Blackford County Biography Ref. Page

LEO NUSSBAUM. Actively identified with the business interests of Marion for more than a quarter century, Leo Nussbaum, president of the Canton Glass Company, has also been identified conspicuously and worthily with the moral and educational advancement of the community, as well as its industrial growth and advancement. He has been a member and director of the Marion Commercial Club and Chamber of Commerce for a number of years. His business career in Marion dates from the year 1886, when he established the Trade Palace, a dry goods store, in the Wilson block. He operated this business successfully for about ten years, then sold it and embarked in the manufacture of iron bedsteads. He organized the National Metallic Bedstead Company which was the first company to manufacture that line of goods in Indiana, and later disposed of it and started the Indiana Brass and Iron Bed Company, which plant he continued to operate for two years and then sold advantageously. In 1902 he organized the Pacific Oil Company, purchasing leases on about five hundred acres of land and on fifteen producing oil wells, the property of the Citizens Gas Company. After operating the property for some eighteen months, he sold his holdings that he might devote more of his time to the interests of the Canton Glass Company, which he had organized in 1902, and of which concern he was secretary and treasurer, and is now president.

Mr. Nussbaum installed the first gas producer in Indiana, where gas had been used in manufacturing, annealing and finishing glassware, and has been a leader in introducing new methods into the business in which he is chiefly interested.

The Canton Glass Company manufactures a fine line of table ware, druggists, confectioners and photographers ware, sidewalk and deck light ware, novelties of many descriptions and private mould work. The company has been very successful and gives employment to a considerable number of skilled workmen during about eleven months of each year, one of the summer months being given to the workmen for a vacation season.

Mr. Nussbaum is president of the Manufacturing and Business Men's Association, and is a director of the Farmers' Trust and Savings Bank at Marion. He is engrossed in the direction of the affairs of his company to a considerable extent, but gives a generous portion of his time to the civic interests of the community, and is known as one of the more valuable citizens of Marion. He was appointed in January, 1914, by Mayor J. O. Batchelor as Commissioner of Public Works. He is a man of wide experience and culture, who has traveled extensively, and applies advanced ideas in the conduct of his everyday business life.

In 1886 Mr. Nussbaum married Miss Etta L. Michaels, of Logansport, Ind., and to them have been born four children,�Berthold M., Selma and Helen. Carl Nussbaum, the second born, died aged four months. The first named is a graduate of Howe Military School and of Harvard University, and the others have received excellent educational advantages. Berthold M. Nussbaum was a pupil of P. L. Nussbaum of Marion, Ind., and Prof. Singer of Stuttgart, Germany, the noted violinist, and while he is a very prominent violinist he does not make that his profession. He is now a stockholder and the manager of the Boston office of the Alexander-Hamilton Institute whose headquarters are in New York City. Selma Nussbaum, now a student in the Boston Conservatory of Music, studied two years in Paris under noted vocal instructors. Helen Nussbaum, the youngest, is a graduate from the Marion High School and Glendale (Ohio) College and was also a student at Lausanne, Switzerland, for one year, studying the languages, �French, German, etc.

"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

E. H. JOHNSON. Newspaper men must always be influential forces in the life of a city, and especially in that of the smaller cities of the country, and E. H. Johnson, of Marion, Indiana, is no exception to the general rule. As president and general manager of the Leader-Tribune, of Marion he is one of the prominent citizens of Marion.

Mr. Johnson was born on September 8, 1853, in Cattaraugas county, New York. He received his education in the public schools of Painesville, Ohio, and in 1876 went into business. He was engaged in the manufacturing of butcher's skewers in Painesville, Ohio, until 1389, when the plant was moved to Marion. In 1894 the plant was moved to Tennessee when he ceased to take active part in its management. On the 1st of January, 1909, he was appointed receiver for the Leader Publishing Company, publishers of the Marion Leader. He was receiver for this company until October, 1910, and in June of the following year he purchased the plant.

In March, 1912, he purchased the News-Tribune. The two papers were consolidated and the first issue appeared on March 17, 1912. Since then the paper has been made very successful.

