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PAST AND PRESENT OF PIKE COUNTY.
After the close of the war Captain Massie
returned to New Canton and engaged in merchandising
and the following year, 1866, he was
united in marriage to Miss Mary E. Morey, whose
parents were from New York and Virginia
respectively. Their union was blessed with six
children, Harry A., Blanche, Bertha, Bert S.,
George and Nellie. Bert died in infancy and
Bertha passed away just as she reached her twenty-first
year.
Captain Massie has been an extensive traveler,
having visited nearly all of the principal cities
of the United States and Canada. He has been in
all
of the states of the Union save seven, has been
in old Mexico, has seen all of the Great Lakes
save one and has been at the source and outlet
of the Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and Mississippi
rivers. He has seen both the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans, and has crossed the Gulf of Mexico
five times.
A stalwart republican in his political views
he was a member of the twenty-eighth general
assembly in 1873 and 1874, being the first republican
sent to the legislature from this district
under the new constitution. He was a member of
the board of supervisors
for four terms, held
township offices at intervals for several years,
was assistant secretary of the Illinois delegation
at Chicago when General Garfield was nominated
for the presidency and was in Philadelphia when
General Grant was nominated for his second term.
He was also in Chicago when James G. Elaine
was nominated and witnessed the bolt of Curtis
and others that defeated the "Plumed Knight"
at the polls. He was also at the dedication of
Indian massacre, by his cool determination prevented
a great disaster in the very crowded Chatterton
Opera House when an alarm of fire was
given.
Captain Massie was also a member and treasurer
of the defense committee in the great Sny
levee bond suit that was in the courts for nearly
twenty years and was a steadfast friend of the
great levee project that in the end reclaimed
over one hundred thousand acres of valuable lands
and added so much to the sanitary condition of
the district. He was with Messrs. Higbee,
Worthington and Hewes, a member of the committee
to visit Indianapolis to engage ex-President
Harrison to defend the suit in the United States
supreme court. For -fifty years Captain Massie
was engaged in business in New Canton and met
with gratifying success for a long period but
was too generous and confiding and a few years
ago learned the disagreeable lesson that mankind
was not all that surface indications show and
his impression of the old saying "man's inhumanity
to man. has made millions mourn" was
extensively and- indelibly marked in his particular
case. He has"througji all of his mature years
been a true friend to his'*town, county and state,
and has no resentments or regrets but rejoices
in the growth and beautifying processes that the
old county and state have made. He is a Mason,
a Grand Army comrade and several times has
been president of the Old Settlers' Society and
of the Ninety-ninth Regiment Reunion Society.
His attitude toward mankind in all things seems
to exemplify the following lines:
"Methinks I love all common things
The common air, the common flower,
The dear, kind common thought that springs
From hearts that have no other dower,
No other wealth, no other power,
Save love ;
and will not that repay
For all else Fortune tears awav ?"
Lincoln's monument and at the meeting of the
Army of, the Tennessee in Springfield, when
President Grant, Vice-President Wilson and the
S. H. SMART.
most noted army officers were *
present and there
General Custer, later the victim of the great S. H. Smart, who is one of the prominent farmers
of Detroit township, owning a good property
which is within the corporate limits of the village
of Detroit, has in the control of his business
affairs shown keen discrimination and also capability
and unfaltering diligence. He has one hundred
acres of land and his property is the visible
evidence of well directed energy. He is classed
with the early settlers of the county, dating his