Floyd,
The offer was not *time limited* :-) I hope you enjoy the following
biography on Alfred Bayless.
Connie
If it's not too late, I just noticed your posting on the Clinton
County
list about the 1913 "History of Clinton County" by Hon. Joseph Claybaugh.
I am very interested in the following entry:
Bayless, Alfred A.
887
Floyd Bayless Mitman, III
fbm37(a)worldnet.att.net
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ALFRED AYRES BAYLESS
There have been comparatively few to sound the praise of the brave and
sturdy pioneer though he is certainly, deserving of at least a little space
in the chronicles of the noble. To him more than to any other is
civilization indebted, for it was he that blazed the way and acted as
vanguard for the mighty army of progress that within the last century has
conquered Indiana's wilderness and transformed it into one of the fairest
and most enlightened of the American commonwealths.
One of these sterling pioneers is Alfred Avers BAYLESS, a venerable and
honored citizen of Frankfort, Clinton county, who has passed his
eighty-eighth milepost and is yet hale and hearty because he has lived an
active, conservative and even-tempered life, free from the usual vices that
wreck so large a portion of mankind. He was for a long lapse of years one
of the most widely known contractors and builders in this section of the
Hosier (sic) state. He was born in Butler county, Ohio, February 17, 1825.
He is a son of Platt and Frances (MCGARY) BAYLESS, the father born in New
Jersey in 1794, and the mother born in Kentucky in 1796. The paternal
grandparents were New Jersey farmers and on the mother's side were natives
of Ireland. Platt BAYLESS was one of a family of nine children. He and
Frances MCGARY were married on March 2, 1812, and to them seven children
were born. Platt BAYLESS was a soldier in the war of I812. After the war
he followed farming in the summer time and the shoemaker's trade during the
winter months. Major Platt BAYLESS, an officer in the Revolutionary war and
an aide to George Washington, was the great-grandfather of Alfred A.
BAYLESS, of this review. He mortgaged his farm at Baskingridge, New Jersey,
in order to obtain means to help support the Patriot army in the field.
Alfred A. BAYLESS grew up amid early pioneer conditions, and he received
only about six weeks schooling in the winter, between corn husking and sugar
making time. In 1833, when a small boy, he came with his parents overland
from the old home in Ohio, to Tippecanoe county, Indiana, traveling by wagon
to Cincinnati, thence by boat down the Ohio river to the mouth of the
Wabash, and up the latter stream to Vincennes, where the boat was burned.
From there they proceeded by wagon to Tippecanoe county, the trip from
Butler county, Ohio, requiring about six weeks. Upon their arrival in
Tippecanoe county they had with them the only salt in the county, having
brought two barrels with them. The wagons hauling grain to Chicago had gone
on their regular trips and had not returned with supplies, about three weeks
being required to go to the lake city and return, The family located on a
farm about seven miles east of Lafayette, near the village of Dayton. Later
the elder Bayless purchased a farm of eighty acres, for which he paid the
sum of two hundred and fifty dollars. It lay on the line between Tippecanoe
and Clinton counties, and this they developed from the woods into a
productive farm in due course of time by hard work.
Alfred A. BAYLESS assisted with the hard work on the home place when a boy,
remaining there until he was twenty years of age. He served as an
apprentice in a carpenter shop for two years, for which he was paid five
dollars a month and board, and the second year ten dollars a month and
board. In 1845 he went to Lafayette, where he worked at his trade and
received a dollar and twenty-five cents a day. He put in the first
plate-glass windows ever used in Lafayette, making the sash for the whole
front by hand. He also turned out the first machine-made sash used in that
city, the machine having been run by horse-power.
On May 26, 1847, Mr. BAYLESS married Harriett PARKE, a daughter of John and
Elizabeth PARKE, he a native of Pennsylvania, and the mother of New Jersey.
Elizabeth PARKE's maiden name was ANDERSON. Mrs. Harriett BAYLESS is one of
a family of four children all still living in 1913.
To Mr. and Mrs. Bayless six children have been born, four of whom are living
at this writing: Mrs. C. B. SINE, of Indianapolis; Sylvester, of Memphis,
Tennessee; William O., also of Memphis; and Laura E., of Frankfort. Mrs.
SINE has two daughters, Mrs. Harry MCLELAND, who has two children, George
Edward and Charles Alfred; and Mrs. Edward MAURER, who also has two
children, Russell and Frances. Sylvester had three children: Lenora,
married to E. C. BAILEY, of Tuscola, Illinois, has two children, twins,
David Bayless and Edward Ozias; and Eva, married to J. C. CARSON, of
Lafayette, who died, leaving one child, Olive Crooks CARSON. John Alfred
BAYLESS is a clerk in a wholesale grocery in Champaign, Illinois. W. 0.
BAYLESS and Laura E. BAYLESS have remained unmarried. The latter is
reporter for the Clinton circuit court.
On Christmas day, 1847, Alfred A. BAYLESS was working in a pork house in
Lafavette at one dollar a day and dinner, unheading barrels. He had his
choice of either one hundred pounds of pork tenderloin or one dollar a day
in cash. After living in Lafavette two years he removed to Dayton, where he
remained until 1869. Then he went to Cass county and engaged in the saw
mill business, operating a mill two years, when it was burned. He then
moved to Logansport, where did contracting until 1877, in which year he
moved to Frankfort, Clinton county. His first contract work here was the
Coulter House. He also built the Coulter opera house and many other large
buildings in this city, which will long remain as monuments to his skill and
honesty as a builder. He built the third ward school building twice. He
remained in the carpenter and contracting business with much success, his
services being in great demand until 1897, when he retired from contracting
owing to advancing age, but retained a work shop in the basement of his
home, where he still makes screens and ladders.
Mr. BAYLESS is a master Mason, being the oldest member of the Frankfort
Lodge. He was reared in the Presbyterian faith, and he has attended Sunday
school regularly, seldom missing a Sunday for the long period of
seventy-seven years, starting when a barefoot boy of eleven years. He still
has a testament which he received for memorizing verses when a little boy.
In politics, he votes the Prohibition ticket. He is the oldest Bayles (sic)
living. Pages 887 - 889
Source: History of Clinton County .. With Historical Sketches of
Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Many of the Old
Families. By Hon. Joseph Claybaugh. Published 1913 by A. W. Bowen &
Company - Indianapolis, Indiana