LORENZO D. SINK, who is farming in Jackson township, was born in Tuscarawas county, Ohio, November 11, 1842, a son of John and Sarah ( Klenk) Sink, both of whom were born in Pennsylvania. Moving to Ohio in an early day Mr. Sink became a carpenter and cabinet maker, and followed those trades for many years or until he engaged in farming. He was twice married, and by his first wife he had eight children, while by his second union, of whom Lorenzo was the eighth born, he had thirteen children, of whom four are now living, namely: Lorenzo D.; Zachary T., whose home is near his brother Lorenzo; Eva Ann Williams, of Patricksburg; and Eliza, the oldest of the living children, is now Mrs. Shoup and a resident of northern Indiana.
Lorenzo D. Sink attended school first in Ohio, and then moving with his parents to Indiana he was a student in a school near Steubenville in Owen county, but his educational advantages in his early youth were limited, as his father was old and the care of the farm fell upon him. He was obliged to leave school at the age of eighteen years, and up to that time he had never seen a school book with the exception of an arithmetic, in which he had reached the division of fractions. But seven years after leaving school at the earnest request of the citizens he was engaged as teacher in the school of his neighborhood. He at once purchased some books and spent some time studying at home and also studied under the instructions of a friend for twenty-three days. At the county examination he was obliged to make an average of sixty per cent and not fall below forty per cent in any one study, and in spite of adverse circumstances he obtained his license and taught a term of seven months on a six months' license, but before the expiration of this license he obtained the position of a teacher for the following term. He then obtained a two years' license and taught for four years without further examination. He taught in all about ten years, and seven years of that time were spent in the school which he had formerly attended as a scholar.
Mr. Sink continued at home with his father until he was twenty-two years of age, and he then farmed the home place on shares for his mother for several years. Finally he and his brother bought the mother's interest in the homestead, and he continued to reside there until the spring of 1880, when he sold his land, and coming to Jackson township purchased the eighty acres where he now lives. He makes a specialty of the raising of corn, and at the present time is the only man in the township who is able to sell that commodity. During the Civil war Mr. Sink served as a private in the Thirty-third Indiana Infantry for four months or until the war closed. He enlisted in the service in March of 1865.
In February of 1865 he was united in marriage to Hannah A., a daughter of Harrison and Louisa (Bloss) Kelly, both of whom were born in Jackson county, Indiana, and both are now deceased. The union of Mr. and Mrs. Sink has been blessed by the birth of the following children: Sarah, the wife of William Miller, a railroad man at Mattoon, Illinois; Charles A., employed in the broom corn warehouse at Mattoon; William Grant, a plumber in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Lillie, the wife of Henry Conrad, a heater in a rolling mill in St. Louis, Missouri; Marietta, the wife of George Hankey, who resides near her father; Bessie G., wife of Cecil Scott, a miner in this township; Cora, at home; and Clarence, deceased. Mr. Sink is a Republican in politics, and he attends the services of the Methodist Episcopal church.