BRUMFIELD, James B. - Putnam

The late James B. Brumfield. of Russellville. was known as a man of high ideals and unselfish aims, who, while laboring for his own advancement, did not for a moment lose sight of his duties to his neighbors and society at large; such principles could not help resulting in the gaining of material success and the winning of a vast host of warm personal friends. He was born in Kentucky June 9, 1815, and there spent his childhood. His wife. Sophia Ann Rogers, was horn in Indiana, where she grew to maturity, and was educated; her birth was on February 12, 1822; they were married December 15, 1847. Mr. Brumfield came to Indiana when a young man and started a store at Russellville and married here. After selhng goods until 1858 he engaged in farming three miles east of Russellville. About 1862 or 1863 he bought one hundred and sixty acres of land just south of the old town and when the railroad built a station here in the eighties, Mr. Brumfield gave part of the land. He then laid out two rows of lots on Main street to the depot, one-fourth of a mile. He sold his lots and carried on general farming. As the business center of the town changed he moved one-half mile south of the old center and continued to live on his farm until his death on June 1, 1891. at the age of seventy-six years: his widow survived until September 9, 1898, dying at about the same age. While living on his farm Mr. Brumfield served as township trustee; politically he was a stanch Republican, and was one of the pillars of the Methodist Episcopal church. He was a good and useful man. whom everybody admired and trusted. Mr. and Mrs. James B. Brumfield were the parents of four children, three sons and one daughter, namely: Mary I., who remained single, was born September 30, 1848, died March 10, 1897; Robert H. was born September 30, 1850; William C, who was born May 16, 1854, became a practicing physician of Tulare County, California, having graduated from DePauw University and also from the St. Louis Medical School, first practiced in Clinton, Missouri, from which city he went to California and died April 2, 1902, at the age of forty-eight years. Frank M., a general merchant at Russellville, is represented on another page of this work.