George W. Phares
The genealogy of the
Phares family runs well back into. the eighteenth
century. We first hear of John Phares, who was born November
11, 1736,
and left eight children. His son, William, born February 19, 1765, came
from New Jersey at an early period of the settlement of the settlement of the
West and located
in Ohio . He was the father of nine children. One of his sons, named Isaac,
also a native of New Jersey, married Elizabeth Brown in Ohio, by whom he had
seven children: Jane, Sarah, Naomi, Nancy, John,
Isaac and Matthew B. By a
second marriage with Pauline M. Holbrook, he also had seven children:
William, Robert H., Mary C., James L. and George
W., besides two that died in
infancy. Isaac proved to be a veritable patriarch, as he had seventy-eight
grandchildren. William Holbrook, father of his second wife, migrated from
Stokes county, North Carolina. to Indiana, in the fall of 1826, settled in Rush
county, near Manilla. He was born July 5, 1779, and died February 14,
1841. He married Lucy A. Crim, who was born September 17, 1779, and died March
6, 1837. Her children were Nancy T. Bronson, Paulina M.
Phares, Emilia
Hester, Jane Brown, James, John, Jacob, Franklin,
Henry and George W. The two last mentioned were killed at the battle of Stone River and all of
the
other children afterward died. Matthew Brown, father of Isaac
Phares' first
wife, was born in Ireland and emigrated to South Carolina with his parents,
when he was ten years old, and had nine brothers. He became a soldier in
the Revolutionary war, and died in 1839 aged eighty-six years. His wife,
Jane Jones, of Welsh descent, died in 1841, aged eighty-nine years. Eight
of
the children, David, Robert, Samuel, John, Catherine,
Nancy, Elizabeth, and Sarah, came to Ohio in 1803, and settled in Hamilton county.
Isaac Phares,
who was born in 1781, died in 1842. Paulina Holbrook was born
May 4,
1804, in Stokes county, North Carolina, and was the daughter of a slave
owner. She died in May, 1879.
George W., youngest of the children of
Isaac and Paulina (Holbrook)
Phares, was born in Union township, Shelby county, Indiana, Octcber 25,
1840. He rose to be a man of wealth and prominence in his township, where
he was regarded as one of the most successful farmers. He served as Trustee
of his township for five years and as one of the solid citizens was consulted
whenever a movement of importance was on hand. Reared a Baptist, he became a member of the Methodist church at Pleasant Hill in
1874, and at the
present time is affiliated with the First Methodist Episcopal church at
Shelbyville. March 5, 1867, he married Mary, daughter of
Peter and Mary ( Miller)
Yarling, the former born at Hessen Darmstadt, Germany, July 3, 1810. Mary
Miller was born at Hanover, Germany, March 1, 1811. Peter came to America
in 1832, worked for a while as a laborer in Cincinnati, entered eighty acres
of land in Marion township, Shelby county, Indiana, and later settled on the
same. By occasional purchases he increased his holdings until at the time of
his death in 1876 he owned four hundred eighty acres. Mary Miller came
to Ohio in 1834, when she wad twenty-four years old, and married in 1835; she died February
9, 1885. She was the mother of nine children: Phillip,
born January 12, 1836, died March 5, 1852; Elizabeth, born October
14, 1837,
died August 21, 1869; Henry, born December 15, 1840, died in the
army,
December 27, 1862; Mary, born September 13, 1842; John, born February l 2,
1844; Michael, born December 15, 1845; Jacob, born September 23, 1848;
Catherine, January 3, 1851. George, the third in order of birth, was
born May 7, 1839, died March 23, 1879. George W. Phares and wife were the parents
of the following children: Mary Catherine, born January 2. 1868, married
Alonzo Rhodes, December 17, 1885; she has one daughter, Grace. John
William,
a practicing physician and surgeon of Evansville, was born December
28, 1868; he married Louisa Houghland in September, 1901, and they have
one little daughter named Mary Louise. Henry Elsworth Phares,
born July
1, 1870, is also a physician; he married Gertrude Carney, in April,
1899,
and
they have one daughter named Frances. (See sketch of Dr. H. E. Phares
elsewhere in these pages.) The next in order of birth was a daughter, who
died soon after her birth which occurred October 29, 1873. Millie A., born
October 4, 1874, died December 10, 1874. Carrie Frances, born February
27, 1876, married Dr. W. W. Tindall on June 25, 1903, and
they have one son, William. (See sketch of Doctor Tindall.) Nora
Belle, born January 14, 1878, married Charles Plummer, April
12, 1899; they had one child, Florence Irene, who died in early
childhood.
George W. Phares remained
on his farm until 1901, when he retired and removed to Shelbyville, where he is
spending the evening of his days at a pleasant home on South Harrison
street. He owns five hundred fifty acres of land in Marion township, and
enjoys high standing in the business and agricultural world.
Chadwick's History of Shelby County, Indiana by Edward H. Chadwick, B.S.,
assisted by well known local talent, B.F. Bowen & Co, Publishers:
Indianapolis, IN, 1909, pages 400-402.
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming for Christal
Callahan Culp
Biography Index
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