Extracted from "Biographical and Historical Record of Adams and Wells
Counties," The Lewis Publishing Company, 113 Adams Street, Chicago, 1887, p. 983.

John H. Bender, farmer and stockraiser, section 14, Rock Creek Township, was
born in Berks County, Pennsylvania, December 1, 1840, the eldest son of John
and Barbara (Mast) Bender. When he was ten years old his parents came to Wells Countynty, Indiana, and after living in Bluffton six months, they located in Rock
Creek Township, purchasing the farm on which our subject now resides in 1852.
He was reared to the avocation of a farmer and received a common school
education in the schools of his neighborhood. He was early in life inured to
hard work, his youth being spent in assisting his father clear his land. He
enlisted in the late war August 15, 1862, ans was assigned to Company B, One
Hundred and First Indiana Infantry. He went through Kentucky and Tennessee,
and participated in many hard fought battles, serving his country until the
close of the war. He was honorably discharged August 24, 1865, when he
returned to his home in Wells County, and for the following nine years he was
engaged in running a threshing machine during the summer, and sawing wood and
hulling corn during the rest of the year. September 28, 1870, he was married
to Miss Eliza Raver, a daughter of Joseph Raver, of Bluffton, and to them have
been born eight children--Cora E., John D. (died, aged three years), Della
Jane, William H., Louis Nelson, Charles N., Ada Azora, and one who died in
infancy. After his marriage Mr. Bender settled on his father-in-lawÂ’s farm
where he resided nine years. He then removed to the old Bender homestead in
Rock Creek Township, which he purchased in 1881, and now owns about 120 acres
of choice land well improved under fine cultivation. Mr. Bender began life
without capital, but with a determination to succeed, and by his own efforts
has acquired his present farm, and by his honorable dealings he has won the
respect of the entire community. In politics he affiliates with the Democratic
Party. He and his wife are members of the Reformed church, in which they take
an active interest. He was elected superintendent of the Sunday-school in
1885, ‘86, and ‘87, and under his management the average attendance of the
school more than doubled.