HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY	163

Being a versatile writer and an excellent business manager, the paper
under his supervision has largely increased in circulation, and as one of
the best conducted journals of this locality is eagerly sought by the intel-
ligent reading public, while its articles are clipped by exchanges through-
out this section of the state.
	On January 5, 1869, Mr. Ward married Carrie A. Beach. She was
born March 12, 1848, at Point Commerce, Greene county, Indiana, a
daughter of James and Agnes Beach. Four children have been born to
Mr. and Mrs. Ward, of whom but one, Dona E., is now living. Cora B.
died when seventeen years old; Pearl F., who married H. P. Ingersoll,
died at the age of thirty-nine years, leaving one child, Bessie Ingersoll;
and Freddie died at the age of two and one-half years. In early man-
hood Mr. Ward joined Worthington Lodge, No. 137, Independent Order
of Odd Fellows, and is the only one of the members now alive belonging
at that time.

	CAPTAIN EDWARD A. THOMPSON, who died at his home in Bowling
Green, Clay county, on the 23rd of November, 1905, had already entered
the seventy-fifth year of his age, and since early boyhood the strong and
the good influences of that long life had been devoted to the development
of Washington township along many lines of endeavor and progress.
He was born in Jackson county, Indiana, September 7, 1831, a son of
John D. and Elizabeth A. (Elsey) Thompson, the former, of Scotch-
Irish extraction, being a native of Kentucky, born on the ioth of Jan-
uary, 1793, and the mother, of German descent, was a native of Vir-
ginia, born on the 15th of September, 1796. The father died April 13,
i88i, at the age of eighty-nine years, and his widow passed away Jan-
uary 16, 1886. John D. Thompson first bought a farm in sections 16 and
17, Washington township, where the family resided for about two years,
when he bought a hotel in Bowling Green, which he conducted until it
was destroyed by fire. The homestead was then re-established on the old
farm, but the parents finally returned to the town, where they passed their
last years.
	Edward A. Thompson came to Clay county from Jackson county,
Indiana, when he was but a boy, and received his education in the dis-
trict schools of Washington township. He had mastered the tailor’s
trade by the time he had reached his majority, but found that vocation
too sedentary, and associated himself with a Mr. Hopkins in cabinet
making, continuing to be thus engaged until the commencement of the
Civil war. In the meantime he had become so proficient in instrumental
music that he enlisted in 1861 as a member of the band attached to the
Fourteenth Indiana Regiment, and in that capacity participated in a por-
tion of the Virginia campaign of the Army of the Potomac. Desiring
more active military service, in 1862 he joined the ranks of Company D,
Seventy-first Indiana Infantry, but was elected first lieutenant, and as
such participated in the battle of Richmond August 30 of that year. In
that engagement he was severely wounded in the shoulder with a piece
of shell, was soon after captured and paroled, returning to his home until
he recovered from his injury. Upon the re-organization of the Seventy-
first Infantry as the Sixth Indiana Cavalry, Lieutenant Thompson was
promoted to he captain of Company M, which he helped to recruit, and
served in that capacity throughout the war. The command with which
he was identified was a part of the Army of the Cumberland, and its