Henry Fisher, Rensselaer Tile Farmer

Found in History of the Town of Remington and Vicinity, Jasper County, Indiana by James H. Royalty, 1894, p. 134

Early settlers of Rensselaer, Indiana.
Henry is in the middle row, second from right.

Henry James Fisher was born on February 24, 1821 in Marion County, Indiana.  His father, James Fisher, was a Pennsylvania native and his mother, Sarah Rue, was born in Kentucky.

Henry married Nancy Elizabeth McLaughlin, also a native of Marion County, on March 13, 1843.  The story is handed down in the family that they eloped to be married; Henry was 22 and Nancy was not yet 17.

After their marriage, the Fishers lived in Marion County, Indiana where Henry engaged in farming.  He supposedly owned the land in the Beech Grove area where Amtrak is now located.  Around 1850, Henry, Nancy, and their three young daughters lived next door to the Marion County Asylum (which was essentially a poorhouse for paupers and the feeble-minded).  Henry was the superintendent of the asylum.

Later, the Fishers lived in the village of Broad Ripple, and are shown in the 1860 census with six of their children: Lavina, Minerva, Joseph, Benjamin, James, and Rebecca (my great-great grandmother).  The two oldest children, Susan and Elizabeth Jane, had died before the census was taken.

Henry Fisher was a Civil War veteran, mustered in on August 30, 1862 and discharged on February 12, 1864 with a disability.  He served in the 63rd Infantry Regiment (History of Indianapolis and Marion County; Marion County in the War of the Rebellion, page 36.)

Henry Fisher, c. 1890

After Henry returned from the War, the Fisher family moved to northwest to Jasper County, Indiana in 1877.  There Henry continued farming and operated his own tile factory.  According to the common practice of that time, the tile was installed in the fields as a means to drain the farmland and make it more productive.

When we take into consideration that Remington and 
the surrounding country [Rensselaer] was classed as swamp lands by the United States general survey, we may well look upon 
it with great astonishment. It is now considered to be 
the finest farming country in northwestern Indiana. The 
lands have been all placed in a high state of cultivation; 
nearly all of it having fine farm residences and the greater 
portion of it being well drained both by open ditches 
and tile drainage, the tiling having been mostly done 
within the past few years, which fact alone has added at 
least twenty dollars in value to every acre so drained. The 
County is being rapidly populated with wealthy and ener- 
getic men. (History of the Town of Remington and Vicinity, Jasper County, Indiana by James H. Royalty, 1894, p. 155).

In 1895, both Henry's wife and son Benjamin died, and by the 1900 census he was living with his fourth child, Minerva, and her family in Jennings County, Indiana.  In September of 1904, with his health failing, he went back to Rensselaer to live with his son, James.

Henry and Nancy Fisher's headstone
Weston Cemetery in Rensselaer, Indiana
Photo taken 18 April 2016 by Brenna G.

Uncle Henry Fisher, as he has been long familiarly known, died on Monday morning, February 27, 1905, at the home of his son James Fisher on Front Street.  He had been confined to the house since before Christmas, with a valvular disease of the heart, complicated with Bright's disease of the kidneys.  He has all along been in possession of his faculties and able to sit up every day, as in fact he was obliged to to much of the time to get his breath.  He has lately been subject to sinking spells and it was one of these that carried him off.  His age was 84 years and 3 days.  

He was a resident of this country for many years on a farm northwest of town, and after owning a residence in town on Main Street.  Some five years ago he went to Jennings County to live with his children, but returned here last September to live with his son, at whose house he died.

He leaves one other son, Joseph, and three daughters: Mrs. Minerva C. Mills, Mrs. Mary E. Nichols (wife of George E. Nichols), and Mrs. Anna Worland - all living in the southern part of the state. 

52 Ancestors 2015: #4 Mary Ann Williamson, Who Knitted Her Way To Indianapolis

"Old Woman Knitting a Sock" by Ivan Khrutsky
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Polly [as Mary Ann was also called] decided to go to Indianapolis to trade one day.  So she climbed on her little mule with her knitting.  She rode and she rode and she knitted and she knitted.  Finally, she met a soldier and asked, "How much farther is Indianapolis?"  He answered, "You passed through Indianapolis two miles back!!"

I found this humorous story in One Man's Family, written by Olive Lewis Kolb.  The tale is attributed to Mary Ann's son, Stephen Theodore Worland.

Mary Ann Williamson was born on October 20, 1811 in Kentucky.  (My 4th great grandmother and I share a birthday and a fondness for knitting!)  I don't have any information about her parents. According to Kolb, she may have been an adopted child.

On March 4, 1833, Mary Ann married Stephen Dominic Worland in Marion County, Indiana.  Stephen came from a Catholic family with deep roots in the history of early Maryland.  By 1840, the Worlands had settled in Shelby County, Indiana.  Mary Ann was the mother of 12 children, the oldest of which was my 3rd great grandfather, John William Worland.  Sadly, Mary Ann's three youngest children did not live past infancy.

