USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 17
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backs upon presentation. He would likewise have the government loan money to all its citizens at a low rate of interest upon any sufficient security, believing that such a course would render money abundant and would stimulate industry and enter- prise and enhance the value of the prosperity of our country and fully develop its resources.
The question of labor and capital has occupied his attention largely of late years, and he has often predicted that the grinding process pursued by railroad and other moneyed corporations of Amer- ica upon their employes and the large number of unemployed men, if unmitigated, would some day eventuate in the most desperate collision between the interests named ever witnessed in modern times, and the great railroad strike which is at this junc-
ture paralyzing business and threatening to sub- vert all law and order, even defying government, seems to lend a large degree of probability to the correctness of his views on this subject. But what- ever view we may take of Mr. Sinnett's opinions upon this or any other subject, we can rest assured of the integrity of his motives and the honesty of his convictions.
He has never sought nor held an office, nor is a candidate for popularity or public fame. He is a plain, unassuming farmer, social and obliging as a neighbor, kind and warm-hearted as a friend, law-abiding as a citizen, hospitable and generous to all : a citizen of whom his adopted country may well be proud. Let us have many more such Irish- men.
EDWARD A. GUILBERT, M.I).,
DUBUQUE.
T' HE rapid development of the northwestern states in the last fifty years opens a wider field of enterprise for the learned professions and for the progress of the benevolent orders than was ever before known in the history of our race. Among the orders designed to ameliorate the social, moral and intellectual condition, and advance the inter- ests of humanity, no one is more ancient, honor- able or useful than that of Masonry. It is within a period known as a generation, about thirty years, that the first masonic lodge was organized in what is now Iowa. The state has a population of one million and a half, and there are now over fifteen thousand members of the "Mystic Tie." Among the zealous, earnest and faithful men, from year to year, has been Dr. E. A. Guilbert, distinguished alike in his medical profession, as a correct Mason, an exemplary citizen and a christian gentleman.
Edward Augustus Guilbert was born in Water- town, Jefferson county, New York, on the 12th of June, 1826. At the age of four or five his educa- tion was commenced in what were called in that day the "infant classes." He subsequently at- tended public schools. In some departments of learning he received, before the age of twelve, the benefit of instruction in the Black River Institute, at Watertown, where boys were prepared to enter college ; but he did not receive a collegiate educa- tion. In 1837 his father's family moved to Chicago.
Naturally of studious habits and quick perception, and being very industrions, it is said that he made more progress in his studies, often under disadvan- tages, than most other youths of his age did under the most favorable circumstances. He began early the practice of composition, and at the age of eigh- teen he was a ready, rapid and correct writer, even for the press. His professional studies were com- menced in 1843, and after a four years' course he graduated at Rush Medical College, Chicago. For several years he was the confidential student in the office of the late eminent Professor Daniel Brainard.
In 1847 he married Miss Kathleen Somers, a young lady of education and refinement, having had the benefit of a course of study in the famous acad- emy of Mrs. Emma Willard, of Troy, New York. Nine children have been born to them, six of whom survive.
The practice of his profession and other life work, and his labor in the promotion of Masonry, are so blended that, for a part of the time, it is proper to consider the topics in connection. He practiced medicine and surgery first at Ottawa, and after- ward at Waukegan, Illinois. In that time, 1847 to 1852, he still pursued medical studies and investi- gations with all the interest of an enthusiastic stu- dent. In 1851, at the age of twenty-five, he be- gan a new line of study and research, by becom- ing a Master Mason in Union Lodge, at Waukegan.
