Blackford County Biography Ref. Page

SAMUEL F. BEDWELL. Representing one of the old and substantial families of eastern Indiana, Samuel F. Bedwell has spent practically all his life in Grant County, and as a carpenter, lumber mill man and in general business affairs has gained a substantial degree of prosperity at Upland.

Samuel F. Bedwell is of English ancestry, and his grandfather, Samuel Bedwell, was born March 6, 1796, in one of the eastern states. His vocation was farming, and early in the last century he came west and located in Henry county, Indiana. In Henry county he married a Miss Stanley, who was born January 20, 1794. They began their married life in Henry county, and some years later moved into Delaware county, where he did well as a farmer and was also honored by his fellow citizens in the office of township trustee. Still later he and his wife moved to Marion, Indiana, where both died, he on the 26th of December, 1863, and she on December 21 of the same year. They were both supporters of the Methodist church, and assisted in the establishment and maintenance of several churches of that society in the locality where they live. His politics was of the Whig order until the organization of the Republican party. Samuel Bedwell and wife had the following family of children: Perlina, born March 20, 1819, married William Havens, lived and died in Marion, and left a family of children; James, born November 20, 1820, died in California and left a son William; Sarah, born October 5, 1822, died in 1840, as the result of a lightning stroke in Delaware county; Allen, born October 12, 1824, spent most of his life in Wisconsin and Michigan and had a family; Aaron, the father of the Upland business man, is mentioned in a following paragraph; and Hannah W., born March 30, 1832, died at the home of her brother Aaron at the age of thirty-eight years.

Aaron Bedwell, who was born in Henry county, Indiana, June 13, 1830, grew up there and early in the ‘50s married Nancy Buck. She was born May 31, 1829, in Marion county of this state. About ten years after their marriage they moved to the city of Marion, in 1865, and there Aaron Bedwell continued his business as a cooper and plasterer with success until his retirement. He died while living with his son in Upland, on May 8, 1875. His widow survived, and she lives in Marion with her daughter, Mrs. Josephine Rhodehamel, still active in mind and body. Her religious faith is in the New Light Christian church, while her husband belonged to the Methodist faith, and in politics was first a Whig and later a Republican. The children of Aaron Bedwell and wife are given record as follows: Sarah E., born February 20, 1854, is the wife of Rev. Samuel Ballenger, a Quaker minister at Upland; William A., born February 17, 1856, is a bachelor and lives in Upland, his business being that of an oil well driller; Charles M., born April 7, 1858, is also engaged in drilling oil wells, and he lives at Upland; Samuel F., is next in line among he children; Adolphus, born October 7, 1863, lives in Marion; Josephine, born March 20, 1867, is the wife of Esta A. Rhodehamel, of Marion; and Matilda, born May 13, 1869, is the wife of James Moore, of Upland.

Samuel F. Bedwell, who was born October 20, 1861, was fourteen years of age when he lost his father, and from that time was dependent upon his own resources and activities, and has earned practically every dollar of his present substantial prosperity. Early in life, after getting a fair education in the public schools, he learned the trade of a carpenter and of general wood-working, and for the past sixteen years has been connected with the lumber mill and the house furnishing and supply business in Upland, of which for the past four years he has been superintendent and general manager. His general success as a business man is well represented by his relationship with this firm, and also by his attractive and substantial eight-room residence, which he built at the corner of North Lucas and Washington streets in 1894. He has also been active in local political affairs, and for the past two years has served as a member of the Upland town board, representing the Fifth ward. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias.

At Upland on July 6, 1889, he married Miss Adah A. Huffman, who was born in Monroe township of Grant county February 27, 1868.

Her home has been in Upland since she was two years old. Her parents were Samuel and Mary (Bollinger) Huffman, her father a native of Ohio and her mother of Indiana. After their marriage in Jefferson township of this county they lived in Monroe township until 1870, and then located in Upland, where her father was in business until his retirement. On November 13, 1913, he celebrated his seventy-sixth birthday. His wife passed away May 24, 1897. She was born in Grant county May 10, 1844, and belonged to an old family of Quakers, to which faith her husband also belonged.

