Edgar M. Baldwin

    Edgar M. Baldwin. The writing of a history of Fairmount and vicinity without mention of the part played by the Baldwin family since the pioneer beginning of that community would be as imperfect as a certain play without its titular hero. The Baldwins were at Fairmount before there was a town, and through three generations their substantial and worthy citizenship has been a prominent factor in the development of this locality. A fact of pioneer history which has often been little mentioned is that the first settlers of any community, through their leadership, their relations in family or friendly ties, with later comers, and through their public spirit in guarding the moral integrity of the community often exercise a far reaching and invaluable influence on the social and economic welfare. An excellent illustration of these influences derived from the first settlers is afforded by the Baldwin family and their connection at Fairmount. they were all the thrift and substantial stock of Quakers who have been so prominent in Grant County, and the many fine characteristics of this simple people has been exemplified in a high degree through those bearing the Baldwin name.

    The detailed history of the Baldwin family would be too long for publication in this work. The ancestry might be traced back to an early era when there were three Baldwins kings, known in numerical order as Baldwin I, Baldwin II, and Baldwin III. However, the regal progenitors of the family will be disregarded at the present time, and this brief article will begin with the establishment of the name on the Atlantic Coast of America. The family in England was Welsh in origin. The story is authenticated that three brothers of the name left their native shores, and reached the colonial division of America, one settling in New England, another in Pennsylvania, and another in the Carolinas. Of the New England branch, there have been a great many descendants. One of them is the present Governor Simeon Baldwin, of Connecticut, while Judge Daniel P. Baldwin, at one time attorney-general of Indiana, and who died at Logansport, belonged to the same branch. The brother who located in Pennsylvania was the ancestor of the Baldwins who established and conducted the great Baldwin Locomotive Works at Philadelphia. There was also Governor Baldwin, of Georgia, but to which branch he belonged is not known. The Grant County Baldwins are descended from the ancestors who settled in North Carolina. Only a little information is available concerning the early generations, but it is know that they were all Quakers, were chiefly farmers by occupation, and there is a steady record of thrifty, industrious people of good moral qualities, and high average of thrift and prosperity. In this line was Daniel Baldwin, Sr., great-grandfather of Edgar M. Baldwin. He was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, and married Mary Benbow, of North Carolina. They lived and died in their native state, and were good, honest and plain people, rigid adherents of the Friends Church.

    In their family of children were: Daniel Baldwin, Jr., born in Guilford County, North Carolina, December 10, 1789. He married Christian Wilcuts, who was born November 11, 1793. They were married in 1812, and in the fall of that year, with wagons and ox teams, they accomplished the long and tedious journey across the mountains and through the Ohio Valley to Wayne County, Indiana. They found a home in the Quaker settlement near Richmond, where they entered government land. Their home continued in Wayne county until 1833, and it was in that county that all their children were born. Daniel Baldwin in 1833, brought his family to Grant County. He had prospected in this locality in the previous year and had purchased a piece of land and a partly finished log cabin located at what is now the corner of Main and Eighth Street, in Fairmount. The village plat had not yet been laid out, and there were very few settlers in all this township. The cabin had been started by John Benbow, who was an early land speculator. Into the cabin Daniel Baldwin moved his family, and afterward completed and improved the house for a comfortable dwelling. That old cabin had the distinction of being the first house in the present corporation limits of Fairmount. Daniel Baldwin, Jr., added to his possession here until he owned one hundred and sixty acres of land. The north side of Fairmount covers a part of this land, and some of the property is still owned, in the family. The widow of Robert Bogue, grandson of Daniel Baldwin, Jr., having title to a portion of the original tract. It was in Fairmount that Daniel Baldwin, Jr., spent his last years, and died October 9, 1845. His wife died October 28, 1848. They took a prominent part in establishing the first Quaker Church at Fairmount, and were people of the finest pioneer type. They were quiet, God fearing, neighbor loving people, of retiring disposition, but enjoyed hosts of friends. They lay buried side by side for about sixty years in the Friends Buck Creek burying ground, until August, 1910, when their descendants removed their bodies to the Park Cemetery near Fairmount, and the same old headstones mark their final resting place.

    The large family of children of Daniel Baldwin, Jr. and wife are mentioned as follows:

