HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY 501 November 10, 1863; siege of Knoxville, November 17-December 6; Bean’s Station, December 14; Blain’s Cross Roads, December 16-19; Mossy Creek, December 24-29, 1863, all in Tennessee; and Munfordsville, Ken- tucky, September 12-14, 1862. At Bean’s Station Mr. Decker assisted in the capture of a train. After his return from the front, Mr. Decker operated a sawmill in Posey township for a time, then engaged in farming, but soon returned to his sawmill work on the line of Vigo and Clay counties. He then successively engaged at the carpenter’s trade, farmed and sunk a coal shaft in Perry township, removed two years later to Brazil and engaged in the grocery business, after a year embarked in the teaming and under- taking business, was in the grocery line with his brother Andrew, again worked as a carpenter and in 1886 established a business in second-hand merchandising. As a fraternalist Mr. Decker has been identified with the Ancient Order of United Workmen and with the General Canby Post No. 2, Grand Army of the Republic, at Brazil, Indiana. On the 27th of August, 1864, Mr. Decker married Miss Loretta Jane West, who was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and died July 30, 1887, when but thirty-four years of age. She was the daughter of William and Amanda (Lee) West. Her father was born in Clay county, Indiana, a son of James West, and he was a Terre Haute cabinet maker. He was a Republican, a Mason, a member of the Regulators (already mentioned), and of the Baptist church, and died in a soldier’s hospital at Indianapolis from disease contracted in the Union army, in which he served as a member of the Seventy-first Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, Sixth Cavalry. Mrs, West was born in Vigo county, Indiana, was also married in that county, and Mrs. Decker was her only child. Four of the ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. Decker are living: Morton E., Charles S., Hattie B. and William W. LEVI A. LAUDERBACK, who has spent much of his life in Brazil, is now filling the position of detective for the Vandalia Railroad Company. In all of his business relations, which have been of a varied character, he has been found true to the trust reposed in him and he has in this county many warm friends, who esteem him highly for his genuine worth. A native of Brown county, Ohio, Mr. Lauderback was born November 9, 1862, and was the seventh in order of birth in a family of eight children whose parents were Uriah and Nancy (Dunn) Lauderback. They, too, were natives of Brown county, Ohio, the father’s birth having occurred December 22, 1822, while the mother first opened her eyes to the light of day on the 9th of October, 1825. They were married in the county of their nativity and the father is now living in Brazil at the venerable age of eighty-five years, but the mother died January 25, 1902. Uriah Lauder- back spent his boyhood and youth in Brown county, Ohio, and worked with General U. S. Grant in the tannery owned by the latter’s father, Jesse Grant. Some time after his marriage, with his wife and three children he made a trip overland to Iowa, where he engaged in farming for a period. One son was added to the family during their stay in Iowa, where they were living fifty years ago. On the return trip they pro- ceeded by steamboat down the Mississippi river and up the Ohio river to the state of Ohio. In his younger days Mr. Lauderback had been engaged in service on the steamboats that went down the river to New Orleans. At the time of the Civil war he espoused his country’s cause, enlisting in