Biographical Memoirs of Wells County, Indiana, 1903. pp. 549-550.

DANIEL FISHER

Probably there cannot be found in Union township a more venerable man and venerated and respected citizen than Daniel Fisher, a son of Henry and Elizabeth (Crites) Fisher, of Pennsylvania birth and German extraction. Daniel Fisher, however, was born in Tuscarawas county, Ohio, and the date of his nativity was June 14, 1826. His paternal grandfather was the founder of the family in America, having landed in New York when a young man. Henry Fisher married a Miss Crites in Tuscarawas county. The lady was also of German parentage and bore her husband ten children, viz: John, Daniel, Joseph, George, Henry, Solomon, Anna, Elizabeth, Lydia and one that died in infancy. Of the three members of this family who still survive, Daniel is the only one living in Wells county, Indiana. Although his father was a poor man when he settled in Ohio, he was a man of indomitable will and untiring industry, and at his death, which took place in the Buckeye state, he was worth at least twenty thousand dollars.

Daniel Fisher was reared to farm life and was educated in the common schools; being an apt scholar and possessing a retentive memory, he succeeded in securing a good education and at the age of twenty-one years, on quitting school, he began learning the cooper's trade, at which he worked one year, when, having saved sufficient funds, he came to Wells county and entered eighty acres of wooded land on the site now occupied by Jesse Crites. He returned to Ohio and remained at his trade two years longer.

Mr. Fisher was united in marriage in 1850, with Miss Sophia A. Myers and the young couple lived on the farm alluded to for seven years, when Mrs. Fisher was called to rest July 17, 1857, leaving three children, named Henry, Elizabeth and Margaret A. At the death of this, his first helpmate, Mr. Fisher returned to the home of his father in Ohio and remained on the old homestead, until his second marriage, which took place March 25, 1859, to Miss Sarah J. Shull. In April, 1859, he returned with his wife to Wells county, Indiana, and resumed the occupancy of his original farm, on which he resided until 1862, when he sold it and bought one hundred and twenty acres of his present farm, to which he has since added forty acres, having now a compact farm of one hundred and sixty acres of as good land as can be found in Wells county.

To the second marriage of Mr. Fisher have been born nine children, eight of whom are living: Emmett, Matilda, Clara C., George A., Rachel, Elmer, Ellsworth, Daniel B. and Della M. Mr. Fisher and all the members of his family, save one, belong to the church of God, in which he has officiated as deacon and elder for several years. Mrs. Fisher died August 25, 1890, after being an invalid, confined to her bed for twenty-four years, and an almost constant sufferer from rheumatism.

In politics Mr. Fisher is a stalwart Republican and has been a zealous supporter of the party ever since its foundation, having probably cast more presidential votes than any other man in Wells county, at least in Union township, including candidates nominated by both Whigs and Republicans. Mr. Fisher thinks for himself and is possessed of strong convictions, but is not obtrusive and is a kindly neighbor, and has lived to witness Union township developed from a genuine wilderness into a blooming garden. His only neighbor, in fact, when he first settled here, was Jesse Crites, each owning a horse and wagon, and when necessary to go to mill, the two would hitch the animals together, thus making a double team, and while one of them carried an ax with which to hew a road through the woods, the other would drive the horses.