Following is one of the Biographies and Stories which where gathered by Charles Sumner McKamy in the 1950s for publication in a Crawford County History Book. Unfortunately he passed away before the book was published.
J.M. McNutt, lumber dealer, Hutsonville, Ill., was a native of Harrison County, Ohio, and a son of Joseph and Nancy (Yates) McNutt. Joseph McNutt was born in York County, Pa., July 13, 1798. He was brought to Harrison County, Ohio in 1808, there he remained until 1846, when he removed to Guernsey County, Ohio, and there died July 21m, 1870. He was a farmer. His father and grandfather of our subject was James McNutt, a native of Ireland, who immigrated to America just after the close of the Revolutionary War. The mother of our subject was born in Berkeley Co., Va. December 4, 1808, and died in Guernsey County, Ohio, November 24, 1852. She was the mother of eight children, of whom our subject was the fifth child. He was born January 18, 1844. At two years of age, he was removed to Guernsey County and there spent his early life assisting in tilling the soil of his father's farm and receiving such an education as the common schools afforded. In 1862, he entered the last rebellion, serving in Company A, of the seventy-eight, Ohio Volunteers. He served three years, was mustered out in June, 1865. After the war, Mr. McNutt engaged in raising sheep for two years. In the fall of 1866, brought an interest in a saw mill, and in the spring of 1867 removed it to Lawrence County, Indiana, and subsequently to Owen County, Ind., in the fall of the same year, where he engaged in the mill business until Sept. 1871 when he entered the employ of Samuel McKeen, at Terre Haute, acting as yard man in the lumber yard, and in 1875 his employer gave him exclusive control of a yard in Hutsonville. In 1880 he bought out the interest of McKeen and became owner of a large and lucrative business under the firm of J.M. McNutt & Co. In Owen County, Ind. in 1873 he married Miss Lucy A. Agee, who died Feb. 24, 1877, leaving one child, William T. McNutt. In Hutsonville, March 21, 1878, he married Sarah Elizabeth Hurst, daughter of John R. and Nancy Owen Barlow Hurst. A son, Bruce Owen was born to this union April 17, 1879. As a small boy Willie came to Hutsonville to make his home with his father and stepmother. At the age of nineteen he contracted typhoid fever and died Oct. 23, 1894.
McNutt became owner of a long established (about 1837) hardware business in 1885, and continued its operation until his death April 8, 1900. At that time his son, Bruce, gave up his schooling at DePauw University and came home to run the business. Upon the death of Bruce in 1937 the business was sold to M.H. Musgrave who had become a partner many years before.
On Aug. 7, 1907, Bruce McNutt married Nellie Musgrave, daughter of Jonathan K. and Sarah Elizabeth (Everingham) Musgrave. They had three children: John M.; Sarah Elizabeth; and Louis B. John M. was born Oct. 21, 1910 and died Oct. 30, 1936 as the result of an automobile accident in Evansville, Ind. Sarah E. was born Oct. 9, 1914. After graduating from the Hutsonville schools she attended Evansville College and Ill. State Normal at Normal, Ill. On Nov. 20, 1941 she married Arthur H. Warnke.
Louis McNutt was born Oct. 6, 1918. He graduated from the local school and from DePauw University, Greencastle, Ind. in 1940 with a B.A. degree in Comparative Literature. He did Personnel work in Indianapolis, Ind., Detroit, Mich.; and Los Angeles, Calif. before becoming a Field Director with the American Red Cross, serving with the Armed Forces over seas for six years. Time was spent in the Pacific Islands; Japan, Korea, Germany and Austria. He resigned his post Jan. 1, 1952 and bought a restaurant, The Sugar Bowl, in Robinson, of which he is the present owner. Louis is a member of the Hutsonville Masonic Lodge, Hutsonville Universalist Church, and in Robinson he is a member of the Elks Lodge. He makes his home with his Mother in Robinson at the present. His father, Bruce O. died Feb. 12, 1937.