Edward Aguilar
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About that time Dr. Guilbert resolved to practice medicine upon a different system -that of Hahne- mann, and since known as homœopathy. He soon afterward removed to Elgin, Illinois, and com- menced his changed practice, having thoroughly studied the literature and theory of that school of medicine. On removing to Dubuque, Iowa, he was elected master of Dubuque Lodge No. 3, in 1857, and reëlected five or six times since. It will be remembered by all who have been Masons twenty years, that much confusion existed in almost every state jurisdiction as to "Work," and that fraternal controversies on the subject were usually conducted with a very kindly spirit, yet it required about five years' consultation to bring about the desired uni- formity and reach the success which now distin- guishes the lodges in Iowa. Being a delegate to the Grand Lodge in 1858, Dr. Guilbert was elected junior grand warden, and reëlected in 1859. In those years he was active, faithful and earnest on the question of the "Work," and in the latter year he was made one of the "custodians " on that sub- ject. His associates were Hon. John Scott and William B. Langridge. The reformed "Work " was adopted by the Grand Lodge in 1860. In 1861 Dr. Guilbert was elected senior grand warden, and in 1862 was appointed deputy grand master. In October in the latter year he became acting grand master on the occasion of his superior officer, Gen- eral Thomas H. Benton, accepting a command in the volunteer army. The honor and the duties which he then received and discharged were increased, and made more obligatory in 1863 by his election as grand master. He was reëlected for the two fol- lowing terms, and thus managed the affairs of the Grand Lodge of Iowa for nearly four years. Refer- ence has been made, so far, to Df. Guilbert's ma- sonic career under the power of the Grand Lodge of Iowa. But passing the higher branches of that body, he has for more than ten years been exalted to many other important stations. He has served eight years as the high priest of Dubuque Royal Arch Chapter, composed of more than a hundred companions; seven years as eminent commander of Siloam Commandery, of more than fifty knights templar; also for five years as the "Thrice Illustri- ous " of Dubuque Council No. 3. His connection with the Grand Chapter began some years ago, and he is now its grand high priest. He was the ac- cepted orator before several of the grand bodies named on the annual conventions.
Dr. Guilbert has been a voluminous writer of masonic literature. His reports on foreign corre- . spondence, and other reports and papers, presented to the four grand bodies in Iowa, including his orations, addresses and official reports in the sub- ordinate branches, would comprise about three thousand printed pages of the size used in the annual masonic publications. But his highest liter- ary standing is as a masonic journalist. It seems surprising that he could, in twenty years, accom- plish the work he has done, sometimes under dis- advantages that would have discouraged anyone less ambitious and less persevering, and at the same time discharge the duties of an arduous profession requiring almost constant attention. Though there were perhaps twenty masonic journals in the United States, the craft in the western states, and especially in Iowa, felt the need, as Dr. Guilbert did, of an additional magazine to advance the interests of the order. He accordingly edited and published the "Evergreen " at Dubuque for three years. It was said to have been better edited than any other masonic journal in the northwest. He sold his in- terest in 1871 to persons in another city. While under the editorship of Dr. Guilbert and published at Dubuque, it was an efficient means of promulgat- ing the theory and practice of true Masonry. Had such a writer as the founder of the "Evergreen " devoted his exclusive work for the last twenty-five years to any other department of literature, he would have distinguished himself more than 'he has in the various fields of his masonic work. He has also been professional lecturer in the homœopathic colleges of Cleveland, St. Louis and Chicago. And yet another field occupied for a time the attention of this energetic and industrious young man.
In the war of the rebellion he was appointed surgeon of the board of enrollment for the third congressional district of Iowa, and discharged the responsible duties of that position from 1862 to 1865. But his patriotic nature and zealous spirit shunned no toil or responsibility, either in_fraternal labor for the order he has so loved and adorned, or in the duties of a citizen or an officer to pro- mote the welfare of his country. During the war lie gave his influence to encourage enlistments for the volunteer service, and was chosen captain of company A, of the 46th Iowa Infantry. In that capacity he passed five months in the military field- service in western Tennessee. He is thus properly included in that roll of honor which will be em-
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balmed in the history of America as a record of our national progress and political preservation. It has been by the utmost industry, the most rigidly correct business and personal habits, and also the constant watchfulness in economizing every hour of time, that he has been able to do such an amount of work. Of course he is not rich, for no man of such benevolent and self-sacrificing nature can ever acquire more than a moderate competence.
