Vancleave - Mathias Mount - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

Elder Mathias Mount Vancleave, the well known divine of the Old School Baptist Church, died Tuesday morning about 4 o’clock at his home on South Walnut Street. He had been in failing health for many months, but only during the last few weeks had he been bedfast. The funeral occurred on Thursday morning at 10:30 o’clock at the Old School Baptist Church, on South Walnut Street.

In connection with the demise of Elder Vancleave a little incident is told which is suggestive of the story of “Grandfather’s Clock.” In the aged Elder’s possession was a clock which he had owned since early life and which until Monday afternoon was a most reliable chronometer. Monday afternoon, however, at 4 o’clock it stopped wholly without apparent cause, and all efforts to start it failed. Just twelve hours later its owner passed away.

Rev. Mathias Mount Vancleave was one of the old settlers of this section and had a life full of adventure and experience. He was born nine miles from Shelbyville, on Bull Creek, Ky., March 26, 1810. At this place Benjamin Vancleave and Daniel Boone had made a settlement in early days and were closely connected in their hunting and trapping experiences, and the history of that day mentions Grandfather Vancleave in connection with the famous Kentucky pioneer. The son of this Benjamin Vancleave was the father of our subject, and his mother was Mary Mount, the daughter of Mathias Mount.

In the fall of 1824, Benjamin Vancleave came to Montgomery County and settled eight miles south of Crawfordsville, where he secured seven hundred acres of land, and here his death occurred about the year 1852, his widow surviving him until 1871. Mathias was the eldest of a family of nine children, of whom four are yet living.

Mathias started out in life for himself upon eighty acres of land given him by his father, and then he was married. The name of his wife was Nancy Nicholson and he was united to her in 1830. Her parents were Henry and Nancy Nicholson, who lived two and one half miles north of Crawfordsville. After one year upon the farm, Mr. Vancleave came out upon the prairie and entered two hundred acres near Linden, and then bought out the heirs of his father-in-law and moved upon that farm, where he continued for five years.

At this time Mathias laid out the village of Brown’s Valley, in Brown Township, on land that he had bought from his father. At that time John Milligan had laid out the town of Waveland, and it was decided to have a meeting to decide which the most desirable spot upon which to lay our a town. Still another man named Helminson had laid out a town, but when the vote was taken it was decided that the location of Mr. Vancleave’s land was the best for the town center. This was in 1836 and that year Mathias traded the old homestead for a stock of goods at Delphi, and there he continued for one year. At that time a canal was being built there, and he secured the right to make a water power upon the creek north of Crawfordsville. Here he erected a frontier mill, including a carding mill and a hominy machine, and in 1838 he secured a tract of land here and made this his home. At this place he had a fine spring and this made it a desirable place of residence.

Here he continued for twenty two years, engaged in the furniture business, which he carried on with success. The mill power which contributed so much to his success in life was for a twenty foot over-shot wheel and he secured the first engine that was ever erected in Crawfordsville. For six years he lived upon a farm in Fredericksburg, but in 1865 he returned to this city and lived here until his death. In 1832 he was licensed to preach and filled the Union Church at Waveland, Swentsburg, Indian Creek and Crawfordsville, and was ordained in 1850 as a minister in the Baptist Church. His ministrations were always welcome, as he was a good and able expounder, and he never asked a cent of pay.

In his political opinions, he was formerly a Whig, but of late years voted with the Democratic Party. The death of his wife in 1853 left him with a family as follows: Lovina and Benjamin, who died in early life; Serena, the wife of James McCabe, an attorney and politician from Williamsport; Wm N., who for ten years was a salesman for McNiel & Higgins, in Chicago, and now living in Crawfordsville; Samuel M., who is a salesman in Kansas City, Mo.; Dorcan Ann, Mrs. John Hunt, of this city; and Joel L., who died in 1873, at the age of 30 years.

Mr. Vancleave was married a second time, on the 4th of October, 1853, this union being with Miss Charity Hunter, of Whitesville, who only lived a few years, and at her death left four daughters, as follows: Jane, who is Mrs. R. M. McCoy, of Lebanon, Ind.; Adeline, who is Mrs. W. W. May, of Minneapolis, Minn., Martha, who was Mrs. Saul Kepler, of this place, where she died; and Mary M., who was Mrs. Mart Heaton, and died here. He was married a third time, October 26, 1865, this time to Mrs. Mary E. Walker, the widow of Archibald Walker, of New Ross. Her maiden name was Harris. She was the daughter of Hon. Thomas E. Harris, of Virginia, who came to Montgomery County in 1836, and served a term in the state legislature in 1850. Mrs. Vancleave had one daughter, Elizabeth Walker, who married Joseph Fisher one year later. The first couple married by Elder Vancleave was in 1847, when he united Thomas Doyle and Mary Davis. He performed about eight hundred marriage services, many more than anyone else in the county and probably in the state. - thanks so much to "S" not only for this lengthy and interesting obituary but for all the great work from the early newspapers