Mr. Fountain was born in Jackson County, March 18, 1880. His great-grandfather, Stephen Fountain, came from the Carolinas to Indiana in 1818 and settled in Jackson County, near Leesville, where his industry and thrift enabled him to clear up and develop a good farm. He was the father of Abraham Fountain, who was born in Indiana, and Abraham was the grandfather of Virgil H. Fountain. John W. Fountain, his father, is also a native of Jackson County and served on the County Council and as trustee of Owen Township. He married a Jackson County girl, Miss. Mary E. Hamilton, and they had a family of four children.
Virgil H. Fountain was reared on a farm, attended country schools, and up to the age of twenty-six spent most of his time assisting his father on the farm and in the mercantile business at Clear Spring. Mr. Fountain in 1906 removed to Brownstown, becoming assistant cashier of the Brownstown State Bank, and in May, 1916, was elected president of that institution. He resigned the following September and resumed farming. In connection with farming he performed the duties of cashier of the Citizens State Bank from May, 1923, until he entered the clerk's office in February, 1924. In 1922 he was elected county clerk and by reelection in 1926 holds that office today, being one of the very popular men in the courthouse at Brownstown.
Mr. Fountain is a member of the Masonic fraternity, Knights of Pythias, is a Democrat, a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the Baptist Church. He married Miss Nora E. George, of Jackson County, and they have a family of nine children, consisting of five sons and four daughters: Hugh, Ray J., Ross, Oren Woodrow and Virgil, Jr., Gladys, Helen, Ruth and Elizabeth.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
ROSCOE W. HAGUE is proprietor of the third oldest automobile agency in Jackson County. Mr. Hague's business is at Seymour, where he owns the agency in the local territory for the Buick and Marquette cars.
Mr. Hague was born in Washington County, Indiana, February 26, 1899. Joseph D. Hague, was born in Tennessee and came to Indiana about 1860, his parents accompanying him. They settled in Washington County, where Joseph D. Hague for many years followed farming. He married Mary Collins, of Indiana. William L. Hague, father of Roscoe W., was born in Washington County and for many years has been active in the business of undertaking at Medora in Jackson County. He married Nellie M. Starr, of Washington County.
Roscoe W. Hague attended grade school in Medora, is a graduate of the high school there and at the age of fourteen began his business experience. For one year he was employed in a confectionery store at Bedford, Indiana, and for two years was a garage man at Seymour. He left that work to go on the road as a traveling salesman for the Tiona Refining Company, traveling over Central Indiana and Illinois for three years. On returning to Seymour he rejoined the garage with which he had been previously associated, but which in the meantime had changed ownership and was known as the Central Garage. In 1923 he spent a year with with the Columbus Buick Company, at Columbus, Indiana, and then was awarded the Buick agency in Jackson County. There being no building available, he handled the business at Medora for a few months and then opened a sales room on South Chestnut Street in Seymour. After a year he moved to another location on that street and then moved into the Craig Building, on South Carter Street. From there he took up his present quarters, at 101-103 West Third Street, a building he has owned since 1926. The Buick Agency was first established in this building in 1917. Mr. Hague has 12,800 square feet of floor space for show room, office, storage and repair shops. It is a modern brick building, equipped with all the machinery and appliances to give it rating as a Buick specification repair shop. Mr. Hague has been handling over seventy-five new and used cars annually and keeps a full stock of parts for the Buick and the more recent product of the Buick organization, the Marquette car. Associated with him in the business is his brother, C. D. Hague, who has charge of the parts and stock department.
Hague married Mildred Paul, of Columbus, Indiana. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity and B. P. O. Elks.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
FERNANDO C. FOSTER, manager of the Jackso n County Farmers Mutual Insurance Company at Brownstown, is a member of one of the oldest families of Southern Indiana. The Fosters in all the generations since they came to America in the early Colonial period, have been characterized by the cardinal virtues of industry, honesty and frugality, and their strength of character has shown through all their deeds and personal relationships. Mr. Foster is a great-grandson of Hiram and Polly (Trumbo) Foster, two splendid pioneer characters of Southern Indiana whose descendants a few years ago organized the Foster Family Association, of which Fernando C. Foster was elected secretary and is now president of this organization.
