Homes Cretsinger
The career of Homes Cretsinger in Washington Township has been a long and honorable one, and has covered a period that has been marked by this section's greatest growth. While a resident here he witnessed the advent of the first railroad, the arrival of the first street car in the city of Marion, and the building of two courthouses, and has seen Grant county grow from a sparsely settled, undeveloped country into a center of agricultural, commercial and educational activity. Although now past sixty years of age, he continued to be actively engaged in affairs and to maintain his position as one of Washington Township's most influential and public-spirited men.
Homes Cretsinger was born July 6, 1853, in Licking County, Ohio, and is a son of David and a grandson of John and Mary Magdalena Cretsinger, of Virginia, who were of German descent. David Cretsinger, who was born in Virginia, removed to Grant County, Indiana, in 1857, although for some years he had made his home in Licking County, Ohio. While there he had worked hard as a laborer and carefully saved his earning only to lose his entire fortune when A. J. Smith's bank in Licking County failed. In 1849 he joined the rush to California in search of gold, and when he returned four years later he had earned enough money to buy eighty acres of land in Ohio. On moving his family to Grant County, he settled first on Hummel Creek, but afterwards sold and bought the Henry Prickett place of eighty acres, while a few years prior to his death he sold forty acres of that homestead to his grandson. When he first settled here this land was in poor condition, but he succeeded in putting it in a high state of cultivation, and wit the assistance of his industrious, hard-working wife and sons he succeeded in accumulating fifteen hundred acres of land and other large holdings. He died February 10, 1910, aged eighty-eight years at the home of his son Homes, who cared for him for the last sixteen years. David Cretsinger married Nancy Wheeler, a native of Licking County, Ohio, born in 1828, and who died in August, 1896. She was the mother of three children: Homes, Mrs. Mary Ellen Goff, of Grant County, and David Jr., of Marion, who is the proprietor of a horse sales barn and the owner of a large amount of property.
Homes Cretsinger attended district school No. 4 in Washington Township for three months each winter up tot he time he was twenty years of age, thus acquiring a fairly liberal education. When twenty-one years of age he began working for his father, receiving a salary of $200 per annum for five years. After his marriage he rented two hundred and forty acres from his father, on half shares, and his father two years before his death presented each of his sons with five hundred dollars in cash. After farming as a share renter for about six years Homes Cretsinger and his father bought the Sam McClure place, of two hundred and forty acres. This was later sold and the son then bought forty acres from John E. Smith and subsequently another forty acres from Bethuel Smith. In 1902 he became the owner by purchase of eighty acres of the home place, and at the time of his father's death inherited two hundred and forty acres from the estate. At this writing Mr. Cretsinger is proprietor of four hundred acres in Section 18 of Washington Township.
In 1912 he remodeled and greatly improved his modern residence, a handsome structure of twelve rooms. The main structure had been built in 1870. It now has cement porch and wash houses, running water from tank for bath and other domestic purposes, with excellent plumbing, and all the rooms neatly furnished for comfort and convenience. The water is pumped to the residence and barns by an engine which also churns the butter and washes clothes. Mr. Cretsinger has two barns and good outbuildings, and on the old home place, now occupied by his son Floyd, also has a good resident and other buildings. At this time three are about one hundred acres in timber, but that is being cleared. In 1912 Mr. Cretsinger raised a thousand bushels of corn and a thousand bushels of oats, cut thirty tons of hay, and in 1913 planted one hundred and thirty acres in corn and thirty acres each in wheat and oats. Mr. Cretsinger keeps eighteen or twenty horses and colts, mostly of the Belgian stock, has forty head of cattle, forty sheep and sixty hogs, and is recognized as a skilled breeder and excellent judge of livestock. Although rates as one of the wealthiest farmers in the county, he has had no desire to retire from active labor, and still hale and hearty is able to handle his four-horse gang plow to beak up meadow land and to cultivate his corn fields. His reputation in his community is that of an industrious, energetic citizen whose strict integrity has gained him a firmly established position in the confidence of his fellow citizens.
On February 28, 1878, Mr. Cretsinger was married to Sarah Jane Martin, daughter of Philip Martin, of Wabash County, Indiana. It was a long and happy marriage companionship, and for thirty-six years they walked hand in hand and shared in common the duties and occupations, the joys and sorrows, of existence. On January 11, 1914, Mrs. Cretsinger was called to the life beyond, and her death has been a severe blow to her devoted husband and to her immediate family and the community in which she had long been a friend and kindly neighbor. To their marriage were born seven children, as follows:
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Clinton, a farmer in Washington Township, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work.
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Frank, who died at the age of nine years
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Ross, who is a substantial farmer living on the upper farm belonging to his father
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Florabel, who married Mr. Pritchett an lives in Wabash County
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Floyd, who resides on the old homestead farm.
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Cleo, who is now Mrs. Steuber of Grant County.
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Minnie, who died at the age of four months.
Like his father, who voted for Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Cretsinger has always been a Republican in national affairs, while in local matters he takes an independent stand, believing it the best plan to support the man most worthy of office regardless of party lines. Fraternally his membership is in Marion Lodge of Odd fellows, in which order he has numerous friends. Mrs. Cretsinger was an active member of the Christian Church, to which her children belong, and Mr. Cretsinger untied with the same denomination on July 6, 1913.
Mr. Cretsinger saw the first car come to Marion on the Pan Handle and Big Four Railroads; he saw the first street car put in operation in that city, and at one time knew every man, woman and child within the limits of Marion. He has seen three jails built at the county seat during his lifetime, and assisted in hauling the stones for the second jail, with Jack Baldwin. In the early days he was a great friend of Nelson "Tan Toi" and son of Chief "Shingle Macy" of the Miami Indians. He related that when a boy and young man he was greatly afraid of the old chief, as was shown by his actions on an occasion when Tan Toi was sick. When Mr. Cretsinger went to see him, the old chief stood in the front yard of Tan Toi's home and forbade him to enter, intimidating him in various ways. Tan Toi's wife came to the door and insisted on the old chief allowing the young man to stay and see his friend and remain for dinner, and this he did, but during his entire visit kept his eyes on the old savage, who sat by the wall of the house glowering at him. At length the old chief called out "White boy, ugh! You go! I kill!" Mr. Cretsinger relates that his hair fairly stood on end and that it was all he could do to make himself stand his ground, which he did nevertheless, but not until Tan Toi arose in bed and roundly scolded the old chief, who then subsided.
This is but one of a number of interesting incidents of the early days in Grant County, as related from personal experience by Mr. Cretsinger, who is a pleasing conversationalist, and has an excellent memory for old days. His life, form pioneer times to the present, has been an active and useful one, and he may well be remembered among those who have borne their full share in the development that has given Grant County such unquestioned prestige as a center of population and general advancement in eastern Indiana.
Centennial History of Grant County Indiana 1812-1912. The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914.