HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                      303

retirement from the partnership but a few years later, Mr. Hinshaw con-
tinued the business. Having purchased the Calvin Presnell place, on the
south side of the town, he transplanted his nursery stock. About the year
1863 he formed a partnership of several years with Lewis F. Ambrose.
He continued in the business until the time of his going to Minnesota, in
1882. The settings of many valuable orchards in Clay and Owen counties
were purchased at his nursery. Mr. Hinshaw was the second postmaster
at Center Point, appointed under the Lincoln administration, and filled
the position satisfactorily for a number of years. Afterward he was mail
carrier on the daily star route service between Center Point and Ashboro,
established the first of January, 1872. Mr. Hinshaw was a devoted church-
man, a model husband and parent, a truly magnanimous neighbor, a citizen
and patriot as true as steel, and in every sense an honest man. In this
family were three sons—Ira, Millard and Jesse, all of whom went to
Minnesota. The father died at Minneapolis, on the 17th day of March,
1888, aged sixty-two years, survived by his wife and sons. Ira, the eldest
son, is engaged in farming, the two younger sons conducting a merchant
tailoring business in the city of Minneapolis. The mother returned to
Indiana, residing in Parke county, having remarried.

    George W. Wiltse, native of New York, born in Erie county,. March
6, 1830, son of Jeremiah and Sarah (Green) Wiltse, natives, respectively,
of Vermont and Massachusetts. Brought up on the farm, he attended
the public schools and also for a time the Methodist seminary, at Lima,
New York, after which he read law for four years in the office of Attor-
ney Eli Cook, Buffalo, then practiced in the courts of several of the coun-
ties of his native state. Coming to Indiana in 1856, he engaged in news-
paper work with Cyrus Nixon, at Jeffersonville, where they published the
National Democrat. In the latter part of the year 1857 he came to Bowl-
ing Green, and in the month of December assumed editorial charge of the
Clay County Democrat, C. M. Thompson, publisher, from which he
retired the first of October the following year (1858), then devoted his
time to the practice of the law. On the 14th day of November, 1861, he
married Ada V. Conley, a native of New York. To them were born two
sons, only the elder surviving, William C. Wiltse, who resides and is
engaged in business at Terre Haute, In the year 1863 he was nominated
by the Democratic party for county auditor and was elected over his com-
petitor, Hezekiah Wheeler, serving the term of four years, until the fall
of 1867, when he resumed the practice of law. In the year 1871 he moved
to the farm in Harrison township, one mile west of Middlebury, but did
not abandon the law. In 1874 he formed a partnership in the practice
with George A. Byrd, at Middlebury, which continued until at some time
in the year 1877. Succeeding this, for a series of years, he gave his atten-
tion exclusively to his farming interests, engaging extensively in the culti-
vation of wheat. In the stocking of the farm he introduced a herd of
Devonshires, the first of this strain of cattle brought into Harrison town-
ship.
    In the month of October, 1883, while on a visit in her native state,
accompanied by the son, his wife died. On the 16th day of December,
1884, he married Miss Prudence Guthrie, eldest daughter of Robert
Guthrie, deceased. To them were born three daughters, the eldest and
youngest of whom survive. On his retirement from the farm, which be
sold to Daniel Clingerman in the year 1905, he purchased property at Clay