brother, William T. Ross. The Ross family located three and a half miles south of Lagro, where the Ross Run church now stands, as a family memorial in that locality. Oliver P. Murphy on coming to Wabash county settled on the first farm east of that of William T. Ross, locating there about three years later. Oliver Murphy first came to this country in 1836, and was one of a party of about ten men who came and entered land in the same locality. They walked from Fayette county, Indiana, and after making his selec- tion Oliver Murphy walked on to the Fort Wayne land office, paid two hundred dollars in gold for a quarter section at a dollar and a quarter per acre, and in the meantime, in order to prepare his land partially for cultivation, he had deadened a portion of the heavy timber which covered it. After that he walked all the way back to Fayette county, and in 1840 returned to take possession. He married Miss America Flora, and they began housekeeping in a cabin in the woods. After clearing and cultivating a portion of that land for some years he sold in 1851 and moved to Lagro, where he built a warehouse on the banks of the old canal and engaged in the buying of grain. That venture was not successful and he lost a great deal of money. His death occurred July 30, 1861, when forty-five years of age. His wife passed away in 1871, at the age of fifty-two. Their children were: John Flora, born March 5, 1842; Peter S., born December 11, 1844; Emily, now deceased, born March 11, 1848; Morris, deceased, born February 21, 1850; Caro- line, born March 27, 1853; Flora Bell, born March 5, 1858. The mother of this family was born in 1820, and the father in 1815.
John F. Murphy was born March 5, 1842, the eldest of the children, and first saw the light of day on the old home farm first mentioned, and all the children with the exception of the youngest were born there. He was ten years of age when the family moved to Lagro. It was one of the typical old schools which John F. Murphy attended while living in the country, a one-room structure built of logs, heated by a bog fireplace at one end, from which ascended a mud and stick chimney, and all the older boys had as a part of their school duties the task of cutting and
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bringing in the firewood. While attending that school he sat on a rough slab bench, wrote with a goosequill pen and studied the three Rs, which constituted the bulk of the curriculum in those day. After the family moved to Lagro he attended a one-room school house of frame construc- tion. His home was in Lagro until 1870, and during his early youth he had assisted his father in the old grain warehouse situated on the canal.
A few years after attaining man's estate John F. Murphy enlisted, on February 28, 1862, in the Fourteenth Indiana battery, under Captain M. H. Kidd. Captain Kidd was later promoted major, and was suc- ceeded by Frank Morris as captain. Mr. Murphy saw long and arduous service as a soldier, and is one of the honored veterans who still survive that great war. On December 18, 1862, at the battle of Lexington, Tennessee, he was taken prisoner, but was subsequently paroled, returned to Indianapolis and was exchanged, after which he rejoined his regiment. He fought with his command in all its many battles and campaigns, and was for thirteen days engaged in the siege of Mobile, Alabama; was at Guntown, Mississippi, where his battery lost two guns, and was in the final great battle of the war at Nashville, besides many others of lesser importance. From the roar of the cannon his hearing was so impaired that he has suffered that incapacity ever since, and that was one of the sacrifices which he made for the Union. His honorable discharge was given at Indianapolis, September 1, 1865, and he then returned to Lagro.
In the spring following his return from the army, on May 30, 1866, Mr. Murphy married Angeline Anson, who died January 28, 1868, leaving one child. This child, Frank Murphy, lives on the Chester township farm of his father, and he married Eva Huddleston. On September 14, 1869, Mr. Murphy married Elizabeth Bechtol, and to them the following children have been born: Olive, living at home; Irving, who lives across the road from his father's place, and who mar- ried Loretta Ellison; Augustus, mentioned at the close of this sketch; Frank, who lives in Chester township; and John Lee, who died when twenty-one years of age. Mr. Murphy also has four grandchildren, namely : Fern, who married Cecil Martin, and has two children, Joseph William and Ralph T .; Ralph; Robert John; and Ruby Elizabeth.
Mrs. John F. Murphy was born three miles north of Marion in Grant county, a daughter of Edward and Emily (Huff) Bechtol. Her father was born and reared in Virginia, and was left an orphan at the age of nine. He came north at the age of twenty-five years, having mar- ried in Virginia. His wife was a daughter of John and Dorothea (Chapman) Huff, the Huffs having come from Pennsylvania and the Chapmans from England. Edward Bechtol was a self-made man who never had school advantages, but who, nevertheless, acquired a substan- tial position in life. He lived near Marion until Mrs. Murphy was nine years of age, and then settled on the Dora Pike in Wabash county. There he acquired five hundred acres of land. Mr. Bechtol died there, and his wife passed away at Wabash. There were ten children in the Bechtol family, as follows: Francis, who is seventy-nine years of age'
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and is living in Seattle, Washington; John, of Lagro township; Mrs. Elizabeth Murphy; Anna, who lives in Marion; Edward, of Wabash; Wesley, of Marion; Emma, of Wabash; Alice, whose home is in Marion; Sylvia, of Wabash; and Alena, of Marion.
