NELSON, James B. - Putnam

The progenitors of the subject of this sketch, being of English-Scotch-Irish blood, were among the settlers of Loudoun county [sic], Virginia, in the early years of the eighteenth century. From this point of settlement in the New World the different members of the family reached out into various quarters of the west, then as wild as it was alluring. One branch of the family removed to Mount Sterling, Montgomery county [sic], Kentucky, and there, on the 7th day of February, 1796, James I. Nelson, the Putnam county [sic] pioneer, was born. In 1819 he married Mary, daughter of Col. Joshua Yates, of Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. In 1821 he made an observational survey on horseback of central Indiana, entered a tract of land about ten miles north of Greencastle, and there, in the primevil forest, erected a log house. In 1829 he put his worldly goods and his little family into a couple of covered wagons, and started for the new home in the green woods. His eldest son, Franklin P. Nelson, the father of the subject, was then a lad of eight years and it fell to his lot, in this homing pilgrimage, to follow behind and drive the cows. James I. Nelson was a typical pioneer, a man of education, strong character and stout heart. Being a pronounced abolitionist, he gratuitously, and purely from considerations of conscience, liberated his slaves before leaving Kentucky. He was a profoundly religious man and, though somewhat of Puritan mold and temper, he was never an intolerant churchman. All his transactions were characterized by simplicity and hard sense. He was one of the few men, of like type and character, who were pioneer settlers in Putnam county [sic]. Happy indeed is the lot of any county whose resources are developed and whose early life is stimulated and attuned by such a noble citizenry! The new home in the woods was developed, and the farm cultivated, after the manner then prevailing. There fourteen children were reared to maturity; there the mother died in 1850; there, by the application of indefatigable industry and rare judgment, the family belongings increased from fifteen hundred dollars, the amount carried up from Kentucky in 1829, to ninety-eight thousand dollars at the death of the pioneer in 1859. Franklin P. Nelson, at the age of twenty, married Catherine Ann, daughter of Capt. Isaac Bell, who had recently moved his family into the county from Kentucky. The young couple struggled up through all the hardships incident to poverty in a new country, making their own furniture, clothing and shoes. This initial industry and self denial, however, in time brought its reward, for the twain prospered, and Mr. Nelson became identified with the leading agricultural, industrial, financial, educational and moral movements of the county. His holdings of land amounted to three thousand acres; he was an incorporator and director in both the First National Bank of Greencastle and the Greencastle Iron and Nail Works; he was the largest contributor to the erection and maintenance of College Avenue Methodist Episcopal church [sic] in Greencastle; he was, at Mr. DePauw’s special request, trustee of the guarantee endowment fund of the university, and was the largest local contributor to the fund necessary to secure the endowment from Mr. DePauw. In 1868 his wife died without issue. In 1870 he married Eliza Jean Brannan, of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. To this union were born two children, the subject of this sketch, on February 8, 1871, and Eliza Jean, now the wife of Judge William W. Penfield, of New York City, on November 4, 1872. Mr. Nelson lived to see his two children grown to maturity and on November 5, 1896, his long and useful life came to its close. His widow, now in her seventieth year, has for two years past been traveling in foreign countries. She is in good health, is intensely interested in all world movements, especially those of a social and political nature, and, at this writing, is in Alexandria, Egypt. James B. Nelson received his education in the public schools and DePauw University at Greencastle, and in the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, graduating from the latter institution with the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1893. He was a member of the legal fraternity of Phi Delta Phi. Since graduation Mr. Nelson has been engaged successfully in various lines of business, being connected officially with several important financial and industrial concerns in Indiana and Iowa. His principal business, however, is the management of his land and livestock interests, his farm holdings in Putnam, Parke, and Owen counties now aggregating over twenty-three hundred acres, besides which, he has large speculative holdings in Texas and Minnesota. In religion and politics Mr. Nelson is exceedingly liberal. He takes an active interest in all political matters but never as a contestant for place. His activities are enlisted more for the appealing men and measures than for strictly partisan weal. In 1894 Mr. Nelson married Grace, daughter of Grafton and Julia Noble Johnson, of Greenwood, Indiana. Mrs. Nelson is from a long and worthy line of ancestry, traced through the printed genealogy back as far as the early years of the sixteenth century, the recent generations of which have been prominently identified with the history of Indiana. She is a niece of the late United States Senator James Noble; of the late Governor Noah Noble, and also of the late Gen. Samuel Canby, the noted Indian fighter who figured so conspicuously in the early history of the state. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson have one child, Julia Jean, who was born April 8, 1895. Mr. Nelson’s sister is now deeply engrossed in social and civic work in New York, and is well known throughout New York city and state, not only as a speaker on civic problems and the equal franchise, but also as an organizer among women for industrial and social uplift.