Family tree De Moet » William Milton DeMotte (1846-1931)

Personal data William Milton DeMotte 

• He was born on January 5, 1846 in Boone Twp, Dubois, IN.
• Profession: Farmer / Doctor.
• He died on March 3, 1931 in Otwell, IN, he was 85 years old.
• A child of John Banta DeMotte and Susannath Tatum DeBruler
• This information was last updated on December 16, 2007.

Household of William Milton DeMotte

He is married to Anna Louise Niehaus.

They got married on January 15, 1873, he was 27 years old.

Child(ren):

1. Evaline DeMotte  1873-1954
2. John Henry DeMotte  1876-1952
3. Infant DeMotte  1878-1878
4. Bernard DeMotte  1879-1964
5. Lee M. DeMotte  1881-1967
6. Elizabeth Niehaus DeMotte  1883-1969
7. Infant DeMotte  1886-1886
8. Estella May DeMotte  1887-????

Notes about William Milton DeMotte

William exact words of his account of his birth & ancestry were: I, William Milton De Motte, was born in a log house in what is now the southwest corner of Boone Twp, Dubois County, Indiana. My parents were natives of Pike County. My grandfather, Lorenz (Lawrence) De Motte was born and raised in Mercer County, Kentucky, near Harrodsburg. His wife, Phoebe Banta, was also a native of Mercer County. They married in 1819 and came to Pike County and settled two and one-half miles southeast of Otwell near the Dubois County line. There they spent the remainder of their lives. Sebastian De Motte, a grandson, was the last De Motte to own the old home place.
William grew to manhood on the farm, life on the farm was arduous. It took long hours of hard work by all members of the family to make life go on. If they did not produce enough food in the summer there would be nothing to eat that winter. Life was very simple in those days. "As you sow, so shall you reap" was very plain to everyone and it was rewarding to plant and till the soil and grow good things to eat. They were fortunate in having intelligent and hard-working parents to care for them and teach them all of the fundamental truths of life.
In January of 1864 William enlisted in the Union Army with his good friend Samuel Stewart. In February he and Samuel went to Jasper and was enrolled in Company M. 125 regiment of the 10 Indianna Cavalry by Lieutenant Miller of Spencer County. Morman Fischer was Captain. He received his basic training at Columbus. This regiment was known as the Tenth Cavalry. Its fighting was done in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, in the years 1864 and 1865. It took part in the pursuit of Hood and against Mobile.
The Tenth fought in the battle of Pulaski, September 28, 1864 Part of it fought at Decatur, Nashville, Litttle Harpeth, Reynold´s Hill and Sugar Creek. Part of the regiment was engaged in the battles of Flint River Indian Creek, Courtland and Mount Hope. On November 30th the bloody battle of Franklin was fought. Hood ordered his men to charge Schoefield´s entrenched positions and they did time after time, from P.M. until dark. Meanwhile, the cavalry was just east of Franklin, fighting, dismounted, elements of Forrest´s cavalry; and they succeded in stopping them. William DeMotte said it was a terrible thing to see the men fall like wheat. It was one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Five confederate generals were killed in an hours. He could see it from his position on the eastern part of the battlefield. After dark he went to the battlefield and helped with the wounded. He said it was the most awful thing he ever saw. The dead and dying were in great mounds.
After William Demotte got back to Nashville, he got a new horse - and he had three different ones during his time in the Cavalry. By the winter of 1865 - 66 William DeMotte was able to teach at the Rising Sun School. In the spring of 1866 he helped on the farm at home. From June to September 1866 he attended the Aberry Academy at Ireland under the instruction of reverend Strain. It was probably a teacher´s Institue (a place fro teachers to do advance studying and training).
In 1868 he taught at both the Rising Sun School and Dubois. from February to June 1868, he attended the Rockport Eclectic College, a preparatory college, and he learned Latin and other requirements for medical school. In the winter of 1868 - 69 he taught at the Coleman School, 1 mile south of Otwell as well as at Portersville for eight weeks. Duiring the summer of 1869 he read medicine with Doctor J. L. Moore at Otwell. In the fall of 1869 William enrolled in the University of Cincinnati´s School of Medicine and attended it all winter. That summer he read medicine with Doctor Wellborn at Jasper and the fall returned to Medical School in Cincinnati. He graduated February 7th, 1871. In 1871 he started out with Doctor Wellborn at Jasper and read more medicine (now called "internship"). then he went to Haysville on White River to start his own practice.
He had been at Haysville about a year when he went to Huntingburg to a store where he saw a very pretty girl who had come in to make a purchase. he told the clerk, "that is the girl I am going to marry". The clerk put him down, saying that she was keeping company with a very wealthy young man that he would not stand a chance of getting her. The clerk gave him her name anyway - Anna Niehaus - and he had a mutual friend introuduce them. about 1 year later she agreed to marry him.
Anna Louise Niehaus was the daughter of Bernard and Elizabeth (Miller) Niehaus. She had been teaching school and also had some money from her deceased father. They were married January 15, 1873. Willaim was very insolvent at the time and owed a sizable board bill. Anna paid it off and started him on his way to a more stable fiscal life.
The years at Haysville were busy years. William had a large practice. It is hill country and he had to take all of his calls on horseback. With the constant exosure in the winters, he contracted an infection in his lungs. he was hemorrhaging and sure he did not have long to live, so he decided to move and buy a farm so his wife Anna and the children could make a living. He went to Pike Conty at Highbanks and bought a farm from the Kinman family on White River. he used a buggy there pulled by faithful "Old Belle", since the country was flat and there was no need to ride horseback. After this move, he got miraculously better. His practice was again heavy and large and again he made some wonderful friends.
William made some extra money by buying poorly cared for horses. By feeding and caring for them until they were in good shape, he was able to sell them for a good profit. Old Belle was never for sale and she served him faitfully until 1898, whe she died. She was like a member of the family. In 1888 the family moved to Highbanks. William´s practice was large since there was alot of malaria in the community. He was busy treating it, along with other doctors of his day, and helped to stamp it out in the White River Valley. The children attended the McCain School about a mile south of Highbanks. The Highbanks years were good ones, as William had regained his robust health and times were good. He was appointed to the Pension Board as Examining Doctor by the Department of the Interior in 1890.
In 1892 he decided to move to Otwell. They bought the present home place on West Washington Street in Otwell from the Gray family. He had an office about fifty feet east of the house and was close to the street, It had two rooms. Life around Otwell was very exciting in those days. as there was always something going on. It was a busy place and the farmers were prosperous, businesses flourished, and William´s practice was heavy. He was going day and night and he started to farm extensively too. He had two or three work hands most of the time and the boys were grrowing up and helping too. Anna too was very busy. She had hired girls and boys to help her too, as there was always a lot of work to do and pleanty of people in the house to take care of, besides company they had. She was an excellent manager and kept everything going smoothly. She acted as Williams´s nurse when he had to have help with surgery. There were plenty of injuries in those days - runaway horses and accidents around machinery. he had to amputate arms a few times and many other serious injuries were taken care of by him. He even had to extract teeth. as there were very few dentists. He fitted glasses for people and other difficult tasks with very few tools. His skill in many things was equal to what we have today; and his diagnostic skill was almost perfect.

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Timeline William Milton DeMotte

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