1. Thomas, born April 26, 1813, was married and reared a large family. He was a farmer by occupation and belonged to the Friends Church.
2. Mille, born December 1, 1814, married Barnabas Bogue, reared a large family, was a farmer by occupation and also a Friend.
3. Elias, born August 26, 1816, was a farmer, and by his first marriage had two sons, and then married Hannah Mills, whose one child died in infancy.
4. Joseph W., born January 13, 1818, lived and died in Grant County as a farmer. He married Jane, a daughter of David Stansfield. Her father was the founder of the south half of Fairmount. Joseph W. Baldwin was the first merchant of Fairmount, and conducted a store there from 1848 to 1860, and gave the name to the present town of Fairmount. He had eight children, four of whom are yet living.
5. David, born November 6, 1819, lived and died in Grant County as a farmer. He married Elizabeth Coleman, but had no children of his own. However, they adopted Dr. J. W. Patterson, now a physician of Fairmount. David and wife were Methodists in religion, his wife having been reared in that church.
6. Daniel, Jr., born November 3, 1821, died during infancy in Wayne County.
7. Jonathan, born September 30, 1823, was a successful and prominent man in Grant County, and died here many years ago. His first wife was Sarah A. Dillon, who left four children, three of whom are living. By his second union he became the husband of Mrs. Emeline (Tharp) Hockett, who had two children by her first marriage, but none by her second.
8. Mary, born December 21, 1825, married Dr. Philip Patterson, the first practicing physician of Fairmount. Dr. Patterson married the second time, and had one daughter by that marriage.
9. Micah, born May 26, 1828, is spoken of more at length in a following paragraph.
10. Huldah, born April 14, 1830, married John Bradford, who died in Illinois, at Momence, six years ago.  His widow with her only daughter still lives at Momence.
11. Rachel, died in the prime of life, forty years ago, the wife of James R. Smith, and was the mother of ten children, having two sets of twins, and five of these children are yet living.

    All of the above children of Daniel Baldwin, Jr. were born in Wayne County, and those who have died all passed away in this State.

    Micah Baldwin was in his fifth year when his parents came to Fairmount. He grew up on a farm, and later learned the trade of tanner, an occupation which he has destined to follow a number of years. In 1859, with Daniel Ridgeway, he started the second tanner at Fairmount. Later he became associated with his brother-in-law, J. R. Smith, in the same industry. In 1877, Micah Baldwin gave up the tanning trade, and became a dealer in meats. While conducting a tannery he had also handles and made custom shoes and harness, and his last years were spent as a custom maker of shoes and as a repairer. He worked in that line to within six weeks of his death. He died March 13, 1893. From boyhood on through all his life he was a firm adherent of the Quaker faith, and lived up the high principles of that sect.

    On April 24, 1850, Micah Baldwin married Miss Sarah Morris, whose name introduces another familiar family in Grant County. She was born near Fountain City, in Wayne County, Indiana, December 3, 1830, and was about one year old, when her parents moved to Grant County. Her parents were Nathan and Miriam Benbow Morris. Her father was born in South Carolina, and her mother in North Carolina, and they met and married after being brought, when young, to Wayne County, Indiana. In Grant County they took up government land, all of it new, and improved, a good homestead of one hundred and sixty acres. That continued to be their home for over twenty years, when Mr. Morris sold out and moved to Marshall County, Iowa, Five years later he moved to Kansas, and lived in that State, chiefly at Burr Oak, in Jewell County, until his death in 1881. He was born in the fall of 1808, so that he was seventy-three years of age when he died. Nathan Morris, from the time of his young manhood, was one of the most zealous ministers of the Quaker Church. He preached and worked for his denomination and for a the good of humanity, year after year, and never with a cent of remuneration. Equal to his zeal for the ministry, was his splendid charities, and it is said that no one ever left his door empty handed. With all his liberality he prospered, and nowhere was there ever a better illustration of a common truth, that those who are most generous in their charity are often the most blest in their material fortunes. The first wife of Nathan Morris died at her home in Grant County during his forty-third year, leaving a large family. He then married Abigail Peacock, whose maiden name was Baldwin, and who was also the mother of a large family. Nathan Morris, by his two wives was the father of twenty-two children, fifteen by his first wife and seven by the second. Of this large family, Mrs. Micah Baldwin is one of the four yet living, and the oldest of the twenty-two children. She is now in her eighty-third year and is as alert and bright mentally as many women twenty years younger. In many ways she has had a remarkable history. She survived from a time when conditions and environments were almost totally different from those that now obtain. When she was a girl she learned all the housewifery arts which were considered so necessary in pioneer days. She was a skillful weaver, and has woven hundreds of yard of flax and wool cloth. In the early days she made all her clothing from her own weaving, and practiced all the domestic arts which are familiarly associated with the pioneer women. In one day she spun and reeled thirty "cuts" of wool, more than any one who competed with her had been able to do. All her life long she has been devoted to the Quaker Church, and for many years did home missionary work. She now has her home in Fairmount, at the same residence where she has lived for half a century. This residence is a land mark in Fairmount, and was for many years occupied by her husband, Micah Baldwin. The children of Micah Baldwin and wife were as follows:

1. Nathan, born June 14, 1851, has never married, is an educated man, and since he was fourteen years of age ahs been a victim of paralysis, having his home with his mother and brother in Fairmount.
2. Daniel, third of the name was born December 5, 1853, and is a farmer in Hardin County, Iowa. He married Lyde Bogue, and has one son, C. Gordon, now eighteen years old.
3. Lucy, born April, 1856, died in 1874, at the age of eighteen.
4. Orlando, born March 7, 1858, is a barber in Kansas City, Kansas.
5. Millie, born August 1, 1860, married Henry Delcamp, a resident of Chicago. They are the parents of Earl and Nettie.
6. Benjamin, born December 12, 1862, was accidentally drowned when eighteen months old.
7. Edgar M., born April 2, 1866, whose individual career is given in detail in the following paragraph.
8. Mary E., born August 26, 1868, is the wife of Edward M. Hollingsworth, a shoe merchant at Fairmount. They have children, Leo, Kenneth and Charles E.   
9. Charles, born October 21, 1871, is unmarried, and is a printer with a home in Seattle, Washington.

