Brown County IN Archives Biographies.....Percifield, Anderson 1853 - 
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Author: B. F. Bowen (1904)

ANDERSON PERCIFIELD.

   Standing out distinctly as one of the central figures in the history of Brown
county is Anderson Percifield, of Nashville. Prominent in local affairs and
equally so in public matters beyond the confines of the field in which he has
achieved such eminent success, with a reputation in one of the most exacting
professions that has won him a name for distinguished service second to that of
none of his contemporaries, there is today no more prominent or honored man in
the part of the state dignified by his citizenship. Rising to a leading place at
the bar at an age when most young men are just entering upon the formative
period of their lives, competing in courts long noted for the high order of
their legal talent and bringing to every case put into his hands a clearness of
perception, a ready power of analysis and an ability to push it to successful
issue, characteristic of the learned and astute lawyer, his name and
achievements have for years been closely identified with the legal machinery of
his own and neighboring counties, also with public improvements and political
interests of the state in such a way as to earn him recognition as one of the
distinguished citizens of his day and generation in a community prolific of
useful and honorable men. A high purpose, an unconquerable will, diligent study
and devotion to principle and duty are some of the means by which he has made
himself eminently useful and every ambitious youth who must fight the battle of
life with the prospect of ultimate success may read with profit the brief
biography which is herewith presented.

   Anderson Percifield is a native of Brown county, Indiana, and the son of
George and Elizabeth (Clapton) Percifield, the father born March 11, 1822, in
Tennessee, the mother in the state of Kentucky on April 1, 1825. George
Percifield came to Brown county in 1831 with his father, Gilbert Percifield, who
settled about six miles west of Nashville, where he took up a tract of
government land, the original patent for which is now in the possession of the
subject. In due time George grew to maturity, assisted his father to clear and
develop the family homestead and later improved a farm of his own, on which he
lived a number of years, finally disposing of it and purchasing a place nearer
the county seat, where he spent the remainder of his days, departing this life
December 18, 1896. When a young man he married in this county Miss Elizabeth
Clapton, a most estimable lady of beautiful Christian character and high social
standing, who bore him thirteen children and whose death occurred on the first
day of January, 1861. Of the life, character and achievements of George
Percifield much might be said, as he was an intelligent, enterprising,
prosperous man and worthy, public spirited citizen, who always manifested an
active interest in whatever tended to the development of the country or the
welfare of the people with whom he mingled. He was successful as a farmer,
accumulated a comfortable competence and during a long and eminently useful life
never had the slightest difficulty with a friend or neighbor, having always
exemplified to the world the strong and abiding Christian faith by which his
actions were directed and controlled. In early manhood he united with the
Christian church and to the end of his days remained a loyal member of the same,
contributing liberally to the support of the congregation to which he and his
wife belonged and extending a potent influence which induced many of his
associates to abandon the ways of sin and seek the higher life of integrity and
righteousness. For many years he was an elder in the church, in which capacity
he served faithfully and efficiently, and his thorough acquaintance with the
sacred scriptures, of which he was always a careful and critical student, made
him not only an able teacher of the word, but an acknowledged authority in all
things pertaining thereto. Originally he was a Democrat and remained such until
1861, when, becoming dissatisfied with the policy of the party in relation to
the Civil war, he transferred his allegiance to the Republican party and
continued to support the same until the national election of 1896, when he cast
his ballot for William J. Bryan.

     Of the thirteen children born to George and Elizabeth Percifield, Anderson
is the second son and the fifth of the number in the order of birth. He was born
on the parental homestead, about three miles west of Nashville, March 22, 1853,
and spent his early years pretty much after the manner of the majority of
country lads, working in the fields during the spring and summer months and of
winter seasons attending the district schools of the neighborhood. The
intellectual discipline thus acquired was afterward supplimented by an academic
course at Bloomington and still later he entered the State University in that
city, where he prosecuted his studies preparatory to entering the law. Until the
year 1874. while attending the university, Mr. Percifield devoted his vacations
to teaching and in this way earned sufficient means to pay his way, beginning
his career as an educator at the early age of sixteen and continuing that line
of work until his formal admission to the bar, when a few days past his legal
majority.

