Nathan C. WINTERS
- Details
- Category: Biographies
- Published on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 20:43
- Written by Eloine Chesnut
Nathan C. WINTERS, an honored veteran of the Civil war and formerly and for years one of Jay county's well known and substantial farmers and landowners, who died at his home in Wayne township in the year 1894, left a good memory at his passing and it is fitting that there should here be presented some modest tribute to that memory. Mr. WINTERS was a native son of Jay county and had resided here practically all his life, the exception having been a brief period following his return from the army when he was "looking around" out West. He was born on a pioneer farm in Wayne township on October 4, 1845, and was a son of Obediah and Frances ( ENSMINGER ) WINTERS, who were among the early settlers in that part of the county. Reared on the home farm in Wayne township, Mr. WINTERS completed his schooling in old Liber College and at the age of seventeen years enlisted for service as a soldier of the Union and went to the front as a member of Company C, 39th Indiana Cavalry. During this term of service he was compelled to lie in the hospital at Jeffersonville, Ind., for six months as a consequence of a gangrenous infection of saddle galls. Upon the completion of his military service Mr. WINTERS went out into the Indian Territory country and was there engaged in selling fruit trees for a year, at the end of which time he returned to Jay county and started farming and raising fine horses and in the latter phase of his operations soon became one of the best known horsemen in this part of Indiana, a reputation he long maintained, for he kept up his interest in horses to the last, his specialty having been heavy draft horses, and to him there must ever remain the credit of having done much to promote the elevation of the standards of horse flesh in this region. Mr. WINTERS married when twenty-five years of age and for more than six years thereafter continued to make his home on the home farm, his mother having died and he and his wife looking after the affairs of the household. He then bought 120 acres of uncleared land in Wayne township, adjoining a tract of forty acres owned by his wife, the place on which his daughters, the Misses Florence and Edith WINTERS, are now living, and settled down to make a farm out of the place. He had the greater part of it cleared in good time and later added an adjoining "forty," so that at one time he and his wife were the owners of 200 acres of land in that township, and there he spent his last days, his death occurring on August 12, 1894. It was on January 14, 1871, that Nathan C. WINTERS was united in marriage to Martha COULSON, also a member of one of the pioneer families of this county, and to this union were born four children, John and Frances R., now deceased, and Florence and Edith, who still make their home on rural mail route No. 12 out of Portland. Mrs. WINTERS was born in Columbiana county, Ohio, and was but a babe in arms when her parents, John and Rachel ( RISH ) COULSON, both of whom were born in that same county, came with their family to Indiana in 1846 and settled on an unimproved tract of land in the New Mt. Pleasant neighborhood in Jefferson township, this county. John COULSON was born on March 30, 1816, and grew to manhood in Columbiana county, Ohio, where in 1842 he married Rachel RISH, who was born in that same county on February 8, 1827, and he remained in that county until he became a resident of Jay county. He was a man of force and intelligence and so quickly did he impress his personality upon his new neighbors that in 1850, four years after coming here, he was elected auditor of Jay county. Upon taking office he moved to Portland and so satisfactorily did he perform the duties of this office that he was re-elected and thus served for eight years as auditor of the county. He subsequently was elected treasurer of the county and served for four years in that capacity, after which he retired to his farm in section 30 of Wayne township and there spent his last days, his death occurring on October 1, 1873, he then being in his fifty-eight year. He left a widow and six children, one son, John R. COULSON, and five daughters, these latter (besides Mrs. WINTERS) having been Harriet, who married Seth JONES; Mrs. Mary Jane CARTWRIGHT, Ruth, who married Charles S. MILLER; and Anna, who married Sumner B. MILLER. SOURCE: Milton T. Jay, M.D., History of Jay County Indiana, Historical Publishing Co., Indpls. 1922, Vol. II, pp.284-285. Transcribed by Eloine Chesnut.