Blackford County Biography Ref. Page

BUCHANAN FAMILY OF GRANT COUNTY. The history of a family written by a member of it naturally partakes largely of the personal element. The mutations of time change all things and all people and while "new occasions teach new duties" and this history deals with the past and its evolutional changes, it is also the story of the present, told today, which in time shall become the history of the past.

According to MacIam's "Clans and Customs," a history of Scotland, the genealogists of clan Buchanan derive it from a son of O ‘Kyan, an Irish prince, who came to Scotland in time of Malcolm II anno 1016 and obtained the lands of Buchanan in county Stirling.

The condensed history of clan Buchanan, which tells of its honorable miltary history, its adherence to Bruce, refusing allegiance to King Edward I of England in 1296; their marriages, births and deaths, all changing incidents of life; their landed possessions which stretched over a distance of about eighteen miles on the north side of Loch Lomond, justly celebrated in song and story, with the house of Buchanan on its banks, now the country place of His Grace the Duke of Montrose; the war-shout "Clan Innis" which passing quickly would in a few hours muster the clan of fifty heritors and their followers, all of their name; their armorial bearings, motto and badges, tartan and costume, with its large loose plaid and philibeg; the buttons peculiar to the Highlanders; the sporan bearing the war-cry "Clan Innis;" the hose, the bonnet with its badge of two feathers, and family portraits which are today in the possession of Herbert Buchanan Esq. of Arden,—-all matters of historical record have no particular bearing upon this paper other than to note their origin as a family and the significance of their Christian names. It is a far cry from Scotland, 1240, to America, 1914, but more than six hundred years ago the Lairds of Buchanan, chiefs of their clan, were the Sirs Alexander, James, John, George and Walter, and wherever the family of Buchanan is known in America these names have been repeated again and again.

This much by way of historical record, whi1e tradition tells us that the American Buchanans trace their lineal descent from the three brothers of the name who were brought to this country while mere lads, too young doubtless to appreciate the importance of preserving knowledge of family connections in Scotland. Being separated these brothers became the heads of families, one branch in Pennsylvania, one in Virginia and one in eastern New York.

The family to which the late Alexander Buchanan, for more than sixty years a resident of Marion belonged, was of the Pennsylvania wing. His father, James M. Sr., was disinherited for marrying Rachel McCarthy, a young Irish girl employed in his father's family in the capacity of nursery governess. James Buchanan Sr. moved to Trumbull county, Ohio, then in the Western Reserve and attached for government to the state of Pennsylvania, where were born to them nine children, of which Alexander was the fifth.

His early life was spent on the farm until his fifteenth year, when he was apprenticed to a cabinet maker with whom he worked until he attained his majority. His apprenticeship was served at Youngstown, Ohio, where he attended the village schools during the winter months. James Buchanan Sr. moved to Grant county in 1838, locating on what is known as the Robert Willson farm, southeast of Jonesboro. After some years they moved to their farm in Wabash county, southeast of the village of Ashland, now Lafontain. Alexander Buchanan came to Marion in 1840, and with the late David Norton as partner manufactured furniture. This partnership lasted for several years. After their dissolution, and realizing the need of an undertaking establishment, Alexander Buchanan opened up the first one in the then village of Marion, and built the first hearse he used, his wife making the curtains and trimmings for it In the meantime he continued to manufacture furniture, many pieces of which are still to be found in Grant and Wabash counties. Some of the best known men in the country worked with him, notably Isaiah Cox and Daniel Barley, the latter of whom also served as postmaster for many years. In 1851 Alexander Buchanan sold his business to Samuel Whisler and having been elected county sheriff qualified for that office, which he filled for three consecutive terms, was again elected in 1867, serving three years under a new enactment by legislature, retiring from active political life in 1870, but never during life losing interest in the Republican party to which he was a faithful adherent from its birth.

When the first call for three months men to enlist in the war of the Rebellion was made, Mr. Buchanan enlisted as first lieutenant of Company I of the Twelfth Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and before taking the field was made its captain, serving his term of enlistment was mustered out, and was prevented from re-enlisting because of loss of his home by fire. At the time of his death, which occurred June 17, 1902, Alexander Buchanan had been for twenty- six years the senior member of the firm of Buchanan & Son, undertakers and marble and granite dealers.

