Grant County, Indiana - The whole text, 1914 (part 25 of 32)

Mr. Torrance is a son of Frank Wilson Torrance, who was a telegraph operator and belonged to a Wabash county family. His mother, later became the wife of George M. Kleder, who lived at Milford, in Kosciusko county, and one son, George M. Kleder, Jr., was born to them. Jere¬ miah W. Torrance was bom in Marion, on April 19, 1882, and it should be said that he is descended through his mother from two of the earliest pioneer families in Grant county, - those of Stebbins and Griffin. The children of Jeremiah B. and Catherine (Shearer) Stebbins were as fol¬ lows: Phoebe and Rosanna, twins; Phoebe died in childhood and the other became Mrs. Horton; Mrs. Mary S. Webb; Mrs. Catherine S. Thomason-Navens ; Elijah Stebbins; Jeremiah B. Stebbins, Jr.; George W. Stebbins and Mrs. Frances S. Ward.

On the Griffin side Mr. Torrance is descended from Robert, who was one of a family of three, the others being Martin Griffin and Mrs. Jane Overman. Robert Griffin raised a family of ten children, all of whom married and had families. The children of Robert and Eleanor (Mines) Griffin were: Mrs. Malinda G. Stebbins-Davis ; James Griffin, Sr.; Mrs. Jane G. Jackson; Mrs. Susannah G. Stebbins; John Griffin; Sarah E. G. Stebbins; Ruth G. Wigger Gall; Lucinda G. Wolf; Lydia M. G. Parks and Viola G. Phillips. The Stebbins and Griffin families were close friends and the three sons in the Stebbins family all found wives among the daughters in the Griffin family, - the wives surviving their husbands in each instance.

Through his mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, the latter being Mrs. Eleanor Hines Griffin, whose mother was Rachel Branson, Mr. Torrance is descended from the Branson family, of Boots and Bran¬ son fame in the early history of the community. The Branson monu¬ ment on Cemetery Boulevard is at the grave of an ancestor.

When the Stebbins-Griffin houses were growing up in this part of the state, times were decidedly different from now, as the surviving members will not be slow to tell you, should you inquire of them regarding the past. They were of the Newlite and Methodist religion, for the most part, and the Democracy manifested by these pioneer families was of the deepest dye. Theirs was a full and worthy part in the development of Grant county. The Griffins first settled near Lake Galatia, but they found the land too low and wet for them and they accordingly crossed the Mississinewa river, where they took up a three hundred acre farm that is still owned by the heirs of Robert Griffin. It is a landmark of the county, the old fashioned frame dwelling being easily seen from the windows of the trains of the Pennsylvania Lines, which runs through a forty acre gravel pit that was at one time the property of the Griffins and a part of their farm, but which they later sold to the railroad com¬ pany. This place is just opposite the National Military Home of Indiana, and is an attractive and valuable piece of agricultural property.

When J. B. Stebbins, Sr., was a Marion tailor, he, like many another of the business men of the community, enjoyed the confidence and friend¬ ship of the Miami Indians, and for many years he made all the garments worn by Chief Meshingomesia. Several members of the Griffin family still live in this community. Mrs. Frances Stebbins Ward is the last of her generation in the family. Of the Griffin family, Mrs. Malinda G. S. Davis, the eldest of the family, was bom on April 12, 1835, and she has always lived hereabouts. She was an active business woman for many years, and after the death of her first husband, J. B. Stebbins, Jr., she married John Davis, the pioneer Marion druggist. The name of John Davis is perpetuated in the business he established in Marion as early as 1866, - the Davis Drug Store, of which Jeremiah W. Torrance of this review is a member. Mr. Davis had a drug store there and next to him was the millinery shop long operated by Mrs. Davis, and it is not too much to say that they enjoyed the unlimited confidence of the public in both enterprises, having a splendid patronage. In 1903 Mr. Davis died after a long and useful career in the community, and soon after Mr. George M. Kleder came to Marion and associated himself in business with J. W. Torrance, and they have since continued. Mr. Torrance, it should be stated, is the grandson of Mrs. Malinda Davis, and she is the owner of the building in which the Davis Drug Store is conducted, the property having long been in the family. The drug store, under the direction of Mr. Kleder and Mr. Torrance, carries out the policies inau¬ gurated and long put into practice by- the founder of the business, John Davis, and the concern continues to enjoy the same liberal patronage that was accorded to it in the days when its original owner was at its head.

Mr. Torrance is one of the active and progressive men of the city, and he enjoys a pleasing prominence and popularity in the community that has always known him. He married, on June 6, 1905, Miss Lucile Bryson, a daughter of Jefferson and Frances Samantha (Rice) Bryson, and one daughter has been born to them, - Pauline Torrance.

David Snead James. The year 1914 is the century milestone for the iipmediate ancestry of David S. James in Indiana. The North Carolina family of that name moved to Randolph county, Indiana, in 1814, soon after the smoke of the battle of the Mississinewa had cleared away, opening up the great northwest territory for occupation by the whites. The James family lived in Randolph county until the year "the stars fell/' and in 1833 emigrated to Grant county. However, the James family "hoosier schoolmaster " was in Grant county two years before local civil government was established. Mr. David S. James has been the continuous president of the James family organization since its first meeting in 1904. Mr. C. S. James is genealogist and historian of the family, and the family tree is perhaps the most perfect of any in Grant county. The fifth generation of the James children may readily trace their ancestry to the family that gave to Grant county its first school¬ master, William James. Concerning William James some interesting comment will be found in the first volume of this history. The perma¬ nent settlement of the family in 1833 was made near Deer Creek, on land that had been entered by a son of John and Mary (Snead) James. Among the children of John and Mary James was Henley James, who in turn was the father of David S. James.

When Henley and Sarah (Holman) James were married on November 26, 1840, they started housekeeping on Lugar Creek, three miles east of the Grant county courthouse, where the family lived for many years, and that place will always be known as the James family homestead. Henley James was a progressive, unusually active farmer and citizen, and there is mention of him in the chapter on Civil Government in this work. During war times he represented Grant county in the Indiana legislature, being elected in 1833, and again in 1865. He was one of the thirty-nine members of the legislature who remained loyal to Indi¬ ana 's war governor, Oliver P. Morton, and who adjourned the session in Indianapolis, where southern influence was being exerted, and con¬ tinued the session in Madison. Henley James was a man who had the courage of his convictions relative to the conduct of the war. While others of the original family lived temporarily in Grant county and while the family furnished Grant county's first schoolmaster, it was Henley James who became identified with the community and reared a family here. Henley James died January 8, 1886, and his wife passed away October 3, 1896. Of that generation, and surviving both Henley and wife, was Miss Rachel James, who died in this county in 1905. Miss James was an original member of the Octogenarian Club, and although always an invalid, few people were ever endowed with stronger intellect and she remained young in thought and always abreast of the times, commending and condemning twentieth century customs. At her death the James family missed something - it was like the family clock had stopped, as "Aunt Rachel" had always been reckoned with in everything. She had been baptized in the Mississinewa River at Washington Street in 1840, before the stream was spanned with a bridge. When the gas and oil development came to her community, she decried the Continental Sabbath, saying she believed the first day of the week was when man should rest from his labors. Miss James was the last of her family, and in her the "schoolmaster" still lived - her influence was for the right in all things.

The entire James family was endowed with strong characteristics, and though its members have possessed positive natures, they have all been inclined to reading and enlightment, and the present generation are students of all the problems of the day.

Henley James died at sixty-eight, and his wife at seventy-two. Both have led active lives, and they left a family that is still known in the community. Their first child, William, died in infancy. The second, David Snead James, says that a man born September 24, 1843, has crossed the dead line - threescore and ten years, the allotted span of most Grant* county citizens, - but he still retains an abiding interest in things and expects to be a vital part of life in this county for some years to come. The children who followed him in birth are as follows: Emily J., who married Joel Davis; Mrs. Mary J. Snodgrass, wife of Doctor D. B. Snodgrass ; Solomon H. James, who married Louisa Byrd ; George James, who married Belle Car 11 ; Mrs. Lydia J. Byrd, wife of J. L. Byrd ; Mrs. Laura J. Winchell, wife of George B. Winchell; and Mrs. Alice J. Co wgill- Walsh, whose first husband was 0. C. Cowgill and her second Max Walsh. On June 7, 1866, at the Hays family homestead in Van Buren township, David S. James married Weimer Hays, daughter of William and Sarah (Nickum) Hays. Most of their married life has been spent in that neighborhood in which they were married, and Mr. James has passed every one of his birthdays in Grant county. The Hays family likewise were among the early settlers of this county. To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. James have been bom children as follows: Charles S. James, who married first Docia S. Davis, and second Laura Stephenson, and the one child, of the second marriage, is Miss Ruth James; Miss Mary S. James died in young womanhood; Harvey H. James, who married Mary Pearson, has two children, by that marriage, Ethel and Earl James, and by his marriage to Lena Sloderbeck, has another daughter, Miss Mary James; George N. James; Mrs. Roselle J. Troyer, wife of Charles Troyer, and their children are Paul and Jennie Troyer; John A. James, who married Nellie Leaverton, and their two children are Clyde and Russell James; Joseph H. James has been twice married, first to Caroline Brown, and second to Mamie Clouser.

