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Author: HuntingtonV
Surnames: Stall, Nicholas, Kitt, Wolverton, Rusher, Stults
Classification: biography
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From Biographical Memoirs of Huntington County, 1901, pages 376-378
This venerable and highly respected citizen of Clear Creek township, was born near the
city of Canton, Stark county, Ohio, November 16, 1817. His father, John Stall, was a
native of Pennsylvania and the family history is traceable to the colonial period in that
state. The wife of John Stall was Catherine Nicholas, who bore him five children, the
subject of this sketch being the first in order of birth; the second is Jacob, at the
present time living in Illinois, the other three, Sarah, Nancy and Samuel, are no longer
in the land of the living. By a second marriage the father had five other children:
Daniel, who lives in the state of Illinois; Michael, an inmate of the Soldiers' Home,
Marion, Indiana; Susan; Eliza A. and Rosa, the last three deceased.
Henry Stall was reared a farmer's boy, and remained with his father until reaching the
age of twenty-seven. He was then united in marriage to Elizabeth Stults, and immediately
thereafter engaged in the pursuit of agriculture on the home farm. He continued to
operate this place until 1848, when he came by canal to Huntington county, Indiana, and
purchased one hundred and forty-four acres in the township of Clear Creek, the county at
that time being new and sparsely settled. Mr. Stall found confronting him the task of
clearing and preparing for cultivation a piece of land from which not a stick of timber
had been removed. He first constructed a log cabin and then began the work of felling the
forest trees, which, within a few years, gradually disappeared before his sturdy blows.
How long, how hard and how diligently he labored to carve out a home for himself and
posterity need not here be narrated, but suffice it to state that the best years of his
life were devoted to th!
e task, and before it was completed his once strong, vigorous body bore many unmistakable
signs of the weight of the task and the hardships experienced while thus employed.
From the time of his settlement in the wilds of Clear Creek Mr. Stall
has taken a representative position among the farmers of the township, and his
adaptability, application and judicious management have always, in his agricultural
pursuits, won him a financial success, and he has thus acquired a handsome competence for
his declining years. In addition to his original purchase he subsequently bought other
lands, located in Warren township, owning at the present time, besides his home place, a
valuable farm of one hundred and sixty acres in that township. With his own hands he
cleared and prepared for the plow over seventy acres, the greater part of which was
formerly covered with a growth of timber and underbrush and unmarked by the slightest
improvement of any kind whatsoever.
While assisting in the material development of the new county, Mr. Stall was by no means
unmindful of its moral and intellectual growth, but helped by every means within his power
to establish churches and schools, and to induce a good class of people to take up its
lands, and become permanent settlers. In this he met with the co-operation of others,
whose wisdom recognized the value of Mr. Stall's efforts, with the result that Clear
Creek has always had good reason to be proud of the high moral character of the majority
of its citizens. His early educational advantages were of the most limited character, but
he made the most of his opportunities. When a boy he attended school taught in the little
log cabin three miles from his father's place, and this distance he tramped twice each
day during the three winter months in order to obtain a smattering of such subjects as
were then deemed necessary for every boy and girl to know. While not educated in the
sense in which the !
term is usually understood, he nevertheless has a wide and varied knowledge of men and
things, but, better still, by measuring his life according to the standard as set forth in
the "Old Book," he long ago found himself in possession of that knowledge which
is the beginning of wisdom.
He has now reached the station on life's rugged highway where he can take a
retrospective view of time gone by, and thus far has found little in his career to regret
and very much to commend.
Mr. Stall has been a member of the Lutheran church for many years, and in politics
sympathizes with the Republican party. Though having passed the age where so many lay
down their earthly burdens he is still in the uninterrupted possession of his faculties,
and bids fair to remain for many years a comfort and a solace to his family and their
descendants.
To Mr. and Mrs. Stall have been born six children, viz.: William, a farmer of Clear
Creek; Ephraim, one of Huntington county's successful teachers; Saloma, wife of
Obediah Kitt, of Montpelier, Indiana; Belle, now Mrs. John Wolverton, of Huntington
township; John, who lives in the city of Huntington; and Addie, wife of Daniel Rusher, who
carries on the home farm.
The mother of this family died September 3, 1888. She was a native of Ohio, and was born
March 15, 1819. Her parents, Herman and Catherine Stults, were early pioneers of Ohio,
and subsequently settled in Huntington county, Indiana, where they resided until their
deaths.
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