USA > Indiana > Wabash County > History of Wabash County, Indiana, Volume 2 > Part 32
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After his marriage nearly fifty years ago, George W. Crist and wife first began domestic life on a very simple scale. Their first home was a little log house on a farm rented from Ed Busick, a mile and a half south of the present Crist farm on the west side of the same road. After about sixteen months there, he moved to his present place. One hun- dred acres of this on the north side were inherited from his father's estate, his mother having acquired it from William Watson, and it was originally in the old Wigham tract. The rest of his land Mr. Crist bought from a cousin, John Bickel. Though the Crist farm now pre- sents a smiling landscape of fields and meadows it was in a very differ- ent condition when he first settled. Woods covered most of the acreage, and as he had little capital he made a log cabin serve the purposes of a home. Near that little cabin home stood some immense trees, and had one of them fallen it would easily have crushed the cabin. To remove this danger Mr. Crist soon cut them down, and for many years his axe was busy in chopping down timber that would now be worth a large sum of money. After the years had given him prosperity, in 1883 he built his present commodious ten-room frame house. Four years later,
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in 1887, he erected a large barn, and that was burned in 1896. Besides the improvements on his own home grounds, Mr. Crist put up a large residence for his son, barns and other improvements. Many rods of tile have been laid on the low parts of his land, fences have been strung around the fields, and few men have produced more regularly and in larger quantity the staple crops of this county than George W. Crist. His prosperity is also represented by the ownership of town property in Roann and Winona. Mr. Crist is a trustee of the Presbyterian church at Roann, and a democrat in politics, though never active nor a seeker for office. His support has always been readily enlisted for any move- ment which would improve local conditions, and he was largely instru- mental in getting the Minnick Pike alongside his place built. It was he and Mr. Minnick, now deceased, who carried around the petition, and he now has the satisfaction of residing on one of the best constructed thor- oughfares in this part of the county. Mr. Crist employs some of his time in writing fire, lightning and wind insurance for the Huntington County Farmers' Mutual Company.
JACOB PRETORIUS. A well-known and successful agriculturist of Wabash county, Jacob Pretorious is the owner of one hundred and sixty acres of fine land lying six miles east of Roann, on the north side of the road, and also has title to forty acres lying on the Laketon road, both tracts being located in Paw Paw township. A son of Jacob Pre- torious, Sr., he was born February 13, 1849, in Tuscarawas county, Ohio, where he spent the first three years of his life.
Jacob Pretorious, Sr., was born and educated in Germany, living there until eighteen years old. Emigrating then to the United States, he located in New York, and the following year his parents crossed the ocean and joined him in the Empire state. Later the entire family moved to Tuscarawas county, Ohio, and there Jacob Pretorious, Sr., married Catherine Schultz, a native of Germany, who came with her parents to America at the age of twenty years. In 1851 he came with his family to Indiana, journeying with teams to Wabash county, at times being obliged to cut his way through the dense forest. He located on eighty acres now owned and occupied by his son, the subject of this sketch, and immediately began its improvement. He met with fine suc- cess in his pioneer labors, and subsequently purchased another tract of eighty acres in Paw Paw township, and continued his agricultural operations. The land roundabout was in its primitive condition when he bought it. After he had cleared an opening, he built a round log house and stable, and soon was enabled to make other needed improvements. There were no saw mills near, and he was forced to split plank for the floors of his cabin. He afterwards gave three big walnut trees for Urbana's first upright saw mill. When he had his original purchase well improved, he bought forty acres of land in Urbana, Wabash county, and on the farm which he there improved he and his wife spent their remaining years.
The eldest son of his parents, Jacob Pretorious was about three years
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too bad for him to travel out in response to a call for his professional ability.
