Doctor Harrod is a son of Morgan and Belinda (Beam) Harrod, the former of whom was born in Knox County, Ohio, in 1826, and the latter of whom was born in Indiana in 1832. Morgan Harrod was reared and educated in the old Buckeye State, and was a young man when he established his residence in Allen County, Indiana. Here he engaged in farm enterprise and he eventually became the owner of a large and valuable farm estate in this county. Upon retiring from his farm he established his residence in Fort Wayne, the county seat, and he was one of the honored pioneer citizens of this county at the time of his death, in 1909, he having passed away at the venerable age of eighty-three years. His widow passed the closing period of her life in the home of her son, Dr. Morse Harrod, of this review, was eighty-four years of age at the time of her death and was loved by all who had come within the sphere of her gentle influence during the long years of her residence in Allen County. Morgan Harrod was influential in community affairs while residing on his farm in Marion Township and was called upon to serve in various offices of local trust. His political support was given to the Democratic party, he was affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and he and his wife were members of the Methodist Church. Of the family of eight sons and three daughters six of the sons and one daughter are living.
Doctor Harrod has never had a cause to regret the constructive and invigorating discipline that he gained on the home farm in the period of his boyhood and early youth, and he there remained until he had attained to his legal majority. The public schools of Allen County afforded him his early education, which was supplemented by a collegiate preparatory course. In preparation for his chosen profession he entered the Eclectic Medical College in the City of Cincinnati, Ohio., this being one of the oldest and most important institutions of the eclectic system of medical science in the entire West. He was graduated as a member of the class of 1891, received his degree of Doctor of Medicine January 10th of that year, and on the 1st of the following June he opened his office in the City of Fort Wayne, where he has continued in active general practice during the long intervening years, with inviolable place in communal confidence and esteem and with well earned standing as one of the representative physicians and surgeons of Allen County. He has membership in the Allen County Medical Society, in the Eclectic State Medical Association of Indiana, and the National Eclectic Medical Association, of which he had the distinction of being the president in the year 1923. He is a member of the medical staff of Saint Joseph Hospital, and he served as county coroner of Allen County in the period of 1892-96.
Loyal and progressive as a citizen, Doctor Harrod is found staunchly arrayed in the ranks of the Democratic party. He is a zealous member of the First Baptist Church of Fort Wayne, as was also his wife, now deceased, and in the Masonic fraternity his fundamental affiliation is with Summit City Lodge, A. F. and A. M., while in the Scottish Rite he has received the thirty-second degree.
On the 31st of May, 1889, was solemnized the marriage of .Doctor Harrod to Miss Jennie Lipes, who likewise was born and reared in Allen County and who here passed her entire life, she having entered into eternal rest October 25, 1925. Of the children of this union
the eldest is Camilla, who was graduated in the Fort Wayne High School, and who is the wife of Sidney H. Karn, of this city, their children being Jean Elizabeth and Alice Marie. Wayne Allen, next in order of birth, was graduated in the local high school and later in the Guggenheim School of Mines at Golden, Colorado, he being a mining engineer by profession and vocation and being now a resident of Los Angeles, California. Velma June is a graduate of the Fort Wayne High School, and of a kindergarten school in Toledo, Ohio, becoming a popular teacher in the kindergarten department of the Fort Wayne public schools, and a popular figure in the social and cultural life of her native city. She is the wife of Kenneth Archibald, of Fort Wayne.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
HERMAN WAGNER, of South Bend, is a division manager for the Standard Oil Company of Indiana. He has the supervision of the sales and business of this corporation in a district comprising fully a third of the State of Indiana.
Mr. Wagner has been with the Standard Oil Company since 1912. Prior to that he was in the ranks of professional baseball.
He was born in Monroe, Michigan, August 3, 1883, and grew up and received his public school education in Toledo, Ohio. He was graduated from high school there in 1901. As a schoolboy he had attracted attention by his proficiency as a ball player, and he played with several professional teams. For five years he was manager of the Kalamazoo ball team.
When he first joined the Standard Oil Company, in 1912, it was at Kalamazoo. He was a salesman there for the company three years, and was next transferred to Battle Creek, Michigan, as lubricating engineer and salesman, and while there was promoted to district superintendent, a post held for two and a half years. He was then made assistant manager of the Grand Rapids division, and made his home at Grand Rapids for one year. His next transfer took him to St. Joseph, Missouri, where he was manager of the North Kansas and Missouri division. Mr. Wagner has always been much interested in aviation developments, and while in St. Joseph was president of the Aeronautic Association. In 1925 he worked out a system of air way marking, which was subsequently adopted and has been put in use throughout the United States.
