Biography Emanuel Roger Shoemaker, pages 
736/737/738739/740/741/742/743/744/754.  History of DeKalb 
County, Indiana; B. F. Bowen & Company, Inc., Indianapolis, 
1914.



Emanuel Roger Shoemaker, the third son of Henry Shoemaker 
and Mary Wagoner, his wife, was born in Stoystown, 
Pennsylvania, April 15, 1832. As every man’s biography 
properly begins with the preceding generation at least, and 
as his life was colored to an unusual extent by the 
incidents of his childhood and youth, considerable 
attention will be devoted to the experiences of his 
father’s family in Indiana.  The parents of Emanuel R. 
Shoemaker were residents of Stoystown, Somerset county, 
Pennsylvania, where the father pursued the tailoring trade. 
Their interest in Indiana began in 1837 when Emanuel 
Wagoner, a brother, entered two hundred and forty acres of 
land in Smithfield township, DeKalb county, for the sum of 
one hundred and twenty-five dollars. The family continued 
their residence in Pennsylvania for three years and by 1840 
there were six children, David, Jacob, Emanuel, Catherine, 
Mary and John.  In May, 1840, the family left their old 
home and came to Knox county, Ohio, using as their 
conveyance a covered wagon pulled by two spirited sorrel 
mares. They remained there until the last of August, when 
they took another start, accompanied by the brother who had 
entered the land for them. On their journey westward they 
encountered the most serious difficulties, especially in 
the Black Swamp in western Ohio. As there were few roads 
they had to make their way through the mud, water, 
underbrush and over the corduroy bridges. Finally, about 
the middle of September, they reached Auburn, Indiana.  The 
father left the family there for a week while he went north 
to look up his land, which lay three miles north of the 
present town of Waterloo. He selected one hundred acres of 
the east side of the two hundred and forty acres entered, 
comprising the west half of the south west quarter of 
section 22, and twenty acres of the east side of the 
southeast quarter of section 21, and later forty acres 
more.  There were no houses from Auburn, to Isaac Smith’s, 
and no lumber available for building purposes, so he bought 
several hundred feet of lumber at Auburn, and hauled it 
upon his land. In a few days he returned for the family and 
they reached the site of their future home without shelter 
other than the wagon, and night was approaching in the 
wilderness. Emanuel was then a boy of eight years of age, 
and to the close of his life he could remember this 
evening. “My mother,” he wrote, “was a remarkable person to 
go ahead. She soon had one boy unhitching the horses, and 
another searching for water. My father went out to cut 
forked saplings with an eight-pound ax-for such did we 
Pennsylvanians use. With these slender trees he forked a 
pole against a couple of beeches, and against this pole he 
stood the boards on end which he  brought from Auburn,” 
When this shack was reared, the wagon was unloaded and a 
meager supper was spread. The family, all completely 
exhausted, lay down for their first night in their new 
home, only to be awakened by the wolves that seemed to 
scent the new inhabitants. The morning brought new 
troubles. A house of some kind must be provided and feed 
for the horses found.  It was a situation with tremendous 
trials that faced this family, whose head was a tailor, 
born and reared in a town, with no knowledge of farming, 
much less of the clearing of land. The timber was so dense 
that only here and there the sky was visible. Spicewood, 
horse-mint, nettles and weeds were so thick that it was 
difficult to make a way except along deer trails, until the 
frost had trimmed the foliage. The first step was to erect 
a home, and James Blake was hired to cut logs for a cabin. 
When he began chopping with his light three and one-half 
pound ax, the Shoemaker family watched him critically, He 
did not slide his hand the entire length of the handle, and 
the handle was crooked, they observed. He did not chip 
straight into the tree, but started higher and chopped 
downward. “He is too lazy to bend his back,” they said, 
“and his ax is only a tomahawk anyway.” When the “Yankee” 
watched the Pennsylvanian wield his heavy eight-pound ax, 
with every stroke bringing forth a groan, it was his turn 
to laugh derisively. After a few days enough logs were cut, 
and when they had been drawn up with great difficulty by 
the fiery horses, seven or eight men came to the raising. 
