USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 31
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passage of a bill to amend the state constitution so as to extend right of suffrage to females. The next general assembly, however, defeated the final com- pletion of the measure. The school laws of Iowa are conceded to be among the best in the Union, and among them is the present county high-school law, which was framed by Mr. Tuttle, and by him care- fully guarded until its final passage.
The interests of Mr. Tuttle have been with north- . ern Iowa as well as his adopted home; his views are broad and comprehensive, and he and many others of like forecast and energy have seen great and most happy results from their untiring efforts. The world has seldom seen anything that exceeded the growth of northern Iowa during the last twenty years.
Mr. Tuttle has always been a republican, and is both active and influential in the party, being usually a delegate to its county and state conventions.
He is a member of the Methodist church, and a trustee of the same. But his religious views are of the broad and liberal type that leads him to think and act for himself, regardless of whether it con- forms to the creed of one church or another. As a worker in sabbath-school, and in the temperance cause, no man stands higher in Cerro Gordo county.
He is a strict temperance man, and is opposed to the use of tobacco.
His wife, of whom mention has been made, was Miss Caroline M. Warner, of Otselic, Chenango county, New York, their union taking place on the 4th of February, 1851. She seems to have been admirably adapted for a helpmeet for one who must be self-made, if made at all. She is a noble Christian woman, the mother of three children now living, and of one child, their first-born, whose bu- rial caused the breaking of the first sod in the Clear Lake cemetery.
The twenty-fifth anniversary of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle occurred on the 4th of Febru- ary, 1876, and was observed by a large attendance of friends and a generous supply of gifts. The in- terest of the occasion was greatly enhanced by the happy surprise and marriage of the eldest child, Rose, to Mr. G. B. McIntosh, of Cerro Gordo county.
In less than a week after Mrs. Tuttle arrived at Clear Lake she had quite a "scare." She and one or two other women were in the cabin, and all the men away : her husband at Mason City, and two or three other men in the field. Suddenly a dozen
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Sioux Indians walked into the cabin, looked around, made themselves free with provisions, took down two or three guns which hung overhead, and wanted to buy the best one; but it was Mr. Tuttle's new and favorite fowling-piece, and she would not part with it. They then went out-of-doors, after pilfering a few things, and carefully loaded their own guns. About this time two of the men returned from the field. A small grindstone lay on the ground, and one of the Indians picked it up and tried to break off a small piece by letting it fall on a log. He did not succeed, but the white man, Mr. D., reproved him, when he caught up the stone and was making off with it. Mr. D. had a scuffle with him, and suc- ceeded in wresting the grindstone from him, when the Indian knocked his hat off with a club. Mr. D. thereupon threw the grindstone at him, and for some time he lay as though dead. The other Indians then became boisterous, and made some threats, but by-and-by the wounded Indian arose, and at length the whole squad left, taking some plunder with them, threatening a speedy return and revenge. About this time Mr. Tuttle returned, and having ascertained what had transpired, he took
all the women in a rustic vehicle and hastened back to Mason City, and before midnight he was at Clear Lake again with all the men in Mason City who had arms to bear. That night about twenty-five men, all told, watched till morning for the return of the savages. They did not come, and the next forenoon it was resolved to go to them. Following their trail, they were found a few miles away, hunting on Lime creek. The chief met them, very much frightened, heard their demands, restored all the pilfered property not eaten or destroyed, paid for what they could not restore, and departed, never to return.
Mr. Tuttle has seen the village of Clear Lake ex- pand from half-a-dozen log cabins to two or three hundred frame houses, and, scattered among them, neat little churches, large hotels and brick blocks, and every sign of thrift. At the end of twenty- two years he finds himself in the center of one of the most popular summer resorts in the northwest, and increasing in attractiveness every season. In the summer of 1877 the Methodists held a national camp- meeting, and the Sunday-school people an interna- tional convention at Clear Lake.
HENRY C. BULIS, M.D.,
DECORAH.
