John  Thomas  Means

          Moral township received many of its first settlers from North Carolina, and the founders of some of the county’s strongest families came from that section of the South. Among them is the influential and widely distributed family of  Means.  Thomas Pinkney Means, the pioneer founder, was born in Rockingham county, North Carolina, April 22, 1807.  Having lost his father by death, he brought his mother to Shelby county, and entered land in Moral township, near Brookfield, being one of the very first settlers of that region.  His mother eventually removed to Minnesota, where she died as an occupant of her son Joseph’s household.  Thomas Pinkney Means married  Elizabeth, daughter of  John Dake, developed the farm where his son now lives, reared a large family and became one of the most influential men of the township.  In the course of time he and his wife passed away on the farm to which they devoted so much toil and anxious thought.  His death occurred Mary 12, 1884.  His wife, who was born Mary 25, 1824, died December 13, 1907. They had seven children:  Ruth, deceased; Mary Ellen, wife of  Fletcher McClain, both deceased;  Francis M., a resident of Moral township;  John Thomas;  James William, of Moral township; Columbia, wife of  Willis Hoop, of Sugar Creek township, and  George W., deceased.
          John Thomas Means, the fourth in the foregoing list, was born in Moral township, Shelby county, Indiana, March 3, 1852. He was three years old when his parents removed to the farm where he now lives, and it has been his home ever since.  It consists of one hundred seventy-five acres, in a high state of cultivation and its soil will compare in productiveness to the best in the township. He has never undertaken any fancy farming, contenting himself with the methods usually pursued in his neighborhood, the returns from the farm consisting in the products from the cereal crops and stock raising.  Mr. Means stands high in the community both as a farmer and a citizen fulfilling all his duties as a good neighbor.
Excerpt from Chadwick’s History of Shelby Co., Ind.
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