EDGAR M. BALDWIN. The writing of a history of Fairmount and vicinity without mention of the part played by the Baldwin family since the pioneer beginning of that community would be as imperfect as a certain play without its titular hero. The Baldwins were at Fairmount before there was a town, and through three generations their substantial and worthy citizenship has been a prominent factor in the development of this locality. A fact of pioneer history which has often been little mentioned is that the first settlers of any community, through their leadership, their relations in family or friendly ties, with late comers, and through their public spirit in guarding the moral integrity of the community often exercise a far reaching and invaluable influence on the social and economic welfare. An excellent illustration of these influences derived from the first settlers in afforded by the Baldwin family and their connection at Fairmount. They were all the thrifty and substantial stock of Quakers who have been so prominent in Grant county, and the many fine characteristics of this simple people has been exemplified in a high degree through those bearing the Baldwin name.

The detailed history of the Baldwin family would be too long for publication in this work. The ancestry might be traced back to an early era when there were three Baldwins kings, known in numerical order as Baldwin I, Baldwin II, and Baldwin III. However, the regal progenitors of the family will be disregarded at the present time, and this brief article will begin with the establishment of the name on the Atlantic Coast of America. The family in England was Welsh in origin. The story is authenticated that three brothers of the name left their native shores and reached the colonial division of America, one settling in New England, another in Pennsylvania, and another in the Carolinas. Of the New England branch, there have been a great many descendants. One of them is the present Governor Simeon Baldwin, of Connecticut, while Judge Daniel P. Baldwin, at one time attorney-general of Indiana, and who died at Logansport, belonged to the same branch. The brother who located in Pennsylvania was the ancestor of the Baldwins who established and conducted the great Baldwin Locomotive Works at Philadelphia. There was also Governor Baldwin, of Georgia, but to which branch he belonged is not known. The Grant County Baldwins are descended from the ancestor who settled in North Carolina. Only a little information is available concerning the early generations, but it is known that they were all Quakers, were chiefly farmers by occupation, and there is a steady record of thrifty, industrious people of good moral qualities, and high average of thrift and prosperity. In this line was Daniel Baldwin, Sr., great-grandfather of Edgar M. Baldwin. He was born in Guilford county, North Carolina, and married Mary Benbow, of North Carolina. They lived and died in their native state, and were good, honest and plain people, rigid adherents of the Friends church.

In their family of children were: Daniel Baldwin, Jr., born in Guilford county, North Carolina, December 10, 1789. He married Christian Wilcuts, who was born November 11, 1793. They were married in 1812, and in the fall of that year, with wagons and ox teams, they accomplished the long and tedious journey across the mountains and through the Ohio Valley to Wayne county, Indiana. They found a home in the Quaker settlement near Richmond, where they entered government land. Their home continued in Wayne county until 1833, and it was in that county that all their children were born. Daniel Baldwin in 1833 brought his family to Grant county. He had prospected in this locality in the previous year and had purchased a piece of land and a partly finished log cabin located at what is now the corner of Main and Eighth Street, in Fairmount. The village plat had not yet been laid out, and there were very few settlers in all this township. The cabin had been started by John Benbow, who was an early land speculator. Into the cabin Daniel Baldwin moved his family, and afterwards completed and improved the house for a comfortable dwelling. That old cabin had the distinction of being the first house in the present corporation limits of Fairmount. Daniel Baldwin, Jr., added to his possessions here until he owned one hundred and sixty acres of land. The north side of Fairmount covers a part of this land, and some of the property is still owned in the family, the widow of Robert Bogue, grandson of Daniel Baldwin, Jr., having title to a portion of the original tract. It was in Fairmount that Daniel Baldwin, Jr., spent his last years, and died October 9, 1845. His wife died October 28, 1848. They took a prominent part in establishing the first Quaker church at Fairmount, and were people of the finest pioneer type. They were quiet, God-fearing, neighbor-loving people, of retiring disposition, but enjoyed hosts of friends. They lay buried side by side for about sixty years in the Friends Buck Creek burying ground, until August, 1910, when their descendants removed their bodies to the Park cemetery near Fairmount, and the same old headstones mark their final resting place.

