John Spies

    John Spies, grocer and furniture dealer, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, August 7, 1839; is a son of John and Sarah (Hickman) Spies, and of Scotch-German descent. His grandfather Hickman was a Scotchman, took part in the Revolutionary war, and died at Hamburg, Pennsylvania in 1844, aged one hundred and nine. The father of our subject died in 1881, the mother in 1846.

    When seventeen years of age, John Spies emigrated to Illinois, and in 1858 moved to Warren County, Indiana, and worked at farming until the war, whereupon, July, 1862, he enlisted in Company F, Seventy-second Indiana Volunteers, and was in the battles of Hoover's Gap, Chickamauga, Farmington and the Atlanta campaign, in which he was captured and sent to prison at Macon, Georgia, then to Andersonville, Savannah and Florida. He escaped, however, and November 7, 1864, rejoined his regiment at Gravelly Springs. After the war, he was discharged July 6, 1865, and engaged in butchering at Williamsport, and afterward in the merchandise business in this township (Grant), and in 1873 commenced his present business.

    He was married, October 15, 1871 to Miss Anna Banes, to which union succeeded three children -Charles F., Ora and Laura. Mr. Spies is a Freemason and a Republican.

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