H ENRY C. BULIS, a son of Hiram L. and Amanda (Reynolds) Bulis, is a native of New York, and was born at Chazy, Clinton county, on the 14th of November, 1830. His maternal grand- father was a soldier in the revolutionary war. Hi- ram L. Bulis was a farmer, and moved to Alburgh, Grand Iste county, Vermont, when Henry was six- teen years old. A year or two later, after aiding his father in the more busy season, and attending the common school during the winter, the son spent four years in teaching, and in attending different academies. At twenty-one he commenced studying medicine with Dr. A. C. Butler, of Alburgh, attending lectures subsequently at Woodstock, and graduating in the summer of 1854. In October of the same year Dr. Bulis settled in Decorah, and has prac- ticed here since that date, when not discharging offi- cial duties outside his profession.
When the law creating the office of county super- intendent of public schools went into force, Dr. Bulis was the first man to fill it. He served three
years. He was a member of the county board of supervisors several years ago. In 1865 he was elected state senator, and by reëlection served six years, resigning in the middle of his second term to take the office of lieutenant-governor, to which the people had called him. While in the upper branch of the general assembly he was at one time chair- man of the committee on claims, and at another, of the committee on state university. He did espe- cially good service on the latter committee ; a warm friend of education, and being generous and broad in his views on the subject, he earnestly advocated the appropriation bills, and every measure calculated to advance the interests of the university. Part of the time while in the senate he served as its presi- dent pro tem., and was in that position when placed in the chair of lieutenant-governor. He has been a trustee and regent of the university ; he was ex- amining surgeon for pensions from 1865 to 1876, and is now president of the Iowa State Medical Society.
Hogia
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Dr. Bulis has always been a republican, and, as will be seen by this sketch, much of the time since he has been in Iowa he has been a favorite of the party. He has been very serviceable, not to his party or the state alone. On the 25th of August, 1876, he was appointed a member of the Sioux Indian commission, and aided essentially in forming, a few weeks later, the treaty with them by which they ceded the Black Hills, and granted the right of way to the same of three different routes. The service which the doctor rendered in securing this treaty
can hardly be overestimated, and is regarded as the crowning act of his life.
On the roth of September, 1854, he married Miss Laura A. Adams, of Champlain, New York. She had three children, and died in 1861. Two of her children survive her. On the 17th of June, 1863, he married Miss Harriet S. Adams, sister of his first wife.
The services which Dr. Bulis has rendered to the county, the state, and the country, will long keep his name in remembrance.
HON. JAMES L. HOGIN,
SIGOURNEY.
J
AMES LATIMUS HOGIN, for many years a
distinguished member of the Masonic order, and in 1854 grand master of Iowa, was born in Kent county, Delaware, on the 7th of March, 1801; his parents being John Hogin and Elizabeth née Christ- field. His father was a distinguished and zealous minister of the Methodist church, and preached the gospel with great success in the states of Maryland and Delaware, throughout his lifetime. He died at an early age, however, in the year 1810, when our subject was but a lad. He was a man of deep piety, great force of character, influential in his community, and a leading spirit in his denomination. The grandfather of John Hogin, the great-grandfather of our subject, was a native of north Ireland, and of Scotch ancestry. About the year 1750 he emi- grated from Londonderry to the colony of Delaware, where his descendants remained for three genera- tions, but they have since nearly all immigrated to the western and southwestern states, where many of them have become men of note and distinction. The mother of James L. Hogin was a daughter of John Christfield, a native of England, who immigrated to Maryland a short time previous to the revolution. She was a lady of great force and individuality of character, a leader and exhorter in the Methodist Episcopal church, and, moreover, of unusual edu- cation and literary attainments for her day.
Both families were strong patriots during the re- volutionary struggle, and several of them bore arms in the cause of the colonies.
James Latimus Hogin received but a limited edu- cation in early life, and during his minority learned the boot and shoe making trade, at which he worked
for many years ; but he was always a diligent student, and noted as a lover of books. Even when poor and earning but a scanty livelihood he was con- tinually adding to his stock of historical and stand- ard books, and in after years possessed one of the finest libraries in the west, and was recognized as among the most intellectual and generally informed men of the day.
In March, 1819, he removed to Indiana, and lo- cated in Brookville, Franklin county, of that state, where he worked at his trade of shoemaking for a number of years. He afterward engaged in mer- chandising, a pursuit which he followed as long as he continued in business, and from which he realized a reasonable competency upon which to retire when declining years came upon him. In the spring of 1832 he removed to Indianapolis, and continued in business there till 1845, when he removed to Dan- ville, where he remained till his removal to Iowa, which occurred in the spring of 1850; in which year he located at Sigourney, where he made his home and passed the remainder of his lifetime, enjoying the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens.
