Horace Marble Gets Tetchy

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I was delighted to find this little note in the margin of the 1891 Plat Book for Appraisers of Real Estate. This particular map shows Section 21, Township 35 North, Range 7 West, and the northeast quarter Horace mentioned is the town of Deep River. I expect the northeast-quarter land, shown on the plat map as all belonging to George Wood, was divided into smaller lots along both sides of 73rd Street, and the failure to show those smaller lots and their owners is what Horace was complaining about.

I knew Horace only from the research I did on Chester Cemetery. His first wife, Mary, is buried there, as well as his father and two stepmothers.

Horace was born in Vermont around 1839 to Simeon and Louisa Marble. After Louisa's death and when Horace was about nine years old, the family emigrated to Lake County, Indiana, settling on a farm west of Deep River. There Horace grew to young manhood. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Horace enlisted in the infantry. He rose to the rank of captain and was honorably discharged in 1865.

In 1866 he married Mary E. Booth (who may have been a relation of his stepmother, Elizabeth Booth Marble) and the young couple had two children, Kate and Bernice. In 1872 Mary died. The following year Horace married Martha Skinner, who bore him two children, Henry and Ruth.

Horace was elected sheriff of Lake County in 1880; he was re-elected for a second term and served until 1885. Then he was elected Lake County auditor, a position he held until 1893.

During these years he had been buying up land in Jasper County, and upon leaving office as auditor he moved to Wheatfield Township, Jasper County. In addition to overseeing the farming of his land, he managed the Bank of Wheatfield. He was also active in the Freemasons.

A Jasper County historian described him as "a man of intellectual gifts, with excellent business judgment and foresight, and of the strictest integrity. …[H]is genial, courteous manner drew all to him."

Horace died June 15, 1910, and is buried in Wheatfield Cemetery.

Sources:
♦ Ball, the Rev. Timothy Horton. Encyclopedia of Genealogy and Biography of Lake County, Indiana, with a Compendium of History 1834-1904. Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1904.
♦ Goodspeed, Weston Arthur. Counties of Porter and Lake, Indiana: Historical and biographical. Chicago: F.A. Battey & Co., 1882.
♦ Hamilton, Louis H., and William Darroch, eds. A Standard History of Jasper and Newton Counties, Indiana. Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1916.
♦ Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society. 1891 Plat Book for Appraisers of Real Estate, Lake County, Indiana. Valparaiso: Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society, 2007.