The large family of children of Daniel Baldwin, Jr., and wife are mentioned as follows: 1. Thomas, born April 26, 1813, was married and reared a large family. He was a farmer by occupation and belonged to the Friends church. 2. Millie, born December 1, 1814, married Barnabas Bogue, reared a large family, was a farmer by occupation and also a Friend. 3. Elias, born August 26, 1816, was a farmer, and by his first marriage had two sons, and then married Hannah Mills, whose one child died in infancy. 4. Joseph W., born January 13, 1818, lived and died in Grant county as a farmer. He married Jane, a daughter of David Stansfield. Her father was the founder of the south half of Fairmount.

Joseph W. Baldwin was the first merchant of Fairmount, and conducted a store there from 1848 to 1860, and gave the name to the present town of Fairmount. He had eight children, four of whom are yet living. 5. David, born November 6, 1819, lived and died in Grant county as a farmer. He married Elizabeth Coleman, but had no children of his own. However, they adopted Dr. J. W. Patterson, now a physician of Fairmount. David and wife were Methodists in religion, his wife having been reared in that church. 6. Daniel, Jr., born November 3, 1821, died during infancy in Wayne county. 7. Jonathan, born September 30, 1823, was a successful and prominent man in Grant county, and died here many years ago. His first wife was Sarah A. Dillon, who left four children, three of whom are living. By his second union he became the husband of Mrs. Emeline (Tharp) Hockett, who had two children by her first marriage, but none by her second. 8. Mary, born December 21, 1825, married Dr. Philip Patterson, the first practicing physician of Fairmount. Both are now deceased, and they were the parents of five children, while Dr. Patterson married the second time, and had one daughter by that marriage. 9. Micah, born May 26, 1828, is spoken of more at length in a following paragraph. 10. Huldah, born April 14, 1830, married John Bradford, who died in Illinois, at Momence, six years ago. His widow with her only daughter still lives at Momence. 11. Rachael, died in the prime of life, forty years ago, the wife of James R. Smith, and was the mother of ten children, having two sets of twins, and five of these children are yet living. All of the above children of Daniel Baldwin, Jr., were born in Wayne county, and those who have died all passed away in this state.

Micah Baldwin was in his fifth year when his parents came to Fairmount. He grew up on a farm, and later learned the trade of tanner, an occupation which he was destined to follow a number of years. In 1859, with Daniel Ridgeway, he started the second tannery at Fairmount. Later he became associated with his brother-in-law, J. R. Smith, in the same industry. In 1877, Micah Baldwin gave up the tanning trade, and became a dealer in meats. While conducting a tannery he had also handled and made custom shoes and harness, and his last years were spent as a custom maker of shoes and as a repairer. He worked in that line to within six weeks of his death. He died March 13, 1893. From boyhood on through all his life he was a firm adherent of the Quaker faith and lived up to the high principles of that sect.

