HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                          53

in the insurance and real estate business which he still conducts. Being a
prudent, painstaking man, he does thoroughly whatever he undertakes.
He has for years been active in civic society work. He became a member
of Brazil Lodge, No. 264, A. F. and A. M., and was one of the organizers
and a charter member of Centennial Lodge. No. 541, A. 12. and A. M.
He is also member of Lodge No. 30 of the Knights Pythias of order,
which be joined in 1875, and has held all the offices in the same. He
belongs to Ben Hur Court, No. 8, and is connected with the Benevolent
Protective Order of Elks, Brazil Lodge, No. 762. Politically, Mr. Turner
is a supporter of the Democratic party. He was united in marriage,
November 14, 1877, to Anna F. Dickson, born in Illinois, July 14, 1862.
The children born of this union are: Clarence M., who married Mary
McGurdy; Irma A. ; Sarah H., wife of H. S. Rector; Beulah E.; Gaar
N.; Martha Mae; Paul Dudley.
    Concerning Mrs. Turner’s people it may be said that she is the daugh-
ter of John and Ruth Dickson. Her father located in Bowling Green in
1863, but in 1866 moved to Brazil. He was married in 1840 and resided
in Indiana, except eight years in Illinois. Mrs. Dickson died May 28,
1882, of heart disease, aged fifty-one years. She was a native of Ohio.
but moved with the family to Indiana in 1834. She was the mother of
eight children, five of whom survived her.

    OLIVER GRIFFITH.—As a native-born citizen of Clay county, a soldier
in the Civil war, and for many years one of the most industrious and
thrifty farmers of Lewis township, where he is now residing, Oliver
Griffith well merits representation in a work of this character. He was
born February 11, 1832, in Harrison township, in the rude log cabin
built by his father in the midst of a dense forest. His father, Bartlett
Griffith. was born in Tennessee, and his grandfather, Joseph Griffith, was,
it is thought, a native of North Carolina.
    After living a few years in Tennessee, Joseph Griffith followed the
march of civilization westward and northward to Clay county, Indiana.
and as one of the original householders of Harrison township bought
from the government a tract of timbered land in section 12. He was a
gunsmith by trade, skilled in the use of tools, and had the reputation of
making the best rifle to be obtained in these parts. He followed his trade
in connection with farming, and here spent the remainder of his three
score and ten years of earthly life. His wife, Melinda Griffith, died a
number of years before he did.
    Coming with his parents from Tennessee to Indiana, Bartlett Griffith
assisted his father in clearing a homestead, using axe and hoe with dex-
terity. On one occasion, when returning from a horseback trip to Ken-
tucky, he broke a water sprout from an apple tree, and on arriving home
stuck it in the ground, very near the house, and it grew and proved to be
an excellent winter fruit. Several trees grew from that one, and on these
and the parent tree an abundance of fine fruit has been produced. Arriv-
ing at manhood, he bought eighty acres of land adjoining the parental
homestead on the west, cleared an opening in the woods, erected a house
of round logs, with a stick and clay chimney, and rived boards to cover
the roof. His wife had no stove, but did all of her cooking by the fire-
place. He cleared quite a tract of the land, and continued there, engaged
in tilling the soil until his second marriage, when he came to Lewis town-
ship to live on his wife’s farm, and here, two years later, in 1855, died.,