Colonel John Ketcham (1782-1865):

John Ketcham was born in Hagerstown, Maryland in 1782. As a young child, he and his family settled in Shelby County, Kentucky. Ketcham married Elizabeth Pearcy in 1803, with whom he would eventually have twelve children. In 1811 he moved his family to present-day Jackson County, Indiana, where Ketcham established a fort with three other families. During the War of 1812, Ketcham served as First Sergeant in a company of mounted rangers for the US Army for two years. He gained great celebrity for his dealings with the Native Americans, and his first-hand account of these conflicts were published in Rev. T. M. Hopkins's Reminiscences of Col. John Ketcham in 1866. Due to his status as a war hero, territorial governor William Henry Harrison appointed Ketcham as a county judge in Jackson County, Indiana, a position he held from 1816 to 1817.

In 1818 John and Elizabeth Ketcham relocated their family to the newly founded town of Bloomington, Indiana, and built the first mill in Monroe County near present-day Clear Creek. John Ketcham became a prominent citizen of Bloomington as was demonstrated by his instrumental role in the construction of the first court house in Monroe County (1819) and his serving as one of the first trustees of the fledgling Indiana Seminary, predecessor to Indiana University, from 1821-1825. In 1822, Ketcham became colonel of the Twentieth Regiment of the Indiana state militia.

John L. Ketcham (1810-1869) :

John Lewis Ketcham was born in 1810 in Shelby County, Kentucky, and was the fifth child of Col. John Ketcham and Elizabeth Pearcy Ketcham. He married Jane Merrill in Marion County, Indiana, in 1836 and had 9 children. After graduating from Indiana College, he went to Indianapolis as secretary to Noah Noble, who was governor of Indiana from 1831 to 1837. He also studied law with Judge Isaac Blackford, one of Indiana's pioneer judges. He served as Justice of the Peace in Indianapolis from 1830 to 1842. John L. Ketcham died in 1869.

Reverend John H. Ketcham (1832-1922):

John Henry Ketcham, the second child of Daniel Ketcham and Mary Worley and grandson of John Ketcham (1782-1865), was born on Dec. 28, 1832 in Clear Creek, Indiana. He married Martha Stark, and they had two children. Ketcham graduated from Indiana University in 1854 and became a Methodist minister. He spent 45 total years in active service in the ministry: 28 years in regular pastoral work and 17 years as a presiding elder. He began as a minister of the California Street Methodist church in Indianapolis. He died in 1922 in Indianapolis.

Charles B. Ketcham (1859-1885):

Charles B. Ketcham was the son of John H. Ketcham (1832-1922) and Mary Stark Ketcham. He was born in 1859 in Indianapolis. He began his career in journalism as a member of the staff at the Indianapolis Star, and worked his way up to a position in Washington, D.C. at the Associated Press. Charles Ketcham worked in Washington for only three years until his sudden death in 1885. He is buried in Evansville, Indiana.

Mary "Daisy" Ketcham Piercy was born in 1865 to Rev. John H. Ketcham and Martha Stark Ketcham. She married Joseph W. Piercy in 1892, and they had one daughter, Josephine. They lived in a home at 708 Ballantine Rd. in Bloomington, Indiana while Joseph was director of and a professor in IU's Journalism Department. Mary K. Piercy died in 1940 at the age of 74.

Joseph William "Will" Piercy was born in Cloverdale, Indiana, in 1866 to Joseph William Piercy (Sr.) and Margaret (Brown) Piercy. He received an A.B. from DePauw University in 1889. Piercy began his journalism career as a reporter for the Indianapolis Sentinel in 1887, and also spent part of his career working for the Kansas City Times and the Indianapolis News. In 1892 he married Mary "Daisy" Ketcham and they had one daughter. Piercy left his position as editor for The Indianapolis News to become a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. Piercy only worked there for a year before being called back to IU to be the first director of Journalism in 1911. He would serve as both director of and professor in the Journalism Department until 1938. In addition, Joseph W. Piercy was also one of the founders of the American Association of Teachers of Journalism and served as president of that organization in 1924. He held membership in many other prestigious associations for journalism and academics, such as the National Association for Teachers of Advertising, the Indiana Daily Press Association, and the American Association of University Professors. He died in 1943 in Indianapolis at the age of 77.

Josephine Ketcham Piercy was born Sept. 27, 1895 in Indianapolis. She was the only child of Joseph William and Mary Ketcham Piercy. Josephine Piercy received her A.B. from Indiana University in 1918, and an A.M. from IU in 1919. She also received an A.M. from Columbia University in 1922. After graduation she began a long career at Indiana University as an English professor. She was an instructor from 1926-1940, an assistant professor from 1940-1950, an associate professor from 1950-1964, and became the first woman in the English Department to receive full professor status in 1964, a position she held until her retirement in 1966. During her years as an instructor, Josephine Piercy took some time off from teaching to earn her PhD in English studying colonial literature at Yale University. She was awarded her PhD in 1937. While at IU, Josephine Piercy served on several departmental and university committees, but she is best known for her seminar courses during the 1940's and 1950's entitled "Round Table for Student Writing," where she taught students how to write poetry, and "Colonial American Literature." Piercy was herself an accomplished author. She published several books including Studies in Literary Types in Seventeenth-Century America (1939), Modern Writers at Work (1940), and the biographical study Anne Bradstreet (1966). Josephine K. Piercy passed away in Bloomington in 1995 at the age of 99.