Members of the James family were among the early adherents of the Disciples (Christian church), and D. S. James holds a membership with the Central Christian Church in Marion. While the early James family were Democrats, the Lincoln brand of Republicanism actuates the later members. Recently Mr. James lined up with the Progressive cause, and declared he has his ear to the ground, ready for the advance movement which he regards as best for himself and the country. In concluding this brief family sketch we shall refer briefly to a local land¬ mark, whose history should not be forgotten and which has a number of associations with the James family. Many years ago was held a Sunday School picnic in the woods on the Hays farm, part of which is now the D. S. James place. The meeting place was in Van Buren town¬ ship at the corner of four townships, Van Buren, Monroe, Center, and Washington - and as it was a union Sunday school picnic, the place was thereafter called Union Grove. The next point in the story was the establishment of a star route postofflce, which received the name of Union Grove. However, the postoffice was shifted from one farmhouse to another, and carrying the title Union Grove to each separate place, until the last locality to bear that name was at a considerable distance from the one in which the above mentioned picnic was held. There is a fine oak grove about the James homestead, and were it not for the fact that the name Union Grove has thus become common speculating property, it might well designate this particular farm.

Robert Brinker. The qualities of thrift, perseverance and industry have ever been characteristics of the German race. The citizens of the Fatherland are rarely found in want, for their sturdy nature and selfreliance can be counted upon to place them among the independent peo¬ ple of any community in which they find themselves, and for this reason this country owes a debt of gratitude for some of its best citizenship. Among the honored German names of Grant county is that of Brinker, which is represented in Center township by Robert Brinker, who, while not a native of Germany, has inherited the qualities which have made this race famous the world over. Mr. Brinker, who is now carrying on agricultural operations on a farm within sight of the city of Marion, Indiana, was born in Washington township, Grant county, Indiana, December 20, 1877, and is a son of William and Catherine (Schuelmeyer) Brinker. v

The parents of Mr. Brinker were both born in the Fatherland, and emigrated as children to the United States, being reared and educated in Indianapolis, Indiana, where they became acquainted and were mar¬ ried. Subsequently they came to Washington township and here pur¬ chased a large tract of land, a part of which forms the farm on which was born Grant county's distinguished son, Col. George W. Steele. An industrious and thrifty citizen, Mr. Brinker accumulated a handsome property, and at the time of his death left his family in very comfortable circumstances. Although a busy man, with large interests, he ever had the welfare of his community at heart, and also did not fail to remember his moral duty, being a faithful member of the German Lutheran Church. He and his estimable wife were the parents of eight children, and of these Robert was the youngest.

Robert Brinker received his education in the city schools, and was reared to habits of honesty and industry, early learning the value of thrift and economy. As a result, at the time of his marriage, he was able to settle upon a property of his own, and at this time he is the owner of a tract of 110 acres, located within sight of the city of Marion, in Center township, a property that has been brought to a high state of cul¬ tivation through well-directed effort and able management. Mr. Brinker has devoted his activities to general farming and stock raising, along both of which lines he has been more than ordinarily successful, and he is justly considered one of the substantial men of his locality.

In November, 1907, Mr. Brinker was united in marriage with Miss Bessie Dibble, also a native of Grant county. They have had three chil¬ dren, sons, who died in infancy. Mr. and Mrs. Brinker are faithful members of the Methodist Episcopal church, which they attend at Marion. In political matters Mr. Brinker has always been affiliated with the Democratic party, but has never cared for public office and has only taken that interest in public matters that is shown by any citizen who has the welfare of his community at heart. He occupies a beautiful country home, surrounded by a wide lawn, and fitted with all the com¬ forts and conveniences of modern farm life.

William E. Mason. One of the fine farms in Grant county is the property of William E. Mason, of Mill township, comprising one hun¬ dred and eighty three acres of rich and valuable land in section 12 and known as "The Glencoe Farm." The owner is accounted one of the most progressive and practical agriculturists of his township; he uses the latest improved machinery in the cultivation of his property ; studies the best methods for producing the various cereals adapted to the cli¬ mate; practices rotation of crops; devotes a great deal of attention to the raising of all kinds of thoroughbred livestock ; and, above all, brings to his work that unflagging industry which seldom fails of accomplish¬ ment. It is this factor that has brought him a full measure of success and gained him a place among the well-to-do farmers of his community.

Mr. Mason is a worthy representative of one of the pioneer families of the state, the naftie having been interwoven with the development and advancement here through several generations. The family in the United States originated in the Pennsylvania Dutch section of the Key¬ stone state, but John Mason, the paternal grandfather of William E. Mason, was born in Virginia, and the grandmother, Miss Crull, was probably a native of Kentucky, in which state the family lived for sev¬ eral years and where Michael Mason, the father of William E. Mason, was born October 15, 1827. Shortly after this event the family came to Wayne county, Indiana, entering land and improving a farm, which was subsequently sold when the Masons moved to Miami county. There they located on a property that was partly improved, and John Mason con¬ tinued to be engaged in agricultural pursuits and working at the cooper 's trade, of which he was a master, until the time of his death, at the age of eighty-four years, the grandmother passing away at about the same age several years later. They were faithful members of the old Dunkard church, and were the parents of the following children : Samuel, David, Jacob, John, Jr., Michael, William, Daniel, George, Elizabeth, Mary Mag¬ dalena, Hannah, Katharine Sarah, and Lucinda. All grew to man and womanhood, all married, and George and Daniel are still living.

Michael Mason was an infant when brought to Indiana by his parents, and here he was reared to the cooper's trade by his father. He also made and mended shoes for his family, and his wife spun and wove cloth that dressed the family, also spun wool from the sheep raised on the farm to be made into blankets. Michael Mason was also a good farmer, and as a young man he came to Grant county and settled on a farm in Mill township, the place being now owned and occupied by William E. Mason. Subsequently he moved to a farm in Franklin township, there remain¬ ing until 1879, when he returned to the Mill township property on which he had first settled, and there his death occurred on the 18th of October, 1880. His wife survived him until the 12th of August, 1907. During the Civil war Michael Mason enlisted in Company C, Twelfth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and as a private participated in a number of engagements, but after about a year of service was taken ill and was finally honorably discharged on account of disability.

Mr. Mason was married in Mill township to Miss Anna Coleman, who was born in Belmont county, Ohio, July 1, 1827, and came to Grant county with her parents in 1829. When Thomas Coleman, her father, came here he established one of the first six families in the county, travel¬ ing a tedious route over the roads from Ohio until he struck Granville, Indiana, on the Mississinewa river. There he sold his wagon and loaded what goods he had, with others that he had purchased, onto a flatboat and came down that river until he reached the site of his future home, on the banks of the stream in Mill township. The country was almost in its virgin state, wild and forbidding, with numerous savage Indians and many wild animals, and when he had settled in his little log hut Mr. Coleman kept his fierce dog. underneath the structure to warn him of the approach of red men or the beasts of the forest. His nearest market, Granville, lay in a direction that was inaccessible for his wagon, and in order to take his grain to that point it was necessary for him to send his son ahead leading the team of horses, one in front of the other, to break the path for him along the old Indian trail, each journey being fraught with the utmost danger. Sturdily this brave pioneer worked, each year making some improvements to his land and equipment, and gradually he saw the land around him develop into one of the garden spots of the state. His original tract of one hundred and five acres, in section 12, was put under cultivation, and he then entered forty acres more, and as the years passed continued to buy more property until he became one of the most substantial men of his community. This farm is now the homestead of William E. Mason. He also rose high in public esteem and served some time as a county commissioner and in other offices of public trust and responsibility. His death occurred May 1, 1871, when he was seventy-three years of age. His first wife, who bore the maiden name of Mary Bates, died some years before, when fifty-four years of age, and he married for his second wife a Mrs. Carter. Mrs. Mason, the mother of William E. Mason, was one of six children by the first union, all of whom are deceased except one, Mrs. Mary Heal, of Mill township.

To Michael and Anna (Coleman) Mason there were born the follow¬ ing children: Daniel, who died at the age of two years; Mary E., who died when twenty-one years of age; John, who died in the spring of 1913, having had seven children, of whom five are living; James, who died at the age of twenty-four years, unmarried ; Mahala, who died when two years old; Samantha Florence, the wife of James H. Kirkpatrick, of Fairmount township; Ida, widow of Leander Parks, and she resides in Jonesboro, the mother of three sons and one daughter; and George, who died when an infant. Michael Mason was one of the sturdy figures of his day and well merited the high esteem in which he was universally held. His long life was one of usefulness, and he will long be remem¬ bered among the honored men who did so much to advance the interests of his section.

