biography of Oliver H. Widney, pages 464/465/466/467.  
History of DeKalb County, Indiana; B. F. Bowen & Company, 
Inc., Indianapolis, 1914.



The request which should always be accorded the brave sons 
of the North who left homes and the peaceful pursuits of 
civil life to give their services,  and their lives if need 
be, to preserve the integrity of the American Union is 
certainly due the gentleman to a brief review of those life 
the following lines are devoted. He proved his love and 
loyalty to the government on the long and tiresome marches 
in all kinds of situations, exposed to summer's withering 
heart and winter's freezing cold. On the lonely picket 
line, a target for the missile of the unseen foe, on the 
tented field and amid the flame and smoke of battle, where 
the rattle of the musketry,  mingled with the terrible 
concussion of the bursting shell and the deep diapason of 
the cannon's roar, made up the sublime but awful chorus of 
death. To the heroes of 1861-5 the country is under a debt 
of gratitude which it can never repay, and future 
generations will commemorate their achievements in fitting 
eulogy and tell of their heroic deeds in story and in song. 
Among the honored veteran of the Civil war and respected 
citizens of DeKalb county, Indiana, none occupies a higher 
place in popular esteem than the gentleman whose name 
appears above, and who, now retired from active business 
affairs,  is living quietly at Auburn, secure in the 
confidence and respect of all who know him. Oliver H. 
Widney was born near Newville, DeKalb county, Indiana, on 
the 12th of November, 1841, and is a son of John P. Widney, 
a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work,  When the 
subject was about two years old the family moved to what is 
now known as the H. M. Widney fruit farm, near St. Joe, 
this county, and in 1851 they moved to Auburn, the 
subject's father having been elected county clerk. In the 
fall of 1856 the family returned to the farm, where Mr. 
Widney grew to manhood, He had received his preliminary 
education in the public schools, supplementing this by four 
terms' attendance at the Newville Academy, with the 
intention of taking up the study of law.  However, the 
outbreak of the war of the Rebellion interrupted his plans, 
and on August 7, 1862, he enlisted as a private in Company 
H, Eighty-eighth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, 
which command was assigned to the Army of Cumberland. The 
regiment first went to Camp Allen, at Fort Wayne, thence to 
Camp Morton, at Indianapolis. When the Confederate General 
Bragg made his advance on Louisville, the Eighty-eighth 
Regiment was sent to that city to assist in its defense. 
The command took part in the Buell-Bragg campaign, and, in 
October, 1862, was in the battle of  Perrysville.  After 
that battle, Mr. Widney was taken with chronic diarrhea and 
was confined in a hospital at Danville, Kentucky. When 
partially recovered he and a number of other convalescent 
soldiers paid all their cash in order to get to Lebanon, 
where they joined their regiment. Going with the command to 
Tyree Springs, they crossed the river from Nashville just 
before the battle of Murphreesboro. There, Mr. Widney 
became so ill from his sickness that he became unconscious 
and was left by his comrades, who were then maneuvering 
against the enemy. After awhile the warm sun revived him in 
a measure and for hours he wandered aimlessly about, 
unconscious of his actions. Eventually he was found and 
taken into the city of Nashville, where he lay on the 
sidewalk until evening, when he was taken into the court 
house. After the battle a comrade, Dyer Matthews, and 
others returned to where they had left Mr. Widney for the 
purpose of burying him, expecting to find him dead. 
Afterwards they joked him as being unreliable, because he 
ran away from his own funeral. At Nashville, Mr. Widney was 
discharged on account of physical disability. However, he 
was too ill and weak to make the trip home alone and his 
father went to Nashville after him, it requiring five days 
to get him home, his condition was so precarious. After 
recuperating his health, Mr. Widney returned to his studies 
at the Newville Academy, but he could not remain at home 
while his country needed his services, and, on July 18, 
1863, he enlisted in Company D, One Hundred and Eighteenth 
Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, which rendezvoused at 
Indianapolis. On September 16th they started for Cumberland 
Gap, which lies at the intersection of the states of 
Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee. There, after a short 
time, the government ceased issuing rations and the 
soldiers had to forage for their subsistence, only one 
ration being issued to them up to the following February.  
The country had been foraged by both Northern and Southern 
armies until the residents of the locality were subsisting 
on parched corn, and it was under such conditions that the 
army was expected to feed itself.  During that period they 
took Bull's Gap, they were compelled to retreat to 
Cumberland Gap, and when the siege of Knoxville was raised 
they were at Tazewell, thirteen miles from Cumberland. The 
Confederates sought to escape and the One Hundred and 
Eighteenth Regiment fought them at Walker's Ford to prevent 
their escape and were successful in holding the ford.  The 
regiment then returned to Tazewell and there Mr. Widney was 
taken sick and went to a church, where a hospital had been 
established, and he was made hospital steward. His term of 
enlistment having expired, he then returned to 
Indianapolis, where he was discharged, and he then returned 
home. At the time of his discharge he held the rank of 
second sergeant, to which he was appointed on December 16, 
1863. After his return home he and two other men tried to 
recruit a new company, in which effort they were not 
successful, but the war was then about over.  Mr. Widney, 
now that the grim specter of war had fled, settled down to 
peaceful pursuits, giving his attention to agricultural 
labors.  He cleared up and improved a good farm, about two 
and a half miles north of St. Joe, and lived there until 
1877, when he traded that tract for the old homestead on 
which he father had settled in 1843 and a part of which he 
himself had helped to clear.  He lived on and operated this 
farm until about 1885, when he moved to St. Joe, being 
compelled to give up active labor on account of the effects 
of his army hardships and illness.  In 1882, Mr. Widney was 
elected a member of the board of county commissioners, and 
in 1884 he was  re-elected, serving until 1887. During his 
term of office some of the most important public 
improvements were inaugurated and carried to successful 
completion, including about four hundred  drainage ditches, 
which were established or re-established. These ditches not 
only brought a lot of the best land of the county into 
cultivation, but also contributed to the banishment of 
malaria from this section.  In March, 1890, Mr. Widney and 
his son, H. Mervin, moved to Albion and engaged in the 
lumber business, but in the following fall Mr. Widney sold 
his interests to his son and returned to St. Joe, where he 
lived until 1895. In that year he moved to Auburn in order 
to care for his father, who died at the subject's home 
about a year later. After the death  of his father, Mr. 
Widney returned to St. Joe, and there, in 1900, he built 
the opera house, a splendid building and much-needed 
enterprise.  Here also he and his son and son-in-law, C. F. 
Kagey, and H. M. Widney established a lumber yard and a 
hardware store.  Mr. Widney was admitted to the practice of 
pension law in all the departments of Washington concerning 
pensions, back pay, etc., during the nineties,  and he was 
highly successful in this line of effort, as can be 
attested to by thousands of pensions, and expert examiners 
giving him a record as good as any in the United States. 
While engaged in that line of work, Mr. Widney traveled 
extensively.  Among his old comrades Mr. Widney is held in 
the highest regard, and five different times he was elected 
colonel of the DeKalb county Veterans' association.  He was 
also twice elected colonel of the Eighty-eighth Regiment 
Association, being the present commander of that 
organization, and served it one term as adjutant. He was 
also president of the Old Settlers' Association two terms.  
On November 3, 1864, Mr. Widney married Emily F. Maxwell, 

