USA > Indiana > Miami County > History of Miami County, Indiana : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume II > Part 1
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Gc 977.201 M58b v.2 1334595
.A. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00805 3859
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017
https://archive.org/details/historyofmiamico02bodu 0
HISTORY OF -
MIAMI COUNTY INDIANA
A Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress, Its People and Its Principal Interests
Edited by MR. ARTHUR L. BODURTHA
ADVISORY EDITORS
MR. H. P. LOVELAND
MR. JAMES W. HURST
HON. CHAS. A. COLE
MR. ALFRED E. ZEHRING
VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO AND NEW YORK 1914
PZOWK> 1 Undland 37.50
15-18-65 2vois.
1334595
James B Formation
History of Miami County
JAMES B. FULWILER. A remarkable life, one replete with experience and achievement and the persistent honor paid to a character of rigid honesty and integrity was that of the late James B. Fulwiler, one of Miami county's earliest pioneers, a merchant, and for many years promi- nent in public affairs.
The late James B. Fulwiler was born in Perry county, Pennsylvania, September 5, 1812, and died on September 6, 1906, at the age of ninety- six years and one day. The ancestry went back to Swiss origin, and in Pennsylvania the family furnished several notable names. Abraham Fulwiler, the father, was one of the first graduates of Dickinson's college of Pennsylvania, and at his death in 1830 left a large estate. The mother's maiden name was Black, her father being a Presbyterian minis- ter, and her cousin being a cabinet officer in President Buchanan's admin- istration. James B. Fulwiler attained a more than ordinary education in one of the chief academic institutions at Pennsylvania at the time and was twenty-three years when he came west and located at Peru, Indiana.
This was in May, 1834, and if the reader will turn to the pages of general history found elsewhere in this work, he will readily see that this was one of the earliest years in the development of this county and city. He brought to Peru a stock of merchandise, and became manager of one of the early stores here, the proprietor of which was Samuel Pike. Mr. Fulwiler's career as a merchant was also noted with public service. In 1838 his friends forced upon him a nomination for the state legisla- ture, but he was defeated as he expected to be. He took a common-sense view of the internal improvement projects of that time, and as his cam- paign arguments tended to disillusion many of the regimes and antici- pations of the Indiana citizens in this vicinity, he did not prove popular and a less clear-sighted, if not less scrupulous candidate was preferred in his stead; However, in about two years his views were seen to be the practical ones, and there was hardly a politician anywhere in the state who would have prominently put forward the propositions which had so much popularity only a few months before. Mr. Fulwiler in 1843 returned to Pennsylvania and on a large body of land in Schuylkill county, aside of his father's estate, opened up and began mining opera- tions on thirteen veins of anthracite coal. On this property Mr. Fulwiler platted the town of Fremont, now one of the flourishing cities in the great anthracite regions of Pennsylvania. In 1847 Mr. Fulwiler was elected clerk of the Miami circuit court, and held the office until June 6, 1855, when he was succeeded by Alexander Blake. He was in 1860 delegate at large from the state of Indiana to the Democratic National convention, which nominated Stephen A. Douglas, as candidate of the northern Democrats for the office of president. In 1861 Mr. Fulwiler
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
bought a large retail and wholesale grocery in Peru and in 1865 bought a half interest in a furniture manufacturing establishment, which ten days later burned to the ground without insurance. During the late sixties, he dealt extensively in Kansas and Iowa lands, and was very successful for some time, but eventually this business nearly ruined him financially. Through all his career of various business endeavors, and activity in public life, the late Mr. Fulwiler retained a character that neither the pressure of circumstances nor the advocacy of friends nor the opposition of enemies could swerve him from the path of rectitude. For many years, during the latter part of his life, he held the office of justice of the peace in the city of Peru, and having pursued studies in law at an early period in his life, was well-fitted for the duties of justice, which he performed with eminent satisfaction to all concerned.
The late James B. Fulwiler was married March 7, 1837, to Pauline Aveline, daughter of Frances Aveline of Vincennes. Mrs. Fulwiler, who died many years ago, was the mother of the following children: Julia, wife of Harry F. Clark; Louis B .; Fannie, wife of James R. Hamlin ; Frank; William; Clarence ; and Ada.
