Accessioned: Gift of Alene Rollo Hoskins, 1972
Extent: 3 linear feet
Content: Newspaper articles, photographs, telegrams, advertisements, pamphlets, calling cards and ephemera
Access: Unrestricted
Processed: Sarena Deglin, 2003
Contact Information:

Helen Farr Sloan Library
Delaware Art Museum
2301 Kentmere Parkway
Wilmington, DE 19806

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Biographical and Historical Note
Scope and Contents Note
Description of the Scrapbook

BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTE

Joseph Hoskins was born of Irish lineage, August 1790, in Shelby County, Kentucky. He married three times, and had a total of nineteen children. With his wife Nancy Thompson Hoskins, also from Kentucky, Joseph Hoskins moved to Indiana in 1826 and made a settlement in the forests of Martin County, where the family remained until 1831 when they moved to Vigo County, settling nine miles east of the city of Terre Haute. Joseph Hoskins died at his residence in Lost Creek Township, Vigo County, on October 26, 1876.

James Marquis Hoskins, son of Joseph Hoskins, was born December 1829 in Martin County, Indiana. James M. Hoskins enlisted in the military service of the United States against Mexico at the age of seventeen, as a private in Company H, 4th Regiment Indiana Volunteers, and remained in the line of duty for fourteen months. In 1851 he migrated to Livingston County, Illinois, where he remained for three years working on a farm, and later moved to Jefferson County, Iowa, where he lived for six years, to return to Indiana in the spring of 1860 and settled in Clay County. In 1865 and 1866 he was elected trustee of Posey Township. In 1867 he was elected as auditor of Clay County on the Democratic ticket, in which capacity he served through 1878. In 1877 he formed a partnership with Jacob A. Carpenter in a dry-goods store in Brazil, Carpenter & Hoskins.

On November 20, 1851 James M. Hoskins married Miss Eva Ellen Carpenter, daughter of George Carpenter.* He died February 1900. James M. Hoskins is noted to be the father of eleven children. Evidence of ten children is as follows (birth order is estimated):