Of a modest and diffident nature, he shrank from public notice, yet the importunities of his fellow- citizens of Keokuk county pressed him into their service, and he was elected to the state senate in the autumn of 1854, and served with distinction two regular and one special session in that body. Among the measures which he favored and con- tributed very materially to the success of, was the geological survey of the state. For his efforts in this direction he had the thanks of Governor Grimes and the scientific men of the state generally, and is
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deserving of the gratitude of all citizens interested in the material progress of Iowa.
But, as already intimated, it was as a Mason that he was especially distinguished. On the 11th of November, 1822, he was initiated into the mysteries of that ancient and benevolent order, in Harmony Lodge No. 11, Brookville, Indiana, where he served the craft in many capacities, and for two years as worshipful master.
On moving to Indianapolis in 1832 he found Masonry at a low stage of existence there. A lodge had once existed, but it had been suffered to go down and its charter forfeited. He soon revived the dying embers, however, and in the spring of 1833 united with others in petitioning the grand lodge for a renewal of its charter, which was granted. Of this lodge, which was known as Centre Lodge No. 23, he was the presiding officer for four years. In 1835 he was a member of the grand lodge, and in 1836 he was elected most worshipful grand master of Indiana, showing most conclusively his ability and the high appreciation of his brethren of that jurisdiction.
In the winter following his removal to Danville, with others he petitioned the grand lodge for leave to organize a new lodge, which received the name of Western Star No. 26, over which he presided for three years.
His chief regret in removing from Indiana was in severing his masonic associations, which had ever been pleasant, but he was agreeably surprised at find- ing Masonry so flourishing in his new home; and in 1851 he, with six others, received from the grand lodge of Iowa, a dispensation for the organization of Hogin Lodge No. 32, at Sigourney. Of this or- ganization, named for him by his brethren, he was the master for several years. He represented it in the grand lodge in 1851 and 1852, was deputy grand master in 1853, and elected grand master of the state in 1854.
He was made a Royal-Arch Mason in McMillan Chapter No. 2, Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 2d of May, 1836. On the 19th of December of the same year he received the degree of royal and select master in Cincinnati Council No. 1, and on the 21st of August, 1848, he was knighted in Roper Encamp- ment No. 1 -as commanderies were then and until 1856 called - at Indianapolis. He was one of the organizers of De Molay Commandery No. I at Mus- catine, Iowa, and assisted greatly in the introduction and extension of knighthood in Iowa.
In religious faith, his preference was for the Epis- copal church; but as there was no congregation of that church where he resided, he attended the Methodist Episcopal church, of which his wife was a member, for many years.
In politics, he was raised in the whig school, and afterward embraced the principles of the republic- an party, with which he acted during the remainder of his lifetime.
Mr. Hogin died at the home of his son, B. R. Hogin, in Sigourney, on the 17th of December, 1876.
On the 3d of September, 1822, Mr. Hogin married Miss Eliza, daughter of John Crouch, Esq., of Wells- burg, Virginia, who in after life manumitted his slaves and removed to Ohio. She was a well-edu- cated woman, of high intellectual attainments, a zealous and exemplary member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and led a blameless and useful life. Her social qualities were highly developed, and she was the center of a large circle of friends, who looked up to her as a leader and counselor ; she died in 1864. One of her brothers, Benjamin T. Crouch, was an eminent minister in the Meth- odist Episcopal church in Kentucky for many years. He filled the office of presiding elder for a pro- longed period, and for sixteen years successively represented his conference in the general conferences of the church, previous to its division into " North" and "South." He was also president of the Tran- sylvania College in that state for a number of years. A half-brother of Mrs. Hogin's, named G. C. Beeks, is still a prominent minister in the same church in Indiana.
