Biography of Levi Stoy, pages 633 / 634 /635.  History of De Kalb County, 
Indiana.  Inter-State Publishing Company, Chicago, 1885.

Levi Story, farmer, section 1, Franklin Township, was born in Tuscarawas 
County, Ohio, April 4, 1819, a son of John Stoy, a native of Stoyestown, 
Pa., and one of the colony of five families who first settled in Tuscarawas 
County.  Our subject was reared in the wilds of Ohio, his only schooling 
being nine days to one Hambright Reese.  He afterward worked for Thomas 
Bays, also a teacher, and received $8 a month and two hours tuition every 
evening.  In August, 1844, he moved to Indiana and settled in Stafford 
Township, De Kalb County.  Mr. Stoy learned the shoemaker’s trade in his 
early life and worked at it nineteen years, his wife assisting him after 
he came to De Kalb County.  Their means were limited, and after their 
settlement in this county it was difficult many times to procure food.  
At one time they lived three months on corn and corn-coffee, ground in a 
coffee-mill.  At another time his wife went to the store of Mr. Cela and 
bought $11 worth of goods, paying $5 cash.  Mr. Cela told her he would 
trust her husband for the rest till he could make it hunting mink and 
foxes.  This was something he had never done, but nothing daunted he 
tried, and the first day caught two mink and one fox, for which he 
received $10.75.  In nine and a half days he made $44.33, and by this time 
concluded that hunting was more profitable than shoemaking.  One Sunday 
morning they arose late, and Mr. Stoy remarked, “If we had any meat I 
would have been up long ago.”  His eldest son, then just old enough to 
talk, replied, “Dad, if you get meetin I’ll jump on one leg.”  That was 
enough to make him take his gun and go out, and before breadfast he shot a 
deer.  He then looked up and down the road to see if anyone saw him, and 
hurried home, thinking the report from his gun had never been so loud 
before.  He took a shoulder to his pastor who lived near by, and said, 
“Brother Olds, would you be offended if I presented you with a piece of 
veal?”  “Not at all, sir, not at all.”  Mrs. Olds then said, “Brother 
Stoy, was that you-----“  “Elmira,” said the minister, “not a word, for we 
want the meat,” and Mrs. Olds never knew whether or not Mr. Story was the 
man who shot on the Sabbath.  Mr. Stoy lived in Stafford Township till 
1870, when he moved to Franklin Township and settled on the farm where he 
now lives.  He owns sixty acres of valuable land, with good farm buildings, 
his farm being now carried on by his son John.  Mr. Stoy was married Sept. 
7, 1842, to Rosanna Brown, daughter of Joseph Brown.  They have five 
children, four of whom are living---William H., Samantha, Susan and John.  
William H. married Mary Chard and has two children-John and Nancy Rosella.  
Samantha married Aaron Miles and has two children---Jerome C. and Pearl 
Maude.  Susan married James Ireland, and John married Lydia Robertson and 
has one child---Ada Elnora.  Mrs. Stoy enlisted in the war of the Rebellion 
in Company H, Eighty-eighth Indiana Infantry, and participated in the 
battles of Perryville, Chickamauge and Mission Ridge.  At the latter 
battle he received wounds from the effects of which he has never recovered., 
and is drawing a pension.  He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal and 
his wife of the United Brethren church.  He is a member of the Grand Army 
of the Republic.  In the spring of 1845 Mr. Story built his first house, 
the house being 14x16; having no doors they used quilts hung over the 
doorway until the cold winter forced him to build a door, which he did 
himself, his only tools being an ax, a shaving knife and shoe-hammer.  
The same spring Mr. Stoy began work for John Webster, hewing the timber 
for a grist-mill known as the Webster mills, the agreement being for Mr. 
Stoy to work nine months for 40 cents per day and board, he walking four 
miles to and from his work every night and morning.  He then proceeded to 
plant an orchard, and as he did not have a foot of land cleared, he set 
out his apple trees among the native trees of the forest.  Two years after 
he cleared the land between his little apple trees, and in time had one of 
the best orchards in the county.  Mr. Stoy soon became famous as a hunter, 
and many were the exciting chases he had with the deer, which abounded so 
plentifully in the  (then) unsettled portions of Indiana.  On one occasion 
he had a fight with a wounded buck that knocked him down and tore all the 
clothes and part of the skin from his body.  He was finally rescued by some 
of his neighbors, after half an hour’s hard fight, in a rather bad state as 
his clothes were torn off, and the snow was about eight inches deep.  He 
afterward tanned the hide of the deer, and with another one made himself a 
pair of pants which he wore to church for some time.

Submitted by:
Arlene Goodwin
Auburn, Indiana
Agoodwin@ctlnet.com