Plumb the merchant and Smith the station agent: the village's two working men of record

1827 – 1907

Henry S. Plumb (Chapman, p. 834) is the earliest Osceola merchant the assigned sources name by name and date: born in Delaware County, Ohio, 23 August 1827, son of George and Abbie Plumb; three years in Iowa and three in Illinois; then the war — three years in Company A, 17th Illinois, at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth and Vicksburg, as the Wars file carries at full size. "He came to this county in 1864 and married Miss Alma A. Bancroft the next day after arriving" — the miller's daughter — and in 1870 "engaged in mercantile business in Osceola," with a general stock of $2,000. Three children, one living: Abbie E. Plumb, who married George F. Eberhart in 1891 (and died within two years, on Howard's telling) — Eberhart himself kept a general store in Osceola for two years in the 1890s within his Mishawaka career, the second Osceola merchant the record names. Whether any store stood in the village before Plumb's of 1870, neither county history as read says; the first store is a named gap in the closing register, not a silent assumption.

William C. Smith (Chapman, pp. 837–838): born in Clinton County, Indiana, 27 June 1838, son of John and Margaret (Logan) Smith; he peddled cook-stoves two years, then "came to Osceola in 1863, engaged with the L. S. & M. S. R. R. Co. as watchman, soon afterward became the agent at this place" — the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern's Osceola station agent — "and held it except 5 years"; and "lost his right arm in 1863 coupling cars," the railroad's price printed in the same sentence as its employment. He married Adelia James in 1861; five children — Cora Bell, scalded to death at age two, is the sketch's one grief named. He is not merged with John W. Smith of section 32 (b. France, 1 May 1814; to America 1828; to this county 1835; 120 acres; Lutheran), a different man of the same township and surname, whose own sketch stands in the settler roll below. The 1875 directory's scrambled pages carry a "Railroad Agent and Farmer" business line whose name the transcription lost; it is plausibly Smith's, and is printed here as plausibly, not asserted.

Sources:

1. Chapman, p. 834 (Plumb), pp. 837–838 (William C. Smith), p. 837 (John W. Smith); Howard, vol. 2, pp. 801–802 (George F. Eberhart).