HIGHLAND COUNTY OHIO - BIOS: EVANS, Amos S. (published 1875)
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AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE STATE OF INDIANA
Richard S. Peale & Co., Publisher, 1875
Page 673-674

                        AMOS S. EVANS
        In the spring of 1800, Richard Evans emigrated from Kentucky, and
settled in Highland county, Ohio, where Amos S. Evans, his son, was born
May sixteenth, 1816. Richard Evans was an extensive and successful farmer,
and trained his son to the same occupation. The son, however, was born to
be a merchant; and, in 1836, at the early age of twenty, in obedience to an
instinct which had been manifest from boyhood, he formed a partnership with
his brother-in-law, F. Evans, and embarked in business on his own account
at Defiance, Ohio. In the fall of 1838, he removed to Hillsboro, Ohio,
where for twenty-five years he prosecuted the retail dry goods trade with
success. Having determined to seek a larger and more promising locality for
trade, he removed, in the spring of 1860, to Fort Wayne with a view of
engaging ultimately in the wholesale trade. For two years, while making
arrangements to that end, he continued the retail trade. At length, in
August, 1862, in the dark days of the war, against the remonstrances and
amid the forebodings of friends, he inaugurated the wholesale dry goods
trade of Fort Wayne. Wholesale grocery houses had existed there for some
years, but he was the pioneer of the dry goods jobbing trade in Northern
Indiana. Up to this time he has continued the same business, with constant
and increasing success; and with the aid of several well-chosen junior
partners, all young men trained in business by himself, he has established
a house second to none in the State in standing or prosperity.
        Mr. Evans is eminently fitted for the business which he has pursued
with such unvarying constancy from boyhood up. With the keenest powers of
observation, cautious in the midst of danger, and yet bold to take
advantage of the rising tide, he never fails to catch the favoring breeze,
and yet has always been found with all sails furled when a storm came.
        During this long, active and laborious life, he has not been
unmindful of other and higher interests, both public and private. He is a
man of extensive reading and culture, and accurate general information. In
1854 he traveled in Europe, and, in 1856, with his wife, made a second and
more extended tour, embracing Europe, Egypt and Palestine. With many others
of the State, he has been an active worker in behalf of prison reform. In
1871 he was appointed by Gov. Baker one of the commissioners of the house
of refuge for juvenile offenders. In all religious enterprises, and
especially in the Sunday-school work of his city and State, he has been
particularly active. In 1867 he bought a lot, and built on it a neat and
suitable chapel, at his own expense, for a mission Sunday-school in the
destitute part of Fort Wayne; and he has personally superintended the
school ever since with the exception of one year. In 1872 he was president
of the State Sunday-school union, and has rarely ever missed one of its
meetings. For fourteen years he has been one of the officers of the Allen
county Bible society, and was for several years its president.
        Upon the whole Mr. Evans' life has been one of great labor and
activity, and at the same time of great usefulness. He has shown how it is
possible for a man to be a philanthropist, and a worker in all humane and
christian causes, and a systematic and successful business man on the
largest scale, at the same time. He has proved by his own example that a
man may grow rich in trade and yet be doing good all the while. Such
examples are not as numerous as they should be, and they deserve to be
noted when they occur.
        Mr. Evans was married September twelfth, 1843, to Mary Poage, of
Greenup, Ky. She died December thirteenth, 1853. On February eleventh,
1856, he was married to Sarah H. Hanna, of Fort Wayne, who is still living,
and is a worthy co-laborer with her husband in all good works.


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