Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2014 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== A Standard History of Starke County, Indiana McCormick, Joseph N. - 1915 [239-241] EDGAR W. SHILLING. The loyalty that this well-known citizen has ever shown to his native country has been fully justified, for he is now numbered among its most extensive landholders, has prestige as one of its representative agriculturists and stockgrowers, is a citizen of prominence and influence, a substantial capitalist, and a man whose character and achievement have gained and retained to him a host of friends in the county that has been his home from the time of his nativity. Though giving a punctilious general supervision to his various farm operations, MR. SHILLING now resides at Knox, the county seat, where he is the owner of an attractive and modern home, on Heaton Street, and is known as a worthy scion of one of the honored pioneer families of Starke County, more detailed data concerning the family history being given on other pages, in the sketch of the career of HIRAM H. SHILLING, elder brother of him whose name initiates this paragraph. On the old homestead farm, near Round Lake, in California Town- ship, Starke County, EDGAR W. SHILLING was born on the 5th of June, 1857, and in his native township he was reared to maturity, in the meanwhile availing himself of the advantages of the public schools of the locality and period. He continued to be actively identified with agricultural pursuits in his native township until he was thirty years of age, when he purchased 700 acres of unimproved land in Davis Town- ship and instituted the herculean task of reclaiming the same to cul- tivation, — a work for which his energy, ambition and former experi- ence amply qualified him. At a cost of $1,200 he constructed proper fencing on his farm, and made other excellent improvements, including the erection of a good house, a barn 54 by 90 feet in dimensions, and the clearing of much of the land, which he developed into a specially productive farm, besides becoming there a successful grower of high- grade live stock. His interposition brought about within the eight years of his ownership a great appreciation in the value of the pro- perty, and at the expiration of that period he sold the same at the rate of $45 an acre, the same land having since been sold for $110 an acre. After disposing of this farm MR. SHILLING established his resi- dence in the thriving little City of Knox, and his enterprise and mature judgment soon led him to make investments in farm properties in Center and Washington townships. Along the north bank of Yellow River he now owns a well improved farm of 170 acres, the property lying in section 15, Center Township, and its permanent improvements including a substantial and commodious house and a fine barn, the latter being 40 by 65 feet in lateral dimensions. This land is excelled in ferti- lity and productiveness by none in the township, and on the place MR. SHILLING maintains excellent grades of live stock in addition to ob- taining from the land large yields of the various crops best suited to the soil and climate. In sections 14, 13 and 24, of the same township, MR. SHILLING is the owner of 174 acres, and the improvements on this place also are of excellent type. In Washington Township he is the owner of a valuable landed estate of 475 acres, mostly improved with good buildings and under a high state of cultivation, this farm being leased to a tenant. The area of the entire landed estate of MR. SHILLING in Starke County is more than nine hundred acres, and he gives special attention to the raising and feeding of horses, cattle and hogs, with an average herd of more than one hundred head of cat- tle, and on his various farms the average number of calves raised each year is about forty, these being principally of the Polled Durham breed. MR. SHILLING takes great satisfaction in his close identi- fication with the agricultural and stock-growing industries in Starke County and in all departments of his farm enterprise he ably and insistently maintains the highest possible standards. He devotes nearly one hundred acres annually to the growing of corn, which yields an average of from fifty to sixty bushels to the acre, and from an average of about eighty-five acres given to the cultivation of wheat he has received more than forty bushels to the acre in yield. Such are the men whose ability and progressiveness give special dignity and value to the fundamental industries which are the real basis of general prosperity, and MR. SHILLING merits credit for his splendid achievement as one of the essentially representative agriculturists and stock-growers of the Hoosier State. As a citizen he is loyal and public-spirited, appreciative of the duties and responsibilities which personal success imposes, and he is always ready to lend his aid in support of measures and enterprises advanced for the general good of the community. He was one of the organizers of the First National Bank of Knox, of which he has been a director and the vice president from the time of its incorporation. He is associated with his brother SCHUYLER in the ownership of the Citizens Bank at Culver, Marshall County, and is financially interested in other substantial and important business enterprises. For many years the SHILLING family's political faith has been that of the republican party, and from the same EDGAR W. SHILLING has found no reason to deflect his course, though he has been signally free from ambition for public office of any order. He and his wife and their elder son, ELMER, are affiliated with the Modrn Woodmen of America, the family being one of prominence in the representative social activities of Starke County. In this county, in the year 1887, was solemnized the marriage of MR. SHILLING to Miss FLORA M. SPIKER, who was bom in the State of West Virginia, on the 25th of August, 1868, and who was a child at the time of her parents' removal to Ohio, whence, a short time later, 1887, re- moval was made to Starke County, Indiana, where MRS. SHILLING was reared and educated. She is a daughter of WILLIAM and NANCY (HARDESTY) SPIKER, both of whom maintain their home at Knox, the former being seventy-six years of age and the latter seventy-four years at the time of this writing, in the spring of 1915. MR. SPIKER, though a Southerner by birth, was a valiant soldier of the Union during the Civil war, in which he participated in many important engagements, his chief incidental ill luck being the receiving of a severe wound in the leg. He took part in the second battle of Bull Run, the battle of Antietam and that of Lookout Mountain, besides many other engagements marking the progress of the great conflict, in connection with which he had many narrow escapes. Prior to his retirement MR. SPIKER had been a prosperous farmer of Starke County, besides which he had done much service as a skillful carpenter and builder. He is a republican in politics, a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and both he and his wife have for many years been zealous members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which their daughter, MRS. SHILLING, likewise holds membership. ELMER H., the eldest of the children of Mr. and Mrs. SHILLING, was bom March 25, 1888, and after he had completed a course in the high school he spent four months in foreign travel, visiting England and France and finding his journey's both interesting and profitable, as he acquired much valuable information and greatly widened his mental ken. He now has charge of one of his father's fine farms and is known as one of the alert and enterprising young agricul- turists and stock-raisers of his native county. He wedded Miss OAKIE M. CLAPSADDLE, a native of Ohio, and they have no children. MAYBEL L., the second of the children of Mr. and Mrs. SHILLING, was born May 18, 1890, and after a course in the high school she was a popular teacher in the schools of Starke County. She is now the wife of JANUS B. WITTRUP, who holds a responsible position with the Goodrich Rubber Company, in the City of Chicago, their one child being a son, JACK. RUSSELL W. SHILLING was born May 25, 1893, and is a graduate in the agricultural department of the Purdue University, with the class of 1915. EFFIE F., who was born September 15, 1895, is a student in the department of domestic science in the University of Indiana. ===========================================================================