The boards used in the shack were laid across the joist 
poles, and served as a roof through several rains until the 
cabin was covered with clap-boards.  During the first 
winter all fared better than would be expected. By the 
spring of 1841 seven acres of underbrush were cleared and 
about ten or twelve trees were left standing on each acre. 
The first corn crop was planted in Pilgrim fashion by 
dropping kernels in the trenches made by cutting between 
the roots of trees. In June, Henry Shoemaker returned on 
horseback to Stoystown and sold his town property for a sum 
considerably lower than he had hoped. During the six weeks 
of the father’s absence the family had some startling 
experiences. One Sunday when the mother and children were 
all in the cabin, two large Indians stepped in the door. 
They sat down and began talking about the guns which they 
saw in the room, “No good” was all that the family could 
understand, and by this the Indians meant that the guns had 
caplocks. They soon made it known that they were hungry and 
without any delay a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread and a 
plate of butter were set before them. Each Indiana drew 
from his belt a huge knife and began wiping it on his hair. 
To the great relief of the family, both began to eat. When 
they had finished they left the cabin, as they seemed to 
know the family were all afraid of them, walked to a fence 
where each picked up a gun and a deer, and went on their 
way. Some time afterwards, one of them was found dead on 
the edge of a cranberry marsh about five miles to the 
southeast. The names of these Indians were Jon Ess and 
Raccoon, and it was learned that they were the last two 
native Indians of DeKalb county.  In the fall of 1841, the 
father was attacked by a fever. No doctor was to be had, 
but after a very serious illness he finally recovered. It 
was no uncommon  experience for six or seven members to be 
stricken with malaria or fever at the same time. When one 
would recover from his chill he would rally sufficiently to 
give the other water and a little care.  The winter of 
1841-1842 was very discouraging, for it was with great 
difficulty that sufficient food and clothing were procured 
for the family. The details were never forgotten by Emanuel 
R. Shoemaker, who was then a boy of nine years. “Many 
gallons of meal, “ he wrote in a sketch of his life, “have 
I ground on the bottom of a tin pan with holes punched 
through from the inside to make a rough surface.  I would 
take an ear of soft corn and rub it over the rough pan 
until I worried the kernels off. Borrowing flour through 
the neighborhood was much in vogue among early settlers, 
but sometimes borrowing was impossible.  I remember one 
week when we were all forced to lived on vegetables.”  
During the first few years of life in the new country the 
nearest mills were the one at Vemont, now called Orland, in 
Steuben county, and the Union Mills, at a distance 
requiring four to six days for a single trip. Later 
Thompson’s mill was built at Flint and another was 
completed at Enterprise, now called Hamilton, in 1846 or 
1847. “Many were the troubles I have had going there to 
mill,” wrote Mr. Shoemaker, the subject of this sketch. 
“Bags containing about three bushels of wheat would be put 
on a horse and me on top of that.  The sacks would strike 
against trees as I would try to avoid fallen timber or deep 
mud holes, and tumble off the horse.”  In 1848 the father 
built a hewed-log house on the north part of the same tract 
of land, and was able to offer generous hospitality to any 
visitors who chanced near there. Religious services were 
frequently held and when a quarterly meeting occurred in 
the neighborhood, the minister, his family and all guest 
from a distance were received into the home. “The pioneer 
mothers could find accommodations for everybody,” wrote Mr. 
