Hiram H. HARVEY

Hiram Harvey was then appointed head of the Meeting and remained so till called to his Heavenly Home. Sadie Harvey was appointed head of the Meeting. Feeling the need of a better place to worship, a new house was built in 1870. Allison Wall and John Charles were the carpenters and John Reeder made the window frames. I was at the first service held in this house, a boy of seven. [Hiram, born 1863] Allison Wall preached, he was making the benches and they swept the shavings away and placed a few benches for the service. He stood with his arms folded while he delivered his message and I thought he was a wonderful preacher.

A few years later [1907], Hiram Harvey was recorded a minister and has acted as pastor, part pastor most of the time since.

"Little Ridge Meeting Society of Friends: History of Little Ridge, 1854-1925", prepared by Hiram Harvey, his wife, Sadie B. and their son, R.T. Harvey, at the request of the Little Ridge Monthly Meeting in the year 1925.

"In the establishment of these schools it will devolve on Monthly Meetings to extend the necessary care to secure the legal title to such real estate as may be procured for the purpose; and where it many appear to be necessary, from the scattered situation of Friends, or from other causes, to render pecuniary aid to individuals, in order to afford their children an opportunity of acquiring a suitable portion of education, that such be laid before the respective Monthly, or, if necessary, the Quarterly Meetings.

"And believing it important that the minds of our children should, at an early age, be stored with truths relating to life and salvation, propose that reading the Holy Scriptures should form a part of the daily exercises of our schools."

So the Friends of Grant county were only conforming to the directions of the church when they provided school property, and maintained schools at their own expense, even though a public school system had been provided by the state, for reasons indicated in the foregoing extract.

Changes in circumstances gradually brought about change in the relation to the public schools, until it was thought no longer necessary nor desirable for the Friends to maintain separate schools. For a long time, however, there was a curious blending of the two in Friends communities, and even the public schools went in a body regularly once a week to the Friends midweek meetings, but this custom no longer exists anywhere in the county.

During everal years the schools at Mississinewa, Deer Creek, and Back Creek were superior to other schools, being provided with the best available teachers, and as a result they were patronized by many who sent their children from other communities.

Fairmount Academy, a school established and maintained by Fairmount Quarterly Meeting, originated at a later period. Indirectly it owes its origin to Clarkson Davis, a Grant county Friend. He had taught at Mississinewa and Jonesboro, and possessed the rare native talent of a born teacher, giving such inspiration to his pupils that his life was ever after a part of their own. He became principal of Spiceland Academy, and gave that school its excellent reputation throughout the state and even beyond it, and from it were graduated eminent educators of national reputation. This school became the model for the Friends at Fairmount, who felt that their young people required better facilities than the public schools at that time provided.

In December, 1883, after the question had been taken under advisement by several in a private way, Jess Hiatt, then a Fairmount merchant, arose in the Quarterly Meeting held at Back Creek and made a proposition that the meeting take under advisement the establishment of an academy. Dr. A. Henley, Joel B. Wright, Jonathan Winslow, Milton Winslow, Asa Bond, Ellwood Haisley, Abel Knight, Henry B. Rush, Levi Hiatt, James M. Ellis, Enos Harvey, Nixon Winslow, Lewis Hockett, Samuel C. Cowgill, James L. Williams, Willis Cammack, Mattie P. Wright, Louisa [Winslow] Rush, Eunice P. Wilson, Adeline E. Wright, Millie Little, Thirza Howell, Mary Bond, Mary Rush, Sallie Harvey and Keziah [Parsons] Haisley were appointed to consider the question and report their judgement to the next meeting. This committee reported favorably and instructions were given to purchase land and erect a building. Jesse Haisley, Samuel C. Wilson, Dr. P. H. Wright, Enos Harvey, Abel Knight and William C. Winslow were appointed trustees. The building was completed and school was opened on the 21st of September, 1885. From that day to the present the school has been successful. Just ten years after the beginning a larger and better building had been erected, and was formally dedicated September 7, 1895. An addition almost doubling the capacity was erected about two years ago, and included a fine gymnasium, and the building was provided with steam heat and other modern improvements. To the regular college preparatory courses have recently been added agricultural and domestic science departments. An endowment fund of more than $23,000, has been provided, and the school property has cost more than $35,000. The present board of trustees consists of Ancil E. Ratliff, president; Ida E.[Elliott] Winslow, secretary; James Bell, treasurer; Ora Winslow and Lin Wilson and Thurlow W. Shugart. Hiram Harvey is treasurer of the endowment fund. The faculty is composed of Albert R. Hall, principal; Dora M. Ellis, Latin and German; William M. Coahran, English and pedagogy; Addie E. Wright, history and domestic economy; Benjamin T. Purviance, science; Edith Phillipy, instrumental music; Cordelia Davis, Vocal music and drawing. There were forty-four graduates this year, and of the large number who have graduated in other years many hold high positions of honor and profit. While the school is under denominational control, it is non-sectarian, the present faculty representing four different denominations, and students of all denominations are in attendance.

