Source: Clarkson W. Weesner, History of Wabash County Indiana (1914), Vol. II, p. 481.

JOHN W. DOMER. One of the most successful business men in Wabash county is John W. Domer, vice-president of the Lawrence National Bank at North Manchester, while his son [Walter A. Domer, M.D.] is a successful physician in the city of Wabash.

John W. Domer was born near Wawaka, Indiana, October 19, 1851, a son of George and Caroline (Steinbarger) Domer, natives respectively of Ohio and New York. Mr. Domer during his boyhood attended the common schools, and when about twenty years of age started out in life for himself, his first experience and training being as clerk in a store. From Indiana he went west to Missouri, located on farm lands, and remained there until driven out by severe droughts and attacks of grasshoppers, and that disastrous experience caused him to return to his native state. In the fall of 1874 Mr. Domer moved to North Manchester, and has thus been identified with Wabash county for forty years. His early work at North Manchester was teaming in the village and conducting a farm nearby. From 1882 to 1890 the marble establishment in that village was conducted under his management, but in 1890 his attention was directed to the real estate and insurance business. When the city decided to install local water works in 1893, Mr. Domer and Dr. Shafer secured the contract to tap all the mains, and for a time did practically all the plumbing. It was in 1895 that he became interested in the Lawrence National Bank, acquiring with Mr. J. M. Curtner of Wabash the  Lawrence & Mills interests, and soon afterwards Mr. Curtner became president and Mr. Domer vice-president and general manager of the institution. Since them, 1896, the deposits of the bank have been increased from forty-eight thousand dollars to nearly four hundred thousand dollars, which fact alone attests the capability of the new management. Besides his duties as a banker Mr. Domer has accumulated some city property at North Manchester and in Chicago, and is one of the organizers and a director of the New Union Trust Company at North Manchester.

A Republican in politics, he has taken an interest in public affairs and has served as a member of the city council and on the school board. Aside from his business he has found time to cultivate the social side of life and is identified with the Masonic fraternity and the Knights of Pythias. In 1871 John W. Domer married Miss Dora Harter, daughter of Eli Harter, a pioneer of Wabash county. To their marriage were born two children: Walter A. and Emma, both living.