Shoemaker, “and I have known complete strangers to come and 
stay eight and ten days with a team, with no thought of 
remuneration on the part of my parents.” Before proceeding 
further with the story of the family of Henry Shoemaker, we 
shall pause to relate the connection of this man with the 
Mexican war of 1848. A complete narrative of this chain of 
remarkable incidents is contained in the Fort Wayne 
Sentinel for Saturday, January 11, 1913. Prefacing the 
narrative by the statement that in 1842, as at present, 
DeKalb and Steuben counties were in the same legislative 
district, the story may be told in the following brief 
style.  In this district, Dr. Madison Marsh, a Democrat, 
and Enos Beall, a Whig, were opposing candidates.  On the 
face of the returns, Enos Beall was defeated by one vote, 
but after votes for Doctor Marsh were thrown out, the 
former was declared elected by the board of canvassers. The 
final hearing of this disputed election case took place at 
Indianapolis before a legislative committee, and the vital 
contention was over the ballot of Henry Shoemaker. With the 
two candidates, he made the trip to the state capital as a 
witness before the legislative committed and from the 
testimony given these fact were ascertained:  At the polls 
on election day the vote of Henry Shoemaker had been 
challenged and in the dispute which followed he became 
angry, tore his ballot in two, threw it under the table and 
left the room. Later it was picked up and found to be for 
Doctor Marsh, the Democrat, but it was not allowed to be 
put in the ballot box. At the Indianapolis hearing his vote 
was counted, and it elected Doctor Marsh by a majority of 
one.  He was accordingly given the legal certificate of 
election and took his seat in the House. When the state 
Legislature came to elect the new Indiana senator to 
Congress, the contest was an exciting one. Hon. O. H. Smith 
was then senator and a candidate for re-election by the 
Whigs. Gen. T. A. Howard was the Democratic candidate, and 
their support was very evenly balanced. Several ballots 
were taken and the last one resulted in the election of a 
third and hitherto inconspicuous candidate, Edward O. 
Hannegan, by a majority of only two votes, one of which was 
cast by Doctor Marsh.   The annexation of Texas as a state 
in the Union was then the burning issue, and it presented 
itself to Congress at the first session after Mr. 
Hannegan’s election. He favored annexation and voted in its 
favor.  Had not this strangely remarkable sequence of 
incidents occurred, Mr. Beall, a Whig, would have furnished 
the one necessary vote to return Senator Smith to the 
United State Senate, and, being a Whig, he would have voted 
against annexation. This would have made the vote in the 
Senate on the resolution a tie, and the President of the 
Senate, a Whig, would have cast the deciding vote against 
annexation.  As the policy of annexing Texas was probably 
the real cause of the Mexican war, it seems an accurate 
statement that Henry Shoemaker cast the vote in 1842 which, 
by a long series of causes and results, made possible the 
war with Mexico in 1848. By the year 1852, the family had 
grown to include five more children, Eva, Sarah, Horace, 
Malvina and Phebe.  Eva and Mary died while young and the 
father’s health was very poor. In the midst of hardships 
and what was frequently positive want, the stories of the 
California gold discoveries were most alluring, and the 
family yielded to the “California gold fever.”  On April 8, 
1852, the father, with two of his older children, Catherine 
and Emanuel, left home for California via the overland 
route. They set out in a one-horse covered wagon, with two 
yoke of cattle. Their route lay along Bear or Green river, 
the Humbolt river, across the desert, up the Truckee to 
Galoway Ranch. Emanuel, the son, made the statement in 
after years that, notwithstanding the awful dangers, all 
enjoyed the trip and suffered no ill results except the 
father, whose eyes became very sore while traveling along 
the Humbolt and crossing the desert. When they reached the 
ranch they sold their oxen and walked four miles to 
Downieville, on the Yuba river in Sierra county, 
California.  The time spent en route was five months and 
six days, and the harrowing experiences of this journey 
would fill a volume.  After their arrival, they bought a 
part of an abandoned flume and some lumber with which they 
built a small house on Durgan Flat.  During the winter of 
1853-1854 the father suffered greatly from eye trouble, and 
in May he returned home via Panama and New York. Catherine, 
the sister, worked with wonderful fortitude and was a great 
companion for her brother during those lonely months. In 
the summer of 1853 she married Franklin C. Francis, a 
partner of Doctor Webber in a saw mill on Durgan Flat.  
