HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                              453

Falls was reared and educated. She was the fourth in her parents’ fam-
ily of nine children. Three children have been born to Mr, and Mrs.
Falls—Clara Ellen (deceased), Carrie L. and Harry D., all of whom
were born and reared in Cloverland. Mr. Falls has been a life-long mem-
ber of the Republican party, and he is a prominent and worthy member
of the United Brethren church.

    CHARLES GALEN RECTOR.—One of the oldest native-born citizens of
Clay county, Charles Galen Rector is an honored representative of the
early pioneers of this part of our beautiful country, and a true type of
the brave and courageous pioneers who came to this region in territorial
days, and out of the dense forests established for themselves permanent
homes in this vicinity. A son of John P. Rector, he was born October 2,
1839, in Perry township, Clay county, where his grandfather; John Rector,
took up government land in 1835.

    George Rector, the great-grandfather of Charles G., removed from
Virginia to Claiborne county, Tennessee, in the very early part of the nine-
teenth century, and lived there a few years. Going from there to Ohio
in 1809, he spent four years in Preble county, after which he resided for
a year in Miami county. From there, in 1814, he came to the territory of
Indiana, locating near Vincennes, then the territorial capital. Afterwards
settling in Vigo county, he lived near Mount Pleasant for several years,
after which he went with his sons, George and James, to Missouri, set-
tling in Buchanan county, about three miles below Saint Joseph, where
both he and his wife lived .to good old ages.
    John Rector was born March 2, 1794, in Giles county, West Virginia,
and as a boy lived in Tennessee and Ohio. In 1814 he came with the
family to Indiana, and from Vincennes, where they settled, explored the
surrounding country looking for a favorable location in which to settle.
The greater part of Indiana was then a wilderness, owned mostly by the
government. Indians still had their reservations in the territory, and
deer, panthers, wolves and other wild animals roamed at pleasure through
the forests, In the spring of 1816, accompanied by his father, George
Rector, Joseph Liston, Thomas Puckett, William McClellan, Thomas
Ramage and Isaac Barnes, he visited the locality now known as Mount
Pleasant, and there established the first settlement in Vigo county. -They
broke and fenced several acres and planted corn. John Rector erected
a log cabin in the settlement, which was about three miles from the present
site of Terre Haute, which then had no existence. Locating his family
in the cabin in the fall of 1816, he lived there until 1835, when he sold out
and came to Clay county. Entering government land in section six, he
improved a good farm, and here resided until his death in 1871. He
married Catherine Price, who was born October 10, 1798, in Montgomery
county, West Virginia, and moved with her parents to Ohio in 1811. She
was there married in 1813, came with her young husband to Indiana in
1814, and after her settlement in Vigo county witnessed the landing of the
“Plowboy,” the first steamer to touch Terre Haute. She died October 24,
1879, at a venerable age. She reared twelve children, and at her death
had eighty grandchildren, eighty-seven great-grandchildren and one great-
great-grandchild. She and her husband were both active and faithful
members of the Methodist Episcopal church, and in early times services
were for many years held in their home.
    John P. Rector was born at Mount Pleasant, Vigo county, Indiana,