• Laura Adelaide (Addie) Hoskins - Laura Adelaide (Addie) Hoskins was born in Livingston County, Illinois, in the early 1850s. Mrs. Laura Adelaide Hoskins Stewart, the widow of John R. Stewart, died at the Hoskins homestead at the age of 79. She was survived by two sons, Cecil M. Stewart and James H. Stewart, 7 grandchildren, two sisters and a brother: Miss Florence Hoskins, George C. Hoskins and Mrs. Grace Stevenson.
• Jessie Eleanor Hoskins (1858-?) - Jessie Eleanor Hoskins was born in Jefferson County, Iowa, in June 1858. She married George Hadley in June 1881. Their one child, Alice Pearl Hadley, died at age 14. George Hadley later married Sarah Stigler in November 1912.
• George C. Hoskins - George C. Hoskins was born at Bowling Green where his father was engaged in the dry goods business. His family moved to Brazil when George was a young child. George went into the dry goods business. He was survived by two sisters: Florence Hoskins and Mrs. Grace Stevenson.
• Joseph Clifford Hoskins (?-1914) - Joseph Clifford Hoskins died in Brazil, Indiana from collision with wagon, in August 1914.
• James M. Hoskins, Jr. (1860-1919) - James M. Hoskins, Jr. was born in December 1860. He secured his first experience in business at the Trade Palace. Later he entered the offices of Central Iron & Steel Company as a bookkeeper, and when the rolling mill property was taken over by the Republican Iron and Steel Company, he remained with this company as secretary until the mill was closed down. He went to Terra Haute, as secretary-treasurer and general manager of the Terre Haute Vitrified Brick Company, which position he held until his death. In 1898 he was elected a member of the City Council on the Democratic ticket. In 1902 he made the race for Mayor on the Democratic ticket, but was defeated by W.W. Moore by a narrow margin of a few votes. James M. Hoskins, Jr. married Minnie M. Keith (b.1863), daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lowery Keith, on April 11, 1883, in Brazil. James M. Hoskins, Jr. died at the age of 59, in 1919. He was survived by his widow and one son, Robert Keith Hoskins (b.1896), of the Chicago Tribune. Mrs. Minnie Hoskins died in December 1944 and was also survived by her son Robert Keith Hoskins.
• William Thompson Hoskins (1862-1929) - William Thompson Hoskins (W.T. Hoskins) was born in Brazil in November 1862. Nicknamed "Pica", he was a former Brazil music dealer and composer. His first wife, Madge Porter Hoskins, died in 1903. W.T. Hoskins died at his Sacramento, California home in 1929. He was survived by Gayle Porter Hoskins, his son by his first wife. His widow and three children survived him as follows: Mrs. Veretta Hoskins, William Thompson, James Marcus and Miss Veretta Hoskins, all of Sacramento. He was also survived by one brother and three sisters: George C. Hoskins, Miss Florence Hoskins, Mrs. Laura Adelaide Hoskins Stewart, and Mrs. Grace Stevenson.
• Nina Hoskins (1876-1908) - Nina Hoskins was born in Brazil in June 1876 and died March 1908, having suffered from spinal meningitis.
• Ella (Ellen) M. Hoskins (?-1924) - Ella (Ellen) M. Hoskins married Dr. Luther S. Hirt, the son of Alfred Hirt, a pioneer banker and lumber buyer of western Indiana. She died March 1924. Dr. Luther S. Hirt, an active member of the Brazil Lodge of Elks later married Mrs. Minnie Laverty. Dr. Luther S. Hirt died at age 60. He was survived by a sister and three brothers.
• Alice Jane Hoskins - Alice Jane Hoskins was a teacher in the Meridian Street Building in the Brazil Public School System. She was an active member of the Southern Indiana Teachers' Association, the Ladies Literary Society, the Women's Reading Club, the Shakespeare Circle, and the Narcissus Club.
• Florence Elizabeth Hoskins - Florence Elizabeth Hoskins was the next to last surviving child of James Marquis Hoskins, survived by Grace Stevenson.
• Grace Hoskins (?-1953) - Grace Hoskins married Henry Elwood (H. Elwood) Stevenson of Bloomington. The youngest child of James Marquis Hoskins and the last surviving child, she died in her home in April 1953. She was survived by her husband, nieces and nephews.

*The Carpenter family was pioneer residents of Posey Township. Originally from Bedford County, Pennsylvania, George Carpenter moved to Indiana in 1840 with his wife Elizabeth Anderson Carpenter. His children are listed as follows:

• Winfield Scott Carpenter (1850-1915) married Lottie [Latta] (b.1854) Carpenter and had two daughters [Margaret E., b.1883; Sara E., b.1888]. W.S. Carpenter died in 1915; Mrs. Lottie Carpenter later died at the home of her daughter Mrs. H.E. Bozer, of Buffalo, N.Y.
• Jacob Anderson Carpenter was born in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, in February 1831. When he was nine years old his father moved to Indiana, settling at Cloverland, Clay County. There he grew to manhood and in February 1951 married Evelyn Grass (b.1833). They had two children, William E. and Ernest, who died at the age of nine years. Jacob Anderson Carpenter was engaged in the flour milling business at Cloverland in partnership with John G. Acklemyer and Washington Eppert, building the first mill at that place. He later disposed of this business and engaged in the general merchandise business in Cloverland with T.M. Hoskins and later with F.J.S. Robinson. In 1877 he disposed of this business and moved to Brazil to enter in dry goods business with J.M. Hoskins. Jacob Anderson Carpenter died in 1912. He was survived by one brother, Winfield Scott Carpenter, and five sisters including Mrs. Eva Ellen Hoskins.
• William H. Carpenter was born in Cloverland in 1840. He served as lieutenant in Col. M. 4th Indiana Calvary. Married Eugenie Pierce of Cloverland, five girls and four girls.
• Catherine A. Carpenter (1836-1915) married John A. Falls (1829-1914) in 1857. Together they had three children, one of which died in infancy, Clara. The other two were Harry D. Falls and Mrs. Carrie L. Moore. John A. Falls was born in Muskingdom County, Ohio. He moved to Cloverland in May 1850. Harry D. Falls was born in Cloverland and died June 1944.
• Mrs. Jeanette (Nettie) Miller married John T. Miller (d.1911).
• Mrs. Laura E. Robinson.
• Mrs. Mary A. Farrell (b.1857?), wife of William H. Farrell, died in April 1899. She was survived by her children and siblings, Mrs. Jeanette Miller, Mrs. Eva Ellen Hoskins, Mrs. Laura E. Robinson, and [W.] Scott Carpenter.
• Mariah A. Carpenter married Marcus Lafayette West, a pioneer and a veteran of the Mexican War of 1846. She died at age 76 years. She was the mother of 12 children, seven of whom survived her.
• Eva Ellen Carpenter (1834-1924) married James M. Hoskins, Jr. in November 1851. (see above)