William E. Mason was bom in Franklin township, Grant county, Indiana, March 17, 1862, and in that vicinity grew to young manhood and secured his educational training in the public schools. At the age of seventeen years he came to the farm which he now owns, with his parents, who had formerly lived thereon but who had spent some twenty years or more in Franklin township. Mr. Mason has continued to make this property his home, and at this time is the owner of the one hundred and forty-five acres, which was entered by his grandfather Coleman. He has since added thirty-seven and one-half acres more to this farm making him 183 acres in all. This is one of the best farms in Mill township, and has been made so by Mr. Mason's industry, perseverance and well applied effort. His large white house, red bam, seventy-ton silo and substantial outbuildings are surrounded by well tilled fields, and in the pasture land are found great numbers of Short Horn cattle and Shropshire sheep, sleek, well-fed and contented. Another specialty may be found in Mr. Mason's Poland China swine, some of the best in the township. The equipment on this homestead is of the most modern manufacture, and the general air of prosperity which hovers over the entire property bespeaks the presence of thrift, progressiveness and excellent management.

Mr. Mason was married in Fairmount township to Miss Rebecca A. Marine, who was bora in Jefferson township, Grant county, Indiana, December 10, 1868, a daughter of Nathan and Rebecca (Nelson) Marine, the former deceased and the latter now a resident of Gas City, Indiana. A complete review of this family will be found in the sketch of Daniel Marine, an uncle of Mrs. Mason, in another part of this work. The following children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Mason: Earl J., connected with the Canton Glass Company at Marion, was educated in the Indiana Business College and is single; Flossie M., the wife of George Ice, of Jennings county, Indiana, and the mother of one child, Velma; Ethel May, who graduated August 13, 1913, from the Normal Institute at Muncie, Indiana, is now a teacher of elocution in the same school, with a very promising outlook; Chester and Charles, living at home with their parents, and both now in the third year of the high school at Gas City, Indiana; and Alice, the first born, who died when but one week old. Mr. and Mrs. Mason are consistent members of the Methodist Protestant church, in the faith of which they have reared their children. Mr. Mason is a Democrat. His business methods are ever honorable and straightforward, and his close application, perseverance and unabating energy have enabled him to work his way steadily up¬ ward, and onward to a position of affluence and high esteem. His home is his castle, and he is never so happy as when surrounded by his family. In his comfortable residence he has numerous relics of pioneer days, and among the most interesting and valued of these are the rifles which belonged to his great-grandfather and grandfather, the latter of which in the days of its usefulness killed probably one hundred deer in Grant county, a meat that in the early day largely provided the family with food. He also has his great-grandfather Coleman's Bible, bearing dates that were written in the year 1786, which he highly prizes.

Elmer E. Heal. One of the oldest families in this section of Indiana is that of Heal, which was established in Delaware county before the close of the decade of the twenties. It has numerous representatives in both Delaware and Grant county, and where ever known the name has been associated with industry, with intelligent citizenship, and with influences working for progress in morals and religion. Mr. Elmer E. Heal is one of the prosperous farmers in the southeastern corner of Mill township, his homestead being in section one. Mr. Heal has been hon¬ ored with official place in the community, and is one of the best known residents of his township.

Mr. Heal refers in a somewhat humorous way to the founding of his family in this country. Many years ago, it seems, not long after the Revolutionary war there landed on the coast of Maine at Bath, David Heal. He was probably not blessed with a great amount of worldly goods, or the wisdom of a Solomon but if the multiplicity of offspring be taken as a basis of judgment, he ranked second, only to Father Adam as the father of the human race. It appears he came from Cheshire, England, on one of the slow-going sail vessels of the time, and must have been many weeks on the way. He was a laboring man and found employment in felling trees in the great forest that then existed in Maine and in running logs down the Kennebeck River. He probably spent all the rest of his life in the Pine Tree State, but lack of information prevents a further account of his activities.

Of his numerous progeny was William Heal, born in Maine, October 29, 1791. When a small boy he was bound out to a man named Fletcher, and served his master faithfully until he was twenty-one years of age. He enlisted in the army and served during the war of 1812. He then shouldered his ax and started through the wilderness to what is now Guernsey county, Ohio. There as a log cabin pioneer he entered land and started to establish a home of his own. His settlement there was evidently in the early part of 1814, and Ohio had been a state only about ten years. In Muskingum county, Ohio, December 24, 1818, he married Olive Carter. The record states that she was born in Maine, October 18, 1799, but just at what time she came to Ohio is not known. William Heal possessed all the spirit of the frontiersman, and the western fever had not abated in his breast when in 1829, with his wife and a small family, and with all their worldly possessions piled onto a wagon, he came to Delaware county, Indiana, and settled in Washington town¬ ship. There he began the fight with the wilderness again, and got a tract of land direct from the government. His efforts were rewarded by establishing a good home and rearing a fine family, who with their descendants became prominent agriculturists throughout this section of the state. William Heal died at the home which his ax had hewed from the wilderness on April 16, 1847. His wife passed away at the same place December 19, 1844. They were people whose lives could not help but benefit any community in which they lived. They were early Metho¬ dists, and took a prominent part in the founding of Olive Branch Methodist church in Jefferson township of Grant county, that church being named in honor of Mrs. Olive Heal. It was their support and efforts in a material and spiritual way that did much to make a success of the society, and their home was always open to ministers of the faith, and to all strangers as well as to friends, their latch strings always hung on the outside. William Heal was a Whig of the Henry Clay type. Of the children of William Heal and wife, James M., father of Elmer was born in Muskingum county, Ohio, not far from Zanesville, July 20, 1828.

He was carried as a baby in arms by his mother and father to Delaware county where he grew up a healthy and intelligent boy, and was able to take his share in the clearing and improving of the farm. As a young man he acquired the trade of carpenter, and became a skillful workman and operated independently as a contractor, erecting a great many homes and farm buildings in Grant county. Some of these struc¬ tures are still standing, a monument to his efforts. All his life he lived on a farm, the chief management of which, however, developed upon his wife and sons. That old homestead was in Mill township, and he died there April 19, 1886. On April 25, 1855, James M. Heal married Mary Coleman, who is still hale and hearty, and at a good old age resides with her son Elmer E. most of the time. She is well informed on all current views and is intellectually and physically active. She was born in Mill township, a daughter of Thomas and Mary Coleman who were among the first settlers on the Mississinewa River in that township, where they lived until death. They were the parents of nine children: John C. ; Mary Olive; Thomas J. ; Elmer E.; Frank L. ; William L. ; Annie C. ; James E. ; and infant daughter. The Coleman family is described elsewhere in this volume, in the sketch of William E. Mason. Mrs. James M. Heal is a very active member of the Metho- dist church, and her husband, though a constant attendant, never made a confession of faith. He was one of the sturdiest Republicans in Grant county, and nothing could ever alter his devotion to the grand old party. This brings the family history down to Mr. Elmer E. Heal. He was bom on the old farm in Jefferson township where the family sojourned for sometime, February 6, 1862. His book training was mixed with hard work on the farm, and the fact that he now possesses a well trained mind and is accounted an unusually intelligent citizen, is per¬ haps due chiefly to his study at home and hard thinking on many subjects outside the immediate sphere of his activity. Early in life he qualified as an educator, and for fifteen years devoted his time to teaching during the winter, while he farmed in summer. He made for himself an excellent reputation as a teacher of the young, and a great many of his old pupils still remember his guidance gratefully. Mr. Heal has a first class small farm of forty-three acres, and by his success has shown that a man with a small farm can reap an excellent living and put away money for his declining years on a farm of this size. His place is located in the southeast comer of Mill township, which has long been noted for the extreme richness of its soil.

His practical knowledge of affairs and his qualifications in the simpler legal forms made him the choice of the people for the office of justice of the peace for some years. Mr. Heal is a decided Republican, but has no aspirations to be considered a politician. His present farm has been his place of residence for the past twenty-four years, and in that time he has taken a part in all the community activities. He is especially well known in fraternal circles, being a prominent member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Jonesboro, and has represented his lodge in the Grand Lodge, and also belongs to the Encampment Degree. He is a past chancellor of the Knights of Pythias at Gas City and belongs to the Loyal Order of Moose at Marion.

In Mill township on December 24, 1883, Mr. Heal married Miss Clara Moreland, who was born in this township in 1866, and has always made it her home. Her parents were E. J. and Levenia (Winans) More¬ land, both of whom were bom in Miami county, Ohio, and early came to Grant county, and were married in Mill township. Mr. Moreland died April 2, 1910, having been born February 8, 1831, and his wife, who was born September 12, 1840, passed away June 22, 1913. The Moreland family have always been Methodists, and Mr. Moreland was a staunch Republican. Mrs. Heal had a brother, Marquis A., who died December 7, 1911, and for many years was connected as agent and messenger with the Big Four Railway Company, and afterwards was a real estate man ; he was married but had no children. The four children of Mr. and Mrs. Heal are : Glenny Maude, who died in childhood ; Flossie May, David E. and William Donald. Flossie May was educated in the grade and high schools, is the wife of Jesse C. Knopp of Elwood, and has two children Clara A. and Chester E. David E. and William Donald are both bright young boys and attending the public schools. Mr. and Mrs. Heal and family worship in the Methodist church.

Samuel F. Bedwell. Representing one of the old and substantial families of eastern Indiana, Samuel F. Bedwell has spent practically all his life in Grant county, and as a carpenter, lumber mill man and in general business affairs has gained a substantial degree of prosperity at Upland.