John H. Renner was born in Montgomery county, Ohio, received his early education there, subsequently took a course of study at Otterbein University, and began the study of medicine at Starling Medical College in Columbus, Ohio. He finished his study of medicine at the Chicago Medical College, where he was granted his degree of doctor of medicine. His practice was first established at West Baltimore, in Ohio, and three years later, in 1886, he moved to Wabash county, locating at Lagro. His office was with Dr. R. Toby until the latter moved out to Illinois four years later. Dr. Renner then practiced alone until his son was gradu- ated in medicine, and they worked in partnership under the name of Drs. John H. and M. E. Renner for ten years. The son then moved to Urbana, in this county, and the father continued his active work in the field of medicine until his death in 1901.
Dr. John H. Renner first married Mary Catherine De Rumple, whose people came from Pennsylvania. There were two children by that mar- riage : Dr. Maly E. and Jennie, now Mrs. F. M. Keith. Mrs. Catherine Renner died in West Baltimore, Ohio, in 1863. The senior Dr. Renner later married Jennie MeVicker, who is still living. The children by that union were : J. Charles, Samuel S., James and Joseph, twins; Robert D., Sadie, now Mrs. M. McNown, and Uriah.
Dr. M. E. Renner has lived in Lagro township since 1867. He was born near Dayton, Montgomery county, Ohio, February 23, 1860. The first seven years of his life were spent in Ohio, and he grew up to man- hood in Wabash county. The public schools furnished the foundation of his educational equipment, and subsequently he began reading medicine under the preceptorship of his father, in whose office he remained for two years, and quite often went out on professional rounds with the older doctor, and thus acquired a great deal by observation as well as by study of books. Another experience of his young manhood which should be noted was that three years were spent in the office of the old Lagro Express, one of the early newspapers of Wabash county. It was in the days which antedated by many years the modern newspaper facilities, and the young man learned to stick type at the case, worked the old hand press, did reporting, wrote editorials, and did all the other miscellaneous detail connected with getting out a country newspaper. From his father's office he entered the medical department of the Uni- versity of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he continued until graduated M. D. with the class of 1881. That year he returned to Lagro, became junior member of the firm of Renner & Renner, and father and son practiced together for ten years. During that time, according to the records of the old Fort Wayne College of Medicine, Dr. M. E. Renner held the chair of professor of physiology in 1883-84-85-86. Dr. Renner, after ten years association with his father, left Lagro and located at the village of Urbana, which was his home for twenty-two years. He is best remembered for his work in that vicinity, since he returned to Lagro only recently, in May, 1913, though the prestige of his
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large practice and the bulk of his patients have followed him to Lagro. While in Urbana Dr. Renner, who is a natural musician, and also has a cultural taste in the art, organized the Renner twelve-piece orchestra, of which he was conductor. His three daughters were instrumental players. in the orchestra, and for several years the organization furnished high- class music for church entertainments, old settlers' meetings and other social gatherings all over the country. That orchestra is an organization that will long be remembered as an important contributing factor to social. entertainment in those days. Dr. Renner still retains most of his prac- tice at Urbana, and ranks among the leading physicians and surgeons of Wabash county. Like his father, he never fails to respond to a call on account of physical difficulties, though sometimes a conflict with duties, incident to his large practice, makes it impossible for him to reach his patients as soon as he could wish. However, there is one important con- trast between the practice of the father and son. The former used a faithful old horse in making his rounds. The son employs a more ex- peditious, though perhaps not so faithful, means of conveyance, the modern automobile.
Dr. Renner is a republican in politics, but is not a rabid partisan, and will support the candidate on another ticket provided he thinks him superior to the nominee of his own party. He has served as treasurer- of the township and on the village council and in other local places.
Dr. Renner is a member of the Wabash County Medical Society, the State Medical Society, and the American Medical Association. He was married April 9, 1884, to Margaret E. Harbison, daughter of Dr. John H. Harbison, now deceased, who was a prominent physician and also a manufacturer at Spencerville, Ohio. The doctor and wife have three- children : Harriet E., now the wife of George W. Riddell, Jr., who lived in New Mexico; Margaret Edith, who is a teacher in the Lincolnville schools, and Mary Eunice, who is a teacher of music. All the daughters are well trained in music and have a special talent in one department or- other of that art.
