Brown-Harrison-Bartholomew County IN Archives Biographies.....Phillips, Richard M. 1834 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 23, 2007, 10:29 pm

Author: B. F. Bowen (1904)

RICHARD M. PHILLIPS.

   For many years this sterling citizen has occupied a distinctively prominent
place among the leading farmers and large land owners of the township in which
he lives, while a continuous residence in Brown county, since 1840 has given him
wide publicity and an honorable name throughout this part of the state. Superior
intelligence, ripe judgment and well directed industry have been factors of no
little import in his successful career and a generous nature, broad humanitarian
principles - and eminently progressive ideas have won the respect of his fellow
men and made him to no small degree a leader of thought and opinion in his
community. Richard M. Phillips is proud to claim Indiana as his native state,
having been born in the old historic county of Harrison on the 14th day of July,
1834. His parents were George and John Ann (Berry) Phillips, the former of North
Carolina, the latter of Georgia, their marriage having been solemnized in
Indiana shortly after the father became a citizen of this state in 1832.

   George Phillips settled in Washington county some time in the above year, but
after a brief residence there in 1840, moved to Van Buren township, county of
Brown, where he entered land, cleared a farm, and devoted the remainder of his
life to the cultivation and improvement of the same. He and his wife were
greatly esteemed by their neighbors and friends, and both lived to see their
children grow up and become well settled in life, and each died at the age of
seventy-seven, though for some years the two lived separate.

   Of the eleven children of George Phillips all but two are living, the subject
of this review being the second in order of birth. Richard M. Phillips was six
years old when his parents moved to Brown county and his early experience was
similar in most respects to that of the majority of boys who grew up in a new
country and received their first impressions under the rugged but healthful
discipline of farm life.

Industry, frugality and thrift were among the more marked characteristics of the
Phillips household and with these and other equally important lines of duty
young Richard soon became familiar. Taught from his youth to consider idleness a
disgrace, he early formed correct habits and by earning his bread by the sweat
of his brow grew to the full stature of strong, well developed manhood,
energetic and self reliant in all he undertook and determined in his purpose to
make the most of his opportunities and carve out a career which should be a
credit to himself, an honor to his family and a blessing to the world.

   During the years of his childhood and youth the subject attended the schools
of his neighborhood, first those supported by private subscriptions and later a
better grade, maintained at public expense, the winter months only being devoted
to educational work. Mr. Phillips was reared to agricultural pursuits and until
his twenty-third year remained on the home farm, assisting his father in
cultivating and managing the same. On the 26th of March, 1857, he took to
himself a wife and helpmeet in the person of Miss Nancy E. Carmichael, of Ohio,
and immediately thereafter began cultivating the soil upon his own
responsibility, purchasing sixty acres of land, which he at once proceeded to
develop and improve and to which he made additions from time to time as his
agricultural enterprises prospered. Although beginning in a modest way, his
industry and well directed energies enabled him to make steady and substantial
progress, and but few years elapsed until he found himself on the high road to
success and fortune. The lessons learned in his youth he found of especial
value, as they proved the stepping stones by which he mounted to a higher plain
of endeavor, and the habits of thrift and economy instilled into his mind by his
parents enabled him later to master details and utilize all of his efforts in
the accomplishment of that which he set out to achieve.

   As already indicated, Mr. Phillips was not long in increasing his real
estate, as he took advantage of every opportunity to make judicious purchase and
in this way became in due time the owner of a large body of valuable land, about
four hundred acres of which were tillable farm land and nearly fourteen hundred
timbered. The greater part of this he has divided among his children, giving to
each a good start in life, but he still retains the homestead, and a sufficiency
in addition thereto to afford him a comfortable livelihood without drawing on
the ample competence laid up for his declining years.

   Mr. Phillips is a sound, practical business man, and his career, in every
sense of the term, has been eminently creditable, as well as successful.
Plentifully endowed with good common sense and mature judgment, he is seldom
mistaken in the outcome of any undertaking in which he may be engaged and it is
a fact worthy of note that all of his investments as well as his labors have
resulted to his financial advantage. In addition to his career as an
agriculturist and man of affairs, he has also a military record, having served
in the late Civil war as a member of Company C, Twenty-fifth Indiana Infantry,
enlisting in 1864 and remaining in the front until the close of the war. Ever
since the organization of the Republican party Mr. Phillips has been one of its
strong and uncompromising supporters and he never hesitates to assign a logical
reason for his political opinions, being well grounded in the principles upon
which his party is based and thoroughly informed relative to the leading public
questions and issues of the day. He is an active worker in campaign years, and
has long been looked upon as one of the most influential Republican leaders in
Brown county. In matters religious, the Christian church represents his creed,
he holding membership for forty-three years; his wife being a member of this
denomination also, and for a number of years he has been prominently identified
with the Grand Army of the Republic, holding at different times official
positions in the local post to which he belongs.

   Mrs. Phillips, as already stated, was born in Ohio, but in 1850 came to Brown
county, with her parents, William and Lewezar (Powel) Carmichael, both natives
of Maryland, Mr. Carmichael lived, a long and useful life, and died a number of
years ago in the county and state of his adoption; his wife also lived to a good
old age, being in her ninety-sixth year at the time of her death. Eight sons and
three daughters were born to this couple and in addition to their immediate
family they were accorded the privilege of having descendants to the fourth
generation gather around the old hearth stone, to-wit, sixty-two grandchildren,
one hundred and forty great-grandchildren and fourteen great-great-grandchildren.

   The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Phillips has been blessed with seven children,
namely: Martha, Ann, Mary L., Albert B., George E., John W., Richard W. and
Rufus I., all living and married, and to their credit it may be said that all
are prosperous and contented in their respective spheres of usefulness. John W.
is a resident of Columbus, Indiana, and at this time is serving as sheriff of
Bartholomew county; the other sons are variously engaged and in the main are
more than ordinarily successful, the daughters have worthy husbands, and their
domestic relations are all that the most exacting could reasonably expect or
desire. There are twenty-seven living grandchildren and eleven
great-grandchildren. The Phillips family is an old and highly respected one,
and, as far as known, no one bearing the name has ever brought discredit upon it
or dimmed its luster by a single unworthy act.


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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