1611
ADAM WARD.
Eighteen months ago Adam Ward established a stave manufacturing plant in Sims, and in the time that has elapsed since then he has demonstrated to all that the new plant is a fixed industry in this community. A man of wide experience in the business before he made a venture on his own responsibility, he is amply prepared for any and all emergencies which might arise in the conduct of such a business, and the continued success of the new plant is assured. With an annual capacity of 5,000,000 staves, the plant employs twenty men at the mill and a force of thirty five in the woods the year around, thereby adding something in a material way to the industrial life of the town.
Adam Ward was born May 19, 1862, in Grayville, White county, Illinois. He is the son of Adam Ward, a native of Posey county, Indiana, born there in 1828, and who died in 1862. His wife, Mary Jane Martin, born and reared in Edwards, Illinois, died in 1892. Four children were born to them: William, a resident of Indianapolis; Hugh and John, both deceased; and Adam, of this review. The schooling of Adam Ward was of a very meagre order. When he was nine years of age he began to work in a stave mill in Graysville and he passed twenty years in various employment in the plant. In 1891 he located in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and engaged in stave manufacturing. In 1892 he settled in the same business in New Harmony, Indiana, remaining until 1896, after which he took employment in a similar line of work in Vincennes, Indiana, remaining there until 1902. The next two years he passed in Shawneetown, Illinois, after which he was employed six years at Mill Shoals, Illinois. In 1910 he was able to purchase a stave mill, and he located in Sims, where he has since conducted a flourishing business with a high degree of success. He employs more than fifty men regularly in the operating of the mill, the annual capacity of which is five millions of staves. The capital stock of the concern is $10,000.
Mr. Ward is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Mill Shoals, where he at one time resided, and is a member of the Missionary Baptist church. He has been twice married. His first wife was Frances Hill, of Grayville, whom he married in 1881; she died in 1885, leaving one son, Hugh, who is now employed in his father's mill. In 1889 Mr. Ward married Alice Green, the daughter of Louis Green, of Hamilton county, Illinois.