Howard-Fayette-Delaware County IN Archives Biographies.....Saxon, John 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com April 5, 2006, 4:48 am

Author: Jackson Morrow (circa 1909)

JOHN SAXON.

   This old and highly esteemed citizen who is spending the evening of his long
and useful life in comfortable retirement in the city of Kokomo is a native of
Fayette county, Indiana, and a descendant on the paternal side from sturdy
German ancestry that settled in South Carolina, his maternal antecedants were
also early settlers of Indiana, coming to this country from Ireland. After
living in South Carolina for a number of years the Saxons migrated to the
Northwest and finally located in Fayette county, Indiana, near the present site
of Connersville, where, in due time, they became successful tillers of the soil
and active participants in the affairs of their respective communities.
Alexander Saxon, the subject's father, was a farmer by occupation and a citizen
of considerable local prominence. He assisted his father to clear the ground on
which the thriving city of Connersville now stands, and a number of years was an
active and energetic figure in the pioneer history of Fayette county of which,
as already indicated, his father was one of the earliest as well as one of the
most prominent settlers. Margaret McCrury, who became the wife of Alexander
Saxon, was descendant, as stated above, from an Irish family that immigrated to
the United States in 1812, the vessel in which her ancestors had taken passage
having been overhauled by the officers of an English warship for the ostensible
purpose of finding deserters from the English arm}-, their real object however
being to impress into his majesty's service any likely young man they might find
aboard. By concealing themselves, several men among whom were a couple of
McCrurys, successfully eluded the searchers and in due time reached their
destination in a country from which the hated English power had been driven a
number of years before by the strong and determined arm of American patriotism.
Mr. and Mrs. Saxon were married in Fayette county, Indiana, and there spent the
remainder of their days on the beautiful farm which the former had redeemed from
the forest, enjoying the respect and confidence of their neighbors and friends
and leaving to their descendants a reputation above the suspicion of dishonor
and to which the passing years have given additional luster. This sturdy couple
had a family of six sons and six daughters, all of whom lived to rear families
of their own and to become well settled in life. Of the large and interesting
family group that once gathered about the domestic hearthstone of Alexander and
Margaret Saxon, all but five are sleeping the sleep of the just, the surviving
members being James, Samuel, Elizabeth. Anna and John, whose name introduces
this review.

   From childhood until a youth in his teens, John Saxon was engaged, except
while attending the district school, in assisting his father in clearing and
cultivating the home farm. This gave him a vigor of constitution which in
subsequent life never failed him in the most laborious duties and also made him
acquainted with the virtues and vices, passions and prejudices, the acquirements
and capabilities of that large and eminently respectable class of yeomanry which
have aptly been called the bone and sinew of the body politic.

   His educational discipline, which was only limited, was acquired in the
different subscription schools common to the period in which he then lived but
later by wide reading, intelligent observation and mingling much with his
fellows, he obtained a large fund of valuable, practical knowledge and became
one of the best informed men of the community. Before attaining his majority he
left the parental roof to make his own way in the world, and for some time
thereafter chopped wood to pay for his lodging until something more favorable
should present itself. He literally began life for himself without a dollar in
his pocket, but persevering industry and strict economy in due time succeeded in
accumulating sufficient means to enable him to engage in farming upon his own
responsibility after which his rise in the world was more rapid and substantial.
Without following his history in detail suffice it to state that during the
period of his active life he was quite successful in the acquirement of material
wealth, having accumulated a handsome competency, including a fine farm of one
hundred and sixty-three acres in Delaware county which he still owns, a
comfortable residence property in Kokomo in which he is now living a life of
honorable retirement and ample private means, which enables him to spend the
remainder of his days free from anxiety or care.

   On February 5, 1854, Mr. Saxon was united in marriage to Nancy T. King, of
Russiaville, Indiana, who bore him one child, and departed this life February
27, 1893. The offspring of the union was a daughter by the name of Martha A.,
whose birth occurred on the 30th day of September, 1856, in Tipton county, and
who is the widow of Harvey D. Ross and the mother of two children, namely, Moses
D. Ross, of Kokomo, and Nira B., who married Clarence B. Kyle March 26, 1902,
and is the mother of a daughter named Helen. Moses D. Ross was married May 25,
1892, to Stena A. Cole, to whom four children have been born—Hazel, Martha, Mary
and Harvey. Since the death of his wife Mr. Saxon has made his home with his
daughter, who with her children and grandchildren, are untiring in their
attentions to him, contributing to his pleasure and ministering to his comforts
by every means at their command. He has two grandchildren and five
great-grandchildren with whom he holds frequent happy reunions, the occasions
being anticipated as seasons of much pleasure and mirth in which he takes as
much interest as the younger and more lively of his descendants.

   Mr. Saxon cast his first presidential ballot for John C. Fremont and from
that time to the present (1908), a period of fifty-two years, he has been a
loyal and unswerving supporter of the Republican party and deeply interested in
the success of its policies and candidates. He keeps well informed on the issues
which divide men and parties, has the courage of his convictions on these and
other public questions and though somewhat conservative expresses himself freely
and pointedly when occasions demand his opinion. A number of years ago he united
with the Methodist Episcopal church and entered upon the earnest and consistent
Christian life which he has since lived and in which he finds much of comfort
and solace as the shadows lengthen and the journey nears its end. Mrs. Saxon was
also a Methodist in belief and a deeply religious and conscientious woman of
many beautiful traits of character, having always been consistent in her church
work and a living example of the faith to which she yielded allegiance.

   Mr. Saxon is prominent in Masonic circles of Kokomo, being an active and
faithful attendant upon its various lines of duty and work. In closing this
brief and rather cursory sketch of one of Kokomo's old and highly esteemed
citizens, it is only sufficient to state that since his removal to Kokomo, in
the winter of 1874, he has enjoyed the confidence of all with whom he has come
into contact and his relations with his fellow men have ever been characterized
by honor and a profound regard for all that makes life worth the living.
Throughout a long and eminently useful career he has pursued the even tenor of
his way in the quiet and unostentatious manner which never courts publicity,
attending strictly to his own affairs, doing the right as he understands it and
keeping his conscience void of offense toward God and man. He has outlived the
majority of his companions and associates of former days and reached a happy and
contented old age which his numerous friends in Kokomo wish may be prolonged for
many years to come.


Additional Comments:
From:

HISTORY OF HOWARD COUNTY INDIANA
BY
JACKSON MORROW, B. A.
ILLUSTRATED
VOL. II
B. F. BOWEN & COMPANY
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

(circa 1909)



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