Mr. Wagner in October, 1926, accepted a change which in reality is a distinctive promotion in the official rank of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana. Since that time he has been at South Bend as manager of the Northern Indiana division. The territory under his supervision extends as far south as Lafayette. His headquarters are at the corner of Wayne and Lafayette streets in South Bend.
Mr. Wagner is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and has membership in Moila Temple of the Mystic Shrine at St. Joseph, Missouri. He has a great number of friends in all the cities where he has been located for any length of time. He is a very popular and genial business man, always interested in civic affairs, and is a booster for his home community. Mr. Wagner married, September 3, 1913, Miss Rachael Whaler, of Bay City, Michigan. They have two children: Charles Norval, born March 8, 1918, and Jane Christene, born September 21, 1920.
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INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
MRS. JOHN I. GWIN, one of Indiana's most prominent Democratic leaders, is a resident of Rensselaer, and her name has been associated with political and social service work there in many capacities. She is now county attendance officer for the public schools.
Mrs. Gwin was born at Joliet, Illinois. Her father, Thomas McGowan, was an Illinois farmer and a Republican in politics, having cast his first vote for Lincoln and adhered to the allegiance thus fixed from that time until his death in 1925. Thomas McGowan from Illinois moved to Jasper County, Indiana, and was at one time marshal of the town. On March 23, 1896, he was ordered to take a census, his returns indicating a population of 2,142, exclusive of those who had become residents within forty days. An election was held April 13, 1896, at which a majority voted in favor of incorporating Rensselaer as a city and Thomas McGowan thus appears as one of the first officials of the newly incorporated municipality.
He married Miss Laura Burson, of an old Virginia family. The McGowans were originally Scotch.
Mrs. John I. Gwin was well educated and as a young woman taught school and since her marriage has found many opportunities for the expression of her sincere interest in humanity by work in the Presbyterian Church and in various forms of social effort.
She was married, November 29, 1899, to Mr. John I. Gwin, at that time deputy county treasurer of Jasper County. For a time they lived at Hanging Grove, but since 1910 Mr. Gwin has been in the lumber business.
Mrs. Gwin during the World war was a member of the local Council of Defense. Her social welfare efforts have been mainly directed to child welfare work. For ten years she has been a member of the Board of Children's Guardians. Her political leadership dates conspicuously from the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. After women received the privilege of voting in national elections
she was appointed vice chairman of the Democratic party for the Tenth District and two years later was elected district chairman, being the first woman in the United States to hold such an office in one of the major political parties. She was chairman six years, and her work brought her a high degree of prestige in the party not only in Indiana but elsewhere. Mrs. Gwin is member of a number of educational and civic organizations, including the Literary Club, the League of Women Voters, Eastern Star and for two years was teacher of group leaders in international relations. She is a member of the Jasper County Historical Society, of which she has been secretary, and she was one of the two women appointed on the board of nine comprising the Lincoln Memorial Commission.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
WILLIAM J. FORRESTER is a resident of Warren County, where his business, activities and his citizenship have made him very favorably known. He is at the present time tax assessor of Liberty Township. His home is at Carbondale.
He was born at Sunbury, Pennsylvania, August 18, 1862, son of Henry M. and Susanna (Farr) Forrester. His father died in 1900 and his mother in 1908. His father spent all his life as a Pennsylvania farmer. There were six children in the family: Smith B., George M. and Jacob D., all of whom live in Pennsylvania; Andrew J., a Presbyterian minister in New York State; Charles W., of Pennsylvania; and William J.
William James Forrester attended school in his native state, learned the trade of carpenter, and coming to Indiana in 1880, followed his trade as his occupation for a number of years. He also did business as a fencing contractor. He has had his home in Warren County for many years and in 1922 was elected township tax assessor, and has given most of his time to a careful administration of this office, an administration that means so much to the individual taxpayers and who have found his work eminently satisfactory.
Mr. Forrester married Mrs. Mattie Morgan, who was born at Yorktown, Illinois. They have one daughter, Miss Blanche, a resident of Indianapolis, and well known as an industrial and social worker and lecturer, and is now president of the Y. W. C. A. Mr. Forrester is a Republican in politics and a member of the Knights of Pythias.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
WILLIAM FENTON MORRIS, who is chief of the Peru fire department, was one of the fire fighters of the city when he resigned to serve the Government at the time of the World war. He has had many business connections with industries at Peru and other Northern Indiana cities, and is a man of executive ability and is well qualified for his important post in the city government.
