Memorial and biographical record of Iowa, Part 9

Author:
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1360

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ferred with his regiment to the Army of the Gulf under General Banks and went on the historic Red river expedition in the spring of 1864. This was a terribly disastrous enter- prise to the Union forces, as history records, but was none the less hazardous and even de- moralizing to the Union forces. Returning to New Orleans, the Twenty-fourth was soon after transferred by ocean steamer to the Army of the Potomac, becoming now a part of the Nineteenth Army Corps. The previous serv- ice of the regiment had been in the Thirteenth Army Corps, but the manoeuvers of the enemy rendered necessary a strong force in the Shen- andoah valley, and the corps accordingly be- came a part of the army of the gallant and dashing Sheridan.

The battle of Cedar Creek, September 19 to October 19, was fought during Captain Bradshaw's absence on furlough; but he re- turned in time to take part in the battle of Winchester, which has immortalized the Union commander, as well as the gallant army which he commanded. "Sheridan's Ride" stands in history next to that of Paul Revere, of Rev- olutionary fame. January 15, 1865, the Twenty-fourth was again transferred to the South, and did garrison duty at Savannah, Georgia, after General Sherman's northward movement from that city. In March they fol- lowed Sherman's army to Moorhead City and Goldsboro, North Carolina, making a distrib- uting point for army supplies at the latter place. May 1, 1865, they again returned to Savannah, where they were mustered out of service in July.

During this almost three years of active service at the front, our subject never received a disabling wound nor lost a day's duty from sickness after active operations began. He entered the army as Second Lieutenant, and was promoted First Lieutenant after a year's service, and was made Captain with the begin- ning of his third year.

Returning to the parental home at Mt. Vernon, Iowa, he soon entered the legal pro- fession, as before stated, and this has been his

RECORD OF IOWA.

life work. Naturally endowed with a robust constitution, and above all an excellent mem- ory, he soon developed into one of the leading lawyers of Toledo, where he first engaged in practice. The fact that he has remained here continuously in practice since March, 1867, is unquestioned evidence that his legal services are appreciated. He first formed a law part- nership with G. R. Struble, which continued until Mr. Struble's appointment as judge of the State circuit court in 1870. He was then alone in practice for about one year, when he formed a partnership with his brother, Homer Bradshaw, and they practiced together about seven years, or until the brother's removal to Ida Grove, Iowa, where he is now in practice.

A business partnership was then formed with W. H. Stivers, which continued until 1881, since which time Captain Bradshaw has been alone in practice.

In December, 1867, our subject was united in marriage, at Mt. Vernon, Iowa, with Miss Mary A. Hayslett, a native of Linn county, Iowa, and a most estimable and accomplished lady. She was a daughter of William and Elizabeth Hayslett, early settlers of Linn county, Iowa. Mrs. Bradshaw received a classical education at Cornell College, gradu- ating in June, 1864. Captain and Mrs. Brad- shaw became the parents of two children, Alice and Charles. Both are graduates of the Toledo high school, and the former is em- ployed in the honorable profession of a teacher in the public schools of the State. Charles is a student in the Iowa College of Law at Des Moines. After twenty-five years of happy wedded life our subject was called to mourn the death of the companion of his early man- hood, and the children were bereft of a mother's tender care. This sad event occurred on the 25th of June, 1892. Since the mother's death the burden of household super- vision has fallen upon Miss Alice, the family still occupying the old home of former and more happy years.

Captain Bradshaw is not a politician or an office-seeker in any sense, yet, in a quiet way

he wields a wonderful influence within the ranks of Democracy, and has been honored by his party. His early political affiliations were with the Republican party, which he. left on account of the impeachment of President John- son, and by reason of his disapproval of the reconstruction policy of the Republicans. He is a careful and exact reader and is well in- formed upon current topics, both in political and other lines. * Possessing a fine professional library and long years of close application to his chosen profession, it is not strange that he is recognized as a leading member of the Tama county bar. In recognition of his ability he was in 1885 appointed County Attorney of Tama county by a Republican board of super- visors, serving in 1885-6. In 1892 he was elected to the same. Again, in 1894, he was the choice of his party for the same office, though he went down in the avalanche which swamped all Democratic nominees, having twenty-four votes less than his Republican competitor.