Sometime between 1859-1860, the Worlands moved to Millwood, Missouri.  At the outbreak of the Civil War, Missouri was divided on the issue of slavery.  By 1863, conditions there were tumultuous and unstable. The Worlands decided to move back to Indiana.  Tilson Vincent Worland, Mary Ann's grandson, recounted the Worland family's return to Indiana from Missouri:

I have heard my father, Stephen Theodore, tell of the trip back to Indiana.  The womenfolk returned by train, but grandfather [Stephen Dominic Worland] and his six sons drove through bringing six horses. They ferried the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and followed the old National Trail from St. Louis through Terre Haute, Indiana, to Indianapolis.  It took a week to travel from St. Louis to Terre Haute and they never saw the sun all week.  They had a dog, and after reaching Indiana ... the dog disappeared and several weeks later showed up at the old Missouri home.  How the dog crossed the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers on his return home is still a mystery.   (One Man's Family by Olive Lewis Kolb, pages 1044-1045.)

In 1879, two of Mary Ann's children, 43 year-old Sarah Ann Oefelein and 35 year-old George Tilson Worland, died within the space of two months.  I wonder if there was an epidemic of some kind in Shelby County, Indiana at that time.

Mary Ann Williamson Worland died on December 23, 1894 at the home of her son Stephen and was buried next to her husband at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Cemetery in Waldron, Shelby County, Indiana.

52 Ancestors: #35 Nancy Elizabeth McLaughlin, Eloped at 16

Above: A section of the National Road in 1908. 
Below: Henry and Nancy's marriage certificate.

A story has been handed down in my family that my 3rd great-grandparents, Henry Fisher and Nancy McLaughlin, eloped to be married.  On a dark March evening, Nancy went out into the front yard after supper on the pretext of emptying the dishwater.  Henry was waiting for her on horseback.  Nancy had smuggled out her dress-up clothes earlier that day so that they could make their getaway easily.  A minister had been arranged for, and the license had already been obtained.

The National Road (known today as U.S. 40) had been built by that time, so perhaps they would have used that route to travel from Marion County to Wayne County to be married. Henry and Nancy were married on the 13th of March, 1843. She was 16 years old, and he was 22.

Nancy Elizabeth McLaughlin was born in Marion County, Indiana, on May 11, 1826. Her parents were James McLaughlin and Elizabeth Huggins, both natives of Kentucky.  Nancy was the second of 13 McLaughlin children.

After Henry and Nancy eloped in 1843, the first document they appear in is the 1850 census.   The Fishers and their three young daughters lived next door to the Marion County Asylum (which was essentially a poorhouse for paupers and the feeble-minded).  Henry was the superintendent of the asylum.  In 1860, the Fishers lived in the village of Broad Ripple in Marion County.  They stayed in Broad Ripple for 20 years then moved to Jasper County, where they remained for the rest of their lives.

Henry and Nancy had ten children: seven girls and three boys.  One of their daughters, Minerva, born in 1848, lived to be 100 years old. Their fifth daughter, Rebecca, was my great-great grandmother.

Nancy Fisher died on December 20, 1895.  She is buried at Weston Cemetery in Rensselaer, Jasper County, Indiana.

I found a letter written by my grandmother that mentions a photograph of Henry and Nancy with one of their grandsons, Noble Fisher.  I've looked through all my family files and haven't been able to find the picture.  In the back of my mind, I feel like I may have seen the picture before, but maybe it was just a dream. (Yes, I do dream about genealogy sometimes!)

52 Ancestors: #21 Rebecca Annabel Fisher, "Aunt Annie"

Rebecca and three of her six sisters.
Clockwise, from top left: Eliza Jane, Mary Ellen,
Minerva C., and Rebecca Annabel Fisher.

Rebecca Annabel Fisher was born November 8, 1857 in Marion County, Indiana.  Her parents were Henry James Fisher and Nancy Elizabeth McLaughlin.  (The story is handed down that Henry and Nancy eloped to be married.) She grew up in a large household, being the eighth of ten children.  Her father was an entrepreneur in the tile making business in Jasper County, Indiana.

Rebecca's sister,  Eliza Jane, died in 1880 at the age of 19.  She left behind a newborn daughter, Mary Lillie Ellen.  Rebecca, unmarried and living with her parents, helped to raise her niece.

At the age of 36, Rebecca married Lewis Milburn Worland in Rensselaer, Indiana. He was ten years younger than her. They had two sons, Leonard and Luther, and one daughter, Dola (my great grandmother.)  The Worlands first settled in Jasper County then relocated to Shelby County, Indiana around 1900.

They moved to Jennings County, Indiana around 1915.  Soon after they moved, their daughter Dola met her future husband Clyde Holtzlider at the United Brethren Church in Pierceville.

Worlands, c. 1897: Lewis, Leonard, Rebecca, and Dola.

 Rebecca (right) and her niece Mary Lillie Ellen

Rebecca lived to be nearly 90 years old.  By the time she reached old age, she was completely blind. She died at her daughter's house in Greensburg on August 30, 1947 and was buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Shelbyville, Indiana.  Her husband had died only a month before her.