HENRY EILER, the owner of a nice farm of ninety-one acres. in Paw Paw township, located about two and a half miles northwest of Urbana, is one of the successful and prosperous farming men of this county. He has made his own way in the world and has. accumulated a competence for his declining years, but the real struggle experienced in the establishing of this sturdy German family in Wa- bash county was in the generation previous to his, when his parents first succeeded in getting a foothold on American soil. Mr. Eiler was. born in Tuscarawas county, Ohio, on November 5, 1840, and he is a son of Jacob and Philopena (Fetzer) Eiler, both natives of Bavaria. They were married there and came to the United States with one child, Jacob, Jr., then an infant. They borrowed money to pay their passage across, and when they found themselves in America they were put to the immediate necessity of paying that debt before they might make any move towards establishing themselves permanently. They remained
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in Albany, New York, for two years, the father working diligently to get money enough to move his family to Ohio after he had paid his debts. He earned three shillings a day cutting cord wood during much of that time, and each night when he returned home he carried a bundle of dry wood for the next day's usage. In the early thirties they came to Ohio, settling in Tuscarawas county, and there he leased land for some time, at the end of the time moving to Wabash county, Indiana, where he bought eighty acres for $360.00. He went in debt for the land, and in order to make a payment on it he remained in Wabash, working by the day. For two years he worked thus and then the family moved to the farm in Paw Paw township. Later he bought forty acres in Lagro township. Jacob Eiler died at Urbana, aged seventy, and the mother died some years later on the old home farm, having made her home with her son, Jacob Eiler, from the death of her husband until she passed away.
Jacob Eiler was long regarded as one of the substantial citizens of Wabash county, and he had a prominent place in his community in his latter years. He was a man of splendid physical strength, and coming into Wabash county at a time when ague was prevalent and few escaped its ravages from season to season, he never experienced an attack of that malady. He worked hard all his days, and though he was penni- less when he settled here, he was worth more than $10,000 when he retired from active farm life. He and his wife were the parents of four children. Jacob is a resident of Urbana; John is located at Mun- cie, where he is prominent in business; Henry is mentioned in a later paragraph as the subject of this family review; and Philipina, the wife of Phil Keller, is a resident of Wabash. The first child, Jacob, was born in Germany. John was born in New York, and the other two in Ohio.
Henry Eiler was a child of about nine years when the family moved into Wabash county, Indiana, making their way via Lake Erie and the canal, and he settled with the family on the farm in Paw Paw township as soon as it was possible for them to arrange for it. He had little or no schooling as a boy, and helped with the farm work from the first. The family lived in a small log cabin that still stands on the old place, and Mr. Eiler has vivid recollections of the cold winters spent in that little home, when the snow blew through the chinks in the wall and to keep warm was a task indeed. Many a morning when he and his brothers awakened they crept from their blankets to find them covered with snow drifts that had seeped in through the night and covered them quietly, but they were healthy and strong, blessed with stout consti- tutions and unpampered by excess of comfort, so that sleeping beneath a snow drift wrought them no hardship, and little discomfort, since they slept soundly beneath their chilly coverings.
When Henry Eiler was twenty years old he enlisted in Company B, Forty-seventh Indiana Volunteer Regiment, with Captain Goodman at the head of his company. He served through the entire period of hostilities, once being taken prisoner while out foraging for chickens. This happened at New Iberia, Louisiana, and he was taken to Alexander,
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in Louisiana, and six weeks later he was exchanged and joined his regi- ment. He passed through the Vicksburg campaign and saw much service up to the time when his regiment was mustered out at Baton Rouge in October, 1865. He was also at Mobile, Alabama. He then returned to Wabash county and took up life where he had left off four years before.
On March 4, 1868, Mr. Eiler was married to Miss Sophia Pretorius, a daughter of Jacob Pretorius, a family that is mentioned at some length elsewhere in this work. She died on September 15, 1892, leaving children as follows: Mary, the wife of Peter Haupert, now deceased, and she left six children when she died, Ida, Ross, Laurence, Joseph, Ory and an infant deceased. Sarah Eiler was the second child of the family ; she died at the age of three years; John married Clara Rauten- kranz and their children are Gerald, Laura, Matilda and Mary; Henry married Ursa Alger and their children are Myrtle, Beulah and Donald; Jacob, who married Rose Signs, has four children, Franklin, Carl, Irma and Lelah; Ann Eiler died at the age of twenty years.