Having been successful in his profession, he suc- ceeded in 1876 in establishing an institution in Dubuque, known as the Northwestern Sanitarium, with a view to afford medical and surgical relief to that class of patients who might not be able to secure proper treatment from local physicians, and to prevent the necessity of long journeys to more distant hospitals. He had cherished this design for years, and the accomplished fact is another evi- dence of his perseverance in relation to any good object.
Dr. Guilbert's mental activity and enduring phys- ical organization appear to be derived from his nativity, in a happy and fortunate mixture of three nationalities - those of Wales, England and Hol- land. The English evidently predominates, and hence he may with propriety be considered an English-American of the second or third genera-
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tion. His literary tastes he has inherited from his mother, a woman of noble character and of great culture, whose love of letters as a writer would have secured her distinction had she chosen to have entered that field. His father was an emi- nent mason, a devoted christian, and is still living at Waukegan, Illinois.
With a fine, manly form, in good proportions, and with regular features, a genial manner and at- tractive conversational powers, with the gift of elo- quence, it is not to be wondered at that he is popu- lar with all his masonic brethren, and also his fellow-citizens. Of such a man as Dr. Guilbert, it is not fulsome praise to say that he is an honor to the time in which he lives. He fills no polit- ical office, nor seeks the empty applause of the populace; but he does his life-duty day by day and from year to year; and may he long be spared to be loved by the members of the order for which he has done so much, to be highly respected in the learned profession in which he has practiced for a quarter of a century, and be esteemed by his fellow-christians and citizens, who may yet become his personal acquaintances. Few men, when they pass from earth, will leave behind them a higher character, a better reputation, or a brighter example of pure life than Dr. Edward Augustus Guilbert.
LEVI FULLER, M.D.,
WEST UNION.
D R. LEVI FULLER is the son of Elijah Fuller, a farmer, and was born in Tioga county, Pennsylvania, on the 14th of August, 1824. He spent his early years in aiding his father in clear- ing and cultivating land, having, meantime, limited means for mental discipline. He had a taste for study, and a partiality for medical books, and at eighteen, with the permission of his father, struck boldly out for himself with more ambition than means. He studied medicine at Newcastle, in his native state, and commenced practice in 1845. He practiced nine or ten years east of the Mississippi, seven of them at Rock Grove, Stephenson county, Illinois, and in April, 1854, removed to West Union, Iowa, where we still find him, but not in the medical practice. After being in the state about two years, the "openings " in other professions or lines of business became so numerous and so tempting that
he abandoned his profession altogether. He gave his attention to real estate, eventually became a broker, and as a business man has proved eminently successful. He was, for a short time, in the hard- ware traffic, but his most profitable ventures have been made in buying and selling land. A few years ago he went into the business of banking, purchasing the West Union Bank, which he and his son man- aged for two or three years, when they sold it to S. B. Zeigler. It was eventually merged in the Fayette County National Bank.
Dr. Fuller represented Fayette county in the ninth general assembly, it being the session of 1862, a dark hour in our annals, and Governor Kirkwood found in him not only a true patriot but an efficient worker and wise cooperator. While at the capital, Dr. Fuller received a commission as surgeon of the 36th Infantry, but, before joining the regiment, Pres-
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ident Lincoln sent him a commission as internal revenue collector of the third district of Iowa, a po- sition which he held for three years, and the duties of which he discharged with perfect satisfaction.
In 1874 Dr. Fuller was one of the commissioners appointed by the executive to distribute the fifty thousand dollars appropriated by the state to relieve the sufferers by the grasshoppers in northwestern Iowa.
He is much interested in the educational enter- prises of the county, and was for several years presi- dent of the board of trustees of the upper Iowa University, located at Fayette. His heart is in every local movement which will in any way benefit the people. He has laid out three additions to West Union, and is rightly regarded as one of the " nurs- ing fathers " and most active upbuilders of the place.
Dr. Fuller is a Master Mason. In politics, he was a whig until the republican party came into being, since which time he has acted with the latter. His
religious connection is with the Methodist Episcopal church, in which he is a prominent layman.
