Blackford County Biography Ref. Page

WILLIAM W. BONGE. Bearing a family name that has been worthily linked with the civic and business affairs of Blackford county for more than forty years, William Washington Bonge has here maintained his home from the age of 17, and through his well ordered endeavors he has achieved distinctive success. He has done much to foster the social and material advancement and prosperity of Montpelier, the attractive little city of his home, and here he is the owner of valuable real estate, including substantial business structures and his handsome residence property. Though he has been measurably crippled since he was a lad of eight years, Mr. Bonge has not permitted this minor infirmity to interfere with his productive activities, and at all times he has stood exponent of loyal and liberal citizenship and that initiative and constructive ability that figures as the metewand of success that is deserving of its name. He has wide circle of friends in this part of the state and as one of the representative citizens of Blackford county is entitled to specific mention in this history.

William W. Bonge was born in York county, Pennsylvania, on the 28th of March, 1853, and is a son of Henry and Sarah (Mindenhall) Bonge, the former of whom was born in the State of Maryland, in the first decade of the nineteenth century, and the latter of whom was born in England, in 1813, she having been a mere child at the time of the family immigration to America and her parents having passed the residue of their lives in Pennsylvania. The father of Henry Bonge met his death by drowning in Chesapeake Bay, in the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland, and this accident had a strange origin, as he was a somnambulist and was walking in his sleep when he was precipitated into the bay and was drowned, his widow surviving him for several years. Henry Bonge was reared and educated in Maryland, and in Pennsylvania was solemnized his marriage to Miss Sarah Mindenhall, soon after which auspicious event in his life he removed with his wife to York county, Pennsylvania, where all of their ten children were born and where the family home was maintained until 1869, when removal was made to Miamisburg, Montgomery county, Ohio, from which place the family came to Blackford county, Indiana, in the following year, the home being established in Hartford City, the county seat. There Henry Bonge, in association with some of his sons, engaged in the manufacturing of cigars, and they built up an excellent trade of both wholesale and retail order, the father having also had for a time other business interests in Hartford City, where he died in December, 1881, his widow long surviving him and having been more than eighty-six years of age at the time of her death, which occurred in January, 1900. Both were folk of sterling character, earnest, industrious and unassuming, and they commanded the high regard of all who knew them, both having been communicants of the Lutheran church and Mr. Bonge having been unwavering in his allegiance to the Democratic party. Of the seven sons and three daughters two died in early childhood. The eldest of the children, George, became imbued with the wanderlust when a youth, and he traveled extensively throughout the country. He was in the South at the outbreak of the Civil war and was impressed into the Confederate service, and he was killed by the discharge of a cannon. Mrs. Clementine McCreary, the eldest of the daughters, is a widow and still resides in York county, Pennsylvania, the place of her nativity. Her husband died in 1893 and she is now eighty-five years of age (1914). Daniel who rendered valiant service as a soldier of the Union in the Civil war, in which he participated in many important engagements, and in connection with which he was captured at Winchester, Virginia, his exchange being soon afterward effected, and he now resides at Hartford City, Indiana. He has one son and three daughters. Frederick, who likewise served as a gallant soldier in the Civil war, for a period of three years, became a farmer in Blackford county and was a resident of Hartford City at the time of his death, being survived by his widow, two sons and one daughter. Sarah became the wife of Eli Miller, of York county, Pennsylvania, where her death occurred, and her husband and four children are still living. Lydia is the wife of John Spangler, a carpenter and builder of Muncie, Indiana, and they have nine children. Penroe, who is employed as a glass worker at Gas City, Grant county, Indiana, became the father of a large family of children, several of whom are living.

William W. Bonge, whose name initiates this article, was the tenth in order of birth of the ten children, and passed the days of his childhood and early youth in his native county in the old Keystone State, where he was afforded the advantages of the public schools. He was sixteen years old when he came with his parents to Blackford county, Indiana, which has represented his home during the long intervening years. In Hartford City he learned the cigarmaker's trade in the factory conducted by his father, and in 1881, when twenty-eight years of age, he established his residence at Montpelier, where he continued to be engaged in the retail liquor trade until 1901, when he disposed of his business and assumed the position of agent for the Centlivre Brewing Company of Fort Wayne. For several years he traveled as a representative of this company, and at the present time he is the local agent for the company, having supervision of its business in Montpelier and other towns in Blackford county. Through his well directed endeavors Mr. Bonge has accumulated a competency, through he lays no claim to being in affluent circumstances. In 1891 he erected the Bonge Block, on Main street, near the First National Bank of Montpelier, and this is one of the substantial and attractive business blocks of the town. In 1895 he still further manifested his civic enterprise and his loyalty to Montpelier, by erecting, on South Main street, his present commodious and attractive residence, of fourteen rooms, this being one of the fine homes of the thriving little city and being known for its generous and unostentatious hospitality. Mr. Bonge is the owner also of an excellent business block on West High street, and all these properties stand as concrete evidences of the success that he has achieved in temporal affairs.