Mrs. Hogin was the mother of twelve children, eleven of whom lived to maturity, and eight of whom are still living : John Christfield, the eldest, is a prosperous merchant in Sigourney ; Catherine Noble, the second, was married to Samuel A. Russell, of Des Moines, and died in 1870; Caroline Norton is the wife of Dr. N: Hentor., residing at Albany, Ore- gon ; Elvira A. is the wife of William M. Wells, Esq., of Oskaloosa, Iowa ; James L., junior, who had been bred to the profession of pharmacy, died in 1861 ; Mary is the wife of F. B. Mathews, Esq., of Si- gourney ; Cornelia E. is the wife of Rev. C. W. Shaw, of Salem, Oregon ; George B. is a druggist in New- ton, Iowa, who entered the Union army early in the late war as quartermaster-sergeant of the 13th Iowa Infantry, and rose to the command of his company, and later was elevated to the position of paymaster, with the rank of major ; Juliett W. is the wife of A. C.
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Romig, Esq., of Abilene, Kansas ; William F. was captain of company F, 8th Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and was killed at the battle of Shilo, Tennessee, on the 6th of April, 1862, having just reached his majority,-he was a youth of great promise, a gallant soldier and an estimable gentleman ; Benja- min R., the youngest, is a successful drug merchant in Sigourney,-he was a member of the 9th Iowa Cavalry, in which he served with fidelity some eighteen months.
James L. Hogin was one of nature's noblemen ; living an upright and honorable life, he impressed his character upon all around him, and did much to build up the town and county in which he cast his lot ; and to-day many rise up and call him blessed in their pleasing memories of his genial intercourse with them. He was of fine form, majestic in figure, and grave, earnest and dignified in manner. In all
the relations of life he was a true man and a per- fect gentleman. A business partner of his wrote of him that "for forty years, as a merchant, whether rich or poor, his word was as good as his bond, and his bond as good as gold." So he lived and died, and there were no regretful memories to cloud his parting hours.
In the home of a son he forgot the world of care and the battles of life which had furrowed his earlier years : drawn closely around the hearths of children and grandchildren, in their loved presence he await- ed the hour when he should be summoned to meet his beloved partner in the mansions of rest. The hour came in peace and quiet, and " the spirit as- cended to God who gave it."
"So fades the summer cloud away,
So sinks the gale when storms are o'er, So gently shuts the eye of day, So dies a wave along the shore."
CHARLES C. GILMAN, ELDORA.
C ONSPICUOUS among Iowa men who have aided in developing the agricultural, mineral and other resources of the state through the agency of railroads, is Mr. C. C. Gilman, projector and builder of the Central Railroad of Iowa, and its president and general superintendent during its construction and operation from 1867 to 1872 in- clusive.
Charles Carroll Gilman was born on the 22d of February, 1833, in the town of Brooks, Waldo county, Maine, and was named by his parents Charles Car- roll, after Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, the latest survivor of the signers of the declaration of inde- pendence, and who had died a few months before this son was born. The father of Charles, an emi- nent physician, was a native of New Hampshire, and known as belonging to the Newmarket branch of the family. The mother, Lois P. Gilman née Webb was of the Pollard family, from Kennebec county, Maine.
C. C. Gilman received an academic education in Frankfort, now Winterport, Maine, where his parents resided ten years; and fitted himself at home for the sophomore class of Waterville College, now Colby University, and at the same time completed two years of study in a medical course with his father, who was a graduate of Bowdoin. His health
failing, Charles went to work at lumbering, and in two years gave up study entirely, and entered on what has proved to be, thus far, a very active busi- ness life.
In 1853 he started westward, halting three years in Michigan, conducting a saw-mill in the summers and devoting the winters to exploring and locating pine lands owned by government. In 1857 he pushed further westward to Dubuque, Iowa. En- gaging in the wholesale lumber trade in that city, he established retail yards in 1858 and 1859 at Earlville, Dyersville, Independence, Waterloo, Cedar Falls, Sand Spring, Anamosa, Monticello and Mari- on, towns on the Dubuque and Sioux City and Dubuque Southwestern railroads.
In 1861 he devoted a short time to the enlisting of soldiers, raising four companies of infantry for the brigade of General F. J. Herron, his Dubuque neighbor and friend.