Captain Bradshaw is a gentleman of unas- suming manners, quiet and unobtrusive, genial and companionable, though diffident about his personal acchievements. In religious affairs he is liberal and tolerant, respecting honest Chris- tianity and despising the hypocrite. He has never been connected with any secret orders except the G. A. R.

Such, in brief, is the outline of a character sketch of a man well worthy of representation among the leading citizens of Iowa.

ON. GEORGE WILLIAM ALEXAN- DER, a prominent lawyer of Chari- ton, Iowa, has been identified with this place for more than twenty years, and is a fit subject for biographical mention in this work.

George W. Alexander was born in the town of Dandridge, Jefferson county, Tennes- see, March 7, 1845, a representative of a well- known and highly respected family of east Tennessee, members of which were found in

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL

the ministerial, legal and other professional ranks there before the war. In his native town the subject of our sketch passed his boyhood days, and was there at the time hostilities were inaugurated between the North and the South, and while yet a boy in his 'teens he allied him- self with the cause of the Confederacy. With him, as with many others in the South, it was a matter of principle. His interests were South, his friends were there, and the cause he was taught to believe was a just one. Whether right or wrong in this, he is entitled to more respect from his late opponents than the stay- at-home secessionists of the North.

Mr. Alexander enlisted as Lieutenant in Company C, Thirty-first Tennessee Infantry, in which he served through the entire war. The regiment was at various points throughout the South and participated in many of the great battles of the war. The first engagement in which our subject participated was at Walling's Ridge in east Tennessee. He was at the siege of Cumberland Gap, the battle at Perryville, Kentucky, was sent to Vicksburg to intercept General Sherman, was in the battle of Champion Hills and finally was among the surrendered at Vicksburg. He was paroled on the field by order of General Grant, and the parol given on this occasion is still owned and treasured by Mr. Alexander. It bears the date of July 10, 1863, and was exe- cuted by Captain J. O. Pullen, of the Twentieth Illinois. Since the war Mr. Alexander has had the pleasure of meeting Captain Pullen at Chariton. The final oath of allegiance was taken at Fort Delaware, June 17, 1865, and is also in Mr. Alexander's possession. After be- ing exchanged September 14, 1863, he returned to duty with his command at Athens, Tennes- see, and participated in the battles between Longstreet and Burnside. In all, Mr. Alexan- der was engaged in over sixty battles; received four wounds, all in different engagements; and at Martinsburg, Virginia, a horse was shot un- der him. His was an active, energetic and continuous struggle for the supremacy of the Confederacy from the beginning of the conflict

until the final capitulation at Appomattox, and his entire service was characterized by bravery and fidelity. In this connection, we further record that Mr. Alexander had two brothers in . the Confederate army. One, Captain J. M. Alexander, was commander of Company F, Forty-third Tennessee, and also served with the same rank in the Sixty-first Tennessee; and the other, James K. P., was a member of our subject's company. The latter was se- verely wounded in his first battle and was dis- charged; is now a resident of Cartersville, Georgia. Captain J. M. Alexander was Post- master of Dawson, Georgia, under President Harrison's administration; and of the other members of the Alexander family, be it stated that two sisters of our subject reside near the old home in east Tennessee, and one sister re- cently died in Portland, Oregon.

After the war, owing to the intensely bitter feeling prevalent in the vicinity of his home in Tennessee, which invaded families as well as communities, Mr. Alexander left the South and came to Iowa, arriving here in July, 1865. His first location was at Dubuque, where he resided eight years. There he entered the office of Judge W. S. Barker, under whose in- structions he pursued the study of law, and in 187 I was admitted to the bar.

December 30, 1872, Mr. Alexander was united in marriage to Mrs. C. H. Dodson, nee Hendricks, a native of New York State. Four of her brothers and her first husband were soldiers in the Union army, the latter dying from disease contracted while in the service. Mrs. Alexander's only child, C. M., a son by her first husband, was a well-known citizen of Oskaloosa, where he died.

