O'HAIR, Bascom - Putnam

One of the best known members of this well-established old family is Bascom O'HAIR, who was born on a farm six miles north of Greencastle, on June 18, 1837, and he has found it to his interests to spend most of his long and eminently useful life in his native locality. His father, J. E. M. O'HAIR, was a native of Kentucky, born in 1804, and he was one of that small band of pioneers who emigrated to this section of the Hoosier state in the epoch to which historians alude to as "early days. " He settled six miles north of the present city of Greencastle, penetrating the virgin forest, clearing a place for his cabin, and later developing a fine farm on which he lived the remainder of his life, becoming well-to-do for those days, and he was influential and highly honored among his neighbors for his many admirable traits of character.

He married Elizabeth MONTGOMERY, who was also a native of Kentucky, and this union resulted in the birth of eleven children, named as follows: Asbury is living in Monroe township; J. E. Elsberry and Greenberry also live in Monroe township; J. T. and Eliza J. are deceased; Bascom, of this review; Sarah E. is living in Greencastle; Robert A. lives in Monroe township; Ceylina lives in Putnamville; Sylvester lives in Monroe township; Leroy died in infancy. After the death of his first wife, the father of these children married Pamela LOCKRIDGE, by whom he became the father of two children, Robert L., the well known president of the Central National Bank of Greencastle, and Mrs. Maggie BLACK, of Wellington, Kansas.

J. E. M. O'HAIR, after a long, honorable and useful career, was called to his reward in 1899, having reached the remarkable age of ninety-five years.

Bascom O'HAIR spent his boyhood days on the home farm, where he assisted with the general work about the place until he was twenty-one years of age, attending the district schools in meantime. He then bought a farm in Monroe township and soon began dealing in real estate, for which he seemed to have a natural likeness and ability. In 1882 he went to Oklahoma where he resided for a period of twenty years. He bought land in the Cherokee strip and from there time to time purchased large tracts of land in other parts of that country, then new and abounding in all kinds of opportunities, all of which proved to be profitable investments. He was very successful in the southwest. But eight years ago he returned to Greencastle, where he has since resided. He has large property interests and is one of the financially solid and substantial men of Putnam county, and and one of the most influential in business circles. He is a director of the Central National Bank and the Central Trust Company of Greencastle. He has a modern, attractive and costly home, elegantly furnished, which is known to the many friends of the family as a place of hospitality and good cheer. Mr. O'HAIR also has extensive interests in Florida, owning a pretty winter bungalow in Tampa and an orange grove on the Alafia river, twelve miles east of Tampa. Mr. and Mrs. O'HAIR spend their winters in the south.

Mr. O'HAIR was married on August 12, 1903, to Mrs. Blanche GOODWINE, daughter of Harry and Hester BRANDT. Her parents were natives of Ohio and known as people of integrity and sterling worth. Mrs. O'HAIR was born and reared in Attica, Indiana, receiving a good education and her genial, solicitous, affable and courteous demeanor indicates that she was reared in the midst of wholesome environments. This union has been without issue. Mrs. O'HAIR is an accomplished, talented, and cultured woman. She is a skilled wood carver, and many beautiful specimens of her handicraft adorn the walls of their spacious home on East Washington street. Painting is another of her accomplishments, and her china and art draperies and stencil work are rare specimens of art and are greatly admired by all who are fortunate enough to see them. She also has literary ability and is interested in church and club work.

Both Mr. and Mrs. O'HAIR are members of the College Avenue Methodist Episcopal church, and fraternally, Mr. O'HAIR is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Politically he is a Republican.

Personally, Mr. O'HAIR is a wide-awake, enterprising man of the times, fully alive to the dignities and responsibilities of citizenship, and, to the extent of his ability, contributes to the material prosperity of the community and to the social, intellectual and moral advancement of the populace. Good natured, easily approached, straightforward and unassuming, he commands the respect of all with whom he comes into contact, and his friends are as great as the number of his acquaintances. While a power in the industrial circles of Greencastle, he is universally esteemed in all the relations of life, and his career has been creditable to himself and an honor to Putnam county, so long the abode of this excellent family, the untarnished escutcheon of whose he has ever sought to bear aloft.