Blackford County Biography Ref. Page

CHARLES A. SELLERS, M. D. Engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery at Hartford City, the county seat of Blackford county, Dr. Sellers is fully upholding the prestige of the family name, both as a physician and as a loyal and public-spirited citizen. His father, Dr. John S. Sellers, concerning whom individual record appears on other pages of this publication, has long been numbered among the prominent representatives of the medical profession in Blackford county, and is now living virtually retired in Hartford City. Dr. Charles A. Sellers controls an excellent professional business and is one of the highly esteemed physicians of Blackford county, where he is now serving as secretary of the Blackford County Medical Society, showing that he has secure place in the confidence and esteem of his professional confreres.

Dr. Sellers was born at Alexandria, Madison county, Indiana, on January 14, 1875, and is indebted to the public schools for his preliminary educational discipline. He thereafter completed a preparatory course in a school at Irvington, a suburb of Indianapolis, a preparatory school of the University of Indianapolis. As a licensed pharmacist he was identified with the drug business for three years, and in 1901 was matriculated in the Fort Wayne College of Medicine at Fort Wayne, Indiana. In this institution which is now consolidated with the medical department of the University of Indiana, he was graduated as a member of the class of 1904, duly receiving his well earned degree of Doctor of Medicine. While an undergraduate he had gained practical experience along professional lines through being a student with Dr. Miles M. F. Porter, one of the prominent physicians of Fort Wayne. After his graduation he devoted eighteen months to service as an interns in a leading hospital in the city of Fort Wayne, and he then returned to his home city, Montpelier, Blackford county, where he was associated in practice with his father and finally assumed the major part of the large professional business which the latter had there controlled for a long period. In 1909 he went to the State of Utah and was there fourteen months. In January, 1911, for the purpose of obtaining a broader field, he removed to Hartford City, and here his success has been on a parity with his distinctive professional ability, and he has a place in the confidence and good will of the community. He is affiliated with and is physician for the local lodge of the Loyal Order of Moose, and is also local examining physician for the Prudential, Metropolitan Life, Lincoln Life and other representative life insurance companies. The Doctor is identified with the Medical Association, the Indiana State :Medical Association, the Blackford County Medical Society, the District Medical Society of the Eighth Medical District, and the Tri-State Medical Society which draws its membership from Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. Of the District Medical Society he has served as president and vice-president, and is at the present time secretary of the county society. In the Masonic fraternity Dr. Sellers is affiliated with Montpelier Lodge No. 600, F. & A. M., and holds membership also in Hartford City Lodge No. 625, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

Dr. Sellers first wedded Miss Margaret Greiner, who was born and reared at Madison, Indiana, and who died at the birth of her first child, which died at the same time, in June, 1908. In the year 1909, at Montpelier, Blackford county, was solemnized the marriage of the Doctor to Miss Catherine Chapman, who was born at Fowlerville, Michigan, on the 30th of June, 1879, and who was for some time a popular teacher in the public schools at Montpelier, Indiana. She was graduated at the Michigan State Normal School at Ypsilanti, as a member of the class of 1904, and was actively engaged in teaching in Michigan and Indiana from the time of her graduation until her marriage. She is a daughter of Orville and Emma (May) Chapman, who were born in the state of New York but whose marriage was solemnized in Michigan. Her father was a farmer in Michigan and became also one of the representative physicians of that state, having been a graduate of Rush Medical College of Chicago. He died at Gregory, Livingston county, Michigan, in 1893, and his widow passed away in 1910. Dr. and Mrs. Sellers have two children: Gertrude E., born August 2, 1910, and Betty Virginia, born October 13, 1912.

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

ROWLAND J. SIDEY. The difference between the generations of any country with a history is commonly not one of principle but of emphasis. Our great American republic owes its magnificent upbuilding and the exploitation of its wonderful resources to the fact that it has almost automatically developed men of great initiative and executive power. There has been room for such men in every progressive business, no matter how crowded its ranks might be. The strength of the man with initiative is one of the ideas and the ability to shape those ideas into definite achievement. He known how to make beginnings and how to expand his practical ideas according to demands or utilitarian possibilities. Such a man in the industrial life of Indiana is Mr. Sidey, who has been actively connected with the development of the extensive oil-producing industry of the state. His knowledge of the business is one fortified by experience that has extended from his boyhood to the present day and his advancement has come as a result of his own ability and the mastering of circumstances, for he has been virtually dependent upon his own resources from the time he was a lad in his teens. At the same time he has overcome in the practical school of experience and self-discipline the educational handicap of his youth. He is a prominent and influential figure in connection with the oil industry in Indiana, especially in Blackford county, where he maintains his home in Montpelier, one of the fine little cities of this favored section of the State.