Liberal and progressive as a citizen, Mr. Bonge has been unflagging in his support of the principles and policies of the Democratic party, and for a number of years he was a leader in its local activities, though the only public office in which he has consented to serve is that of member of the city council, a position of which he continued the incumbent for four years. He has aided materially in the development and upbuilding of his home city and here is popular in both business and social circles. He is affiliated with Montpelier Aerie, No. 441, Fraternal Order of Eagles.

In the year 1879, at Hartford City, Mr. Bonge wedded Miss Margaret McDorman, who was born in Jay county, this state, on the 20th of April, 1860, and who was there reared and educated. Of the children of this union four are living, and concerning them brief record is made in conclusion of this review. Walter F., who was born in the year 1882, completed the curriculum of the Montpelier high school and after his graduation entered Purdue University, at Lafayette, in which he was graduated in the department of pharmacy. He is now engaged in the drug business in Montpelier and is one of the progressive and popular young business men of his native city, where he is prominently affiliated with the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks and the Masonic fraternity, having served as exalted ruler of the former and in the latter having received the chivalric degrees in the commandery of Knights Templars, besides which he is identified with the Knight of Pythias. Walter F. Bonge married Miss Olive Lacy, of Montpelier, and they have one son, Walter W., who was born in 1906. Harry L., the second son, was born in 1884, and still remains at the parental home, his education discipline having been acquired in the public schools of Montpelier. Ethel who was born in 1888 and educated in the schools of her home city, is now the wife of Brooks Gutelius, and they reside at Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Mr. Gutelius is in the employ of the National Supply Company. They have two children, Thomas and Margaret Jane. Reda R., the youngest of the children, was born in 1891, was graduated in the local high school and in Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and is one of the popular young ladies of Montpelier, where she proves a gracious coadjutor of her mother in extending the hospitalities of the family home.

Blackford and Grant Counties, Indiana A Chronicle of their People Past and Present with Family Lineage and Personal Memoirs Compiled Under the Editorial Supervision of Benjamin G. Shinn
Volume I Illustrated
The Lewis Publishing Company Chicago and New York 1914
Submitted by Peggy Karol

ISRAEL G. BURRIS. There has been no parasitic element in the career of this representative citizen and influential business man of Montpelier, Blackford county, and the large and definite success which he has achieved stand in concrete evidence of the ability, zeal and discrimination with which he has directed his energies, the while he has exemplified in all of the relations of life that unswerving integrity and those high ideals that ever beget unqualified popular approbation and esteem. Mr. Burris is one of the substantial capitalists and progressive citizens of Montpelier, and he has served with marked circumspection and effectiveness as mayor of the city, his incumbency of this chief executive office of the municipal government showing conclusively the estimate placed upon him in the community.

