Page Covers - Surnames
- Banks
- Chandler
Early Life and Relations
George Banks was born in Lake County, Ohio on 13 October 1839.[1][3][4][13][47] According to a biography of his older brother William Banks, the Banks family lived in Madison Township.[49] In 1845, when George was 6 years old, his family moved from Ohio to LaPorte County, Indiana.[3][4][13] According to Chapman (1880, 506), they reached their new home in August of that year.[48] Around the year 1853 or 1854, when George was 14, his family moved to Lake County, Indiana.[13][49]
George's parents were farmers, and his biographers and those of his brothers, indicate that the children received very good public educations, as well as agricultural training on the farm. Most of the children became farmers and stock raisers. George was the eighth of twelve children.
His three oldest brothers, Charles West, Morgan, and Elisha, moved to Kansas, homesteading land in Gypsum Creek Township, McPherson County. Charles became a lawyer and served as mayor of Salina, Kansas. Morgan and Elisha were stockmen. George's brothers Parley and William lived in LaPorte County, and raised livestock. They both served on many agricultural committees and societies. George's youngest brother Nathaniel, was a public school teacher, a trustee of Lake County, and a member of the Indiana state legislature. His oldest sister, Betsy, married Major B. Atkin, and lived in Lake County. Mary Catherine married Balsar Keith and lived in LaPorte County. His youngest sister, Sarah Levina, married William B. Adams, and moved to Montgomery County, Kansas nearby to her brother George. George, Morgan, Elisha and Nathaniel all served as Union soldiers in the Civil War.[49]
Before the Civil War
Like his siblings, George Banks received good public schooling in La Porte County and Lake County, Indiana.[3][4][13] He attended school until age 17.[3] At that age, in the year 1856, George moved to St. Anthony, Minnesota on the banks of the Mississippi River to work in the lumber mills there.[3] St. Anthony had just been incorporated in 1855 and the new city was booming. This city would eventually merge with Minneapolis and today is the city's Northeast business district. Connelley (1918, 1840) mentions George as having "found employment in a pioneer sawmill at St. Anthony", but during this time there actually was a sawmill in St. Anthony named "Pioneers".[3] It's possible that George mentioned this as his place of employment during the interview and was misunderstood.
In 1857, George traveled to northern Michigan to work at some capacity in the timber industry there.[3] No mention is made of exactly when George returned to Lake County, Indiana, but it was likely with the death of his father Orin on October 29, 1857.
Upon his return to Lake County, George engaged in a "large amount of contract work in the digging of drainage ditches."[3] He then worked as a clerk in a grocery store for one year followed by similar work in a dry-goods store.[3] At this point he resumed farming in the county and continued until the outbreak of the Civil War.[3] George Banks appears as a farmer in the 1860 Lake County federal census.[7]
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