Samuel F. Bedwell is of English ancestry, and his grandfather, Samuel Bedwell, was bom March 6, 1796, in one of the eastern states. His vocation was farming, and early in the last century he came west and located in Henry county, Indiana. In Henry county he married a Miss Stanley, who was born January 20, 1794. They began their married life in Henry county, and some years later moved into Delaware county, where he did well as a farmer and was also honored by his fellow citizens in the office of township trustee. Still later he and his wife moved to Marion, Indiana, where both died, he on the 26th of December, 1863, and she on December 21 of the same year. They were both supporters of the Methodist church, and assisted in the establishment and main¬ tenance of several churches of that society in the locality where they live. His politics was of the Whig order until the organization of the Republican party. Samuel Bedwell and wife had the. following family of children: Perlina, born March 20, 1819, married William Havens, lived and died in Marion, and left a family of children; James, born November 20, 1820, died in California and left a son William; Sarah, born October 5, 1822, died in 1840, as the result of a lightning stroke in Delaware county; Allen, born October 12, 1824, spent most of his life in Wisconsin and Michigan and had a family; Aaron, the father of the Upland business man, is mentioned in a following paragraph; and Hannah W., born March 30, 1832, died at the home of her brother Aaron at the age of thirty-eight years.

Aaron Bedwell, who was born in Henry county, Indiana, June 13, 1830, grew up there and early in the *508 married Nancy Buck. She was born May 31, 1829, in Marion county of this state. About ten years after their marriage they moved to the city of Marion, in 1865, and there Aaron Bedwell continued his business as a cooper and plasterer with success until his retirement. He died while living with his son in Upland, on May 8, 1875. His widow survived, and she lives in Marion with her daughter, Mrs. Josephine Rhodehamel, still active in mind and body. Her religious faith is in the New Light Christian church, while her husband belonged to the Methodist faith, and in politics was first a Whig and later a Republican. The children of Aaron Bedwell and wife are given record as follows: Sarah E., born February 20, 1854, is the wife of Rev. Samuel, Ballenger, a Quaker minister at Upland; William A., born February 17, 1856, is a bachelor and lives in Upland, his business being that of an oil well driller ; Charles M., born April 7, 1858, is also engaged in drilling oil wells, and he lives at Upland; Samuel F., is next in line among the children ; Adolphus, born October 7, 1863, lives in Marion; Josephine, born March 20, 1867, is the wife of Esta A. Rhodehamel, of Marion; and Matilda, born May 13, 1869, is the wife of James Moore, of Upland.

Samuel F. Bedwell, who was born October 20, 1861, was fourteen years of age when he lost his father, and from that time was dependent upon his own resources and activities, and has earned practically every dollar of his present substantial prosperity. Early in life, after getting a fair education in the public schools, he learned the trade of a carpenter and of general wood-working, and for the past sixteen years has been connected with the lumber mill and the house furnishing and supply business in Upland, of which for the past four years he has been superin¬ tendent and general manager. His general success as a business man is well represented by his relationship with this firm, and also by his attractive and substantial eight-room residence, which he built at the corner of North Lucas and Washington streets in 1894. He has also been active in local political affairs, and for the past two years has served as a member of the Upland town board, representing the Fifth ward. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias.

Her home has been in Upland since she was two years old. Her parents were Samuel and Mary (Bollinger) Huffman, her father a native of Ohio and her mother of Indiana. After their marriage in Jefferson township of this county they lived in Monroe township until 1870, and then located in Upland, where her father was in business until his retirement. On November 13, 1913, he celebrated his seventy-sixth birth¬ day. His wife passed away May 24, 1897. She was bom in Grant county May 10, 1844, and belonged to an old family of Quakers, to which faith her husband also belonged.

Mr. and Mrs. Bedwell are the parents of the following children: Grant H., bom May 6, 1890, was educated in the public schools, was for a time an electrician and is now a clerk for the Pennsylvania Railway Company at Upland. Orville, bom June 20, 1892, is a graduate of the Upland high school. He is a telegraph operator at Upland. Mary, born on Christmas day of 1893, is a graduate of the Upland high school with the class of 1912. She was afterward a student in the Marion Business College, and is now engaged in teaching in the Upland public schools. Herbert, born June 17, 1896, is now a junior in the local high school and shows the quality of his useful enterprise in the operation of a picture show at Upland. Ralph P., bora April 12, 1899, is now in the local schools in the grammar department. Lillian, bora March 24, 1901, died April 29, 1907. Robert Aaron was bora June 2, 1913. Mrs. Bedwell is an active member of the local Quaker church.

Charles G. Barley. One of the most telling enterprises located in the city of Marion and one that gives regular employment to more than two hundred men, is the Harwood & Barley Manufacturing Company, of which Charles G. Barley is treasurer and general manager. It is no small matter to be responsible for an enterprise that means so much in dollars and cents to the city wherein it is established, and the man who directs the destinies of such an establishment can not fail to be a power for good in any community where his labors are expended.

Charles G. Barley was bora near the city of Marion, on April 5, 1874, and is the son of James L. and Louise J. (Gordon) Barley. The father, a native of Grant county; this state, also claims April 5th as his natal 'day, his birth occurring on that day in the year 1851, and the family may well be said to be one of the best known in the county, where members of it have for three generations been more or less prominent in business and social life. The mother of the subject came to Grant county when she was sixteen years old, in company with David Bish, who was her guardian and who reared her from childhood to young womanhood.

Charles Barley received his education in the public schools of Marion and later attended the Marion Business College, graduating from the commercial department of the latter, and upon emerging from that institution he entered the employment of the Barley & Spencer Lumber Company, with whom he was connected for a year. The next three years he spent with the old Sweetser & Turner Elevator, as manager, and for five years thereafter he was manager of the Marion Ice & Cold Storage Company. In all these positions, in his managerial capacity, he gained much of valuable experience that has been of invaluable help to him in his own business, and gone far toward making it the splendid success that has marked it since its organization. It was in 1898 that with George C. Harwood he organized the Harwood & Barley Manu¬ facturing Company, a close corporation organized for the manufacture of iron and brass beds, bed springs and motor trucks, and their growth has been exceptional from the start. Today their annual output aggre- gates seventy-five thousand beds, twenty-five thousand bed springs, and their output of motor trucks last year was one hundred and fifty. The firm employs two hundred men and the weekly payroll of the concern reaches $2,500. After fifteen years of life, the concern has reached a place of considerable importance in the industrial world of Marion and is counted among the solid and worth-while enterprises of the city and county.

Mr. Barley is a stanch Republican, but not a politician, and he is an earnest member of the Civic Assembly. He and his wife are prom¬ inent in social and other circles in the city.

The marriage of Mr. Barley to Miss Mae Harwood, the daughter of his partner, took place on October 16, 1902, and they live in their new home on Spencer avenue, this city. They have no children.

Ernest G. Zimmer, M. D. A worthy representative of the medical profession in Grant county, is Dr. Ernest G. Zimmer, who for the past fourteen years has been located at Upland, and whose professional work began more than a quarter of a century ago. Both by his personal character and his technical ability he has dignified his calling, and has won a prestige by which he well merits recognition in this volume of Grant county biography. Dr. Zimmer is a graduate of the Cincinnati School of Medicine and Surgery, with the class of 1886. Soon after leaving medical college he established himself in practice at Santa Pe, Miami county, Indiana, and was in active practice there until 1899. Then, following a course at the Chicago Polyclinic, he located at Upland, where he has built up a representative clientage and is recognized as one of the leaders of his profession.

