Thomas J. Frame, BiographyPorter County biographical sketches . . . .
Transcribed biography of Thomas J. Frame
THOMAS J. FRAME, deceased, belonged to one of the pioneer families of Porter county, Indiana, and here he was born, reared, passed his days and died, the span of his life being from April, 1843, to November, 1908.
Mr. Frame was a son of William and Jane (McCarahan) Frame, the former a native of Kentucky and the latter of Ireland, and one of a family of eleven children, namely: Newton, James, Elizabeth, Thomas J., John, Sarah, Presley, Rosa, Matilda, William and Newton, the first Newton having died in infancy. In 1865, at the age of twenty-two years, Thomas J. Frame took to himself a wife in the person of Ann E. Cadwell, the daughter of a neighboring pioneer, and the young couple began their wedded life on a forty-acre farm which he purchased in Union township, their primitive little home consisting of a one-room cabin. He worked hard, improved his land, and in time acquired adjoining land, making a farm of one hundred and twenty acres. To him and his wife were given three children: James, Burton and Irvin, all now married and comfortably settled in life. James, a farmer of Lake county, Indiana, married Rosa Stegmeier and has one child, Irvin; Burton, a farmer of Porter county, married Amy Beam and has two children, Esther and Ruth; Irvin, who lives at the old homestead, married Anna Schaller, a daughter of August and Margaret Schaller, and they have one child, Irene.
Politically Mr. Frame was a Republican, and his religious creed was that of the Methodist Episcopal church, both he and his wife having membership in the church at Wheeler. The only fraternal organization to which he belonged was the G. A. R., and during the latter years of his life he took great pleasure in attending reunions and meeting with his old comrades. His service in the Civil war was as a member of Company B, One Hundred and Fifty-first Regiment, into which he was mustered at LaPorte, Indiana, and with which he went to Nashville, Tennessee. His honorable discharge bears date of 1865.
Mrs. Ann E. Frame, widow of Thomas J., dates her birth in 1845, and, like her worthy husband, is a native of Porter county, she being a daughter of James and Nancy Cadwell, pioneer farmers of this county. In the Cadwell family were six children: Orissa, Franklin, William, Luzerne, Newton and Ann E. Mrs. Frame still lives at the old home, where she is surrounded with the comforts of life, has a large circle of friends, and is happy in the companionship of her children and grandchildren.
The history of both the Frame and Cadwell families in Porter county dates back to the time when the Indians were plentiful in northern Indiana. Grandfather Frame's farm, which he pre-empted from the government, was crossed by one of the old Indian trails, and not long after his settlement here 500 Indians camped on his land. Some times the Indians came up to the settlers' cabins, peeped into the windows and frightened the women and children, but the red men never did serious harm to any of the whites in this locality.
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: 759-760
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