During the first twenty-five years there were not many ministers among the Friends in this county. Thomas Jay was among the first, if not the first to be located in the county. Isaac Jay was transferred as a minister from a meeting in Ohio to Mississinewa Meeting in 1850. His son, Allen Jay, left this county when still a young man, and was recorded a minister elsewhere. Very few persons were recorded as ministers until after 1860. Between 1860 and 1870 a change came over Friends meetings, and was much more manifest in the following twenty years. But it was not in Grant county alone; it came to this county because it existed elsewhere. The preaching that had been done by Martha Wooten Allen, and others who came around on itinerant visits, had created a hunger for good preaching. It also awakened desires in the hearts of the people for better living, or, to be understood better, it was a revival feeling. It was under this condition that an occurrence took place that had a marked effect.

The Friends in three Quarterly Meetings surrounding Wilmington, Ohio, had asked Indiana Yearly Meeting to grant them a Yearly Meeting of their own. After prayerful consideration it was decided that while it was desirable to establish Yearly Meetings for a sufficient number of Friends who are remote, it is not advisable "to establish small bodies so near to each other," so the request was denied. Years after the same request came again and was granted: Friends in Grant county made a similar request in 1902 for a Yearly Meeting at Marion, but it was refused. But in refusing the request from Wilmington, the Yearly Meeting was "introduced into much feeling on account of many Friends who seldom enjoy the privilege of attending our annual assembly." As a remedy, a committee was appointed and instructed to hold General Meetings at suitable places where Friends were too remote from Yearly Meeting for many of them at attend; and it was suggested that "we think the leading object of these meetings should be Divine worship, but it may also be right and proper to devote some time to the consideration of subjects of general interest to Friends."

Centennial History of Grant County, Indiana: 1812-1912_, Rolland Lewis Whiteson, ed., Chicago: Lewis Publ Co, CV. "Society of Friends in Grant County"pg 661-662.

REV. HIRAM HARVEY. No history of old Grant county families would be complete without some space devoted to the Harvey family. It has lived in this county sixty-five years. A beautiful farmstead on section thirty-four of Liberty township is occupied by Rev. Hiram Harvey, and the same land was cleared and cultivated by his grandfather and father successively. Rev. Harvey's farm comprises ninety acres andin every attribute and improvement, is a farm of the highest class, and one that might well serve as a model of progressive Grant county agriculture. Some of the conspicuous features about this place are a commodious and comfortable white house, with a correspondingly white barn, and flanking the farm buildings is a large silo with eighty tons capacity. In section thirty-five of the same township, Mr. Harvey owns another tract of sixty acres. All this land is cultivated up to the very highest efficiency, the fertility of the soil is an great now as it was seventy years ago, and the annual product represents a neat sum in the regular income of the owner. Mr. Harvey is a man of large and wholesome character, with strong spiritual tendencies. He is trustee of the endowment fund of the Fairmount Academy, a fund now amounting to more than twenty-two thousand dollars. He is also Evangelist superintendent of the Quaker Quarterly Meeting, and his wife is Sunday school superintendent of that meeting.