On April 24, 1850, Micah Baldwin married Miss Sarah Morris, whose name introduces another familiar family in Grant county. She was born near Fountain City, in Wayne county, Indiana, December 3, 1830, and was about one year old when her parents moved to Grant county. Her parents were Nathan and Miriam Benbow Morris. Her father was born in South Carolina, and her mother in North Carolina, and they met and married after being brought, when young, to Wayne county, Indiana. In Grant county they took up government land, all of it new, and improved a good homestead of one hundred and sixty acres. That continued to be their home for over twenty years, when Mr. Morris sold out and moved to Marshall county, Iowa. Five years later he moved to Kansas, and lived in that state, chiefly at Burr Oak, in Jewell county, until his death in 1881. He was born in the fall of 1808, so that he was seventy-three years of age when he died. Nathan Morris, from the time of his young manhood, was one of the most zealous ministers of the Quaker church. He preached and worked for his denomination and for the good of humanity, year after year, and never with a cent of remuneration. Equal to his zeal for the ministry, was his splendid charities, and it is said that no one ever left his door empty-handed. With all his liberality he prospered, and nowhere was there ever a better illustration of a common truth, that those who are most generous in their charity are often the most blest in their material fortunes. The first wife of Nathan Morris died at her home in Grant county during his forty-third year, leaving a large family. He then married Abigail Peacock, whose maiden name was Baldwin, and who also the mother of a large family. Nathan Morris, by his two wives was the father of twenty-two children, fifteen by his first wife and seven by the second. Of this large family, Mrs. Micah Baldwin is one of the four yet living, and the oldest of the twenty-two children. She is now in her eighty-third year and is as alert and bright mentally as many women twenty years younger. It many ways she has had a remarkable history. She survived from a time when conditions and environments were almost totally different from those that now obtain. When she was a girl she learned all the housewifery arts which were considered so necessary in pioneer days. She was a skillful weaver, and has woven hundreds of yards of flax and wool cloth. In the early days she made all her clothing from her own weaving, and practiced all the domestic arts which are familiarly associated with the pioneer women. In one day she spun and reeled thirty "cuts" of wool, more than any one who competed with her had been able to do. All her life long she has been devoted to the Quaker church, and for many years did home missionary work. She now has her home in Fairmount, at the same residence where she has lived for half a century. This residence is a land mark in Fairmount, and was for many years occupied by her husband, Micah Baldwin. The children of Micah Baldwin and wife were as follows: 1. Nathan, born June 14, 1851, has never married, is an educated man, and since he was fourteen years of age has been a victim of paralysis, having his home with his mother and brother in Fairmount. 2. Daniel, third of the name was born December 5, 1853, and is a farmer in Hardin county, Iowa. He married Lyde Bogue, and has one son, C. Gordon, now eighteen years old. 3. Lucy, born April, 1856, died in 1874, at the age of eighteen. 4. Orlando, born March 7, 1858, is a barber in Kansas City, Kansas. 5. Millie, born August 1, 1860, married Henry Delcamp, a resident of Chicago. They are the parents of Earl and Nettie. 6. Benjamin, born December 12, 1862, was accidentally drowned when eighteen months old. 7. Edgar M., born April 2, 1866, whose individual career is given in detail in the following paragraph. 8. Mary E., born August 26, 1868, is the wife of Edward M. Hollingworth, a shoe merchant at Fairmount. They have children, Leo, Kenneth, and Charles E. 9. Charles, born October 21, 1871, is unmarried, and is a printer with a home in Seattle, Washington.

For a number of years Mr. Edgar M. Baldwin has been one of the most influential citizens of Grant county, and as editor and proprietor of the Fairmount News wields a large and beneficent influence over his locality. His early years were spent in Fairmount, where he attended the public schools, and in 1877, when only eleven years old, made his start in the printing trade. He did all the duties required of an apprentice, stood at the case, and learned to set type, was employed in the Fairmount News office, and developed an exceptional skill as a journeyman printer. Like most of the men of his profession he has traveled about the country a great deal, and has worked in the composing rooms of some of the largest dailies and printing establishments in the country. He was at New Vienna, Ohio, at Cincinnati, at Indianapolis, worked on the old Chicago Herald, then went to Philadelphia, spent two years in New York City in a law printing house, once more had employment at Philadelphia, and also at Wilmington, Delaware, did work in the city of Washington, then came west to Cincinnati, and Indianapolis and Chicago, and in 1885 returned to his old home at Fairmount. Here he bought the plant of the Fairmount News from Charles Stout, and conducted that paper for three years. Selling out he went to western Kansas and for a few months ran the Ellis Headlight. In 1890, Mr. Baldwin was appointed to a position in the government printing office at Washington, D. C., where he spent four and a half years, during which time he was employed on many of the large jobs in that printery, the greatest establishment of its kind in America. From Washington he once more came to Fairmount. With the outbreak of the Spanish-American war in 1898, four days after the declaration of war, on April 26, he joined Company A, of the One Hundred and Sixtieth Indiana Infantry. This regiment rendezvoused at Indianapolis, and was mobilized at Chickamauga. The regiment was finally assigned to duty with the army of invasion in Porto Rico, but when the regiment left for the front Mr. Baldwin was in the hospital. A few days later he got out and joined the Fifth Illinois Regiment, going with that command to Newport News, Va. However, the peace protocol was signed while the regiment was on the way. The command was later transferred to the army of occupation and sent to Matanzas Province, Cuba. The regiment was returned to Savannah, Georgia, and was discharged there, April 26, 1899, just a year after his enlistment. The commander of the regiment with which he went to Cuba was George W. Gunder. Returning to his Indiana home, Mr. Baldwin then spent some time as a traveling salesman. After four years he returned to Fairmount and again took over the Fairmount News in 1903. Since then the Fairmount News has been issued under his management, and is one of the most influential and best edited papers of Grant county. The News is issued to its subscribers on Monday and Thursday of each week. The subscription list comprises the best people in the south half of Grant county, and the paper circulates to many quarters of the state. The office of the News is unusually well equipped, not only for periodical publication, but with a complete job plant for catalogue and other high class printing.

