Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1912 — Obituary. [ARTICLE]

Obituary.

Thomas Officer Chesnut was born in Monroe county, Pennsylvania, Feb. 28, 1833. His father, Thomas McKinney Chesnut, was a Presbyterian minister, and built the first Presbyterian church in Rensselaer. Thomas 0. Chesnut enlisted in the union army at Springfield, Illinois, Sept 29, 1861, in Company H, Illinois Vol. infantry. He ’ re-enlisted Dec. 25, 1863, then having a captain’s commission, and was credited to Miami township, Clermont county, Ohio, and was honorably discharged at Springfield, July 15, 1865. He married Martha M. Briggs, of Ashtabula county, Ohio, on Dec. .28th, 1865, and settled in Rensselaer, Indiana, where he engaged in the planing mill business with G. B. Conwell, under the firm name of Conwell & Chesnut, operating a waterpower mill near Washington street bridge and at the same time in the drug business with Dr. E. T. Harding, under the firm name of Harding & Chesnut. In 1867 his first son, Charles M., was born. In 1874 he moved to Cohtmbla -City, Indr, where he carried on a prosperous contracting and building business. Here, In 1875, Halley 0., was born. Martha, the wife of Thomas O. Chesnut, died on Jan. 10, 1878, and on March 4, 1880 be married Mary Catharine Reider. The children of this union were Thomas Earl, and Scott Reider Chesnut, both born in Columbia City, Ind. In 1887 Thomas O. Chesnut moved with his family to Surrey county, Virginia. They returned to Rensselaer in 1892, where he resided until his death, on March 7th, ladt. He Was a member of the Presbyterian church of Rensselaer and a member of Prairie Lodge No. 125 F. & Ajll-