Mr. and Mrs. Bedwell are the parents of the following children: Grant H., born May 6, 1890, was educated in the public schools, was for a time an electrician and is now a clerk for the Pennsylvania Railway Company at Upland. Orville, born June 20, 1892, is a graduate of the Upland high school. He is a telegraph operator at Upland. Mary, born on Christmas day of 1893, is a graduate of the Upland high school with the class of 1912. She was afterward a student in the Marion Business College, and is now engaged in teaching in the Upland public schools. Herbert, born June 17, 1896, is now a junior in the local high school and shows the quality of his useful enterprise in the operation of a picture show at Upland. Ralph P., born April 12, 1899, is now in the local schools in the grammar department. Lillian, born March 24, 1901, died April 29, 1907. Robert Aaron was born June 2, 1913. Mrs. Bedwell is an active member of the local Quaker church.

"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

CHARLES G. BARLEY. One of the most telling enterprises located in the city of Marion and one that gives regular employment to more than two hundred men, is the Harwood & Barley Manufacturing Company, of which Charles G. Barley is treasurer and general manager. It is no small matter to be responsible for an enterprise that means so much in dollars and cents to the city wherein it is established, and the man who directs the destinies of such an establishment can not fail to be a power for good in any community where his labors are expended.

Charles G. Barley was born near the city of Marion, on April 5, 1874, and is the son of James L. and Louise J. (Gordon) Barley. The father, a native of Grant county, this state, also claims April 5th as his natal day, his birth occurring on that day in the year 1851, and the family may well be said to be one of the best known in the county, where members of it have for three generations been more or less prominent in business and social life. The mother of the subject came to Grant county when she was sixteen years old, in company with David Bish, who was her guardian and who reared her from childhood to young womanhood.

Charles Barley received his education in the public schools of Marion and later attended the Marion Business College, graduating from the commercial department of the latter, and upon emerging from that institution he entered the employment of the Barley & Spencer Lumber Company, with whom he was connected for a year. The next three years he spent with the old Sweetser & Turner Elevator, as manager, and for five years thereafter he was manager of the Marion Ice & Cold Storage Company. In all these positions, in his managerial capacity, he gained much of valuable experience that has been of invaluable help to him in his own business, and gone far toward making it the splendid success that has marked it since its organization. It was in 1898 that with George C. Harwood he organized the Harwood & Barley Manufacturing Company, a close corporation organized for the manufacture of iron and brass beds, bed springs and motor trucks, and their growth has been exceptional from the start. Today their annual output aggregates seventy-five thousand beds, twenty-five thousand bed springs, and their output of motor trucks last year was one hundred and fifty. The firm employs two hundred men and the weekly payroll of the concern reaches $2,500. After fifteen years of life, the concern has reached a place of considerable importance in the industrial world of Marion and is counted among the solid and worth-while enterprises of the city and county.

Mr. Barley is a stanch Republican, but not a politician, and he is an earnest member of the Civic Assembly. He and his wife are prominent in social and other circles in the city.

Mr. Barley has membership in the Mecca Club, an exclusive social affair, and is a member of the Elks Lodge at Marion.

The marriage of Mr. Barley to Miss Mae Harwood, the daughter of his partner, took place on October 16, 1902, and they live in their new home on Spencer avenue, this city. They have no children.

ERNEST G. ZIMMER, M. D. A worthy representative of the medical profession in Grant county, is Dr. Ernest G. Zimmer, who for the past fourteen years has been located at Upland, and whose professional work began more than a quarter of a century ago. Both by his personal character and his technical ability he has dignified his calling, and has won a prestige by which he well merits recognition in this volume of Grant county biography. Dr. Zimmer is a graduate of the Cincinnati School of Medicine and Surgery, with the class of 1886. Soon after leaving medical college he established himself in practice at Santa Fe, Miami county, Indiana, and was in active practice there until 1899. Then, following a course at the Chicago Polyclinic, he located at Upland, where he has built-up a representative clientage and is recognized as one of the leaders of his profession.

