Daniel Bulla.  – In the days when Wayne county was a frontier settlement, during the first decade of the present 
century, William Bulla, a native of Guilford county, North Carolina, cast in his lot with the few inhabitants of this 
section, and from that day to this the family have been prominent and influential in the annals of southeastern Indiana.
  For generations they adhered to the faith of the Society of Friends, and have been noted for industry, honor and 
justice in all their relations with their fellow men.

William Bulla, mentioned above, was the father of the subject of this memoir.  He came to the north in 1806 and entered 
a quarter-section of government land in Wayne township.  The property was covered with heavy timber, much of which he 
cleared away, and the year after his arrival here he built a substantial house one mile north of the present 
corporation limits of Richmond.  The walls of the cellar of this comfortable house are of stone, two feet in thickness,
 and the sleepers are hewn from massive forest trees.  Though ninety-two years have rolled away since the construction 
of the residence it is still in good preservation, and is now occupied by the widow of Daniel Bulla and by their two 
sons.  After its hospitable walls had sheltered him for more than half a century William Bulla died in the old home, in 
1861, at the age of eighty-five years.  He was reared as a Friend, but was not actively identified with the meeting.  
His wife, Elizabeth, was a sister of David Hoover, who was one of the committee appointed to select a name for Richmond,
 and was the person who suggested this name, dear to the many southern settlers from old association.  Of the seven 
sons and four daughters born to William and Elizabeth Bulla, all lived upon farms and were interested in agricultural 
occupations save James, who was a millwright.

Daniel Bulla was born in Wayne township in the old home, April 13, 1814, and passed the greater part of his life there. 
 His chief occupation was farming, though for a few years he lived in Richmond and was employed in the manufacture of 
plows.  He was the president of the Wayne County Agricultural Society at one time and kept well posted upon everything 
relating to the subject, frequently delivering addresses before the farmers of the county in their meetings for the 
exchange of ideas on the proper management of farms.  Interested in the public schools, he was a director of the board 
of his own district, and in political matters he was a Whig and a Republican.

During the troubled days which preceded the dreadful civil war, both Daniel Bulla and his revered father were active 
and zealous in the “underground railroad” system, as they lived on the route which many escaping slaves followed on 
their way to Canada.  On one occasion William Bulla employed on his farm a negro who had come from Kentucky.  The 
master traced him to this section, and while trying to establish his ownership of the slave in a justice court the 
egro tried to jump from the window of the court room, but his master seized him by the leg.  The poor man, suspended 
painfully in mid-air, shrieked pitifully, and Mr. Bulla, kind-hearted man that he was, could not endure this, and, 
springing forward, he forced the Kentuckian to release his prisoner, who needless to say made good his escape.  The 
result of the case was not a pleasant one for Mr. Bulla, however, as he was sued by the irate southerner and obliged 
to pay one thousand dollars, the estimated value of the slave, and the costs of the court.

Daniel Bulla chose for his wife Caroline, daughter of Abner Clawson, who was a life-long farmer, his home being on 
Middleboro Pike, in Wayne township.  To Mr. and Mrs. Bulla three sons and a daughter were born, namely: Andrew J. and 
William A., who are both farmers on the old homestead; Charles H., also a farmer of Wayne township; and Mrs. Elizabeth 
Pyle, whose home is in the vicinity, likewise.  Mr. Bulla departed this life on the 1st of June, 1890, loved and 
mourned by a large circle of friends and neighbors, who treasure his memory, the memory of a blameless life. 

Biographical and Genealogical History of Wayne, Fayette, Union and Franklin Counties, Indiana. Chicago.  
The Lewis Publishing Company.  1899.
Page 998 and 999.