Person:Martin Ashcraft (1)

Greene County, Indiana, 1870 census:^S4

Ashcraft, Martin 29 yrs Merchant (personal estate = $6,000) b. Tennessee

      Geniva 23 yrs (real estate = $600) b. Indiana

      Osie 2 yrs b. Indiana

Greene County, Indiana, 1880 census:^S5

Ashcraft, Martin 39 yrs Head Retired Merchant b. Ohio (father, b. Tennessee; mother, b. Maryland)

      Geniva 32 yrs Wife Keeps House b. Indiana (parents, b. Tennessee)

      Ora 11 yrs Dau b. Indiana (parents, b. Ohio/Indiana)

      Kirby 9 yrs Son b. Indiana (parents, b. Ohio/Indiana)

      Anna 6 yrs Dau b. Indiana (parents, b. Ohio/Indiana)

      Clyde 2 yrs Son b. Indiana (parents, b. Ohio/Indiana)

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Grave marker, Emanuel Hatfield Cemetery, Greene, Indiana, United States.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} Greene County, Indiana. The Bloomfield Democrat. (Bloomfield, Indiana)
   __ Jul 1932.

   Martin Ashcraft, aged ninety-one years, one of Jackson Township’s pioneer citizens, died Friday, July 15, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Emery Sargent, in South Bloomfield, following a short illness.
   
   Funeral services were held at the home of his son, E. Kirby Ashcraft on South Franklin Street, at 8:30 o’clock Sunday morning, and the body was taken to Owensburg and laid to rest in the Hatfield Cemetery.
   
   Following is the obituary of Mr. Ashcraft as furnished by the family:
   
   “Martin Ashcraft was the son of Elijah and Elizabeth Ashcraft, one of the sturdy and highly respected pioneer families of eastern Greene County. He was the ninth child of a family of eleven, being born in Muskingum County, Ohio, December 5, 1840. He came with the family to Greene County in October 1847 and settled on their homestead east of Koleen. He remained there on the farm until the Civil War and then joined the ranks of Company C, Regiment 43, of Iindiana Volunteers and served the country for three years and ten months. While on the Red River Expedition in Arkansas he was captured and became a prisoner of war at Tyler, Texas. During his incarceration, which lasted ten months, he suffered many hardships but was humanely treated by General Kirby Smith, commander of the prison. After the war he went to Owensburg, where he was in the mercantile business with Captain Elijah Edington.
   
   In 1867 he married Genira Hatfield, the daughter and youngest child of Emanuel Hatfield, another well known pioneer of Greene County. To this family eight children were born, five of which grew to manhood and womanhood, three having gone to the beyond in early childhood. His wife preceded him in death July 4, 1923, and since that time he has made his home in Bloomfield.
   
   In the passing of “Uncle Mart,” as he was familiarly known, the last leaf on the tree left the bough of two large pioneer families. Of the Ashcraft family of eleven children with all the in-laws and the Hatfield family of fourteen with all the in-laws, he was the last member.
   
   Mr. Ashcraft was an unusual and remarkable man in many ways. He was not schooled in terms of college and diplomas, yet he was educated and was a marvel to those who knew him for his power of memory and his shrewd observation of things both past and present. He had strong convictions relating to the affairs of government, social relations and religion. He was a strong advocate of our constitution, laws, and our democratic form of government. Being of a philosophical turn of mind he had worked out a philosophy of life and was happy with it. His cardinal principals were honesty, truthfulness, justice and friendship. It is a great testimony to a father when children say that they never knew him to do or intimate an unfair dealing with a neighbor. Out ward rough spots, truly, might be found but Mr. Ashcraft was fine enough in his feelings. He loved children, men and flowers.
   
   Mr. Ashcraft would have been ninety-two on his next birthday, December 5. He had lived a long life, but with a logical calmness met the end and was happy and resigned. Five children survive him, Mrs. Ora Sargent and E. Kirby Ashcraft, both of Bloomfield; Mrs. Anna Corbin, Jasonville; Mrs. Clyde Brinegar, Oolitic, and Forney F. Ashcraft, Santa Monica, California. There are also eleven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren and a host of friends who will miss him.”

3. ↑ Wiles, Mary Lou, and Hubert Sims. 1860 census, Greene County, Indiana. ([Bloomington)
   p. 799, house/family 1471/1471.
4.   Greene, Indiana, United States. 1870 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration Publication M593)
   p. 354, house/family 126/126.
5.   Greene, Indiana, United States. 1880 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration Publication T9)
   ED 306, p. 171, house/family 46/46.
6. ↑ Bloomfield Town, Richland Township, in Greene, Indiana, United States. 1930 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration Publication T626)
   4 Apr 1930.

   See Family:Emery Sargent and Ora Ashcraft (1) for text and details.