Mr. Sidey was born April 20, 1873, at Harvard, Ontario, Canada, a son of William and Emmeline Reed (Anthony) Sidey. His father was a pioneer in the oil fields of the old Keystone state. The lineage is traced back to sturdy Scotch-Irish stock. The family was founded in America by George and Catherine (Morris) Sidey, who were born in Angus, Scotland, and on coming to America in 1817 settled and lived for three years at Ogdensburg, New York, and in 1820 moved to Port Hope, Canada. They lived there until 1836, then settled on a farm eight miles from the same town, where George Sidey died in 1850. Their family comprised two sons and three girls: John, born at Ogdensburg, New York; Margaret, Jane and Mary, and James, all of whom were born in Canada. The son, James, is still living in Toronto; is a man six feet three inches high, weighs two hundred and twenty pounds, is straight as an Indian, and since early life has been noted for his prowess as a hunter. This characteristic pertains to nearly all the members of the different generations, and in occupation the family have been farmers and carpenters, physicians and always men and women of substantial character.

John Sidey, grandfather of Rowland J., and the son of George, was a child when the family moved to Canada, and there prepared himself for the profession of medicine and began practice in 1838. In 185? he moved to Bewdley, and there conducted a farm and a store and also established a postoffice. In 1859 he returned to his old farm for two years, but in 1861 was once more in Bewdley and continued as a merchant and as a practitioner of medicine until his death in 1892 at the age of seventy three. He was the owner of a large amount of land, and one of the most prominent and influential citizens of his community. Dr. Sidey was a man of buoyant and optimistic nature, of strong and upright character and of fine mentality, and was well equipped for leadership in thought and action. In 1840 he married Agnes Sackville. She was born May 29, 1820, at Gedboro, Scotland, and in 1830 came with her parents and five brothers, sailing from Whitehaven on the ship Hetherington, and arriving in Port Hope, Canada, in the following June. The Sackvilles located on a farm eight miles north of Port Hope, and that place is still owned in their name. Mrs. Dr. Sidey lived to the extreme age of ninety-two years, passing away in 1912, and at her death there were left seven children, twenty-nine grandchildren, twenty-nine great-grandchildren, and three great-great-grandchildren. To the marriage of Dr. Sidey and wife were born twelve children, eight of whom reached mature years and are named as follows: Jackson, who was killed in a railway accident in Canada, and was the father of eight children; James, who had two children; William, six children; Albert, two children; Catherine, three children; Thomas, six children; Frank, a bachelor; and Jennie, two children.

William Sidey, father of Rowland J., was born at Bewdley, Province of Ontario, in 1848, was reared and educated in his native Province and served as a soldier in the Dominion Militia at the time of the Fenian raid. When a young man he came to the United estates and established his residence in the Oil Creek district of Pennsylvania, became a pioneer worker in the oil fields, and his entire active career has been one of close and influential identification with the oil industry. He has drilled innumerable oil wells in the oil fields of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, and in 1913 became concerned with the same line of enterprise in the state of California. His home is now in the new city of Taft, California, and he is still active as an expert oilman. In Pennsylvania he married Miss Emmeline Reed Anthony, who was born and reared in that state, and who died in Taft, California, in March, 1913, at the age of sixty-three years, a devoted wife and mother, and one whose children may well "rise up and call her blessed." She was the daughter of George and Phoebe (Edwards) Anthony, who were likewise natives of Pennsylvania, where her father died at the age of forty-six years. The widowed mother later came to Indiana and spent her declining years in the home of her grandson, Rowland J. Sidey, until her death in 1908 at the age of seventy-nine. She was a member of the Free Methodist church.