Dr. Zimmer was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1858. His early advantages after the common schools were secured largely through his own work with an ambition definitely fixed upon a professional career. He was a student in the normal school at Lebanon, Ohio, and spent two years in the medical department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and later graduated with the degree of M. D. at the Cin¬ cinnati School of Medicine and Surgery. His father, George Zimmer, had a noteworthy career as a German immigrant to America. Born in Baden, Germany, he was of a good family, and many of its members gained distinction both in military and civic life. He was reared in his native land, where he learned the trade of a baker, and then in the revolutionary activities of the late forties he found himself a patriot on the side of the rebels. His uncle, General Wiler, of the German Army, advised young George to flee from his native country and use all secrecy in making his escape, leaving by night, otherwise he wrould pay forfeit of his life for his rebellion. He escaped from Baden and became a stowaway on a sailing vessel bound for the United States. Arriving in the City of New York without a penny, he begged a loaf of bread, and that was his only food for three days, while in the meantime he spent three nights in a deserted church. At the end of that time he found work at three dollars a week, and finally drifted west to Cincinnati. Within a few years he had saved money enough to send for his sweet¬ heart, whom he had left behind in Germany. Her name was Catherine Sutter, who was born in the same town as George Zimmer. After her arrival in the United States they were married, and started out to make their fortunes. As a baker Mr. Zimmer found regular employment in different places, and finally, with a capital of four hundred dollars, he went to Keokuk, Iowa, during the boom in that city, and invested all his savings in real estate. The boom collapsed, and all his surplus was thus swept away. With his wife and baby, Ernest G., he had to work his way back to Cincinnati, stopping at St. Louis a brief time, and then on to their destination. He soon afterward located at St. Paris, Ohio, where he was engaged in business for himself and lived until his death, in 1893. He was born in 1827. His wife was born in 1830, and passed away in 1906. In her native land she had been a school teacher, and throughout her life kept up on current literature. She was a woman of unusual powers of mind and character. Both were members of the Evangelical church in Germany, and in this country worshipped in the Lutheran faith. On first coming to America, George Zimmer espoused the principles of the Whig party, and afterward was a staunch adherent of the principles of the Republican party. Mr. and Mrs. Zimmer were the parents of eight children, six of whom grew to maturity and are still living, and four of these are married and have children of their own. Frank A. is a prominent lawyer in Urbana, Ohio, and has one son. Emanuel R. is a dentist engaged in practice in Greenville, Missouri, and has one daughter. Fritz is unmarried, being a baker by trade, and also lives in Greenville, Missouri. Mrs. Mary Mitchell, who for a number of years was a successful teacher at St. Paris, Ohio, now lives in Springfield, Ohio, and has four children. Emma, who is unmarried, is a teacher of art and music at St. Paris, Ohio. Dr. Zimmer, the oldest of the children, was married in Ohio to Miss Eva Cook. Detroit, Michigan was her birthplace, and she received superior educational advantages in different places, chiefly in Chester county, Pennsylvania, near the home of Bayard Taylor. Dr. Zimmer and wife have one daughter, a talented young woman who is well known in Grant county, Miss Edna George Zimmer, who resides with her parents. She was educated in the Upland public schools and Taylor University. She early showed talent as a musician, and by study at home and under excellent instructors has become very proficient as a violinist and is now a member of the faculty of the Marion Conservatory of Music. Dr. Zimmer is affiliated with the Masonic order and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and his politics is Republican.

Georoe M. Himelick. In a review of the lives of the prominent and influential citizens of Grant county, George M. Himelick is certainly deserving of more than passing mention, for his well spent career, his ability, his loyalty to the duties of citizenship and his fidelity in private life have all gained him a place among the leading residents of the com¬ munity. He is a member of an old and honored family, his grandfather, Joseph Himelick being bom in Ohio in 1819, of German parentage. When sixteen years of age Joseph Himelick removed from the Buckeye State to Franklin county, Ind., where he was married to Miss Mary Curry, and there one son was born ; nine months later they moved to Jennings county, Ind., where the three daughters were born. Later, during the early sixties, the grandparents and their children migrated to Madison county, Indiana, and settled on wooded land, which Mr. Himelick cleared and cultivated until his death in 1885. The grand¬ mother, who celebrated her ninety-first birthday September 13, 1913, has ninety-two living decendants, five of whom are great-great-grandchildren. She still lives at Summitville, Madison county, and in view of her advanced years is in excellent health and in possession of her faculties. Mr. Himelick was a Democrat in politics, and in religious belief was connected with the Christian church, of which the grand¬ mother is still a member. They had these children: John, the father of George M. Himelick ; Anna, the widow of William Carpenter, a farmer of Delaware county, Indiana, where she still resides with her family; Elizabeth, the wife of Robert Gallaway, a retired farmer of near Council Bluffs, Iowa, with a family; and Mary, the widow of John Styers, living with her mother at Summitville, Indiana.

John Himelick, the father of George M. Himelick, was born Decem¬ ber 25, 1840, and was reared and educated on the home farm, upon which he resided until his marriage to Mary Morris, who was born September 23, 1844. After the birth of their first two children, Mr. and Mrs. Himelick moved to Madison county, Indiana, but in 1874 changed their residence to Fairmount township, Grant county, where the father spent the remaining active years of his life. He then retired to Mills township, where his death occurred July 25, 1905. The mother still survives and makes her home at Summitville, where she is a faithful member of the Christian church. Mr. and Mrs. Himelick were the parents of the following children: George' M. is the subject of this review; Joseph, who married Ella Webster, and had three children, Elva, Virgil and Willis; Elizabeth, who married Ullysus Horner. Mrs. Horner had two children, Lillie and John; Mrs. Horner died January 6, 1894, and Ullysus Horner died in 1901 ; Robert, a resident of River Falls, Wisconsin, is superintendent of the State Normal school. He married Media Tyler, and has two children, Frances and Jesse; John W. is represented on another page of this work; Olive is the wife of Virgil Duling, a farmer of Fairmount township, and has one daughter, Mary. Maude is the wife of William Moss, of Marion, Indiana. Orville, engaged in the hardware business at Upland, married Nancy Ruley and has four children, Louise, John, Paul and an infant. Earl, a fore¬ man in the shops at Jonesboro, married Dora Nelson, and has three children, Lucile, Raymond and Robert.

George M. Himelick was born March 23, 1864, in Jennings county, Indiana, and received his education in the schools of Madison and Grant counties. He was reared to habits of industry and integrity, and grew up an agriculturist, embarking upon his own career on a farm of 113 acres in section 4, Jefferson township. This land he has brought to a high state of cultivation, and has made numerous modern improvements, having a fine red barn and commodious white house, both fitted out with conveniences and accessories of the most modern nature. In addition he owns four eighty-acre tracts in Monroe, on which are located two sets of fine farm buildings. Mr. Himelick has devoted the greater part of his time and attention to the raising of all kinds of cereals, and has been exceptionally successful in this line, but also is greatly interested in breeding all kinds of livestock. His products meet with a ready sale and fancy prices in the markets, and he is known as a man strictly honorable in his business transactions. He owes his success to energy, industry and perseverance, and to an intelligent application of the most progressive methods to his operations. He has always been a firm friend of education, morality and good citizenship, and has contributed his aid to the cause of temperance as a voter in the ranks of the Prohibition party. With his family, he attends the New Light Christian church.

Mr. Himelick was married in Jefferson township to Miss Lydia J. Wise, who was born, reared and educated in this township and is a daughter of Jacob Wise, a review of whose career will be found else¬ where in this volume. The following children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Himelick: Ernest F., who married Lotus Atkinson, had a son born November 7, 1913, and is carrying on agricultural operations in Monroe township, on one of his father's properties; Clarence, married to Marie Stephens, January 1, 1914; Bertha M., Orvin William, Waldo R., Lemley, Myrle, Esther, Ralph, Olive Maude and Ethel 0., who are all living at home with their parents; and Homer E., who died at the age of four months. The children have all been given good educational advantages, and are proving themselves credits to their family and to their community.

C. Dee Smith. With youth and energy at his command, and also the resourcefulness and business enterprise of the modern farmer, C. Dee Smith is one of the most successful in that line of enterprise in Mill township. He operates the fine old Elisha Overman farm of one hundred and eighty-seven acres on section twelve of Mill township, and had his place well stocked with graded cattle, hogs and horses, and each year brings in a number of stock for feeding, having shown himself an excep¬ tional manager of the livestock business. His farm is the property of his father-in-law. Its improvements are of the very highest class, com¬ prising two large red barns, other out buildings, and a comfortable dwelling house. All the land is in a fine state of cultivation, and Mr. Smith is prospering as he well deserves. He has been manager and has lived on the place for the last four years.

C. Dee Smith is of an old Virginia family, and was born in Scott county of that state, September 14, 1878. His grandfather was William Smith, a Confederate soldier, born in Washington county, Virginia, and with the exception of the time spent in the army lived there all his life, his death occurring when nearly fourscore years old, July, 1907. His wife was Disa Fleener, a Virginia girl of the same locality, who died when about the same age in 1912. They were substantial farming people and Methodists in religion, while the political faith was the prevailing one of the Democratic party. Of their large family, eleven are still living, and they are all past middle age, being physically strong and large.

Of these children Pascal B. Smith, the oldest, is the father of the Mill township farmer. He was born February 24, 1853, in Scott county, Virginia, was reared on the old homestead, and married from the same locality, Miss Elizabeth Gardner, who was bom on September 22, 1856, and is still living. Her parents Euhel and Peggy (Barnhart) Gardner, lived and died in Scott county. Her father was a California Forty-niner, spending four years on the gold coast and meeting with fair success in the diggings. Both Euhel and Peggy Gardner lived to a good old age. They were born about 1830. Though Virginians, they were both members of the Northern Methodist Church, and he was a Republican. Eleven of the Gardner family are still living and some of them are already old.

C. Dee Smith was next to the oldest among eleven children, nine of whom are still living, namely: Stephen R., who is married; C. Dee; Charles Lee, married; Orval S. and James C., both of whom died when twenty-eight years of age, the latter being married ; Henry C., married ; Daisy E., Maude, Woody M., Joseph L., and Gladys, who are all as yet unmarried.

