Raliegh Morton Buskirk

Metaphorically speaking, we are told that success treads on the heels of every right effort, and amid all the theorizing as to the cause of success, there can be no doubt that this aphorism has its. origin in the fact that character is the real basis in any fieId of thought or action. He of whom the biographer now writes is a successful farmer of Greene county, where he was born February 14, 1863, the son of Philander A. Buskirk, and a man whom his fellow citizens have honored with their fullest confidence and esteem. The subject’s grandparents were Alfred and Lithia (Dayhoff) Buskirk, natives of Spencer county, Kentucky, who came to Greene county, Indiana, in 1823, settling in Highland township, among the first pioneers. Later they moved to Smith a number of years. He died in Highland township in 1829 and in i835 his widow married Joseph Myers, with whom she removed to Butler county, Kentucky, where she died in 1845. Philander A. Buskirk, the subject’s father, went to his mother in Kentucky, but when eighteen years old returned to his native community in Greene county, Indiana, living with an uncle until 1848, when he began farming in Smith township, soon owning a good farm of one hundred and sixty acres which he divided up among his children, having moved to Worthington in 1902 and retiring from business. In August 1862, the subject’s father responded to the President’s call for troops to suppress the great rebellion that was threatening the Union enlisting in Company H, Seventy-first Indiana Infantry, but shortly afterward he was transferred to the Sixth Indiana Cavalry. At the battle of Richmond, Kentucky, Mr. Buskirk was captured and paroled. His parole having expired while he was at Terre Haute, he again enlisted and was sent to the front, but was soon afterward captured a second time in Kentucky. However, he was exchanged and when his parole had expired went to Tennessee, later returning to Kentucky, thence to Georgia, where he took part in the campaign around Atlanta, and on December 15 and 16, 1861, was in the battle of Nashville against Hood’s forces. He was honorably discharged June 21, 1865.The subject’s father was first married to Nancy Elgin, April 9, 1848. Alfred D. was the only child born to this union. His second wife was Martha Godfty, daughter of Elijah and Theodosia (Clark) Godfry. Six children were born to this union, R. M. Buskirk, our subject, being the youngest in the order of birth, having been raised on the same farm where he has ever since resided and from which he walked some distance to the neighborhood school during the winter months. His social business and religious life have always been livecl in perfect harmony with the strict teachings of his just and wise parents. Mr. Buskirk is now the owner of a well improved farm of one hundred and sixty acres, all but eight acres of which are in cultivation. Although the superindence of the work in his fields requires a great deal of thought and attention, his time is taken up very largely with the breeding of and raising live stock, principally horses and mules for the market, raising both draft and road horses, the former being Percherons. He not only feeds all the corn that the place produces, which is a very large amount, but he buys large quantities of corn which he also feeds, and as a consequence of his sound business principles and his judgment in the rotation of crops, together with systematic methods of tile drainage, the soil on his land is now in higher state of productiveness than when it came into his possession many years ago. It is interesting to note that his first tax receipts were only ” thirty-four cents; those for 1908 were for $163.50 cents. None other than a man of extraordinary ability could have made the great success that has attended the efforts of Mr. Buskirk. Besides his farm of one hundred and sixty acres he owns valuable property in Linton.

The subject was united in marriage in 1894 to Harriet Inman, daughter of Robert and Rhoda (Wines) Inman, natives of Ireland, the former having come to America when twenty-one years of age and settled in Greene county, Indiana, having spent his life on a farm and dying in 1864, at the age of sixty-one years, leaving a wife and seven children, one of whom, John, was a soldier in the Union army, a member of the Sixty-seventh Indiana Volunteer Infantry, having died of disease in a St, Louis hospital while in the army. Mrs. Buskirk was for thirteen years a teacher in the public schools, five years of that time having been spent in Nebraska. There has not been any issue from this union, but the subject and wife are raising an orphan boy. Mr. Buskirk is a Republican and a member of the Baptist church, while his wife is affiliated with the Presbyterian church. No people living in the vicinity of Linton, Indiana, are spoken of in any higher terms than they, everyone admiring their upright lives and their congenial dispositions.

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"Biographical Memoirs of Greene County, Ind. with Reminiscences of Pioneer Days", B.F. Bowen & Co., Indianapolis, IN, 1908, Vol. 2 834-37

Last updated 8.11.2009