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 [254-257] HIRAM G. SHILLING. There is no small number of high-grade, pros- perous farms in Starke County, places which for many years have been paying generous revenues to their owners. But this is not saying that all such farms are keyed up to the highest degree of productiveness and profit. Even a poorly managed farm will often pay a profit, but only the best will show such annual returns as a well conducted store or factory. To see farming at its best — scientific and practical management, maximum per acre yield, and annual profits without im- poverishment of the soil — probably the best exhibit in the entire county is the SHILLING Farm on section 20 of Center Township. Mr. SHILLING is one of the most practical and scientific farmers in the state, and has on many occasions shown a progressiveness that has proved stimulating as an example to the community. He has the dis- tinction of being the first man in Starke County to ship out a carload of corn. He also purchased for use on his farm the first manure spreader, and also the first tile ditching machine used in the county. He is not only a raiser of the staple crops and of much fine stock, but has a reputation as a horticulturist, and has a splendid orchard of apple, peach and cherry trees, there being about three or four hun- dred bearing fruit trees in his orchard. There is no better land in the state for melon growing than is found on his place, and he has won many prizes on his exhibits of melons, fruit and other farm products. MR. SHILLING represents one of the pioneer families of Starke County, and he himself was born on a farm in California Township, Starke County, September 22, 1856. His parents were WILLIAM F. and LOVINA (GESAMAN) SHILLING. The parents were natives of Stark County, Ohio, where they grew up and were married, and soon after their wedding came west, by way of the Wabash and Erie Canal as far as Logansport, and thence by wagon and team to Starke County, locating in California Township. WILLIAM F. SHILLING was accompanied by his father, SAMUEL, who had lost his wife in Ohio. They entered adjoining tracts of land in California Township. That was in the early '50s, when development had hardly begun in the county. Nearly the entire country was unsettled; it was marked by few homes and improvements of civilized men but the prairies and marshes supported abundance of wild game and fish in the streams, while many of the early settlers also depended upon the wild fruits as part of their table fare. The Shilling family went through all the experiences of pioneers, lived in log cabin lionics, and the school attended by their children was a log house, with piuicheon floors, split log benches, and other primitive paraphernalia of the early temples of learning. It was in a school not greatly advanced beyond that stage that HIRAM G. SHILLING acquired his early training. Grandfather SAMUEL SHILLING died in Starke County when about eighty years of age. WILLIAM F. SHILLING and wife lived and labored and improved a farm, built a good home, and were people of thrift, industry and exercised a good moral influence in their com- munity. WILLIAM F. SHILLING died in 1885, when about fifty-four years of age. About eight years before his death he had suffered a stroke of paralysis, but, being a man of great energy and pluck, refused to remain quiet and rode about his farm looking after details. He was one of the strong men to whom the later generations in Starke County owe a great deal. In polities he was a strong republican and with his wife was active in the United Brethren Church. His widow survived him twenty-six or twenty-seven years, and died at Knox at the home of a daughter when aged eighty-four years and five months. An excellent example of the pioneer noblewoman, she had for many years performed the various duties of home and household, and was almost constantly engaged in serving and working kindness to her family and neighbors. There were five children: HIRAM G.; EDGAR, who is a prosperous farmer of Center Township and lives in Knox, and has four children, all of whom have finished their education; SARAH, who is the wife of REUBEN COFFIN, a farmer of Knox, and they have four sons and three daughters; SCHUYLER A., president of the Culver State Bank in Marshall County, is married and has one son and four daughters; MALINDA is the wife of Dr. DORR COLLIER, a physician at Brook, Indiana, and their family consists of two daughters and one son. HIRAM G. SHILLING grew up on the old homestead in California Town- ship, lived there until twenty-six years of age, and in the meantime had enjoyed the advantages not only of the home schools but had been well trained for his future career of usefulness as a farmer. He and William B. Sinclair were the first Starke County boys appointed to scholarships in Purdue University, but owing to his father's ill health he was unable to pursue the advantage. On leaving home he moved to Center Township and in 18S4 bought forty acres of land. That was the nucleus around which his enterprise has steadily worked, and since then has accumulated the present splendid estate under his proprietor- ship. His farm now comprises 460 acres of land, most of it in section 21, and nearly the entire acreage is thoroughly improved, drained, tiled, fenced, and there is very little waste land on the SHILLING Farm. MR. SHILLING grows all kinds of grain, corn, wheat, oats, has the best exhibit of alfalfa in the county, and has found that a profitable crop, and also has fields of clover, timothy, potatoes, melons and other staples of Indiana farms. In looking over the county