CHARLES F. BOXELL. No life is fuller than that of busy and prosperous farming communities, such as those of our Middle West and Mississippi Valley states, where good roads and rapid transit have brought the farmers into close communication with the outer world, and yet here we find the very busiest men with time for public affairs, taking a keen interest not only in matters of local interest but also in national affairs. Such a man is Charles F. Boxell, one of the prominent farmers of Franklin township, Grant county, Indiana. Owner of a large farm and a successful stock raiser, he is also one of the most public spirited men in the community, and has always taken an active part in political and fraternal affairs.

Charles F. Boxell is a son of Joseph H. Boxell and Virginia (Bradberry) Boxell. His father was born in Van Buren township, Grant county, Indiana, and is the son of William Boxell, who was born in 1801 in the state of Virginia. He married Catherine Parson in 1827 in Virginia, and during the following year they came to Ohio, locating in Guernsey county. There they remained until 1836, when they migrated to Grant county. Here they entered land in Van Buren township, on section 30, where they spent the remainder of their lives. William and Catherine Boxell were the parents of eight children, two of whom are now living, namely, Joseph H., of Washington township, and Robert B., of Van Buren township. Among those dead are Margaret, Nancy J., Thomas, Elizabeth, and John A.

Joseph H. Boxell was reared on his father's farm in Van Buren township, and he has spent all of his life as a farmer. He and his wife now make their home in Washington township. They have had five children born to them, four of whom are living, as follows: Charles F.; Minnie, who is the wife of Herman Klage, of Huntington, Indiana; Willie, who is a graduate of the county schools and a former teacher in Pleasant township, is now a farmer in that township; and Della, who after having finished the course of the Marion High school, married Thomas Bilbee of Washington township.

Charles F. Boxell was born on the 18th of October, 1866, in Van Buren township. He grew up on his father's farm, attending the district school until he was sixteen years of age. He then began to work for his father on the farm, and until he was nineteen this was his occupation. At this time he became a school teacher in Washington township, and for eight terms taught in Grant county, and for one term he was a teacher in Illinois. During this time his father's house was his home and not until he was twenty-one did he really start out for himself. He first was engaged on a farm, but this was only for a short time. He then went to Marion and became a mail carrier in that city. After eight years in this occupation he bought a farm in Pleasant township, and settled down to the life that his father and grandfather had led before him.

After four years on this place he sold out and bought another farm, this being the one where he now resides. He began with no financial aid, and saved the money to buy his first farm out of his own earnings, and he is now the owner of one hundred and fifty-two acres, part of this being valuable woodland.

Mr. Boxell and his family are all members of the Methodist Protestant church at Herbst. He is an enthusiastic member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, belonging to Lodge No. 96, and to the encampment, and being Past Noble Grand and Past Chief Patriarch, as well as a member of the Grand Lodge of Indiana. He also belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America. In political matters, Mr. Boxell is a staunch member of the Democratic party. He takes an active interest in county politics and in 1908 was nominated for county recorder of Grant county.

Mr. Boxell was married on the 28th of June, 1893, to Miss Ida M. Christman, of Washington township. She was born in Franklin county, Ohio, in January, 1875, the daughter of George W. and Margaret Barbara (Slocum) Christman. At the age of seven years she accompanied her parents to Indiana, where they located in Grant county. She received her education in the schools of Washington township and there grew to womanhood. Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Boxell, Earl, who was born in December, 1894, is a graduate of the common schools and of Marion high school, and is teaching school in Pleasant township, and Kenneth, who was born on the 30th of March, 1905.

W. B. KIMBROUGH. During forty-five years the Kimbrough family have been factors in the economic and civic life of Grant county. It is a substantial family, and its men and women have been useful and respected in their communities. Several of the family reside in the county, while others have gone to other counties and states, some in the far west.

Mr. W. B. Kimbrough after a business and agricultural career, in which success has been fairly consistent, is now living practically retired in a comfortable home at Marion. He was born August 16, 1831, in Clinton county, Ohio, a son of Eli and Margaret (Townsend) Kimbrough. The father was born and reared in Clinton county, Ohio, and the mother in Darke county, near Greenville. The Kimbrough family is of English descent, though some genealogists claim the name is German. Grandfather Jeremiah Kimbrongh was born in Guilford county, North Carolina, and with a family of six children he made the journey to Clinton county, Ohio, in 1809 in a one horse rig, and he ied there in 1850. He married Sarah Mendenhall, who was born in Rowan county, North Carolina, and was of Quaker faith. In 1798 the family moved into the Northwest Territory on account of their views on slavery. The grandparents reared eleven children of their own and two orphan children after their own flock were old enough no longer to require their care.

