276                 HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

elected justice of the peace, serving successively three terms, and in 1865
was elected township assessor. In the spring of 1869 he was elected
township trustee, and re-elected in the fall of 1870. During the three and
a half years of service in this position he built a number of frame school-
houses, placing on the retired list an equal number of primitive log houses.
The building of five of these frame houses was contracted at $975, an
average of $195 to the house, the least amount of money for which the
same number of frame houses were built anywhere and at any time in
the history of the county.
    In 1878 he was nominated by the Democratic party for county com-
missioner for the third district, and elected, then was renominated and re-
elected to the same position in 1882. For many years Mr. Buckallew has
been prominently identified with Jasonville Lodge No. 530 A. F. and A.
M., in the conduct and history of which he has been honored with many
positions.

    Jasper O. Wagstaff, native of England, born near Manchester, Sep-
tember 7, 1826, his parents coming to America in 1828, stopping at
Columbiaville, New York, where the father, who was a weaver, found
employment as overseer of looms in a cotton factory, Jasper learning the
trade and working at the same business for some years. In the month of
April, 1849, he married Miss Mary A. Ball. In 1852 he went to Cali-
fornia to seek his fortune in the gold fields, where he staid seventeen
months, then returned to New York, In 1855 he came to Indiana, locat-
ing in Clay county, purchasing land in Harrison township, bordering on
the Owen county line, where, in the breaks of Pond Creek, he developed
not only a good quality of coal, but one of the best building-stone quarries
in the county. At the Worthington Fair he was awarded $16 in pre-
miums on specimens of his coal product. $13 for the largest block, or
cube, and $3 on quality. The coal at this point is something more than
three feet in thickness, which was at first mined by slope, but later by
shaft, the most southern point in the county, east of Eel river, at which
coal has been hoisted. The product of the stone quarry has been hauled
and distributed over a considerable area of adjacent territory. This min-
eral land is now owned by a son, Judson Wagstaff, the father having died
some years ago.

    Robert Smith, native of Rockbridge county, Virginia, born March
12, 1825; raised on the farm, his father dying when he was an infant and
his mother when he was sixteen, leaving him and his sister in charge of
the farm of five hundred acres. In 1849, after the marriage of the sister
and their disposing of the farm, Robert came to Indiana, locating near
Reelsville, Putnam county, where he engaged for a time in traffic and
travel, until 1851, when he took a contract on the construction of the
grade of the Terre Haute & Indianapolis (Vandalia) Railroad. Later,
in company with William Mahan, he engaged in feeding hogs and packing
pork at Terre Haute, and soon thereafter purchased 120 acres of land:
continued trading in stock and at the expiration of another year purchased
315 acres in Cass township, Clay county. November 28, 1854, he married
Martha E. Beem, of Spencer, Owen county. Having succeeded in pork
packing, he continued in this industry at Terre Haute, Indianapolis and
Gosport, and in 1866, in company with two brothers-in-law, built a pack-
ing-house at Spencer, which they operated a number of years. Mr. Smith