LOUIS B. FULWILER. A son of the Peru pioneer whose career has been briefly sketched above, Louis B. Fulwiler was one of the oldest native residents of Peru, and for many years has been prominently identified with business and public affairs in this city and in the state. Through his own life he has added distinctions to the many honors which are asso- ciated with the name of Fulwiler in Miami county. Louis B. Fulwiler was born in the city of Peru July 13, 1842. He was educated in the schools which existed in this city during the later forties and fifties, and in 1861, at the age of nineteen began his career as a clerk in a railroad office at Peoria, Illinois. This position he resigned in order to join the army, and give his individual service for the preservation of the Union. He returned to Peru in order to enlist from his native city, and in May, 1861, became a member of Company A of the Twentieth Indiana Infan- try, under Captain John Van Volkenburgh. His enlistment was for a period of three years or until the end of the war, but a wound disabled him for service and he received his honorable discharge in August, 1862. At the memorable battle fought in Hampton Roads, between the Monitor and Merrimac, his regiment was stationed on the shore and within firing distance so that he had a complete view of that first great conflict be- tween iron clad war vessels. On the first of the seven days fighting before Richmond he was shot through the left leg, was taken to the hospital in Philadelphia, and thence removed to his uncle's home in the same city where his leg was amputated. This injury terminated his services as a soldier, and he returned home. He had sacrificed a great deal for his country, though he was at the front only about fifteen months, for in addition to the wound which deprived him of a leg, he was for seven weeks ill with typhoid fever.
Mr. Fulwiler on returning to Peru became deputy in the county clerk's office, an office which he filled from 1863 to 1870. During the eight years following that he served as county auditor. This official service was his introduction to a larger public and business life of his home city. For ten years he was editor and manager of the Miami County Sentinel, a paper which under his direction reached a higher standard as a journal and organized influence. In 1901 Mr. Fulwiler assisted in the organization of the Home Telephone Company, and dur- ing the following years when the company was perfecting its organization and facilities throughout this vicinity he was president during this time. The Home Telephone Company sold its business on August 31, 1912, to
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
the Bell Telephone Company. In 1901 Mr. Fulwiler was appointed by Governor Durbin a trustee of the Soldiers' Home at Lafayette, and he has remained on the board ever since and since 1903 has been secretary of the board. In politics Mr. Fulwiler is a Democrat, and is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Grand Army of the Republic. He has been prominent in both his fraternal orders, having passed all the chairs in the Knights of Pythias Lodge, and was a charter member and honored as the first commander of the G. A. R. Post.
JOSEPH N. TILLETT. A native son of Miami county and a represen- tative of one of its honored pioneer families, Judge Tillett has gained secure prestige as one of the leading members of the bar of the county and is now serving with ability and distinction on the bench of the Fifty-first judicial circuit of the state. This high official preferment indicates beyond peradventure that he has secure vantage-ground in popular confidence and estecm and that to him there can be no applica- tion of the scriptural aphorism that "a prophet is not without honor save in his own country.' He is one of the liberal and public-spirited citizens of Peru, the judicial center of his native county, and the com- munity has granted to him a circle of friends that is coincident with that of his acquaintances.
Judge Tillett was born on the old homestead farin of the family, in Peru township, on the 27th of November, 1865, and is the youngest in a family of four sons and three daughters, all of whom are living ex- cept the oldest member of family, Romaze M. Boone. He is a son of William and Elizabeth (Grimes) Tillett, the former of whom was born in Virginia and the latter in Ohio. William Tillett was a boy at the time of the family removal from the historic Old Dominion common- wealth to the state of Indiana, about the year 1829, and his parents, James and Susannah (Buck) Tillett, were representatives of sterling old families that were founded in Virginia in the colonial days. James Tillett first settled in Wayne county, where he remained until 1834, when he removed with his family to Miami county and numbered him- self among its pioneer settlers. He secured a tract of wild land in the midst of the forests of Peru township, there erected his primitive log cabin and there instituted the reclamation of a farm. Both he and his wife remained on the old homestead until their death and the names of both merit enduring place on the roll of the honored pioneers who con- tributed their quota to the social and industrial development of Miami county. James Tillett was a staunch Democrat of the true Jacksonian type, and in the pioneer community he became a citizen of no little in- fluence in public affairs, as is indicated by the fact that he served for some time in the office of county commissioner.
