William Henry Mansfield

Will Bk. 3 pg. 588-9

Biographical Memiors of Greene County Indiana, 3 Vols. (1908 B.F. Bowen & Co., Indianapolis, Ind.), Vol 2 Pg. 518-23. "William Henry Mansfield - - By Alice Mansfield

The subject of this sketch resides at Bloomfield, Indiana, and was born September 7, 1862, on the old Rock Spring farm, about one mile east of Koleen, Greene county, ...

He was married to Alice Edington on March 8, 1884....

William Henry Mansfield's father, whose name was also William Henry Mansfield, was born in Ohio, and came to Indiana in the year 1840. 

He took part in the Civil war, being a member of the Ninety-seventh Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and died within twelve miles of Vicksburg, when William H. Mansfield, junior, was but one year old.

The subject's mother, Jane Baker, was the daughter of Robert and Sarah Baker, one of a family of twelve children, nine boys and three girls. Robert Baker, her father, was born in Tennessee and was at one time coroner of the county; also a bear hunter, and kept a pet bear in his home; this bear was very disobedient to everyone except "Uncle Bobby." When he was away from home it would get up in the middle of the bed, and no persuasion or commanding by the wife could induce hime to leave his comfortable position until his master returned; then with many snarls and growls he was ejected. Sarah Christenburg, wife of Robert Baker, was from Virginia. They were members of the Baptist church.

After the death of William Henry Mansfield his wife, Jane Baker Mansfield, was married to Jasper N. Hardisty, another veteran of the Civil war, who answered the roll call nine years ago the twenty-eighth of September.

William Henry Mansfield, our subject's paternal grandfather, Jacob Mansfield, was born in Germany in 1774. His wife, Christina, in Switzerland. Jacob came with his parents to Pennsylvania in 1776, and later came to Indiana, settling near Robinson, Greene county, in 1849. He was the father of twenty-one children. Riley Mansfield, the nineteenth in order of birth and the only surviving one of the family, is now living in a part of the old-fashioned double log house, with an entry between, which was his grandfather's home. "Uncle Jakey," as Grandfather Mansfield was commonly called, was a great bear hunter, and at one time he entered a bear den with only a butcher's knife as a weapon and carried away two cubs and raised them for pets. In his religion he adhered to the Baptist faith, and an old legend is handed down through the generations that at one time when "Uncle Jakey" was washing his feet with the brethren he said to the man next to him, "I God, Brother Rollins, you draw my boots, and I'll draw yours." He was a major in the War of 1812, and also fought in the Black Hawk war; he died at the age of ninety-three....

• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Apr 13 2016, 2:36:52 UTC