September 9, 1841, Captain Buchanan was married to Miss Julia Ellzroth, daughter of Frederick and Katherine Ellzroth, pioneer settlers of Marion. Mrs. Buchanan passed away in March, 1886. Six children were born to them, namely: Simon Monroe, Harriett, Laura, James Monroe, David and Mary Christfield. Their first born and two younger children died in childhood. The second daughter, Laura, was married to H. C. Hathaway at Richmond, Indiana, December 9, 1869. They are the parents of four children, three of whom are still living.

James Monroe Buchanan was born August 21, 1850, and received his education at Miss Julia Norton's school and the "Old Academy" in Marion and at Stanford Biblical Institute at Sanfordville, New York. During his early manhood he served his father as deputy during his incumbency of office and afterwards was associated with him in a general merchandise business until in 1876 he established the business of undertaking and granite and marble dealing, which has descended from grandfather and father to its present owner and proprietor, James Walter Buchanan.

James M. Buchanan was united in marriage on May 26, 1875, to Mary Thompson, youngest daughter of the late Samuel R. and Martha Thompson, pioneer settlers of Grant county. To them were born two children: Bertha, who married Otis E. Little of Boston, Massachusetts, June 6, 1900; and James Walter, who married Miss Elizabeth Hoobler April 12, 1910. The latter are the parents of a little son, nearly three years of age, the sixth James Buchanan in direct descent, five of whom have lived in that county.

James Monroe Buchanan passed away in the prime of life and usefulness April 1, 1913, aged sixty-two years. It is perhaps given to few men to leave a record of such unblemished character and upright living at home and abroad, wherever the vocation of a busy life called him. A man of broad outlook, generous impulses, tender charity and enduring friendship, few deaths have occasioned such a general sense of loss as has his, and only recently a friend in speaking of him said, "Today as at the time of his death I regard the death of such a man a public calamity, but the influence of such a life will live while memory of him lasts."

At the suggestion of a friend and church brother, is quoted the following tribute read at the first meeting of the official board held after his death, fittingly submitted by Captain J. W. Miles, who for more than a quarter century had been a brother trustee with James Buchanan in the Temple Congregational church, of which they had been members since early manhood, the parents and families of both also being members, while the grandparents of both men had been among its founders: "It is eminently fitting for the official board of the Temple Congregational church of Marion, of which our late brother James M. Buchanan for many years was an honored member, to give an expression of its sense of loss at his passing from us, and to offer an expression of condolence to his immediate family whose loss is greater than words can express. The members of this board and of the church, as well as all who knew Brother Buchanan, can bear witness to his integrity and his good character as a Christian man and citizen. But it is in the church where his loss will be more keenly felt than anywhere outside of his family. His activity in the church he loved was known to all of us. Her interests and her success were dear to his heart, but his Christian work was not confined to his own church—he was a Christian at work everywhere."

And here in this brief history of a family whose interests are identified with that of our home city Marion it is realized that if another chapter is added it must be of the future and the work of future historian. As it is only by the achievements of the past we may hope to measure the possibilities of the future and as the growth of any family of peoples, their various ramifications, their failures or successes cannot be prescribed, knowing that brave lives bravely lived may prove an incentive for future emulation, we pause with the hope that inasmuch as the opportunities of today for useful honorable careers are so great they may be appreciated and correspondingly improved. So we close looking trustfully forward in the belief that the fruit of every pure and honest life repeats itself as harvest follows seed time through successive generations.

It might indeed be pleasing to ponder, if old conditions had remained unchanged; if titles and landed estates had been handed down through succeeding generations; since it is a human weakness to love and perhaps unduly estimate earthly honors such as these, it might indeed be pleasing to our "amour propre" to dream of family greatness, place and power, yet, since life is so much fuller than any book, when we consider the broader life and the greater opportunities that come to the people of a free land, of the privileges of being an American citizen, for, as a late writer has said, in spite of European and American criticism, of rancor and vehemence, of the cataclysmic era of change through which the world is now passing, the United States of America remains the greatest country in the world and the living hope of mankind. Therefore we close thoroughly in accord with the sentiment of Scotland's greatest poet, that

"A prince can mak' a belted knight
A marquis, duke, and a' that,
But an honest mon's aboon his might,
Gude faith he manna, for a' that.
For a' that and a' that
Their dignities and a' that,
The pith o' sense and pride o' worth
Are higher rank than a' that."