John F. Murphy received his financial start in life from the money paid him as a soldier of the Union. After the death of his first wife he took his little son, then but four months old, to the home of his mother, and was thus free to prosecute his endeavors and finally accumulated enough to enable him to buy his first farm in January, 1876. Previous to this time he had rented land. This purchase was a portion of his present farm in Lagro township. He moved his household to that place on March 22, 1870, and the eighty acres were largely in the midst of the green woods, with a poor log house as the only shelter for his family. From that time forward he steadily prospered, and six years later erected his present comfortable abode. Mr. Murphy has long since reached a position far above want, and does considerable business in loaning his surplus. He has done a large business in live stock, having sold many carloads of cows, though he never bought one. He buys heifers, raises them on his farm, and then sends them to market. He has also dealt in horses, hogs, sheep, and has never sold a bushel of corn from his farm, provided he had anything to feed it to. Another rule of his business life is that he has never given a mortgage. He and his sons now carry on farming operations together. One of the sources of profit from his land has been the timber, much of which has been converted into firewood and sold in the town. Mr. Murphy had very few ad- vantages in the way of education when a boy, having had to work too hard to absorb much book knowledge. However, he has since educated himself by outside reading, and has even looked into law books, as he quaintly says. He is one of the honored members of the James H. Emmett Post, No. 6, G. A. R., at Wabash, and in politics is a demo- crat. If one could transcribe all the pictures contained in the early recollections of this venerable Lagro citizen they would present a faith- ful representation of pioneer days. He can remember the Indians, when they camped near the old farm, and herds of deer and other wild animals were often seen in the clearings.
Augustus Murphy, a son of the Wabash county pioneer, was born in the log cabin on his father's farm, April 4, 1874. He has followed agricultural pursuits throughout his life, and is now residing on a farm of one hundred and twenty acres of well improved land located one mile south of Serva, in Chester township, Wabash county, engaged in general farming and stock raising. He is a democrat in politics and has fra- ternal relations with the Knights of Pythias at Manchester.
Augustus Murphy married, on the 28th of December, 1898, Miss Emma Troxel, a daughter of John and Elizabeth (Amacher) Troxel.
LYTTLETON J. SCOTT. The name of Lyttleton J. Scott is undoubt- edly one of the best known among the older settlers of Wabash county, and wherever it is spoken it recalls not only an early settler, but one
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whose life and experiences have been fruitful, and one who has been a good business man, an earnest, energetic citizen, and in his personal character well beloved by a large circle of family and friends. His home is in Paw Paw township, on a fine estate of one hundred acres, four miles east of Roann, all the land being located on the south side of the highway.
Lyttleton J. Scott was born at Brookville in Franklin county, Indiana, September 22, 1839, a son of Job and Lora Ann (Wallace) Scott. His father was born in Tennessee and his mother in North Caro- lina, and they were married in Franklin county, Indiana. Job Scott was a son of Edward Scott, a planter, who moved from Tennessee to Alabama, but soon afterwards returned to Tennessee, and subsequently came north of the Ohio river and located in Franklin county, Indiana, where he bought a farm. During his later years Edward Scott moved into Wabash county, owned a farm here, and lived with his son-in-law Thomas Moore until his death; being followed three years later by his widow. Edward Scott was one of the prosperous citizens measured by the ideas of wealth prevalent in his time.
Job Scott, the third child in a large family, was twenty-four years of age when the family moved to Indiana. A cabinet maker by trade, he followed the contracting business in Franklin county, and helped to build one section of the Whitewater canal. His business activities brought him both land and money, but like many men he was ruined by his friends, having placed his name on too much paper as security and in the end having practically all his personal resources wiped out. Dur- ing his residence in Franklin county he had married, his wife having lived there from girlhood. After his experience of success and adversity in Franklin county, Job Scott brought his family to Wabash county in 1842, and here started in to build up his success from the bottom. For a number of years he worked as a renter on the Henry McPherson farm and finally saved enough to buy forty acres of land eight miles east of where his son Lyttleton now lives, his farm being in Chester township. Later he sold that property and bought a place in the city of Wabash, where his death occurred at the age of sixty-four years. His widow survived him many years and passed away at the age of eighty-seven. Their four children were: Lyttleton J .; Martin, deceased; William Riley, and Mary Elizabeth, who died young.
