From "Biographical Memoirs of Wells County, Indiana", B.F. Bowen, Logansport, Indiana, 1903, pp. 311-

JOHN A. ALSPACH.

John A. Alspach first saw the light of day in Jacksno township, Wells County, Indiana, March 10, 1869. He is a son of Daniel Alspach, a native of Perry county, Ohio, who came to Wells County with his parents, Amos and Elizabeth Alspach, natives of Ohio, when he was twenty-one years of age. Amos, the grandfather of the subject, is still living at the ripe old age of eighty-five years. Daniel Alspach died May 2, 1893. His wife, Henrietta, a daughter of Reason and Catherine Bevington, natives of Ohio, was born in Wells County and is still living. Daniel Alspach was the father of four children, all of whom are living: John A., subject of this sketch; Asa B., an oil pumper in Jackson township; Orval, an oil pumper in Blackford county; Daniel A., at home.

John A. Alspach attended the public schools in Jackson township until he was fifteen and remained with his father until he was twenty-one years of age. April 18, 1888, he was married to Sarah E. Jones, born in 1870, a daughter of Isaac and Sallie Jones, both of whom are yet living. After his marriage the subject settled on the Abigail Shadle farm in Chester township where he remained for one season, then locating on Daniel Jones' farm in Jackson township, on which he remained for two years. He then moved on to Jane Bevington's farm in Jackson township which he cultivated for two years, when he removed to his mother's farm, remaining there until April, 1900. He then gave up farming and began as a pumper for the Ohio Oil Company on the G. Terhune lease. He is the father of five children, four of whom are still living; Delphos E., born May 2, 1890, died December 29, 1890; Fred H., born December 29, 1896; Raymond E., born January 3, 1898; Mabel D., born June 19, 1899, and Nelson D., born November 7, 1891.

Politically Mr. Alspach is an ardent Republican, and during the campaign times, like a war horse, he "sniffs the battle from afar" and when the contest rages he is in his element and by his efforts for the success of his party does honor to his early teaching.

The subject has the proud honor of being the son of a veteran of the Civil war, his father, Daniel Alspach, having enlisted soon after the beginning of hostilities in that splendid fighting regiment, the Forty-seventh Indiana, and was connected with it all through its glorious history of fifty-two months of arduous service for our country. Like thousands of others, he contracted disabilities in the service and his constitution was shattered, from the effects of which he died of consumption. John A. Alspach is a representative of the class which constitutes the bone and sinew of the country. Educated in the common schools and inheriting from a patriotic sire a hardy constitution and an innate love of his country's institutions, he has the brawn and muscle to wrest a livelihood either as a cultivator of the soil or as a member of the great army of workers in the industries of the country, coupled with the mental capacity and inclination to a participation in the political activities which shape and determine our civic status in the sisterhood of states.