Of the children of William and Emmeline R. ( Anthony) Sidey, the eldest is Lafayette M., an oil worker at Martinsville, Illinois, and who has four sons and two daughters: Roland J.; Phoebe, the wife of John L. Hunter, employed in the oil business in Oklahoma, and they have four sons and two daughters ; Carrie is the wife of Courtland Rood, an oil man of Taft, California, and has one son and one daughter; Emmeline is the wife of Otis Burklo, also in the oil business at Lawrenceville, Illinois, and has one son, Clarence, a resident of Oklahoma, and married, but without children.

Rowland J. Sidey attended the public schools of Pennsylvania until thirteen years of age, and though now considered a man of liberal education it is to his credit that he has developed his powers and acquired his attainments as a result of experience, the best of all teachers. Since early youth his work has been in connection with the oil industry, and his experience includes every detail. In 1893 he became associated with the Manhattan Oil Company of Ohio, and in March, 1906, this company sent him to Montpelier, Indiana, as manager of its operations in the local field until the expiration of its charter in 1909. During his development work in the Indiana fields his executive functions, expert work and independent operation have been attended with pronounced success. As an operator with extensive connections Mr. Sidey maintains his general business office in Montpelier, with offices in the Cloud Block, at the corner of Main and High streets. As a citizen he manifests the same progressiveness that has brought him success as a man of affairs, and is affiliated with Montpelier Lodge of Knights of Pythias, the Hartford City Lodge of Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, and his wife is an active member of the Montpelier Baptist church and a popular figure in the community's social activities.

The scope and importance of the business associations of Mr. Sidey deserve some more detailed mention. In 1912 he organized the Central Oil Company, incorporated with a capital stock of fifty thousand dollars. He is secretary and treasurer of the company, and its operations have yielded the stockholders twenty per cent on their investment annually. Its holdings include much valuable oil lands and fifty wells, all of them in the producing class.

At St. Marys, Auglaize county, Ohio, in 1903, Mr. Sidey married Miss Frederica Claus, who was born in the Kingdom of Wurtemburg, Germany, July, 1873, and was fifteen years of age when her parents came to America. She is a daughter of Frederick and Louise (Neftley) Claus, who now reside in Allen county, Ohio, and both are past seventy years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Sidey have three children: Clarissa Goldie is the wife of Robert Boyd, of Montpelier, and they have a little daughter, Helen Lucile; Emmet R. and Rowland J. Jr., are still at home and attending the public schools.

L. L. DAVIS. In Jackson township, four miles south and four miles east of Hartford City, and one mile north and four miles west of Dunkirk, is found Catalpa Farm, a handsome tract of sixty-nine acres, the proprietor of which, L. L. Davis, is one of his locality's most progressive agriculturists. Although not a native son of Blackford county, Mr. Davis has lived here since his infancy, on his present farm, of which he has keen the owner since 1906, and is generally conceded to be one of his community's substantial men and public-spirited citizens.

Mr. Davis was born in Randolph county, Indiana, September 22, 1876, and is a son of Hugh and Charlotte (Bobbins) Davis. His parents were both born in Randolph county, were there reared, educated and married, and in 1877 came to Blackford county, settling on the farm now owned by their son, L. L., and where they passed the remainder of their lives, the father passing away in 1901, and the mother five years later. They were the parents of seven children, as follows: Alice, who is the wife of Boyd Woods; William J., a resident of Delaware county, Indiana; E. H., of Paulding county, Ohio; Benjamin of Blackford county, residing at Millgrove; Charles, a resident of Fulton county, Ohio; and Lillie, the wife of Don Sealey, a resident of Missouri.

The youngest of his parents' children, L. L. Davis was reared on the homestead farm, to which he had been brought as a child of one year, and after completing the curriculum of the district schools became a student in the Tri-State College and the Marion Normal College, from which latter institution he received a teacher's license for thirty-six months. He has been teaching since 1897. At the time of his mother's death he purchased the property from the other heirs.

On February 26, 1898, Mr. Davis was married to Miss May Curry, who was born in Kentucky, an adopted daughter of T. H. Curry, and to this union there have been horn four children, as follows: Pauline, who graduated from the graded schools with the class of 1913, and is now a high school student; Cledith, Francis and Mary, who are all attending the public schools.

