... Henry Bantz remained at home attending school and working on the farm until he was twenty-six years of age renting a portion of the homestead farm during the latter part of this time. He was married March 5 1865 to Sarah E Bartlett of Delaware County where she was born and where they were married. Previous to his marriage he had purchased one hundred acres of his present farm which was then covered with large and valuable timber and had no buildings erected on them, he going into debt to the extent of one thousand five hundred dollars. The timber he cut into ties and cordwood from the sale of which he realized considerable money. Later he added forty acres making one hundred and forty acres and still later other acres until he now has land to the amount of three hundred and sixty acres lying in Blackford and Jay and Delaware counties and divided up into four farms. He has two hundred and forty acres under cultivation which is well drained with about three thousand rod of tile and he expended about twelve hundred dollars in the construction of the Lick creek ditch. The principle crop grown by Mr. Bantz has been corn all of which he feeds to hogs each year, his plan being to breed only the best of stock. His present two-story house which is large and convenient he erected twenty years ago. His farm is well situated in the gas belt and is crossed by the panhandle railroad. The gas well on his farm is owned and operated by the Bantz-Patters gas company, of which he is one of the original stockholders and which was incorporated in 1895. It has a capital of ten thousand dollars and operates three wells, which supply a portion of demand in Dunkirk. Mr. Bantz is still a member of this company, owning a portion of its stock.
Mr. Bantz, like his father before him, has a strong a powerful frame, and has always been an industrious hardworking man. For eight years after starting out in life for himself he did not lose a day, but worked constantly in order to place his property in the fine condition it now is found. It was after he was twenty-one that he began to make satisfactory progress, and at the time of his marriage he had a splendid start. The share he received from his father’s estate he has husbanded well and has so invested it that it brings him in fair returns. No man has done more than Mr. Bantz to further public improvements, the Lick creek ditch, mentioned earlier in this sketch, owing its existence mainly to his persevering efforts, he going on the bonds of county commissioners at the time it was constructed to the amount of five thousand dollars. He has also contributed largely to the building of pikes and all similar public improvements, knowing that good public roads largely increase the value of farm lands and make travel more easy and pleasant, saving time, team, and rolling stock. Politically Mr. Bantz is a Democrat, but gives his attention mainly to private affairs. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and an excellent citizen in every way.
Mr. and Mrs. Bantz are the parents of fifteen children, as follows: Rena [Lorena], wife of Elkanah [Alcany] Gilbert, of Jay county; Luella, wife of George Buckles, of Delaware county; Rhoda, who married Saul Wilson, and died October 6, 1894 at the age of twenty-seven, leaving five children; Irvin, of Blackford county, who married Hesea Irene; Frank; Sivilla, wife of William Stoughton, of Dunkirk; Emma, wife of George Whitaker, of Blackford County; Daniel, who married Dose DePoy, of Dunkirk; Levi, living at home in Dunkirk; Viola, wife of George Fromyer, of Dunkirk; Zula, wife of George Crumwell, of Noblesville, Indiana; William, living at home; Grover who died at the age of fifteen, and Vernie, living at home, and two that died in infancy. Mrs. Bantz died August 25, 1894, aged fifty years, seven months and twenty days. In May, 1900, Mr. Bantz had twenty-six grandchildren living. He has always taken great interest in his children’s welfare, assisting them to get a start in the world to the extent of his ability, and doing all in his power to further the moral and material welfare of his community. ...
