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Switzerland County

Biography

Silas H. Van Houten,

merchant, Patriot, born in that village in 1854, is a son of James and Temperance (James) Van Houten, both of early families of this and Ohio Counties. His father was born in New York, came to Rising Sun with his parents when a child, grew up there and married. He subsequently dealt in produce and traded on the river, and in this manner continued most of his life, in which he made and lost a considerable fortune. He died in 1867. Mrs. Van Houten is still living, in her sixty-fourth year. They reared a family of six children to maturity, five still living: Polly (wife of James Stevenson), Laura (wife of Silas B. McHuron), Minnie, Carrie and Silas H. Our subject grew to maturity in Patriot, and was educated in its schools; began clerking with James Stevenson when quite young and continued with him till 1876, when he began business for himself in the grocery and provision trade. He was married, in 1880, to Louella Harrison, daughter of Rev. William Harrison, of the Southeastern Indiana Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and they have one child, N. Grace.

Source: History of Switzerland County, Indiana 1885. Chicago, Illinois: Weakley, Harraman & Co., 1885
Transcribed by: Sheila Kell