Montgomery County – Its Early Officers and Citizens

By A. H. H. Rountree, in the Hillsboro Democrat, July 30, 1873

James Grisham is the same James Grisham who lives in the southwest part of the county.  He was here as a boy at the organization of the county, or very soon after, and has lived here ever since.  He has been a sturdy, honest, upright citizen.  His present wife is the daughter of William Cannon.  We say present wife because we are vaguely impressed with the idea that he was married before.  He has raised a considerable family.

Benjamin Holbrock perhaps was never one of our citizens, having lived across the line in Bond County, where he died a year or so since.

William Roberts was son of Uncle Benny Roberts who laid out the town of VanBurensburg.  After his return he removed to Missouri where he now resides, if living.  Uncle Ben and his boys were very intelligent, clever man, but the boys were somewhat wild and fond of wild life and sport.

Barnabas Michaels or Barny Michaels lived in the southern part of the county with his family.  One of his sons, Hamilton, was partly educated in our log schoolhouse.  But after the war all returned to Indiana leaving no descendants in our county.

Joshua Hunt, we don’t know, and are disposed to think that there is some mistake in the name.

Hiram Bennett was brother of Samuel Bennett.  He came from Kentucky, perhaps from Louisville, and kept a hotel in a house long since removed and on a lot occupied by Mossler’s storehouse and the Clotfelter brick block.  He was somewhat of a politician and was frequently a candidate for the legislature though he never attained to show honors.  He raised quite a large family: William, Henry C., Elizabeth and Philip, perhaps one or two smaller children.  After the dose of the war and the Indian Title extinguished to lands in Iowa, called the Black Hawk purchase, he removed to Iowa and settled at Burlington where he afterwards died.  His son Philip, while a boy of thirteen though a stubborn contest in the Iowa legislature in election a messenger or page, was elected to that office by accident and fun together, and he performed the duties efficiently.  Hiram Bennett was the first to organize Masonry in Iowa, having been a charter member of the first lodge ever established in Iowa, at Burlington.  Although Hiram Bennett enlisted as a private, his abilities were such that he was soon appointed quartermaster of his regiment, which was no small care, as he was operating in almost uninhabited wilderness where provisions were hard to get and it was said of him that in his extremity to furnish beef for his soldiers he confiscated an old poor broken down yoke of oxen that the soldiers claimed could be chewed all day and would begin to taste good by night, when the feasting labors of the day in chewing it had excised hunger, and the days work had softened it a little. 

William Jordan was son of Rev. J. Jordan, one of the earliest Baptist preachers in the county.  He married, we believe, a sister of John Crabtree and removed at an early day to Jackson County, Ill. where he died.  He attained to the office of Major of the militia before he left.

We have done the best we could with Dr. Boone’s company and though it is less clear that the history of the men composing Hiram Rountree’s company. It must be remembered that we had the detailed history of Captain Rountree’s company from his record of the war.  This makes out the entire list of Captain Boone’s company, of whom Israel Fogleman, A. T. Williams, and Newton Street are all the officers that live in the county, and Peter Cress, George Ludewick, J. B. Williams, John Crabtree, T. J. Todd, James W. Rutledge, and James Grisham are all the privates that reside in the county.  A few more only survive.  L. D. Boone of Chicago, James G Herman of Missouri, J. Prater of Missouri, Ephraim Kilpatrick of Washington City, Daniel Steel of Missouri, T. J. Mansfield of Texas, C. P. Blair of Oregon, Curtis Scrivener of Missouri, W. Mayfield of Texas, W. Roberts of Missouri, and perhaps Barnabas Michaels of Indiana – are all, and widely scattered.