The history of the Harvey family begins with five brothers who came from North Carolina to Clinton county, Ohio, about one hundred and twenty years ago. One of these brothers was Eli Harvey, great-grandfather of Rev. Hiram Harvey. When a young married man he brought his family to Ohio, and at that time his son William, the grandfather, was a child. William Harvey was born about 1789, grew up on the family home in Clinton county, Ohio, and in that locality Eli and wife [Mary Sarah Stanfield] died. They were staunch members of the Quaker church, and industrious and quiet living farmers. William Harvey grew up in Clinton county, took up farming as his vocation, and married Ruth Hadley. Later they moved to Indiana, and became early settlers in Morgan county, near Moorsville [sic]. In Morgan county were some of their children born, including Jehu Harvey, born in 1833. In 1848 William Harvey and wife and family came to Grant county, and secured land which was almost new and largely unbroken in section thrity-four of Liberty township. The industry of William Harvey was largely responsible for the improvement and clearing of this land, and though the family first lived in one of the typical log cabins that habitation was later replaced by a good house and many other improvements testified to the sturdy and ambitious character of the Harvey race. William Harvey died when ninety-four year of age, and was preceded by his wife many years before, her death occurring sometime between 1850 and 1852. Both were birthright Quakers, and belonged to the Little Ridge church. The family of nine sons and three daughters of William Harvey and wife are mentioned as follows: David, Jonathan, William, Eli, Mahlon, Jehu, Sidney, Alvin, Hirma, Sallie, Rebecca, and Mary. Of the sons, Alvin and Hiram died, the former at the age of seventeen and the latter at the age of seven. All the others grew up and were married and had families. The daughters, with the exception on one, had children.

Jehu Harvey, the father, was as already stated, born in 1833, and was fifteen years of age when the family moved to Grant county. His early life was spent on the farm, and after reaching manhood he married Rebecca Reader [Reeder], a daughter of Spencer and Julia (Cox) Reader. The Readers are a family of prominent old settlers of Liberty township, and are mentioned in other parts of this volume. Jehu Harvey and wife located on a farm in Liberty township, and owned and operated it successfully for some years, gradually acquiring other lands and improving them. His death occurred in 1875 on the farm now owned by his son Hiram in section thirty-four. For some years he had been in poor health. His widow still lives, is hale and heaty at the age of seventy-eight. Both parents were birthright Quakers, and worshipped at the Little Ridge church. Mrs. Harvey has for years been an elder in the Friends church. The politics of Jehu Harvey was Republican.

Nine children were the fruits of the union of Jehu Harvey and wife, and are mentioned as follows: 1. Hiram. 2. Edwin is a farmer, was twice married, lives in Liberty township, and there is one living child by each wife. 3. William R. lives on a farm in section thirty-four of Liberty township. 4. Cynthia, died when a young woman of seventeen years. 5. Ellen married Amiziah Beason [Amaziah Beeson], a merchant, nowin business in the Province of Saskatchewan Canada, and has four children. 6. Julia, died at the age of fourteen. 7. Mary, married Hiram Jarrett, a farmer in Hancock county, Indiana, and has two living children [Harvey and Ardis]. Mina [Elmina], was the eighth child. 9. Alice, died at the age of twenty-eight, unmarried.