Dr. Zimmer was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1858. His early advantages after the common schools were secured largely through his own work with an ambition definitely fixed upon a professional career. He was a student in the normal school at Lebanon, Ohio, and spent two years in the medical department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and later graduated with the degree of M. D. at the Cincinnati School of Medicine and Surgery. His father, George Zimmer, had a noteworthy career as a German immigrant to America. Born in Baden, Germany, he was of a good family, and many of its members gained distinction both in military and civic life. He was reared in his native land, where he learned the trade of a baker, and then in the revolutionary activities of the late forties he found himself a patriot on the side of the rebels. His uncle, General Wiler, of the German Army, advised young George to flee from his native country and use all secrecy in making his escape, leaving by night, otherwise he would pay forfeit of his life for his rebellion. He escaped from Baden and became a stowaway on a sailing vessel bound for the United States. Arriving in the City of New York without a penny, he begged a loaf of bread, and that was his only food for three days, while in the meantime he spent three nights in a deserted church. At the end of that time he found work at three dollars a week, and finally drifted west to Cincinnati. Within a few years he had saved money enough to send for his sweetheart, whom he had left behind in Germany. Her name was Catherine Sutter, who was born in the same town as George Zimmer. After her arrival in the United States they were married, and started out to make their fortunes. As a baker Mr. Zimmer found regular employment in different places, and finally, with a capital of four hundred dollars, he went to Keokuk, Iowa, during the boom in that city, and invested all his savings in real estate. The boom collapsed, and all his surplus was thus swept away. With his wife and baby, Ernest G., he had to work his way back to Cincinnati, stopping at St. Louis a brief time, and then on to their destination. He soon afterward located at St. Paris, Ohio, where he was engaged in business for himself and lived until his death, in 1893. He was born in 1827. His wife was born in 1830, and passed away in 1906. In her native land she had been a school teacher, and throughout her life kept up on current literature. She was a woman of unusual powers of mind and character. Both were members of the Evangelical church in Germany, and in this country worshipped in the Lutheran faith. On first coming to America, George Zimmer espoused the principles of the Whig party, and afterward was a staunch adherent of the principles of the Republican party. Mr. and Mrs. Zimmer were the parents of eight children, six of whom grew to maturity and are still living, and four of these are married and have children of their own. Frank A. is a prominent lawyer in Urbana, Ohio, and has one son. Emanuel R. is a dentist engaged in practice in Greenville, Missouri, and has one daughter. Fritz is unmarried, being a baker by trade, and also lives in Greenville, Missouri. Mrs. Mary Mitchell, who for a number of years was a successful teacher at St. Paris, Ohio, now lives in Springfield, Ohio, and has four children. Emma, who is unmarried, is a teacher of art and music at St. Paris, Ohio. Dr. Zimmer, the oldest of the children, was married in Ohio to Miss Eva Cook. Detroit, Michigan was her birthplace, and she received superior educational advantages in different places, chiefly in Chester county, Pennsylvania, near the home of Bayard Taylor. Dr. Zimmer and wife have one daughter, a talented young woman who is well known in Grant county, Miss Edna George Zimmer, who resides with her parents. She was educated in the Upland public schools and Taylor University. She early showed talent as a musician, and by study at home and under excellent instructors has become very proficient as a violinist and is now a member of the faculty of the Marion Conservatory of Music. Dr. Zimmer is affiliated with the Masonic order and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and his politics is Republican.

GEORGE M. HIMELICK. In a review of the lives of the prominent and influential citizens of Grant county, George M. Himelick is certainly deserving of more than passing mention, for his well spent career, his ability, his loyalty to the duties of citizenship and his fidelity in private life have all gained him a place among the leading residents of the community. He is a member of an old and honored family, his grandfather, Joseph Himelick being born in Ohio in 1819, of German parentage. When sixteen years of age Joseph Himelick removed from the Buckeye State to Franklin county, Ind., where he was married to Miss Mary Curry, and there one son was born; nine months later they moved to Jennings county, Ind., where the three daughters were born. Later, during the early sixties, the grandparents and their children migrated to Madison county, Indiana, and settled on wooded land, which Mr. Himelick cleared and cultivated until his death in 1885. The grandmother, who celebrated her ninety-first birthday September 13, 1913, has ninety-two living descendants, five of whom are great-great-grandchildren. She still lives at Snmmitville, Madison county, and in view of her advanced years is in excellent health and in possession of her faculties. Mr. Himelick was a Democrat in politics, and in religious belief was connected with the Christian church, of which the grandmother is still a member. They had these children: John, the father of George M. Himelick; Anna, the widow of William Carpenter, a farmer of Delaware county, Indiana, where she still resides with her family; Elizabeth, the wife of Robert Gallaway, a retired farmer of near Council Bluffs, Iowa, with a family; and Mary, the widow of John Styers, living with her mother at Summitville, Indiana.