Mr. Foster was born in Jennings County, Indiana, July 21, 1875, a son of Benjamin F. and Allie J. (Lewis) Foster, a grandson of Jacob Foster, a Jennings County farmer who married Margaret Fear. Jacob Foster was one of the children of Hiram and Polly (Trumbo) Foster.
Hiram Foster was born June 21, 1797, a son of Gabrielle and Permelia (Campbell) Foster. Gabrielle was a son of Timothy and Berthiah (Howell) Foster. Timothy was a son of Thomas and Hannah (Hildreth) Foster. Thomas Foster was born in 1691, son of John and Hannah (Abbott) Foster. John Foster was born February 8, 1662, a son of John Foster, who was born in England in 1634, son of Christopher Foster, who was born in England in 1603, and on June 17, 1635, sailed for America with his wife and three children. He settled on a farm on Long Island. Thus the Foster family has been in America almost three centuries.
Gabrielle Foster with his brothers, Zebulon and Luke, in the fall of 1788 settled in Hamilton County, Ohio. In 1803 Gabrielle Foster moved to Indiana, locating about twenty-five miles above the falls of the Ohio, and was one of the earliest settlers in the vicinity of Deputy, Indiana, in Jefferson County, where he cleared up and developed a farm, on which he lived out his life.
The oldest child of Gabrielle Foster and his wife, Permelia Campbell, was Hiram, who was about six years of age when the family came to Jefferson County. Hiram Foster lived to a good old age, passing away January 17, 1876. His wife, Polly Trumbo, whom he married December 24, 1818, died November 21, 1872. A record of the children of this worthy couple is as follows: Elvira, born October 7, 1819, married November 27, 1824, and died April 9, 1872; William, born June 11, 1821, married September 21, 1843, and died May 6, 1870; Jacob T., born January 4, 1823, married July 18, 1844, and died August 9, 1865; Henry C., born March 6, 1825, married April 15, 1847, and died April 27, 1870; Belinda, born November 25, 1826, married in September, 1848, and died in 1914; John T., born October 16, 1829, married August 18, 1853, and died January 12, 1912; Oliver S., born November 7, 1831, died February 1, 1843; Stephen, born March 17, 1836, married August 31, 1856; Benjamin F., born November 13, 1838, married March 1, 1860, and died July 3, 1887; Hannah, born July 7, 1841, died June 29, 1843; and Edward, born July 31, 1843, married October 10, 1867.
Fernando C. Foster, the oldest of nine sons, attended grade school in Jackson County, and took up teaching, a profession he followed for six years in Vernon Township. On locating at Brownstown, in 1900, he served four years as deputy county clerk and for three years was a rural mail carrier and for three years assistant cashier of the Brownstown State Bank. Mr. Foster has been in the insurance business since 1911 and for twenty years has been the very able manager of the Jackson County Farmers Mutual Insurance Company which has grown and prospered under his direction. He is also a director of the Indiana Mutual Fire & Cyclone Insurance Company of Indianapolis, and has charge of the work of that organization in eleven counties, being district adjuster. He is also a director of the Farmers Mutual Liability Company of Indianapolis. Mr. Foster for six years acted as agent of the Jackson County Board of Children's Guardians. He has been secretary of the Brownstown Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the Baptist Church. He has served as president of the State Association of Mutual Insurance Companies of Indiana, 1930-1931.
He married Vionesia Staples, daughter of Thomas J. Staples, a well-to-do farmer and banker in Jennings County, and an ex-county treasurer. Mr. and Mrs. Foster were married March 31, 1902, and have four children: Miss Helen, a graduate of Franklin College, married Harold E. Troyer, of Monroeville, Indiana, November 27, 1930; Thomas S., a mechanical engineer, married Elizabeth Ogle on May 12, 1928; Charles E., a graduate in civil engineering at Purdue University; and Dorothea, attending high school at Brownstown.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
JOHN H. CONNER came in contact with newspaper work while in school, and though he went On with his education through universities, graduating from law school, he returned to his first love and has been a newspaper man rather than a lawyer.
