Celebrated Golden Wedding Anniversary (1917)

Columbia City Post, Saturday December 29, 1917

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Emery, of Washington Township, Have Traveled Life’s Journey Together for Fifty Years.

On Saturday, Dec. 29, 1917, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Emery, of Washington township, celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary – 50 years of married life. They were married in 1867 by Rev. Austin, long since dead and gone.

In 1844 Henry Emery came by wagon and ox team from his home in Wayne county, Ohio, near Wooster. They came by ox team until they reached the old Wabash and Maumee canal where they loaded their few worldly effects and traveled by boat until they reached Huntington. Here they spent the first night with John Kenauer.

Thomas was then two years old and he has resided in Washington township ever since. He says he can remember the Indians who came through on hunting expeditions and it was quite common during his early boyhood to see Indians going back and forth from the Little Wabash to those near Columbia City. At this time Washington township was just a mass of swamps and ague reigned supreme. They cleared a little ground and farmed around the swamps and conservation of food was a great item then because they did not have any to spare, and the early settler had to bear many hardships and sacrifices to make this the first township in Whitley county.

Mrs. Fannie Huffman Emery came to this county with her parents in 1848, she then being 4 years old, from their home in Darke county, Ohio. They came by wagons and drove what stock they had with them. They located in Washington township on the old Huffman homestead where Thomas Huffman now resides, and it was here that on Dec. 29, 1867, she was married. At the age of 5 years her father lost his life while digging a well and this left the mother with three small children to clear a home in the wilderness of Indiana.

On last Saturday, being the fiftieth anniversary they celebrated it in a quiet way at their home and those who were there were: Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Emery, Mr. and Mrs. J. Lee Emery and children, Lucille and Thomas, Mr. and Mrs. John E. Long and children, Emery and Marshall, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. H. Gross and children, Velma, Dorothy and Eudora, Mr. and Mrs. H. E. Emery and daughter, Marie, and Mr. and Mrs. Sid Hall and son, Glenn, of Huntington, Ind.