Henry A. Hanley
A number of years ago prosperity came to Henry A. Hanley, and entirely through his own efforts and through the medium of progressive agriculture and stock raising. Mr. Hanley, when a child lost his father, as a result of exposure and disease, during service in the Union army. That caused him to be thrown upon his own resources at an early age, and while his education was neglected he grew up familiar with hard work from a tender age, and has earned his own support from a time when most modern children are in the lower grades of grammar school. Mr. Hanley had the perseverance, and the ambition to succeed, and long since arrived at a place where his success has been subject of commendations by his neighbors.
Henry Alva Hanley, the third in his parents family, was born near Hartford City, Indiana, November 25, 1857. He comes down through a family of respectable and worthy people, and his grandfather lived for a number of years in Ohio, where he died. He was a farmer. Of the grandparents children, Washington, Burr, James and Lafayette were all born in Ohio, and later settled in Indiana, where they followed farming. The only survivor is Lafayette, who is a retired farmer living in Muncie. Burr Hanley was born in Ohio, and was a young man when he came to Indiana, and started life as a farmer in Blackford County, near Hartford City. Soon after the outbreak of the Civil war he enlisted as a private in the Thirty-fourth Indiana Infantry, his brother Lafayette being in the same regiment, and after some months of service contracted the measles and was sent home on a furlough of forty days. Apparently recovering from his illness, he returned to join his command, but about twenty days later was stricken with a severe cold, and his brother Lafayette sent him back home. When within twenty miles of his home, and at Muncie, he died, and his body was brought on to Blackford County, where it was buried, but subsequently was removed to the Masonic Cemetery near Hartford City, where it now rests beside that of his second wife. Burr Hanley first married a Miss Roberts, and their two daughters were: Evaline, who is married and lives Martin's Ferry, Ohio and Permelia, who died after her marriage to Sherman Fields. Burr Hanley's second wife, was Hannah Atkinson, who was born in Indiana. After Mr. Hanley's death she married William Ord, and she died in Hartford City when thirty-seven years of age. There was one son by her marriage to Mr. Ord, Sherman, who died accidentally in a saw mill at Portland, Oregon. burr and Hannah Hanley had the following children: John, who died after his marriage to Mary Deeren, who now lives in Muncie, and has a family; William, who is married and has a family and lives in Alexandria, Indiana; Henry A.; and Mary., who died in early girlhood.
Henry A. Hanley was reared until nine years of age in the home of his parents in Blackford County, lived with his step-father a few years, and at the age of nine was taken into the home of James Pugh, a farmer in Jefferson Township, of Grant County. That was his home, and there he learned the lessons of industry, but very little by attendance at school, until he was twenty-four years of age. With his savings he then bought forty acres of land, in Section Fourteen of Jefferson Township, and was the third successive owner of that land, its pioneer settler and owner having been a Mr. Oswald, who got it direct from the government. Mr. Hanley has continued his business career in this vicinity ever since, improved his first estate and has developed and increased his property until his farm will now bear favorable comparison with that of any to be found in the township. The forty acres were first increased to eighty acres, and subsequently he bought eighty acres lying in Section Fifteen. It is in Section Fourteen that a few years ago he built his fine ten-room modern home, and in 1890 put up a substantial red barn on a foundation forty by forty feet. His other farm building and all his cultivation and improvement show the thrifty farmer. A believer in the modern system of cultivation which conserves the fertility of the soil, he keeps a lot of high-grade stock, and feeds practically all his crops to his cattle and hogs. The most commendable thing of all is that all of the property thus described represents the concrete achievements of a career which was begun practically in poverty and with many handicaps such as the majority of Grant County farmers did not have to contend with.
In Jefferson Township, in the spring of 1882, Mr. Hanley married Miss Emma Gadbury, who was born in Licking Township, Blackford County, Indiana, in February, 1863, and was reared and educated in that vicinity. She died at her home in Grant County April 1, 1891, and is buried in the Elizabethtown Cemetery. Four children born to them are named as follows:
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Tillbury, who died in infancy.
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Louis, the manager of his fathers homestead, and one of the enterprising young farmers of Grant County, married Lois Simons of Jefferson Township, who was reared and educated in this locality, and they have one child, Herbert Simons.
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Nira Myrtle, who is a graduate of the Upland High School.
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Cora May, who is likewise well educated, and is the wife of Samuel Bishop, of the State of Montana.
Mr. Hanley's parents were communicants of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he is likewise of the same denomination and attends worship at the Shiloh Methodist Episcopal Church. He and his sons are of the Democratic political faith.
Centennial History of Grant County Indiana 1812-1912. The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914.