Shipshewana
Now president
Published .
Sarah Reynolds was born in St. Joseph County, Michigan. The county history of 1882 gives the day, the fifteenth of November, 1832. Ford's volume of 1920 gives the year and calls her the first white child.
Her father was Samuel Reynolds. Battey has him locating on Elkhart Prairie in 1829. Ford has the family reaching St. Joseph County in 1831. Both bring him south into this county afterward. Battey says he spent the latter part of his life at Union Mills and died there at seventy-one. Ford says he settled first in Newbury Township and then in Springfield Township, and that he and his wife died there in 1877. Union Mills is in Springfield Township. It is the village now called Mongo.
Ford names the Reynolds children: John, Charles, Samuel, Frank, Sarah, Lottie and Mary Jane. Mary Jane married Joseph L. Davis. Sarah married his brother.
None of the four volumes gives her mother a name.
She married Hezekiah Davis on the tenth of April. Battey and Ford put it in 1851. The county atlas of 1893 puts it in 1854. They farmed in Newbury Township and had seven children, and by the time he died the land ran to fourteen hundred acres.
He died on the twenty-sixth of September, 1891.
Two years later the atlas gave the family a plate.
At the left is an oval portrait of a bearded man, captioned H. Davis (Deceased). At the right is an oval portrait of a woman in a dark bodice with lace at her throat, captioned Mrs. Sarah R. Davis. Between them are two photographs, one above the other: a three storey brick block on a town street, and a frame farmhouse behind a gate. The caption under those two reads:
Bank Building and Hotel, and Homestead of the late Hezekiah Davis, Shipshewana.
The book's index of illustrations files the sheet as Davis, H. and Wife, and Buildings. What that index does to wives is set out in Still lives with Mrs. J. B. Nichols.
Page 106 of the same volume describes the town.
Conspicuous is the three-story brick "Davis Hall," in which is situated the Shipshewana Bank, established by Hezekiah Davis, of which Sarah R. Davis is now president, and Francis H. Halbert, cashier.
She was president from 1893 until October of 1907, and the dates are in Davistown and Summeytown.
The books do not agree who kept the cash for her. The atlas, printed in 1893, names Francis H. Halbert on page 106 and again on page 107, where it calls him cashier of the Bank of Shipshewana. Ford's 1920 biography of her youngest son says Hewlitt was cashier from 1893, with his mother as president. Neither book mentions the other man.
Ford is the only source for what happened to the bank while she ran it.
In November of 1897 it was robbed, and the safe was ruined and the contents all taken.
In July of 1902 it burned.
In 1905 it was robbed again. That time the thieves left the safe alone and took the change from the vault.
Ford counts four robberies in the bank's life and says that none of them crippled it, since all of it was, he believes, insured. Two of the four were in her years, and so was the fire.
On the fifteenth of October, 1907, Hewlitt organised the Farmers State Bank of Shipshewana and made himself its president. Ford calls it the direct successor of the old bank, a private concern owned by H. Davis and his mother, Sarah R. Davis.
No book says what became of her part in it, or of Davis Hall, or of the farm.
The atlas's sketch of her husband, on page 107, is the only place in the four volumes that says anything about her as a person. It calls her a worthy companion, who survives.
Her husband's death has a day. Her father and mother have a year. Her son Niles is marked deceased in two of the books. Her youngest son named a daughter Sarah R.
Her own death is in none of them.
Sources
- Illustrated Atlas and Columbian Souvenir of LaGrange County, Indiana, LaGrange Publishing Company, 1893. Internet Archive, read off the page images. Leaf 73, printed page 69, for the plate and its three captions. Leaf 11 for the index entry Davis, H. and Wife, and Buildings. Leaf 118, printed page 106, for the town of Shipshewana, Davis Hall, the Shipshewana Bank with Sarah R. Davis as president and Francis H. Halbert as cashier, and the Hotel Davis. Leaf 119, printed page 107, for the Hezekiah Davis sketch, his death on 26 September 1891, the marriage on 10 April 1854, the worthy companion who survives, the seven children with Niles R. deceased, and Francis H. Halbert as cashier of the Bank of Shipshewana.
- Counties of LaGrange and Noble, Indiana: Historical and Biographical, F.A. Battey & Co., 1882. Internet Archive. The Newbury Township biography of Hezekiah Davis for the marriage on 10 April 1851 to Sarah Reynolds, a native of St. Joseph County, Michigan, born 15 November 1832; for Samuel Reynolds locating on Elkhart Prairie in 1829 and dying at Union Mills at seventy-one; and for the seven children with Niles R. deceased.
- History of Northeast Indiana: LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and DeKalb Counties, volume 1, Ira Ford, 1920. Internet Archive. The banks chapter, printed pages 56 to 57, for the Farmers State Bank of Shipshewana organised 15 October 1907 by Hewlett Davis as the direct successor of the old Bank of Shipshewana, a private concern owned by H. Davis and his mother, Sarah R. Davis; for the robberies of November 1897 and 1905; and for the fire of July 1902.
- History of Northeast Indiana, volume 2, Ira Ford, 1920. Internet Archive. The biography of Hewlitt Davis for Sarah R. Reynolds born in 1832 in St. Joseph County, Michigan, the first white child; for Samuel Reynolds reaching that county in 1831, settling afterward in Newbury and Springfield townships, and dying there with his wife in 1877; for the seven Reynolds children and Mary Jane's marriage to Joseph L. Davis; for the marriage in 1851; for Hewlitt as cashier from 1893 with his mother as president until October 1907; and for his daughter Sarah R.
The 1882 and 1920 texts were read from scanned volumes. Obvious scanning errors have been corrected and no wording has been changed. The 1893 atlas was read from its page images rather than from scanned text.
More from Shipshewana
Shipshewana
Davistown and Summeytown
Shipshewana was two towns before it was one, with a road between them and a rivalry across it. Neither county history mentions this. It is on a marker at the corner of Main and Morton, put up by both families together in the year 2000.