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People Long Tail — the Section's Ring
Who the long tail holds here
Chapman (1880), Clay Township chapter, pp. 676–682, and Howard (1907), Vol. 2, Clay sketches at pp. 1070–1073 — read from the page-image text.
The town itself names almost nobody before its officers of 2004 — so its long tail is the record of its ground: the settler ring of Section 25 in Clay Township, the farm families the two county histories place on the sections around the town's quarter, and the church-and-school figures of the township's first institutions. Each entry stands at the strength its carrier prints, with its section where the carrier gives one. The section's own first family, the Eatons of 1831, stands at narrative strength's before-the-city fragment; the entries here are the ring around them.
The river-bank first settlement — Eyler, McCombs, Weaver
Chapman (1880), p. 676.
John Eyler, Lambert McCombs and John Weaver — Weaver identified in print as "a German Baptist preacher" — are the first settlement Chapman names for the ground that became Clay Township: they "located" along the eastern bank of the St. Joseph river, with a few other families, as settlement quickened about 1837–'8. No year is printed for their locating beyond that quickening, and the chapter expressly defers the pre-1840 settler names to its German Township chapter. Eyler's house on section 23 held the township's first school.
Lambert and Hannah McCombs; William McCombs
Chapman (1880), pp. 676, 680–681.
Lambert McCombs (above) and his wife Hannah (Hague) McCombs "came to this county July 5, 1829. They first settled in German tp., where they lived for a short time and then came to this tp." Their son William McCombs (b. Wayne County, Ohio, 1818) is printed "a very early settler of this tp.," holding 247 acres; his wife is recorded a member of the Dunkard Church — the German Baptist congregation under its other printed name. No section is printed for the McCombs land.
Peter Cripe — section 26
Chapman (1880), p. 679.
Peter Cripe (b. Ohio, 1824) was brought to the county in the fall of 1830, lived first in German Township, and came to Clay Township in 1852, farming 137 acres on section 26 — the section immediately west of the town's section 25. He and his wife Philistia A. (Skiles) Cripe "are members of the German Baptist Church." His daughter Jane married Aaron Ulery; his daughter Fannie married John Wrightsman, the church's pastor (next entry). He is of the same Cripe kin as Jacob Cripe, the church's first pastor — the chapter prints both names; the exact relation is not stated and is not supplied here.
John B. Wrightsman — section 26, the pastor
Chapman (1880), pp. 677, 681–682.
John B. Wrightsman (b. Pulaski County, Virginia, 1853) came to the county in 1875, married Fannie Cripe in 1879, and is placed "on sec. 26" as "a minister and teacher." Chapman prints him twice in the pastor's chair: "The present pastor is John B. Wrightsman" in the church passage, and in his own sketch, "He is now pastor of the German Baptist Church in Clay tp." — the congregation whose building stood on section 24 and whose cemetery ground lay on the town's section 25.
Edwin Douglass Eaton — born in the township, 1854
Howard (1907), Vol. 2, pp. 1070–1071.
Edwin Douglass Eaton, grandson of Isaac and son of Jacob, "was born in this township on the 28th of March, 1854," and is printed "a representative of one of its oldest and most prominent families." He resided on the old Clay homestead from 1856; his father's 225 acres and the family's §§16–17 entry stand in the before-the-city fragment. Howard prints his grandfather Isaac's death on the homestead as 25 December 1869; Chapman prints 25 December 1860 — the conflict is carried's note, unmerged.
The northern and eastern farm tier — Chalfant, Chirhart, Jennings, Kotz, Stover, Sossomen
Chapman (1880), pp. 678–681; Howard (1907), Vol. 2, pp. 1071–1072 (Jennings).
Thomas B. Chalfant (§31): came with his parents 1 November 1832 "and settled on the farm on which he still resides" in 1880; township trustee; 236 acres. J. H. Chirhart (§30): b. Ohio 1836, came 1845, in Harris Township till 1865; 276 acres; Catholic. Samuel Jennings (§30): born in the township 1845, township assessor, served in the 21st Indiana Battery, 80 acres; Howard adds his father Samuel R. Jennings Sr., who came to South Bend in 1833 and about 1836 traded his city property for his brother James H.'s Clay farm, dying there 4 January 1874 with some 300 acres in the township, and prints the son's 1876 removal to his 88-acre farm in section 30 "known as 'The Willows.'" John G. Kotz (§29): b. Germany 1822, to the county spring 1846, resident of Clay from 1847; 160 acres. George H. Stover (§28): school trustee and farmer, came with his parents in 1850; 40 acres. Thomas J. Sossomen (no section printed): b. in the county 1836, his parents came about 1840; he and his wife members of the Dunkard Church.
The western farm tier — Guli, Belledin, Zeitler
Chapman (1880), p. 680; Howard (1907), Vol. 2, pp. 1072–1073.
Theobold Guli (surname garble-flagged in the Chapman scan): b. France 1821, came about 1831; 250 acres on section 20 and 100 more in Penn Township; Catholic. John Belledin: in 1870 "purchased the farm on which he now resides, first securing eighty acres in section 16, while later he bought the old homestead of one hundred and twelve acres on section 9" — 192 acres in Clay; Catholic. John V. Zeitler: his family came in 1847 and later removed to Clay Township; in 1870 he bought his farm from his stepfather for $10,000; no section is printed in his sketch.
The first school figures — Charles Murray, Daniel A. Veasey, Thomas Eaton
Chapman (1880), pp. 677–678.
Charles Murray, "a married man from 'Dutch Island,' in Harris township," was hired by the patrons of the immediate neighbourhood to teach the township's first school, in Mr. Eyler's house on section 23. Daniel A. Veasey "was probably the first teacher" in the township's first school-house, built on section 28. Of the school trustees Chapman names Thomas Eaton, "long in office," and George Stover, incumbent in 1880 (his entry above). By 1880 the township had six brick school buildings.
Tested and not entered: the other section 25s
Howard (1907), Vol. 2, searched whole for "section 25," "sections 25," "sec. 25," "section twenty," "section 24," "section 26," "Clay township" and "German Baptist."
Two men hold a section 25 in Howard's second volume, and neither is this ground's. Joseph Beehler owns "a fine estate in section 25" of Madison Township (p. 1069) — his parents settled §13, Madison, in 1854, and he is of the Evangelical church. John Lerner owns "eighty acres … in section 25, Harris Township" (p. 1091), with forty acres in §36, Penn, and eighty-three more in §1, Penn — a Lutheran of the "Maple Front Farm." Both are printed here, with the townships that hold them, so that a section-number match is never mistaken for a Clay Township tie: apart from the Eaton passage, no sketch in the volume places any person on Clay Township's section 25, and none of its forty-nine "German Baptist" passages intersects that section.