"BLACKFORD AND GRANT COUNTIES INDIANA, A CHRONICLE OF THEIR PEOPLE PAST AND PRESENT WITH FAMILY LINEAGE AND PERSONAL MEMOIRS"; Complied Under the Editorial Supervision of BENJAMIN G. SHINN; vol. II ; THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY; CHICAGO AND NEW YORK; 1914
Submitted by:Peggy Karol and Karen Overholt

JOHN T. CAREY. Three generations of the house of Carey have left their imprint upon the life of Grant county, Indiana, and a fourth generation just coming into activity in the business of life gives promise of equaling the excellent work of their progenitors in the community that has so long known and honored the Carey family. The first of the name to locate in Grant county were four sons of John Carey, the paternal grandfather of John T. Carey, whose name initiates this review.

John Carey, it is presumed, was born in Virginia, coming of an old and well established family, and he subsequently located in Clinton county, Ohio. He settled on a farm there and devoted himself to agricultural activities, spending the most of his life there. He came to Grant county, Indiana, to visit his sons, and his death soon afterward occurred in Liberty township. He was then past seventy-five years of age, and his life had been one of singular usefulness in those communities that he had called home. His good wife later died in the same township, when she had reached the age of about eighty-three, and both lie buried in Oak Ridge cemetery. Her maiden name was Margaret Green, and, like her husband, was a Virginian, it is assumed, though accurate facts as to the early life of these fine old people are not of record and only reports by word of mouth are available. They were married in Clinton county, Ohio, where they first met, and together they continued to live there for a great many years. They were Quakers, and reared their children in that simple and fine old faith.

John Carey, their son and the father of the subject of this review was born in Clinton county, Ohio, in 1816, and he died on July 19, 1895. He grew up in his native community, and there learned the trade of a carpenter, but after coming to Grant county he followed farming. In Clinton county he met and married Eliza Moon, and she died while yet in the prime of life, leaving her widowed husband with six children. In 1849 John Carey took his motherless brood of children and came to Grant county, here to locate on new and untried land in section 18 of Fairmount township. He brought to his new home and his new enterprise a vast and telling energy that soon made his wilderness farm a real home and a productive bit of soil. He improved his first possession, and with the passing years gradually acquired more until he soon owned 240 acres, eighty acres lying in Fairmount township and 160 acres in Mill township. He later, however, sold 120 acres, and in 1888 took up his residence in Jonesboro, where he finally died. Soon after he took up his residence in Grant county Mr. Carey married a second time. The lady of his choice was Lydia Hollingsworth, nee Jones, the widow of John Hollingsworth, who died and left his widow with one daughter, Lucinda Hollingsworth.

Mrs. Lydia Carey was born in Wayne county, Indiana. She came to Grant county when five years of age, was reared within its confines, and she died here on the 6th of February, 1911, at the fine old age of eighty-eight years, having been born on the 11th of June, 1822. She was a daughter of Richard and Hannah (Thomas) Jones, old pioneer stock of Grant county and whose names will live in the community for many years to come. Like her husband she was a Quaker, and their lives were ideal in every respect. John Carey was for many years a Quaker preacher in his home community, and is still remembered for his life of singular clearness and devotion to duty and as a whole-souled Christian man. He was a citizen of commendable traits, and his loyalty and devotion to his home district was one of the fine things about him. None excelled him in his qualities of good citizenship, and he combined the duties of a preacher with those of a citizen in the most pleasing manner, in a day when it was quite generally held that a minister of the Gospel might not interest himself with material things to the extent of mixing in local politics. To these parents were born eight children, of whom seven are still living. John T. Carey was the second born as well as the second son in this family of five sons and three daughters.

John T. Carey was born on his father's farm in Fairmount township on October 15, 1851, and was reared and educated in that community. He has come to occupy a place of no little importance in his home township and has been more than ordinarily successful in his business activities. He has a fine farm of 135 acres, improved to its highest and most productive condition, and the buildings on the place are the kind that reflect genuine credit upon their owner. He owns ninety-five acres in Mill township, where he lives, the remainder lying in Fairmount township. Mr. Carey has inherited all the qualities of thrift and all the excellencies of character that marked his parents, and he is a man whose influence on the community is one of the highest order.