Mr. Conner is editor and publisher of the Seymour Daily Tribune. This is a newspaper with half a century of history behind it. In its present form it represents the consolidation of the Seymour Daily Republican and the Seymour Daily Democrat . The Republican was founded in 1879, and the daily edition has been published for many years. After the merger of the Republican with the Democrat the name of the daily was changed to the Tribune , while the Republican continues as a weekly. The Daily Tribune prints from eight to sixteen pages, with Associated Press service, and approximately 3,000 copies are distributed throughout this section of Indiana. It is one of the most influential newspapers in the southern part of the state. As a business it employs twenty-two persons, and has a plant equipped with the most modern printing machinery, including equipment for commercial printing and a great deal of book work is done here. The owners of the newspaper and business today are John H. Conner and his brother-in-law, Dr. R. E. Harris, of Cincinnati.
Mr. Conner was born at Oakland City, Indiana, January 4, 1886. He is of Irish ancestry, his great-grandfather, John Conner, having been one of three brothers who left Ireland before or about the time of the Revolutionary war. John Conner became a colonel in the patriot army during the war for independence. Mr. Conner's grandfather was Isaac Conner, who married a member of the Nichols family, early pioneers of Scott County, Indiana, where they took up Government land about 1816. John W. Conner, father of the Seymour newspaper man, was born at Lexington, Indiana, and has been a resident of Seymour for over forty years, being one of the early clothing merchants of the city. He has served on the school board, as president of the Business Men's Association several times and has been active in civic affairs. He married Olive Thomas, of Washington County, Indiana, daughter of Hezekiah Thomas. Hezekiah Thomas was also born in Washington County and was a corn mill operator and about 1880 laid out a part of Seymour, known as the Thomas addition. John H. Conner was the only son of his parents. His sister, who is active in musical circles at Cincinnati, is the wife of Dr. R. E. Harris, of that city.
John H. Conner attended the grade and high schools of Seymour, graduated from DePauw University at Greencastle in 1907 and in 1909 was awarded his LL. B. degree by the Indiana Law School at Indianapolis. During vacations he had worked for the Seymour Daily Republican and immediately after completing his law course he returned to become associated again with that paper as editor. He held that post of duty until 1921, was then appointed business manager and on January 1, 1926, he and his brother-in-law bought the plant from the original owners and he is now the responsible manager and publisher.
Mr. Conner is a member of the Republican Editorial Association, Indiana Home League Daily, the Inland Press, the National Editorial Association, is a member of the Rotary Club, B, P. O. Elks, Masonic fraternity in the Lodge, Royal Arch Chapter, Knights Templar Commandery and Murat Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Indianapolis. Mr. Conner married Ethel McGrew, of Vanderburgh County, Indiana. They have one child, Thomas William, attending school at Seymour.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
HASKELL LETT. Occupying a conspicuous place among the citizens of Jackson County who are rendering capable and conscientious service to their respective communities in positions of importance and responsibility is Haskell Lett, postmaster of the thriving City of Seymour. A member of a family which came to Indiana in 1824, he is of pure Revolutionary stock, which traces its ancestry back to Colonial Virginia. For many years he followed the profession of veterinary surgery, at one time being deputy state veterinarian, and during a long period has been a Republican party leader in the state.
Haskell Lett was born July 30, 1887, on a farm in Jennings County, Indiana, a son of Dr. William S. and Maude (Wilson) Lett. The Lett family originated in England, whence the first American ancestors came to this country in early Colonial times and took up their residence in Virginia, and from that colony enlisted Gen. Daniel Lett, who won distinction as an officer in General Washington’s army during the War of the Revolution. He was the father of the great-grandfather of Haskell Lett, Daniel Lett, who came to Indiana from Kentucky with his family in 1827 and took up patents in Marion Township, Jennings County, where he passed the remainder of his life in the development of his property and was a man of substantiality and high character. His son, Fielding Lett, was born Owen County, Kentucky, and was a youth when he accompanied the family to Indiana. He received a public school education and was reared to the pursuits of agriculture, in which he continued to be occupied during the remainder of his life, his property, consisting of some 2,000 acres, being mainly in Marion Township. He also took an interest in stock raising and shipping, and in 1835 was one of the constructors of the Madison Northern Railway. Mr. Lett first married Miss Diana Hoagland, and his second wife, Sarah Jane, was a member of the well-known Applegate family. William S. Lett, the father of Haskell Lett, was born in Jennings County, and spent the greater part of his active career on his farm, in addition to practicing veterinary surgery, a field in which he is still widely known. He married Miss Maude Wilson, a native of Jennings County, and they became the parents of four children.