Immediately after his marriage, the subject of our sketch came to Chariton, where he has since been successfully engaged in the practice of his profession; and in addition to his general practice of law he also gives much attention to pension work, having secured pensions and in- creases for hundreds of his late opponents. As evidence of his popularity in the city with which he has been so closely identified for the

RECORD OF IOWA.

past two decades, Mr. Alexander has twice been chosen Mayor, which position he filled most ably for two terms of two years each. A stanch Democrat and a leader in the councils of his party, he has twice been the Democratic nomi- nee for County Attorney, and, although de- feated, his vote was highly complimentary. He is prominently associated with the Masonic or- der, in which he has received the Knight Tem- plar degrees, and he is also an Odd Fellow, having passed the official stations in the I. O. O. F. Religiously, he is an active member of the Episcopal Church.

0 R. GERSHOM H. HILL, physician, superintendent and man of affairs. - There is an indefinable quality that distinguishes some men which is still waiting for a name. So fine is this endowment or this combination of excellencies that its presence can be detected only by results. Its possessor the world likes because he is a man who does things. A visitor will say, " He is the man for me because he brings things to pass. He succeeds in doing the thing to be done." Dr. Gershom H. Hill, superintendent of the Iowa Hospital for the Insane at Inde- pendence, either possessed naturally or in the school of experience acquired an administrative ability of a very high order. A peculiar field exists for the display of his capacities which has seemed to call him out at all his strong points.

" In the best sense," exclaims the editor of an Iowa paper, who has known him intimately from youth, at the time of Dr. Hill's election to his present office, "he is a self-made man, having secured his education and paid for it by his own industry, working his way through college, and through all obstacles to his present enviable but worthily earned position. Many of his college friends, and the people of the town who remember him in those days, have a thrill of generous, grateful pride as they learn of his recent promotion. Few men can 4

give a better account of their talents, time and opportunities or furnish an example more worthy." And Dr. Edward Hornibrook, a physician of exceptional attainments and ob- servation, who, by particular studies and by official relations as well as by close acquaint- ance, has had all of the best means of forming a fair estimate of the work of Dr. Hill, affirms: "It is the best conducted hospital I ever saw. There is more done to alleviate the misery and distress, more done toward promoting the bodily health, of the patients, more done to make the hospital as little irksome as possible for the patients, more done to furnish good food and clothing, to furnish the hospital with proper ventilation, than in any other hospital I ever saw."

One of the plainest observations to those that know Dr. Hill's lineage is that he was well born. In the case of horses, for example, it is worth much to belong to a good family. It carries actual value. If one's education must begin in the minds of his ancestors, and if one may have great good fortune in choosing good parents from whom to be born, Dr. Hill's suc- cess began at this point. His father, Rev. James J. Hill, was of heroic mold, joining upon his graduation at Andover the "Iowa Band," who came as home missionaries to Iowa, when a Territory, and here in a rude house, May 8, 1846, Dr. Hill was born. His mother, Sarah E. (Hyde) Hill, of Bath, Maine, entered with whole-souled ardor into the self- denying labors of those primitive days, saying with characteristic vigor and enthusiasm, " Somebody must be built into these founda- tions." These parents, be it ever said as a memorial of them, gave the first dollar to found Iowa College, now the mother of patriots and ministers and missionaries and scholars, at Grinnell. Besides Dr. Hill, the only other survivor of this original Iowa family is his brother, Rev. James L. Hill, D. D., of Salem, Massachusetts.

The subject of our sketch is farther fortu- nate in that his peculiar abilities seem exactly to meet the times. During his day the whole

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL

trend of things has been toward organization. It is an age-drift. Everybody who wants to do anything or wants others to do anything must have the ability to erect his idea into some simple form of allied labor. Here Dr. Hill is an acknowledged master. Responsible for everything, he works through others, not imperiously but with such firm command of the situation as it is, with such thoroughness and attention to details that the success of the hospital is found in its associated life and effort. With the bee it is the making of the wax that costs, and so it is that the receptacle or form of a thing is quite as indicative of genius as the sweets that fill it.

