CRIST, Leander Mead

Source: History of Boone County, Indiana, by Hon. L.M. Crist, 1914.

LEANDER MEAD CRIST Leander Mead Crist, the eighth child and fourth son of James
Weller and Mary (LaFuze) Crist, was born at Liberty, Indiana, October 23, 1837. The
maternal grandparents were Samuel LaFuze and Eleanor Harper. Samuel LaFuze was
born in western Pennsylvania, September 12, 1776. His father was killed at the close of
1775 at the beginning of the Revolutionary war. Eleanor Harper was born in eastern
Pennsylvania, September 5, 1777. Her father was also killed in the Revolutionary war.
On the paternal line there was the blood of the Teuton, Irish and Scotch Dissenter, while
on the maternal it was French and Irish.

The grandfather, George Weller Crist, was born in New Jersey, September 20, 1770. In
1795, in his early manhood he came to Ohio and settled on the Miami river above
Cincinnati. Here it was that he wooed and won a fair maiden by the name of Sarah Bell,
who was born in Ireland and in her ninth year crossed the sea with her parents and settled
in Ohio. At the very dawn of the century they were married and came to Indiana in 1812,
entering and settling on land now in the corporation of Liberty, Indiana. March 16, 1844,
George Weller Crist died and his wife, Sarah Bell, died at the home of her daughter, Mrs.
James Henry, at Laurel, Indiana, in 1864. The maternal grandparent, Eleanor (Harper)
LaFuze, died February 17, 1852. Samuel LaFuze died January 11, 1863. The mother of
Eleanor Harper was born in 1743, and after the death of Mr. Harper was married to Mr.
Davis and died at Liberty, Indiana, 1824.

The ancestors on both paternal and maternal sides as far back as the records can be traced
were Protestants. They were of true pioneer spirit, energetic, industrious and frugal.

The father of the subject of this sketch, James Weller Crist, was born in Hamilton county,
Ohio, July 4, 1803, came with his parents to Indiana, in 1812, settling in what is now
Union county; married March 2, 1823, to Mary LaFuze, who immediately settled in the
forest. They were blest with eleven children, ten of whom were reared to manhood and
womanhood. The father passed away September 14, 1859. The mother, Mary LaFuze,
was born near Brownsville, Pennsylvania, March 21, 1805, and died at the home of her
son, Leander M. Crist, November 6, 1890. These parents early connected themselves with
the Methodist Episcopal church and their home was a pioneer church for years and the
home of the circuit rider. They were also charter members of the first temperance society
organized in Union county and banished the cards, cuspidor and the demijohn from the
home as early as the spring of 1833. They gave to their children the best church and
educational advantages that the country afforded at that early date.

Leander M. Crist assisted his father on the farm and in the mills until manhood. In the fall
of 1863, he entered Asbury University (now DePauw), where he remained four years,
graduating with a class of twenty-four in 1867. He then went to Lancaster, Kentucky, and
taught in the male academy for three years, at the same time studying law. In 1870 he
returned to his old home at Liberty, Indiana, and began the practice of law. His marriage
took place at Liberty, October 23, 1871, to Miss Eunice M. Brown, daughter of Walter
and Keziah (LaBoyteau) Brown. She was a graduate of Oxford (Ohio) College, in the
class of 1867. December 2, 1872, a son was born to this union and christened Mark
Brown Crist, but the joy and high hopes that came by this new tie of love, was soon
shrouded in deepest gloom by the death of the young mother, February 25, 1873, in the
twenty-third year of her age.

In 1875, Mr. Crist was selected as county superintendent of the public schools of Union
county, Indiana, which position he held by re-election until June, 1881. June 12, 1880,
Mr. Crist was married to Miss Orpha A. Gath, of Oxford, Ohio, who graduated at the
Oxford (Ohio) College, in the class of 1866. She is a daughter of Samuel and Mary
(Tetley) Gath, who came from Halifax, England, to this country in 1840. She was born at
Oxford, Ohio, May 21, 1845. After her graduation, she entered the school work, teaching
in the public schools for twelve years, and two years in the Miami Classical School at
Oxford, Ohio, at the time when the coeducation was introduced into that institution.

In 1881, Mr. and Mrs. Crist moved to Thorntown, Boone county, Indiana, and for three
years successfully conducted together the public schools in that place. In the summer of
1884, came the call for a political organization against licensed rum. Mr. and Mrs. Crist
both being born with an antipathy against the drink curse, could not resist the call. On July
23, 1884, Mr. Crist went to Indianapolis to participate in the first State Prohibition
Convention. He was one of five to join in a call for the first prohibition convention in
Boone county, September 8, 1884. This action made it necessary for both to retire from
public school work and from all official recognition in the church; to face the opposition,
innuendoes and contumely usually bestowed upon those who step out into any new line of
action. He became an ardent supporter of the Prohibition cause. In 1886 he was candidate
for Representative of Boone county; in 1888 delegate to the National Convention at
Indianapolis; in 1890, candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction; in 1892,
delegate to the National Convention at Cincinnati, Ohio; in 1894, candidate for Congress in
the Ninth Indiana District; in 1895, accompanied his wife, who was a delegate to the
World's Women's Christian Temperance Union Convention in London, England; in 1896,
delegate to the National Convention at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and candidate for Governor
of Indiana, on the Prohibition ticket; in 1897-1898, chairman of the Prohibition State
Committee of Indiana; in 1900, delegate to the National Convention at Indianapolis.
During the years 1891-1897, inclusive, there was held in Mr. Crist's grove a Gospel
Prohibition service every Sabbath afternoon for four months each year to advance this
great cause. In 1899-1901, inclusive, the work was continued by the publication of the
Twentieth Century, an eight page monthly. For the past seven years Mr. Crist has been
publisher of the Thorntown Argus-Enterprise, a weekly local paper.

In addition to this work along reform lines, Mr. Crist served as director in the First National
Bank at Liberty, Indiana; secretary of a turnpike company; secretary of the Masonic Order
for a long period of years; president of the County Sunday School Association, both in
Union and Boone counties. He became director of the First National Bank in Thorntown
and aided in the organization of the Home National Bank of Thorntown and served as
president for six years. This is a mere outline of some of the duties and responsibilities of a
long active life and still more to follow.

Mark B. Crist, the son and only child of the subject of this sketch, was tutored at home
until he was prepared to enter the freshman work at Purdue University, which course he
finished in 1896. He then went to New York, where he for five years was engaged in
practical lines along electrical and mechanical engineering. During this time he was
married to Miss Anna Field of Dayton, Ohio. To this union five children were born,
Eunice, March 25, 1901, in New York City; Floyd Field, born in Cleveland, May 5, 1902;
Mary Eleanor, July 24, 1904; Ida, January 9, 1901 (should this be 1911?); Orpha Lee,
August 17, 1912; all born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

L.M. Crist, though living on borrowed time, is still hale and hardy and ready for more
battles along moral lines. His theme of life has been total abstinence from all things
harmful and temperate in all things that are good and useful.

BELL BROWN CRIST DAVIS FIELD GATH HARPER HENRY LABOYTEAU
LAFUZE TETLEY

Submitted by Amy K. Davis