Mr. Morris was born in Pipe Creek Township, Miami County, Indiana, November 9, 1878, son of James D. and Emma E. (Lewis) Morris. His father was a native of West Virginia and came to Indiana about 1875. William F. Morris is one of a family of seven children. He was only a boy when his father died and at an early age was thrown into the struggle of life and dependent upon his own initiative. He attended grade and high schools and has been a worker since he was sixteen years of age. His first employment was in a sawmill and at the age of twenty- one he became a sheet metal worker, spending several years in the Peru plant of the Indiana Manufacturing Company. In 1912 he was made assistant chief of the Peru fire department, and served until 1918, when he resigned to enter the Government service at the Liberty Press Metal Company at Kokomo. This plant had a contract for making aeroplane bombs and he was there from January, 1918, to January, 1919.
After this he remained at Kokomo until 1922 connected with one of the automobile industries there, in his specialty as a sheet metal worker. On returning to Peru he was appointed foreman of the sheet metal department of the Modern Refrigerator Company, which later became the American Refrigerator Company. He was also in the sheet metal department of the Bryan Steam Corporation, leaving this work to become chief of the fire department in January, 1930.
Peru has one of the best fire departments of any city of its size in Northern Indiana. There are two fire houses, five pieces of modern equipment, all motor driven, and there are twenty men in the department. Mr. Morris is a member of the Indiana Fire Chiefs Association. He is affiliated with the Fraternal Order of Eagles and has been a precinct committeeman in the Democratic party.
He married Miss Irene May Jackson, a native of Miami County; and of old Southern stock, her people having been related to the distinguished Jackson families of Virgina. Her father was O. D. Jackson, and the Jackson family came to Indiana about 1830. Mr. and Mrs. Morris have two children, Frederick Ralph, now in business at Peru, and Esther Louise.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
EDWARD D. RHOADES, who from the standpoint of years of service is one of the oldest business men of Rensselaer, is senior partner of E. D. Rhoades & Son, a commercial house with a trade throughout Jasper County, dealers in hardware, stoves and ranges and builders' hardware, and with a special department for plumbing and heating installation.
Mr. Rhoades was born in the State of Maine, April 11, 1854, son of Charles and Mary Ann (Duran) Rhoades. His father was also a native of the Pine Tree State, was a harness maker by trade, and after coming to Indiana was in business at Rensselaer until his death at the age of eighty-four. There were seven children in the family, the daughter Mary dying at the age of seven. Three of sons were soldiers in the Civil war, William H., a first lieutenant, Charles was killed in action and Marshall D. The other children were Mandy, Carolyn and Edward D.
Edward D. Rhoades was educated in public schools and was fifteen years of age when his business training began in a practical form as clerk in a store. In 1899 he set up in business for himself, and has sold goods at Rensselaer for thirty-two consecutive years. He has made a success by close application to his work, but has not neglected the calls for his time and interest in the public welfare. He has been a town trustee and member of the City Council and president of the local cemetery board. He served as postmaster of Rensselaer under President Harrison. He is a Republican, a Presbyterian, and is a charter member of the Knights of Pythias and the oldest living member of the Independent Order of Odd fellows at Rensselaer, and also belongs to the Masonic fraternity.
Mr. Rhoades married, September 6, 1880, Miss Lora Helen Hopkins, daughter of R. J, and Priscilla (Babb) Hopkins. They have two children, Lillian and Leonard. Lillian is the wife of A. C. Horton, of Cincinnati, and by a former marriage has three children, Margaret Radcliff, Lora Helen Radcliff and Edward Radcliff.
Leonard Rhoades, the business partner of his father in Rhoades & Son, was born in Rensselaer, attended school there and after graduating from high school found employment in his father's store and made himself the trusted lieutenant of his father. He is a popular young business man, is a Royal Arch Mason and a Republican in politics. Leonard Rhoades married Ruth Harris, daughter of R. B. and Elizabeth (Brown) Harris. They were married April 22, 1908, and have a daughter, Lora E., born April 26, 1916, now attending high school at Rensselaer.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
C. OMER ROWLAND, postmaster of Portland, was born and reared and has spent all his life in Jay County. He has had an interesting diversity of experience, is a well qualified business man, and for a number of years was one of the leading educators of his county.
