from The History of Hendricks County (Indianapolis: B.F. Bowen & Co., 1914)--pages 202-204
Indiana was not lacking in loyalty during the dark days of the Rebellion, and no governor in all the northern states was more prompt or rendered more efficient service to President Lincoln than did Governor Morton. When the ship of state was almost stranded on the rocks of disunion, Indiana came to the front and contributed over two hundred thousand brave and valiant men to assist in preserving the integrity of the government. Prominent among the citizens of Hendricks County who served their country faithfully and well were Sylvanus Mabe and his father, James M. Mabe. Although they enlisted from Brown County, this state, they have made their home in Hendricks County for many years, the father having answered the last roll call several years ago. Today there is in Hendricks County no old soldier who is more widely and favorably known and none that can boast of a more honorable record than Sylvanus Mabe. He was loyal to his country in its hour of peril and extremity, and demonstrated on many a bloody battle field that he was ready to fight and even die for his country.
Sylvanus Mabe, the son of James M. and Anna (Noblet) Mabe, was born in Brown County, Indiana, May 31, 1844. James M. Mabe was born October 23, 1820, in Stokes County, North Carolina, and died March 5, 1896, in Hendricks County, Indiana. He was one of six children, the others being Bettie, Mrs. Mary Williamson, Mrs. Ruth Clark, William F., and Mrs. Nancy Medlock. When James M. Mabe was about ten years of age he moved with his parents to Brown County, Indiana, where he and his father entered land from the government. He never had any schooling except what he picked up in the wide field of experience, since he never had any opportunity of attending a school in Brown County while he was a lad. Sylvanus Mabe and his father, with their families, lived in Brown County until 1892, when they moved to Hendricks County. James M. Mabe enlisted in Company H, of the Eighty-second regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and served from the date of his enlistment, September 18, 1862, until the close of the war. He was present at the Grand Review at Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1865. His son, Sylvanus, also enlisted, serving from August 20, 1861, until about the close of the war. He was only seventeen years of age when he enlisted in Company C, of the Sixth Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry, which was made a part of the Army of the Cumberland. He was engaged in the battle of Shiloh, the siege of Corinth and all of those engagements which were fought by Grant in Tennessee and Mississippi. His regiment was later transferred to the eastern part of Tennessee, where he fought in the battles of Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, and in the last named battle he was wounded, being struck by pieces of shell in the right knee, incapacitated from further service and within the next six months he was mustered out at Indianapolis.
James M. and Anna (Noblet) Mabe reared a large family of thirteen children: Sylvanus; Hiram, who died at the age of twenty-six; Vandever, deceased April 13, 1909, a member of Company D, Forty-third Indiana Volunteer Infantry, married Jeannette Anthony; William; Williamson, deceased; Levi, who died when small; Cyrus, deceased; Mary Jane, the wife of A.D. Handcher; Margaret, the wife of Oliver Craig; James, deceased; David, who married Etta Gates, and two who died in infancy.
Sylvanus Mabe received a very limited common school education in the district schools of Brown County before he enlisted in the war at the early age of seventeen. After returning home from the war he and his father continued farming on the old homestead, where he remained until his marriage, March 14, 1869, when he began farming for himself in Brown County. In 1874 he moved to Nebraska and remained there for two years, after which he came to Clay Township, in this county, and settled on a rented farm of fifty acres, which he operated for the next thirteen years. He was a hard-working man who attended strictly to his own affairs and by thrift and economy he succeeded in saving enough to purchase a small farm. After he had once made a start he added to his land holdings until at the present time he is the owner of two hundred and eighty acres of fine land in Clay Township. His success can be attributed only to hard work and upright dealings in all of his business transactions.
Mr. Mabe married Harriet C. Bartholomew, the daughter of Eli and Mamie M. (Fuller) Bartholomew, and to this union there have been born two children, Eli and Lorenzo F. Eli, a farmer living at Pecksburg, in this county, married Lora McCormick and has one daughter, Mabel. Lorenzo F., a miller and implement dealer living at Clayton, in this county, married Rilla Hurley, and they have one children, Lorenzo Lyle. Mrs. Mabe's parents had a family of eight children: Ira, the wife of Zibil Baldwin; John, who married Savannah Lewis; Augustus, deceased May 30, 1864; Cyrus, who married Sarah Handcher; Pamelia, who married William cox; Harriet, the wife of Mr. Mabe; Polly, decased 1849; Maria, deceased. Mrs. Mabe's mother died November 29, 1873. Mrs. Mabe's father died July 16, 1891, in this county. The grandparents of Mrs. Mabe on her mother's side were natives of Trumbull County, Ohio, and had a family of four children, Abial, Mary, Eli, and a Mrs. Scofield.
Mr. Mabe is a staunch Democrat, and has voted this ticket for a half century. While he has always taken an interest in political affairs he has never aspired to any public office, preferring to devote all of his time and attention to his agricultural interests. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and is one of the most active members of the post at Danville. Mr. Mabe has won an honorable name for himself in this county, because of his upright life and he and his wife are valuable members of society in this county.