John Himelick, the father of George M. Himelick, was born December 25, 1840, and was reared and educated on the home farm, upon which he resided until his marriage to Mary Morris, who was born September 23, 1844. After the birth of their first two children Mr. and Mrs. Himelick moved to Madison county, Indiana, but in 1874 changed their residence to Fairmount township, Grant county, where the father spent the remaining active years of his life. He then retired to Mills township, where his death occurred July 25, 1905. The mother still survives and makes her home at Summitville, where she is a faithful member of the Christian church. Mr. and Mrs. Himelick were the parents of the following children: George M. is the subject of this review; Joseph, who married Ella Webster, and had three children, Elva, Virgil and Willis; Elizabeth, who married Ullysus Honer. Mrs. Horner had two children, Lillie and John; Mrs. Horner died January 6, 1894, and Ullysus Horner died in 1901; Robert, a resident of River Falls, Wisconsin, is superintendent of the State Normal school. He married Media Tyler, and has two children, Frances and Jesse; John W. is represented on another page of this work; Olive is the wife of Virgil Duling, a farmer of Fairmount township, and has one daughter, Mary. Maude is the wife of William Moss, of Marion, Indiana. Orville, engaged in the hardware business at Upland, married Nancy Ruley and has four children, Louise, John, Paul and an infant. Earl, a foreman in the shops at Jonesboro, married Dora Nelson, and has three children, Lucile, Raymond and Robert.

George M. Himelick was born March 23, 1864, in Jennings county, Indiana, and received his education in the schools of Madison and Grant counties. He was reared to habits of industry and integrity, and grew up an agriculturist, embarking upon his own career on a farm of 113 acres in section 4, Jefferson township. This land he has brought to a high state of cultivation, and has made numerous modern improvements, having a fine red barn and commodious white house, both fitted out with conveniences and accessories of the most modern nature. In addition he owns four eighty-acre tracts in Monroe, on which are located two sets of fine farm buildings. Mr. Himelick has devoted the greater part of his time and attention to the raising of all kinds of cereals, and has been exceptionally successful in this line, but also is greatly interested in breeding all kinds of livestock. His products meet with a ready sale and fancy prices in the markets, and he is known as a man strictly honorable in his business transactions. He owes his success to energy, industry and perseverance, and to an intelligent application of the most progressive methods to his operations. He has always been a firm friend of education, morality and good citizenship, and has contributed his aid to the cause of temperance as a voter in the ranks of the Prohibition party. With his family, he attends the New Light Christian church.

Mr. Himelick was married in Jefferson township to Miss Lydia J. Wise, who was born, reared and educated in this township and is a daughter of Jacob Wise, a review of whose career will be found elsewhere in this volume. The following children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Himelick: Ernest F., who married Lotus Atkinson, had a son born November 7, 1913, and is carrying on agricultural operations in Monroe township, on one of his father's properties; Clarence, married to Marie Stephens, January 1, 1914; Bertha M., Orvin William, Waldo H., Lemley, Myrle, Esther, Ralph, Olive Maude and Ethel O., who areall living at home with their parents; and Homer E., who died at the age of four months. The children have all been given good educational advantages, and are proving themselves credits to their family and to their community.

C. DEE SMITH. With youth and energy at his command, and also the resourcefulness and business enterprise of the modern farmer, C. Dee Smith is one of the most successful in that line of enterprise in Mill township. He operates the fine old Elisha Overman farm of one hundred and eighty-seven acres on section twelve of Mill township, and had his place well stocked with graded cattle, hogs and horses, and each year brings in a number of stock for feeding, having shown himself an exceptional manager of the livestock business. His farm is the property of his father-in-law. Its improvements are of the very highest class, comprising two large red barns, other out buildings, and a comfortable dwelling house. All the land is in a fine state of cultivation, and Mr. Smith is prospering as he well deserves. He has been manager and has lived on the place for the last four years.

C. Dee Smith is of an old Virginia family, and was born in Scott county of that state, September 14, 1878. His grandfather was William Smith, a Confederate soldier, born in Washington county, Virginia, and with the exception of the time spent in the army lived there all his life, his death occurring when nearly fourscore years old, July, 1907. His wife was Disa Fleener, a Virginia girl of the same locality, who died when about the same age in 1912. They were substantial farming people and Methodists in religion, while the political faith was the prevailing one of the Democratic party. Of their large family, eleven are still living, and they are all past middle age, being physically strong and large.