    For a number of years Mr. Edgar M. Baldwin has been one of the most influential citizens of Grant County, and as editor and proprietor of the Fairmount News wields a large and beneficent influence over his locality. His early years were spent in Fairmount, where he attended the public schools, and in 1877, when only eleven years old, made his start in the printing trade. He did all the duties required of an apprentice, stood at the case, and learned to set type, was employed in the Fairmount News office, and developed an exceptional skill as a journeyman printer. Like most of the men of his profession he has traveled about the country a great deal, and has worked in the composing rooms of some of the largest dailies and printing establishments in the country. He was at New Vienna, Ohio, at Cincinnati, at Indianapolis, worked on the old Chicago Herald, then went to Philadelphia, spent two years in New York City in a law printing house, once more had employment at Philadelphia, and also at Wilmington, Delaware, did work in the city of Washington, then came west to Cincinnati, and Indianapolis and Chicago, and in 1885 returned to his old home at Fairmount. Here he bought the plant of the Fairmount News from Charles Stout, and conducted that paper for three years. Selling out he went to Western Kansas and for a few months ran the Ellis Headlight. In 1890, Mr. Baldwin was appointed to a position in the government printing office at Washington, D. C., where he spent four and a half years, during which time he was employed on many of the large jobs in that printery, the greatest establishment of its kind in America. From Washington he once more came to Fairmount. With the outbreak of the Spanish-American war in 1898, four days after the declaration of war, on April 26, he joined Company A, of the One Hundred and Sixtieth Indiana Infantry. This regiment rendezvoused at Indianapolis, and was mobilized at Chickamauga. The regiment was finally assigned to duty with the army of invasion in Porto Rico, but when the regiment left for the front Mr. Baldwin was in the hospital. A few days later he got out and joined the Fifth Illinois Regiment, going with that command to Newport News, VA. However, the peace protocol was signed while the regiment was on the way. The command was later transferred to the army of occupation and sent to Matanzas Province, Cuba. the regiment was returned to Savannah, Georgia, and was discharged there, April 26, 1899, just a year after his enlistment. The commander of the regiment with which he went to Cuba was George W. Gunder. Returning to his Indiana home, Mr. Baldwin then spent some time as a traveling salesman. After four years he returned to Fairmount and again took over the Fairmount News in 1903. Since then the Fairmount News has been issued under his management, and is one of the most influential and best edited papers of Grant County. The News is issued to its subscribers on Monday and Thursday of each week. The subscription list comprises the best people in the south half of Grant County, and the paper circulates to many quarters of the State. The office of the News is unusually well equipped, not only for periodical publication, but with a complete job plant for catalogue and other high class printing.

    Mr. Baldwin was married August 23, 1887, to Myra Rush, a daughter of Rev. Nixon and Louisa Rush, a family whose record will be found elsewhere in this publication. Mrs. Baldwin was born near Fairmount, July 4, 1865. She has the distinction of being the first graduate of the Fairmount Academy with the class of 1887. For a number of years she has been the proficient city editor of the Fairmount News. They are the parents of one son, Mark, born June 8, 1889, a graduate of the Fairmount Academy with the class of 1909, and just twenty-two years after his mother, and a graduate with the class of 1912 from Earlham College, at Richmond, Indiana. He is now in the U. S. Soil Survey of the Agricultural Department, having charge of a squad with headquarters in Iowa. Mr. Baldwin and his family are active workers and member of the Friends Church.

    Mr. Baldwin has been almost too busy for participation in public affairs, but has frequently been honored with marks of esteem from his fellow citizens. He was endorsing clerk in the Indiana State Senate during the session of 1908-09. He was the nominee in the Republican caucus for assistant clerk of the House of Representatives during the following session. he was treasurer of the Republican Editorial Association of Indiana, and was also treasurer of the Grant County Central Committee. In 1912, he enlisted his support in behalf of the Progressive party, and at Peru, on September 22, was nominated for congress in the Eleventh Congressional District on the Progressive ticket. He made an exceptionally strong campaign, received votes from both the old parties, and the campaign, while not resulting in his election, was a most gratifying tribute to his personal popularity.

Centennial History of Grant County Indiana 1812-1912. The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914,

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