In 1875 Mr. Carey was married in Back Creek church to Miss Ruth T. Elliott, who was born in Miami county, Indiana, on November 6, 1855, but when nine years of age she came with her parents to Grant county, where they located in Mill township. She is a daughter of Exum and Hulda (Knight) Elliott, both natives of Grant county and successful farmers of both Grant and Miami counties. They died in this county in advanced life. Mrs. Carey is a woman of exceptional character and qualities. Since she was eighteen years of age she has been a minister of the Friends church, preaching in the Back Creek church in Grant county, in the Friends church at Manton, Michigan, and in the Friends church at North Grove, Indiana. She has preached at many other places on occasions, and is known as one of the ablest exhorters to be found among the ministers of the church body. Her work has reflected forth many excellent qualities that are inherent within her, and few have wielded a greater influence for good than has Mrs. Carey wherever she has gone.

Four children came to brighten the home of Mr. and Mrs. Carey: Maud, the first born, died in infancy; Ida, the second, died at the age of eighteen years; Gervas Albert Carey has been a pastor and minister in Friends church since twenty years of age, but is now a student and teacher in Friends' University, Wichita, Kansas. His wife was formerly Amy Gitchel. They have two daughters, Ruth and Elizabeth. The youngest child, John Stanley Carey, is engaged in operating his father's farm and has demonstrated his capacity as an agricultural man and in no uncertain terms. He has given special attention to stock raising and his success has been praiseworthy. He married Callie Leota Thomas and they have one daughter, Pauline Louise.

It would be difficult, indeed, to estimate the genuine worth to any community of the lives of such people as these. Aside from his activities in the interests of the church Mr. Carey has for the twenty-eight years been an ardent Prohibitionist, and he has accomplished much, not alone by the power of his splendid example, but in what he has been able to do in the way of showing the need and possibility of better civic conditions in the community. None is held in higher esteem than he, and none is more deserving of the high regard of his fellows.

THOMAS J. CRANDALL. Although comparatively a newcomer to Grant county, Thomas J. Crandall has already made a place for himself among the substantial citizens of this part of the Hoosier state, for he has demonstrated his ability as a farmer and stock raiser, his worth as a citizen and his fidelity and loyalty as a friend and neighbor. He is at this time the owner of a well cultivated tract of eighty-eight acres located in section 12, Mill township, and during the four years he has resided here has shown his progressive and enterprising spirit by the making of numerous improvements and by installing a number of innovations. Mr. Crandall was born March 30, 1859, in Cook county, Illinois, and is a son of Jonathan and Jane (Webb) Crandall.

Mr. Crandall comes of an old and honored family, being a direct descendant of Elder John Crandall, who came from England to America during the sixteenth century and established the name in Vermont, from whence it spread to the surrounding New England states. The great-grandfather of Mr. Crandall, John Crandall, was born in Vermont, where he married Eada Austin, and they subsequently moved to Franklin county, New York, where the great-grand-grandfather died at the age of eighty-nine years and five months. Among his children was Philarmon Crandall, who was born in Vermont, and also died in Franklin county, New York, at the age of fifty-four years. He married Eliza Hapgood, a native of the Green Mountain state, and she died in Franklin county, New York, in 1876, when seventy-two years of age, having been the mother of twelve children.

Jonathan Crandall, the father of Thomas J. Crandall, was born in Franklin county, New York, October 16, 1825, and was there reared and educated. He married Miss Jane Webb, who was born in the same county and in the same year, and after the birth of their first child they went to Cook county, Illinois, where they remained three years, then returning to their native county. There they spent the remaining years of their active lives, the mother passing away on the home farm in 1887 and the father in November, 1892. They were the parents of six children: David, who is a Wisconsin farmer and married; Cornelia, single, a resident of Chicago; Thomas J.; Orpha, now Mrs. Price, of Granville, Illinois, and the mother of one daughter; Victoria, the widow of John Goodrich, of Richmond, Indiana, and the mother of one daughter; and John I., an engineer on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, residing at Sayre, Pennsylvania, and married.