In May, 1845, he married Miss J. E. Tipton, of Centre county, Pennsylvania, the fruit of this union being three children, two of them promising daugh- ters, who died in early life. William E. Fuller, the son, to whom we have already referred, is one of the leading young attorneys-at-law in West Union, with a family of his own. He is the present member of the general assembly for Fayette county. It seems to be a family of legislators, Dr. Fuller coming of good stock. His father formerly represented Keene in the New Hampshire legislature, and his maternal grandfather, Hezekiah Newcomb, was a member of the Massachusetts legislature for fifteen consecutive years.
Dr. Fuller is a prudent and careful financier, full of public spirit, aiding in all enterprises which ad- vance the interests of the town, county or state, and is benevolent in his feelings, promptly responding to the calls of the needy.
ALEXANDER BLACK,
KEOKUK.
T HE subject of this sketch is the eldest son of the late Alexander Black, a native of Camp- beltown, Scotland; he was born at Millroy, in the vicinity of the famous Giant's Causeway, in county Antrim, Ireland, on the 13th of March, 1843; his father, who died on the 5th of September, 1872, was a commanding officer in Her Britannic Majesty's coast-guard service ; his mother, whose maiden name was Sarah Lott, was a native of Devonshire, Eng- land; two of his brothers are superintending engi- neers in the British postal-telegraph service, and at present stationed respectively in Glasgow and Edin- burgh, Scotland.
Mr. Black received a liberal education in various parts of Ireland and England where his father was from time to time stationcd, and early showed an aptitude for mechanics, mathematics and drawing ; he was first put into a writer's office in Campbel- town, and afterward into a landed estate office in Ireland, but his preferences for mechanics and architecture predominating, he determined to devote himself exclusively to architecture, and accordingly studied his profession in an architectural office in London, England, where he received a theoretical
as well as practical education. His experience in several parts of Great Britain and Ireland caused him to become dissatisfied with his slow mediocre professional prospects (an extensive influential family connection being essential to professional success, owing to the restraints of a stern professional eti- quette), and being desirous of seeing the new world, he determined to transfer his professional pursuits to America. He accordingly immigrated to Ottawa, Canada, in May, 1871, but finding there only a lim- ited field of professional operations, shortly after the memorable Chicago fire of October 9, 1871, he opened an office at the corner of Madison and Clark streets, Chicago, in partnership with another archi- tect, under the firm name of Hansen and Black. The firm had a considerable architectural practice, having designed and superintended the erection of several store, residence and church buildings in Chicago, and also in the suburban towns of Engle- wood, South Englewood, South Evanston, Highland Park, Park Ridge, Vicar Park, etc. He did not sub- mit designs in the Chicago city hall and county court-house architectural competition, wisely judg- ing that not merit but money would be the crite-
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rion of successful competition with the city council and county commissioners; the scandalous develop- ments which have since been revealed in connection with that municipal complication has far exceeded his worst anticipations.
In the fall of 1874, in consequence of the previous commercial panic having seriously impaired build- ing operations in Chicago, he determined to accept the invitation of friends to remove his headquarters to Keokuk, which had then taken a new departure in building. His first design there was for the hand- some new Jewish synagogue now being completed under his superintendence, and, being the first Jew- ish synagogue erected in the State of Iowa, Keokuk naturally takes pride in the enterprise of her He- brew citizens.
During the building season of 1875 he designed the plans of Catholic churches in Warsaw and Car- thage, Illinois, also for a Presbyterian church at Vinton, lowa, for Parsons College chapel, the First National Bank building, and several handsome busi- ness houses in Fairfield, for Draper and Zachary's bank building at Prairie City, a county court-house at ('olumbus Junction, also a handsome design for the proposed new edifice for St. John's Episcopal church, Keokuk, besides many other smaller build- ings. He has also been entrusted with the design- ing of a handsome ashlar building at Centerville, for the Farmers' National Bank in connection with
a drug store,- a masonic hall is to occupy the en- tire third story of the joint building; he has also been engaged to design several handsome business houses and private residences in Keokuk and Cen- terville, to be ereeted in the course of the approach- ing building season. His improved scientific meth- ods of construction, based on practical mathematical investigation, instead of on the usual empirical and rule-of-thumb methods of the less cultivated pro- fessors of his art, and his cultured artistic treatment of his designs, coupled with an honorable and reli- able practice of his profession, has gained for him the appreciation and friendship of his patrons, many of whom are among the prominent men in the states of Iowa and Illinois ..
