Elisha Gale English

Elisha Gale English 1798-1874
6th child of Elisha & Sarah Wharton English
State of Indiana - Biographical Sketch*

MAJOR ELISHA G. ENGLISH

     One of the early settlers in the southern part of the State, was Maj. Elisha G. English, who came to Scott county about the time that county was organized, and continued to reside there until near the period of his death, which occurred in the fall of 1874.
     He was a leading citizen in that part of the State, and for half a century was more or less identified with public affairs. He served the people of Scott County, as sheriff, as far back as 1828, and was repeatedly their representative in the State legislature. He was many years a senator from the counties of Scott and Jackson and also from the counties of Scott and Clark.
     He was a member of the legislature as far back as 1832, when that body met in the old court house of Marion county, and at that and the succeeding session, had for colleagues such men as James Rariden, George H. Dunn, John Vawter, Elisha W. Huntington, George H. Profit, Samuel Bigger, Caleb B. Smith, John H. Thompson and Joseph A. Wright, all of whom preceded him in the journey across the dark river, "full of years and full of honors."
     He continued a representative of the people, either in the senate or the house, with a few brief intervals, to sometime about the year 1867 - the long period of thirty-five years - about which time he became vice president of the street railway company, and director in the First National Bank of Indianapolis, which positions he held at the time of his death. He was at one time United States marshal for the district of Indiana, and in that capacity superintended the taking of the census of the State in 1860.
     He was of a vigorous, long-lived race, his father and mother dying in extreme old age, after living together as man and wife sixty years, and rearing fourteen children, all of whom lived to be married mean and women with children, before there was a single death in the family. He shared the same vigorous constitution, and was an active, robust, energetic man to near the time of his death, which occurred in the seventy-seventh year of his age, not from a breaking down of the constitution, but from a hemorrhage resulting from a surgical operation. He was fond of active out door life, and when over seventy-five year of age he made two trips on horseback all the way from his old home, near the Ohio river, to Indianapolis, a distance of nearly a hundred miles, just for the fun of the thing, as he said, and to show the boys what an old man could do.
     These are the kind of men whose untiring energy has made Indiana great and prosperous. He was entirely a self-made man, without the benefit of much early education, or any other aid than his own individual exertions.

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*Transcribed from: An Illustrated History of the State of Indiana: Being a Full and Authentic Civil and Political History of the State from its First Exploration down to 1875. Including An Account Of the Commercial, Agricultural, and Education Growth of Indiana. With Historical and Descriptive Sketches of the Cities, Towns and Villages, Embracing Interesting Narratives of Pioneer Live, Together With Biographical Sketches and Portraits Of the Prominent Men of the Past and Present. And A History of Each County Separately. By DeWitt C. Goodrich and Prof. Charles R. Tuttle. Indianapolis: Richard S. Peale & Co., Publishers, 1875.