While the subject of this sketch has, ever since his residence in Iowa, maintained a large private business in conjunction with partners, his chief labors have been expended on what he is pleased to call outside operations. In 1858 the Dubuque and Sioux City railroad coming to a halt on the prairie thirty-eight miles west of Dubuque, he started the town of Earlville, by building twenty-eight stores
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and dwelling-houses in that year and the following. In 1860 and 1861 he built grain elevators at Monti- cello, Marion and Cedar Falls, and opened a large. farm in Delaware county. About this time he pur- chased a water-privilege on the Maquoketa river, north of Cascade, erected a flouring-mill and saw- mill, and founded a town called Hillside. In 1864, by a series of able articles in the Dubuque and St. Louis daily papers, he called the attention of the public to the necessity of unimpeded navigation of the Mississippi river as a competing outlet for the products of the Mississippi valley, which resulted, after great personal effort on the part of Mr. Gil- man, in conventions being held at Dubuque and St. Louis, and finally in appropriations by congress, which have removed the rapids near Davenport and Keokuk. Frank Gilbert, now one of the edit- ors of the "Chicago Evening Journal," and Stilson Hutchins, present editor of the "St. Louis Times," but at the time referred to respectively editors of the " Times" and " Herald " of Dubuque. General William Vandever, B. B. Richards, Patrick Robb and others were his faithful coadjutors in this great work.
In 1865, in conjunction with other active business men of Dubuque, he secured the incorporation of the Dubuque Produce Exchange, an institution which will long be remembered by the citizens of that place as inaugurating a new era in Dubuque's rela- tions to surrounding country tributary to it, the good effects of which are felt to this day. In 1866 Mr. Gilman made the first soundings of the Missis- sippi at Dubuque, with the view of erecting a bridge, and the next year was appointed chairman of a convention by the Produce Exchange, whose duties were to call a public meeting for the purpose of incorporating a company to build it. This was done; and although not built by the company thus formed, the result was the immediate organization of the Dubuque and Dunleith Bridge Company, which erected the beautiful structure which now spans the river at that point.
In this effort Mr. Gilman was ably seconded by Hon. Platt Smith, Hon. William B. Allison and Henry L. Stout.
In 1867 Mr. Gilman originated the construction of the Eldora Railroad and Coal Company line from Ackley to Eldora, Hardin county, a distance of seventeen miles, afterward extended southward of Eldora twenty-eight miles to Marshalltown. In 1868 he bought out all parties identified with this
enterprise,-Platt Smith and J. K. Graves, of Du- buque, George Greene and William Greene, of Cedar Rapids, and others,-went to New York and formed a new company, and engaging the services of W. B. Shattuck as financial agent (the man who had previously sold the 10-40 government bonds, as well as the bonds of the Union Pa- cific railroad) The bonds of the Iowa road were promptly sold, and the road as promptly built, one hundred and thirty-two miles of the two hundred in eight months. The peculiar feature in this trans- action was the fact that no land grant or subsidy was attached to the project, and for the first time in the history of western railroad enterprises, two hundred miles of railroad were built on the merits which a surrounding country alone offered for busi- ness. The Central Railroad of Iowa, extending from Albia, Monroe county, to Northwood, in Worth county, was the first north and south road built in the state, and bids fair to be the most important. In 1870, when this line, which was built in sections, was united in Mahaska county, at North Skunk River bridge, with loaded freight trains from the north and south waiting to pass, President Gilman happily remarked, as he drove the last spike : " To southern Iowa we have brought the lumber of Minnesota ; to northern Iowa and Minnesota we introduce the cheap fuel, the magnificent coal of Mahaska county."
Mr. Gilman resigned the presidency of this rail- road in 1873, and immediately commenced mining coal in Mahaska county, in connection with his old secretary, H. W. McNeill, forming a company for the purpose, under the name of the Consolidation Coal Company. These works were increased from a delivery of one hundred and ten cars in 1871 to twelve thousand seven hundred and eighty in 1875. In this year he sold his interest to Hon. Ezekiel Clark, of Iowa City, and immediately began to de- velop the resources about his new home in Eldora, to which place he had removed from Dubuque in 1867. This he did by organizing a company for the manufacture of sewer pipe, drain tile and terra cotta from the superior fire clays which abound in this region. The company is known as the Iowa Terra Cotta and Fire Clay Company, and bids fair to become one of the most important manufactories in Iowa. Of this company he is president and chief owner, as well also of the telegraph company whose headquarters are at Eldora.
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