Joseph Ratliff, township trustee of Fairmount township, Grant county, Indiana, from 1895 to 1900, was born in Henry county, in the same state, March 27, 1838, and is a son of Gabriel and Catherine (Pearson) Ratliff, both natives of North Carolina, who came to Indiana when still children of five and three years respectively, the parents of both settling near Richmond, where the children grew to years of maturity. Both families subsequently moved to Henry county, where Gabriel and Catherine were married. The family remained in Henry county until the death of the father, which occurred in 1842, when the mother removed to Miami county, was married to a man named Atkinson, and died in Grant county in 1877, at the age of seventy-five years.

        To Gabriel and Catherine Ratliff were born thirteen children, all of whom, excepting two, lived to years of maturity, and of the thirteen there are only three yet living, viz.: Joseph, whose name opens this sketch; Mrs. Martha Macy, living in Miami county; and John, a farmer residing near Converse, in the county last named. The deceased children were named Seth, Mary, Catherine Mahlon, Benaghe, Huldah, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca and Asenath. Of these, Huldah, Sarah and Asenath were married; Catherine died in infancy; Mahlon and Benaghe were young men when they died of typhoid fever; Seth served through the Civil war as a member of the Twenty-first Indiana Battery, lived several years after the war had ended, and died at his home, leaving a wife and four children.

        Joseph Ratliff was preliminarily educated in the subscription schools of his neighborhood in Miami county. At the age of thirty-one years, Joseph came to Grant county after his marriage and settled on the farm now owned by himself, one mile northeast of Fairmount.

        The first marriage of Joseph Ratliff took place in Miami county in April, 1859, to Miss Mary A. Lamb, a native of Madison county, Indiana, and a daughter of Caleb and Sarah Lamb, natives of North Carolina, pioneers of Madison county and parents of eight children, all deceased. The death of Mrs. Mary A. (Lamb) Ratliff occurred in 1881, in her forty-first year. Of the eight children she bore her husband, four are still living, viz.: Charles N., of the firm of Ratliff, Houck & Wiley, lawyers in Marion; he was graduated from Amboy Academy, in Miami county, Indiana, then studied law in Marion, and now resides on his farm three miles southwest of Fairmount; Ansel E., the second of the four living children, is a civil engineer and once served as county surveyor of Grant county, but now resides on his farm near Fairmount, and is extensively engaged in both general farming and stock-raising; Milo E., a dentist in Converse, Miami county, was graduated from Fairmount Academy, from Earlham College, at Richmond, Indiana, and from the Chicago Dental College; William, the youngest of the living children, and also a dentist, passed through the same educational course which his brother Milo E. had experienced, and is now in practice in Fairmount. These four sons are all married. The deceased four of the children born to Joseph and Mary A. Ratliff were Elmira, who died when about twenty-five years of age, unmarried; John Henry died when seventeen years old; Sarah died in infancy, and Alice at the age of eleven year.

        The second marriage of Joseph Ratliff took place in 1883, to Mrs. Sarah Thomas, whose maiden name was Arnold, and who is a daughter of Nathan and Sarah Arnold and a native of Miami county; she is the mother of two children by her first husband, but she has borne none to Mr. Ratliff.

        In politics, Joseph Ratliff has been active as a Republican for many years, has been elected trustee of Fairmount township three terms at different periods, and his tenth year in office has just passed.

        Joseph Ratliff, wife and children, are members of the Society of Friends, in which he has been an elder for twenty years and is now one of the trustees. It may be well to add, that the Ratliff family are of English origin, and the Pearsons, as represented by Mrs. Ratliff, are of Welsh extraction.