326                 HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

    A native of Champaign county, Ohio, Mr. Funk was born on the
4th of July, 1847, son of Daniel and Sarah J. (Ellis) Funk, both natives
of Virginia. They were married in Ohio, where the father followed his
trade as a carpenter, and in September, 1854, when Cassius was seven
years of age, the family moved to Clay county locating on a farm in
Washington township. In the spring of 1855 the elder Mr. Funk bought
eighty acres of land in section 29, of the township named, and this
remained the nucleus of his homestead until his death, April 6, 1903,
aged eighty-six years. His wife died in January, 1901, at the age of
seventy-eight. Before the death of the father he had added to his
original purchase until the family estate had reached three hundred acres.
The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Funk were as follows
Cassius M., the oldest; William H., a resident of Marion township,
Owen county, Indiana; and Annie Funk, who died in 1874.
    Cassius M. Funk was reared on his father’s farm in Washington
township, and received his education in Clay county, with the exception
of his first two terms of schooling in Ohio and the season of 1865-6,
which he also spent as a pupil in Champaign county, that state. He
assisted his father until his marriage, on April 22, 1866, to Mary N.
Addy, daughter of Solomon and Catherine (Norman) Addy, both natives
of the Buckeye state. For about five years after his marriage he farmed
on the paternal estate, and then bought sixty acres in section 30, Wash-
ington township, where he still resides. It was originally a timber
tract, boasting for improvements only a small, old log house. But the
land is now all cleared and thoroughly cultivated, a productive fruit
orchard of over an acre is a valuable and attractive feature of the home-
stead, which also includes a commodious house and substantial barns and
other agricultural conveniences. He has owned altogether about four
hundred acres in Washington township, and is now the proprietor of
sixty-one acres in Harrison township and forty in Lewis township. He
is engaged in general farming operations, and is strongly influential both
as a progressive agriculturist and a public and religious man. He is a
Democrat in politics, was elected justice of the peace in the fall of 1907.
and appointed road superintendent in the beginning of 1908. He is a
member of Bowling Green Lodge, No. 513, I. 0. 0. F., and in whatever
field he has been active he has conducted himself as an able and upright
man.
    He has three of the old parchment deeds executed by Presidents
John Tyler, Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, the fifth of their
kind found in southern Clay county. There are valuable heirlooms in
the Funk family.
    Nine children have been born to Mr. Funk, two of whom are
deceased, the family being as follows: Alice B., deceased; John H., a
resident of Washington township: C. Ellen, deceased; Cora, wife of
Dennis Luther, of Terre Haute; Allen, of Washington township Eunice,
who married Harlie Lasell, of Washington township; Daniel V., of
Lewis township; Ida J., wife of Elmer Francis, who lives in Terre Haute,
and Lewis R. Funk, who resides at home. The family recently suffered
an irreparable loss in the death of the wife and mother, and her life was
beautifully commemorated in the following paragraphs from the local
papers:
    “Mary M. Funk was born in Ohio, January 20, 1847. She came to
this state with her father and mother in 1855 and was married to Cassius