Emanuel Shoemaker continued mining during these years on 
Coxes Bar, about three miles down the river from 
Downieville. The hard work, ill health and utter loneliness 
which he endured can only be realized by a reading of his 
diary written day by day.  These pages reveal the incessant 
work at “drifting,” in the “digging,” cutting timber on the 
mountain side and chipping wood. When the heavy rains fell 
and prevented work in the mine, he would busy himself with 
any kind of employment that he could find. The exposure 
suffered in digging the mill wheels out of the ice during 
the winter always resulted in severe colds and often in 
serious illness. The pleasures were few, but genuine. 
Debates were held several evenings of each week and the 
subject of this biography often participated. Preaching on 
Sundays and “by candle light” through the week was not only 
well attended, but appreciated. The greatest happiness came 
with the letters, however, which could always be expected 
with each arrival of mail. The “home letter” never failed 
of mention in the diary, and it is reading was generally 
followed by a period of loneliness during which he would 
console himself  in writing to his mother. The desolation 
was only deepened by the return of his sister, Catherine 
her husband and child to “the States” in the fall of 1854. 
It was somewhat of a surprise when he learned on September 
23d of Mr. Francis’ expected return home, and he at once 
helped him close up his business. On the morning of 
September 26th Emanuel accompanied his sister and her family 
when they started for the “Bay.”  He went with them to 
Marysville, then to Sacramento, and then to San Francisco, 
where  they arrived after midnight Thursday, September 28th. 
He saw them start for their long voyage down the coast on 
the steamer “Yankee Blade,” the same boat that the father 
had taken. After they left he returned to Downieville and 
it was not long before he got work that the steamer had 
been out only twenty-three hours when she ran on a rock 
near Santa Barbara. Two boat-loads were stranded, and among 
those who were saved was his sister’s family. They returned 
to San Francisco and started again. Emanuel continued 
mining on Coxes Bar a year longer.  A page from his diary 
for Saturday, November 4, 1854, contains this excerpt:  
“This evening, after a very hard day’s  work, I hurried to 
the postoffice with John Nobles, but we both found 
ourselves disappointed. We returned to the house on Durgan 
Flat. There we sat in silence looking about the room. No 
one to greet us. All, all looked lonesome and forsaken, 
while memory ran back to the time when all the folks were 
here. It almost caused me to weep. Again I turned my eyes 
to the daguerreotype of those whom I esteem so much, and 
they looked as natural as life, but it was only an image. 
They could not speak, therefore I closed the case and laid 
it away again, and set to work. After which I retired, only 
to reflect on the past.” On September 11, 1855, Emanuel 
started for San Francisco and his voyage home. He had sold 
his claim and after the final division was made he found 
that in these three long, weary years he had earned and 
cleared the sum of three thousand dollars. He took the same 
route that his father and sister before him had taken, and 
left San Francisco September 20th on the steamer “Sonora.” 
The voyage to New York via Panama required twenty-six days, 
and the diary records an average daily instance of two 
hundred fifty miles, a dangerously heavy sea part of the 
time,  and attendant sea-sickness. On his arrival at New 
York city he was met by his brother, David, and together 
they returned home via Erie, Crestline and Fort Wayne. 
During these three years spent in California the 
foundations were laid both of his comparative ill-health 
and of his success in later life. In March, 1856, the 
father died after an illness of several weeks, During the 
years that followed the mother was twice married and in 
1886 she died at the home of her son Emanuel. Both parents 
are buried in Cedar Lake cemetery, northwest of Waterloo. 