After his marriage Mr. Eiler moved to the farm he now occupies. After the death of the father he bought out the other heirs, and he is now the sole owner of the old home place. He has carried forward the work of development that his father inaugurated on the place long years ago, and the farm today is one of the thrifty and presentable looking ones of the township, reflecting in a large measure the spirit of thorough- ness and progressiveness that mark its owner.
Mr. Eiler is a republican and a member of the G. A. R. at Wabash. He is a member of the St. Peter's Evangelical church of Urbana, and takes a generous interest in the work of the church. He is especially devoted to his membership in the G. A. R., and finds much pleasure in his attendance at the annual encampments, many of which he has attended in various parts of the country.
DANIEL CONRAD. During the fifty-four years that have marked Daniel Conrad's residence in Wabash county he has been an eye-wit- . ness to a phenomenal growth and development. From the days when he cleared the timber with his trusty axe, burning the felled trees with little thought of the fact that in the years to come these sturdy growths of poplar and walnut would be almost priceless, to the present, with its prosperous farms and thriving villages, he has seen the forward march of civilization as it has swept away primitive conditions for modern methods and enlightenment. Mr. Conrad has not been alone a specta- tor, however, for his sterling citizenship and energetic activities in the field of agriculture have contributed materially to the movements which have resulted in placing Indiana in a foremost position among her sister states, for, like others of his race, he has always been a home-maker and it is to the maker of homes that civilization owes its very existence. Mr. Conrad was born in the town of Baumhaulter, Germany, which lies between the River Rhine and France, February 28, 1842, and is a son of Charles and Catherine (Conrad) Conrad.
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The parents of Mr. Conrad, second cousins and natives of Germany, were both born in 1800, and in their native land lived on a small farm. In 1846 the father disposed of his holdings, gathered his family about him and sailed for the United States, where he purchased a farm amid the high hills and heavy woods of Tuscarawas county, Ohio. This continued to be his home until 1864, at which time he came to Wabash county, Indiana, here purchasing eighty acres of land, of which forty had been cleared, from Michael Becker. He continued to reside here and develop a productive farm until his death, at the age of seventy- four years, having gained a material competence through his energy and perseverance and holding the respect and esteem of his numerous acquaintances by reason of his many sterling qualities of mind and heart. Part of his old home still stands, having been greatly improved and added to, and now forms the residence of Daniel Conrad. The mother passed away when eighty-five years of age, and had the follow- ing children : Catherine, deceased, who was the wife of Fred Wassem; Julia Ann, who died a maiden; Elizabeth, deceased, who was the wife of Jacob Shultz; Caroline, who was the wife of Mike Goss of Ohio; Charles, who is deceased; Henry, who is a resident of Pennsylvania; and Daniel, of this review.
Daniel Conrad was a child of four years when brought to the United States by his parents, the journey across the ocean requiring thirty- three days in a sailing vessel. His boyhood and youth were passed among the hills of Ohio, and the highest hill in the state was near his old home in Tuscarawas. The district school in which he secured most of his education was not a pretentious structure, as there were cracks in the wall that one could see through, but it was beautifully located between the woods and hills, a good spring of water was easily reached, and the children were a sturdy lot to whom sickness was a complete stranger. When he was not attending school, Mr. Conrad was engaged in assisting his father clear the home place, and so he continued until reaching the age of eighteen years, at which time he came to Wabash county to make his home with his sister, Mrs. Shultz, who was living one mile south of Urbana. When Mr. Conrad's family came to Indiana, four years later, he went to make his home with them. For some years Mr. Conrad turned his hand to whatever honorable occupation presented itself, for the most part being engaged in general farming, although for a long period he operated a threshing machine, and for eight years a clover huller. In November, 1870, he founded a home of his own when he married Miss Catherine Pretorius, daughter of Jacob and Catherine (Shultz) Pretorius, a review of this family being found in the review of Jacob and George Pretorius, brothers of Mrs. Conrad, in another part of this work. After his marriage Mr. Conrad purchased a small farm near the one he now occupies, and while residing there had his home in a little log house. Subsequently he moved to his present place, which he purchased about 1887 after the death of his mother. He cleared much of this property, and now has ninety-seven and one-half acres under cultivation, this land being devoted to general farming. Mr.
