464             HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

on his present homestead in 1884. He now owns one hundred and five
acres of rich and fertile land, on which he has placed many valuable
improvements, and has done his own carpenter work on his buildings.
    On the 26th of April, 1869, Mr. Winn was married to Eliza K.
Lemmons, who was born in Vigo county, Indiana, September 22, 1851.
Her father, William Lemmons, was a native of Kentucky, but coming to
Indiana after his marriage located in Vigo county. He was three times
married and had eighteen children. Mr. and Mrs. Winn have had twelve
children, four sons and eight daughters, all of whom were born in Clay
county. Throughout his mature years Mr. Winn has given his political
allegiance to the Democracy, and from 1890 to 1895 he served as the
trustee of Jackson township and for six years was also a member of its
advisory board. He has been a member of the Masonic fraternity since
1872, affiliating with Brazil Lodge No. 264, and he and his wife are
members of the Methodist Episcopal church.

    SARGENT STAGGS.—Having accomplished a satisfactory work as an
agriculturist, acquiring a competency on which to live during his
declining years, Sargent Staggs is now living retired from active pur-
suits in Cory, enjoying to the utmost the well-merited reward of his long-
continued, unremitting toil. Coming from pioneer stock, he was born,
October 23, 1835, in Riley township, Vigo county, a son of Athel Staggs.
    Born in Ohio in 1812, Athel Staggs came with his parents to Indiana
when he was about twelve years old, and was brought up in Sullivan
county, which was then in its original wildness. After his marriage he
removed to Riley township, Vigo county, being one of the early settlers
of the place. Buying a tract of timbered land, he built the log cabin in
which his son Sargent was born. When the Erie and Wabash canal
was begun he was employed on its construction, and at the same time
his mother boarded a part of the employees. In 1840 he traded his Riley
township property for land in sections 29 and 32, Perry township, Clay
county, that in section 29 being covered with timber, while the other was
prairie. A log house and a few acres cleared constituted the sole im-
provements that had been previously made. He at once began clearing
the land and breaking the prairie, and as the years passed by succeeded in
placing the larger part of the land in a good state of cultivation. He
replaced the log buildings with substantial frame structures, and there
resided until his death, at the age of sixty-four years. He married Sarah
Harris, a daughter of Benjamin Harris, who moved from Ohio to Indiana,
becoming a pioneer of Sullivan county. She survived her husband for a
long time, attaining the venerable age of eighty-one years. She reared
six children, namely: Newport, Sargent, Sarah J., Elijah, Tyra J. and
Annie.
    But five years old when his parents settled in Perry township,
Sargent Staggs has been a witness of almost the entire growth and
development of this part of the county. At that time deer were very
plentiful, and his father, an expert marksman, killed many of them, and
Mr. Staggs, himself, killed four, shooting the last one from his own door-
yard in 1859. His father kept sheep and raised flax for many years, and
his mother, an adept in domestic arts, used to card, spin and weave the
homespun in which she made garments for the family, the clothes and
food of the household being produced on the farm. Sargent Staggs
attended the pioneer schools as a boy and youth, in the meantime becom