W. B. Hixson

    W. B. Hixson (firm of J.P. Smith & Co.) was born in Attica, Indiana, March 6, 1843, and is a son of Andrew and Esther (Brady) Hixson, who removed to Warren County, Indiana, about 1848, and began farming in Prairie Township, where our subject's mother yet resides, at the advanced age of seventy-eight years. His father died in 1854. W. B. Hixson is one of three surviving children in a family of eight, and was reared on  farm, receiving limited educational advantages.

     In August, 1862, he enlisted in Company D, Eighty-sixth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, serving in the battles of Stone River, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, New Hope Church, Kenesaw Mountain, and the siege of Atlanta. He was made prisoner at Stone River, but was kindly allowed, by the confederates, to take of his brother, Lieutenant Jackson Hixson, who was severely wounded at that engagement. In 1864, he was appointed Commissary Sergeant of the regiment, and was finally discharged at Nashville, in June, 1865. Until 1869, he was engaged in farming in Warren County, and then became a resident of Benton County.

    He is a supporter of the Democratic party, by whom he was elected County Treasurer in 1876, and re-elected in 1878. Besides his interests in the firm of J. P. Smith & Co., he owns 240 acres of land near Earl park and 260 acres near Fowler. Mr. Hixson and wife are the parents of this family -Lettie I., Lottie M., Susan E., LeRoy T., Ella G. and Bertha R.

Source: Counties of Warren, Benton, Jasper and Newton, Indiana. Historical and Biographical. F.A. Battey & Co., 1883.