Four generations of the Rowland family have lived in Indiana, beginning with his great-grandfather, Michael Rowland, who was born in New York State, in August, 1801. His home was within twelve miles of Buffalo and he grew up within the sound of Niagara Falls. In 1823 he married Mary Willett, of New York, and in 1838 they moved west to Jay County, Indiana. Until their own home was constructed they lived in a little log cabin just east of Camden, now Pennville. Their own log cabin home was built along Brooks Creek, a stream named after the first settler in the western part of Jay County.
One of the eleven children of Michael and Mary Rowland was Samuel Rowland, who was twelve years old when the trip was made by covered wagon from New York State to Indiana. He grew up along Brooks Creek, and on June 12, 1850, married Elizabeth Gaunt, daughter of. Joseph Gaunt, one of the early settlers of Knox Township, Jay County. Knox Township was the last township organized in Jay County, and Joseph Gaunt was one of the men who went to the county seat to bring about the organization. Some of these people wanted the township named Salamonie, but Joseph Gaunt used persuasion to get the township named Knox after his old home county of Knox in Ohio. The first township election in the new township was held at Joseph Gaunt's home. Two of the early trustees were Joseph Gaunt and Michael Rowland. Michael Rowland was elected justice, since there were not enough people to fill just one office, and he was accordingly given two. This election was held the first Monday in April, 1839. Samuel Rowland, after his marriage, lived in a part of the house of Joseph Gaunt, four and a half miles south of Pennville. He and his wife had three children, Joseph F., Michael Willett and Mary E.
Michael Willett Rowland was born in Jay County, August 31, 1858. His birthplace was a house built of walnut logs, heated by a fireplace. He grew up on the little farm of eighty acres, and with his grandfather during the summers went fishing and bathing in Brooks Creek, which ran close to the home. As his strength increased he worked on the farm in summers and attended the schools of Knox Township in winter. On August 14, 1880, he married Sarah Anna Hartman. She was then eighteen years of age, and was born in the same township, near Dunkirk, and had attended the Beaver Hill School. Her birth date was March 5, 1862.
The Hartman family were settlers in Jay County even earlier than the Rowlands. Joseph E. Hartman, who was born in Virginia, May 31, 1790, married, June 6, 1814, Elizabeth Smith, who was born February 16, 1795. In 1837 Joseph E. Hartman brought his family, consisting of thirteen children, to Jay County, locating near Dunkirk. One of his sons, James E. Hartman, was then twelve years of age and grew to manhood in the woods of Knox Township. On October 12, 1848, he married Barbara Price, who had lived near Albany in Delaware County, Indiana. James E. Hartman was a farmer, blacksmith, school teacher until 1868, when he became a partner in the general store of Robert Brotherton. He gave his daylight hours to this business, but each evening returned to his home in the country. He died March 17, 1870. James E. Hartman and his wife had a family of ten children, Augustine P., William, James B., Arthur M., Reuben S., Clara, Sarah Anna, Joseph F., one daughter that died in infancy and Mary L.
After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Michael Willett Rowland started housekeeping on the old farm that had been settled by the Gaunt family. His father, Samuel Rowland, lived with them until his death on May 23, 1883. After 1895 they lived on other farms in Knox, Greene and Jefferson townships, and on January 28, 1924, bought a home in Portland, where they resided. They became members of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Oak Grove, a little country frame church located on the Redkey and Camden Pike, five miles south of Pennville, and they retained their membership in this rural church, Mr. Rowland passing away October 31, 1931. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Rowland are: C. Omer; Irwin Ray, born February 3, 1884; Chester E., born June 22, 1886; Chloe B., born October 22, 1889; Millard B., born September 26, 1898; and Mildred P., born September 26, 1898. All the children graduated from the schools of Jay County, and Omer Rowland's three brothers have been prosperous farmers, Ray living in Randolph County and Chester and Millard in Jay County. Ray married Ava Schockney, of Union City, Chester's wife was Hazel Green, of Jay County, and Millard married Esther McCrory, of Jay County. The two daughters, Chloe and Mildred, live with their parents in Portland.
Mr. C. Omer Rowland was born July 21, 1881, and after completing the course in the common schools in Knox Township, in the spring of 1897, entered the Dunkirk High School in the fall of 1898. He remained until the beginning of his sophomore year, when he was compelled to give up his studies on account of eye trouble. During the following winter he hired out to farmers during the corn husking season and the next spring the trustee of Knox Township persuaded him to enter the Marion Normal College with a view to qualifying himself for teaching. In the fall of 1900 he began teaching district school in the township where he was born, and he alternated between teaching and attending school at Marion until he had completed the equivalent of a high school education.
