Nicholas Yeager
Nicholas Yeager, numbered among the successful agriculturists of Fairbanks Township, Sullivan County, who has since 1903 been leading a retired life, has performed his full share in the development of the excellent farming section in which he has lived so many years. Mr. Yeager is a native of Prairie Township, Vigo County, Indiana, born December 17, 1830, a son of Vincent and Sarah (Piety) Yeager, the father being a native of Tennessee and the mother of Kentucky. The paternal grandparents were Nicholas and Henrietta (Bailey) Yeager. The former was born in Pennsylvania, of German descent. the maternal grandparents were Austin and Mary (Miller) Piety, of North Carolina and Kentucky, respectively. Vincent Yeager, the father of Nicholas, went to Terre Haute with his parents just after the war of 1812, before Terre Haute was laid out. They purchased many acres of land on the county line, in the southern part of Vigo County, the same being within the heavy timber. The grandfather lived there until 1837, and then sold out and moved to Louisiana, where he died. Vincent Yeager resided in Middletown until 1837, when he sold, intending to move to Texas, but after getting as far south as New Orleans he was induced on account of the border troubles connected with the Mexican War to locate in another section of the country. He remembering his old home in the north retraced his steps to Fairbanks Township, Indiana, where he entered a quarter section of timber land in Section 12. This tract he improved and there resided about fifteen years, when he removed to Middletown, where he died in November, 1874. His good wife died in 1876. There were four sons and four daughters born to Vincent Yeager and wife, Nicholas being the eldest of his parents children, and he has one brother living, Frank, of Middletown, and a sister, Mary J. (Mrs. Lewis B. Hale), of Fairbanks Township.
Nicholas Yeager spent his youth at home, and was married May 12, 1853, to Isabell Dilley, a native of Fairbanks Township, and a daughter of Joseph and Nancy (Johnson) Dilley, natives of Pennsylvania. After his marriage Nicholas Yeager moved to a sixty-acre tract of land in Section 2 of Fairbanks Township, which had been given him by his father, and of which fifteen acres were already in cultivation. Here he erected a log house sixteen by eighteen feet. As he was prospered he added to his land from time to time until he owned three hundred and forty acres, but he has generously given his children land until he now has but one hundred and seventy acres, which is situated in Sections 2 and 1 -one hundred and six in the former section, and the remainder in Section 1. Forty acres of this land is in pasture and the remainder under a good state of cultivation.
Mr. Yeager obtained his education in the old fashioned log school house, in which was held the "subscription" school which obtained prior to the present free school system. He is an exemplary member of the Christian Church, and in his political views affiliates with the Republican party. He served as Justice of the Peace for four years, and was the census enumerator in 1880 for his home township. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, belonging to Earnest Lodge No. 598 and Jerusalem Chapter of Sullivan, No. 81. He was made a Mason at Fairbanks, and served seventeen years as the lodge secretary and one term as senior warden. He also belongs to the Farmers' Grange of Vigo County.
Mr. Yeager has been twice married, first to Isabell Dilley, on May 12, 1853, and she died March 28, 1879, the mother of the following children:
James F., of Middletown, Indiana.
John F., of Fairbanks Township.
Sarah A., who died November 1, 1886.
Nancy Jane, who died December 13, 1882.
Francis V., of Spokane, Washington.
William C., of the last named city.
Theodosia, at home.
Vienna, who died February 22, 1894.
Joseph, of San Francisco.
Nora, who died November 8, 1900.
Ida, Mrs. Charles Shattuck, of Prairie Creek Township, Vigo County, Indiana.
Alberta, Mrs. Archie Vangilder, of Linton Township, Vigo County, Indiana.
For his second wife Mr. Yeager married, December 6, 1888, Chloe Willis, born in Haddon Township, a daughter of John and Elizabeth (South) Willis. The father was born in Kentucky and the mother in Sullivan County. The grandparents were Richard and Sarah (Alsman) Willis, of Sullivan County, and Henry and Chloe South, natives of Kentucky. By Mr. Yeager's second marriage one child was born -Willis N., who was born march 24, 1891, and died in infancy.
Source: A History of Sullivan County, Indiana. Closing of the first century’s history of the county and showing the growth of its people, institutions, industries and wealth. Thomas J. Wolfe, Editor. The Lewis Publishing Company, 1909, page 338, 339, 340.