Mr. Baldwin was married August 23, 1887, to Myra Rush, a daughter of Rev. Nixon and Louisa Rush, a family whose record will be found elsewhere in this publication. Mrs. Baldwin was born near Fairmount, July 4, 1865. She has the distinction of being the first graduate of the Fairmount Academy with the class of 1887. For a number of years she has been the proficient city editor of the Fairmount News. They are the parents of one son, Mark, born June 8, 1889, a graduate of the Fairmount Academy with the class of 1909, and just twenty-two years after his mother, and a graduate with the class of 1912 from Earlham College, at Richmond, Indiana. He is now in the U. S. Soil Survey of the Agricultural Department, having charge of a squad with headquarters in Iowa. Mr. Baldwin and his family are active workers and members of the Friends church.

Mr. Baldwin has been almost too busy for participation in public affairs, but has frequently been honored with marks of esteem from his fellow citizens. He was endorsing clerk in the Indiana State Senate during the session of 1908-09. He was the nominee in the Republican caucus for assistant clerk of the House of Representatives during the following session. He was treasurer of the Republican Editorial Association of Indiana, and was also treasurer of the Grant County Central Committee. In 1912, he enlisted his support in behalf of the Progressive party, and at Peru, on September 11, was nominated for congress in the Eleventh Congressional district on the Progressive ticket. He made an exceptionally strong campaign, received votes from both the old parties, and the campaign, while not resulting in his election, was a most gratifying tribute to his personal popularity.

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

ALVIN B. SCOTT. The large manufacturing industries which were created as a result of the natural gas boom in Grant county and other sections of Indiana have, as a matter of course, developed some exceptional men of industry and ability, and some of the present leaders in local business and manufacturing circles were boys in Grant county when natural gas was first found under its surface.

Prominent in this class of citizenship is Alvin B. Scott, secretary and treasurer and general manager of the Bell Bottle Company at Fairmount. He has held that position three years throughout the period of its present management. He was formerly associated with Mr. Borrey and Mr. Cleveland while they were at the head of the Bell Bottle Company. In May, 1910, Mr. Scott took over the plant, forming a fifty thousand dollar corporation, but retaining the old name of the Bell Bottle Company. James Luther of Terre Haute, is president, Irvin Scott, a brother of Alvin B. is vice president, while Alvin B. Scott is secretary and treasurer and general manager. The board of directors, three in number comprise the three officers just named. The Bell Bottle Company operate a very important industry, one that produces a large amount of wealth every year, and affords employment to about four hundred people. Their output averages three carloads of bottles every day, and the plant is exclusively devoted to the manufacture of bottles of all kinds used in the commercial trade. The plant has one sixteen-ring tank furnace, and first class equipment and efficiency are watch words throughout the business. Mr. Scott has the entire plant under his personal management, and has been very successful in distributing the product, which is sold and shipped to every part of the United States.

Mr. Scott may be said to have never known any other occupation than glass manufacture. He is familiar with every department and knows the manufacturing end equally as well as the sales and distribution part. He first began with the Dillon Glass Company in the clerical department in 1890. He soon after decided that his prospect of advancement would be better through the practical side of the business and he accordingly learned the trade of glass blower and worked up through every department. In 1895 he became associated with the Model Glass Company of Summitsville, in Madison county, and is president of that concern, having the active management of both plants for two years until he had to withdraw on account of overstrain through the heavy responsibilities laid upon him.