Eli Kimbrough, the father, when a youth learned from his father the trade of blacksmith and wagon maker, but did not work at it regularly. Farming and carpentering were his chief vocations. In December, 1868, he moved to Grant county, locating in Liberty township on a farm where he remained until his death in 1904 at the age of eighty- two years. He served in the office of Justice of the Peace, was a Republican, and a man of high principles and very much esteemed in his community. The mother passed away in 1876. The family is of hardy constitution, as is evidenced by the fact that the eleven children are all living, at or past the meridian of their lives. The children are: John T. Kimbrough, a farmer in Mill township, Grant county; Owen C., a farmer in Liberty township; Mary E., wife of Samuel W. Stewart, of Fairmount, in Grant county; Amos H., whose regular home is in Liberty township, but who is now in government service in Oregon, in Indian agency work; Zachary T., who is unmarried and lives with his brother, W. B.; Thomas J., at Bogue, Kansas; Martha, J., wife of James E. Stewart at Fairmount; Sarah E., wife of William J. Howell, of Wells county, Indiana; Lydia A., of Fairmount, and Clark H., whose home is in the state of Oregon.

W. B. Kimbrough was born and reared on a farm. His education was attained in the common schools of Clinton county, Ohio, and in Grant county, Indiana. At the age of seventeen his parents moved to Grant county, and following some of his earlier experiences he got into the business of sawmilling and lumbering, which he followed for many years, although he may properly be classed as an agriculturist at the present time. He did a large milling business in Grant county, but chiefly in the state of Arkansas. He moved to the latter state in 1904, and lived there until 1911, operating a sawmill. At the present time he looks after the management of a farm in Pulaski county, Indiana, and is practically retired.

On July 5, 1888, Mr. W. B. Kimbrough married Miss Altha Carey, who was born in Clinton county, Ohio, but was reared in Hamilton county, Indiana. Her father was Dr. Daniel Carey, whose wife was Hannah (Green) Carey. The four children of Mr. and Mrs. Kimbrough were: Thomas, who died at the age of two and a half months; Bernice H., Hannah M., who died at the age of thirteen, and Clark C., aged thirteen years and living at home. In 1880 and 1881 Mr. Kimbrough served as assessor of Liberty township, but though a loyal Republican in politics, he has not been otherwise prominent in political affairs. He was reared in the Quaker church, as was also his wife. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Improved Order of Red Men, and has been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows for twenty-six years.

WILLIAM P. ROUSH. Some four or five years after the organization of Grant county the first members of the Roush family came and made settlement on land that was practically new and began to add their contributions to the improvement and development of this county. In Mill township, the name has been especially well known and prominent for more than seventy years. Mr. William P. Roush is a native of Wayne county, but has lived in Grant county since childhood, was a soldier of the Union during the war, and for upwards of half a century has prospered as a farmer, and has at all times been ready with his influence and practical assistance in helping forward any community plans and movement. The Roushes belong to an old Pennsylvania Dutch stock. Grandfather John Roush was born near Philadelphia, about 1780. When he was a child he lost his father, and with two brothers, also very young, was bound out and his boyhood was thus spent among strangers and with necessarily limited advantages. All three of the boys grew up in Pennsylvania, and became farmers. John Roush was married in that state to Miss Mary McCannon, who was born in Pennsylvania, but her father came from Ireland. All their children were born and partly reared in Center county, Pennsylvania, and about 1830 the family migrated west and settled in Wayne county, Indiana. John Roush and wife lived there a few years, and about 1835 came to Grant county. He secured a tract of land which had previously been settled, but on which very few improvements had been made. The chief of these was a hewed log house, and in that home they lived for a number of years. Grandfather John Roush died in 1857, while his wife passed away in 1860. As a family they possessed remarkable vitality. Before a death had occurred to break the family circle, both John Roush and his wife were more than four score years of age, and when John Roush died his children were all in middle life. There were eight children living and many grandchildren. In religious faith they all worshipped in the Lutheran church. While in Wayne county, Indiana, they became communicants of the Presbyterian faith. The children are named as follows: Nancy, who married George Smith and both died leaving children; Rebecca, who married Adam Shaffer, and died leaving a family; John, who married but never had children; Polly, who first married Miller and second a Shaffer, and had children by both husbands; Isaac, mentioned in the following paragraph; Sally, who first married a Mason, and second a Shaffer, and had children by both; Jonathan, who died when twenty-one years old; William, who married a Miss McCormick, and had a family.

