USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of representative men of Chicago, Minnesota cities and the World's Columbian exposition : with illustrations on steel. V. 1 > Part 43
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Our subject took great interest in politics, both State and National, but was never an office- seeker. Originally a Whig, he became an ardent Republican, and was on terms of closest friend- ship with Presidents Lincoln and Grant, having first known the latter when in business in Galena. Mr. Campbell was very successful in business, was widely known and esteemed for his manly traits of character. He was a very genial, pleasant man, and in consequence very popular. The name of "Ben Campbell" on the upper Missis- sippi was as well known in steamboating as other names now are in railroading, and one of the finest steamers named after him was a special favorite with the traveling public.
His life-long friend, Mr. J. Russell Jones, pays him this tribute :
I was probably better acquainted with Mr. Campbell than any of his acquaintances, and I fully appreciate the noble characteristics and lovable disposition which marked his course through life. We were associated together in business enterprises for over fifty years, and during that time I never knew him to do an ungallant or unprofessional act. He was the soul of honor and uprightness. In 1840 I entered his employ as clerk in Galena, Illinois, and for seventeen years I was associated with him in the wholesale grocery business as clerk or partner. I came to Chicago in 1861, and he followed me eight years later. During my twenty-five years' connec- tion with the Chicago West Division Railway System, as president, he was associated with me as vice-president, and one of the directors. During my fifty years' business connec- tion with him we have been on the most intimate terms. He was a very successful business man. He was always popular by reason of his amiability and genial manner.
WILLARD HALL PORTER,
WILMINGTON, DEL.
A S one of the commissioners of the World's Columbian Exposition, to be held at Chi- cago, in 1893, Mr. Porter brings to his position the fruits of a ripe scholarship and a rich and varied experience .. He is a native of Wilming- ton, Delaware, and was born April 7, 1854. He, early in life, decided to enter the legal profession, and after graduating from Princeton College pur- sued a course of study at Columbia Law College. He has practiced his profession in his native city and State with much success, and attained a high position among the leading lawyers of that com- monwealth. He is recognized as a leading man
in his city and community, and as such has been honored with many positions of confidence and trust, and his selection as one of the commis- sioners of the World's Columbian Exposition was a most natural, and in the fullest sense a commendable one. At the present time (1892) he is president of the Delaware Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and attorney for the Delaware Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and he takes a special pride in his office as secretary of the Delaware His- torical Society, of which the Hon. Thomas F. Bayard is an active member.
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Mr. Porter holds a high social position, and is usually at the head of leading social events in his State. In political faith and affiliation he has always been a Democrat, but has uniformly de- clined political preferment.
In all his varied relations Mr. Porter has main- tained a manly bearing, and by reason of his integrity of purpose, his splendid abilities and his nobility of character, he enjoys well-merited con- fidence and esteem.
FRANK NEWTON GAGE,
CHICAGO, ILL.
F RANK NEWTON GAGE was born at Wal- tham, Massachusetts, July 24, 1853, and is the son of John N. and Martha (Webster) Gage. His father settled in Chicago in 1857, and founded the house of Webster & Gage, which after- wards became Gage Bros. & Company, wholesale dealers in fancy goods and millinery.
Frank was educated in the public schools of Chicago, graduating from the "Old Central " high school with honors in 1870. Having a predilection for commercial rather than profes- sional life, he, upon leaving school, entered the business of Gage Bros. & Company, and the great fire, which made Chicago famous, coming the following year, gave him an opportunity for rapid advancement which he was not slow to avail himself of. For fifteen years following, or until January 1, 1885, when he organized the cor- poration known as " The Gage-Downs Corset Com- pany," of which he became treasurer and mana- ger, he was well known in the Chicago business world, and tireless in his efforts for success and advancement.
The following six years, in which a successful manufacturing business was established, were equally active. Disposing of his interest and severing his connection with this corporation in the early part of 1891, his attention has since been given to his large estate and the supervision of his diversified financial interests, which yield him a comfortable income.
Mr. Gage finds time outside of this to attend to the duties of president of the North American Accident Association, and is quite active in the management of several successful building and loan associations as well as on the Chicago Stock Exchange.