Other names mentioned in the scrapbook were Mark Hoskins, said to be the eldest son of Major John Hoskins. Mark Hoskins was killed at a work accident when he was approximately 19 years old, in August 1888. He was son to Mrs. Sarah J. Hoskins, who later died in Butte, Montana, on April 20, 1919. A Mrs. Sara Reeder Hoskins was said to have passed away in her home at Butte, Montana and was laid to rest in the Cloverdale cemetery. She also was the widow of Major John A. Hoskins, a veteran of the Mexican and Civil Wars. She was survived by a son, B.A. Hoskins, of Portland, Oregon, and four daughters, Mrs. (Elva Hoskins) W.T. Boardman, of Butte, Montana, Mrs. H. Remick, of Portland, Maine, Mrs. L.H. Elliot, of Modesto, California, and Mrs. I.G. Sinclair, of Indianapolis.

A Mrs. Sarah Hoskins, widow of Major Mark Hoskins, is said to have died at the home of her daughter Sadie Griffith in Los Angeles.

Cecil M. Stewart, of Terre Haute, died. His mother was Addie Hoskins, daughter of Mark and Ellen Hoskins.

Sources:
A Biographical History of Eminent and Self-made Men of the State of Indiana. (Cincinnati: Western Biographical Publishing Co., 1880).

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SCOPE AND CONTENTS NOTE

The Hoskins Family Scrapbook chronicles the life events of the family of James Marquis Hoskins, beginning with the settlement of his father Joseph Hoskins in Indiana. Originally from Kentucky, Joseph Hoskins migrated to Martin County, Indiana where he settled and commenced the Hoskins legacy that would continue through the sale of the Hoskins mansion in the middle 1950s.

The one-volume scrapbook contains newspaper articles, photographs, telegrams, advertisements, pamphlets, calling cards and ephemera about the family's accomplishments and life's events. The scrapbook records various aspects of late nineteenth early twentieth century Clay County, Indiana. As pioneer residents, the Hoskins family was prominent in the cities of Brazil, Cloverland and Terra Haute, partaking in major business and political functions of the communities. The Hoskins were active in various community organizations, such as the Brazil Lodge of Elks, in addition to holding various political positions such as Clay County Auditor and serving on the Brazil City Council.

The bulk of the printed material includes newspaper articles, school certificates and pamphlets, and correspondence. The majority of the newspaper articles are obituaries, noting the lifetime achievements of late members of the Hoskins immediate and extended family.

The compiler of the scrapbook remains unknown, however the detailed pages dedicated to the teaching career of Alice Jane Hoskins, one of the last surviving children of James Marquis Hoskins, lends evidence that she was responsible for most of the scrapbook, if not all. The scrapbook is arranged roughly in chronological order, with certain pages dedicated to specific persons or individual family units.

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DESCRIPTION OF THE SCRAPBOOK

Originally 17 x 14 inches, the scrapbook was uncovered in extremely fragile condition. Consisting primarily of newspaper articles dating back to the middle 1800s, with each page compiled of layers upon layers of memorabilia, the scrapbook pages were disassembled. Color and black and white facsimiles are available to study the scrapbook as a unit prior to its disassembling. Photocopies, photographs and other original documentation salvaged from the scrapbook are also preserved for study.

The scrapbook is disassembled according to page number, beginning with the front inside cover as page 1 through the back inside cover as page 47. Pages 34, 44, 47 and 48 were unadorned. Loose material tipped in the back cover is listed as such.

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