COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY Of Henry County Indiana B.F. Bowen 1920 Page 362, 363,364, 365 Surnames in this biography are: Elliott, Hardee, Watkins, Swain, Cooper, Wilhoit, Terhune, Hazard, Corwin, Cooper, Van Matre, Wisehart, Hendricks, Voorhees, Turpie, Morton, Thurston, Theme NIMROD RICHARD ELLIOTT This highly respected and eminent resident of Mechanicsburg and president of the Farmers Bank at Middletown, Henry County, Indiana, was born in Perquimans County, North Carolina, May 4, 1827, and is a son of Ephraim B. and Eliza (Hardee) Elliott, the former also a native of Perquimans county, born in 1782, and the latter a native of Georgia. Both were of Scotch-Irish descent, of the Quaker faith and were married in North Carolina in 1820. Of five brothers of the Elliott family who had resided in England and who came to America from that country in the Colonial days one settled in North Carolina; one in Virginia and one in Kentucky; the others in all probability returned to England. Ephraim B. Elliott was a true American patriot and a lover of liberty and enlisted for the war of 1812 in defense of the rights of the Union against the encroachments of the British king and parliament, but as he had met with an accident in which one of his legs was broken, he was not placed upon active service. His financial circumstances were not very satisfactory in their character and to remedy the paucity of his purse he resorted to school teaching and at the same time read law. In 1829 he came to Indiana and first located in Wayne County in the fall of 1833, a year remarkable for a meteoric shower of unusual brilliancy. Later he came to Henry County and settled in Fall Creek Township, his son, Giles C., having preceded him in 1831. Nimrod R. Had also preceded his father earlier in the fall of 1833 and made his home with the wife of his elder brother, Giles C., while the latter was making the necessary trips to bring the family and their household goods, farm implements, etc. Giles C. Elliott erected a log cabin three miles southeast of Mechanicsburg on heavily wooded land, east of which Ephraim B. had already cleared up three or four acres. Some little time afterward, after having cleared up about twenty acres and made a small farm, he bought a new place in the woods and began all over again. On this place he passed the remainder of his life and died in 1859 when seventy-seven years old; his widow survived him until 1862 and died at about the same age. Ephraim B. Elliott kept up his interest in schoolwork, his earliest employment, until the last hours of his life. There was but one schoolhouse within five miles of his farm, and that was at Middletown. He therefore donated from his forty-acre tract a quarter-acre lot, upon which a log building was erected, and this is still known as the Elliott School house. It had a puncheon floor, slabs set on pegs served for desks and seats, one log removed from the wall formed an aperture which was denominated a window and this was covered with greased paper in lieu of glass. The first pedagogue was a Mr. Watkins, an old man from Virginia, who chewed an immense quantity of tobacco and constantly expectorated on the hot stove. He could barely add and subtract and would dash his whip on the floor and tell the pupils with in difference to get their own lessons. Ephraim B. Elliott was compelled to cipher out the more difficult problems, and, being a splendid penman, devoted much time to teaching his son, Nimrod R., this elegant accomplishment. He was very anxious that Dick, as Nimrod R was usually called, should be well educated and was willing to spend his last dollar to attain this end. Dick was accordingly sent to school at Greensboro, where in due time he secured a license to teach for two terms, one of these being for the school held in the Huff meeting house in the winter of 1850, the largest in the township and having an average attendance of forty pupils. In 1851 Nimrod R. Elliott began to sell goods in Mechanicsburg, a business he followed for over forty-three years, and also had interests in stores at Cadiz and Middletown. Mr. Elliott started with a capital amounting to about three hundred and twenty-five dollars, borrowed one hundred and fifty dollars and of this total invested four hundred dollars in stock. During his long career as a merchant in Mechanicsburg he occupied only one site, but at different times used three buildings, one, a frame, being destroyed by fire in 1863; this was replaced by a frame and later by a brick in 1866, which is still standing. Mr. Elliott carried a stock of from five thousand dollars to fifteen thousand dollars and his annual sales averaged fifteen thousand dollars to forty thousand dollars. Mr. Elliott had several partners at different times, but started trade alone. His first associate was Ezra Swain, for ten years; his second, Elihu Swain, for twelve years, and next with Imla W. Cooper for twenty years as salesman and partner. Finally the firm consisted of himself alone. Whenever he made money Mr. Elliott would invest all his profit in real estate, and whenever he saw anything at all that promised to net him a dollar he would buy it. He carried on a long credit trade, but he could also buy on four and six month’s time. Mr. Elliott did all the buying and four times a year-visited Cincinnati on horseback. Cambridge City was his nearest trading point by canal and his first stopping place on the railroad was Chesterfield, on what is now known as the Bellefontaine railroad, and goods were brought to the village with four-horse teams. As he held the confidence of the people in a very large degree, he frequently had during the Civil war as much as twenty-five thousand dollars at a time in his safe in keeping for his neighbors. He did by far the largest mercantile business in the township and retired there from February 16, 1895. He next began to invest in farmlands, although he had already much of that class of property in his possession. In partnership with another person, he purchased one hundred and sixty acres adjoining the town of Mechanicsburg at thirty-five dollars per acre, but soon afterward offered this partner five hundred dollars to take it off his hands, but this the latter