Reared to years of maturity under the sturdy discipline of the pioneer farm, William Tillett received in his youth but limited educa- tional advantages of specific order, owing to the exigencies and condi- tions of time and place, but through ambition and close application to study in an independent way he gained a good practical education, as shown by his proving himself eligible for pedagogic honors. He was a successful and popular teacher in the district schools of his home county for some time and in the meanwhile he had the varied expe- riences that marked the life of the average pioneer. He gained reputa- tion, like Nimrod of old, as a "mighty hunter," and his prowess was shown in his supplying the family larder with deer, wild turkey and an occasional bear, as wild game was most plentiful in this section of the state during the years of his youth and early manhood. He became one of the substantial and representative agriculturists of the county,
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
was a citizen of the highest integrity of purpose and ever commanded the unqualified esteem of his fellow men. His was a life of consecutive industry, unmarked by dramatic incidents or ostentation, but prolific in usefulness and honor. His loved and devoted wife, who proved a true helpmeet, was a woman of noble character and most attractive per- sonality,-one who held the affectionate regard of all who came within the sphere of her gentle influence. She likewise had been a popular teacher in the common schools of Miami county, prior to her marriage, and made the home one of ideal order in its atmosphere and associations. She was summoned to eternal rest on the 30th of March, 1901, a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and her bereaved husband did not long survive her, as he passed away on the 6th of February, 1903. Though never a sceker of public office, William Tillett was ever ready to lend his aid in the furtherance of enterprises and measures projected for the general good of the community, and his political allegiance was given to the Democratic party.
Judge Joseph Newton Tillett gained his early experience in connec- tion with the work of the home farm, where he waxed strong in brain and brawn and eventually found his ambition quickened with a desire for a broader sphere of endeavor. His preliminary education was acquired in the district schools and was supplemented by two years of study in the public schools of Peru. In 1883 he was matriculated in Wabash College, at Crawfordsville, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1888 and from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Science. In the autumn of the same year, in preparation for the work of his chosen profession, he entered the law department of the great University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor; and in the same he was graduated as a member of the class of 1890, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws.
Immediately after his graduation Jndge Tillett was admitted to the bar of his native state and engaged in the practice of law at Peru, the capital of his native county, where he formed a professional partner- ship with Nott N. Antrim, under the firm name of Antrim & Tillett. He soon proved his resourcefulness as an able trial lawyer and well fortified counselor, and thus his professional novitiate was marked by success which effectively presaged the advancement which he has since gained in his chosen vocation. The partnership alliance continued until 1894, when Mr. Tillett was elected prosecuting attorney of his native county, an office in which he made a splendid record, with the result that he was re-elected at the expiration of his first term and thus served four consecutive years as public prosccutor. He handled many im- portant cases within this period and through his ability in this connec- tion he greatly advanced his professional reputation. Upon retiring from office Judge Tillett resumed the independent practice of his pro- fession, and he built up a large and substantial law business, with a clientage of representative order. In 1902 there came a well merited recognition of his character and technical ability, in that he was elected to the bench of the Fifty-first judicial circuit, of which important office he has since continued the valued incumbent, through re-election in 1908, his present term expiring in 1914. On the bench his opinions have been marked by broad conceptions of the principles of equity and justice, by a thorough knowledge of law and precedent and by a judicial wisdom that has made his decisions fair and impartial, few of them having met with reversal by courts of higher jurisdiction. Fidelity and a high sense of stewardship have been shown by Judge Tillett in all the rela- tions of life, and he well merits the high regard in which he is held in his native county.