Isaac Roush, father of William P. Roush, was born in Center county, Pennsylvania, June 25, 1813. He had already reached young manhood when the family moved from Pennsylvania, and with teams and wagons made the long journey overland to Wayne county, Indiana. There he reached his majority and was married to Mary Miller. By trade he was a carpenter, and followed that work in Henry county of this state, for several years, and also had a farm there. In 1842, he came to Mill township in Grant county. Later he bought from his brother one hundred and twenty acres, which had formerly been owned by their father, John Roush. For his home he built a house out of hewed logs, very substantial and comfortable, and in 1860 that was replaced with a large colonial home, one of the best in the country at that time, and the construction of which testified largely to his own skill as a builder. He had previously built a large barn on the place. His home was located on as fine a tract of land as lay anywhere in the township. The one hundred and twenty acres which he first acquired were gradually increased by his exceptional ability as a farmer and business man, and he finally owned six hundred acres in Mill township, most of which was in his name when he died, although he had sold some to his son. He died at the old home in September, 1896, when past four score years of age. His widow survived about a year, and her death was the result of burns inflicted when her clothing caught fire while standing in front of an open grate. Both parents were members of the Presbyterian church, and he voted the Democratic ticket regularly until Fremont became the first standard bearer of the Republican party in 1856, after which he was steadfastly loyal to that party. The children of Isaac Roush and wife were eleven in number, and three sons and three daughters are still living. All of the eleven were married except one, a bachelor who is still living, and all survivors have their homes in Grant county except one.

William P. Roush, who was next to the oldest in the family, was born in Wayne county, Indiana, July 31, 1836. He was thus six years of age when the family came to Grant county, and his home has been in Mill township for more than three score and ten years. His early advantages were largely of a practical nature, the school house which he attended was one of the old structures with its crude furnishings so often described in pioneer history, and the instruction was confined to the fundamentals. He was past his majority when the war came on, and in the fall of 1862 enlisted in Company H of the Twelfth Indiana Regiment under Captain Buchanan and under Colonel Link, who was later killed. He had the non-commissioned rank of corporal, and served in the army at intervals until August, 1865. Practically all his work was with the bridge and pontoon corps, and was chiefly with Sherman's army. While he was exposed to many hardships and also frequently to the fire of the enemy, he was never actually in battle, and came out without wounds or capture.

Since the war Mr. Roush has steadily followed farming, and has made of it a practical and successful business. In 1863 he bought from his father one hundred and forty acres in section thirty-six of Mill township. In 1893 he replaced the first dwelling with a large twelve-room house, affording every comfort and convenience for the family, and this is one of the most attractive homes in the township. Near the house is located a large barn, and the improvements indicate long continued and substantial industry, in every direction. General farming and stock raising have been the means by which he has advanced his own prosperity and has contributed to the total wealth of the community.

In 1868, in Jefferson township, Mr. Roush married Miss Anna M. Lucas, a sister of Thomas J. Lucas, under whose name will be found full information as to the Lucas family. Mrs. Roush was born in Jefferson township, November 10, 1847, and was reared and educated in that locality. She is the mother of three children: Minnetta M., who died at the age of eighteen, just after her graduation from high school; Bertha, who died in infancy; and Walter L., who was one of the unfortunate victims in a wreck on October 31, 1903, when a large body of students from the Purdue University, while traveling to witness a football game at Indianapolis were killed. At that time he was within twenty days of his twenty-second birthday. Mr. and Mrs. Roush are members of the Presbyterian church, and in politics he is a Prohibitionist.

