Eva Elizabeth Leffler ¹

  General Notes:

History of Montgomery County, together with historic notes on the
Wabash ...By Hiram Williams Beckwith, P. S. Kennedy, Thomas Fleming
John Rice, retired, Crawfordsville, is a member of the family which
includes the Rices of Rockville, La Fayette, Attica, etc. About 1Y60
ten families emigrated from Maryland and settled on Short creek, near
the old town of Washington, Virginia. Here they built a fort to
protect them against the Indians, and called it Rice Fort, in honor of
the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. This fort stood till
recent years. Within it played two children, Henry Rice and Elizabeth
Lessler. They were raised amid the wilds of frontier life, and danger
on every hand from savage Indians.
Elizabeth Lessler, while playing with a lad without the fort, was
chased by the redmen to the fort, and leaning a ladder against the
fort wall she gained safety, but the boy was wounded, and rescued by
means of a rope. Many were the exciting times experienced by the
inmates of Rice Fort, and at times narrowly escaped extermination.
Henry Rice and Elizabeth Lessler were married, and in 1807 settled in
Harrison county, Indiana, bringing six children. Here Henry Rice died,
about 1825, and about 1835 his wife followed him. He was a builder by
trade. The Rices have been Presbyterians far back, and Henry was an
elder in the first church at Corydon, Indiana. John Rice, son of the
above, was born April 16, 1804, near Wheeling, Virginia. He attended
school perhaps three months in his life. He early began the cabinet
trade and carpentering. He first worked With his father, and continued
this trade till 1845, when he built a grist and saw mill at Corydon.
In 1859 the mill burned, and Mr. Rice removed to New Albany, and there
built a mill and successfully ran it till 1861, when be had $7,000 or
$8,000 worth of flour at Memphis and New Orleans, which was all
confiscated by the rebels. In 1865 he moved to Bloomington, Indiana,
and engaged in the stock business, remaining there six years and doing
an extensive trade. In 1871 he came to Crawfordsville, and engaged in
stock and wheat trade. He is at present retired from active life and
rents his business property. Mr. Rice is a member of the Presbyterian
church, and has been an elder in former places. He is a staunch
republican, and used to be a whig.
He was married June 29, 1829, to Sophia Hinsdill, a school teacher of
Vermont. She died September 14, 1846. They had ten children, five of
whom preceded their mother in death. She was a good, amiable, and
religious woman, and her last words to her husband were: "I take five
children with me and leave five with you." She was a Presbyterian.
Mr. Rice was next married February 20, 1849, to Nancy Baldwin, of
Louisville, by whom he had five children. She is also a Presbyterian.
Mr. Rice is not a politician, and has refused the nomination for
sheriff and representative. ²

Eva married Henry Rice, son of Jacob Rice and Anna Margaretha Schneider, in Dec 1790. (Henry Rice was born on 4 May 1762 ³ and died on 25 Sep 1825 in Corydon, Harrison County, Indiana, USA.)