My Genealogy Hound

LUMAN S. GILKEY, Rockport’s worthy postmaster, was born November 12, 1820, in Hamilton County, Ohio, and is the eldest of a large family born to Ebenezer and Elizabeth (Liggett) Gilkey. A brief biography of Ebenezer Gilkey is as follows: A native of Maine, he emigrated to Ohio in 1816, and was offered employment in the construction of the old court house in Cincinnati, at $1 per day, one-half to be paid in cash and the balance in quarter-acre lots, situated now in the heart of the city, and then valued at $100 per lot. Considering the lots worthless he refused the terms offered and settled on a farm in the county, in addition to the care of which he worked at carpentering. Here he married, and his death occurred in 1854. His widow afterward moved with a married daughter to Gasconade County, Mo., where she died about the year 1875. Luman S. Gilkey was reared to manhood in his native county, and at nineteen years of age moved to Butler County, there learning the cooper’s trade. He afterward worked at carpentering in Cincinnati and vicinity until the fall of 1851, when he came to Rockport, Ind., and began working at his trade of carpentering. About a year later he was assailed with malarial fevers, and for four years suffered considerable with its ravages, which greatly impaired his sight. Recovering, he read law for a time, and in 1856 was elected Justice of the Peace, serving four years as such, and one year as Constable. From 1861 to 1866, he was Rockport’s postmaster; was deposed by President Johnson and reappointed in 1869, since when he has ever occupied that position, filling the requirements of the office to the entire satisfaction of all concerned. Mr. Gilkey has but one living son—Samuel C., a resident of Hamilton County, Ind. He is a stanch Republican, a Freemason, and one of the county’s most worthy citizens.