Since purchasing the old homestead in 1906, Mr. Davis has made numerous improvements thereon, including the erection of sound and substantial buildings and the installing of machinery of modern character. He uses the most approved and up-to-date methods in his work, and thus has been able to achieve a full measure of success from his labors, at the same time improving the appearance of Catalpa Farm, one of the handsomest in this part of the township. In addition to general farming he has met with success in breeding Poland-China hogs, his stock being registered and in great demand. Politically, Mr. Davis is a democrat, but has never taken a very active part in polities, being too engrossed with his private affairs. He is highly esteemed in his community for his many admirable traits of character, and his wife's circle of friends testifies to his general popularity.

Susan Reed, grandniece of LL Davis says that the maiden name of Charlotte Davis was Robbins, not Bobbins as transcribed.

MANFORD M. CLAPPER, M: D. The medical profession in Blackford county has a specially able and popular representative in the person of Dr. Clapper, who maintains his residence and headquarters in Hartford City, the judicial center of the county, and who controls a large and exacting practice. He has a clear realization of concentration of effort and thus gives special attention to the treatment of the diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat, in which he is a recognized authority, as his study and investigation have been directed closely along these lines. The Doctor was graduated in the Chicago Medical College as a member of the cases of 1890, and received from this admirable institution the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He has been engaged in practice in Hartford City since 1891, and since 1898 has devoted his attention almost entirely to the special lines just noted.

Dr. Clapper is a native of Blackford county, where he was born on the 11th of July, 1863, and after duly availing himself of the advantages of the public schools he continued his studies in turn in the National Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio, and in what is now Valparaiso University, at Valparaiso, Indiana. He devoted five years to teaching in the public schools and then began the study of medicine, in which domain he has fortified himself by constant study since his graduation in the Chicago Medical College as well as by effective post-graduate work. The Doctor traces his lineage back to sturdy German origin and the original orthography of the name was Clappe. His great grandfather, Henry Clapper, or Clappe, emigrated with his family from Prussia to America prior to the war of the Revolution, and his first wife died after his home had been established' in Bedford county, Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania he contracted a second marriage, and there were children from each union. Henry Clapper became a successful farmer of the type that has made the German agriculturist of Pennsylvania nationally famous for thrift, and as his descendants became scattered one of its branches changed the spelling of the name to Clapper, while another branch dropped the final "e," the Clapp families, of this genealogical line having been prominent in both Michigan and Wisconsin, which latter State 'has at the present time a representative of the name in the United States Senate.

Henry Clapper, Jr., grandfather of Dr. Clapper, was born in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, in 1787, and he represented his native commonwealth as a valiant soldier in the war of 1812, as did he also in the Mexican war. After the close of the latter conflict he established his home in Stark county, Ohio, where he built up a prosperous business as a cooper and where he died at the venerable age of eighty-four years. In that county he wedded Mary Smith, who died in 1869, at the age of seventytwo years. They were folk of steadfast character, true to duty in its every presentation, and both were devout Christians. The early representatives of the Clapper family in America held the faith of the German Lutheran church. In later generations a number of them became members of the Dunkard denomination, three cousins of Henry Clapper, Jr., having become clergymen of that church in Bedford county, Pennsylvania. The early political allegiance of the Clapper family was with the whig party, but later members were found aligned with both the republican and democratic parties, intrinsic loyalty and patriotism having been distinctly in evidence as one generation has followed another onto the stage of life. Henry and Mary ( Smith ) Clapper became the parents of nine children,-Ann, Jacob, Rachel, Henry, Christopher, John, Mary and two who died in infancy. Of the seven designated by name all attained maturity and married, and all but Ann and Mary reared children. Rachel, who was born in 1824, is now ninety years of age, and is a resident of Hartford City, her husband having died a number of years ago. Henry was born in 1827, and now resides in Grant county, this State.

Christopher Clapper, father of him whose name introduces this sketch, was born in Stark county, Ohio, in 1832, and was there reared to manhood. He received good educational advantages and became a successful teacher and farmer in his native county. There was solemnized his marriage to Miss Catherine Hall, who was born in that county in 1832, and who is a daughter of Daniel and Susan (Swagert) Hall, the former of whom was born in Stark county, Ohio, in 1802, and the latter of whom was born in Pennsylvania about 1805 ; their marriage was contracted in Stark county, and there they passed the remainder of their lives, Mr. Hall, who was a farmer by occupation, having attained to the age of eighty-four years and his wife having been somewhat past the age of seventy at the time of her demise. Both were earnest members of the Presbyterian church. 'Mr. Hall was a son of David Hall, who emigrated to America from Durham, England, and who was a son of James Hastings Hall, the mother of the latter having been a kinswoman of Warren Hastings, a prominent character in English history.