Of these children Pascal B. Smith, the oldest, is the father of the Mill township farmer. He was born February 24, 1853, in Scott county, Virginia, was reared on the old homestead, and married from the same locality, Miss Elizabeth Gardner, who was born on September 22, 1856, and is still living. Her parents Euhel and Peggy (Barnhart) Gardner, lived and died in Scott county. Her father was a California Forty-niner, spending four years on the gold coast and meeting with fair success in the diggings. Both Euhel and Peggy Gardner lived to a good old age. They were born about 1830. Though Virginians, they were both members of the Northern Methodist Church, and he was a Republican. Eleven of the Gardner family are still living and some of them are already old.

C. Dee Smith was next to the oldest among eleven children, nine of whom are still living, namely: Stephen R., who is married; C. Dee; Charles Lee, married; Orval S. and James C., both of whom died when twenty-eight years of age, the latter being married; Henry C., married; Daisy E., Maude, Woody M., Joseph L., and Gladys, who are all as yet unmarried.

C. Dee Smith came to Grant county in 1898; the rest of the family are also residents of the county, the father Pascal B. Smith being a farmer in Fairmount township. Mr. Smith was married in Grant county, November 15, 1909, to Miss Ethel Overman, who was born in Mill township, January 23, 1890, and had her education in the common schools and in the Gas City high school where she graduated in 1908. Her parents are Elisha and Minnie (McGinnis) Overman, who now live retired in Gas City. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are the parents of two children: Virginia Helen, born January 22, 1911; and Velma I., who died at the age of five months. Mr. Smith is a Democrat in politics, and is affiliated with the Improved Order of Red Men and the Junior Order of United American Mechanics at Jonesboro.

JOHN S. JETT. One of the active and progressive young farming men of Mill township is John S. Jett, who operates a ninety acre farm in Sections 30 and 31. His place, known as the "William Carter Farm," is reckoned among the finest and most productive of the community, and is still owned by the widow of Mr. Carter, though Mr. Jett has operated it since 1911, when Mr. Carter died. His widow now resides in Marion, and leaves the entire care of the place to Mr. Jett. The farm is well stocked with blooded cattle, and the buildings and all minor improvements are of the highest character. About forty acres of corn, twenty of wheat and a few acres of oats is about the proportion of the crops raised, and the yield per acre is especially bountiful, the average running as high as sixty bushels of corn, twenty-five of wheat and seventy-five of oats to the acre. Mr. Jett manifests a pardonable pride in his work, and it is conceded by all that he is a natural farmer. He was reared to the work on his father's place, but that alone would not be sufficient to inculcate in him the talent for making a given spot of ground yield more than any other man can coax from it.

Mr. Jett was born in Scott county, Virginia, on January 2, 1882, and was there educated in the public schools. He continued to live there until 1904, when he came to Grant county, and since then has spent the most of the time in Mill township. He has been farming independently since he first came to the county, and though he is not yet a landowner, it is safe to say that the time will come when he will control some land of his own.

Full details relative to the family of Mr. Jett are to be found in the biographical sketch of Garn Jett, so that only the briefest facts concerning him need be set forth here. He is the fourth child in a family of five sons and three daughters, of which number there are as yet three unmarried sons. The mother and certain of the younger children are yet residing on the fine old family plantation in Scott county, Virginia, and Mr. Jett, with a brother Garn Jett, mentioned above, are the only two residents of Indiana.

Mr. Jett was married in his native county to Miss Jodil Lee Wolfe, who was born on August 28, 1886, and who was reared and educated in the county of her birth. She is a daughter of George and Rebecca (Wilhelm) Wolfe, long residents of Virginia and natives of the state, where they have spent their lives in the farming industry. In 1908 Mr. and Mrs. Wolf moved to Tennessee, and they now live in Washington county, that state. The father is sixty-one and the mother fifty-six years of age. They are members of the Methodist Church South. The paternal grandfather of Mrs. Jett, Isaac Wolfe, was a large plantation owner of Virginia and owner of many slaves in the days before the war.

Mr. and Mrs. Jett have two children, Virginia Vance was born on December 21, 1904, and is now in school, and Susie Eileen was born on April 10, 1907.

Mr. Jett is a Democrat, as have been members of the family for years. His fraternal relations are with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows of Jonesboro, with both lodge and encampment affiliations. He is one of the live and active men of the community, and with his wife enjoys the sincere regard of a wide circle of friends.

Deb Murray