Lyttleton J. Scott was only three years old when he came to Wabash county, and his early recollections embrace some of the most interesting incidents and scenes of pioneer times in Wabash county. The family removed from Franklin county in wagons, and at the time of their arrival Wabash was a small village. The surrounding country, except here and there where some enterprising settler had cleared off a piece of land, was almost unbroken wilderness, and there are very few men who can understand by personal recollection and experience the condi- tion of things at that time as can Mr. Scott. Their first home was near the little town called America near Lafontain. Hundreds of Indians were still living in this part of Indiana, and practically the only roads
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were the old Indian trails. Mr. Scott has himself often seen bands of Indians from fifty to one hundred in number, riding single file one behind the other, the braves being followed by their squaws and with the papooses strapped on their backs. As a matter of fact, his acquaint- ance with Indians was much closer than this, since the red man often called at his father's cabin, walking through the deep snow and begging something to eat, and the request was never refused and a supply of corn bread and venison was usually ready for these guests. Mr. Scott as a boy and some of his neighbors often visited the Indian lands along the river to get river plums. He became well acquainted with the Indian customs and peculiarities. He has seen the Indians set up "poke stalks" and shoot at them with bow and arrow. So far as his own personal observations extended Mr. Scott never knew the Indians to be otherwise than friendly except when they were supplied with bad whiskey.
Mr. Scott remained at home until he was twenty-four years of age, and in the meantime had gone through the usual course of pioneer boys in the local schools. The school house which was his temple of learning was built of logs, it had the typical rough benches without backs, and the only desk was a broad board set aslant around two or three sides of the room. The instruction was limited to the fundamen- tals, but he thus gained some knowledge of books and came out of school well equipped by his otherwise practical experience for the duties of life.
On August 20, 1863, Mr. Scott married Sara Jane Maple. After thirty-seven years of happy married life she passed away in 1900. There were three children: Frank Martin, who lives in Wabash, mar- ried Nora Speck, and their children are Lyttleton, Harvey, Donald and Pauline; Albert, who lives at Ijamsville in Wabash county, married Elizabeth Fausnough, and they have two children, Earl and Oscar, and an adopted child, Wilma; Nellie who lives with her father, is Mrs. Emanuel Amber, and her four children are Robert Lyttleton, Lowell Scott, Iola Leneva and Herbert, usually called Dick.
Mr. Scott in his early youth learned the trade of stone mason, and followed that vocation for many years in Wabash. About forty years ago he bought his present farm, the old Hensler place. It was prac- tically all woods at the time it came into his possession, and its clear- ing and improvement has been the result of Mr. Scott's individual labor and supervision. Many hundred rods of tile has been laid, the low- lands have been drained, the woods have been cut down, and it would be impossible to enumerate the many ways in which his own work has contributed to the value of this, one of the best farms in Paw Paw township. His first home there was a log cabin, and he considered that a temporary makeshift as a residence until he could have a bet- ter. He was saving money to build when the log house took fire and was burned to the ground, and with its other contents all the money was destroyed except thirty dollars which he happened to be carrying in his pocket. The second house, which was a small frame building, and in which he lived for many years, was built and furnished entirely on
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credit, but he soon paid off his obligation. In the summer of 1912 Mr. Scott put up one of the best country homes in Paw Paw township, a large ten-room frame building, with a basement under all and with an equipment that lacks nothing which would be found in the city resi- dences of the better class. Among other improvements and facilities he had his own light plant, the rooms are heated by furnace, and it is a delightful place in which to spend his declining years. All the invest- ment represented by his home and much more is the proceeds of his successful career as a farmer. Mr. Scott paid a little more than two thousand dollars for his present farm, and it is now worth several times that amount. In politics he has usually supported the democratic principles and candidates, beginning about fifty years ago, and in church affairs is a member of the Paw Paw Christian church.
SAMUEL J. BECHTOLD. Few men of Lagro township were more highly esteemed among their associates than was the late Samuel J. Bechtold, who met an untimely death in his home community as the result of an unfortunate automobile accident on March 26, 1911. Mr. Bechtold had been a lifelong resident of this township, his birth occurring one mile north of the place he called home during the later years of his life on July 20, 1874, so that he was but thirty-six years of age when his final summons came. He was one of the many prosperous farmers of the east part of Wabash county, and a man of many sterling qualities that had won for him a host of stanch friends and the confidence of all who shared in his acquaintance. His death was a crushing blow to his family, but it would be difficult to estimate the loss that the township sustained in his passing, for he was a man who was valuable in his citizenship, and one who could not well be spared.
Samuel J. Bechtold was the son of John C. and Fredericka (Fiegle) Bechtold, the father born in Germany and the mother in Ohio, and the subject was one of the eleven children born to them, five of whom died in young life. Mr. Bechtold, in March, 1896, married Lydia Hegel, the daughter of Jacob and Mary (Bitzer) Hegel, and concerning these par- ents a fuller sketch will be found elsewhere in this volume, in connection with the life of John C. Hegel, a brother of Mrs. Bechtold. It may be stated here, however, and more or less briefly, that the mother was born and reared in Wabash county, while the father came to the United States from Germany as a young man, and cleared up a farm out of the Indiana wilderness as his contribution to the development of the state. He retired to Wabash when in his eighties and there died in August, 1910. He was twice married, his first wife having been Louise Bender, who bore him two children, Mary, the wife of Andrew West, and Tina. The seven surviving children of his second marriage are John, to whom a sketch is devoted elsewhere in this biographical work; William; Lydia, widow of Samuel Bechtold of this review; Charles, also named in this work; Reuben, Harry and Sarah.
