On January 29, 1908, John Frump, of Bowling
Green, Clay county, celebrated his eighty-sixth birthday in his spacious
and beautiful country residence, which is almost literally the work of his
hands, and, as such, is strikingly illustrative of his independent, sturdy,
determined and unique character. Thirty-two years before he had burned
the brick for the house on his own farm, cut the timber and had the
lumber sawed which was to enter into the construction of his home, and
to the minutest detail saw to it that the material was sound and the build-
ing was honest. As it stands to-day, with its neat sandstone trimmings
and its substantial appearance, an acre of velvet lawn, graceful shade
trees and pretty flower beds for a frame, the homestead is a symbol of
the industrious, solid, bright and mellow old gentleman, whose hard-
working, venturesome and useful life has been crowned by the admira-
tion and affection of his associates. At the age when many men are
huddled in a corner, mumbling absently of the past, John Frump is
actively alive to the present, tending his flowers with loving care, driving
briskly over the country in his rounds of relatives and friends, or sitting
at his desk and writing letters of friendship or business with the same
clear-cut and bold hand which adorns the books of the county treasurer of
more than forty years ago; and this latter accomplished without glasses!
In alluding to this unusual retention of physical and mental strength a
close friend gives the following gentle touch to his character: “As a
memorist he is phenomenally endowed, his retentiveness so acute that he
recites readily without reference or prompting, declamations committed
in his schoolboy days more than seventy years ago. It is an unusual
spectacle to see a man of eighty-six years repairing to the village or rural
school house, in response to an invitation to recite for the entertainment
and edification of the children, which Mr. Frump frequently does. When
but ten or twelve years of age, when he began reading in the old English
reader, then the only reader in the public schools of the west, he com-
mitted a somewhat lengthy composition entitled ‘An Address to the
Young,’ which he delivers to schools and parties at this time with
apparently as much avidity and, delight as in the days of his youth. ‘At
no time,’ says Mr. Frump, during the lapse of more than seventy years
since I memorized this address have I ever been in any way embarrassed
or at any loss to reproduce and declaim it word for word.’ In his retire-
ment from the activities of farm life Mr. Frump devotes his time to
reading and floriculture, his flower gardens being the admiration and envy
of all passers-by.”
    This fine old pioneer of Clay county is a native of Highland county,
Ohio, born near Hillsboro on the 29th of January, 1822, just twenty years
prior to the birth of William H. McKinley. His parents were John and
Mary Ann (Crabb) Frump, natives respectively of Delaware and Ohio.
In 1835, when he was but thirteen years of age, the family came to Clay
county and located on an eighty-acre farm in Posey township near the
present site of Brazil. There the mother died in 1849, her husband sur-
viving her until 1867, when he passed away at the age of seventy-six
years. Both were buried in the Hill cemetery, Brazil. Eight children
were born to them, of whom two sons and two daughters are living, John
Frump being the eldest of the family.
When Mr. Frump came to Clay county seventy-three years ago the
family located in a forest well stocked with deer, wild cats and wolves,
and the father, with his assistance and the help of everyone to the limit
of his capacity, commenced the erection of a log house and the clearing
of the eighty acres which was to constitute the farm. Their supplies were
hauled from the vicinity of Terre Haute. At the age of seventeen his
father gave him his “freedom,” but a search for work among the farmers
of the neighborhood indicated that there were neither surplus labor nor
funds in circulation, so with three other young men the fortune-seeker
walked to a locality in Vigo county near Fort Harrison. They tramped
along all day without anything to eat but frozen turnips, and at night
John Frump stopped with a farmer named David Sassene, who hired
the grateful youth at ten dollars per month. Mr. Frump remained thus
employed for about two years, but during this period (in the spring of
1842) made a trip to New Orleans with his employer, their mode of con-
veyance being by a flat boat down the Ohio and Mississippi. Upon his
return to Clay county he traded in stock, split rails and otherwise busied
himself for about three years. In 1845 he entered forty acres of land in
Dick Johnson township, paying for it in stock at the rate of two dollars
per acre. Later he purchased eighty acres in Van Buren township, for
which he paid two horses and the remainder in cash—the latter being
earned by splitting rails at twenty-five cents per hundred and cutting
cordwood at twenty cents per cord. Having paid for his eighty acres, he
added a “forty” through much the same process. As illustrating the
advance in land values in about twenty years, it may be stated that in
1868 Mr. Frump sold forty acres of his farm at one hundred dollars per
acre. In the same year he bought four hundred and forty acres in sec-
tions 25, 30 and 36, Washington township, which comprised his present
homestead of two hundred and eighty acres. About five acres of the
farm be transformed into an orchard, which bears a variety of fruit, and
in 1876 he erected his present residence of eleven rooms, constructed of
home-made brick, with sandstone trimmings and pronounced the finest
house of the kind in Washington township.
    During the earlier years of his residence in Clay county Mr. Frump
was an active Democrat and held many offices, both because of his popu-
laritv and real ability. He cast his first vote for James K. Polk in the fall
of 1844; held the offices of constable and trustee of Van Buren township
(the latter for ten years) and served as county treasurer of Clay county
from September, 1856, to September, 1869. In all these offices he was a
model of precision, faithfulness, honor and general efficiency. He is still
a Democrat, but for many years has taken no active part in politics. His
identification with the Christian church, on the other hand, is as earnest
and steadfast as ever. At the organization of the church at Bowling
Green, in the late ‘sixties, he became an elder, and continued to hold the
office for about seven years. He is now a member of the Washington
township church at Bellair.
In March, 1848, Mr. Frump wedded Miss Betsy Jane Matthews,
daughter of William and Susan (Storm) Matthews, of Parke county,
Indiana. The father was a native of Tennessee and the mother of Ohio,
and they were married in Parke county. Afterward they spent some
time in western Illinois, and returned to Bowling Green, where they died
and were buried. Mrs. Matthews spent her last days at the home of Mr.
Frump. John Frump has become the father of five sons and six daugh-
ters. Laura became the wife of M. B. Crist, of Morgan county, Indiana.
Alice married Elias Kilmer, of Clay City, who was clerk of the circuit
court at the time the county seat was removed to Brazil. After his death
his widow married Joseph Lind, of Terre Haute, who died, the mother of
three children, William M. Frump, another child, is now a resident of
Bowling Green; M. B. Frump is of Washington township; Ben Franklin
Frump, of Jasonville, Indiana; B. D. Frump, also of Washington town-
ship; Alma, wife of Bud Chapman, now deceased; Rosilla F., deceased;
and Mary C., wife of John W. Knipe, who lives with her father. The
venerable and revered mother of this family died September 11, 1901,
aged seventy-five years and five months. Mr. Frump has been blessed
with thirty-nine grandchildren, of whom thirty-one are living, and with
seventeen great-grandchildren, of whom thirteen are alive. These rising
and honorable representatives of his own flesh and blood are the inspira-
tion and the solace of his passing years, and in the younger generations
he lives his earlier life anew. Thus his old age is lightened of its burdens,
and is kept fresh and green.