C. Dee Smith came to Grant county in 1898; the rest of the family are also residents of the county, the father Pascal B. Smith being a farmer in Fairmount township. Mr. Smith was married in Grant county, November 15, 1909, to Miss Ethel Overman, who was born in Mill township, January 23, 1890, and had her education in the common schools and in the Gas City high school where she* graduated in 1908. Her parents are Elisha and Minnie (McGinnis) Overman, who now live retired in Gas City. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are the parents of two children: Virginia Helen, born January 22, 1911; and Velma I., who died at the age of five months. Mr. Smith is a Democrat in politics,

John S. Jett. One of the active and progressive young farming men of Mill township is John S. Jett, who operates a ninety acre farm in Sections 30 and 31. His place, known as the "William Carter Farm," is reckoned among the finest and most productive of the community, and is still owned by the widow of Mr. Carter, though Mr. Jett has operated it since 1911, when Mr. Carter died. His widow now resides in Marion, and leaves the entire care of the place to Mr. Jett. The farm is well stocked with blooded cattle, and the buildings and all minor improve¬ ments are of the highest character. About forty acres of corn, twenty of wheat and a few acres of oats is about the proportion of the crops raised, and the yield per acre is especially bountiful, the average running as high as sixty bushels of corn, twenty-five of wheat and seventy-five of oats to the acre. Mr. Jett manifests a pardonable pride in his work, and it is conceded by all that he is a natural farmer. He was reared to the work on his father's place, but that alone would not be sufficient to inculcate in him the talent for making a given spot of ground yield more than any other man can coax from it.

Mr. Jett was born in Scott county, Virginia, on January 2, 1882, and was there educated in the public schools. He continued to live there until 1904, when he came to Grant county, and since then has spent the most of the time in Mill township. He has been farming independently since he first came to the county, and though he is not yet a landowner, it is safe to say that the time will come when he will control some land of his own.

Full details relative to the family of Mr. Jett are to be found in the biographical sketch of Gam Jett, so that only the briefest facts con¬ cerning him need be set forth here. He is the fourth child in a family of five sons and three daughters, of which number there are as yet three unmarried sons. The mother and certain of the younger children are yet residing on the fine old family plantation in Scott county, Virgina, and Mr. Jett, with a brother Gam Jett, mentioned above, are the only two residents of Indiana.

Mr. Jett was married in his native county to Miss Jodil Lee Wolfe, who was bora on August 28, 1886, and who was reared and educated in the county of her birth. She is a daughter of George and Rebecca (Wilhelm) Wolfe, long residents of Virginia and natives of the state, where they have spent their lives in the farming industry. In 1908 Mr. and Mrs. Wolf moved to Tennessee, and they now live in Washington county, that state. The father is sixty-one and the mother fifty-six years of age. They are members of the Methodist Church South. The paternal grandfather of Mrs. Jett, Isaac Wolfe, was a large plantation owner of Virginia and owner of many slaves in the days before the war.

Mr. and Mrs. Jett have two children, Virginia Vance was bom on December 21, 1904, and is now in school, and Susie Eileen was bom on April 10, 1907.

Mr. Jett is a Democrat, as have been members of the family for years. His fraternal relations are with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows of Jonesboro, with both lodge and encampment affiliations. He is one of the live and active men of the community, and with his wife enjoys the sincere regard of a wide circle of friends.

Dr. Abner D. Kimball. Few men of the past generation in Grant county, Indiana, have been more sorely missed or more sincerely mourned than the late Dr. Abner D. Kimball. He is not only missed because of his high professional ability but also because of his splendid personality and the gifts that won him the friendship of the entire county. He bore the reputation of being one of the most skillful surgeons in the state of Indiana, but he had another reputation of which he was much prouder and that was of having the ability of winning everyone for his friend. For many years he was closely identified with the interests of Marion, Indiana, being chief surgeon of the Marion branch of the National Mili¬ tary Home, and he took an active part in the life of the people of Marion.

Dr. Abner Kimball was bom in Coshocton county, Ohio, on the 24th of January, 1839, the son of Moses and Louisa (Powell) Kimball. His father was a native of Coshocton county also, but his mother was a Southern woman, having been born near Richmond, Virginia. The Kimball family were of English origin and two brothers settling in New Hampshire or Connecticut early in the eighteenth century founded the family in the United States. Moses Kimball lived in the state of Ohio until 1850 when he removed with his family to Miami county, Indiana, and there resided until 1872, when he went yet further west and settled in Wilson county, Kansas. There he died in 1886. The children of Moses and Louisa Kimball were nine in number, as follows: Abner D., Henry, Thomas C., Millard, Charles, Frank, Henrietta, Nancy and Harriet.

Dr. Abner D. Kimball grew up on the farm of his father, acquiring his elementary education in the schools of Miami and Grant counties, Indiana. He then attended the high school in Marion and then took up the study of medicine with Dr. Frazier, of Converse, Indiana. This was in 1857, and during the following winter he attended his first course of lectures in Rush Medical College, at Chicago. During 1859 and 1860 he attended his second course of lectures and in the spring of 1860 he was graduated from this famous old middle west institution which has turned out so many of the best physicians and surgeons in the country.

Immediately after his graduation he began the practice of his pro¬ fession at Converse, Indiana, and here he remained until he enlisted in the fall of 1862 in the Union army. He was mustered into the service as first assistant surgeon of the Forty-eighth Indiana Infantry and later on in the course of the war he served as acting assistant surgeon of the Ninety-ninth Indiana Infantry. He served under General Sherman in the famous march to the sea and was with him during the Carolina campaign and again when the cry heard throughout the army was "On to Richmond." He was mustered out of the service at Louisville, Kentucky, on the 20th day of July, 1865.

After the war the doctor resumed his practice in Converse, Indiana, and remained there until 1884 when he removed to Marion. Here on the 20th of May, 1890, he received the appointment as chief surgeon of the Marion branch of the National Military Home for Disabled Volunteers. He held this position for many years, filling the post to the great satisfac¬ tion of both the soldiers unto whom he ministered and of those in author¬ ity who had placed him in charge. Shortly after the war in the winter of 1868-1869, Dr. Kimball took a course in surgery in Bellevue Hospital in New York City, and after that time he was always especially inter¬ ested in surgery and in the advance which that branch of medical science has made of late years, for he had seen the horrors of the crude surgery of the battlefield and realized how necessary a greater knowledge was to surgeons. He died in Marion, November 4, 1904.

Dr. Kimball was a member of the Grant County Medical Society of the Indiana State Medical Society and also of the Association of Army Surgeons of the United States. Fraternally he was a member of the Masons and was a Knight Templar in this order. He was also a member the Loyal Legion.

Dr. Kimball was married in Wabash county, Illinois, in October, 1865, to Henrietta Haupt. Mrs. Kimball was bom in Wabash county and was a daughter of Aaron Haupt. Four children were bom to the doctor and his wife, as follows : Maude, who died in infancy ; Clyde ; Nellie and Edwin, who is county auditor of Grant county, and of whom notice is given elsewhere in this volume.

Edwin H. Kimball, of Marion, one of the younger business men of that city, is at present serving efficiently as auditor of Grant county. He is a native of Indiana and has lived during the greater part of his life in Grant county, where he has won a place for himself in the affec¬ tionate regard of the citizens of the community.

The Kimball family is one of the best known in this section of Indi¬ ana, the father of Edwin H. Kimball, Dr. A. D. Kimball being one of the most popular men in this part of the state, Dr. Abner Daniel Kim¬ ball was born in Coshocton, Ohio, and lived in Grant county, Indiana for many years. He was a man of great nobility of character and was a friend to men of all classes, winning deserved popularity through his kindness of heart and generosity of spirit. He married Henrietta Haupt, who was a native of the state of Illinois. They became the parents of four children. Maude, the eldest, is now deceased, Clyde lives in Wabash county, Indiana, Nellie P. Kimball, of Marion and Edwin H. Dr. Kim¬ ball died on the 4th of November, 1904.

Edwin H. Kimball was bom at Xenia, in Miami county, Indiana, on the 26th of September, 1874. He later came to Marion with his par¬ ents and here he received his elementary education, being graduated from the high school in Marion. He then entered the Indiana Medical Col¬ lege, with the intention of making medicine his profession. His studies were interrupted during his first year, however, by the outbreak of the Spanish-American war, and his enlistment in the medical corps. After the war was over he took up the study of dentistry, and was graduated from the Indiana Dental College in 1901.

Returning to Marion he began the practice of dentistry and for twelve years he was a successful practitioner in his home city. In 1911 he was elected auditor of Grant county, and assumed office in 1912. He has served in this office since that time to the entire satisfaction of the residents of this county.

In politics Mr. Kimball is a member of the Republican party. He is a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and of the Knights of Pythias. He also belongs to the Sons of Veterans and to the Spanish-American War Veterans Association. In religious mat¬ ters he is a member of the Presbyterian church, and his college fraternity is Delta Sigma Delta, which is a professional fraternity. He is a member of the Elks, No. 195, of Marion.

Josiah T. Walthall is a general farmer and stock raiser of Mill township and the owner of a finely improved and well kept farm. He confines his activities principally to stock, which he feeds for the market, and his success has been pleasing to contemplate. Immense barns and other buildings, with a fine farm home, comprise the improvements he has wrought along these lines, and everywhere is Mr. Walthall known for an enterprising and successful farming man. He has spent twentyfive years on his present place, and displays a pardonable pride in his achievements as farmer and stock man.

