This book has no cover, and no index, and no author. I bought it on Ebay; it just has the insides, but it is full of Indiana biographies. I am not researching this family, just thought I would share. I do not know anymore about these families or these surnames. NOTE: I don’t know if there is any additional mention of this family in the book, it has no index. I do not want to sell this book. I am typing the biographies from it. Typed by Lora Radiches: Other surnames mentioned in the biography of WALTER STEVENS RATLIFF are: Ratliff, Radcliffe, Redcliffes, Frane, Fletcher, St. Charles, Kindley, Crawford, Corrie, Weymire, Comer WALTER STEVENS RATLIFF, farmer, insurance underwriter, and a man of affairs at Richmond, was born in that Indiana city April 24, 1860. His ancestors were among the earliest settlers of Eastern Indiana, and the records of his ancestry, preserved in detail, present many interesting characters, not only in Indiana but running back into Colonial times of American history and further back in England. The family name for many generations was spelled Radcliffe. The origin of the name is supposed to have been due to the fact that members of the family lived in the vicinity of Scarborough, England, where the head lands looking out on the North Sea are high red cliffs, and the dwellers thereabout were frequently referred to as Redcliffes, or, as the name came to be spelled and pronounced, Radcliffe. At Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, in 1620, was born James Radcliffe, son of Joseph. When he was about fourteen years of age his parents moved to Bristol. In 1665 he married a young Quaker lady whose given name was Mary, and a few years later he was elected a member of the British Parliament and moved to London. His oldest son, James Radcliffe II, was born at Bristol August 3, 1666, and was four years of age when his parents moved to London. His father was associated with Commodore Penn of the English navy, and naturally the sons of these two distinguished gentlemen became close friends. When James Radcliffe was seventeen years of age his parents gave their reluctant consent that he cross the Atlantic with William Penn, and after a voyage of fifty-eight days on the ship Welcome they arrived October 29, 1682. James Radcliffe was present at the famous treaty with the Indians made under the old elm tree in 1683 and had many associations with his good friend William Penn. He died at Middletown in 1752, at the age of eighty-six. His son, Joseph Radcliffe was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, September 17, 1720, son of James and Mary (Frane) Radcliffe. At the age of twenty-six he left home for a trip down the South Atlantic coast, and eventually concluded his 550-mile horseback journey at Elizabeth City, North Carolina. There he met, wooed and married a young Quakeress, Mary Fletcher, daughter of Ralph and Mary Fletcher. Mary Fletcher had informed her wooer that she could more willingly give her hand in marriage if the name Radcliffe could be more Americanized, for it appeared to her as too much English, being mindful of the many insults and persecutions inflicted on the Quakers by the petty government officials. Thus it was that the name Ratliff was adopted, a form of spelling and pronunciation which has been accepted by their descendants for almost two hundred years. Joseph and Mary were married March 13, 1747. Their fourth child, Cornelius Ratliff, was born near Elizabeth City December 2, 1756, and married, January 3, 1781, Elizabeth St. Charles, who was born at Elizabeth City July 26, 1759. Their son, Cornelius Ratliff, Jr., was born December 25, 1798, in Guilford County, North Carolina, the seat of the colony of Friends or Quakers in Western North Carolina. He married Mary Kindley, who was born at Waynesville, Ohio, May 15, 1802. In the year 1809 Cornelius Ratliff I, made a long trip from North Carolina to Indiana Territory on horse back and at times, when he tired of riding, would walk his horse, carrying his rifle in one hand and leading his horse by the other, and thus reached Wayne County, Indiana. He bought a quarter section of land north of Richmond at $1.25 an acre. After completing his purchase he returned to North Carolina by horseback. There he disposed of his estate, comprising 1,414 acres, in Guilford County, being paid for it $3,650, and this money, consisting of English severeigns, he brought back to Indiana in a stone jar, and which for protection he buried in a gopher hole, which he covered over with earth, this primitive hiding place serving as a bank for safety. He used some of his capital in the purchase of additional land until he owned a section, and part of this was developed by him. Much of the land was inherited by his son, Cornelius Ratliff II, later inherited by a grandson, Cornelius Ratliff III. The parents of Walter Stevens Ratliff were James Cornelius and Mary F. (Crawford) Ratliff. His father was born at Richmond, July 6, 1827, and his mother was born there August 26, 1832. They were married November 19, 1852, and then settled on a farm near Centerville. James Cornelius Ratliff graduated from the medical and dental departments of Western Reserve University at Cleveland, Ohio, and for two years practiced in Richmond. Then, with two other men, he started a plant for the manufacture of news print paper, also calendared paper and wrapping paper, and for power they built a dam on the Whitewater River known as the Thistlewait-Ratliff Dam. After three years he sold his holdings in the paper plant, returned to the farm near Centerville, but spent his last years at Richmond. He was a director of the Centerville National Bank and after moving the institution to Richmond he was associated with others in organizing the Union National Bank, of which he was vice president for many years. For thirteen years he was honored with the important educational post of trustee of Purdue University, and for eight years of the time was president of the board. He was also a trustee of Miami College at Wilmington, Ohio, and served two terms as a member of the Indiana General Assembly. During the Civil war he was enrolling officer and justice of the peace at Centerville. His life was made up of a round of useful duties and for a long time he was local crop reporter for the United States Department of Agriculture. He served in nearly every official capacity of the Hicksite-Friends Church, representing it at many yearly meetings. He was secretary of the Wayne Farmers Insurance Company, was president of the board of