Haskell Lett attended the public schools of Jennings County, following which he pursued a course at the Chicago Veterinary College, from which he was graduated with the class pf 1909, receiving the degree of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. In that year he commenced practice at Seymour, where he built up a large and profitable business, to which he gave his entire attention until the time of his appointment to the postmastership in 1922. He was again appointed to this office December 22, 1926, and has given his community the best of service, making numerous and lasting improvements in the service that have commended themselves to the people served by the Seymour office. From 1917 until 1919 Mr. Lett served in the office of deputy state veterinarian, and then was made a member of the Live Stock Sanitary Commission for the State of Indiana, remaining on this board until 1921. During this period he likewise was a member of the State Veterinary Examiners Board and president of that body, and during the war era was a member of various committees in the sale of bonds, stamps, etc. Doctor Lett is a member of the Presbyterian Church, a Mason and a Republican in politics. He was Republican city committee chairman in 1916, township chairman in 1917 and county chairman in 1918 and again in 1920, and in the latter year was elected delegate from the Fourth District to the Chicago National Convention of 1920.
Mr. Lett married in 1909 Miss Ethel Louise Klemme, who was born in Pike County, Illinois, and they have no children.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
THOMAS HARVEY CANNON. In a lifetime of eighty-two years "Tom" Cannon, of Gary, has earned such titles of distinguished service and experience as are represented in the names journalist, soldier of fortune, Indian fighter, explorer, prospector, poet, philosopher, humorist, author, historian and reconteur.
His ancestors came from the Isle of Man, where they represented an infusion of Norse, Scotch, Irish and Celtic bloods. His father, Randall Portus Hays Cannon, was of Virginia stock, and his mother, Mary Jane (Mac Campbell) Cannon, was of a Kentucky family, though the MacCampbells likewise had come out of Virginia and farther back from County Tyrone, Ireland. The first home of the Cannons in America was in Pennsylvania. Like many other families of that state they moved down the Valley of Virginia to North Carolina and thence to Tennessee. The late Joseph G. Cannon (Uncle Joe) was a native of North Carolina and was a third cousin of Tom Cannon. The latter's paternal grandmother, Margaret Hays, was born at Harrod's Fort, Kentucky, and she was held in the lap of Daniel Boone when the Indians attacked that Kentucky outpost.
Tom Cannon was educated in Indiana and after the age of nine years at Muscatine, Iowa, where he attended high school. In 1869 he entered Wabash College of Indiana, but left college two years later and went to Missouri. He completed a law course in the University of Missouri, practiced a short time and then became editor of the Greenfield, Missouri, Advocate . In 1874 he and a party of four young men crossed the plains in a wagon to Del Norte, Colorado, and there he organized a pack train to go over the mountains to the headwaters of the Uncompaghre River. There he founded the Town of Lake City and started the first newspaper west of the Rockies in Colorado. This was the Lake City Silver World . While in Western Colorado he held several offices, including deputy mining recorder, deputy postmaster, probate judge of Hinsdale County. Later he acted as a scout for the United States Cavalry during the Ute war, and had an interesting experience in the final campaign for the extermination of the Apache Indians in Arizona, under Chief Geronimo. In 1875 he was with the Wheeler and Hayden Federal exploring expedition in a survey of the peaks and deserts of Southwestern Colorado, Northern New Mexico and Northeastern Arizona.