William A. Walthall was reared in the state of his birth and there married a native daughter of the same state. Their family was prac¬ tically reared when they came to Clinton county, Ohio, and there the aged folks died at the home of their son, David Walthall. Though it is not known what was their exact age at the time of their passing, it is a fact that they were well advanced in years. They were Quakers, and were the parents of four sons and three daughters, named Thomas, William, Daniel, David, Martha, Elizabeth and one other. Of these all but one is deceased, and all but one or two married and left children.

David Walthall was born in Virginia in the year 1828, as nearly as can be ascertained, and he was quite a lad when the family migrated to Ohio and there settled in Clinton county. Their farm was near the Quaker meeting house of their community. When David Walthall reached man's estate he succeeded duly to the old home place of his father, and they passed their closing years with him in the home that they had provided years before. He improved the place in many ways as time passed, and was there married to Miss Louise Carter, who was born and reared in Clinton county. She came of a well known Virginia family of Carters, who came as pioneers to Clinton county, and there ended their days. In 1868 David Walthall brought his wife and children to Grant county, where he believed he would find better conditions for a man of his position and they located without much delay on the Jesse Winslow farm in Fairmount township. Some years later he and his wife went to Kansas to live, and there the father died in 1894. His widow, who yet survives, has her home in Nebraska with one of their sons and she is now eighty-four years of age. They were lifelong Quakers, and the mother still is faithful in her adherence to the church of her birth.

Josiah T. Walthall was born in Clinton county, Ohio, on June 9, 1864, and he was but four years of age when his parents came to Grant county to make their home. He was reared to farm life, and was given such education as the country schools of his community afforded. In early manhood he began farming activities on his own account and all his life has been spent in devotion to that enterprise. The farm he occupies today was the first one he owned, and he came into possession of it almost a quarter of a century ago. As has been stated previously, he has enjoyed a pleasing success in his chosen enterprise, and is pros¬ perous and prominent in the township.

Mr. Walthall was married in Mill township to Miss Rhoda J. Harris, a native of Mill township and the daughter of Rev. David and Rachael (Wyandt) Harris, relative to whom a sketch will be found immediately following this brief review, so that further mention of the parents of Mrs. Walthall is not necessary at this juncture.

Mr. and Mrs. Walthall have two children, Telfer D., now living at home, unmarried, and a graduate of the Fairmount Acadeniy, and H. Delight, who, after finishing with her course in the grade schools of her home town, pursued an oratorical course in the Marion Normal Institute. She is now the wife of J. LeRoy Farrington and resides in Howard county. They have one daughter, Beatrice R., born on November 6, 1911.

Rev. David Harris. The Harris family of which Rev. David Harris is a representative comes of fine old North Carolina stock, Quakers all and for the most part farming people. They are a family of Scotch and English ancestry, and it is an established fact that the first of the name came to these shores prior to the Revolutionary war period. On their native heath they were Quakers of the Fox stamp, and on settling in North Carolina they helped to organize the church there.

The paternal grandfather of Rev. David Harris was Rev. Obediah Harris, born about 1775, and he was reared to farm life in his home community. He early gave himself to the work of the church of the Friends, becoming a minister, and he was one of the most influential churchmen of his day, laboring long and faithfully in the spiritual behalf of his fellows, in whatever community he found himself. He was known to be an earnest worker and one devoted to his calling. It is said of him that so deeply engrossed in his work was he that he has been known to preach aloud in his sleep. While yet a resident of North Carolina he met and married his wife, a North Carolina girl, and all their children were bora in their native state. Indeed, they prac¬ tically grew up there.

Among their children were Thomas, of whom further mention is made later; David; John; Jonathan; Susanna; Rachael; and of his second marriage there was one child, Jesse. All these children reached years of maturity ; all married and reared families and died in advanced age ; all were birthright Quakers ; and all but Jonathan died in Indiana, he having ended his days in North Carolina.

Obediah Harris with his family came north in about 1820, bring¬ ing with them all their worldly goods. They made the long trip in the primitive fashion of the day, riding slowly by day and camping out at night, and they finally brought up in Wayne county where they settled on Government land just north of New Garden. Mr. Harris hewed a little home out of the wilderness there, and when the Indians began to harass the white settlers and they fled to Richmond for a refuge, he continued at his work in the forest and field, trusting in God and His promises, and enjoying complete immunity from the annoy¬ ance that many of his acquaintances were subjected to at the hands of the Redmen.

For many years Rev. Harris preached in that section of the country, and he was a member of a committee for years that helped in the building of a goodly number of churches throughout the state. He organized many of them single handed, and when he died at his Wayne county home, full of years and secure in the knowledge of a life well spent in the interests of his fellows, he was truly mourned by all who had come within the sphere of his radiant influence. He was past eighty when he passed on, and a portrait done of him in the latter years of his life showed him to be a man of magnificent physique, and a patriarch of the old Colonial type, dressed in the garb peculiar to a period of half a century previous.

Thomas Harris, the father of the subject of this review, was bora in North Carolina in about 1878. He was reared there and he also took unto himself a wife in that state. She was Mary, the daughter of George Shugart, of an old North Carolina family, and without exception, mem¬ bers of the Friends church. Some years after his marriage Thomas Harris accompanied others of his family to the North, the party includ¬ ing his parents and those of his wife, the journey north being made in the early twenties, as has previously been intimated. Their children also were with them, and they stopped in Wayne county for some years moving on to Grant county in 1832 or thereabout. Here they entered land in Franklin township, and Thomas Harris rode horseback all the way to Fort Wayne to make entry of these lands at the land office there. He added lands to his original holdings from time to time, paying $2.50 an acre for much of it, until he finally held four hundred acres in his own right. It is a fact that he lived to see that most of it developed and improved, and he ended his days on one of his farms, on October 4, 1870. His church home was the Deer Creek Monthly Meeting, as this Quaker association was called, and he was always an ardent and sincere Quaker. His first wife died at the old "Franklin township home on December 23, 1862, when she was perhaps sixty-three years of age. She was a devout Christian woman and a Quaker also. She was the mother of the twelve children of her husband.

Rev. David Harris is the tenth child of nine sons and three daughters bora to his parents. All lived to mature years, two sons dying when they had just passed their majority, and neither being married. All the others married and became the parents of children. Those now living are as follows: Mrs. Mary Osborne, a widow living in Jonesboro, and past eighty-six years of age. Zachariane, a resident of Colorado City, Color¬ ado, who has a family. Thomas J., a widower of Eudora, Kansas. David, mentioned later, and Newton, now living on the old homestead in Franklin township, where he has proved himself a practical and suc¬ cessful farmer.

David Harris was born in Franklin township on November 26, 1838. He was reared on the home farm, and there and on his present place of 100 acres in Sections 30 and 31, Mill township, he has spent prac¬ tically all of his days. His is a fine and well improved place, and it has represented his home since about 1862. The house, a commodious and well appointed ten room dwelling, was built by him and overlooks the old Kokomo pike, while his barns and other buildings of a like nature indi¬ cate unmistakably that he is quite as good a farmer as he is a preacher. For it is a fact that Rev. Harris has been an active and enthusiastic laborer and preacher in the church for more than thirty years, and has carried his evangelical work far into the western states. He has done splendid work in the matter of organizing new churches in Kansas and Nebraska, and his influence has been felt perhaps in a wider circle than any other man in the community.

Rev. Harris was married in Center township to Miss Rachel Viand, born in Carroll county, Ohio, on September 29, 1838. She came to Grant county in 1842 with her parents, Harrison and Rachel (Betty) Viand, who settled upon and improved a new farm in Center township, and there lived until they were well advanced in years, death coming to them there. They were members of the United Brethren church.

Mrs. Harris died at her home in Mill township, on March 6, 1910. It should be said that she was one of eleven children of her parents, all deceased with the exception of one son.

To Mr. and Mrs. Harris were born six children, concerning whom brief mention is here set forth as follows : Elmira is the wife of Clinton W. Hacket, a farmer of Mill township, and their children are Leona and George B. Hacket.

Elam H. is now living, but his health is very poor, and his condi¬ tion has been precarious for some time. He was married in Centre township to Clara McNair, and they have one living son, Earl. Another son died in infancy.

Rhoda J. is the wife of Josiah T. Walthall, one of the prominent men of Jonesboro, and of whom a complete family sketch precedes this review of the Harris family.

Ansel R. is engaged in the revenue service and is well known in his branch of the service for the excellent work he has performed. He now has his headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. He married Winnie B. Jones and they have one son, Herbert Harris.

David has been for some years in the Internal Revenue Service, but lately resigned and now malqps his home with his father. He married Minnie C. Cox, and their children are Vivian and Gathal. The father and his sons are solid Republicans in their politics and citizens of a worthy type, well thought of in their communities and well worthy of the confidence and esteem their fellows accord to them.

Leander C. Beshore. The Beshore-Whisler relationship in Grant county is a large and important one and there are several names that might be chosen around which to group a biographical sketch. For this purpose has been taken the name of Mr. Leander Cass Beshore, now enjoying quiet retirement from a long and active business career at Marion.

When Peter and Mary (Whisler) Beshore left their home in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1837, in company with the family of Jacob Whisler, they were enroute to Illinois - not to find better neighbors and friends, but to begin life in a new country where opportunity was better for them. When the party reached Marion, they liked the country and decided to stay awhile, and the journey to Illinois is yet in the future.