A lover of good horses, several of which can be found in his well-appointed stable, he is a mem-
ber of the Washington Park Club, and his artistic instincts are shown by his enrollment as a mem- ber of the Art Institute.
In June, 1888, Mr. Gage was elected president of the National Union (he having become a mem- of same in 1883), a beneficial order, having something over thirty thousand members, and during his term of office, which expired in June, 1890, he had full jurisdiction over the whole order, and performed the duties of his office in an exem- plary manner. He is also a member of the Royal Arcanum, the Royal League and the Mystic Cir- cle-all well-known fraternal orders.
He has traveled extensively, both in this country and Europe, and possessing, as he does, a retentive memory, and graphic powers of de- scription, his reminiscences are always of an inter- esting and entertaining character.
In politics he is a Republican, and is always true to his party on national and other important issues; but he is by no means a partisan, in the generally accepted sense of the word, and beyond recording his vote, as occasion may require, he takes no active part in politics generally.
In religious faith he is a Universalist and is a member of St. Paul's Universalist Church. It is not often that a young man becomes so carly iden- tified with the practical work of a church and its Sunday school, as did Mr. Gage, for he has been an officer of this church for many years, and connected with the Sunday school work since 1860. This is an honorable record, and one of which Mr. Gage is naturally proud. He has not yet reached the meridian of life, and the church of which he is so active and prominent a member anticipates many years of service from him.
He was married November 6, 1889, to Miss Olive E. Lewis, daughter of Mrs. Mary Lewis. They have one child, a boy, named for the grand-
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father, John Newton Gage. Domestic by nature, Mr. Gage spends much of the time not devoted to business interests with his family, and he is never happier than when, relieved from business cares, he is able to join his family and enjoy the com- forts of a beautifully situated, richly furnished
and well-regulated home, or a drive behind one or more of his well-bred horses.
Of thorough rectitude, pleasing address and much ability, he is one of Chicago's enterprising and representative citizens, and as such his biography is here inserted.
D. A. K. STEELE, M.D.
CHICAGO, ILL.
T HERE are at least two classes of beings that are born, not made; and if the poets consent, we would say that one of them is the surgeon. However this may be, as a general prop- osition, it will certainly be supported in Chicago in the case of Daniel Atkinson King Steele. Of good old Irish blood, his father, Rev. Daniel Steele, was born near Cookstown, County Tyrone, Ireland, in the ancient country-seat known as "Steele's Rock," where his ancestors have lived and died for over a hundred years.
Daniel Steele, the elder, was a Presbyterian minister, and after some years of missionary work in Western Ireland, he, with his young wife, Mary (Leatham) Anderson, came to America, and settled in Eden, Delaware county, Ohio. In that place, on the 29th of March, 1852, was born the subject of our sketch. When Daniel was two years old his parents removed to a farm near Pinckneyville, Perry county, Illinois. His educa- tion began in the old log schoolhouse on Grand Cote Prairie. Besides his school duties he assisted his father on the farm, losing, perhaps, a little time for study, but gaining the inestimable ad- vantage of a youth spent in the open air. What- ever his drawbacks, at fifteen he was ready to enter the academy at Oakdale, and on the re- moval of his father to Rantoul, did excellent work as a teacher.
In 1869 he began the study of medicine under Dr. D. P. McClure, of Rantoul, at the same time acting as clerk in a drugstore. In 1870 he came to Chicago, and took a three-years' course at the Chicago Medical College, graduating in 1873. During his senior year he was Prosector of Anat- omy in the college, and immediately after gradu- ation was made Demonstrator of Anatomy at the Chicago School of Anatomy. Especially desirous
of rapid advancement in surgery, he took a com- petitive examination for the position of interne in the Cook County Hospital, and won, as the result, the position of house surgeon. In this capacity he continued two years, and then began general practice, at the same time acting as clini- cal assistant to the celebrated Dr. Moses Gunn, of Rush Medical College. In 1875 he was made Attending Surgeon at the South Side Free Dis- pensary, and, in 1876, Lecturer on Surgery at the Chicago Medical College. Leaving this institu- tion in 1882, he, in company with several other prominent physicians, was greatly instrumental in founding the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons, which has since proven itself so invalu- able an acquisition to the medical institutions of Chicago. In this institution he acted as Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery until 1886. At that time the resignation of the eminent Dr. Nicholas Senn, formerly of Milwaukee, left vacant the chair of Principles and Practice of Surgery and Clinical Surgery. Dr. Steele, though younger by ten years than those who usually occupy this chair, was called to fill it, which he has done with em- phatic success.
