page_title: Gosport, Indiana
section_title: Notable people
hierarchical_section_title: Gosport, Indiana / Notable people
caption_attribution_description: English: Colonel Benjamin F. Hays, 1st Indiana Heavy Artillery, (circa 1865).
context_page_description: Gosport is a town in Wayne Township, Owen County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 826 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Bloomington, Indiana Metropolitan Statistical Area.
context_section_description: U.S. Army Colonel Benjamin F. Hays was born on 4 September 1826 in Greene County, Tennessee.  He served as a Second Lieutenant in B Company, 4th Indiana Infantry during the Mexican War.  During the Civil War, he served in the 1st Indiana Heavy Artillery, promoted to colonel on 8 February 1865.  He fought in the Battle of Baton Rouge and the Battle of Mobile Bay.  Following the war, he commanded the District of South Alabama, until he was mustered out on 10 January 1866.  Then, he served in the Indiana House of Representatives in 1867.  He resided in Gosport as a merchant until he died on 14 January 1872.
  U.S. Army Colonel James Ellis Burton was born on 23 September 1824 to John and Nancy Agnes (née Wishard) Burton in Mount Tabor, Indiana.  He was married to Cynthia Ann (née Van Buskirk), and they had one son.  He was promoted to colonel on 4 May 1865 and mustered out on 21 July 1865.  Colonel Burton fought in the Atlanta Campaign, the Savannah Campaign, and the Carolinas Campaign.  He was a merchant before the war and a farmer in Gosport afterwards.  He died on 28 September 1900.
  Child actress Patsy Doris Dittemore was born in Gosport on March 20, 1934, to James and Gladys Elizabeth (May) Dittemore.  Her mother died 19 days after her birth; and, she was sent to California to live with her maternal grandparents, taking their last name and being called "Patsy May."  She played the baby sister of Spanky in the Our Gang series of short-subject comedies from 1935 to 1937, appearing for the first time in Little Papa and the last time in Our Gang Follies of 1938.  At age 11, her final film appearance was in an uncredited role in the Great Stagecoach Robbery (1945).  She died on January 1, 2013, and is buried in the Gosport Cemetery.
  Eugene M. Stoner, inventor of the M16 rifle, was born in Gosport on November 22, 1922 to Lloyd and Britannia Stoner. He joined the U.S. Marines as an armorer and fought in the South Pacific during World War II, honorably discharged as a Corporal.  He held some 100 patents on his inventions, and was a co-founder of Ares Incorporated, a weapons research and development company based in Port Clinton, Ohio.
  James Alexander Thom, author, was born in Gosport on May 26, 1933
caption: Colonel Benjamin F. Hays, 1st Indiana Heavy Artillery, (circa 1865).
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