In 1854, soon after his marriage, Christopher Clapper came from Ohio to Blackford county, Indiana, and he settled on a tract of virtually unreclaimed land in the southeastern part of the county. There he gave his time and attention to the development and cultivation of his farm until he responded, in 1861, to the call of patriotism and tendered his services in defense of the Union. He enlisted in Company K, Fifty-first Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and he continued in service until he was attacked with double pneumonia, his death having occurred at Huntsville, Alabama, on the 22d of January, 1865. He was a private and as such participated in a number of important engagements marking the progress of the Civil war, in which he sacrificed his life. His widow still survives him and retains remarkable mental and physical vigor, she being now a cherished member of the household of her son, Dr. Clapper, of this review. She is a member of the German Dunkard church and her husband held membership in the Presbyterian church. Of the children the eldest is Theodore, who is a representative farmer in Meigs county, Ohio; Alice is the wife of George Marley, of New Castle, Indiana; and Dr. Manford M. is the youngest of the three, he having been about two years of age at the time of his father's death.

The tenets of the democratic party have received the unequivocal approval of Dr. Clapper, but he has had no desire to enter the arena of practical politics. He is identified with the American Medical Association, the Indiana State Medical Society and the Blackford County Medical Society. In a fraternal way he is affiliated with the Knights of the Modern Maccabees.

In 1893 was solemnized the marriage of Dr. Clapper to Mliss Auretta Kleefisch, who was born and reared in Blackford county, and who is a daughter of Philip and Matilda (Cline) Kleefisch, the latter of whom died in 1912, when sixty-seven years of age. Mr. Kleefisch was born in Germany, whence he emigrated to America in 1865, becoming a resident of Blackford county, and where he still resides, his home being now at Hartford City, and he having reached the age of seventy-nine years, in 1914. Dr. and Mrs. Clapper have two children,-Erskine Marion, who is a member of the class of 1915 in the high school; and Louretta Gertrude, who was born in 1900 and graduated from the parochial school of the Catholic church in Hartford City this spring, and who will enter first year high school in the fall. The Doctor and his family hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal church.

Since this sketch was written, Dr. Clapper has closed his office in Hartford City and in February entered the New York Post Graduate Medical School, from which he graduated in June. June 12th he sailed for Europe, and is at present doing Post Graduate work in The Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital and also in the Royal Central London Nose, Throat and Ear Hospital. After graduating there he expects to enter school in both Edinburgh, Scotland, and Vienna, Austria.

ALONZO W. DICK The progressive younger element of citizens in Blackford county is particularly well represented by Alonzo W. Dick, whose enterprise as a farmer has brought him individual success, and who stands as one of the public spirited and efficient citizens of his community in Harrison township.

A native of Harrison township, and born on the farm where he now lives, Alonzo W. Dick first saw the light of day on January 26, 1877. His family have long been identified with Blackford County. His father, Uriah Dick, was born in West Virginia, and his mother, whose maiden name was Sarah J. Wickersham, was a native of Wayne county, Indiana. The father died in 1893 and the mother in 1912. They had just two children, and Clinton Dick is engaged in farming in Washington township.

The childhood and youth of Alonzo W. Dick were spent on a farm, and in addition to the advantages furnished by the district common schools he took a course in the Marion Normal College, and was given a license to teach school, although farming has always been his choice of vocation. On February 8, 1902, Mr. Dick married Mary E. Jarrett of Wells county, Indiana. She was born and reared in Wells county, and finished the course in the common schools.

After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Dick moved to his father's estate, and has since made it a matter of pride as well as of vocation to bring his land into the highest state of cultivation and improvement and managed the resources of his farm to the best possible advantage. Mr. Dick is the owner of fifty-six acres in his home place in Harrison township, and fifteen acres in Washington township.

To their marriage have been born five children, namely-. Grant A., born in 1903 ; Howard J., born in 1904 ; Bacil T., born in 1906; Waldo E., born in 1907; and Ethelbert J., born February 9, 1914. Politically, Mr. Dick since attaining his majority has been steadily devoted to the republican cause up to the campaign of 1912, when he found himself in sympathy with the principles of the progressive party and cast his vote in that way.

Deb Murray