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Reared in the faith of the Democratic party and a firm believer in its basic principles and politics, Judge Tillett has never wavered in his allegiance to the same and has given effective service in behalf of the party cause, the present national ascendancy of which he naturally views with complacency. The attractive residence of Judge Tillett is situated on a part of the old homestead farm on which he was born, the same lying contiguous to the city of Peru, and this attractive home is known as a center of cultured and gracious hospitality, with Mrs. Tillett as its popular chatelaine. Both Judge and Mrs. Tillett are zeal- ous members of the Methodist Episcopal church in Peru.
On the 10th of August, 1893, was solemnized the marriage of Judge Tillett to Miss Elizabeth Baldwin, of Washington, this state, and they have two children, Lois Elizabeth and Robert Baldwin, both of whom remain at the parental home.
MICHAEL HORAN. With the death of Michael Horan on January 17, 1913, there passed from the ranks of local citizenship one of the old- est and most highly respected men of Peru. For more than half a century he had been identified with business and civic affairs. Of a genial and generous disposition, he had made friends wherever he was, and along with a talent for making friendship lie also possessed keen business judgment and accumulated a competence for himself and family.
Michael Horan was a native of Ireland, his birth occurring in Ros- common county, September 22, 1841, a son of Michael and Margaret (Byrne) Horan. When he was six years old the father and other members of the family came to America. When an infant he had lost his mother, and he remained in Ireland up to 1857, attaining most of his education in that country, and in the latter year crossed the Atlantic and joined the rest of the family in Hamilton, Ohio. He spent three years as a student in the Hamilton high school and also studied under a special tutor. He was ambitious to become a civil engineer and directed his studies toward that end.
Mr. Horan took up his residence in Peru in 1861. For some time he was at work as a painter, an occupation which he had followed more or less since boyhood. In 1880, in line with his regular profession he was elected surveyor of Miami county and held that position for eight years, and for nine years he was city engineer of Peru. He was always an active Democrat.
At the time of his death Mr. Horan owned three farms, one in Richland township, consisting of eighty acres, one in Deer Creek town- ship, also of eighty acres, and one in Peru township of seventy-four acres, and was also the owner of several valuable realty interests. When he first came to Peru his brothers were engaged in operating a plow factory here, and when not engaged in painting he worked in this factory for a time. Michael Horan had come to America a poor boy and had almost a typical career of progress and prosperity. He was industrious and economical and strictly honest to the cent. In this way he not only accumulated the farms already enumerated, but con- siderable city property as well. While he was reared a Catholic he was a member of no religious organization.
Mr. Horan was married September 23, 1886, to Miss Elizabeth Campbell, a daughter of John and Rebecca (Spence) Campbell, and a granddaughter of William Campbell, who was a native of Scotland, and who married Elizabeth Robinson. When William Campbell was two years old, in 1794, he accompanied his father John Campbell and other members of the family to America, locating in Path Valley near Cham-
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bersburg, Pennsylvania. In that locality the family attained what was known in pioneer times as a "tomahawk claim." William Campbell was married and spent the remainder of his life in Pennsylvania. Among his children were John Campbell, who was born in Pennsylvania, Jan- uary 10, 1821, and who until a few years ago was one of the old and honored pioneer residents of Miami county. He learned the trade of tailor, and when about twenty-one years of age came west by canal and on foot to Lafayette, Indiana. In 1849 he bought one hundred and sixty acres of land in Jackson township of Cass county, built a log cabin in a clearing, and after years of toil and self-sacrifice cleared up and perfected a splendid country estate. He was twice married, his second wife being Miss Rebecca Spence, a daughter of John and Esther Spence. The children of John Campbell by this second marriage were Elizabeth, Mrs. Horan; William and Wilson, twins; John, who died at the age of twenty-seven; Viola; and Mary O.
Mr. Horan and wife had two sons, John and Thomas. John is at present time city engineer of Peru, and Thomas is a student in the state university of Indiana. Mrs. Horan, the mother, still resides in Peru, and enjoys the respect and esteem of a large circle of Miami county people, who remember with affection not only her late husband, but also her honored pioneer father.
