HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                      499

were born in Perry township, Clay county. Mr. Nolte has given a life-
long support to Democratic principles, and is a member of the Lutheran
church.

    WILLIAM W. DECKER, one of Clay county’s brave and honored sol-
dier citizens, was born in Butler county, Ohio, March 16, 1844, a son of
Obediah D. and Sarah Ann (Austin) Decker, both of whom were natives
of the county named. The father, who was of German and Irish ancestry,
died at the age of seventy-one years, and the mother, of English lineage,
passed away at the age of sixty-two. They were married in Butler
county, Ohio, June 11, 1837, and became the parents of nine sons, two of
whom died in infancy and two (Robert and John) in manhood; the living
are Jesse A., William W., Elmond A., Andrew S. and Obediah Decker.
Seven lived to be voters and with their father cast their ballots for
Republicanism.
    Obediah Decker’s father was John Decker, who came from Fayette
county, Pennsylvania, to Butler county, Ohio, where he established him-
self as a farmer and died at about thirty years of age. Obediab was the
only son. The widow married David Hulse and she herself died when
the boy was fifteen years of age. The orphaned youth then learned the
shoemaker's trade and became an expert hunter of small game. After-
ward he was employed on a packet boat, engaged in transferring coal
along the Ohio river, but finally returned to Butler county, Ohio, where
he married Sarah Ann Austin on the 11th of June, 1837. After residing
there for some ten years they removed to Clay county, Indiana, where
the husband engaged in various industries and lines of business and
became a large dealer in furs and bought and improved a large farm and,
after the building of the Vandalia Railroad, invested in coal mines. He
also entered the real estate field, engaged in building and brick manufac-
turing, and himself erected a fine brick house on his farm, which was
quite a mansion for those days and is still standing. Further, he was
associated with Messrs, Modisett, Hawkins and Serdam in a flour mill,
which was destroyed by a hurricane in 1862. The plant was located at
what was then Highland, now Staunton. During these early days before
the courts and police machinery were fairly organized there was much
lawlessness in this section of the state, murders and robberies being of
not infrequent occurrence. What was called the John A. Clark gang,
comprising about a hundred desperate characters, terrorized the whole
country for a number of years, and for the purpose of breaking up the
organization the citizens formed a company that was called the Regu-
lators and elected Mr. Decker captain. The citizens’ body comprised
several hundred men from Terre Haute, Brazil, Bridgeton, Ashboro and
Center Point, and in a short time drove the obnoxious characters out of
the country. Mr. Decker was a large raiser of corn and wheat and also
of stock, his stock always being prominent prize winners at the county
fairs. He finally removed to Brazil, bought the Sherman House, in which
occupation he spent the last years of his life, dying on the 9th of May,
1885.
    William W. Decker was a small boy when he came with his parents
to Indiana, reaching manhood in Clay county. His boyhood was spent in
an unsettled country, and, like his father, he loved the woods and became
a famous hunter of such game as mink, coons, wild turkeys, deer and
upon several very rare occasions, of bear and panthers. As he would