The above mentioned Mrs. Beshore was a daughter of Mrs. Whisler (See J. L. Whisler sketch). When the Whisler family left the old home in Pennsylvania, all but one daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Hoffman, accom¬ panied them. Besides Mrs. Beshore, Mrs. Martha Weaver and Mrs. Catherine Matchett were well known women, and Mrs. Weaver is now the remnant in her generation of this pioneer Whisler family. The sons in the Whisler household were : Martin, Jacob, Henry and Samuel.

Peter Beshore was one of three brothers who lived in Pennsylvania, Fred, Benjamin and himself. When he came west little was ever known afterwards of his relatives. The family name Beshore is French, and aside from these two brothers nothing is known locally of the Beshore family ancestry. Fred Beshore located in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he engaged in the iron manufacture, and his son Fred is the only Beshore relative who ever visited in Grant county.

It was one full generation in advance of the first railway train that the Whisler-Beshore emigrant train reached Marion, and the whole party liked the country, and none have since regretted the decision to stop on the Mississinewa in Grant county. The Whisler family history is now inseparable from Grant county history, the family having left its mark on the community. The children born to Peter and Mary Beshore know so much more of their Whisler ancestry than of their Beshore genealogy, because almost the entire Whisler family came west while the father alone represented his family, and died before they were old enough to know anything of his relatives. Peter Beshore died in 1862 while Mrs. Beshore was spared to rear her children, dying in 1889 at Marion, and thus there are more of the Whislers than of the Beshores in the family history.

When they came to Grant county Mr. and Mrs. Peter Beshore had one son, Jacob, who married Sarah McKinney, and who is represented by one son, George Beshore. The children born later are mentioned as follows: Mrs. Elizabeth Acker, wife of Isaac Acker, and her daughters are Mrs. Della Stewart and Mrs. Alice Pierce; Van Deman Beshore, deceased; Samuel Benton Beshore, who married Lavina Morrow (see sketch of Fred L. Beshore), Leander Cass Beshore; Mrs. Martha Beshore Ives, wife of Henry Ives, and they have two sons, Glen, deceased, and Samuel Ives; Henry L. Beshore, who married Catherine Wiser, and Hiram Beshore, who married Evangeline Johnson.

The Whisler-Beshore family had allied themselves with the Demo¬ cratic party; but when the Civil war came on, three of the Beshore brothers - Jacob, Samuel B. and Leander C. Beshore enlisted, and they were so much interested in Lincoln and the cause he represented that all of them afterward voted the Republican ticket, until temperance became the paramount issue. Then Mr. L. C. Beshore, the only survivor of this soldier trio, still had the courage of his convictions and in 1898 began voting for the Prohibition candidate and was the first candidate for mayor on the Prohibition ticket in Marion.

On January 18, 1872, Mr. Leander C. Beshore married Miss Elizabeth St. John. The marriage was celebrated at Carthage, Missouri, although they had grown up together and had been sweethearts before her parents moved to Carthage. She was a daughter of Abel Fitch and Margaret (Burke) St. John, her father, who was a brother to Judge R. T. and Dr. John St. John, died at Colorado Springs, where the family lived for some years, and her mother came to end her days in the home of Mrs. Beshore. Mrs. St. John is the woman wearing the white shirt waist in the octogenarian group shown in the special octogenarian chapter. Three sons were born to Mr. and Mrs. L. C. Beshore: Glen F., who died in infancy; Charles St. John, who married Ada Lenox, and has one son, Charles Lenox Beshore ; Harry Lee, who married Alta May Myers. The two sons have succeeded to the stove and tinware business established in 1870 by their father, and thus for more than forty years the name Beshore has been continuously in the Marion business directory. Both Mr. and Mrs. L. C. Beshore well remember ante-bellum social conditions, although there were school advantages to be had in Marion at that time, their own children have had much better opportunities. While Charles S. Beshore preferred entering business to having a college education, Harry L. Beshore graduated from the department of electrical engineering at Purdue University, and for a time was in the employ of the Edison Electric Company in Chicago before entering partnership relations in the Beshore Stove and Tinware Store. In the future as in the past, the Beshore name will remain in the business directory.

Now that L. C. Beshore has leisure from active business he has traveled considerable, and for several years he and his wife have spent their winters in warmer climates, but in summer time Indiana is good enough for them. In the last decade they have spent six winters in Florida and four in California. While Marion friends come first, Mr. and Mrs. Beshore have pleasant acquaintances all over the United States, among families who spend their winters in Florida or California. Although retired from active business, Mr. Beshore takes hold of any work where he is needed, and having learned the tinner's trade early in life there are few things he cannot do in building or repairing prop¬ erty. His investments are chiefly in rental property, and he saves much expense by doing necessary improvements himself.

While the father of the Beshore family was not spared to rear his children, the mother was unfailing and she rounded out her days in the home of her son, Mr. Beshore, who had both his mother and mother-inlawr in his family and enjoyed the relations. While his parents located east of Marion in 1837, they afterwards removed to Pipe Creek west of town, and it wTas there that he learned to know many of the Indians. They were neighbors to Jim Sassafras (see chapter on Indians) and one time they traded horses, but the Indian rued the bargain and rather than have difficulty with him, the father of L. C. Beshore traded back. While growing up among them, Mr. Beshore became so used to the Indians that he was never afraid of them. All the Beshore children attended school at Roseburg, and the first time Mr. Beshore ever saw

Samuel Barrier, whose farmstead is in that vicinity, the latter was chop¬ ping down a mammoth red oak tree, and just beginning to make the farm now known to all as one of the largest estates in Grant county. Through many years of subsequent business acquaintance with Mr. Burner, Mr. Beshore always associated the man with the gigantic tree he felled the first time he ever saw him.

The Beshore family home has always been on Branson Street, although the present commodious house is modern and occupies the site of the Ernst Guenin homestead where so many curios were found, and so much valuable hardwood lumber was in storage. Charles S. Beshore occupies a modern home on West Third Street, while Harry L. Beshore has a bungalow of California pattern on South Washington Street. The Beshores designed their own improvements, and besides valuable business property still in his possession, Mr. Beshore has some fortunate real estate investments (See chapter on Realty). In early life Mr. and Mrs. Beshore were identified with the First M. E. Church, when its house of worship was on Fifth Street, and for twenty years Mr. Beshore served as secretary-treasurer of the Sunday school there, seldom being absent from his post of duty. It was while T. D. Tharp was superin¬ tendent, and subsequent officials do not serve so many years.

When the "Crusade" was at its height in Marion in 1873, Mr. Beshore used to warm bricks on the old-fashioned box stove with which he heated his store, and around which chairs always stood for the use of customers. When the woman Crusaders had warmed themselves, they would carry warm bricks through the streets while guarding saloon entrances, and one Marion business man warned him against thus accommodating the temperance women, but he never lost any patronage from the act. Mrs. Beshore is in the group of women shown in the Crusade picture in the chapter "Temperance Movement," and she remembers well how faithfully the women of Marion kept up their temperance agitation. Some of the best women in the town are shown in that picture.

Fred L. Beshore. Everybody knew the late "Laddy" Beshore, whose full name was Samuel Benton Beshore, and one of the most highly esteemed men in the community. For many years he conducted a model grocery store at Marion, and his part in community life well entitled him to the recognition of history.

Samuel B. Beshore and Lavina Morrow (see Morrow family) were married in 1872. Her death occurred in 1890 and Samuel B. Beshore passed away in 1911. Four children were born to them. Fred L., Frank M. (who married Emily Gould), and Harry B. Beshore. The sons are associated together in the "B" cigar store, where they enjoy splendid patronage. Their sister, Mary Louise (wife of Wiley M. Heaslett), lives in Long Beach, California. The second wife of S. B. Beshore, Mrs. Laura Beshore, survives him.

The family record of the late S. B. Beshore is given quite fully in the account of the Beshore-Whisler family under the name of L. C. Beshore elsewhere in this volume. The war record of "Laddy" Beshore, like his civilian record, was that of a good soldier as well as good citizen. He was interested in community affairs, and although he once removed with his family to California, conditions in Indiana suited him better, and Marion was again the home of the family. Mr. Beshore served three years in the Civil war, in the Thirty- fourth Indiana Regiment, after which he was transferred to the One Hundred and Fifty-third, with which regiment he remained until the end of the war, and received an honorable discharge from the service.

Both Fred L. and Frank M. Beshore inherited the patriotism of their father. One was adjutant of the Third Battalion, while the other was second lieutenant in Company A of the One Hundred and Sixtieth Indiana Volunteer Regiment in 1898, during the Spanish- American war. Both accompanied their command to Cuba and spent one year in the service. The Beshore brothers are interested in community affairs, and while they come of pioneer ancestry their own lives are before them. They have a large circle of acquaintances, and enjoy the confidence of the community. Their parents belonged to the Methodist church and they themselves affiliate with the same denomination. They are all posted on politics, and plan to be up to date in everything. F. L. Beshore has traveled extensively, and yet he is interested in local devel¬ opments, and likes to see and help Grant county get ahead in the world.