Crabbs, Reynolds & Taylor - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

Crabbs joined the Civil War Company A, 163rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry and remained active in GAR until his death. Masons, Knight Templars, Shrine, Country Club and many other activities helped aid him in continuing a lengthy life (keeping his mind sharp and his physical being up to par) after his retirement. One of his great accomplishments, perhaps was to help find the local YMCA. He was extremely active in that organization in the local and state levels.

Benjamin F. Cabbs married Mary Fickes who was the mother of seven children, only two to grow to adulthood (although their oldest, Lester passed at age 19, most of the rest right after birth). Their daughter, Etta Pearl Crabbs married Alfred C. Evans (both buried at Maple Ridge Cemetery at Waveland) and had no children, but was fairly close to Gladys Alfred's daughter. Tully married Effie Gasrdner and had the one child, Mary Virginia who married Noble Ryan Shaw and they had three sons (Tully; Noble; and Wallace). I'm not sure that Ben was not also married to a Laura Williams, as well. More research needed there.

Tully was married on November 20, 1895 to Effie Gardner (daughter of Fred and Mary Allen Gardner) in one of the largest and most impressive weddings Crawfordsville ever saw in all its years. The colors, with each room of her parents home being decorated in a different one were pink, yellow and green. Over 100 guests witness the beautiful wedding and they were banked in an array of flowers and palms. Her white moire brocaded silk dress with pearls at her neck and long sleeves was said to be one of the most beautiful in years (wish we had a picture of that). They would go on to celebrate their 50th anniversary and beyond.

For many year, Benjamin F. Crabbs and Andrew Edward (Ed or A.E.) Reynolds ran the business together and seemed to get along quite well, although Ed was much the junior, being 20- years younger than B.F. Born just over the border into Tippecanoe County, Ed was born December 28, 1858 and married Eva Martin. His brother, Pembroke was also married to an Eva (Scott) and worked for a number of year as a buyer for the grain company.

This group knew what they were doing, and what was especially amazing no matter what happened, they picked up the pieces and carried forward. B.F. was an extremely jolly soul. Before Tully joined the firm, they had had two devastating fires (and were very underinsured which seemed to be remedied until the next one) already and almost immediately after Tully came on board, it happened again, at least once it was almost assuredly arsen, one a faulty heater and the other is unknown. Yet, the barely missed a day of work and were back at it immediately.

The Reynolds had no children of their own but were extremely fond of Tully, he even giving the information on Ed's death certificate . Upon Ed's death, Tully became and remained the president of the company until it was sold in 1945 to the Farm Bureau Coop. At that point, they had 15 elevators in five Indiana counties (Fountain; White; Pulaski; Tippecanoe and Montgomery of course). In the 1890 fire, it was brought up to the City Council to not have them pay taxes for 10 years but month after month it was shelved for various purposes, but they did rebuild and assume they paid taxes.

In 1893, big kudos came their way as they were asked to create the Indiana Corn Pyramid for the World's Fair. "We need the finest of corn, please farmers bring in within the next 10 days, 10 or more ears of your best corn." Actually, in other articles, it was always said, your perfect corn.

One of the niftier little pieces found about the company regarded Ed. Obviously, he knew something about how the human body works as in March 1898 when there was a Midget show downtown, a young boy (Ben Cunningham) fell and threw his knee out of joint. Ed put it right in place after he picked the boy up and took him inside the office. Ben was feeling fine immediately but the doctors and community members did not think Ed should have done this and demanded he get a license to practice medicine. Ed also purported loudly his "Don'ts," in regards to graining projected to the farmer: "Don't exchange your wheat for an inferior Flour when we will give you 36# of the celebrated Gold Leaf Flour and 10 # of bran for a bushel of wheat. Don't take you r feed grinding to an old wornout one-horse feed mill. When we do your grinding at the same prices and on the best roller free mill in Indiana. Don't be deceived by the one-horse dealers and street hawkers when you bring grain to town. They will tell you that they are paying the highest market price when nine out of ten times, we will give you from 3-5 cents per bushel more. Don't. Don't. Don't. forget that it will always pay you to trade with a responsible firm that has a reputation at stake!"