Dr. Steele was one of the originators of the Chicago Biological Society, since become the Pathological Society, and is a charter member of the Chicago Medical Club, a very select organiza- tion designed for social as well as professional purposes. He was the first president of the Chi- cago Medico-Legal Society, and in 1887, and again in 1890, was made president of the Medical Board of Cook County Hospital, where, for eight years, he was Attending Surgeon. In 1886 he be- came president of the Chicago Medical Society, and in the State and National medical associa- tions stands in the foremost rank.
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In 1888 Dr. Steele was sent by the American Medical Association as a delegate to the British Medical Association, at its annual convention in Glasgow, Scotland. He visited the medical insti- tutions of England, France, Germany and Switz- erland, making many important investigations for the benefit of home science. Much of this in- formation he has since embodied in a paper entitled " A Chicago Physician's Impressions and Observations of European Surgery." His re- searches were much furthered by the acquaint- ance of such men as Lister, MacCormick and Heath, of London; Martin, of Berlin, and Mc- Ewan, of Glasgow. Apropos of a little matter which came up during this visit, Dr. Steele after- ward opened with an eminent English physician the correspondence on professional etiquette which attracted so much attention at home and abroad. Not a great while after this Dr. Steele again visited Europe, this time as a delegate to the Ninth International Medical Congress, held at Berlin. A pleasure excursion as well as a pro- fessional obligation, this trip took him through Vienna, Rome, the galleries of Florence, Munich and all the principal points of interest on the Continent.
During the past year Dr. Steele has taken a
very active part in the founding of one of the noblest institutions of which our city boasts-the Public Medical Library of Chicago, under the leadership of Dr. N. S. Davis. So well is Dr. Steele known as a writer that it is needless to say more than that his contributions to medical litera- ture are as valuable as they are numerous.
He is a Republican, a member of the Presby- terian Church, and as to his personal character, that can best be judged from the words of one of the foremost physicians of the city : "Dr. Steele is an extremely busy and successful practitioner, constantly overburdened by demands for his serv- ices, socially and professionally. Ile is a man of the highest and purest character, an industrious and ambitious student, and a gifted teacher of surgery. Genial in disposition, unobtrusive and unassuming, he is himself patient under adverse criticism, and in his expressions concerning brother practitioners is friendly and indulgent."
In 1876 Dr. Steele was married to Miss Alice L. Tomlinson, daughter of Sheldon Tomlinson, Esq., an old and prominent citizen of Champaign county, Illinois. Mrs. Steele is a woman of un- usual intellectual qualities, deeply interested in her husband's professional work, and in the home a most amiable hostess.
ARTHUR DIXON,
CHICAGO, ILL.
A RTHUR DIXON is one of Chicago's most respected citizens; his private character is one to be admired and loved ; his public record is without a blemish. Throughout his life he has been actuated by pure motives and manly princi- ples, and by following a fixed purpose to make the most and best of himself, he has overcome many difficulties and risen step by step to a place of influence and honor among public-spirited, high-minded men.
He is of Scotch-Irish descent, and was born Mrch 27, 1837, in Fermanagh County, North of Ireland, in the charming rural district of Lough- killygreen, the son of Arthur and Jane (Allen) Dixon. The former was a Scotchman, whose father and brother held commissions in the Brit- ish army. His father was a man of more than
ordinary intelligence, and by occupation was a farmer and a country school teacher. lle also practiced with considerable success as a country attorney.