Mr. Cannon in 1876 became a member of the staff of the Rocky Mountain News at Denver, but in 1878 returned to Missouri. He was associated with several Missouri newspapers, including the Springfield Morning Herald . His next important experience came in 1884, when he did right of way work through Indian Territory and Texas in the extension of the Frisco lines from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Paris, Texas. One feature of this work was the establishment of a newspaper at Paris, through which a campaign was conducted resulting in the donating of the right of way from Red River to Paris, a distance of sixteen miles, in addition to land at the edge of the city for terminal yards. On leaving Texas, Mr. Cannon joined the editorial and news staff of the Kansas City Times . Here he had an unusual experience as a newspaper reporter. He was assigned the task of interviewing the eminent financier and railroad man, Jay Gould. He was permitted to enter Mr. Gould's private car. An engine was immediately attached and the car was taken out forty miles into Kansas, where the newspaper man was summarily dropped on the wide prairie and the train departed without him. It was afterwards explained that this action was taken to prevent the publication of Mr. Gould's plans for the purchase of the Kansas City and Northwestern Railroad, in which the municipality of Kansas City held to the sum of $300,000. However, Gould did not outwit the resourceful Tom Cannon, who walked six miles to a little town and telegraphed his story to the Times, which made a big "scoop" in the matter. Another newspaper investigation by him at Leavenworth disclosed a complete census of "blind pigs" in that city and the publication of the story resulted in the discharge of the entire police department and the board of police commissioners. While there he also covered the original opening of Oklahoma Territory. He gave up his profession as night managing editor of the Times to go to Chicago in 1890 and became political editor of the Chicago Times . The Times was merged with the Herald and became the Times Herald in 1894, and Mr. Cannon remained with the new publication for several years as assistant to the publisher and editor, Herman H. Kohlsaat. For seven years he reported every session of the Illinois Legislature and nearly every national convention of the Republican and Democratic parties from 1890 to 1900. Governor John P. Altgeld, of Illinois, in 1892 appointed Mr. Cannon state canal commissioner in which office he served until 1896. In 1896 he reported the convention in the old Coliseum at Chicago when William J. Bryan was nominated. He also worked for the Tribune and for Hearst's American , later was chief editorial writer on the Chicago Journal until 1909, in which year his career became identified with Gary, Indiana.
Here he and Frank B. Patrick founded the Gary Evening Post , which in 1910 was sold to J. R. and H. B. Snyder, who retained Mr. Cannon. With the exception of a few intervals Mr. Cannon has remained with the Post , now the Post-Tribune , ever since. He conducts the "Flue Dust" in the Post-Tribune , and is widely known as one of America's famous "columnists." He is also well known throughout Northwestern Indiana under the pen name of "Lud Wrangler."
Besides his daily contributions to the press Mr. Cannon has written verse that has been published in many magazines. Some of his poems include such titles as "Over the Range," "Arms and the Man." "Ashes of Remembrance," "Songs of the Dunes," "Hills of the Ozarks," "A Valentine," "L'Envoi," "My Southern Indiana Hills."
After coming to Gary, Mr. Cannon took a personal interest in public affairs, especially in the construction of the Burns ditch which reclaimed 20,000 acres of overflown land; in the construction of the Dunes Highway and in the establishment of a state park in the Indiana Dunes. In 1912 Mr. Cannon, A. F. Knotts and others organized the National Dunes Park Association, with Mr. Knotts as president and Mr. Cannon as secretary. Their activities led to the creation of the park by the Indiana Legislature. Mr. Cannon has been a member of the Gary Rotary Club, B. P. O. Elks, honorary member of the Gary Kiwanis Club, member of the executive council of the Gary Boy Scouts, member and a past president of the Izaak Walton League, honorary member of the Gary Real Estate Board and the Indian Hill Country Club; for two terms was a director of the Gary Chamber of Commerce; a member of the Gary Commercial Club and the Lake County Historical Society.
In his eighty-first year Tom Cannon wrote what many have regarded as his most notable work, the life story entitled Old Frontiers and New , which is a record of his colorful career from the time of the Civil war to the present day. He was chief editor of the History of the Lake and Calumet Region Indiana , published in 1927.
He married in 1882 Glen Constance Cones, of Lamar, Missouri. She died in 1886, leaving one son. He married in 1895 Miss Ora Lee Bedwell By this marriage he has a son, Edward Harvey Cannon, who is engaged in the publishing business in Chicago.
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INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