Mr. Burris is a scion of patrician lineage in the historical old commonwealth of Virginia, where the original progenitors established their home in the colonial era of our national history, so that the name has been long, even as it has most honorably, identified with the annals of the Old Dominion. The paternal great-grandfather of Mr. Burris was born in Virginia about the time of the war of the Revolution and the lineage is traced back to sterling English origin. This worthy ancestor was reared and educated in his native commonwealth and he operated for many years the ferry across the Ohio river at Wheeling, in what is now the State of West Virginia. He was a genuine frontiersman and a pioneer of much initiative energy, his experiences having been many in the formative period of history in West Virginia and it having been his portion to attain to the patriarchal age of one hundred and seven years. One of his several children was John Burris, grandfather of him whose name initiates this review. John Burris was born at Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1793, his native state having then and having long afterward continued an integral part of Virginia. He was reared under the conditions and influences of the pioneer era in that section of the Union and there was solemnized his first marriage. There also were born two of his children, - Maria and Israel, the date of the former's nativity having been 1812, and that of the latter, 1814. Israel Burris, father of Montpelier's well known citizen, was a boy at the time of the family removal to Ohio, and his parents were pioneer settlers in Butler county, that state. His father there obtained a tract of school land, his original homestead having comprised seventy-five acres. He made a clearing in the virgin forest and after there erecting his humble log house he continued his grappling with the wilderness until he had cleared a little tract on which to plant his first crop. He eventually reclaimed and improved a productive farm, proved himself well equipped for the labors and responsibilities of the pioneer and empire builder, and he continued to reside on his old homestead until five years before his death, when he moved to Oxford. He died at the venerable age of ninety-seven years, the family having been in the various generations notable for longevity. The first wife of John Burris died in Butler county, after having become the mother of seven sons and six daughters, all of whom exemplified the sturdiness of the stock from which they sprung, as all attained to maturity and reared families of their own, with the sole exception of the eldest child, Maria, who never married but who lived to the notably advanced age of ninety years. She was a woman of strong individuality, fine intellectual gifts and gracious personality. For seventeen years she was a popular teacher in the Twelfth District school of Cincinnati, Ohio. She continued to maintain her home in the Buckeye state until the close of her long and useful life. Of the other children Stephen, Asa, Jacob, William, Melissa and Laura are still living, all being the heads of fine families and each of them having passed the psalmist's span of three score years and ten. The maiden name of the second wife of John Burris was Leach, and they had no children, Mrs. Burris attaining to advanced age. Mr. Burris and his first and second wives were zealous and influential in the pioneer activities of the Methodist Episcopal church in Ohio, and the fine old homestead place was in the vicinity of Oxford, Butler county. After he had attained to the age of ninety-two years Mr. Burris and his second wife left the old homestead farm which he had made one of the model places of Butler county, and established their home in the village of Oxford, where they lived in gracious retirement until the close of their lives, honored as noble pioneer citizens of that section of the Buckeye State. In politics Mr. Burris was originally a whig, but he transferred his allegiance to the republican party at the time of its organization and thereafter continued a staunch advocate of its principles.

Israel Burris, as previously stated, was born at Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1814. He was a boy at the time of the family removal to Butler county, Ohio, where he was reared to adult age and where his educational advantages were those afforded in the pioneer schools. At the age of seventeen years he entered upon an apprenticeship to the trade of carpenter, in which he became a specially skillful artisan, and he devoted the major part of his active career to successful enterprise as a contractor and builder. He continued his residence in Ohio until 1845, when he came with his family to Indiana and established his home at Laurel, Franklin county, a town of not a little importance at that time, as it was located on one of the canals that then constituted the main arteries of transportation in Indiana. There he engaged in the work of his trade, in the employ of Joseph Cooper, the owner of the canal. In this connection he had charge of the installing the canal gates and aqueducts. At Laurel Mr. Burris finally turned his attention to work as a millwright, and in 1868 he removed to Wawasee, Fayette county, where he found employment as millwright in the paper mills. There he continued to maintain his home until his death, which occurred on the 13th of February, 1875. He was a fine mechanic and his facility in mechanical lines far transcended the limitation of the specific trade to which he had been trained in his youth. He was a man of lofty principles and tender and generous nature, his religious convictions having been deep and sincere and both he and his wife having been most zealous and devout members of the Presbyterian church. His political views were indicated by the unswerving adherence he gave to the cause of the democratic party, and in the Laurel lodge of Free & Accepted Masons he served sixteen consecutive years as worshipful master.

At a point on the line between the States of Ohio and Indiana Israel Burris married Miss Martha Knotts, and she was comparatively a young woman at the time of her death, which occurred at Laurel, Indiana. The three children of this union were Benjamin, Charles and Mary, all of whom attained to years of maturity, and of whom Charles is yet living, he being at the National Soldiers' Home at Dayton, Ohio. He was a valiant soldier of the Union in the Civil war, in which he served three years, a portion of the time as a member of the Sixty-eighth Indiana Volunteer Infantry and later as a member of the Fourteenth Indiana Battery of Light Artillery. At Mixerville, Indiana, Israel Burris married, for his second wife, Miss Mary Gray, who was born in the year 1818, and who was a daughter of David Gray, the maiden name of her mother having been Blackburn. Her father was born in Ireland and as a young man immigrated to the United States, where his marriage was solemnized in the early part of the second decade of the nineteenth century, his wife having been a resident of Kentucky, whence they soon afterward came to Indiana and established their home on the west bank of Indiana creek, near the present village of Mixerville, Franklin county, where they were pioneers of prominence and influence and where they continued to reside on their old homestead farm until their death, when of venerable age. Both were zealous members of the Methodist Episcopal church. Mrs. Mary (Gray) Burris passed the closing years of her life at Laurel, Franklin county, where she died in 1899, secure in the faith of the Presbyterian church. Concerning her children the following brief data are available: Frank, who follows the trade of millwright, is a widower, residing at Connersville, Fayette county, and he has three children; Israel G., of this review, was the next in order of birth; John and Lewis died when young; Eugene passed the closing years of his life at the old home town of Laurel and is survived by one daughter; Emmett is a shoemaker by trade and resides at Connersville, he and his wife having no children; Nina is the widow of Dudley Templeton and is now living with a niece in the city of Portland, Oregon.