He had four sons and one daughter, Elizabeth Carson, wife of Thomas Carson of Chicago; they are the only two survivors, and from him Arthur received his carly instructions, and inherited many sterling traits of character that have sig- nally characterized his life. His memory, as well as that of his mother, is held in sacred remem- brance by the son, and he never speaks of them except with feelings of most tender and affection- ate regard.
Arthur attended the district and national schools during his boyhood, and carly developed a fondness for mathematics, logic, history and
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questions of moral and social ethics. He was an apt scholar and read much, and took a lively interest in all stirring questions of the day, and watched with boyish enthusiasm and delight the progress of events. He loved home and its envir- onments and attended regularly the Episcopalian and Methodist Sunday Schools and services. The discipline of those early years, and the influ- ence of his surroundings during the formative period of his character, left an impression that has marked all his subsequent life. He had read glowing reports of the Republic across the Atlan- tic, and early resolved to go thither and seek his fortune, and when eighteen years old, put his res- olution into action. Going to Philadelphia, Penn- sylvania, where he had some friends, he remained with them for a time and on July 4, 1858, went to Pittsburgh and spent three years in the nursery business, learning tree planting and grafting.
In 1861 Mr. Dixon began clerking in the grocery house of Mr. G. C. Cook, at Chicago, but soon afterwards opened a retail grocery store on his own account and conducted it with good suc- cess some two years. In the spring of 1863 he established a general teaming business at No. 299 Wells street, now Fifth avenue, being led into that line of business by seemingly a mere acci- dental circumstance. He had been obliged to take a team of horses and wagon in payment of a grocery debt, and with them he began that busi- ness which, under his careful and skillful manage- ment, has prospered and grown until it is now (1892) the largest of its kind west of New York City. Mr. Dixon has been untiring in his vigi- lance in watching the interests of his patrons, among whom are many whose business he has done for nearly thirty years. Financially, the business has yielded most satisfactory results, and for many years its proprietor has been known as one of Chicago's prosperous and thrifty business men. Mr. Dixon has been prominently identi- fied with many public interests, and has been a well-known character in Chicago for thirty years.
During the war of the rebellion he was active in response to the calls of President Lincoln in enlisting and equipping men for the service. He became especially prominent in 1866 by the active part he took in the establishment of the fire limits, which was then agitating, and in the spring of the following year was elected Alder-
man from the second ward of Chicago, on the same ticket with ex-Mayor Rice. From that time un- til April, 1891, when he voluntarily declined to longer remain a member of the City Council, he was re-elected with increased majorities, and some- times without opposition, and has the honor of having served longer than any other Alderman of Chicago. He was often called "The Nestor of the Aldermen."
Arthur Dixon was presented by a delegation, January I, with the following resolution, richly bound and superbly illumined and engrossed. This volume is prized as one of his richest treas- ures :
At a regular meeting of the City Council of the City of Chicago held April 27, 1891, the following preamble and regulations, endorsing the official actions of Alderman Arthur Dixon, were unanimously adopted :
WHEREAS, The City Council of the City of Chicago is about to lose the services of its oldest and best-known mem- ber, through his voluntary and we hope temporary retire- ment from the political field of action,
Resolved, That we, the colleagues, some of many years, others of short acquaintance, tender to Alderman Dixon on this occasion the expression of our heartiest good wishes for his future, and also the expression of our appreciation of the loss which the Council and the City sustain through his withdrawal from our municipal legislature;
Resolved, That we place on record our conviction of his great public worth, his zeal for honest and economical gov- ernment, his sincere interest in the cause of the taxpayers, and his undoubted and unquestioned ability in every position assigned to him, and further we record the expression of our hope that his zeal, his earnestness and ability may soon be utilized for the public in some new capacity; and be it further
Resolved, That the City Clerk be, and is hereby directed to spread this preamble and the resolutions upon the records of the Council, and to present to Alderman Arthur Dixon a suitably engrossed copy of the same.
HEMP. WASHBURNE, Mayor. JAMES R. B. VAN CLEAVE, City Clerk.
He has been editorially described in the Chi- cago papers as "The careful guardian of the City's interests against the assaults of boodlers, corruptionists and monopolists," and was called the watch-dog of the city treasury.