at large there would probably not be found a better barn anywhere than MR. SHILLING'S. It stands on a foundation 50x100 feet, the foundation being concrete, and it is thoroughly equipped for stock and grain. Adjoining it are two large silos, each with a capacity of 130 tons, and there are a number of sheds and other buildings which serve the purposes of a large and well managed farm. MR. SHILLING was married near Knox to Miss ALICE PRETTYMAN on December 14, 1880. MRS. SHILLING was born July 24, 1861, in Wash- ington Township, Starke County, a daughter of J. BURTON and MARY (BOOTS) PRETTYMAN, who now live in Knox. MRS. SHILLING received her education in the public schools of Indiana and Illinois, and prior to her marriage was a successful and popular teacher. MRS. SHILLING comes of an old English family, and it will be proper to record some of the incidents in the early settlement. The founder of the family on this side of the Atlantic was GEORGE PRETTYMAN, who, with his wife, came over from England with Lord Delaware and located on the coast of Delaware, at that time a wild and unbroken wilderness. He received a grant from KING GEORGE III for a tract sixteen miles square along the coast. This grant was written on parchment and signed by the right honorable secretary of the king. The old parchment deed went down through several generations of the family, and when last known was in the possession of JOSEPH PRETTYMAN, an uncle of MRS. SHILLING. Several members of the family were named GEORGE in honor of the king, though that name lost its popularity after the revolution. The JOSEPH PRETTY- MAN just mentioned had an uncle, ZACHARIAH, who served in the Revolutionary war and was with the colonial forces for about seven years. He took part in the disastrous battle at Long Island early in the war and was with a detachment of the American forces that were sent up the island and consequently cut off from the main body when Washington withdrew his troops under the cover of night to the main- land. He and his comrades fought their way back and suffered greatly from hunger and thirst. It is related that while he stopped to get a drink of water at a well the bucket from which he was drinking was pierced with nine musket balls. He and some of his comrades finally reached safety. JOSEPH PRETTYMAN'S father was old enough to serve in the War of 1812, and leaving home joined the American troops at Lewis- town, sixteen miles from the old home. That place was besieged by a large number of British battleships and a large force of troops, but the Yankees drove back the soldiers when they attempted a landing and also blew up one of the English vessels. MR. SHILLING and wife are the parents of a fine family of children: EFFE, died in infancy; WILLIAM, lives at home; MAUDE, who is the wife of HAL JONES of Benton Harbor, Michigan, has a daughter, VIRGINIA L.; EDITH, who died aged twenty-seven on August 20, 1914, was the wife of GEORGE F. BRAND, a dentist at Knox, and she left a son, JOHN, born in December, 1910, BENJAMIN, who lives at home; EMERY, who died January 1, 1896, aged three years; COLUMBUS, who finished school with the class of 1913; BERT, who is in the class of 1915 in the township high school; and GRACE V., born August 19, 1901, and a student in the Center Township High School. The son, WILLIAM, has long been one of the mainstays of his father and mother in the management of the farm and has been a helper in its development from the swamps and wilder- ness. On account of his duties at home he was able to complete only two terms of the Knox High School, and each evening after school hours hurried home on horseback in order to accomplish a large amount of chores. While attending school he fed and otherwise looked after fifty head of hogs which he marketed in Chicago. He finally gave up school- ing with much regret, and is now one of the practical and progressive young farmers of his county. He owns and operates a traction ditching machine, which has excavated for many miles of tile drainage on the SHILLING Farm and at other places in the county. He was the nominee for clerk of the court on the progressive ticket in 1914. The son, BENJAMIN, who is also at home, continued in school until near the close of his second year at high school, when, owing to a serious accident which befell his father he left school in order to assist his brother WILLIAM on the farm. He took charge of the dairy, and for several years managed the herd of about thirty cows. On account of the accident and subsequent illness of the father the two daughters, MAUDE and EDITH, also abandoned their schooling. MAUDE was at that time a student of music in Chicago and EDITH was studying voice culture in Joliet. The son BENJAMIN is the practical machinist of the family. The son COLUMBUS while growing up on the farm also had his special duties, and for several years looked after his father's herd of sheep. He graduated from the Knox High School well up in his class and was class treasurer and secretary and did successful work as a debater. He has made considerable success as a salesman for the International Dictionary, and is the youngest man on the sales force of his firm and now has a territory comprising half the State of Indiana. The son BERT, who is a member of the senior class of the Center Township High School, is president of the Debating Society and of the baseball team, and also manifests strong traits as a machinist and as a book lover and student. MR. SHILLING and family are members of the Christian Church, and in politics he is an independent republican. ===========================================================================