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Conrad's ventures have proved successful, for he has been energetic and enterprising, and his activities have been directed intelligently and along modern lines. As a man he is esteemed for his integrity, his honorable dealings and his fidelity to friendship and business engage- ments, while as a citizen he is known as one who at all times is ready to assist in forwarding movements making for the betterment of his community morally, financially or along the lines of education. Many years have passed since he assisted his fellow-pioneers in the building of their primitive log homes, yet his step is still firm and his mind alert and none take greater interest in the trend of the times or in matters of real importance. Throughout his life he has been a demo- crat, but his activities in politics have been confined to his support of friends. His religious connection is with the German Lutheran church.
Mr. and Mrs. Conrad were the parents of ten children, as follows: Lena, who married Fred Roudenkranz, of Urbana, Indiana, and has two children, Carl and Eunice; Charles, of Indianapolis, who married Eva Weitner; George, of North Manchester, Indiana, who married Myrta Elliott, and has one son, Lloyd; Daniel, a resident of Paw Paw town- ship, who married Pearl Baker, and has two children, Duert and Vera; Fred, who married Catherine Miller, and has five children, Marie, Gerald, Laura, Edith and William, and resides in Noble township; Katie, who married Peter Arshel, of Huntington, Indiana, and has four children, Edith, Lucille, Howard and Mary; Clarence, who married Bertha Wensel, of Lagro township, and has two children, Louise and Paul; Henry, of Indianapolis; and Albert and Joseph.
SPEICHER FAMILY. In about the year 1550, when Queen Elizabeth was on the throne, being a stanch Protestant, she persecuted the Catholics, just as her forerunner, Mary, had treated the Protestants. At this time our Speicher ancestor, about seven generations back, had to flee from his home to avoid being killed, he being a Catholic priest. In Switzer- land, near the French line, he took refuge at a farm house, in a granary and farm implement storage building, called a Speicher in the German language. Here he was sustained by the owner, and later his priestly locks were cut off and he was clothed as a farm hand in coarse clothing and wooden shoes. Shortly after this the authorities came to search for him, but after searching the premises they decided that he was not there, as they did not suspect that this coarsely dressed farm hand could be the priest for which they were searching.
To avoid any further trouble he changed his name, giving his name as . Speicher, in remembrance of the building in which he was concealed. As he was compelled to keep his real name a secret for so long a time, it is not definitely known just what it was.
Being an educated man, he was soon asked to teach this farmer's children. Then later the neighbors wanted their children taught also. Thus he became the village schoolmaster. When death made invasion into their midst they turned to the schoolmaster for a short funeral
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service, or at least a prayer. They soon found that he could preach as well as teach, and thus he became their minister.
A few years later he married a princess, and the family was con- sidered of very high standing, one of his sons later becoming the German ruler's bodyguard.
When he died he was highly embalmed and his body put into a vault, where it remained a hundred years, at which time the body was taken out and looked upon, he being of the royal line. At this time it is said that his grandson kissed the face of his grandfather, the first Speicher.
His sons also married along the royal line, though not so wealthy.
There is a story told of the Austrian invasion into Switzerland, in which a descendant of the first Speicher is said to have broken ranks when the Swiss were about defeated, and, turning back to his comrades, said, "Remember my family if I fall, and rushing forward with his rude instrument of war, something like a spear, he with his hands and with this weapon mowed them down as they came to him until he was standing nearly alone to his waist in blood and dead bodies. Seeing his courage, the others rushed forward, and the Austrians were frightened and defeated.
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