Israel G. Burris was born at Laurel, Franklin county, on the 20th of September, 1849, and his earliest recollections touch the conditions and influences of the pioneer days in that section of Indiana, where he was reared to adult age and where his early education was acquired in the common schools. There also he began an apprenticeship to the shoemaker's trade, and in 1869 he went to the city of Lafayette, where he completed his apprenticeship under favorable circumstances. Later he was employed as a journeyman at his trade in Connersville, this state, and at Oxford, Ohio, and finally he returned to Laurel. In March, 1875, he established his residence at Montpelier, Blackford county, where he has since continued to reside and where he has been actively and successfully engaged in the work of his trade during the long intervening period of nearly forty years. His application has been earnest and consecutive, and in all these years few have been the work days that have not found him busily engaged at his bench. In 1876 he here erected a residence of modest order, and later he built his present attractive residence. In 1877 he erected a frame business building on High street, and this he utilized as his headquarters until 1895, when he built the substantial brick block that now marks the location. He has been distinctively successful in temporal affairs, and this has been a merited reward for his many years of earnest toil and endeavor. He is the owner of and has improved with good buildings two farms in Blackford county, one place comprising seventy-three acres and the other eighty acres, in Harrison township. He rents the farms but gives to the same a general supervision.

Mr. Burris has been uncompromising in his support of the cause of the democratic party, insofar as national and state issues are involved, and, by reason of the regularly elected incumbent having failed to qualify, he served as the first county assessor of Blackford county, by appointment conferred by the board of county commissioners. His public spirit has been unflagging and he has been zealous in supporting those measures that have made for the substantial development of Montpelier along both civic and material lines. He was a member of the city council for eight years, and in 1909 there came a flatter mark of popular confidence and esteem when he was elected mayor, his administration continuing four years and redounding unequivocally to the general good of the city and its people.

Mr. Burris has been long and prominently affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, in which he is past master of Montpelier Lodge, No. 600, Free & Accepted Masons; past high priest of Hartford City Chapter, No. 111, Royal Arch Masons; and past illustrious master of Hartford City Council, No. 76, Royal & Select Masters; and a member of Bluffton Commandery, Knights Templars, at Bluffton, Wells county. With each of these organizations he is still an active affiliation, as one of the influential and popular representatives of the fraternity in this section of his native state.

Near Oxford, Ohio, on the 22d of February, 1871, Mr. Burris gave fitting observation of the birthday anniversary of General George Washington, since he was then united in marriage to Miss Joanna Woodruff, the only daughter of John and Elizabeth (Fisher) Woodruff. Mrs. Burris was born near Middletown, Butler county, Ohio, on the 3d of October, 1852, and in that county she was reared and educated. Her parents finally came to Indiana, and her mother died in Jay county, at the age of sixty-two years, her father finally establishing his residence at Montpelier, where he died in the autumn of 1910, at the great age of ninety-three. Both he and his wife were most zealous and prominent members of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which he served not only as deacon and class leader but also as layman preacher.

In conclusion of this sketch of the career of an honored citizen is consistently given brief record concerning the children born to him and his loved and devoted wife: Nina P. is the wife of Archibald Crandall, who is identified with oil-well operations in Oklahoma, and their only child is a son, Burris. Ida L. is the wife of Ernest Fields, who has charge of the operation of one of the farms owned by Mr. Burris, and they have one son, Daniel. Adrian R. is the wife of William Geery, employed in the oil fields near Bellair, Crawford county, Illinois, and they have no children. Mary F. is the wife of Merle Smith, engaged in the photograph business in Montpelier, and they have no children. Josie is the wife of Glenn Arick, engaged in the grocery business in Montpelier, and they likewise have no children.