JOHN FRANCIS LINN. In the dual lines of law and real estate John Francis Linn has accomplished a pleasing degree of success since he became first identified with Gas City and its interests, and he has gained a foremost place in business and professional circles of the city as a result of his well directed efforts. The year 1899 saw the advent of Mr. Linn to this place, and up until 1908 he confined his attention entirely to the practice of law, but in that year he purchased the real estate business of J. H. Lay, a well established agency, and since that time has carried on the two lines of enterprise with gratifying success. In the real estate department, Mr. Linn is ably seconded by Mr. Thomas B. Pugh, while Mr. Linn confines himself rather closely to his general law practice, which is an extensive one, entering into the real estate departure more as an adviser than as an operator.

John Francis Linn is the son of John and Jane (Bingamen) Linn. The father was born in New York state, near to Rochester, in 1838 and he died in 1905. He came to Indiana when he was four years old, settling in Bass Lake, Starke county, with his parents who were Henry and Catherine Linn. Henry Linn was born in Ireland, and came as a young man to America. Settling in Rochester, New York, there he met and married Catherine Cunningham. After his death she married a Mr. Truax in Starke county, Indiana, who died early, leaving her with two children resulting from their marriage. She survived her second husband for twenty-five years, most of which she spent with her son John Linn, father of the subject, in Pulaski county, Indiana, where she died in 1893 at the age of eighty-four years. She was a woman of many splendid qualities and was long a member of the Presbyterian church. John Linn, father of the subject, was the only child of the first marriage of his mother. When he was thirteen years of age he began to "shift for himself," according to the old saying, and he set out with an axe on his none too sturdy young shoulder, and not a penny in his pockets. He was fortunate enough, soon after, to meet with a fine old gentleman of the name of John Davenport, who took a fancy to the independent youth, and thereafter stood in the relation of foster father to him. He lived with Mr. Davenport until his marriage, and then he established himself on a farm and continued thus for years. He early took up his residence in Tippecanoe township, and there he converted a wild and unpromising tract of land into a fertile and productive farm. This place of two hundred acres, in its process of reclamation, was the recipient of much hard labor on the part of its owner and his children, but it amply repaid them for all they put into it in what it allowed them to take back from it in later years. The place is located on the river road, and is one of the attractive farms in the township today.

On this farm John Linn died in 1905, his widow surviving him until 1909. She was sixty-nine years of age when death claimed her. They were fine people of many Christian virtues, though they were unique in their Christianity in that they never maintained a church membership, as did many of their family. The father was a stanch Republican and active in the work of the party in his town and county for many years.

Six children were born to these good people, and John Francis Linn was the youngest of the number. Mary Linn died some time after her marriage to R. G. Hollis, of Cass county, leaving two sons. Sarah, the second child of her parents, is unmarried and resides in Winamac.

William H. is a resident of Pulaski county, is married and has two sons and three daughters. Anna married Charles Taylor, a Pulaski county man, and they have two sons and two daughters. Amanda became the wife of J. F. Conn, of Winamac, and they have one daughter.

John Francis Linn attended the public schools of his native community, and took a preparatory course in the Valparaiso Normal School, and following that he entered the Indianapolis Law School, from which he was duly graduated in 1898, in the same year gaining his admission to the bar and being admitted to practice in the Supreme and Federal courts. For a year he was engaged in practice at Winamac, Indiana, and in 1899 he came to Gas City, here establishing himself in legal practice as has been set forth in previous paragraphs.

To enter further into a detailed account of the legal and real estate activities of Mr. Linn and his associate, Mr. Pugh, is not essential at this point, and it will suffice to add some few facts of a personal nature in the conclusion of this brief biographical review.

Mr. Linn was married in Pulaski county, Harrison township, to Miss Grace Douglas, who was born and reared in that place. She is a daughter of George S. and Emma (Horne) Douglas, both natives of Cass county, and representatives of families that settled in the county when it was yet in the throes of uncivilization, and that have been worthily identified with the advance of progress in the county through several generations. They were both of Scotch ancestry, and possess many of the sterling qualities that mark the Scot wherever he is found. George Douglas and his wife were married in Cass county and early moved to Pulaski county where they settled on a new farm in Harrison township, which they improved and brought to a high state of cultivation. There the mother died five years ago at the age of sixty-two, while the father yet lives on the place where they together spent many busy and happy years.

To Mr. and Mrs. Linn one daughter has been born, Edith May, born January 19, 1901, and now attending the public schools of Gas City.

The family have membership in the Methodist Episcopal church, and Mr. Linn is a Republican in his political faith, active and interested in the advance of the party.

Deb Murray