In July 1891, they sent out 14 cars of wheat. That's amazing! Their business prowress continued for 65 years and it was stated that Crabbs was the oldest Crawfordsville firm when Tully retired. Can't confirm that, however.

All of the members of the firm were devout Methodist attending the large United Methodist Church a block away from their home. B.F. joined on April 16, 1882.

They were the first to provide something many of us still buy today, Gold Medal Flour, to the local grocers, along with the (1890s) ever loved Pure Buck Wheat Flour, but were completely pleased to buy or trade their GMF in case the grocer was out or the farmer was more inclined to deal with their firm. I was amazed that in 1891 they wanted 500,000 bushels of wheat and wanted everyone to know they'd pay the highest price to get it. They dealt in rye, hay, oats, corn, straw, wheat, clover and timothy, as well as bluegrass seed and millett.

So, I hope you've enjoyed reading more about this awesome business in our community, however, I need to find out WHO THE TAYLOR IS? Anyone know???

CORN – we are wanting corn – we will pay you top market price. The old reliable firm Crabbs & Reyolds

CORN SHOW – during the street fair we will give the following premiums on corn Best 25 ears any color … one barrel of the best flour on earth Gold Medal Heaviest 25 ears any color … one barrel best straight grade flour on earth (OK) Best 10 ears, white corn … 50 # Gold Medal Flour Best 10 ears, yellow corn …. 50# Climax Flour Largest ear, any kind or color ….. $1 No exhibit adn take two premiums. Judges to be selected by exhibitors. All exhibits to be brought to our store not later than Wed noon Oct 19. All exhibits donated to Orphans’ Home. Bring in your corn and help a good cause. Somebody gets these premiums.

The insurance adjusters allowed Crabbs & Reynolds $4,020 for their loss by fire last Saturday night.

DISASTROUS FIRE. Crabbs & Reynolds' Seed House is Again Visited by a Costly Fire. Last Friday evening, Harry Palmer discovered flames shooting from the roof of the seed house of Crabbs & Reynolds and at once turned in an alarm of fire. It was at first the impression of the people that the Ramsey hotel was on fire as the smoke came rolling over it in dense black clouds. The department responded promptly but was somewhat handicapped in getting to work as two of the force were at supper when the alarm came in. The fire was burning very fiercely and the seed house seemed certainly doomed, but the department by hard work soon had the flames under control and in less than an hour the out signal was sounded. The damage done, however, had been great and the loss is even more considerable than that at the time of the fire in the same place last fall, A. E. Reynolds, of the firm, said: "The fire last fall was due to an electric light wire but this time it is my impression that the blaze originated in some way from the natural gas engine. Just how I do not know but everything points emphatically to that conclusion. The wonderfully rapid way in which the fire spread is evidence that the origin could have been nowhere else. One of our men had left the house not three minutes before the fire was discovered and when he came out everything was all right. The blaze broke out just above the gas engine and about it burned most violently. Our less is very heavy, just how heavy it would be impossible to say. We had over $15,000 worth of stock in the building and insurance to the amount of only $6,000. We had let the insurance run down as the stock as a usual thing is much lower at this season of the year. We had on hand 3,000 bushels of clover seed, 1,000 bushels of millet, and 600 bushels of timothy. We had $500 insurance on our machinery and the loss on it is not a cent less than 8$1,000. It will take a careful adjustment, however, to estimate what the loss on the seed is. I want to make a protest here against the crippling of the fire department by reducing the number of firemen. The boys yesterday worked heroically, and I do not wish to appear as criticizing them, but I do want to say that if there had been the right number of firemen on hand yesterday when the fire broke out that they could have had water on five minutes sooner than they did and so have saved the loss of at least a thousand dollars' worth of property.: