Archibald H Hamilton (1828 - 1890)

Born 19 Feb 1828 in Monongalia County, VA

Ancestors

Died 5 Jul 1890 at age 62 in Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana, USA

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Biography

He is buried in the Beech Grove Cemetery, Muncie, Delaware County, Indiana, USA (1)

This is an extract from "A Portrait and Biographical Record of Delaware & Randolph Cos., Indiana" (2)

ARCHIBALD HAMILTON, deceased, was one of the most successful agriculturists and general business men of Centre township, Delaware county, Ind., and was born in Monongalia county, Va. (now West Va.), February 19, 1828, the son of Stephen and Elizabeth (McAbee) Hamilton. He was the youngest son in a family of eight children: Alvin, farmer near Lyndon, Kan. ; Washington, deceased when a young man; Henry (see sketch of Milton Hamilton), Selina, wife of Silas Bates, farmer near Jerseyville, Ill. ; Mary, first wife of William Walling, of Muncie; Thomas, deceased, was a farmer near Deepwater, Mo. ; Stephen, farmer of Centre township, and Archibald, whose name heads this sketch.

Archibald was but two and a half years old when brought to Centre township, where his father entered 160 acres of land, on which Archibald was reared, and of which he in due time became part proprietor with his father until the latter's death. After receiving a fair amount of schooling in his neighborhood, but a still larger amount of farm training, he started for the gold fields of California with a company, of which his father and brother, Stephen, were also members, and of which party Archibald was the youngest.

Having been fairly successful in the mines, Archibald returned, in 1851, and invested $800 of his earnings in a part of the old homestead and engaged in raising and dealing in live stock, in which enterprise his brother, Henry, afterward became associated, and which they together carried on until sometime in 1868, when the partnership was dissolved. Then Archibald bought out the other heirs to the home farm, which then comprised 404 acres, and took upon himself the care of his parents.

For the last fifteen or eighteen years of his life, Mr. Hamilton rented out this property and other that he had accumulated, amounting to 600 acres of farm land and numerous valuable town lots. In December, 1887, Mr. Hamilton was married to Miss Harriet Fleming. Her parents, Isaac and Amelia Fleming, were from Marion county, West Va. and settled in Henry county, Ind., in 1855. The father died in 1857, leaving a widow and seven children. His remains were interred in the cemetery at Hillsboro, In. In 1865 the widow removed to Muncie, Ind., where she ended her days in March, 1892, at the age of seventy- nine, leaving as her survivors one son and three daughters, viz: Hugh H. Fleming, wholesale hardware merchant of Sedalia, Mo. Harriet, widow of Archibald Hamilton; Mrs. Amanda Coffeen, widow of Zelomir Coffeen, and Lydia, wife of George H. Andrews. Three children, deceased, were named David, Preston and Charles.

Archibald Hamilton was called from life duties in 1890. He was a man of extraordinary business sagacity and yet of great tenderness of heart. His good qualities are summed up in the few sentences following: He was very liberal with the poor and afflicted; was never extortionate with his tenants, but always generous in his benefactions to public enterprises of merit; he was possessed of remarkable financial ability and was a wonderful mental mathematician; he was lenient to an extreme with his debtors, and seldom made a foreclosure, and was, in the full sense of the term, a large-hearted, sympathetic man. He was a lover of fine horses and always drove a good one, and his aesthetic tastes are exemplified in the remodeling of his late residence, now occupied by his amiable and ladylike widow. His name will be remembered with gratitude by hundreds of recipients of his bounty, and his loss deplored by his family till time to them shall cease.

Sources

1) FindaGrave Reference

2) A Portrait and Biographical Record of Delaware & Randolph Cos., Indiana. A. W. BOWEN & CO., CHICAGO. 1894 p 296

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Susie Saunders for starting this profile.

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