This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Surnames: Luther, Stroud, Bowman, Matson, Grist, Gobel, Biggs, Barton,
Sherfey, Weinland, Randall, Scovill,
Classification: Biography
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/xh.2ADE/1607
Message Board Post:
This book has no cover, and no index, and no author. I bought it on
Ebay; it just has the insides, but it is full of Indiana biographies.
I am not researching this family, just thought I would share. I do not
know anymore about these families or these surnames. NOTE: I don’t
know if there is any additional mention of this family in the book, it
has no index. I do not want to sell this book. I am typing the
biographies from it.
Typed by Lora Radiches:
Surnames in this biography are: Luther, Stroud, Bowman, Matson, Grist,
Gobel, Biggs, Barton, Sherfey, Weinland, Randall, Scovill,
HON. PETER T. LUTHER in his profession as a lawyer and as a public
official and citizen was an interesting link between the modern
present and the rather remote past of Clay County. At the time of his
death, on August 29, 1929, citizens revived many memories of this
veteran lawyer, who had spent more than sixty years in the harness as
a practicing attorney and had been repeatedly honored with the
dignities and responsibilities of public leadership both in office and
in his party. Mr. Luther was born in Clay County, October 18, 1844,
and was nearing his eighty-fifth birthday when he died. His parents
were William and Charlotte (Stroud) Luther, and he was the last
survivor of their eleven children. His father was born in Randolph
County, North Carolina, October 27, 1804, and came when a youth to
Indiana, and married a girl from Crawford County, this state. About
1828 they located on a farm in Harrison Township, Clay County, and
were among the industrious homemakers and pionee!
rs of that region. Peter T. Luther grew up on the home farm, made the
best of his advantages in the public schools, and when nineteen years
old began teaching. Teaching enabled him to pay his expenses while in
Indiana University. In 1866, after returning home, he was nominated
by the Democratic Party as candidate for county surveyor. He was
elected and served two years, and during the winter resumed
teaching. In 1868 he was elected county recorder for a term of four
years. His first defeat as a candidate for office came with the
landslide of 1872, which swept all of the Republican nominees into
county offices. At that time he was candidate for clerk of the Circuit
Court. He was deputy sheriff from October, 1878, until October, 1880.
Mr. Luther was regarded as one of the old warhorses of the Democratic
party of the Fifth District. He described himself as a dyed in the
wool, rock-ribbed Democrat. He was very proud of his party regularity,
and could ne!
ver understand a man who would scratch a ticket or move from one party
affiliation to another. It is said that he never missed a local
political meeting of his party and for more than fifty years had
stumped the county in every political campaign and had often been
drafted by the district and state committees. He was never too busy or
too tired to lend his services to his party whether as a precinct
worker or as a political orator. After his last term in office Mr.
Luther joined another former recorder, L. J. Bowman, in an abstract
business. Mr. Bowman retired in 1882 and was succeeded by Charles E.
Matson, and the firm of Matson & Luther continued for seventeen years
as a law firm and also as abstractors of title and real estate
dealers. With the retirement of Mr. Matson, in 1899, Mr. Luther was
joined in the law and the abstract business by his son, William P.
Luther, and the firm of Luther & Luther continued until the death of
the senior partner. Mr. Luther was also vice !
president and a director of the Davis Trust Company, was president of
the Clay County Building & Loan Association, and owned and operated a
large farm in Harrison Township. For several years he was in the
newspaper business at Bowling Green and Brazil. A native son
of Clay County, he was extremely interested in every- thing
pertaining to its history, and be supplied a great deal of valuable
information to the county centennial committees when the
centennial celebration was held. He was prominent in fraternal orders,
holding high offices and for many years attended grand lodge meetings.
Mr. Luther’s death occurred on the sixty-second anniversary of his
wedding. He married, August 29, 1867, Miss Mary Elizabeth Grist,
daughter of Nicholas and Sarah (Gobel) Grist, and a granddaughter of
Nicholas and Nancy (Biggs) Grist, while her great-grand-father was
George Grist. Her grandfather, Nicholas Grist, was born in Kentucky,
came to Indiana and first !
settled in Clark County and afterwards in Clay County. He served with
the Kentucky Volunteers in the War of 1812. Nicholas Grist is buried
in the Friendly Grove Church Cemetery in Lewis Township, Clay County.
Mrs. Luther’s father, Nicholas Grist, was a farmer and stock raiser
who spent all his life in Lewis Township, and both he and his wife are
buried in the Friendly Grove Church Cemetery. They had nine children,
Mrs. Luther, David T., Eunice, Sarah, Matilda, Rebecca, James, Rachael
E. and one that died in infancy. Mrs. Luther, her brother David and
her sisters Eunice and Rachael are the only survivors. Mrs. Luther
was born March 7, 1847, in Clay County, attended the common schools
and received tutoring at home, and during all her residence here has
been active in social welfare and civic work, being the only living
charter member of the Woman’s Reading Club of Brazil. She resides at
617 Meridian Street in Brazil. Mr. and Mrs. Luther had five children;
Minn!
ie L. is the wife of William E. Barton, of Indianapolis. William P.
married Mary M. Sherfey, and they have two children, William, a
graduate of the Indiana University, A. B., with the class of 1929,
admitted to the bar in 1930 and now associated with his father in the
law firm of Luther & Luther, and Lois Helen, a graduate of the DePauw
University and the New England Conservatory of Music at Boston. Nellie
L., the youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Luther, is the widow
of Harry E. Weinland, who for many years was a prominent druggist of
Brazil, in the firm of Schultz & Weinland. They had two children,
Joseph L., a graduate of Purdue University, and Mary E., a graduate of
the class of 1981 from the Brazil High School. The two
deceased children of Mr. and Mrs. Peter T. Luther are James C., who
died in childhood, and one who died in infancy.
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