DARNALL, Henry Clay - Putnam

Henry Clay Darnall. A fine type of pioneer farmer, whose life covers practically the history of Putnam county with which he has been identified in a most honorable way, is the subject of this sketch. In the twilight of his existence, retired from the active struggles and hard work with which he was so long familiar, he is able to look back complacently to his boyhood days and contrast them with the circumstances surrounding the youth of the present generation. He is justified in taking pardonable pride in reflecting on the part he took in making modern Indiana possible and it is but a just compensation that he has lived to enjoy the comforts and luxuries that have come to the class to which he belongs. Where formerly he trudged through mire and miserable mud roads, he is now able to travel at swift speed over fine pikes ramifying in all directions. Instead of going for miles for his mail, he finds it at his door every morning, delivered free of charge. Messages to friends, formerly delivered by slowgoing letters or uncertain messengers, may now be communicated by word of mouth to any part of the county by that marvelous product of electricity, the telephone. It is pleasing to see one of the old pioneers surviving in good health to get the benefits of the marvels, in which he bore his full part. His family originated in Kentucky, both his mother and his father being natives of Mt. Sterling, in that state. Turpin Darnall was born August 8, 1799, and Louisa Yeates, whom he married, was born May 7, 1807. They came to Putnam county in 1831 and entered a section of land in Clinton township, worth then a dollar or two, but now commanding from one hundred and twenty-five dollars to one hundred and fifty dollars an acre. This difference in value of itself marks as no words could the progress of Putnam county during the last eighty years. Mr. Darnall was a Whig, then a Republican, but the only office he ever held was that of captain of militia while living in Kentucky. This fine pioneer pair had seven children, William, Nancy, Sarah, Livonia, James F., Henry Clay and Mary. The father died in August 1881 and the mother on March 28, 1888.

Henry Clay Darnall, the only surviving member of his father's family, was born in Putnam county, Indiana, October 12, 1832. He is able to tell all about the old log school house, as it was the only seminary of learning into which he entered. He has pleasing recollections of the greased -paper windows, the hard slab benches and the puncheon floor, to say nothing of the rosy-cheeked girls, then full of laughter and freedom from care, but now, alas, all passed away. Mr. Darnall remained with his father on the farm until he was twenty-one years old and many was the hard lick he struck with an ax or mattock in getting things ready to raise crops. The training was good for him, however, and he got the benefits afterward in life, from the practical knowledge he obtained and the good health, of which the foundations were laid by his outdoor life on the farm in his youth and early manhood. He looks back with pride to the fact that he cast his first vote for the young Republican party when John C. Fremont was a candidate in the fifties. Mr. Darnall has always been enthusiastic in Masonry and has been a member of that noble order for fifty-four years. He belongs to Lodge No. 75, Free and Accepted Masons, at Bainbridge and has held numerous offices connected with the fraternity. He is of religious temperament and a member of the Methodist church at Bainbridge.

On September 11, 1860, Mr. Darnall married Elizabeth L. Bridges, born July 12, 1840, and a daughter of Charles Boles and Rachel (Lockridge) Bridges, both early pioneers of Putnam county. Mr. and Mrs. Darnall have six children: Flora E., born December 9, 1861, married O. M. Batman; Charles T., born February 4, 1864, married Mamie Fry, and resides at Indianapolis; Lena R., born January 6, 1866, is the widow of William R. Todd, who died September 29, 1906; Franklin DeWitt, born November 24, 1860, married Prudie Allen, and in the general merchant tailoring business at Butte, Montana; Nellie P, born April 22, 1876, is the wife of Charles Young, who is engaged in the handle factory business in Poplar Bluff, Missouri; William C., born August 15, 1878, married Cecil Frank and is railroading at Kansas City, Missouri.

Mr. Darnall is a well preserved man, of good health and still enjoying life to the full. At one time he owned three hundred forty acres of land, but has disposed of most of this and now retains only a fine farm of seventy acres. Though practically retired, he still keeps an eye on farming matters and insists that everything shall be run in shipshape. He is one of the type that make a good model for the imitation of the rising generation, who may learn from him the value of sobriety, industry and the painstaking care of details without which there can be no permanent success in business.