Jackson Township
JOHN PALMER HANCEWilliam Hance, father of the subject of this sketch was one of the pioneers of Carroll County. A native of Kentucky, afterward a resident of Miami County, Ohio, thence, in 1828, to Carroll County, Ind., settling on what is known as the Snoeberger farm in Jackson Township, and after living there two years, moving to the old homestead, where he resided at the day of his death, which occurred in the month of June, 1859. A farmer by occupation he was of German lineage and was twice married. By his first wife, Sarah Counts, he reared a large family of boys and girls, of whom but one, John P. Hance, is yet living. The oldest son, William C. Hance, was a soldier of the Mexican war, and died, soon after his return home, from disease contracted in the service. Another son, Joseph D. Hance, was elected Sheriff of Allen County, Ind., and died in 1879, during his incumbency of that office. His second wife, by whom one child, a girl was born, was a widow by the name of Smith (Martin), who died during the latter part of last year (1881), at the advanced age of eighty-six years. Until her death she continued to live on the old homestead.
William Hance was three times elected a Commissioner of Carroll County – in 1836, 1845 and 1848 – serving in all, in that capacity, nine years. For a number of years he was chosen inspector of Elections. Serapulously honest and although without the advantages of an education, a man of intelligence and practical good judgement, those who remember his official life say that his opinion always carried with it, to his fellow Commissioners, the weight of conviction. As a political candidate, he was so popular as to rarely meet with opposition and though often a candidate, he studiously avoided electioneering in his own behalf to the extent even of soliciting a single vote. Strictly temperate in his habits of a active robust physical constitution, a consistent Christian, and a member of and for many years indeed a mainstay in the Old School Baptist Church and thoroughly devoted to the church and its interests, a man benevolent and generous in disposition and faithful in sickness, he cannot out informant tells us, be too well spoken of, or his memory too highly revered.
John P. Hance is the third son of William Hance, and was born on the Hance homestead, in Jackson Township, Carroll County, Ind., on the 30th of June, 1830, being therefore a native of Carroll County, and with the single exception of his four years of official service during which time he lived in Delphi, having passed his entire life up to the present time on the old homestead.
John P. Hance was elected Treasurer of Carroll County from the democratic party in the fall of 1876, and re-elected to the same office in 1878. Like his father before him he is in politics a Democrat, but has never desired or earned the reputation of being a politician, preferring the comforts and certainties of a farmer’s life to the struggles and disappointments which not infrequently fall to the lot of the former.
On March 3, 1851, he was married to Miss Lucinda Vincy, daughter of William Vincy, a farmer and native of Kentucky, by whom eight children (four boys and four girls) have been born to him, all residents of Carroll County. Mrs. Hance is a member of the Missionary Baptist Church of Camden.
Mr. Hance is a member of the order of Masons, and has advanced in title to the highest position of the subordinate lodge.
In his community he is considered a kind husband and father and a excellent citizen. Entering the last half of life’s fitful voyage, he is still a hale and vigorous man and having lived an abstemious life, and being of a happy disposition and a cool and steady temperament, he promises to reach in years the allotted threescore and ten.
County Coordinator: Suzy Sprague suzyq.wa@worldnet.att.net