JOHN V. TIDD. A scion of the fourth generation of the Tidd family in America, he whose name initiates this review is numbered among the representative business men of Hartford City, Blackford county, where he conducts a successful merchant-tailoring business and is known as a progressive and loyal citizen. The name of the Tidd family has been identified in turn with the history of the States of Virginia, Ohio and Indiana, and in the different generations its representatives have stood exemplar of utmost patriotism and have played well their part as industrious and worthy citizen.

John Tidd, paternal grandfather of him whose name introduces this sketch, was born in England, about the year 1806, and he was a child at the time of his parents' immigration to America. Settlement was made in the State of Virginia, where his father obtained a tract of land and engaged in agricultural pursuits, both he and his wife continuing to reside in the Old Dominion State until their death. There John Tidd was reared to maturity on the old homestead plantation and there his marriage was solemnized, the maiden name of his wife having been Hamilton. All of their children were born in Virginia and there he continued to devote his attention to farming until his removal to Ohio. In the Buckeye State he settled in Greene county, his farm being near the village of Jamestown. John Tidd there passed the remainder of his life and was venerable in years at the time of his death, his wife having preceded him to the life eternal by several years. They became the parents of four sons and three daughter, all of whom attained to maturity and reared families of their own. All of them are now deceased. Of the five children Samuel Warwick Tidd, father of the subject of this review, was the third in order of birth. He was born in Virginia, about 1838, and was a boy at the time of the family removal to Greene county, Ohio, where he was reared and educated and where was solemnized his marriage to Miss Lucinda Glass, who was born in that county, in 1850, a daughter of Vincent and Lila Glass, who were pioneers of Greene county and who are supposed to have removed to Ohio from Pennsylvania, Mr. Glass having been a prosperous farmer and both he and his wife having been residents of Greene county until their death. They reared a large family of children, of whom three sons and three daughters are living in 1914. All of them reside in Greene county, Ohio, with the exception of Mrs. Tidd.

After his marriage Samuel W. Tidd continued to following agricultural pursuits and stock-growing in Greene county, Ohio, until 1899, all of his children having been born in that county. In the year mentioned he came to Indiana, and for the first year he resided on a farm near Eaton Delaware county. He then removed to Hartford City, Blackford county, where his death occurred in July, 1907, and where his widow still maintains her home. He was a staunch republican and at one time was actively affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He was a man of steadfast integrity and ever commanded the high regard of all who knew him. He was a member of the Christian church, as is also his widow. Concerning their children, brief record is here entered: Charles , who resides in Oregon City, Oregon, is married and has one son; Albert died in childhood; John V., of this sketch, was the next in order of birth; Miss Isola M. remains with her widowed mother.

John V. Tidd was born in Greene county, Ohio, on the 26th of April, 1873, and was sixteen years of age at the time of the family removal to Indiana, his early education having been obtained in the public schools of his native county. He was reared to maturity in Hartford City and as a youth he here became a clerk in the mercantile establishment of the Wiler Company, with which concern he remained as a capable and valued employee for seventeen years. In March, 1913, he purchased a half interest in the merchant tailoring business established at 111 South Jefferson street, where he is now the proprietor of the firm of John V. Tidd, and his firm is having a representative trade as merchant tailor as well as in the repairing, renovating and pressing department of his well equipped establishment. The firm also are agents for a popular brand of shoes, and this department of the enterprise likewise has an excellent patronage.

Mr. Tidd is one of the popular and well known business men of Blackford county, is a republican in national and state affairs, but in local matters, where no definite issues are involved, he is not constrained by strict partisan lines. He is affiliated with the local organizations of the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks and the Loyal Order of Moose, in which latter he has passed all the official chairs of his lodge, including that of dictator, besides representing the same in the supreme convocation of the order, in the city of Detroit, Michigan, in 1912.

In 1907 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Tidd to Miss Elsie Jarvis, who was born in the state of New Jersey, in 1885, and who was but two years of age at the time of her mother's death. She came to Hartford City, Indiana, in company with her father, John Jarvis, who followed the trade of glass-cutter during his active career and who now lives with his children, passing varied periods with each of them. He is a veteran of the Civil war, a Republican in politics and is seventy-four years of age at the time of this writing, in 1914. Mr. and Mrs. Tidd have a fine little son, John S., who was born July 16, 1908.

Deb Murray