LOCKRIDGE, Andrew Malone - Putnam

This picture came from Andrew A. Black Jr's (1852-1917), Greencastle, Putnam, Indiana, family album, dating to the latter half of 19th century, containing mostly friends and some family. This photo is also on http://www.ancientfaces.com [Search "Greencastle"] Photo submitted by: Brenda Black h.watson1@comcast.net

Among the highly honored, influential and well remembered citizens of Putnam county of a past generation who well deserve recognition in a work of the province assigned to the one at hand is Andrew M. Lockridge, for the history of the county and his biography are very much one and the same thing and for much of its growth and prosperity it is indebted to him. He was long one of its enterprising laborers and wise counselors. A progressive business man in the broad sense of the term, he realized the needs of the people and with clear brain and strong hand supplied the demand generously and unsparingly. The county was never honored by citizenship of a man more widely or favorably known in western Indiana, and none stood higher in the esteem and his acquaintances, for to him was accorded unqualified confidence and regard, and that he was deserving of the same no one will deny. His long and useful life was spent practically within the borders of this county, with whose varied interests he was actively and successfully identified. His well-directed efforts in the practical affairs of life, his capable management of his own business interests and his sound judgment brought to him well earned prosperity, his life demonstrating what may be accomplished by the man of energy and ambition, who is not afraid to work and who has the perseverance to continue his labors whether attended by favorable results or in the face of seemingly discouraging circumstances. Thus his career may be held up as an example to the youth of the land who hesitate at the parting of the ways. Andrew M. Lockridge was born March 30, 1814, near Mt. Sterling, Montgomery county, Kentucky, and there he grew to maturity, assisting with the work of the home place and attending such schools as those early times afforded, and although his text-book training was limited he always kept abreast of the times by home reading and study. Desiring to cast his lot in a new country where land was cheaper and opportunities greater, in 1835, be brought his widowed mother to Putnam county, Indiana reaching their future home in the autumn and settled on a farm fifteen miles north of Greencastle, which place is yet known as the Lockridge farm. Here, amid primitive conditions, Mr. Lockridge, then a young man of vigor and ambition, went to work and in the course of time had an excellent start and developed a fine farm, and being a man of excellent judgment, keen foresight and indefatigable energy, he seldom failed in carrying to successful issue whatever he undertook. He was certainly deserving of the same, for he was truly the architect of his own fortunes, being a purely self-made man, his father, Robert Lockridge, a fine Kentucky gentlemen of the old school, having died when Andrew M. was but twelve years old. The lad was thus early in life thrown practically upon his own resources and soon came in charge of the care and responsibility of the family, and such cares in the then frontier of the middle West, in 1823, meant more than we of today can fully appreciate. However, this was excellent as well as hard discipline and it fostered in the growing boy such traits of sterling character as to make for success. He was always a very reserved and unpretentious man, physically and mentally strong, yet seemingly unconscious of his strength and power. Although his life was devoted almost exclusively to agricultural and stock-raising pursuits, having few equals and no superiors in either line in western Indiana, being an unusually good judge of all kinds of livestock, and a student of the soil and all phases of progressive farming, yet he was interested in many and varied industries and was always ready to assist in a substantial way any movement promising good to those concerned and the general public, being a promoter and a financier by nature, a man who would have succeeded in any environment and at any line of endeavor. He was generous, giving freely of his means, never withholding from any needed good, taking a delight in anything which he believed would make his fellow man better, and sought to teach his associates by frugality and economy to be self-sustaining, independent and useful citizens. For thirty-three years this extraordinary man was vice-president and a director of the First National Bank of Greencastle and much of its prestige was due to his conservative advice in its management, and in all that has made this city beloved at home and respected abroad the impress of this truly good and honest man is plainly written. By nature modest, he never courted applause and despised ostentation, doing what he did for his community through other and more exalted motives, true rectitude being one of the fundamental principles of his character and a high regard for the sacredness of right. He scorned the mean compliance of recognized dishonesty, and would not stoop to the disgraceful tools of the trade; he was known as a man of honor in the commercial world. Another distinctly marked trait of his character was his indomitable energy - an energy that rose with irresistible force in the presence of accumulating difficulties, which he surmounted or pushed aside, ignoring the things that would have retarded in not completely thwarted others of less courageous spirit. Combined with this trait was his gift of great practical common sense, which made him a safe counselor to those who needed wise advice. His life and character were an open book. In 1858 Mr. Lockridge joined the Methodist church in Greencastle and continued true and faithful in his duties and obligations to the church. He was a man of deep religious conviction and carried his religion into his everyday life. After a brief illness, this good and useful citizen was summoned by the common fate of all to close his earthly accounts and take up his work on a higher plane of action, November 2, 1893. No less devoted to right living and right thinking was the noble life companion of Mr. Lockridge, known in her maidenhood as Elizabeth Farrow, whom he married February 23, 1843. She was the daughter of Col. A. S. Farrow, one of the county's leading pioneer citizens whose career is fully given in another part of this work. She was reared and educated in this county and had hosts of friends here, and she lived with Mr. Lockridge, sharing his joys and sorrows, for a period of nearly forty-five years, passing serenely away on February 4, 1888, leaving behind her the priceless heritage of her prayers and the memory of a beautiful Christian life, for she was a loving wife, a devoted mother and faithful friend, her whole life being one long sacrifice of self to the welfare and happiness of those she loved. Through all her long illness her thoughts were for others rather than herself. Mrs. Lockridge, like her husband, lived most of her life in Putnam county, having been born near Mt. Sterling, Montgomery county, Kentucky, November 24, 1826, and was therefore at the time of her death sixty-one years, two months and eleven days old. She was the seventh children of a family of ten children, three brothers of whom preceded her to the land of spirits. When she was four years of age, in the autumn of 1830, her family emigrated to Putnam county, Indiana, locating nine miles north of Greencastle. The country was new and sparsely settled and the advantages of school and church associations were meager, but in the little log school house of that day, she, with her brothers and sisters, obtained a fair common school education. When only thirteen years old, in a little log church on her father's farm, she professed the religion of the Christ and united with the Methodist church, in which faith she lived with unfaltering trust, without a cloud to dim her hope of immortality, until the moment her purified spirit passed into the mystic beyond. To Mr. and Mrs. Andrew M. Lockridge four children were born, the first born, Robert, dying in infancy; the other three reached maturity and have been leading and influential citizens of Putnam county since they came into manhood's estate, evincing in all the relations of life the wholesome home environment in which they were reared; they are Simpson, Alexander H. and Albert O.