Biographical Memoirs of Wells County, Indiana, 1903. pp. 437-438.

JOHN McAFEE.

This native-born and respected farmer of Rock Creek township, Wells county, Indiana, was born January 6, 1854, and is a son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Lesh) McAfee, of whom mention of greater length will be found on other pages of this volume. He was educated in the district school of his neighborhood, which he attended until about seventeen years of age, and then began working on a farm by the month, the father absorbing whatever compensation was granted to the son. At the age of twenty-one years, John McAfee was presented with a horse, as a capital with which to begin his business career in life, and, as the sequel will show, he did not misapply this small means toward advancing his future progress. In 1875 he took a third interest in a saw-mill with his father and George Riley, but after a few months the father and son bought out the interest of Mr. Riley in this mill and for some time ran it on their mutual account. John, Jacob and Peter McAfee then bought the mill and conducted it for thirteen years, buying and cutting their timber, taking such contracts for custom sawing as they could secure, and disposing of their own outfit at a very fair profit. The father and son John each owned a one-hundred-and-sixty-acre tract of wooded land, valued at five thousand dollars per tract; but John was rather improvident at that time and gave his obligations for his investment, all of which he promptly met as they fell due.

John McAfee next moved upon his present farm in section 17, Rock Creek township, on rural route No. 3 from Bluffton, the greater part being then in the forest, but this portion he has since cleared up and improved and added to it until he owned four hundred and twenty acres. He later disposed of eighty acres, so that he now owns a trifle less than three hundred and forty acres, which is valued at twenty-seven thousand dollars. He deals largely in hogs, but is also a farmer who looks well to what pays him best, and figures on about two thousand dollars net profit per annum from his farm produce, most of which he invests in additional land. He is a scientific agriculturist and keeps himself well posted by reading the best farming journals. He also is quite regular in his attendance at farmers' institutes and is a good listener, but not an orator. He has never wandered far from the spot where he was born and now lives within a mile of his birth place, of which he in fact owns a part.

March 31, 1877, John McAfee was united in marriage with Miss Isabella Light, who was born in Jackson township, Wells county, November 12, 1856, and is a daughter of Isaac W. and Phebe (Pouless) Light. The father was called away, however, and the mother became the wife of George Spraks [sic]. The marriage of John McAfee to Isabella Light has been crowned with four children, viz: Lillie, born August 25, 1878, who is now the wife of Charles W. Decker, a farmer in Rock Creek township; Earnest, born March 28, 1882, still unmarried; Winnie, born August 21, 1885, is assisting in caring for the household; John, born June 12, 1887, is attending the district school.

Mr. and Mrs. McAfee are members of St. Paul Lutheran church of Rock Creek township, of which Mr. McAfee is a deacon. He has always been a liberal supporter of this church financially, and on its being rebuilt contributed very freely to the building fund. In his political views he is in sympathy with the Democratic party, but has never felt any ambition as to filling public office. Mr. and Mrs. McAfee are both very pleasant and affable, and their advice upon farming and many other subjects is freely sought by their neighbors, far and near, as it can be implicitly relied upon as being honest and sincere.

Samuel McAfee, the father of the gentleman whose name opens this record, and who now has his residence in Liberty township, Wells county, was one of the patriots who gallantly went to the front during the dire need of the nation for defenders at the time of the Civil war. August 20, 1862, he enlisted in Company G. One Hundred and First Indiana Volunteer Infantry, under Captain Wilson, and took part, among others, in the following named serious engagements: Perrysville, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge and Chattanooga; he was also all through the Atlanta campaign and at the siege and fall of that fated city; was at the battle of Peach Tree Creek, Georgia; Bentonville, North Carolina; was present at the surrender of the rebel general, Johnston, and was honorably discharged at the close of the war at Louisville, Kentucky.

Elizabeth (Lesh) McAfee was a native of Berks county, Pennsylvania, was married to Samuel McAfee in 1851, and died at her home in Rock Creek township in September, 1894, truly honored by all who knew her.