Simeon  B.  Carey


            John Cary,  the ancestor of the family in America, came from Somersetshire, England, about the year 1634 and joined the Plymouth Colony.  His name is found among the original proprietors and settlers in Duxbury and Bridgewater, the land he owned having been a part of the grant made by the Pockonocket Indians in 1639.  Some of his descendants of the eighth generation still occupy a portion of the original tract.  John Cary was the constable of Bridgewater in 1656, the year of its incorporation, and also the first town clerk.  He married  Elizabeth, daughter of  Francis Godfrey, one of the first settlers of Bridgewater, in 1644, to whom were born eleven children.  Of this number his son  John, whose birth occurred in 1645, married  Abigail, daughter of  Samuel Allen,  and had eleven children.  In the direct line of descent was born in 1735, in Morris County, N. J.,  Ezra Cary,  the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, who married  Lyda Thompson,  and removed to Western Pennsylvania in 1777.  Their children were  Phoebe,  Rufus,  Cephas,  Ephraim,  Absalom,  Elias,  and  George.  Cephas, of this number, was born in New Jersey on Dec. 25, 1776, and accompanied his father to Western Pennsylvania, and subsequently to Ohio in 1790, stopping for a time on the Ohio near Wheeling, Va.  From thence he repaired to a farm in Shelby  County, Ohio, where he resided until his removal in 1840 to Sidney, in the same county.  His death occurred at the latter place, at the age of ninety-four years.  Mr. Cary was married first to  Jane Williamson,  to whom were born eight children, and second to  Rhoda Jerard, who was the mother of eight children.  His son by the second marriage,  Simeon B., was born Dec. 20, 1822, in Shelby County, Ohio, in a log house upon the farm of his father, where he remained until eighteen years of age, this period being occupied in labor upon the farm or in gaining such advantages of education as could be obtained at the neighboring log school-house.  His father then removed to Sidney, the county-seat, where where the superior advantages of a grammar school were afforded.  He soon after entered a store as clerk and acted in that capacity until 1844, when a co-partnership was formed with his brother, under the firm-name of  B. W. & S. B. Carey.  He represented the firm in the purchase of goods in New York, being the youngest merchant from that locality among the many buyers of that period.  As an illustration of the difficulties of travel, it may be mentioned that his route was by stage from Sidney to Cincinnati, and by steamer from thence to Brownsville, where he traveled again by stage over the Allegheny Mountains, and thus by railroad to New York.  During the time of this partnership he, with his brothers  Thomas  and  Jason,  made the overland journey with pack-mules and horses to California, tarrying at Salt Lake City, and reaching Sacramento three months from the date of departure.  They soon after removed to the mountains and engaged in traffic between Sacramento and the mines.  In the spring of 1851, after an absence of twelve months, the illness of Thomas Carey occasioned their somewhat precipitate return, via Isthmus of Panama and New Orleans.  The death of his partner,  Benjamin W., occurred in 1851, when Simeon B. closed the business, and two years later removed to New York, where a more extended field was opened to him.  Mr. Carey first became a clerk in the hardware establishment of  Messrs. Cornelis & Willis,,  36 Cortland Street, where after an acceptable service of two years in that capacity, he in 1855 was made a partner, the firm becoming  Cornelis, Willis & Carey.  In 1869, owing to various changes which had meanwhile occurred in the wholesale and jobbing trade, the firm was dissolved, when he removed to Indianapolis and again embarked in the wholesale and jobbing hardware business, under the firm-name of Layman, Carey & Co.  This form a small business has become the most extensive and leading wholesale hardware establishment in the State, occupying a spacious building at 67 and 69 South Meridian Street, equipped with two hydraulic elevators.  Their trade is not confined to the limits of Indiana, but extends into Ohio and Illinois.
            Mr. Carey is in politics a Republican, but not an active political partisan.  He is in religion a supporter of the Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis.  He was married Nov. 2, 1854, to Miss Lydia, daughter of  Eldad and  Olive King, of Westfield, Mass.  Their children are  Ida Fannie, born in New York, May 3, 1857, who died May 25, 1857;  Nellie, whose birth occurred in New York, July 14, 1859, and her death Oct. 26, 1859;  Jennie King, born Oct. 15, 1860, in New York; and  Samuel Cornell, born in Brooklyn, Dec. 16, 1861, now associated with his father in business.  Jennie King was married Oct. 26, 1881, to  O. S. Brumback, of Toledo, Ohio, who was born Dec. 2, 1855, in Delaware County, Ohio, and graduated at Princeton, N. J., in 1877, receiving the degree of A. B., and in 1880 that of A.M. from the same college.  He graduated at the Law Department of Ann Arbor University, Michigan, receiving in 1879 the degree of LL.B., when he located in Toledo in the practice of his profession.
History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, by B. R. Sulgrove, Philadelphia: L. H. Everts & Co., 1884,  page 159-160.
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming

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