John L. Rigsbee
Although the Rigsbee family represented by Mr. John L. Rigsbee of Fairmount, has been identified with Grant County only a few years, there are many characteristics and incidents in the family history which make the family "bone and sinew" with the bulk of Grant County citizenship. They all came from Randolph County, they have been identified with the Quaker and the Wesleyan Churches, and the first generation were pioneers in this section of Indiana. The grandfather of John L. Rigsbee was John Rigsbee, born in Guilford County, North Carolina, and of English ancestry. In his native county he married Lydia Worth, also of English stock, and a native of the same county. In that old state and county were born their three sons, Martin, Madison and Zimri. When these sons were children the family started north. With several horses to draw their old wagons, they came along the roads leading from the Atlantic slope over the Allegany Mountains, and across the valleys and prairies, camping by night at the roadside, and finally after six weeks of tedious following the trail, they arrived in Wayne County, Indiana. One incident of the journey which is remembered by the descendants is that one evening, after camp had been pitched, a large ram butted one of the horses in the head, and the horse was instantly killed. Their first location was on a farm at College Corners in Wayne County, where they remained to raise two crops. From there they moved to Posey Township in Rush County, where Grandfather Rigsbee purchased eighty acres of slightly improved land, with a characteristic habitation of logs. There they lived and gradually built. That house is still standing, and the farm is owned by his descendants. John and Lydia Rigsbee lived on that farm in Rush County until their death. The former passed away in 1855, when past middle life, having been born about 1795. The death of his widow occurred nearly twenty years later in 1873. She was a strong and energetic woman, and at her husbands death there were many obligations which she bravely met, paying off all the old bills and rearing her three sons. Of these sons, Zimrie was a soldier in the Fifty-Second Indiana Regiment during the Civil War, returned home without wounds, but died a few years later from the severe exposure of army life. The son Madison was a farmer, spent all his active career in Rush County, where he married, and of of their union two children are living, each of whom has a household of children, and all live in Rush County.
Martin Rigsbee, the father of John L., was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, December 24, 1818, and was a boy when the family made its long journey north to Indiana. Growing up in Rush County, he finally succeeded to the ownership of the old homestead, and by his energy and thrift added one hundred and sixty acres, making two hundred and forty altogether. In 1860 the home was improved by the erection of a large barn, and a large two-story eight -room house the residence he occupied until his death, December 29, 1908. AT that time he was ninety years and five days old. Martin Rigsbee was a man of small but wiry stature, and his energy and zest for living continued until the last two years of his life. He passed away in the faith of the Quaker church. In Rush county, Lucinda Barnard became his wife. She was born in Guilford County, North Carolina in 1824, and when a girl of six years, her parents came north to Posey Township in Rush County. John and Betsey Barnard, her parents, were substantial farmers, and lived and died in Rush County, the former about the close of the war, and the latter a good many years afterwards. They were both members of the Friends Church. Of their several children all are now deceased but one, Phoebe Folger, who lives in Rush County at the age of eighty-five. She married, but has no issue. Lucinda Rigsbee, died at the age of sixty-eight in 1892. Later her husband, when more than seventy-five years of age, went out to Nebraska and married a woman who had once been a neighbor, Mrs. Adeline Leonard whose maiden name was Folger. She was at that time sixty years of age, and she survived her husband, passing away in March, 1894, at the age of seventy-four. John L. Rigsbee was one of four children. Alveron died at the age of thirty-five on the old farm in Rush county. He married Clara Swain, who is living with a son, Albert W., in Rush County. Florella F. is the widow of H. C. Pitts, who died in Shelby County, where she now lives with her two children, Lois and Wendell W. Adrian now lives on a farm in Posey Township of Rush County. His first wife was Alice Powell, who died leaving one daughter, Lula. His second marriage was to Maude Miller, and there is one daughter, Iva.
The second in this family, John L. Rigsbee was born in Rush County, March 26, 1857. Reared on the old homestead, educated in the common schools, his life was spent on the old John Rigsbee farm, with the exception of one year until he moved to Grant County in August, 1909. His first settlement was in Liberty Township, where he bought the Harmon Buller farm of one hundred and sixty acres, also one hundred and twenty acres of the Gaddis Farm, having his home on the latter, and both were in section twenty-five. Later his estate was sold at one hundred and sixty-five dollars an acre, and he then bought ninety acres of Hezekiah Miller, in the same township. In September, 1912, Mr. Rigsbee moved into Fairmount City, buying a nice home near the Academy grounds at the corner of Eight and Rush Streets.
In 1880 in Rush County, Mr. Rigsbee was united in marriage to Miss Clara F. Hester, who was born and reared in Shelby county. Her birth occurred December 24, 1860, and her parents were John and Emeline (Linville) Hester, natives of Guilford County, North Carolina, who at quite an early day settled in Shelby County, Indiana, which was their home throughout the rest of their days. John Hester for his first wife, married Mildred Cruze, who died in Shelby county, leaving six children. By his second marriage, there were four children, namely:
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Rev. Jacob, who lives in Rush County, a farmer, and has six children.
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Rev. Franklin, who lives in Jewel County, Kansas, is married and has six children.
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Jasper, whose home is in Shelby County, Indiana, and he has a family.
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Clara F., wife of Mr. Rigsbee.
Both Jacob and Franklin Hester have been for many years preachers in the Wesleyan Church.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Rigsbee are mentioned as follows:
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Earl C., is a conductor on the Union Traction Liens, is married and has three children, Marvin, Wilma and John Walter.
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Otto H., married Harriet, a daughter of Rev. H. T. Hawkins, and has two children, Lavelda and Clarice. Otto H. is on the John L. Rigsbee farm in Liberty Township.
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Wilbern is in the motor works at Marion, and is studying for the ministry of the Wesleyan Church. He married Mary Cox, and has one daughter, Lucile.
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Opal E., is the wife of Rev. Sewell Baker, a prominent minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church at Marion.
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Sidney T., a student of dentistry in Indianapolis, married Nellie Allen, and they have one child, Edith.
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Mary is now living at home and attending high school.
Mr. and Mrs. Rigsbee and members of their family are communicants of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, in which he is a trustee and superintendent of the Fairmount Camp Meeting Grounds, near Fairmount City.
Source: Centennial History of Grant County, Indiana 1812 to 1912. By the Lewis Publishing Company, 1914. Page747, 748, 749.