Biography of William B. Lawhead, page 344.  The History of Northeast 
Indiana; LaGrange, Steuben, Noble, and DeKalb Counties, Vol. II, under the 
editorial supervision of Ira Ford, Orville Stevens, William H. McEwen, and 
William H. McIntosh.  The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago and New York, 
1920.

   William B. Lawhead is a farmer in Butler Township, DeKalb County, has 
many well cultivated acres under his ownership and management, and is one of 
the solid and substantial citizens of that community.  His home farm is in 
section 24 of Butler Township.
   Mr. Lawhead , whose family has been identified with DeKalb County for 
eighty years, was born in Jackson Township April 24, 1871, a son of James G. 
and Wealthy (Nelson) Lawhead. His great-grandparents were James and Martha 
Lawhead, who came to DeKalb County in 1839 from Wayne County, Ohio.  James 
Lawhead died in 1854, and his wife in 1880.  Their son Benjamin Lawhead, 
grandfather of William B., was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, April 
1, 1820, went with his parents to Wayne County, Ohio, in 1834, and was 
still a young man when he arrived in DeKalb County.  In 1843 he married 
Mary Jane Essig, who was born in Stark County, Ohio, in 1821. Benjamin 
Lawhead bought a farm in section 17 of Jackson Township in 1851.  James G. 
Lawhead was also a native of Jackson Township, and he married Wealthy 
Nelson in 1870.  She died April 25, 1877, leaving two children, William B. 
and Queen Victoria, the latter becoming the wife of Eli Amstutz and dying 
in 1917.  In 1879 James G. Lawhead married Eliza Walter, and they had five 
children: Gertrude, deceased; Walter, who died in infancy; Frank, an 
attorney in Detroit, Michigan; Kirby, a farmer of Jackson Township; and 
Dr. Nixon Lawhead, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Mrs. Lawhead, the 
mother of these five children, is living in Auburn, Indiana.
  William B. Lawhead was six years old when his mother died and he grew up 
on the home farm in Jackson Township, acquired a common school education 
and remained with his father to the age of twenty-one. In April, 1894, he 
married Sarah McKinley, who was born in DeKalb County. They have three 
children: James G., who is a graduate of the Garrett High School and was 
with the American forces in France in 1918-19; Archie R., who is at home; 
and Orpha D., a graduate from the high school and for one year was a 
teacher.

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