ARMS-Orin
Orin ARMS
Source: Beckwith, H. W. History of Fountain County, Indiana.
Chicago: H.H. Hill, 1881, p 192-193
Orin ARMS, farmer, Attica, is a native of Vermont, having been born in Washington county, of that state, April 21, 1801. In 1824 he came to Michigan on a sight-seeing tour, and in January, 1829, again came west, this time arriving in Indiana, and making a few months' sojourn at Eugene. In the spring he went down to Natchez as a hand on a flat-boat, and returned by the river to St. Louis and Galena. The Indians were numerous along the river. From Galena back to Eugene he traveled the whole distance on foot; the country would have been a continuous solitude had it not been broken by great numbers of the aboriginal inhabitants at Rock River and Peoria, and a few isolated habitations of white men, some of which were forty-five miles apart. He was at once employed by James and Robert MCCOLLUM, two New Hampshire men, and fanning-mill makers, with whom he had come from Detroit in company, in the early winter. In 1830 he and James MCCOLLUM formed a partnership to carry on this business. They came to Logan township, and at Judge MILFORD'S made twenty of these mills; then returning to Eugene, made twenty more. The making and peddling this stock constituted their summer's work. These mills were the first manufactured in this section of Indiana. In the fall of this year he got the ague, which was punctual in visiting the settlers at all seasons of the year, and shaking them up in the most lively and impressive manner. Breaking this up, he diversified his western experience during the following winter with corn buying at Health Prairie, on the west side of the Wabash, between Newport and Terre Haute. When the water rose in the spring he floated his boat, laden with 2,000 bushels, down the great highway to the southern, and the only, market. He had paid ten cents per bushel for this cargo, and had to dispose of it at about the same price, which taught him the significance of a loss and gain account with the balance on the losing side. He took passage from New Orleans for New York and was sixteen days between those ports. He had the ague more or less from the time he reached the Mississippi till he disembarked at New York, Returning home to Vermont, he stayed there during the summer, and in September went back to Indiana, driving a horse and buggy all the way, except between Buffalo and Lower Sandusky he traveled by boat, and reached Eugene in about thirty days. Immediately on arrival, October 4, 1831, he married Miss Cynthia HUBBARD. In December he settled in Logan township, this county, on the place which he still owns and occupies as a homestead, having purchased it from a man named Casey EMMONS. The land in this neighborhood, about a mile from Attica, was then called "barrens," and was considered third rate in quality. For several years now Mr. ARMS varied his employment with clearing and tilling his ground, carpentering, making fanning-mills, piloting boats on the river, and anything else that he could get to do. Wages were low, money scarce, and good hands could be hired for $8 to $10 per month. His wife dying December 19, 1843, in 1846 he married Elizabeth STEVENS. His first wife's children were Lucetta L., Solon H., Azro A., Laura Ann and Ira O.; and the second wife's, Amanda, Cynthia A. and Charles F. Mr. ARMS has been township trustee and school officer. He was formerly a whig, but since the dissolution of that party has been a republican. In his home farm are 250 acres; he has 160 more in Benton county, forty-two in Shawnee township, and twenty acres of timber in Richland. He was never robust, but has always been in a "complaining" state of health and strength, and much doctored; yet he has far outlived the allotted length of life, accumulated considerable property, and done much good as a common citizen. His steady industry and temperate habits have, no doubt, had much to do with this. At fifteen he began using tobacco; at sixty quit the habit, laid aside his spectacles, and gradually became less nervous; now at the age of eighty few gray hairs can be found in his head, his hand is steady, and he reads well with the naked eye. Mrs. ARMS is a member of the Old School Baptist church.