HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                   395

       Elijah Robinson, of Sugar Ridge township. Tn September, 1899, Mr.

       Fernsel wedded Mrs. Armilda (Downs) Payne, who was born in Bullit
       county, Kentucky, and was there married io William Payne, who died

       August 16, 1896, leaving one daughter, Khoda, who became the wile of
       R. M. short and died on the rst of January, 1907. Mr. Fernsel has been
       a Republican since the organization of the party, and has served as the
       assessor of Clay county, as the trustee of his township for one term and
       was elected a Member of the township board in 1902.

     Reuben Van COI,E.---A well-known and highly respected member
of the agricultural community of Harrison township, Reubcn Van Cole
is widely and favorably recognized throughout this part of Clay county
as an honest, upright man, and a worthy representative of those cour-
ageous pioneers who settled in this part of the state when it was in its
primeval wildness. 14 native of Indiana, he was born January 7, 1815
in hlarion township, Owen county, a son of William Simpson Cole and
B grandson of William Cole, one of Clay county's original settlers.
B William Cole spent his earlier years in North Carolina, afterwards
       spending a few years in Tennessee, and from that state coming, in 1818,
       to Indiana, crossing the country with teams and bringing with him his
       family and all of his early possessions. He located in Clay county,
       which was then one vast wilderness through which the duskv savage anti
       the wild beasts of the iorest roametl at will. I-Ie entered one hundred
       and sixty acres of land, including the west half of the southwest quarter
       of section ten, and the east half of the southeast quarter of section nine.
       of what is now I-l[arrison township. Erecting a log house, he labored
       earnestly and courageously to clear a farm, and with his wife, who before
       marriage was Nancy Luther, lived here until his death. A native oi
       Tennessee, William Simpson Cole was but three years old when he was
       brought by his parents to Clay county. He was reared among pioneer
       scenes, anti assisted his father in his pioneer labors. 4t the time of his
       marriage he located in Owen countv, on a tract of one hundred and
       twenty acres given him by his father, andin the log caEin then stanrling
       upon the place all of his children were born. He   set manfully to work
       to clear a homestead, on which he lived until 1848, when he traded with
       his brother for one hundred and twentv acres located in Harrison town-
       ship, it being- a part of the original land taken up from the government
       by his father in 1818. He continued in his chosen occupation, and in the
       hewed log house which stood upon the farm resided until his death.
       March 9, 1890. His wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Oliver.
       was born in North Carolina, and when a child came with her parents
       to what is now Harrison township, this county. She died a few years
       before her husband, leaving four children, James, John Wesley, Reuben
       Van and Nancy Ann! all of whom grew to years of maturit~ anh married.
             In the pioneer log schoolhouse, with its puncheon floorl slab benches,
        and no desks, Reuben V. Cole obtained the rudiments of his education,
        while at home he was well drilled in ag-ricuTtural arts. Leaving the
        parental roof-tree when twenty-four vears old, he bought eighty acres of
        laud in section nine. Harrison toM;nsl7ip, and lived there about two -ears.
        Then, succeeding his father in the ownership of the old homesteac! which
        his grandfather had entered from the government, and which had never
        passed from the familv, he assumed its possession and has since lived