Bole, **William

"BLACKFORD AND GRANT COUNTIES INDIANA, A CHRONICLE OF THEIR PEOPLE PAST AND PRESENT WITH FAMILY LINEAGE AND PERSONAL MEMOIRS"; Complied Under the Editorial Supervision of BENJAMIN G. SHINN; vol. II ; THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY; CHICAGO AND NEW YORK; 1914

(Submitted by:Peggy Karol and Karen Overholt to the Grant Co., Indiana website at RootsWeb.com)

"WILLIAM ALONZO BOLE. The residence of the Bole family in Jefferson township dates back to the year 1877. In section twelve of that township, one of the most productive and valuable farms in the community is that of Mr. Bole, who in later years has retired largely from active participation in farming, but has sons who are carrying forward the work and continue to increase the prosperity so long enjoyed by this family.

The name Bole is of Dutch origin, and Grandfather William Bole was born in Pennsylvania in 1791, and died in Shelby county, Indiana, in 1862. He was married in Pennsylvania, and they moved out to Ohio and lived at Georgetown in Brown county, where all their children were born. Their family were: David, John, William, Abraham, and James, and four daughters, Jane, Ann, Elizabeth and Mary.

William Bole, the father of the Jefferson township resident, was born in Brown county, Ohio, in 1814, and though reared on a farm, early in life he began an apprenticeship at the shoemaker's trade, and finally located at Neville, in Clermont county, Ohio, where he married Rosanna A. Melvin, who was born at Snow Hill, Maryland, in 1810, and came to Ohio with her father, William Melvin, who located at Neville, on the Ohio River. William Melvin was likewise a shoemaker, and William Bole worked in the same town with him after his marriage, but later moved to Foster's Landing in Kentucky, and in 1856 brought his wife and three children to Fayette county, Indiana, later lived both in Madison and Henry counties, and finally in Delaware county. In 1874 he moved to Grant county, but returned to Muncie, where his death occurred in 1898 at the age of eighty-four years. His wife passed away in 1895 and she too was past eighty years of age. William Alonzo Bole, the oldest of the family, was born at Neville, Ohio, March 6, 1841. His sister Melissa, born in 1845, married J. S. Petty, a prominent and well-known man whose death occurred in Martinsville, Indiana. For her second husband she married a Mr. Fink, a Massachusetts banker, and since his death her home has been in Muncie. She was at one time a skilled instrumental musician, and is a cultured and highly intelligent woman. She had two sons: Wilber and Walter, both of whom died after being married. James M. Bole, brother of William A. Bole, is a farmer in Jefferson township, and has a family."