park commissioners of the Glenn Miller Park, and was president of the old National Highway through Wayne County. James Cornelius Ratliff died October 16, 1909. His wife, who passed away December 31, 1901, was a daughter of Daniel B. and Agnes (Corrie) Crawford, and there are some very interesting ancestral characters on this side of the family. Daniel B. Crawford came to Richmond in 1831. He had grown up in Baltimore, Maryland, with his uncle, Robert Crawford, a pork packer, and he learned that business. On starting west he traveled down the Ohio River and with companions went up the Kentucky River, selecting a place where they cut timber and assembled a raft. This raft was loaded with barrel staves, and they floated the cargo down the river. During a rise in the stream the boat ran on to a snag of tree, and all the occupants were dumped into the water, but without serious injury. They finally floated their cargo of staves to New Orleans, where both the staves and the timbers of the raft were sold, and he started back home by sailing vessel across the Gulf of Mexico and up the Atlantic Coast. At Richmond Daniel B. Crawford was connected with pork packing for a number of years, and he experienced the ups and downs of the market changes. Once he sent a cargo of pork to Cincinnati, and the market slumped so that he lost his farm, but later another venture in the pork business at the same market brought him sufficient profit to recover his farm. He was one of the early directors of the First National Bank of Richmond and was a devout Methodist, being superintendent of the Sunday School for twenty years. During the fifteen years he was in the pork business he was associated with the firm Venneman, Reid & Company at Richmond. Walter S. Ratliff’s grandmother Ratliff was a granddaughter of John Rudolph Weymire, who served as a bodyguard to the King of Prussia, being of the type of manhood selected by the King for that purpose. He stood six feet, two inches high, and weighed 225 pounds. About 1750 he immigrated to America, settling in Guilford County, North Carolina. There is now a record of 18,000 of his descendants who have been found in every state of the United States. Walter Stevens Ratliff, who is the acknowledged historian of the Ratliff family, showed an aptitude for learning at an early age. Before he was four years of age he was through the first reader of the district township school, and on the last day of school drew from memory upon the blackboard a map of the continent of Europe. When he was thirteen years of age the family moved to a farm at the northwest corner of the City of Richmond. The following year at a public writing school he took the prize as the best penman, the prize being a scholarship at the Richmond Business College. During the years of his youth he helped his father with the livestock, worked as a section hand on the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad, later became a brakeman, then a fireman. In September, 1879, he entered Purdue University and on June 3, 1883, graduated with the honors of his class and the degrees Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Science in agriculture. These scholastic honors he won though he had largely supported himself while in school by manual and skilled labor and by assisting members of the regular faculty in instruction. Subsequently he completed a two-year course at Earlham College for the Master of Science degree in forestry, ornithology and bacteriology, and subsequently did post-graduate work in forestry, entomology and botany at the University of California. During the World war Mr. Ratliff was member of the inspection board in connection with the United States army, was statistician of Wayne County, Indiana, reporting directly to the United States Department of Agriculture, and for a number of years lectured at farmers’ institutes and federations throughout the states of Ohio and Indiana. He is a member of the Indiana Academy of Science, has been vice president of the Indiana Audubon Society, is a member of the National Audubon society, member of the National Geodetic Society of Philadelphia, for twenty-five years was secretary of the Wayne County Agricultural and Horticultural Society; twelve years secretary of the Old Settlers Picnic Association; member of the Wayne County Historical Society, vice president of the Indiana Horticultural Society, and is a member of many Masonic bodies and other fraternal organizations. For many years Mr. Ratliff has been an outstanding authority as a horticulturist, entomologist and biologist. For the Division of Pomology at Washington he furnished fruits and grains for the International Exposition at Paris in 1900. He was horticulturist for the Indiana State Fair for several consecutive fairs at Indianapolis and was superintendent of the Indiana Fruit Exhibit at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. He has made annual reports of the habits and migrations of native birds, and has the largest self-prepared collection of taxidermies mounted specimens in Indiana. As a naturalist he has delivered many courses of lectures and addresses on ornithology, entomology, botany, forestry and meteorology. His literary-scientific work includes many contributions to magazines and agricultural periodicals. He was agricultural editor for the Richmond Sun-Telegram, wrote a “Reminiscent and Historical History of Pioneer Families” of the Whitewater Valley, assisted in writing and compiling data for the two volumes of Memoirs of Wayne County and the City of Richmond, and wrote The War History of his son, Sergeant Verlin C. Ratliff. Among other noteworthy phases of his versatile career he was civil engineer of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad on the Indiana Division and also on the Louisville Division. He was superintendent of the Wayne County Turnpike Company while his father served as president and treasurer of the company. Mr. Ratliff in recent years has been writing insurance at Richmond. As an officer of the Wayne County Circuit Court he served as executive, commissioner, trustee and administrator in the settlement of estates and as guardian of insane wards and minor children. He comes of a Republican family and has served through three sessions of the General Assembly of Indiana, and later was defeated by a small margin for the State Senate. He is the present county assessor of Wayne County. Mr. Ratliff married, November 12, 1885, Mary Etta Comer. They had one child, Sergeant Verlin Comer Ratliff, born March 14, 1895.