While a resident of Chicago he became a mem- ber of the Illinois St. Andrew's Society. He and his immediate relatives (all of whom reside in Scotland and England, he being the only member of his family in America) are English Episcopalians.
His political views have been English conserva- tive; he does not sympathize with American Repub- licanism under the present administration, and still less does he have any democratic proclivities.
In the winter of 1874-5 he made an extended visit to Rochester, Albany, New York city, Philadel- phia, Baltimore, Washington, etc., with the view of familiarizing himself with all the peculiarities of American architecture in these cities.
LINDLEY S. BUTLER,
NORTHWOOD.
A MONG the rising young men of northern Iowa is Lindley Schooley Butler, of Worth county. At twenty-six years of age he received an impor- tant appointment by the state executive, and an indorsement of that appointment at the hands of the people.
Mr. Butler is an Ohioan, and was born at Salem, Columbiana county, on the 31st of May, 1846. His parents were Moses V. and Emily Schooley Butler, and before Lindley was six months old they moved to lowa, locating at Springdale, Cedar county, where the son spent his youth at the common school and the Friends' Seminary, following the same with a course of instruction at a commercial college in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1864. That year he re- turned to Iowa, and in 1868 read law with Hon.
Rush Clark, of lowa City, soon afterward connect- ing himself with the law department of the State University, and graduating in June, 1869. The same month he was admitted to the bar of the supreme court. He moved immediately to North- wood, Worth county, and opened a law office in August. To the practice of law he soon added the business of real estate, and both branches of business grew rapidly upon his hands. In land operations he has usually had a partner, devoting his own time exclusively to the practice of the law, and the firm of Butler, Smith and Pickering pros- ecute an extensive business in loan and collecting as well as real estate.
In the autumn of 1872 Mr. Butler was appointed, by Governor Carpenter, to fill a vacancy in the
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office of district attorney for the twelfth judicial | to Miss Julia A. Pickering, of Springdale, according district, consisting of eight counties, and in No- to the ceremony of the Friends, to which society both parties belong. They have two children. vember of the same year he was elected by the people to the same office for a term of four years. Mr. Butler belongs to the Masonic order; and in politics he has always been a republican. He has legal qualifications eminently fitting him for such an office, and few men of his age in the state have succeeded better.
He is an industrious and very active man, and very few men of his age in Iowa have held as high
On the 23d of November, 1869, he was married ' a position.
SAMUEL T. DAVIS,
SIOUX CITY.
S AMUEL TAIT DAVIS was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania, on the 15th of August, 1828. His parents were George and Eliza Reichard Davis, his father being of Irish and his mother of German descent. The family lived in Meadville until Sam- uel was eleven years of age. During the last year there he attended the academy. At the age men- tioned the family moved to a farm in the woods, in Mercer county, where the son spent nine or ten years, aiding in clearing up and improving the land, attending school and teaching. He had a strong desire for knowledge, was especially fond of mathe- matics, and sometimes worked problems in algebra on the moldboard of the plow, using pencils of soap- stone found on the farm.
At twenty-one Mr. Davis entered the preparatory department of Allegheny College, Meadville; took an irregular course, studying such branches as he thought would be most serviceable to him as a business man, and left the institution while in the sophomore class, in the autumn of 1852. He be- came principal of Greenville Academy, then very much run down, and in a short time brought it up to a high standard. But Mr. Davis had the prac- tice of law in view, and before the end of two years left the academy and began to study with Hon. David Derickson, of Meadville. He was admitted to the bar of Mercer county in the autumn of 1855. The entire means for his education, scientific and legal, were obtained by his own exertions.
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