declined to do. So Mr. Elliott put it under cultivation and has converted it into one of the most profitable places of its size in the township. He also owns the homestead of his late father, his possessions being in tracts of one hundred and ninety, four hundred, one hundred and ninety acres, or a grand total of nearly seven hundred and eighty acres. He paid as high as seventy dollars per acre for a one-hundred-and-sixty-acre tract just after the close of the Civil War part of which he sold for one hundred and sixteen dollars per acre; but while he has bought as low thirty-five dollars per acre, the average cost has been fifty or fifty five dollars per acre. He generally keeps from sixty to seventy-five head of cattle, mostly thoroughbred, and although he has been president of the Middletown Fair Association for sixteen years, had never made an exhibit. He and Thomas Wilhoit were the founders of the association and respectively hold the offices of president and vice-president at the present time. Mr. Elliott has also done something in the way of pork-packing at Middletown, but the result has not been altogether satisfactory to a man of his business acumen. Mr. Elliott has always been an advocate of good roads, as being of incalculable value to farmers and other citizens. He was president of the first pike road company at Middletown and of others at Mechanicsburg, until all the pikes were turned over to the county; he is now aiding in the promotion of the interurban electric line. In Company with John Terhune and George Hazard, in 1874 Mr. Elliott started the Farmers Bank at Middletown, with a capital stock of fifty thousand dollars. This bank carried on business for ten months, when it was sold to a company at Anderson and was organized as the Farmers Bank of Anderson, with Mr. Terhune as cashier, John E. Corwin as president and Mr. Elliott as vice-president, with the capital stock fixed at one hundred thousand dollars. It was run for four years and then converted into a national bank with a capital of fifty thousand dollars. At the end of the four years Mr. Elliott sold his stock in this bank and organized the present Farmers Bank of Middletown in May, 1882, with a capital of thirty thousand dollars, and officered as follows: N. R. Elliott, president: Thomas Wilhoit, vice-president; E. L Elliott, cashier; B. H. Davis assistant cashier, with I.W. Cooper, William Wisehart and Thomas Wilhoit as additional stockholders. The capital stock still remains the same; the deposits average one hundred and ninety-three thousand dollars and the earnings or surplus is disposed of, as the laws require. The present officers of the bank are N. R. Elliott, president: Adolph Cooper, vice-president, E. L. Elliott, cashier, and Joseph Van Matre, assistant cashier, and the bank stands as one of the most responsible moneyed institutions in the state of Indiana. Mr. Elliott was also for a time a stockholder in the Hagerstown Bank, but concluded to concentrate his financial interests in Middletown, where he has been an earnest and liberal promoter of all its industries. In politics Mr. Elliott has always been a stanch Democrat, having been even when a boy inimical to the Whig doctrine of protection or high tariff imposts. In 1884 he was a presidential elector from the sixth congressional district and was alternate at the national convention. He attended all the national conventions, both Democratic and Republican, for twenty years with the exception of the last few. Always in the councils of his party’s leaders, Mr. Elliott was an intimate friend of Thomas A. Hendricks and. was a delegate to the state convention when that distinguished Democratic states man refused to accept a nomination for the office of governor and was likewise a member of the committee appointed to call on Hendricks and urge him to accept which the latter did finally and was elected. Mr. Elliott was also quite intimate with Senators Voorhees and Turpie and a close friend of Governor Morton. In his prime he was selected by the Democratic managers as a leading speaker, and his extraordinary eloquence never failed to draw about him immense audiences and to strengthen the weak-kneed and convince the doubting. In religion Mr. Elliott is a Universalist, but freely contributes to the support of all religious societies. Of secret orders he is not a member of any except the Masonic. He was made a Mason in 1852 at Middletown and is a charter member of the local lodge, which was organized in 1858 and of which he was the first worshipful master, holding this exalted position sixteen years. He has sat in the grand lodge and has done some committee work therein, but has refused to take grand lodge work proper. He is a member of New Castle Chapter, Royal Arch. and Knightstown Commandery, Knights Templar. He attended the national conclaves at Cleveland, Chicago. St. Louis, Washington, Denver, Pittsburgh, and Louisville, and at the latter city in 1901was in the march from start to finish. Mr. Elliott is a member of the Eastern Star branch of the order at Middletown, as is also his wife. During the war of the Rebellion Mr. Elliott was a loyal and devoted friend of the Union and aided in raising all die military companies in Henry County. He was constant and untiring in his care of the families of many of the soldiers who went to the front and expended more money in this and other ways than will ever be known. In temperance work Mr. Elliott has been active and ardent all his life and was identified with it as far back as the early Washington movement; in public educational matters he favors compulsion when necessary. Nimrod R. Elliott has a family of two children. Ida Florence and Erasmus Leonidas. Of these Ida Florence is the wife of J. M. Thurston, M. D., of Richmond, Indiana and a professor in the Physio-Medical College at Indianapolis: she finished her education in the New Castle Academy, was married young and has one daughter, Eva, who is the wife of Hugo Theme, professor of languages at the University of Michigan. Erasmus Leonidas Elliott, now the cashier of the Farmers Bank at Middletown, was graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan, is a Republican in politics and has served two terms in the state legislature of Indiana.