Ebenezer West was born near Parkersburg, in Montgomery county, Indiana, February 9, 1829. He lived in his native county until he reached the age of eight years, when his parents removed to Boone county, same State, and settled near Lebanon, where he lived with them until attaining his majority. On the 28th of November, 1850, he was united in marriage to Miss Julia Ann Robinson, and began farming upon a farm he had previously purchased, in Boone county, and there continued to live until 1853, when he sold his farm and removed to Lebanon. There he was employed for two years in the county recorder’s office, then as book keeper for Conrad Perkins, a merchant of the same place, after which he learned the photographer’s art and carried on that business in Lebanon until 1859. In this latter year he removed to Missouri, and settled in Bancroft, this county, where be engaged in photographing until the breaking out of the war, in 1861.
He gave his services to the cause of the Union, enlisting in Company H, Twenty-third Missouri Volunteer Infantry, under Col. Jacob T. Tindall, and was elected second lieutenant of his company. In September, 1861, while his company was in quarters at Benton Barracks, St. Louis, he was detailed on a recruiting expedition to Daviess county, and while on his return with recruits was attacked by bushwhackers, near Spring Hill, where himself and three men were wounded. This laid him up for three months in the hospital at Chillicothe, during which time the captain of his company having resigned he was promoted to fill the vacancy. At the battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862, where the colonel of the regiment was killed, he, with the remnant of the command, was taken prisoner, and confined in the Confederate prisons at Selma, Alabama, and Madison, Georgia, until the following January, when he was exchanged. Returning to his company, then stationed at Berger, Missouri, on the Missouri Pacific Railroad, on guard duty, he remained one month, then resigned on account of ill health, caused by wounds and prison exposure, and returned to his home in Bancroft. He engaged in the photograph business until the spring of 1864, when he sold out and engaged in merchandising in the same place, with Nathan Nichols, under the name and style of West & Nichols.
In the fall of 1868 he retired from the firm and opened a cabinet and wagon shop in Bancroft, continuing the business until 1875. He was elected to represent Daviess county in the General Assembly of the State, for the term of two years, in 1872; and served his. constituents honorably and well during that time. In the spring of 1877 he removed to Gallatin, where he still resides, engaged in painting. Mr. and Mrs. West have one child, Mary E., born near Lebanon, Indiana, June 30, 1852, now wife of Dr. George A. Lieslie, of Bancroft.