On September 5, 1903, he married Forest M. Barnes, a granddaughter of James Barnes, one of the early settlers in Western Jay County. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Rowland moved to a farm in Knox Township, where he engaged in farming and also taught school until the spring of 1907. After selling his farming equipment and stock he moved to Marion, entering the business department of the Marion Normal College, and was graduated in 1909. He took charge of the commercial department of the schools at Kendallville, Noble County, Indiana, when this department was opened, but after a year and a half returned to Jay County to teach in the Dunkirk High School, where he had been a student. He was a teacher in the Dunkirk schools for seven years, and for fifteen months was employed as shipping clerk and in the cost accounting department of the Harts Bottle Company. Then for two years he was principal of the commercial department of the Dunkirk High School. He then located at Portland and in the fall of 1919 became clerk in the First National Bank there. After two years as clerk and assistant cashier he took up general insurance and public accounting as a business and profession, and this was his work until March 15, 1927, when he was appointed postmaster of Portland. Portland is a first class office and he has handled its administration with good judgment and efficiency. Mr. Rowland is a Republican, affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and he and his family are Methodists.
Mrs. Rowland's people, the Barnes family, were among the earliest settlers of Eastern Indiana. Her great-grandparents were William and Rosana Barnes. William Barnes was born in Ohio, in 1783. In the early years of the nineteenth century he moved to Indiana and took up eighty acres of Government land in what is now the heart of Muncie, Delaware County. Later this land was traded for a section near Selma in the same county. William and Rosana Barnes had the following children: Thomas, John, James, Isaac, Elmira, Winnie and Nancy. Thomas Barnes continued to live near Selma.
James Barnes, grandfather of Mrs. Rowland, was born near Selma, May 18, 1828. He grew up on the old homestead and in 1851 married Susannah Nihart. Her father, Phillip Nihart, came from Germany. The sailing vessel on which he took passage was becalmed in mid-ocean for ten days, and the passengers had to boil sea water, condensing the steam in order to secure a supply of drinking water. There were two deaths during the voyage and four births. He came over in 1827 and joined a German settlement in Pennsylvania, where he married a Dutch girl and subsequently moved to Indiana, locating six miles east of Muncie, where his daughter Susannah was born.
James Barnes and wife in 1856, accompanied by all his brothers and sisters except Thomas, moved to Knox Township, Jay County, where not long afterward William Barnes, the father, following the death of his wife, joined them. There being several families in this group a little settlement grew up known as Barnestown. Only one person by the name of Barnes is now living in that neighborhood. The four children of James and Susannah Barnes were: William and Elizabeth, whom were born in Delaware County, and Jacob Chester and Arthur, who were born in the forest where their parents settled in Jay County. James Barnes became a Union soldier, his son Jacob Chester being a very small boy at the time, and was with the colors two years, being with Sherman on the march to the sea.
Jacob Chester Barnes was born July 20, 1858 and during his boyhood the country was still close enough to wilderness conditions sothat deer came about the house and wild turkeys were plentiful. As a youth he made staves in the woods, hauling them to market at Dunkirk. He attended a district school in Knox Township. In 1880 he married Luella Cortwright, of Blackford County, member of the Cortwrights who settled in that county in pioneer times. Luella Cortwright Barnes died in May, 1913. Jacob Chester Barnes then left the farm and has since lived alone at Pennville. He and his wife had three children: Pearl, wife of Walter Armstrong, of Los Angeles; Forest; Maude, Mrs. Rowland; and Amos , who married Grace Whitaker and is now minister of the Methodist Protestant Church of Herbst in Grant County, Indiana.
Mrs. Rowland was educated in the schools of Jay County. She and Mr. Rowland have two children, Echo M. and Anna Mae. Echo M., who was born in Knox Township, June 5, 1904, attended the Dunkirk city schools through her sophomore year, is a graduate of the Portland High School, was stenographer for Bimels Spoke & Auto Wheel Company, stenographer and helper in the abstract business of Holmes & Ohmart at Portland, and for some time worked in the county recorder's office, and then took charge of the abstract work for the Citizens State Bank at Wabash. She was office clerk to Wheeler Ashcraft, judge of the bankruptcy court for this district, and is now employed as abstractor in the office of Frank White, of Portland. She was married to Chester Brubaker, September 20, 1924, and they are residents of Portland.
The younger daughter, Anna Mae, was born at Dunkirk, August 20, 1913, and is a senior in the Portland High School, a member of the, graduating class of 1931.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
