JAMES P. SINER.-The name of James P. Siner was for many years associated with the business life of Shelburn, where he conducted a general mercantile establishment until his retirement in 1905. In the early years of his life he was a cooper, having learned that trade when only seventeen years of age in Carlisle, Indiana, and he worked at that occupation for six years. In 1859 he joined the westward emigration across the plains, making the journey with ox teams, and leaving here on the 13th of April, 1859, he reached Placerville, California, on the 12th of September, following. During the following six and a half years he sojourned over California, Oregon and Idaho, and then returning to Shelburn was one of the leading general merchants of the city until his retirement in 1905.
Mr. Siner was born in Hamilton township of Sullivan county, February 1, 1837, a son of Nelson and Dessie (Shelburn) Siner. Nelson Siner was a son of Benjamin, a native of Virginia, and he was a grandson of Benjamin, Sr., who served as a colonel in the Revolutionary war. Nelson Siner was born in Breckenridge county, Kentucky, in 1810, but came from that state to Sullivan county, Indiana, with his mother, in 1821, where in his younger days he worked at the wagon maker's trade, but finally abandoned that occupation for farming, and later, in 1859, opened a general mercantile store in Shelburn and was also the postmaster of the town from 1860 to 1866. He was a stanch Republican and in the earlier days a Whig, and his death occurred in 1869, in Shelburn. His wife survived him but a few years, dying in 1872. She was born about 1809 in Kentucky. Of their eight children five are now living: John L., of Shelburn; Mary Nesbit, a widow residing in Hamilton township, and Parthena McClanahan and Lorena Singer, twins, both widows residing in Farmersburg.
James P. Siner, the youngest of the living children, married, on the 13th of April, 1866, Martha A. Hodges, who was born in Vigo county, Indiana, in 1845, a daughter of Harden and Phoebe (Lovelace) Hodges. This union has been blessed by the birth of seven children, but only the following four are living at the present time: Julia Harden, of Shelburn; Fred, who married Emma Buckley, and is the proprietor of a shoe store in Shelburn; Walter and Clarence, who are at home with their parents. Mr. Siner follows in the political footsteps of his father and gives a stanch support to the Republican party. He is a member of the Masonic Lodge, No. 369, in Shelburn, in which he has filled all the offices, occupying the master's chair for twelve years, and at the present time he is serving in the capacity of treasurer. He has the distinction of being the oldest Mason in Shelburn. Both he and his wife are earnest and efficient members of the Baptist church.