HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                          313

treatment that he needed, then report to him his bill for payment. D. C.
Stunkard was a soldier of the Mexican war and was also a second lieuten-
ant in the One Hundred and Thirty-third Indiana Regiment (100-day
men) in the Civil war.

    Elisha Adamson was for a number of years a familiarly known and
prominent citizen of Clay county. He came to the county at a time
previous to the Civil war by assignment to the pastorate of the Methodist
Episcopal church at Bowling Green. At the time of the war he was
engaged actively in business at the former county seat, having been pro—
prietor of the flouring-mill and woolen factory, and did, also, an exten-
sive general merchandising business. At a much earlier day he was a
contractor on public works, having built the court-house at Greencastle,
and at Newport, Vermillion county. He was, also, a “Forty-niner,”
having made the overland trip to California in 1849, and soon after
returning, in 1852, came to Clay county. He was not-only a man of
marked activity in business circles, but equally so in politics and in the
church. On the 31st day of May, 1879, he died at the home of his son-
in-law, Charles Stryker, at Rockville, aged seventy-six years.

    A remarkable character in the history of Clay county is Dr. John
Williams, of Washington township. Though not a native of the county,
he has lived here for practically three-quarters of a century. As an
example of the tenacity of life, he is now nearing the century mark,
having been born in 1812. His career of activities has been somewhat
diversified, having been a teacher, minister, physician, politician, tem-
perance lecturer, office-holder, merchant, farmer and soldier, he was
one of the first “wielders of the birch” in the county seminary, in the
days when the teacher made all the pens and ink for the use of his
school, and was one of the old-time masters in the flourishing of the pen,
specimens of his writing of sixty-five years ago surpassing in symmetry
and legibility anything of the kind executed by the teachers of to-day.
In 1844 he was elected county treasurer, serving one term of three years
under the old constitution. Now in his ninety-eighth year, he is believed
to be the oldest surviving ex-county officer in the state of Indiana. Dur-
ing the Civil war he was chaplain of the Forty-third Indiana regiment.
Sixty-four years ago he preached the first sermon and performed the
first marriage ceremony in the town of Brazil. His remarkable longevity
he attributes to his total abstinence from the use of tobacco, whisky,
tea and coffee.

    No history of Clay county would be complete without mention of
the name of Oliver Cromwell, who lived at Ashboro for nearly thirty
years preceding his death, which took place December 22, 1893, aged
eighty-four years, one month and four days. Before locating at Ashboro
he had lived on the farm on the Clay Prairie. At the March term of
commissioners’ court, 1860, a contract was let to him by the board of
county commissioners for the keeping of the poor farm and care of the
paupers, for the period of two years and eleven months, to run until
April, 1863, for the sum of $590. He was noted for his memory, in
which he excelled, and was an expert at quoting Scripture and giving
references. For a protracted succession of years while living at Ash-
boro he carried on a hucksterage between his home town and Brazil,