Rev. Hiram Harvey, who was the eldest son and the first child in order of birth [this conflicts with records of the Society of Friends], was born in Liberty township, April 1, 1863. His home has been here all his life, and he now owns and occupies a farm cultivated by both his father and grandfather. His early education was better than ordinary, since he had the advantages of the common schools, and later three years in the county normal and one year in the state normal. When a little passed twenty years of age he began teaching, his first school being the Marks school district number four in Sims township. After three winters of teaching he took up his regular vocation as a farmer. In 1899 his comfortable dwelling was destroyed by fire* and was at once replaced with the present modern residence, one of the most attractive in Liberty township. Mr. Harvey believes in the rotary principal of growing crops, and his land is divided into convenient fields and successively cropped with oats, corn, wheat, alfalfa, andother staple crops of Grant county. His stock consists principally of the Red Durock swine, and practically all the grain and forage products of the farm are fed to the stock.

Mr. Harvey was married in Fairmount township to Miss Sara E. [Sarah Ellen], usually called Sadie Bell, a daughter of William Bell [and Nancy Boone Fergeson], of a prominent family mentioned elsewhere in this volume. Mrs. Harvey was born in Randolph county, North Carolina, March 17, 1864. She was reared and educated in Indiana, and is the mother of two children, Alva, who died at the age of four and a half years; and Russell T., now twenty-one years of age, the husband of May Woodruff [Frances Mae], and they live on the farm with Mr. Harvey. [Leona Bennett was also raised by Hiram and Sadie -- relationship unknown at this time.] Mr. Harvey was for many years an elder in the Friends Society, and for the past six years has been a minister of the Friends Church. Mrs. Harvey is an elder in that society. Practically ever since he cast his first vote, Mr. Harvey has supported the Prohibition cause.

*An account of the fire, as passed down to Russell's daughter is available.

Shirley Harvey Miller remembers her grandfather Hiram riding horseback on a ministerial circuit that included several meetings, one as far away as Hartford City, Blackford Co, IN.

Submitted by: Phyllis Fleming
ibid, pg 797-798.


Sarah Ellen BELL Harvey

Sadie Ellen, the third child, is the wife of Rev. Hiram Harvey, a successful farmer of Liberty township, and for a number of years a preacher in the Friends church of that township. Rev. Harvey is now custodian of the Fairmount Academy endowment fund. Mr. and Mrs. Harvey have one son, Russel Terry, who is married and lives at home with his parents.

Mr. Bell and members of his family are all members of the Friends church, and in politics he supports the Prohibition cause as championed by St. John.

Centennial History of Grant County, Indiana, 1812-1912_ ed by Rolland Lewis Whitson, Lewis Pub Co, 1914, pg 788:

The International Sunday School Lessons Series was adopted in annual convention in Indianapolis in 1872, and Grant county early availed itself of all its advantages. The graded system was adopted in 1910, and while some communities are in advance of others, it has not yet become popular in Grant county. While some Sunday schools adhere to the Bible, most of them use the lesson commentaries from their denominational publishing houses, although uniform lessons are studied --- thanks to the International Sunday School Association. All the family in the Sunday school, and all the Sunday school in the church service is an ideal not yet attained in many communities, although there are exceptions and in some places practically all the church is found in the Sunday school service. When the church becomes conventionalized and the Bible regarded as a set truth, there is danger ahead and activity is necessary. It is usually through the Sunday school that knowledge of the Bible is carried into the homes, although the Sunday school teacher may have the same difficulty in finding the Book of Jonah that she would in locating St. Jacob in the New Testament. Ponder the Bible until it is written on the heart, say the Sunday school advocates, and yet the little birl who learned the Golden text: "Ye cannot serve God and Mamma," is not an isolated example of inefficient teachers.

Knowledge of psychology is as essential to the success of the Sunday school teacher as the teacher in the public schools, and there has some agitation of the question of pay for the Sunday school teacher in order to secure efficient service, although it is argued that the evangelistic or missionary spirit would thus be eliminated, and the ultimate purpose defeated. The teacher needs to have a message and to know the Bible --- the best selling book of all the ages --- and yet it is charged that people play at Sunday school work --- the most serious thing in the world. The Sunday school is the source from which the church must receive aid, and the 1912 Grant county report shows five hundred and fifty-six additions to the church from the ranks of the Sunday school, and a number of Sunday schools do not report such things.