In 1874, after a bitter contest, he was chosen President of the City Council, and he was re-elected to the same honorable position for six years. He served as chairman of all important committees at various times, and on many occasions was elected unanimously. As a member of the Alder- manic council Mr. Dixon was a recognized leader in debate, a practiced parliamentarian of the city
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charter. He advocated among other important measures, that of the city's owning her own gas plant ; high water pressure ; building sewers by special assessments; the creation of a public library ; the annexation of the suburbs ; the build- ing of viaducts over railway crossings ; the drain- age law ; the city's receiving the interest on her public funds ; the extension of the fire limits, etc. He opposed the erection of elevated railroads upon public thoroughfares, and is one of a com- mittee of three favoring a subway connecting Michigan boulevard with the Lake shore drive. He was appointed, by the Mayor, one of the exec- utive committee of arrangement for the World's Columbian Exposition, and was also one of the committee that helped in arranging and passing the ordinance providing for the loan of five mil- lion dollars for the Exposition.
In April, 1892, he was elected a director of the Exposition and his services and counsels in that capacity have been invaluable in the prosecution of this enormous enterprise.
Mr. Dixon represented the First Senatorial District in the Twenty-seventh General Assembly of Illinois, and as a member of that body had charge of measures and rendered services of great valuc to the city of Chicago. Among the bills introduced by him and passed was that provid- ing for the location of the Chicago Public Library, the drainage canal, and that authorizing the one mill tax and special assessment.
For over twenty years he has been a member of the City and County Republican Central com- mittees, and many times chairman of the same. In 1868 he was the first president of the Irish-Re- publican organization in Chicago, and the follow- ing year was president of the National Irish-Re- publican convention held in Chicago, and was elected treasurer of that organization. In 1872 he was a prominent candidate for Congress, and lacked but a few votes of receiving the nomina- tion. He was a delegate in the National Conven- tion, in 1880, that nominated James A. Garfield for the Presidency. In all his public career Mr. Dixon has maintained a character above reproach, and all his actions have been straight-forward, business-like and in the interest of good govern- ment.
He became a member of the Masonic fraternity in 1865, and is now a life member of the Chapter,
the Commandery Knights Templar, and the thirty-second degree of Scottish rite.
He is also a member of the Union League, La Salle, Hamilton, Irish-American and Sheridan clubs and has held official positions in most of them at different times. He has also been presi- dent of the Irish Literary Society, and is a man of a literary turn of mind. His library contains the choicest books of the best editions, finely bound and carefully selected, containing a due proportion of religious, scientific, poetic, philo- sophic and humorous volumes. Here, among his silent but eloquent companions, Arthur Dixon finds the chief charm and pleasure of his life.
Mr. Dixon was raised in the Episcopalian faith, but for many years has been prominently identi- ficd with the First Methodist Church, of Chicago, and is one of the Trustees of that organization. He has always taken an active part in religious work and for twenty-five years has taught a Bible class of young men in Sunday School.
In 1862 Mr. Dixon married Miss Anna Carson, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and by her has had fourteen children, thirteen of whom survive. Domestic in his tastes, and home-loving, he finds no place so attractive as his own fire-side, and there, in the company of his estimable wife and merry, light-hearted, happy children, passes his happiest hours.
His personal qualities are of a high order ; while firm in his own convictions, he is tolerant of the views of others who differ from him in opinion. He is liberal, broad-minded and charitable, and in his dealings with his fellow-men is unselfish, gen- crous and the soul of honor.
He is a man of strictly temperate habits, and virtuous and upright in every relation of life. In a word, Mr. Arthur Dixon is a Christian gentle- man.
He is six feet tall with a well-proportioned physique, of fair complexion and robust health and weighs over two hundred pounds.
Rev. William Farwsitt, D. D., pastor of the First Methodist Church of Chicago, says: "Mr. Arthur Dixon has been a member of the First Methodist Church, in this city, for over thirty years, and the greater part of that time he has held official positions in the church. He is also a Trustee of the great First Church property, and in the distribution of the funds for the aid of Mission
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