Levi Moorman
It is a grateful distinction to have spent three quarters of a century in one community, and when those years have been filled with worthy accomplishments and with that old-fashioned spirit of loving-kindness, such a career becomes one deserving of admiration and worthy of perpetuation in any history of a county in which it has been spent. Levi Moorman, now living retired in Matthews, is one of the oldest native sons of Grant County, and now lives surrounded by his son and grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. Levi Moorman has reached a patriarchal age, and his years are well set off by his dignified appearance and characteristics, reminding one of the typical southern gentleman.
The Moorman family, which has been identified with Grant County for eighty years, come of Welsh ancestry. The grandfather of Levi was born in Wales, and with a brother emigrated to the United states more than a century ago. While the brother located either in Pennsylvania or Virginia, the grandfather went to South Carolina, and found a home on the Big Pee Dee River, where he passed away in the prime of life, leaving two sons and one daughter. His occupation was that of farming. These children were Lewis, Zacariah, who married and had a family, and the daughter married Jonathan Frazier.
Lewis Moorman, father of Levi, was a small child when his father died, and his mother, who was a native of South Carolina, in 1811, emigrated north with her little family to Orange County, Indiana, locating near Paoli, where she remained until her death at a good old age. She was a remarkable woman in many ways, had the physical vigor and the executive ability of the sterner sex, and in Orange County she established and developed a homestead, and was one of the early horticulturists in that vicinity, raising fine crops of peaches and other fruits. Lewis Moorman grew up on that farm in Orange County, and in early life acquired the trade of blacksmith. On reaching his majority he removed to Newport, now Fountain City, Wayne County, Indiana, and there set up his smithy. Some time later he married in Wayne County, Indiana, Sarah Thomas, who was born in North Carolina, about 1820, and was a small child when she came north to Wayne County with her parents, Stephen and Hannah (Wilcutt) Thomas. The Thomas family located in Indiana during the late twenties. Stephen Thomas was a practical mechanic and followed the trade of tinner and cabinet maker for some years, but in Wayne County, his energies were chiefly directed to the clearing up and developing of a tract of wild land, which eventually became a good farmstead, and was the home of Stephen Thomas and wife until the end of their lives. His death occurred when about seventy years of age, while his widow was more than ninety-three years old at death. They were both Orthodox Quakers. Their children numbered six.
After Lewis Moorman married he followed his trade of blacksmith for some years, but in 1833 abandoned it, and moved away from the somewhat well settled community of Wayne County to the frontier of Grant County. In this county he became one of the original land holders, getting a tract by entry, direct from the government. His location was in Union Township, which was later named Fairmount Township, and there he lived and followed the quiet vocation of farming, until he was past seventy-five years of age. His winters during the last years of his life were spent in the home of a daughter in Iowa, and in that State he died in 1900. His wife had passed away about ten years before aged sixty-eighty. She died in the Quaker faith, but late in life Lewis Moorman joined the United Brethren Church, and died in that belief. In early life his ballot was cast in behalf of whig candidates, and later he was a Republican. there were five sons and four daughters in the family, all of whom grew up and all married but two sons, Nathan, the oldest brother, who died unmarried at the age of twenty-five; Steven, the youngest brother, who died in army during Civil War. The living sons are: Levi and Zachariah. Zachariah is married and lives in Jewel County, Kansas. He was a gallant soldier during the Civil War and in one engagement within five minutes time was shot in six different places, and never afterwards has been in good health. The two sisters still living are Jane, widow of Ira Howell, whose home is in Iowa, and who has one son and three daughters, and Theresa, wife of John W. Jones, a farmer in Jefferson Township, and they have two sons and three daughters.
Levi Moorman, who was the second son and fourth child in the family, was born in Fairmount Township in Grant County, May 16, 1838. His early life was spent in that vicinity, and his recollection includes the earliest pioneer days, when log cabins were numerous as homes, when the schools were conducted under the subscription plan, long before railroads were anywhere near Grant County, and when life was a very simple matter compared with the complexity of the present. His advantages in the way of schools were limited by the conditions of the time, but he possessed a superior natural talent and intellect, and has never been seriously handicapped in his struggle with fortune. Sometime after becoming of age, eh bought eighty acres of wild land, in Jefferson Township, that was increased under his management to one hundred and thirty-six acres, and was well improved with a large grain and stock barn, grain sheds, and a comfortable seven-room house, altogether making an attractive and valuable rural estate. Under his management practically no land was allowed to go to waste, and the Moorman farm as long been regarded as almost a model in that community. In 1910 Mr. Moorman suffered a stroke of paralysis and retired to Matthews, where he has since almost entirely recovered his health and now enjoys the comforts of a good home on Seventh Street.
Mr. Moorman was married in Jefferson Township, to Miss Lavina Lucas. Mrs. Moorman was born in Jefferson Township, August 22, 1841, and is a sister of the present county commissioner, Thomas J. Lucas, whose family sketch elsewhere in this publication will give the details in the history of the Lucas household. Mrs. Moorman was carefully reared and educated in the public and city schools of Marion, and is a cultured and very capable wife and mother. They are the parents of one son, Albert A., who was born March 12, 1865, was educated in the public schools, and now owns and operates a fine farm of eighty acres in Jefferson Township. Albert Moorman married Rachel Dorton, of Delaware County, and they are the parents of three children, as follows: Beatrice, living at home; Clyde, who married Grace Johnson and occupies his grandparents' farm, and they have one daughter, Delight, born August 12, 1911; and Ralph, living at home.
Source: Centennial History of Grant County Indiana 1812-1912. The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914, page 865.