NEBECKER, George - Putnam

Geo. Nebeker, banker, Covington. Much of the improvement and prosperity of Fountain county is due to the energy, enterprise and perseverance of a few of the early pioneers, and there were none, probably, who took a more active part in the building up of all institutions pertaining to the general welfare of the pioneers than Mr. Lucas Nebeker, the father of the subject of this brief memoir. He was born in the State of Delaware, but subsequently became a resident of Pickaway county, Ohio, and in 1823 came west and entered land lying about three miles north of Covington, now forming a part of the fine farm of 640 acres owned by his son, Geo. Nebeker. In 1824 he raised a small crop, built a cabin, and prepared a home for his family, whom he moved out in the fall of that year. The family consisted of his wife, Hannah (Morris), and eight children. He was a zealous member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and a hard worker in promoting the cause of religion in those days. His cabin, which was the first shingle-roofed building ever erected in the county, and which is still standing, was often selected as a meeting place of bishops and other prominent men of the church, to whom Mr. Nebeker extended a generous hospitality and a helping hand. His identification with the early settlement is given more extensively in the general history of the county. Geo. Nebeker was born in Pickaway county, Ohio, August 20, 1813. His early life was spent in Fountain county, where he acquired such education as the imperfect school system of those times afforded. Possessing, even in boyhood, a clear analytical mind, and having been taught by his father those principles of honesty and industry, Mr. Nebeker, without an apparent effort, grew rapidly to a position of prosperity and influence. He has taken an active part in almost every enterprise the object of which was to benefit the people of Fountain county. In 1850 he was one of a company of four who began the building of the bridge across the Wabash river. This bridge was subsequently completed at a cost of about $20,000, and is still the only wagon bridge across the river that affords a market to the people whose trade is tributary to the commercial interests of Covington. Mr. Nebeker was formerly a member of the whig party, but since its demise has been a strong republican. In 1862 he was appointed the first collector of internal revenue in Fountain county, and in 1863 was appointed by President Lincoln one of the three commissioners of the Board of Enrollment for his district. This appointment necessitated his removal to La Fayette; and just here it may be well to state that Mr. Nebeker was married in 1832, to Miss Mary, daughter of George Steely, by whom he reared a family of four sons and two daughters, and who died September 7, 1870. Mr. Nebeker has given each of his children a classical education. In 1863, when obliged to go to La Fayette, he moved his wife and three youngest children to Evanston, near Chicago, where the children were in college during the time that Mr. Nebeker was in the employ of the government and for two years after the close of his services. Mr. Nebeker has held the office of president of the First National Bank of Attica, in which he is a stockholder, since its organization, and in 1867, at the organization of the Farmers' Bank of Covington, by himself, Mr. Gish, and others, he was elected president of that institution, and is still connected with it in that capacity. At this bank he spends a part of his time, though Mr. Gish is the active member of the firm. Mr. Nebeker was for a long time one of the directors of the Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western railroad, and he is now connected in that capacity with the new railroad, in which he is a stockholder, that is in course of construction between Attica and Covington. He has for many years been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and he is also a Knight Templar and member of the order of A. F. and A. M. November 15, 1871, he was married to Miss Louisa Moore, widow of Wm. Moore, who resided in Terre Haute, Indiana. She is a lady of refinement and culture, and in every way well worthy to be the wife of a man whose name and reputation stand without a reproach before a people among whom he has spent sixty-six years of his life.