Biography of Mrs. Jane Blue

Mrs. Jane Blue, born in 1830 in Vermillion County, Indiana, immigrated to Montgomery County in 1871, a pivotal year for many pioneer families. She is the daughter of farmers Jacob and Sarah Coslett and was first married to David Wise in 1853, with whom she had seven children. After his death, she married Jacob Wise, then David Blue, a Civil War veteran. Mrs. Blue had been an influential figure in her community, residing on a well-established farm and actively participating in the United Brethren Church.

MRS. JANE BLUE—The tide of immigration to Montgomery county in the earlier years was at its flood in the year 1871. Many of the pioneer families of the county date their coming in that year, among them the lady whom the biographer is now permitted to review. She was born in Vermillion county, Indiana, in the year 1830, and was reared in that county and educated at Eugene, Indiana. Her parents were Jacob and Sarah (Hall) Coslett. They were farmers in Vermillion county and pioneer settlers of that section of the State. Their family consisted of six children, three only of whom are now living: William, who lives in Douglas county, Illinois, and is a prominent farmer of that section of the State; Mrs. Jane Blue, the subject of this sketch; William, also a leading farmer, of Cherokee county, Kansas.

Mrs. Blue was first married to David Wise in the year 1853 in her native county in the “Hoosier State.” Mr. Wise was a leading farmer of the county and they reared seven children, four of whom are now living: Margaret A., who married William Blancet, a native of Ohio, and has three children, two living, viz: Minnie, wife of Thornton McCune, of Oklahoma, and Alice, who married William Carpenter and lives in Montgomery county, Kansas; the four children of Alice being Nettie, Orval, Bertha, and Earl. Clara Belle Wise married Frank Smith, of Independence, with two children, Donoven and Forest. Minnie Wise married Robert Perry and lives in Bourbon county with their seven children. Eliza E. Wise married David A. Clark and had four children, Harry, Charlie, Ira, and Grace. Mrs. Clark is now dead.

David Wise died in 1874 and in 1878, Mrs. Wise was joined in marriage to Jacob Wise, a brother of her first husband. Four years later he died. In 1896, March 1, Mrs. Wise married David Blue. He was a native of Ohio and was a gallant soldier of the Civil War, having enlisted as a volunteer in an Indiana regiment in April of 1861, and served his country faithfully to the close of that sanguinary struggle, and being discharged in 1865. He was a commercial traveler by occupation, handling nursery stock. He traveled for a period of nine years for the famous seed house of D. M. Ferry, and later for a silverware manufacturing company of Detroit, Michigan.

The farm on which Mrs. Blue now resides was purchased in 1871 by her first husband. It is located four miles from the county seat town of Independence and consists of eighty acres, making one of the best farms in that section of the county. In religious belief, Mrs. Blue is a member of the United Brethren Church.