George W. Adams, proprietor of a feed store at Portland and for years one of the best known business men of that city, is a native son of Jay county and has lived here nearly all his life. Mr. Adams was born on a farm in Wabash Township on March 21, 1861, and is a son of William Thompson and Margaret (Arbaugh) Adams, both members of pioneer families in that section of the county. William Thompson Adams was born inColumbiana County, Ohio, and was but a child when he came to Indiana with his parents, David Adams and wife, who settled on a quarter section of land which the former had entered land in Wabash Township, this county, and became influential pioneers of that neighborhood.
Of the eight children born to the pioneer David Adams and wife, three are still living, John and Joseph Adams and their sister, Sarah. William Thompson Adams grew to manhood on the home farm in Wabash Township, completed his schooling in the old academy at College Corner and had been for several years engaged in teaching school in addition to his farm work, when the Civil War broke out. Despite the family obligations he meanwhile had assumed he enlisted for service in the Union Army and went to the front as a member of the Thirty Ninth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, with which he served for more than three years. Upon the completion of his military service Mr. Adams returned home and resumed his farming operations, also for some time thereafter continuing to teach school during the winters, his total term of service as a teacher in the schools of his home township covering nearly ten years. He acquired a good farm in Wabash Township and remained there until 1883, when he moved to Portland and there engaged in the lumber business, continuing thus engaged for four years, at the end of which time he disposed of his interests here and went to Kansas.
Three years later he went to New Orleans, but after a year's experience in that city returned to Indiana and located at Columbus, where his last days were spent, his death occurring there in 1918, he then being eighty-four years of age. George W. Adams grew up on the home farm in Wabash Township and received his schooling in the neighboring schools. He was married at the age of twenty-one and the year following became engaged with his father in the lumber business at Portland. When that business was disposed of he went with his father to Kansas, but after several years returned to Portland and became connected with the operation of the old Centennial Mills at that place, remaining with that concern for fifteen years, at the end of which time he was made manager of the Holmes Grain Elevator. Four years later he gave up the elevator business and in 1910 became engaged in the general feed businessat Portland, the line he has since followed with considerable success. Mr. and Mrs.Adams are members of the First Christian Church and are Republicans.
It was in 1882 that George W. Adams was united in marriage to Sarah R. Wells, who was born in Noble Township, this county, and to this union three children have been born, Dessie, Lula and Ray V. (deceased). Dessie Adams married Cloyce Badders and has nine children, Donald, Diana, Mary, Margaret, Deloris, Harold, James, George and Lula. Lula Adams married William Weller and has had two children, Troyla and Tod (deceased).
Biographical & Historical Record of Jay County, Indiana, Lewis Publishing Company, 1887