Thorough the many years that Grandma Shoemaker was an 
active woman in her own home with her own family, she never 
missed an opportunity of assisting where there was illness, 
and at a time when doctors were very few this able care was 
and infinite service.  Concerning the other members of the 
family, the following brief facts may be related.  David 
was assisted by Emanuel in setting up a store in Uniontown, 
in which he succeeded until about 1860. After this he lost 
all his property, and in 1891 his death occurred.  He was 
buried in the Waterloo cemetery for interment. Jacob, the 
hunter of the family, served in the army throughout the 
Civil war. During the later years of his life he lived in 
the West, and he died in Minnesota in April, 1908. His 
remains were brought to Waterloo cemetery for interment.  
Catherine Francis lived with her family in a large home on 
the southside of Waterloo until May 13, 1900, when they 
removed to Massillon, Ohio. Her husband, Franklin Francis, 
died in 1898, and has often returned to Waterloo to visit 
her friends and relatives. John Henry was killed firing a 
farewell salute to his comrades who were departing for the 
war. They were the first soldiers to leave the town of 
Waterloo for the front. His was the first grave made in the 
Waterloo cemetery.  Sarah first married Henry Feagler, and 
while living in Crawfordsville their son “Colonel,” was 
accidentally shot while hunting on the eve of his departure 
for West Point. She afterwards married R.D. Gaudy and 
removed to Arcadia, Florida, where she died in June 1909. 
Horace enlisted in the army while a young man, and was 
seriously injured by the explosion of a shell. He is 
residing in Auburn. Melvina died when a young woman, and 
Phebe married William Bonnell and now resides in Los 
Angles, California. The biography of Emanuel R. Shoemaker 
will now resumed. In June, 1856, he and his mother went on 
business to Pennsylvania and visited in Stark county, Ohio, 
where he met the young woman who afterward became his wife. 
Harriet Jane Miller, born April 19, 1834, was the eighth 
child in the family of nine of Henry Miller, and Mary 
Magdalene Weaver, his wife. They resided on a farm one mile 
south of Canal Fulton, in Stark county, on the Tuscarawas 
river. Near there ran the old canal, which was an important 
link in the route of traffic between Cincinnati and 
Cleveland. The grandparents had come to this part of Ohio 
with their respective families while young. The father, 
Henry Miller, was a Pennsylvanian by birth. The mother was 
a daughter of a well-to-do Virginian of the non-
slaveholding class, living near Hagerstown, He often 
witnessed the cruel treatment of slaves and was known as a 
strong opponent of slavery.  After a correspondence of over 
a year, Emanuel R. Shoemaker and Harriet Jane Miller were 
married on September 16, 1857, in the Franklin House, 
Canton, Ohio.  They visited in Pittsburgh, returned for a 
few weeks with the family of the bride, and came to their 
new home in Indiana. As the pioneer conditions here were 
one generation behind the comforts enjoyed in Ohio, it was 
indeed a brave step for the bride to take, but 
notwithstanding all the hardships and inconveniences she 
suffered, she never became homesick. Soon after his return 
from California he purchased one hundred and sixty acres of 
land, where the homestead is located. About the year 1861 
he bought his mother’s and the heirs’ interests in his 
father’s farm to the southeast, which completed the 
ownership of the entire estate of five hundred and twenty 
acres. By the practice of economy and thrift the husband 
and wife acquired as estate which, with the buildings 
erected for his younger son, comprised two well equipped 
homesteads.  In May, 1895, the family removed to Waterloo, 
where Mr. Shoemaker was building a new home and in November 
they moved into the residence now occupied by his widow.  
Mr. Shoemaker was a man with both local and general public 
interest. He was appointed justice of the peace October 26, 
1872, and served two terms. In November, 1896, he was 
elected one of the three county commissioners of DeKalb 
county, and was re-elected for a second term, which was 
ended by his death. At that time the county was laboring 
under a heavy burden of debt, which was subsequently 
discharged very largely through the efforts of Mr. 