   With a mind well disciplined by intellectual and professional training, he,
in 1874, opened an office in Nashville, and in due time forged to the front as
one of the rising young lawyers of the Brown county bar. His abilities were not
long in being recognized, and although obliged to compete with old and well
established practitioners, his success from the beginning appeared to have been
assured, for to him were early entrusted a number of important cases, especially
those of a criminal nature, and the able and judicious manner in which he
managed them won him recognition as a profound and skillful attorney, who left
nothing undone for the interest of his clients. While thoroughly guided in the
underlying principles of jurisprudence and well acquainted with every branch of
the profession, also familiar with the devious methods of the practice, it is as
a criminal lawyer that Mr. Percifield especially excels, and as such he has few
equals and no superiors in the southern part of the state. Since his admission
to the bar he has appeared for fifteen men charged with murder without losing a
single case, and of the hundreds of others indicted for criminal offences whom
he has defended in the courts of Brown and adjacent counties, the records show
that over ninety per cent, were acquitted. His success in these and other
equally important cases is perhaps without a parallel in the field to which his
practice has been principally confined, and it is a fact worthy of note that
within the last thirty years his name has appeared either for plaintiff or
defendant in nearly every leading trial in the courts of his own county, to say
nothing of his distinguished services at other places.

   Throughout a protracted and eminently honorable professional career Mr.
Perci-field's practice has taken a wide range and, as already indicated, he
ranks with the soundest and most logical lawyers of Indiana, in consequence of
which he has a large and lucrative clientage, the magnitude of his business
being greater perhaps than that of any other member of the Nashville bar. In his
relations with his fellow practitioners, as well as with his clients and the
public at large, he has always been animated by the loftiest motives and has
made every personal consideration subordinate to the higher claims of duty.
Broad and liberal in his views of men and things, thoroughly in touch with the
progressive spirit and tendency of the age, and with the greatest good of his
fellow man ever prominently in view, his conduct has always been that of the
true lover of his kind and the enterprising citizen who is ready to make any
reasonable sacrifice for the cause in which his interests may be enlisted. He is
withal essentially a man of the people, proud of the distinction of his
citizenship in. a country for whose laws and institutions he has such a profound
admiration and respect, while his strong mentality, ripe judgment and
unimpeachable integrity demonstrate to the satisfaction of all his ability to
fill honorably important public stations and to discharge worthily high trusts.
In point of critical legal scholarship, keen intellectuality and the tact to
reduce these to practical good he easily stands in the front rank, while in all
that constitutes sterling manhood and upright citizenship his position in the
social circle and in the world of affairs has long been established and duly
recognized.

   Mr. Percifield was a Democrat until the year 1900, at which time his
political opinions underwent a radical change and since then he has been an
active and influential supporter of the Republican party. Although never a place
seeker or aspirant for any kind of public distinction, he was twice elected to
the office of prosecuting attorney, in addition to which he has also filled with
credit to himself and to the satisfaction of all concerned various other
positions of honor and trust. His fraternal relations include membership with
the Masonic brotherhood, the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows, in all of which organizations he has been a zealous worker, besides
holding at different times high official stations in each.

   It would indeed be somewhat anomalous if with such an intellect and character
as Mr. Percifield possesses, he did not, with his profession and the various
other subjects that have engaged his attention, deeply study and carefully weigh
the claims of revealed religion. This he has done with the happy result of
strengthening and every day making brighter and surer his faith in an all-wise
Father, who doeth all things well, and in his Son, through the merits of whose
atoning sacrifice he hopes ultimately to enjoy in a far greater degree the
consolation and solace which have been such potential factors in shaping his
life and fixing his destiny. With strong and well settled religious convictions
and taking the Bible alone as his rule of faith and practice, and belonging to a
body of the church founded on the same, he is content to be known simply as a
Christian and to live the life of an honorable, though faithful, disciple of the
Nazarene.

   On December 31, 1876, Mr. Percifield was united in marriage to Miss Barbara
M. Campbell, daughter of Isaac and Caroline Campbell, of Belmont county, Ohio,
who came to Brown county, Indiana, in 1868, where the family has since resided.
Mr. Campbell is a successful farmer, a worthy and widely known citizen, highly
esteemed in the community of his residence for his many sterling qualities of
head and heart. Mrs. Percifield is a lady of intelligence and -excellent repute
and, with her husband and children, moves in the best society circles of
Nashville, in which place as elsewhere she has a large number of warm personal
friends. She is a faithful and consistent member of the Methodist church, deeply
interested -in its different lines of activity and her name is also intimately
associated with all kinds of charitable and benevolent work of whatever name or
order.

   To Mr. and Mrs. Percifield five children have been born, the oldest of whom,
a daughter by the name of Daisy, is now the wife of Irwin Guthrie, one of Brown
county's prosperous farmers and stock raisers. Lula, the second daughter, is not
living, and the other members of the family, Thurman, George and Paul, are still
under the parental roof.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY
INDIANA

INCLUDING BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GOVERNORS AND OTHER REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS OF INDIANA

ILLUSTRATED

1904

B. F. Bowen PUBLISHER


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