306                 HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

by day or by night. Notwithstanding his habits and apparent reckless-
ness, be accumulated considerable property, always holding onto it. He
was a cash buyer, with money to loan. His broken and distorted English,
emphasized by modulations and gesticulations peculiarly his own, when
under the influence of intoxicants, afforded many a holiday entertain-
ment to whomever was disposed to give him a hearing.

    Frank A. Horner, native of Indiana, son of Jacob and Nancy
(Senseney) Horner, born in Washington county, April 18, 1849, whose
parents, also, were natives of the state, of English and German descent,
respectively. Jacob Horner was a physician, who practiced his profes-
sion many years at Lanesville, Harrison county, where the son attended
the public schools, and while yet in his youth entered Asbury University,
graduating from that institution at twenty-one years of age. In 1870
he began reading law with Judge La Follette, at New Albany, remain-
ing there one year, then came to Clay county in 1871, stopping at
Bowling Green, where he taught school, pursuing the reading of law
with Carter & Coffey. In 1872 he located in the practice at Middle-
bury. On the 22d day of April, 1873, he married Sylvia Reed, a native
of eastern Ohio. While residing at Middlebury he taught several terms
of public school. In the spring of 1880 he was elected assessor of Har-
rison township, to which position he was re-elected two years later.
In the spring of 1884, having exchanged residence properties with
Josiah Warner, he moved from Middlebury to Clay City. In 1886 he
was elected township trustee and was re-elected in 1888. In 1890 he
was nominated and elected prosecutor for the thirteenth judicial circuit,
and soon thereafter moved his family from Clay City to Brazil. In
the year 1900 he was nominated by the Democratic party of the fifth
district, in convention at Greencastle, for member of Congress, the com-
petitor of his law partner, Elias S. Holliday, by whom he was defeated
in the election. He has been continuously engaged in the practice of
his profession for thirty-seven years.

    Alexander Brighton, native of Wayne county, Ohio, born April
29, 1834; worked on the farm and attended the public schools until
fifteen years of age, when he made an overland tour of the country to
California, was gone one year, returning home by way of the Isthmus
of Panama and New Orleans, going back to the farm and again attend-
ing school, In his twentieth year he came to Owen county and worked
as a farm hand for one year, then to Clay county, in 1855, finding
employment on the lumber mill at Anguilla, with W. F. T. McKee,
making occasional trips to Terre Haute by way of the Wabash and
Erie canal in charge of boats loaded with lumber. The following winter
(1855-’56) he taught his first school, at which he continued during the
winter season, farming in the summer time, until the fall of 1863, when
he was nominated and elected real estate appraiser on the Democratic
county ticket. In the year 1866 he was deputy under County Auditor
George W. Wiltse, and in 1867, deputy under County Treasurer John
Frump. In the fall of 1868 he was elected county treasurer, and
re-elected in 1870. After his retirement from the treasurer’s office he
engaged in the real estate business at Bowling Green until the fall of
1875, when, in company with Hiram Teter, he established the first bank
at the old countyseat, which was removed from Bowling Green to Brazil