Mrs. Bechtold was born on the old Hegel farm, and the log house in which she was reared is still standing. She attended the district school
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mined to make it productive, and it was the successive work of year after year on the part of many men and several generations that grad- ually extended the area of cultivation and productivity, and it is that monumental work which constitutes the basis for the present flourish- ing prosperity of the entire county. A man now well past the age of three score and ten, George W. Crist of Paw Paw township has per- formed his full share of this important labor of development, and his generous possessions at the present time represent almost a lifetime of fruitful endeavor and judicious management. George W. Crist is pro- prietor of one hundred and ninety acres located on the east side of the Minnick Pike about nine miles northwest of Wabash.
The Crist family was numbered among the pioneers of Wabash county. George W. Crist was born on his father's farm a mile and a half south of his present residence on December 26, 1842. His parents were John D. and Mary M. (Michael) Crist. His father was a Virginian and his mother a native of Preble county, Ohio, where they were mar- ried, the father having come out from Virginia at the age of twenty- one. While in Preble county one son, Leander, was born, and they then moved to Wabash county. At that time there were no railroads, and the only means of transportation was by wagon over the rough trails, or by boat along the canals and rivers. The Crist family chose to make their emigration with wagons and teams, and they finally arrived in what was then an unbroken forest, in the locality where George Crist was born. For a short time they enjoyed the hospitality of an earlier pioneer, James Jack, who, in the kindly spirit of helpfulness which was so characteristic of early settlers, helped the newcomer to put up a log house. That house was the birthplace of George W. Crist. It was prac- tically bare of comforts, had a puncheon floor, and the furniture was of the rudest and most practical sort. The father got his land cheap, but was confronted with the tremendous task of clearing it before it could be made profitable for cultivation. The one horse which he had to work the land was a young, spirited iron-gray, and when the wolves came around at night it was difficult to restrain him until a stable could be completed that afforded both shelter and protection to the animal. All the rest of his days John D. Crist lived there, labored to chop down the trees and grub the stumps, and his first log home was replaced with a large two-story log building. As comforts and means became more plentiful he weather-boarded the log frame, sealed it tight, and made it one of the better dwellings in that community. The logs which origi- nally entered into its ,construction were of large size and of walnut and poplar. After his death his widow moved to Roann and died there. John D. Crist had one Hundred and ten acres in his first farm, and subsequently added another eighty acres, all of which lay in Paw Paw township. The five children were: Leander, deceased; George W .; Louisa T., who died young; Levina Ellen, who also died young; Frank, who is the proprietor of the old homestead.
George W. Crist had his first conscious recollection of the old home-' stead, still largely surrounded by heavy forest, and as soon as he was
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old enough he began to swing an axe and help chop trees and clear off the brush, besides handling the plow and other implements of agricul- ture. For a time he attended a log school house at the corner of old Mr. Jack's farm, and one of his early teachers was Willis Bryan, a sketch of whom appears in this work. While attending school under Mr. Bryan, Mr. Crist and some of the other boys planned a joke on the schoolmaster. They put a board over the chimney, so that the smoke from the fireplace was unable to find its usual exit, and poured out into the schoolroom so that the master and the other scholars had to leave. His response to this funning of the older boys was to treat them to a large basket of apples. After all these years, it would hardly be neces- sary to name all the boys who participated in that mischief, but some of them no doubt will read these lines and recall the incident.
Mr. Crist lived at home, without any special incidents except such as were common to the rural life of boys and young men of that time, and on October 16, 1866, married Ann E. Jack, one of the popular girls of the neighborhood. She died December 26, 1898, after they had been happily married for more than thirty years. She was the oldest daugh- ter of John D. and Catherine (Stewart) Jack. To their marriage were born two children : Edwin M. Crist is now active manager of his father's farm. He and his father together own a section of land in Western Kansas. Edwin married Edna Hetzler, daughter of Michael Hetzler, and they have two children, Lenore and Marion Lowell, Edwin Crist lives in a house adjoining that of his father, and on his father's farm. Lilly M. Crist, second child, is the wife of Senator L. A. Baber. Senator Baber came to Wabash county from Ohio, gained a substantial position as a general merchant and automobile agent at Roann, and is now serving in the state senate, representing Wabash and Fulton counties. Mr. and Mrs. Baber have one child, Carl Crist Baber, who now lives in Wabash.
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