Person:Jacob Blasdel (1)

The following is copied from chapter 20 (Miller Township), page 210 of History of Dearborn County^S1:
EXPERIENCE OF A PIONEER GIRL.
Jacob Blasdel, who settled on Tanners creek, at the locality where he after wards laid off the town of Cambridge, now a switch on the Big Four railway called Pella, was born in Salisbury, Massachusetts, April 8, 1754. He was a blacksmith by trade and worked in the Brentwood iron works. He married Ruth Morse, of Brenton, March 25, 1791. He had served in the Revolutionary War. Shortly after his marriage he immigrated with his wife to Columbus, Ohio, then in 1804 he came to Miller township, settling on Tanners creek on what was even at that time called “Cherry Bottoms.” He soon after locating there erected a grist-mill, the old race can yet be traced. It was after that for a number of years called Blasdels Mills. Later on he laid out the town of Cambridge there. In recent years it has been called Pella, although the school house near the residence of H. M. Shanks is given the name of “Cherry School,” after the original name given in the early part of the last century. Mr. Blasdel brought with him his family of four sons and four daughters. He and his son Enoch served in the War of 1812. He was a public-spirited man and was very active in everything that helped to develop the country. He deeded a lot in Cambridge to be used for school purposes, which in the quaint language of the time specified that it should be used for educational purposes “So long as grass grows and water runs.” The first building erected on the site donated is said to have to have been a log one with a puncheon floor, a huge fireplace, and the seats for the pupils were made from slabs of trees with legs inserted by means of anger holes. The house was called an “academy” and it has been claimed that-some of the higher branches were taught there by some of the teachers. The ground has continued to be used for school purposes from the days of the rude “academy” to this day.

A FAMILY OF PATRIOTS.
Jacob Blasdel had four sons, Enoch. Jacob. Jonathan and Elijah. each of whom reared a large family. ' His daughters, of which there were four, married as follows: Nabby married Thomas Townsend and had no children; Ruth married Elisha Scoggins; Sally married twice, first to Ezekiel Harper, then to Leonard Chase; Betsy to Aaron Borroughs and after his death to William Leper. Each family was identified with the early history of the country. Jacob Blasdel’s son Jacob, it is said, made the first temperance speech ever heard in the county. It was at a campmeeting held in the forest on the tract of land recently laid off and platted by the Greendale Land Company in their addition to Greendale. He got up to talk and attempted to tell the “cost of a bottle of whisky” and told of a barn raising at his place, where one man lost his life on account of hands made unsteady by liquor, letting the timbers slip. At that time temperance was not popular, the ministers tried to sing him down but he was possessed of a powerful voice and raising it he continued to pour out his invective against the use of liquor and it is said was only silenced by being pulled down by the coat tails. He was also a very public-spirited man with strong convictions on other subjects besides temperance. Among the descendants of Jacob Blasdel in Dearborn county are Ambrose E. Nowlin, banker; F. J. Nowlin, Harry L. Nowlin, and R. Nowlin, now trustee of Miller township, farmers; J. H. Eubank, abstractor; L. J. Eubank, and W. A. Harper, T. W. Harper and Sherwood Blasdel. Jacob Blasdel had four sons, Enoch, Jacob, Jonathan and Elijah, each have had something to do with the patriotism of the Blasdel family. Patriot ism is strengthened by training, and the family of Blasdels had it to an unusual degree. A list is here appended to some of Jacob Blasdel’s descendants who served their country in the Civil War from 1861 to 1865: James M. Blasdel, Jacob W. Blasdel, Lewis Crosby and Jacob Crosby, Second Illinois Cavalry; Thomas Blasdel, Ferris J. Nowlin, Charles B. Blasdel, Jonathan P-. Nowlin, John Blasdel, Huron Blasdel and Alonzo Jackson, Eighty-third Indiana Infantry; George Blasdel, Fifty-second Indiana Infantry; Richard Robinson and Anthony Blasdel.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Influential Men of Early Days, in History of Dearborn County, Indiana: her people, industries, and institutions. (Evansville, Ind.: Unigraphic, 1980)
   Page 210ff.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} Pella Cemetery, in Find A Grave.

   Lieut Jacob Blasdel

3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} Jacob BLASDEL BLAISDEL (AFN: 139K-71W), in Ancestral File.