Almond W. Blanchard, BiographyPorter County biographical sketches . . . .
Transcribed biography of Almond W. Blanchard
ALMOND W. BLANCHARD. A resident of Porter county since his boyhood days, Mr. Blanchard has been long and prominently identified with business interests in the thriving village of Hebron, where he is proprietor of the representative general merchandise establishment conducted under the title of The Fair. He has won success through his own well directed efforts and is one of the essentially representative business men of Hebron, where he has built up a large and prosperous enterprise, in which his best commercial asset is his high reputation for fair and honorable dealings in which his aim has at all times been to give value received. He is loyal and progressive in his civic attitude and has been influential in public affairs of a local order, the while no citizen commands more secure place in popular confidence and esteem. Tangible evidences of his success are shown not only in the extent and substantial character of his mercantile business but also in his ownership of a fine dairy farm of one hundred and eighty acres, located in Boone township, at a point two and one-half miles southeast of Hebron. The family of which he is an honored representative has been identified with industrial and civic activities in Porter county for the past forty-five years, and he whose name initiates this review has honored the name which he bears, even as his business powers have made him one of the leading merchants of the county that has long represented his home.
Almond W. Blanchard was born on a farm located ten miles distant from Joliet, Will county, Illinois, and the date of his nativity was October 12, 1856. He is a son of H. German and Caroline M. (Brown) Blanchard, the former of whom was born in Vermont, of stanch colonial stock, and the latter of whom was born in the state of New York, whence her parents migrated to Illinois when she was ten years of age, the family becoming pioneers of Will county, where Mrs. Blanchard was reared to maturity and where her marriage was solemnized. H. German Blanchard continued to be identified with agricultural pursuits in Illinois until about 1866, when he removed with his family to Porter county, Indiana, there continuing to be concerned with the same basic industry until 1875. He then established his home in the village of Hebron, where he passed the residue of his worthy and useful life, his death having here occurred in 1909. His venerable widow is now a gracious and loved member of the household circle of her son Almond, subject of this review, who accords to her the deep filial solicitude which is her just due. Of the twelve children who died in infancy, and the names of the others are here entered in respective order of birth: Frank, Celia, Luther, Edgar, Almond, Elmer, Emma, Clara, Edith and Mary. All of these children are still living with the exception of two and all were given the best possible educational advantages, as gauged by the means available for such purpose on the part of the devoted parents.
Almond Blanchard gained his rudimentary education in the district schools and was about nine years of age at the time of the family removal to Hebron, where he availed himself of the advantages of the public schools until he had attained the age of nineteen years. A youth of indomitable energy and ambition, he early began to direct his energies along productive lines. He finally engaged in independent business as a buyer and shipper of hay, and he built up in this line a prosperous enterprise. In the early '80s he opened a meat market in Hebron, and to this line of enterprise he devoted his attention for five years, during which he carefully conserved his resources and formulated plans for entering a broader field of activity. After disposing of his market he conducted a hotel in Hebron for one year and then retired from this business to open in this village the first five and ten cent store in this locality. Bringing to bear distinctive energy and discrimination, he gradually developed the enterprise into a general merchandise business of broad scope and importance, and his finely equipped store is now one of model order for a town of the population of Hebron, with a substantial trade derived from an appreciative patronage on the part of the people of this section of the county. No equivocal methods are permitted in any department of the business and the fair dealings and progressive policies of the establishment have given to it a secure place in popular estimation and support.
In 1904 Mr. Blanchard purchased his fine farm of one hundred and twenty acres, and to the same he has since given his personal supervision, in connection with his mercantile business. He has developed this into one of the best dairy farms in Porter county, and the milk products are shipped to the city of Chicago, operations being based on a fine herd of about twenty-five milch cows of the Holstein strain. The most scrupulous care is given to the maintaining of the best sanitary conditions in all phases of the business and the enterprise has become one of important order -- creditable alike to Mr. Blanchard and to the county in which it is located. Since the death of his loved wife, in 1907, the venerable mother of Mr. Blanchard has presided over his attractive home in Hebron, and she is one of the noble pioneer women of the county in which she has maintained her residence for nearly half a century.
In politics Mr. Blanchard is found arrayed as a stalwart supporter of the cause of the Republican party, and while he has never been ambitious for public office his sense of civic duty led him to give effective service in the office of township trustee of Boone township, a position of which he was the valued incumbent for a period of four years, and he has also served as a member of the board of trustees of the village of Hebron. He is affiliated with the Hebron Lodge of Knights of Pythias and is a member of the Christian church in this village, an organization of which his deceased wife was likewise a zealous member, his mother having long been a devoted adherent of the Methodist Episcopal church.
On the 2nd of November, 1881, Mr. Blanchard was united in marriage to Miss Eva Patrick, who was born and reared in Boone township, Porter county, and who was a daughter of Jacob and Rhoda Patrick. Mrs. Blanchard was summoned to the life eternal on the 6th of August, 1907, and is survived by no children. She was a woman of most gracious personality and held the affectionate regard of the people among whom her entire life was passed, while she was ever a popular factor in the social and religious activities of the community.
Mr. Blanchard has proved himself one of those valiant and determined men to whom success comes not as an accident but as a logical result, and he merits much credit for the prosperity which he has gained through his own ability and efforts, as does he also merit the high regard in which he is held in the community that has been the stage of his earnest and effective endeavors as one of the world's productive workers.
Source: Lewis Publishing Company. 1912. History of Porter County, Indiana: A Narrative Account of its Historical Progress, its People and its Principal Interests. Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Publishing Company. 881 p.
Page(s) in Source: 733-735
This biography has been transcribed exactly as it was originally published in the source. Please note that we do not provide photocopies or digital scans of biographies appearing on this website.
Biography transcribed by Steven R. Shook