Another remarkable thing about Dr. Hill is his versatility. In his work this capacity for a variety of things is supremely manifest. If you can name another man who can excel him in one point or another, it would prove nothing. There are few men, if any, that can combine so many points as he. It is not enough to fix upon one little point and insist that some one else represents it in a higher degree of excel- lency. We must look at the totality of any man's character and of any man's work and of any man's service and judge it not by its spe- cific points but by its wholeness and massive- ness. A man's work often furnishes the best character sketch that can possibly be drawn. A hospital requires professional abilities of the highest order. Its conduct, too, must furnish an unquestioned model. Progressiveness in the care of the herds and of the farm must set the pace for others. While this biographical sketch was being written a report comes from the board of trustees of the hospital, who have been meeting in regular session, as follows : " We have not been able to discover where more could be done for the happiness and comfort of the inmates."

We next catalogue his great talent for silence. He knows how like Von Moltke to hold his tongue in seven languages. As with General Grant, so with Dr. Hill: in dealing with all sorts and sizes of tempers, this is a prime excellence. His pastor, who knew him

intimately, said that the most impressive thing about his conduct of his great hospital family of 1, 100 persons, domiciled by the State at an expense of over a million dollars, "was its quietness. If Dr. Hill should hold excited and noisy disputes with employees who dis- please him the disturbance would spread like a contagion from the central adminstrative offices to the outmost wards." No separate mention is made of his uncommon common sense (old English word, " wisdom "), for it is doubted whether that quality even when pos- sessed in the highest degree, is in itself dis- tinctively so much an attribute as it is a blend- ing of characteristics and gifts, of which good judgment, marked with consistency and ac- curacy, with the entire absence of extrava- gance or eccentricity, forms a part. He sees clearly the relative importance of things. He seems to divest himself almost entirely of the bids of personal interest, partiality and preju- dice. The thing most frequently remarked about him is his poise. He is absolutely "unstampedable."

In his relation to his life work it is these dictates of native good sense, that incompar- able judgment, this happy combination of tal- ents and energies and the harmonious union of the intellectual and moral frames that mark and distinguish him. He deliberates slowly but decides surely and usually irreversibly. In the choice of words to express forcibly and precisely his meaning he is almost scrupulous. He is imperturbably kind, yet duty is the rul- ing principle of his conduct. No one can fol- low farther along this line without soon receiv- ing some suggestion of his very pronounced Christian character. The writer once noted his use of the peculiar petition that his admin- istration of the hospital, being carried on in the spirit of the Golden Rule, might be so conducted that the most unfortunate persons under his care would be treated as he himself would wish to be dealt with if the conditions were reversed.

Dr. Hill is not only a director in the Young Men's Christian Association of Independence,

RECORD OF IOWA.

but he is also an elder in the First Presbyte- rian Church. He is never absent from its Sun- day morning service or its mid-week meeting unless forbidden by some contrary duty. The regularity of his life is phenomenal. To a visitor, in winter, his matinal meal seems a little early, but it appears that a man can form what habits he pleases and custom will make them easy. . He has not spent a day in bed since he can remember. During his more than twenty-one years' connection with the hospital he has never been absent from the table at any one meal.

His home life is singularly felicitous. On January 9, 1879, he married Miss Louisa B. Ford, of Lynn, Massachusetts, a young lady whose figure and face, manners, intelligence and winsome character would mark her in any city of New England as the conspicuous one among a thousand. The mating of these two people is characterized by that best of quali- ties in blended life-genuine and hearty and affectionate comradeship. Mrs. Hill presides with rare grace and tact at a table at which governors and philanthropists and persons of the highest position in church and State are often guests. She is in active sympathy with her husband in his work for the less fortunate members of the human family, and supports him in the high religious position from which he views all the duties and responsibilities of his taxing, exacting life. Their only child, Miss Julia, bids fair to be worthy of her line- age and of the pains that are being taken with her education.

Dr. Hill himself graduated at Iowa College at Grinnell in 1871, and at Rush Medical Col- lege in Chicago in 1874, subsequently taking post-graduate studies in New York and at Har- vard University. The studies of his youth were interrupted by the service of his country in the field, being a member of Company B in the Forty-sixth Regiment of Iowa Infantry. He is now a member for life of the board of trustees of his alma mater, which college, too, conferred upon him in 1891 the honorary de- gree of Master of Arts. He is a lecturer on

insanity in the medical department of the State University of Iowa at Iowa City. He is hon- ored also by being appointed one of the build- ing commissioners of the Iowa Hospital for the Insane at Cherokee. It may not be too much to say that his influence in securing the establishment of this institution at Cherokee and in determining the appointment of the three superintendents of existing hospitals as members ex officio of the building commission was fully equal to that of any other man in the State. His work in the interest of the insane is not restricted to the walls of his own insti- tution or to the counties tributary to it. By voice and pen he has done much to develop in Iowa and elsewhere the principle for which he has always strongly stood, that all insane per- sons who cannot be comfortably cared for in their own homes by their own relatives, having the freedom of the house and fire- side, also eating at the same table with the rest of the family, should be cared for in State institutions and none of them in county asy- lums.

