W. A. Geiger

            W.A. GEIGER was born in this township (Smith), October 25, 1842, one of nine children, eight yet living, of Daniel and Julia (Darnel) Geiger, natives of Pennsylvania. The father, a farmer, moved to Licking County, Ohio, with his parents, and there married. In 1834, he emigrated with his family to Allen County, Ind., locating in Eel River Township, farmed for two years, and moved thence to this township, in 1836, where he bought eighty acres of land on Section 29 (now owned by H.F. Crabill).  It was a wild country, filled with deer, wolves. Lynxes, wild cats and Indians, and malaria charged the air. Here Mr. Geiger died in 1869, his widow yet surviving him, and residing in Churubusco. Our subject, W.A. Geiger, was reared on the farm till sixteen, when he began to work out at clearing, farming, etc., and so continued till January 4, 1864, when he enlisted in Company F, Seventeenth Indiana, Mounted Infantry, from which he was honorably discharged August 27, 1865. He was at the battles of Rome, Ga.; Noon Day Creek, Big Shanty, Atlanta, Montgomery, Columbus, Atlanta and Selma.

    On his return, he worked by the month two years, and then engaged in saw-milling for eighteen months; he then went to Noblesville and engaged in the grocery trade seven years; in 1875, he sold out and went into the drug trade; in 1876, into the livery business; in 1877, into the hardware trade, at which he is still employed. He has had generally good success, and now carries a stock valued at $5,000.

    July 11, 1867, he married Miss Catharine Brumbaugh, who has borne him two children –Virgil and Nettie A. Mr. Geiger is a Republican in politics, and a member of the I.O.O.F.

Source: Counties of Whitley and Noble, Indiana. Weston A. Goodspeed and Charles Blanchard, 1882, page 336.