Rising Sun Indiana

Biography of Ira James

Ira James, wholesale dealer in coal oil, Mattoon; was born in Dearborn (now Ohio) Co., Ind., May 24, 1826; his father was a cotton and woolen manufacturer; at. the age of 17, he left home and engaged in boating on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers for a period of about ten years; he commanded during the time seven steamboats; his first boating was in the packet trade from Rising Sun to Cincinnati; afterward he entered the trade from New Orleans and Cincinnati; in 1853, he went to California and spent three years; engaged a portion of the time in milling … Read more

Slave Narrative of Ellen Cave

Interviewer: Grace Monroe Person Interviewed: Ellen Cave Location: Rising Sun, Indiana Place of Birth: Taylor County Kentucky Grace Monroe Dist. 4 Jefferson County SLAVE STORY OHIO COUNTY EX-SLAVE, MRS. ELLEN CAVE, RELATES HER EXPERIENCES Assistant editor of “The Rising Sun Recorder” furnished the following story which had appeared in the paper, March 19, 1937. Mrs. Cave was in slavery for twelve years before she was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. When she gave her story to Aubrey Robinson she was living in a temporary garage home back of the Rising Sun courthouse having lost everything in the 1937 flood. Mrs. … Read more

Biography of Charles Clifford Mack

Charles Clifford Mack, who so capably represented Harvey County in the State Legislature during the session of 1917, is a prominent business man of Newton, proprietor of the Mack Mortgage and Loan Company of that city. Mr. Mack is a comparatively young man, not yet forty years of age, and his record is especially interesting because of the success he had made from nothing except the sources and talents contained in his own energetic nature. Mr. Mack was born July 5, 1878, and his birth-place was the backwoods community of Southern Indiana, at the Town of Rising Sun. His father, … Read more