308                 HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

ware. Besides a plenty of good timber, we have good water, fruits and grass, and
good health. Texas county is Democratic by one thousand majority.
    I am sometimes terribly lonesome here, then, again, I take courage and go ahead.
I am now living on roasting-ears for dinner and supper; baking a cake of shorts for
breakfast. My clothes are all worn out. I have passed examination and procured a
license to teach school making an average of eighty per cent in all the branches, but
my clothes are such that I can not teach.
    In closing this letter I would say to you and all my old friends at Brazil that
I should be glad to see you all, and am determined that I shall, as soon as I can raise
money enough to buy clothing and pay the expenses of the trip.
Respectfully, etc.,
                                                    ALEX BRIGHTON.

    Job Riddell, a native of New Jersey, eldest son of Thomas and
Margaret A. (Chambers) Riddell, born March 4,1839. The parents
were natives, respectively, of Scotland and the state New Jersey. Thomas
Riddell came from his native country to America, with a relative, when
he was but twelve years old, stopping in the state of New York where
he grew to manhood and married. His wife dying, he returned to Scot-
land; then came again to America and located in the state of New
Jersey, where he remarried. In 1839 he came to Indiana, locating in
Clay county, entering land in Jackson township. For some years after
coming here he taught school. His second wife dying, he married
the third time. In 1852 he was elected county recorder, and was
re-elected in 1856, and died on the 16th day of September, 1860, within
less than two months of the expiration of his second term of service.
The son, Job Riddell, was then appointed to fill out the term. After
the father’s death and his retirement from the office Job Riddell applied
himself to farming, and now owns and lives on part of the lands pur-
chased from the government by his father, On the 22d day of Novem-
ber, 1860, he married Miss Jemima Palm, daughter of John and Nancy
Palm. To them have been born six children—three sons and three
daughters. In the draft of 1864 he was called into the service of his
country, assigned to Company E, Fifty-first Regiment Indiana Volunteer
Infantry, and was in the Nashville campaign, serving until the close
of the war and was honorably discharged in June, 1865. On returning
home he re-engaged in farming and now has a comfortable home and
as desirable a location as there is in the township. In the fall of 1870
Mr. Riddell was elected trustee of Jackson township, serving the term
of two years, to the satisfaction of his constituency.

    Homer Hicks, native of Clay county, born in Jackson township,
came up on the farm, attended the public schools and qualified himself
for teaching. After teaching several terms he entered Merom College,
from which he graduated in the month of June, 1872. In the fall of the
same year he was elected county surveyor, and re-elected in 1874. In
the year 1873 he accompanied County Recorder Edward Rosser on a
three months’ tour of Europe. After the expiration of his second term
of official service he married Miss Sylvia Bogle, of Bowling Green, and
went west, where he taught in the government and Indian schools. In
the year 1878 he taught in the Cherokee Seminary and the orphan school
at Tahlequah. On account of declining health he was compelled to
abandon all further work, when he returned to his old home. Soon after
coming back, he died, at Bowling Green, October 16, 1882, survived by
his wife, who died soon thereafter.