The Indiana Sunday School Association has inaugurated a plan of teacher training, and every year it graduates men and women who are better able to teach in the Sunday schools. The first class graduated from the teacher training department was in connection with the Marion meeting in 1906, and there were four in the first class graduated from Grant county the following year at the Kokomo convention: Ancil E. Ratliff, Mrs. Ruth [Harvey] Ratliff, Hiram Harvey and Mrs. Sadie [Bell] Harvey, all from Little Ridge Friends Sunday school, but each year since then some have graduated and the results are apparent in better teaching service. In most persons there are periods of honest doubt, and the Sunday school teacher should be master of the situation. If the Sunday school has any excuse for existence, it must be to lead the young into definite Christian experience....

Submitted by: Phyllis Fleming
Centennial History of Grant County, Indiana: 1812-1912_, Rolland Lewis Whiteson, ed., Chicago: Lewis Publ Co, CV. "Grant County Sunday School Association", pg 665.



ANDREW J. BOBBS, M.D.

Andrew J. Bobbs, M. D. is one of the prominent citizens of Marion, Indiana and was one of the most successful practitioners in the medical profession at the time he was actively engaged in the work. He is a native of Woodville, Clermont county, Ohio, and was born February 1, 1833. His father, Adam Bobbs, was born on a farm in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, where he grew to manhood and married Elizabeth McConnell, who was of Irish parentage, but a native of Ohio. The paternal grandfather was a Frenchman, but came to America from Strasburg, Germany.

Adam Bobbs, on settling in Woodville, engaged in the mercantile and pork packing business, which he followed for about twenty years, and then located in Hamilton county, where he continued in the mercantile business eight or ten years longer. Wishing to retire from the bustle and turmoil of commercial life, he purchased a small farm near Phillipsburg, Montgomery county, where he remained until death claimed him in his seventy-third year. He was a Democrat in politics, but did not obtrude his views on others. He was an honored member of the United Bretheran church, as was his wife, who also died at the age of seventy-three years. Four children were born to them, namely: Caroline, who married Dr. Tedroe of Newton, Miami county and died at the age of sixty years; Elizabeth, who reached the age of fifty-six years, was the wife of John Henderson; Dr. Andrew, Jr.; and Dr. Adam, who graduated from the Ohio Medical College of Cincinnati and is a practicing physician of Paulding, Ohio.

Dr. Andrew J. Bobbs had a busy life during his boyhood, as the time not spent in the public and high schools was spent in his father's store, where he assisted in waiting on the trade. This life being uncongenial to his taste, and having a fancy for the work of a physician, he entered the Ohio Medical College at the age of eighteen, graduating there from in March 1854, about the time he reached his majority. Being now a full-fledged doctor, he opened an office in Edenton, Clermont county, Ohio, where he remained two years, when he removed to Montgomery county, that state, where he practiced until 1867, making his home in Phillipsburg. He had an extended and lucrative practice and accumulated considerable property, as a result of steady application and close attention to business. In September 1867, he located in Marion, where he found a broader field of labor and where his skill and efficiency met with ready appreciation. He has been a very busy man in the practice of his profession, and for twenty-one years, until 1888, devoted his entire time to the work in Marion and surrounding country.

Dr. Bobbs is a member of the Masonic lodge. He has been twice married, his first wife being Miss Mary Cook, of Montgomery county, Ohio, and a consistent member of the Congregational church. At her death, she left two children: Zamora, wife of Dr. Marshall Shively, who's memoir will be found elsewhere in this volume; Emma, wife of John J. Strange, a rising young attorney of this place. November 11, 1891, Dr. Bobbs married Josephine (Butler) Ruess, a most estimable lady whose many pleasing attributes have combined to make her decidedly popular.

Submitted by: Ronald C. Hall
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF GRANT COUNTY, INDIANA (Chicago: Bowen, 1901) p. 256-257.


Deb Murray