The Sefton family stands preminent in the early history of Decatur county. The name has even been a synonym for integrity, thrift and prosperity. Four brothers, born in Ireland, emigrated to America, and the four - William, James, Henry and Samuel, located in Ohio. Three of these brothers ultimately came to Decatur county, Indiana, Henry having died of cholera in Butler county, Ohio, in 1834. The subject of this sketch, James Sefton. is the descendant of the oldest of the brothers, William Sefton, who is to be distinguished from another William Sefton, known as "Ohio Bill Sefton." The latter was a son of Henry Sefton, and as a matter of distinction assumed the letter O, as a middle name, after he had come to Indiana in May 15, 1838. William O. Sefton died October 29, 1868.
William Sefton, the father of James Sefton, was born in County Entrim [sic], in 1770. In his native land - the Emerald Isle - he was married to Charlotte Joppin. They came to America in 1804, and located in Butler county, Ohio, near the present town of Harrison.
James, the youngest of the seven children of this family, was born March 20, 1821, in Butler county, Ohio, and was three years old when his father moved to Indiana and entered eighty acres of land near the present Center Grove Church, in Clinton township, it being the farm now owned by John Thomas Meek. Of course, at this time the country was an unbroken forest, and in the midst of the thick woods the family settled down, and the father, assisted by bisons, began clearing a little farm, and planted a corn crop. No cabin was built until after the crop was "laid by," toward the latter part of the summer. The family lived in a rude tent, using the wagons for sleeping apartments, and the camp had been pitched by the side of a monster poplar log. The cabin when completed, had been constructed without a nail, it was covered with clap boards, held down by weight poles. The floor was of "puncheons," or logs flattened on one side by the axe, and all snugly laid on the ground. The house, though a rude affair, was comfortable. The woods were full of game, and though the boys were expert riflemen, as were most of the pioneers, the squirrels were so numerous that much of their corn crop was destroyed by them in spite of the fact that some one was kept on guard, gun in hand, with as much regularity as pickets of an army in the presence of the enemy. The elder Sefton had entered this eighty acres at the land office at Brookville, and paid for it at the government price of one dollar and a quarter an acre. He raised his large family and accumulated enough money to buy several adjoining tracts of land, all of which, by the help of his sons, he cultivated and developed into a valuable farm. He died in 1852, a most highly respected citizen of Clinton township. ...