who was born in Wayne county, Oho, the daughter of John and 
Mary (Thomas) Maxwell, who came to this county in 1854, 
when she was but a little girl, locating in Concord 
township. Her father was a carpenter and contractor on the 
Wabash canal, and it was while she was a student in the 
Newville Academy that Mr. Widney formed her acquaintance. 
Her death occurred on April 29, 1909, and on January 1, 
1910, Mr. Widney married Mrs. Lucy A. Griswold, a native of 
Steuben county, Indiana, and a daughter of Myron and Lovisa 
(Dirlam) Tuttle, of Pleasant Lake. Mr. Widney is the father 
of two children, a son H. Mervin Widney, and a daughter 
Mrs. Lenore W. Kagey.  Mervin Widney, who was born on March 
24, 1865, married Hattie Davis of Newville, the daughter of 
Samuel S. Davis and wife,  and they have two children, B. 
Von Dale and Doris. Mervin Widney was a partner with his 
father in the lumber business, but is best known as an 
apple grower, being a widely-recognized authority on 
horticulture. In 1895 he set out his first orchard, 
comprising about a thousand trees, to which he is 
constantly adding, so that now he is the owner of about two 
thousand five hundred trees.  That he has been eminently 
successful in this line of effort is evidenced by the fact 
that at the State Apple Show,  held at Indianapolis in the 
fall of 1912, he won twenty-six prizes out of a possible 
forty-one, also taking seven second prizes and five thirds, 
taking more prizes altogether then any other exhibitor. He 
raises Grimes's Golden, Starke, Banana, Baldwin, Rambo, 
Wolfe River, Wealthy, Fall Water, and York Imperial 
varieties, and in the handling of the fruit, which is 
carefully graded, every attention is paid to the protection 
of the fruit, much of which is wrapped individually. Mr. 
Widney also raises large quantities of strawberries and 
cantaloupes. He received the basis of his horticultural 
knowledge at the Purdue Agricultural Experiment Station, 
though years of experience have taught him many of the most 
valuable secrets in the planting and growing and care of 
fruit.  For the past five years he has been connected with 
the Purdue lecture course and has lectured in nearly every 
section of the state, being very successful in awakening an 
interest in Horticultural matters and talking in an 
interesting and instructive manner on the subject.

Submitted by:

Arlene Goodwin

Auburn, Indiana

Agoodwin@ctlnet.com