Descendants  of
Thomas  Benton  Carey


        As I read the postings [1906-1907] containing so many names of individuals in Brandywine Twp. and the surrounding area, I was reminded of  Thomas Benton Carey  who settled in Fairland with his parents, Thomas V. and Margaret (Lee) Carey  in 1852.  He was born in Wheeling, before there was a West Virginia in 1839.  He lost both his parents within four years of settling in Fairland.  He married three times, first to  Susan E. Reed  in 1868. They had three children:  Charles G., Mary Irene, and Margaret B. Carey.  He married  Sarah J. Holmes  in 1885, and married a final time to  Margaret Ann Endsley  in 1894.  They had one child, Bonnie Lucille Carey  born in 1895, who I was honored to meet when she was 95 years old and a resident of Heritage Manor in Shelbyville.
        Thomas B. Carey was a veteran of the Civil War and worked in many trades including that of salesman, carpenter, and painter.  He was also a news correspondent for 40 years for The Shelby Volunteer which later merged with The Shelby Democrat sending in many tidbits of news and gossip from the Fairland area.  He called himself "Gid" which you see mentioned at the head of a few of the newspaper articles posted.  T. B. Carey was elected a Justice of the Peace in 1872 and 1876 and was a Shelby County Deputy Sheriff under Sheriff Albert McCorkle for two years, according to Chadwick's.  In 1909, he was appointed engrossing clerk of the House in the Indiana Legislature, but in 1910, the census taker wrote that he was a notary.  He died October 7, 1919, in Fairland and today 400 North, both East and West, is known as Carey Road.
        My research in genealogy and talks I had with my husband's grandmother, Lottie (Nail) Taylor Chesser  who was 96 when she passed away in 1982, led me to whom Lottie had referred to as "some Chesser woman" in Fairland.  She had heard of  Lucille Chesser  or her daughter  Justine Lavonne Chesser, but they had never met even though  Mauric e was a son of Lottie's brother-in-law.  Lucille Carey  had met  Maurice Chesser, a son of  Ira and Daisy (Law) Chesser, while they were substitute teachers at the Smithland School.  They married shortly after Maurice had registered for the draft in 1918, and settled in Indianapolis where Maurice worked.  Lavonne was born in 1920, but Maurice and Lucille later divorced.  Maurice married  Louise Rouse  in 1936, but Lucille never remarried.  So "Chesser" she remained until her death at Heritage Manor on January 11, 1992.
        Lavonne Chesser, T. B. Carey's granddaughter, was married in 1942 to  Charles Franklin Harry  of Bartholomew County who helped manage Howard and Harry Oil Company in a partnership.
(Note:  When I "Googled" Howard and Harry Oil Co., Fairland, Indiana, I found that the attorneys for a class action settlement which includes many companies as well as H. and H. have pension money for a "Stephan Howard" who once was employed there, but they have no current address for him.  They give instructions as to how to obtain the money which may be $10,000-$12,000 or more as the other settlements have been.)
       Charles and Lavonne Chesser Harry had two daughters, one of whom is still living.  When Lavonne and I last spoke before her death just over 10 years ago and that of her husband in 1995, she had two grandsons who were living north of Indianapolis.
Linda Read Chesser

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