Dr. Hill has been president of the Buchanan County Medical Society for sixteen consecu- tive years. He has also been president of the Cedar Valley Medical Association. He is an honorary member of the Dubuque County Medical Society and of the Austin Flint Medi- cal Society, also a member of the Fayette . County Medical Society, of the Iowa State Medical Society, of the American Medical Asso- ciation, of the American Academy of Med- icine; of the Medico-Legal Society of New York, and of the American Medico-Psycholog- ical Association. The best things in Dr. Hill's life lie ahead. He is now exactly in his prime. His life hitherto has been, in an important sense, preparative. He is a spe- cialist. Here experience counts. His life is not yet dwarfed into a reminiscence. He has the habit of industry, and it will now grow easier to obtain success, -after success has been so organized, to plant the banner on the heights up which it has been so gallantly carried.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL

B EV. GLEN ALBERT TAYLOR, pas- tor of the Congregational Church at Stuart, Iowa, is a native of Denmark, Lee county, this State, born July 7, 1 860.

His parents, Thomas S. and Mary F. (Brown) Taylor, are natives respectively of Enosburg, Verinont, and Groton, Massachu- setts, the former born in 1828 and the latter in 1833. They were married in Lee county, Iowa, in 1856, and now reside on a farm near Denmark, that county. The Taylors are of Scotch origin. Reuben Taylor, a great-uncle of our subject, received from King George a deed to property in New Ipswich, New Hamp- shire. Thomas S. and Mary F. Taylor have a family of four children, namely: Marietta, wife of H. W. Van Dyke, resides near Fair- field, Iowa, where Mr. Van Dyke is engaged in farming; Glen A., the subject of this article; Edwin, engaged in farming near Denmark; and Harriet, a popular and successful teacher.

The subject of our sketch received his early education in Denmark Academy, graduating there in 1881. That same year he entered Williams College, in Massachusetts, where he pursued a four-years course and where he graduated in 1885, with the degree of A. B. He passed the following year as a student in the Chicago Theological Seminary. In 1889 he graduated with the degree of B. D. at the Yale Divinity School, and after that took a post- graduate course at Andover, Massachusetts. In the meantime, immediately after the year spent in Chicago, he was for eighteen months a missionary in Nebraska. June 8, 1890, he assumed charge of the church over which he now presides and where he has served as pas- tor ever since, his whole time being devoted to the interests of the church at this place. It is said that the Congregational Church at Stuart, which is the oldest religious organization of the place, was established here in the early history of the town by Rev. Joseph Pickett, who was superintendent of home missions in the State. He held meetings in a hotel office and selected as the leader of his choir one of the three sa-

loon-keepers then here. Old settlers say this was the foundation of the Congregational Church in Stuart. To-day this church has a membership of two hundred and forty. Its Sabbath-school has an enrollment of two hundred and sixty-eight, with an average at- tendance of two hundred and nine in 1894. Under its present pastor it has had an era of great prosperity.

Mr. Taylor was married at Perry, Iowa, September 2, 1890, to Miss Flora Wetmore, daughter of Henry and Louisa (Patterson) Wetmore. Her parents are both deceased. The Pattersons were among the first settlers of Gilman, Iowa. Mrs. Taylor was educated at Iowa College, Grinnell, and Wellelsey Col- lege, Massachusetts, being a graduate of the former institution with the class of 1884. After her return from Wellelsey College, where she spent two years, making a specialty of music, she was employed for two years as music teacher in the Denmark Academy. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor have one child, Miriam, born July 1, 1891.

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Memorial and biographical record of Iowa, Part 9

Author: Publication date: 1896 Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1360

Author:
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1360