JOHN J. KREUTZER. A resident of the thriving little city of Peru, judicial center of Miami county, from the time of his nativity to the present, Mr. Kreutzer has been a representative factor in business activi- ties and in the promotion of enterprises and measures tending to advance the civic and material welfare of his native city and county. That there can be in his case no application of the scriptural aphorism that "a prophet is not without honor save in his own country" needs no further voucher than the statement that he is now serving as mayor of Peru, in which chief executive office of the municipal government he is giving a most efficient and progressive administration, with the earnest co- operation of the other city officials and the general public.
Mayor Kreutzer was born in Peru on the 16th of December, 1857, and is a scion of one of the old and honored families of Miami county. He is a son of Jacob and Margaret (Lang) Kreutzer, the former a native of Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, and the latter of Bavaria, their mar- riage having been solemnized in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1854. Jacob Kreutzer was a child at the time of the family immi- gration to America and the home was established in Auglaize county, Ohio, where he was reared to adult age and received good educational advantages, as gauged by the standards of the locality and period. A man of ambitions and self-reliance, his activities could not long be directed along secondary or dependent lines, and in April, 1852, he came to Indiana and established his home in Peru, which was then a mere village in the midst of a country that was in process of develop- ment. He established himself in the general merchandise business, by opening a modest store on South Broadway, near the Wabash river, and after thus initiating his independent career as an Indiana mer- chant he soon gained the sustaining influence and sympathy of the young woman who was to prove his devoted companion and helpmeet and the loving mother of his children, his marriage to Miss Margaret Lang having been solemnized in 1854, as previously noted in this context. Jacob Kreutzer continued to hold precedence as one of the leading merchants of Peru for more than forty years and was one of the most widely known and highly honored business men of the county at the time of his retirement from mercantile pursuits, when well advanced
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in years. Secure in the high regard of all who knew him and recog- nized as a loyal and public-spirited citizen, he passed the closing period of his long and useful life in gracious retirement from the cares and exactions of business and at his pleasant old home in Peru he was sum- moned to the life eternal in July, 1905, his cherished and devoted wife having passed away in January, 1901, after their ideal companionship had continued for nearly half a century. Of their six children two sons and three daughters are living, and all may well revere the mem- ory of the parents, whose lives were unostentatious but filled with worthy achievement and replete with kindly thoughts and kindly deeds. Jacob Kreutzer was a staunch Democrat in his political proclivities and both he and his wife were zealous and devout communicants of the Catholic church, the noble mother of Christendom. For many years Mr. Kreutzer was a member of the directorate of the First Na- tional Bank of Peru and he was the owner of valuable real estate in his home city. As a citizen and business mau he left an unblemished reputation and his name merits a place of honor on the roster of the pioneer merchants and sterling men of Miami county.
The public and parochial schools of Peru afforded to the city's present mayor his early educational-advantages and this discipline was supplemented by his attending St. Mary's Institute, at Dayton, Ohio, for two years, and by one year of study in the great Notre Dame Uni- versity, at South Bend, Indiana. After his retirement from the univer- sity Mr. Kreutzer continued to be actively associated with his father's mercantile business until. he had attaincd to the age of twenty-four years, after which he held, for a period of about six months, a clerical position in the First National Bank of Peru. He then assumed the position of clerk and bookkeeper in the offices of the Cole brewery, with which he continued to be identified for several years. In 1889 he became interested with others in the establishing of a glass manufactory in Peru, and the enterprise was successfully continued for a period of about ten years, when the failure of supply of natural gas rendered the venture unprofitable, with the result that the factory was closed. Thereafter Mr. Kreutzer was one of the interested principals and an active executive of the Peru Grocery Company, a wholesale concern, until 1908, since which time he has given his attention to the general insurance business, in which he has built up a substantial and prosperous enterprisc, as representative of leading insurance companies. To this business he gives his personal supervision to such extent as is possible in connection with the demand placed upon him in the office of mayor of his native city, to which maximum position of trust in connection with municipal affairs he was elected in November, 1909, for a term of four years. Signally loyal to his home city and deeply interested in every- thing that tends to advance its social and material welfare, he has shown much ability in directing the municipal government along pro- gressive lines with due conservatism in the expenditure of the city revenues. His regime has brought about numerous public improve- ments and has gained to him unequivocal popular approval.
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