Thomas J. Crandall was sixteen years of age when he embarked upon a career of his own. He had been given ordinary educational advantages in the public schools of the East, and had been reared to habits of industry and integrity, and thus felt himself well fitted to grapple with the problems and battles of life. He first chose as his field of endeavor the state of Illinois, but after a short stay removed to Keith (now Perkins) county, Nebraska, where he entered a homestead of 160 acres. This he improved and fitted out with substantial buildings, and after disposing of his interests therein at a good profit went to Wisconsin, and in 1890 became identified with the lumber business as a logger. He spent the following eight years thus engaged in Chippewa and Forest counties, and in 1898 went to Ford county, Illinois, and again turned his attention to agricultural pursuits, remaining in the Prairie state for four years. Succeeding this experience he went to Miami county, Indiana, and purchased 120 acres of fine land, which he operated for five years, this property being now worth $200 per acre. On disposing of this tract he went to Dawson county, Nebraska, where he bought 160 acres of good soil, but in 1909 returned to Indiana, and for one year operated eighty acres of land in Starke county, of which he is still the owner. In the meantime in 1909, he had purchased his present land in Mill township, Grant county, and on March 1, 1910, settled thereon, this having continued to be his home to the present time. Mr. Crandall has decided to remain here permanently, and has made numerous improvements which have added materially to the value of his home. His residence was built by John Mason in 1908. Mr. Crandall is a man of great energy and enterprise, of force of character and resolute purpose, and at all times his business has been conducted along the lines of commercial honor and integrity. He has won the confidence and respect of the people of his new home locality and is well deserving of mention among the representative citizens of Grant county.

While a resident of Illinois Mr. Crandall was married to Miss Eva Crandall, who was born, reared and educated in Cook county, that state. Four children have been born to this union: Fayette, who is residing on his father's farm, in Starke county, is married and has two children, Robert and Thomas F.; David C., also a farmer, is married and has two children, Robert and Thomas F.; David C., also a farmer, is married and has two children, Eva and Helen; Gladys, who has been given excellent educational advantages, being a graduate of the Marion high school and of the schools of Kearney Junction, Nebraska, and she is now a teacher in the schools of Howard county, Indiana; and Lydia, who was given the same training as her sister, and like her is also a teacher in the Howard county schools.

GEORGE G. RICHARDSON, M. D. County health officer of Grant county, Dr. Richardson is one of the young and progressive members of the profession in this county, and during his eight years' practice at Van Buren has proved exceptionally capable and has what his friends and associates regard as a "fine practice." As health officer for the county he has been alert in safe-guarding the community, not only from the more routine sources of contagion, but has used his efforts to extent the knowledge and practice of the fundamental laws of sanitation and personal health.

George G. Richardson was born at Laurel, in Franklin county, Indiana, on Christmas Day of 1880. His parents were Dow L. and Sarah (Lockwood) Richardson, both of whom were natives of the state of Ohio. Dow L. Richardson was born in 1833 and died in 1881, was a farmer by occupation, moved from Ohio to Franklin county, Indiana, and died at Laurel. He left ten children, named as follows: Elizabeth Cregor, of Indianapolis; Dow, of Seattle, Washington; Frank S., of Fayette county, Indiana; Phoebe Snider, of Dublin, Indiana; Austin, of Rushville, Indiana; I. P., of Dunreith, Indiana; Emma Murphy, of Glenwood, Indiana; Thomas, of Glenwood; Lamont, of Connersville; and George G. After her husband's death, the mother moved to Glenwood in Rush, county, and there reared her family. Her death occurred in 1899, and she was a member of the Christian church.

Dr. Richardson as a boy attended the Glenwood schools and was very liberally advantaged as to education, although he attained most of his equipment in that way through his own labors and economy. From the Glenwood schools he was a student in the Marion Normal College, and then was in Hiram College in Ohio, the institution of which former President Rutherford B. Hayes was once at the head. For six years he was a school teacher, and with the means obtained in this way defrayed expenses through medical college. He entered Indiana Medical College at Indianapolis in 1901, and was graduated M. D. in 1905. In the same year of his graduation he came to Van Buren, and has since enjoyed a good practice. He belongs to the Marion County, the Eleventh Congressional District and the State Medical Societies, and the American Medical Association. His church is the Christian. Dr. Richardson has been county health officer for the past three years. In August, 1900, he married Miss Jessie Leas, of Van Buren. Their two children are Dow and George G., Jr.

Deb Murray