White County INGenWeb

COUNTIES OF WHITE AND PULASKI, INDIANA, HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL, Published by F.A. Battey & Co, Chicago, 1883, pg 411

JOHN W. FORNEY was born in Tusearawas County, Ohio, March 5, 1845, and is the eldest of the seven children of William and Susan (Huraell) Forney, namely, John, William (deceased), Sarah, Elizabeth,, George, Mary and Cyrus. The father of John was born in Pennsylvania in 1822, was a miller and millwright, and died in Bureau County, Ill., in 1860. The great-grandfather of John was a soldier of the Revolution, his grandfather a soldier of 1812, his father an officer in the Mexican war, and himself a soldier of the late war, enlisting in 1861 in the Twelfth Illinois Infantry, and was in the action of Belmont, Mo., Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth, Atlanta, Fort McAllister and Bentonville; at Dallas he received a scalp wound; he was discharged in June, 1865, having enlisted a second time. At the age of eight, John moved with his parents to Bureau County, Ill.; he removed to Benton County, Ind., in 1870, and to his present location in 1873. Col. John W. Forney, of the Philadelphia Press, , was a brother of John's grandfather. Mr. Forney has been Township Clerk, Assessor, Collector, Justice of the Peace and schoolmaster. On March 18, 1874, he was married to Annie Buchan, by whom he had four children- Amy, Jessie, Edna and William. Mr. Forney resides eight and one-half miles southwest of Wolcott; he raises wheat, corn and oats, likewise considerable hogs; he is now conducting a post office and store in a hamlet that bears his name, and is much esteemed in the community.

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