Shoemaker. He critically examined all bills for 
appropriations and demanded that all unnecessary 
expenditures be voted down. He exacted of all contractors 
with the county the careful execution of all terms of their 
contract, and many a long drive he took for the purpose of 
personal inspection of the progress of bridges according to 
the specifications of the contract. During his term of 
office the construction of a new court house, jail and 
poorhouse was under discussion. He hoped for the completion 
of all these projects, but not until the county could be 
relived of its debt. In politics Mr. Shoemaker valued 
principles above party. While he was generally known as a 
Democrat, he was an ardent supporter of Lincoln during the 
war.  He favored the Greenback platform in the later 
seventies, and the Populist platform in the early nineties. 
He always adhered to the policy of free trade and during 
the later years of his life he favored bimetallism. He was 
a stanch supporter of Bryan and held his views on every 
question. As a boy and young man Mr. Shoemaker was 
intensely devout. While in California he was most 
religious, and during his early married life he attended 
the United Brethren church regularly. At this time he would 
have joined had not his membership in the Masonic lodge 
prevented him from doing so. Later he became interested in 
the movement for freedom of religious though through 
reading the sermons of Henry Ward Beecher and the works of 
Voltaire, Paine and Ingersoll, and from 1875-1895 he 
secured many noted lecturers of Liberalism who spoke either 
in Waterloo or at his home in Smithfield township. Mr. 
Shoemaker joined the blue lodge of the masons in December, 
1866, in Waterloo, and also became a member of the 
following lodges, from all of which he received honorable 
demits on severing his relationship with them-the Auburn 
chapter, the Angola council, and the Kendallville 
commandery. In the family of Emanuel and Harriet Shoemaker 
there were three children. Henry Douglas, born August 27, 
1858, in his boyhood attended the Valparaiso Normal  and 
returned to assisted his father at home.  He married Mahala 
Bachtel in April, 1892, and they now reside with their son, 
Russell, born November 15, 1895, in the old homestead. Mary 
Shoemaker Dilla, born October 21, 1860, early began her 
career as a teacher, which she continued after graduation 
from the Methodist Episcopal College of Fort Wayne, 
Indiana, in June, 1882. She was married in the fall of 
1883, and when her daughters were far enough advanced she 
removed with them to Ann Arbor, Michigan. The elder, 
Harriette May, born June 12 1886, received a Bachelor of 
Arts degree in 1908 and the Master of Arts degree in 1909 
from the University of Michigan. The younger Geraldine 
Princess, born December 21, 1890, secured the Bachelor of 
Arts degree from that institutions in 1911.  The former 
obtained the  degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Columbia 
University, New York City, 1912, and has occupied the chair 
of history and political science in Wheaton College near 
Boston, and Lake Erie College near Cleveland. The latter 
studies in the Ann Arbor Conservatory of Music, and after 
her return home from college she was assistant principal in 
the Waterloo high school. She is now an instructor in Ward-
Belmont College, Nashville, Tennessee, where she is 
continuing the study off piano.  Scott Sherman, the third 
child, born May 24, 1862, married Elizabeth Brand in 
December, 1892. They resided in the home built for them by 
his father south of the old home on the Shoemaker farm, 
until his death, which occurred June 10, 1898. Two 
daughters had been born to this union, Rheua May, born 
April 1, 1894, who is a student at Western College for 
Women at Oxford, Ohio, near Cincinnati, and Maude Scott, 
born October 3, 1896, who attends Glendale College for 
Girls, also near Cincinnati.  Throughout his life Emanuel 
R. Shoemaker was an extremely active man, often working far 
beyond his strength. On Tuesday, June 16, 1903, he was 
suddenly seized with hemorrhage of the stomach, which was 
followed by more severe attacks. These left him in such a 
weakened condition that recovery was impossible. Early in 
the morning of September 16th, on the forty-sixth 
anniversary of his marriage, an interment took place in the 
Waterloo cemetery. His love of progress and improvement, 
his broad and liberal religious views, his freedom in 
political matters, and his honesty, ambition and industry 
made him a leader whose influence will be felt for many 
year.

Submitted by:

Arlene Goodwin

Auburn, Indiana

Agoodwin@ctlnet.com