Alvin B. Scott was born in Fairmount township of Grant county, March 27, 1868. He was graduated from the Fairmount Academy with the class of 1889, and found his first work as a clerk. Mr. Scott is a grandson of Stephen Scott, a West Virginian, who was an early settler in Wayne county, where he married and afterwards moved to Grant county, and died in the latter locality. The father of Alvin B. Scott is Levi Scott, a native of Indiana, and for many years a banker in Fairmount. In 1893 the elder Scott suffered from the financial panic and afterwards retired from business and moved to California, where he now lives. He has his second wife, first wife having died at the age of forty-five years. The first wife, and the mother of Alvin B. Scott, was Emily Davis, a daughter of George Davis, of an old and prominent family in Grant county.

Alvin B. Scott was married in Fairmount township to Emily Luther, a daughter of Ivy and Sarah (Stewart) Luther, both of whom are living and are substantial farmers in this section of the county. The Luthers are active members of the Friends church, and Mr. and Mrs. Scott belong to the same church. In politics Mr. Scott is a Republican. Their four children are mentioned as follows: Merle, a graduate of the Fairmount Academy, for one year a student in the Culver Military Academy, and in 1913, a graduate with the degree of Bachelor of Arts from the State University of Bloomington; Mary E., who is now attending the Fairmount Academy; Sedrick Levi and Martin Ivy, both of whom are in the schools.

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

WHISLER FAMILY. Since the year 1838 the Whisler Family has been identified with Marion and Grant county. In this time five generations of the family have lived in Marion, and during all this time the name has been associated with industry and integrity in business relations and with the worthiest qualities of citizenship and personal character.

For many years Jacob Whisler, the founder of the family in Marion, was the village inn keeper at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. His inn was called the Whisler House. It was a well known place and a landmark at that time. One of the features which made it attractive to travelers was its immense stone barn.

Jacob Whisler in 1838 sold out this business and came overland to Marion with his family, arriving in the springtime when the roads were very bad, and horses had to be hitched tandem to pull the wagons through miring ways. After a long and laborious journey they reached their destination and settled two miles east of Marion. Jacob Whisler was born in 1776, the year of American Independence, and died in 1863, aged 87. The maiden name of his wife was Mary Mundobaugh. In the family were five sons and three daughters.

Jacob Whisler, son of Jacob Whisler, and representing the second generation in Marion, was born 1817, learned the cabinetmaker's trade, carrying it on many years. He was the first Democrat elected to any office in Grant county, being elected County Treasurer in 1854. Leaving the office at the end of his term, he ran a general store until 1864 when he retired. His wife was a Marion girl, Weltha A. Horton, born 1818. They lived many years on Adams street just north of Fifth, and later at the old homestead in North Marion. Jacob Whisler died in 1875, and his wife in 1901. They were the parents of one son and two daughters; Mary married John Fitzgerald, and Martha married Ed Weaver.

Leroy M. Whisler, the son of the family last named, was born October 23, 1844, in Marion. He married Matilda M. McKinney, daughter of Fielding S. McKinney, who was one of the early settlers in the county. Roy Whisler, as he always was called, followed the tin and hardware business, succeeding his father, but since 1900 has lived a retired life. For the last 15 years Mr. and Mrs. Whisler have spent the winters in Florida.

The fourth generation of the Whisler family in Marion includes the three sons of Leroy M. Whisler and wife. The oldest Jasper L. Whisler, born August 30, 1871, is a watchmaker and jeweler by trade, and has a jewelry store on the north side of the square for 20 years. There are probably very few persons who have a larger personal acquaintance in Marion and the surrounding country than he has. His wife was Viola M. Cramer; they have one daughter, Margaret, born December 1, 1896.

Ralph P. Whisler, the second son, his a contractor, and located at Richmond, Ind. He married Mirriam Hiatt; they have one son, Leroy Whisler. Jacob Whisler, the youngest son of Leroy M. Whisler and wife, is a traveling man. He has been with the National Cash Register Company for many years, generally traveling in the west. Leroy, the son of Ralph and Margaret Whisler, daughter of Jasper Whisler represent the fifth generation of the Whislers.

There are still in existence several very dear keepsakes of the original Jacob Whisler. Among these is the very fine old wall sweep clock, nine feet high, and in perfect preservation. It is still ticking in the home of Jasper L. (Jap) Whisler. The clock was brought overland from Chambersburg, Pa., in 1838 by Jacob Whisler. Several old pewter plates are among the family relics, and are tenderly handled for precious associations.

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

Deb Murray