Randolph County, Indiana
Adam R. Hiatt
One would find it necessary to search long and far to find a farm kept in better condition or managed under more up-to-date methods than that of Adam R. Hiatt, a progressive and honored citizen of Washington township, Randolph county, for he has not only worked hard and persistent in keeping everything in its proper place, but has been a student of local conditions and has widely read much literature as pertains to advanced methods of husbandry, so that he has been enabled to reap just rewards for his pains and labors from year to year, and, owing to the superb system of his operations, he accomplishes more at a less expenditure of labor than do most men. When he first began his career he learned that “haste makes waste” very frequently, and while he has endeavored to do everything with dispatch and neatness, he has always realized that there are times when rushing methods are not the best, when patience must be exercised. Himself a pioneer, he is a scion of one of the early-day Hoosier families, members of which have sought to do their full duty in the affairs of the communities where they have dispersed.
Mr. Hiatt was born January 9. 1837, on a farm near Bethel, Wayne county, Indiana. He is a son of Enos and Nancy (Miller) Hiatt. The father was born August 28, 1805, in Guilford county, North Carolina, and from there the family removed to Wayne county, Indiana, in 1810, and settled on a farm when that locality was practically a wilderness and they endured the usual hardships and privations incident to pioneer life. The Miller family originally lived near Versailles, Woodford county, Kentucky, being among the earliest families in the “dark and bloody ground” country. Grandmother Miller often told interesting stories of the Indians, who were numerous in that country when she was a girl. Once they made an attack on the Miller cabin and her mother was seized by an Indian who raised his tomahawk to brain her, when she wrenched loose, seized an axe and killed the red man. His tribesmen later retaliated by killing her husband the first time they ran onto him in the woods. Eleven children were born to Enos Hiatt and wife, namely: William; Adam R. (subject of this sketch), Rachel, Sallie, Elizabeth, Cornelius, Harrison T., Jabez, Martha A., Mary C., and George V.
Adam R. Hiatt grew up amid pioneer environments and he was compelled to work hard on the home farm when a boy. The advantages for an education in those days were very limited and he received little more than the knowledge of how to read and write, but in after life he has become a well informed man by wide home reading and contact with the world. Early in his youth he took up farming for a livelihood and this he has continued to the present time with ever-increasing success, remaining many years in Wayne county, finally removing to Randolph county and locating in Washington township, where he now owns a large, well-improved and productive farm, on which stands a substantial and convenient set of buildings and where an excellent grade of livestock may always be found, everything about his place denoting good management and thrift. He has worked hard and in his earlier years was a man of exceptional physical strength, and although he is now seventy-seven years of age he is still hale and hearty, as a result, very largely of his clean personal habits and methods of high thinking.
Mr. Hiatt was married May 27, 1855, at Bethel, Indiana, to Lucinda Wolf, who was born July 5, 1837, on a farm near Bethel, Wayne county, where she grew to womanhood and received a meagre education in the old- time rural schools. She has proved to be a faithful and genial helpmeet, and has borne her husband seven children, named as follows: Mary F., who married John D. Flatter; Cassius F., who married Cora Fulghum; Alvin I., who married Cora V. Chenoweth; Elmer P. is deceased; Harrison, who married Grace Anderson, who is deceased; Carrie C., who married Elmer E. Chenoweth; Ida Maud, who married Frank Chamness. These children were all given proper educational advantages and are all well situated in life and well liked wherever they are known. Two of the sons conduct a large hardware and furniture store in the town of Lynn, Indiana.
Mr. Hiatt was reared in the faith of the Christian church, from which he has never departed, and has been an elder in the church of this denomination for over twenty-five years, and he and his family are faithful in their support of the church. Politically, he is a Progressive. He is a man of public spirit and has done much for the general upbuilding of his township and county. He was a member of the board of commissioners of Randolph county from 1885 to 1890, was justice of the peace four years, and was assessor four years. As a public servant he proved most faithful and efficient, winning the hearty approval of all concerned, irrespective of party alignment. Fraternally, he has been a member of the Free and Accepted Masons since boyhood and his every-day life would indicate that he has made an effort to live up to its sublime precepts. He is a man of progressive ideas, ready to adopt new methods of agriculture when he sees they are practical. He was one of the first to purchase the self-binder in this locality, also among the first to secure other improved farming machinery. Mr. Hiatt was one of the first men of Randolph county to advocate the building of macadamized roads and to help build the first one. His home is known as a place of old-time hospitality, and, as a result of his numerous estimable characteristics he is held in highest esteem by a very wide circle of acquaintances and friends.
Past and Present of Randolph County, Indiana, 1914.
Contributed by Gina Richardson