A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana, Part 140

Author: Rev. E. D. Daniels
Publication date: 1904
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1273

USA > Indiana > LaPorte County > A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana > Part 140

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HISTORY OF LAPORTE COUNTY.

brick schoolhouse at Rolling Prairie in 1876, and his efforts have been very effective in estab- lishing one of the best schools in this part of the state. Business enterprises have also felt the stimulus of his energy and the excellent effect of his wise counsel. He was interested in the building of the grist mill and of the creamery 'at Rolling Prairie, two enterprises that have been important in the business life of the town.

To Mr. and Mrs. Martin have been born the following children: Frank, who married Mary White and resides in South Bend ; William, who wedded Caroline Lang and also lives in South Bend; George, who married Josie Breese and lives in LaPorte; Nellie, who is a bookkeeper in St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago; Jesse, who mrried Anna Schroder, of South Bend; Henry Harrison, who wedded Cora Moore and lives in Omaha, Nebraska; John, who married Caroline Hoepner and lives at Council Bluffs, Iowa ; Flor- ence, the wife of Orin McCarty, of South Bend ; two that died in infancy; one who died at the age of four years; another at the age of two years ; and a third at the age of one year. Dr. and Mrs. Martin celebrated their golden wedding on the 16th of December, 1902, a happy occasion which was participated in by many friends and relatives. They have now twenty-seven descend- ants, all but one of their eight children having married and gone from home. The names of their grandchildren are Jennie Martin, who mar- ried Irvin Goss, by whom she has one child, Dorothea; Jesse Martin ; Nellie, who became the wife of Ralph Toms and has a son, William ; Inez and George Martin, who are children of William Martin ; John, George, Burt, Florence and Sadie, children of George Martin ; Walter, a son of John Martin; Gordon, Naomi and Stewart, children of Jesse Martin ; and Kenneth, Helen and Cathe- rine, the children of Florence Martin McCarty.

The Doctor is a member of the Masonic fra- ternity, belonging to Rolling Prairie Lodge No. 291, F. & A. M. For thirty-nine years he has resided here and has a large practice in the coun- ty. His clientage is extensive, and his friends are many, for his sterling traits of character as well as his professional skill have won for him the regard and good will of the public.

CHARLES O. LARSON, a contractor and builder of LaPorte, was born in Grenna, Sweden. November 13, 1865, and in that country he learned the carpenter's trade. With a laudable ambi- tion to attain success he resolved to emigrate to America when a young man of nineteen years,

believing that he might have better business op- portunities in the new world, of whose advan- tages he had heard favorable reports. He had no capital, but he possessed a resolute will, strong courage and determination, and was willing to work energetically and unremittingly. Passing through Chicago, he proceeded to Minnesota, where he remained for about a year and a half, and then returned to the metropolis of the west. There he worked at carpentering, mostly in the higher grades of that pursuit, his specialty being stair-buiding.

While living in Chicago Mr. Larson was unit- ed in marriage to Miss Helen Nicholas, of La- Porte county, Indiana, whose parents, also natives of Sweden, had located in this county a number of years before. In 1891 Mr. Larson and his wife removed to LaPorte, where he began working as a stair-builder. His aptitude and ability in the higher grades of carpentering led him to become connected with the sash and door factory of Backhaus & Schumm, and for several years he served as foreman in that establishment. When the factory was enlarged and the business was re- organized under the name of the LaPorte Sash & Door Company, Mr. Larson became a stock- holder and director, but has since disposed of his interests. After resigning his position as fore- man in the factory, he turned his attention to con- tracting and building, which he has since fol- owed with ever increasing success. He has been and is now engaged on some of the most import- ant building contracts of LaPorte. He has erec- ted fine school buildings at Union Mills, La- Crosse, Rolling Prairie and Hanna. He also took the contract for and built the beautiful residence of E. H. Scott, of LaPorte, worth twenty thou- sand dollars, and he remodeled the old Pulaski King residence on Michigan avenue for C. E. Russell. Many other buildings also stand as mon- uments to his handiwork and skill, and his labors have been a direct factor in the improvement of the city. In 1903 Mr. Larson secured the con- tract for the erection in LaPorte of the Hobart M. Cable Company piano manufacturing plant, which cost more than eighty thousand dollars.

To Mr. and Mrs. Larson has been born a son. Irving N. They are members of the Swedish Lutheran church, and Mr. Larson is a prominent Republican. He has never been active as an of- fice-seeker, but his friends nominated him for the position of alderman from the fifth ward in 1902, and his personal popularity was indicated by the fact that he reduced the usual Democratic major- ity to sixty, which fact also proves the confidence

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reposed in him by his neighbors and those among whom he lives and who are therefore most fa- miliar with his career. He has never had occa- sion to regret his emigration to America, for his hopes have been more than realized, having in this land gained a handsome competence and won many friends.

HON. ALBERT P. HUNT. Mr. Hunt was born in Kankakee township, LaPorte county, in 1839. He is a representative of one of the pio- neer families of this portion of the state. His parents were Phineas and Hannah (Robinson) Hunt. A long and honorable ancestry lies back of him. A few years ago Dr. Franklin Hunt, a distinguished physician, made considerable re- search into the history of the family, and his in- vestigations revealed a line of ancestors of whom the family have every reason to be proud. The direct ancestors of Albert P. Hunt, those who founded his branch of the family in this country, were William and Nathan Hunt, of Scotch par- entage, who came to America in the middle of the seventeenth century and settled in North Carolina. They were cousins of Ephraim Hunt, a refugee from the disastrous field of Marston Moor. His real name was Sir William Hunt, and he bore the rank of colonel, but in order to conceal his identity he came to the new world under the name of Ephraim Hunt and thus set- tled in Weymouth, Massachusetts. He had been an artillery officer and was a dashing cavalier. At the siege of York the dignity of knighthood was conferred upon him by Prince Rupert. Sam- uel Hunt, a grandson of this Ephraim Hunt, be- came a noted shipbuilder of Boston, while another descendant, Thomas Hunt, became an officer un- der Washington in the Revolutionary war. Among the representatives of the Hunt family who have won renown are Leigh Hunt, the Eng- lish essayist ; William Hunt, the artist ; and Wal- ter Hunt, the inventor.

Phineas Hunt, the grandfather of Albert P. Hunt, was a native of Northampton county, North Carolina, and, leaving the south, he emi- grated to Highland county, Ohio, while later he became a resident of Champaign county, that state, where his death occurred.

Phineas Hunt, Jr., the father of Albert P. Hunt, was born in Highland county, Ohio, and when a boy accompanied his parents on their removal to Champaign county, where he met and married Miss Hannah Robinson. She was a native of that county and a daughter of John

Robinson, a noted abolitionist and one of the most prominent operators on the underground railroad, spending many years in a conscientious endeavor to assist the slaves and bring about their release from bondage. In 1832 Phineas Hunt removed with his family from Ohio to Kala- mazoo county, Michigan, where, being a sur- veyor, he laid out and established the town of Kalamazoo, at that time literally a wilderness. Hostile Indians lived in the neighborhood, and the first winter which the Hunts spent in Kala- mazoo was fraught with many hardships, priva- tions and dangers. On one occasion the food supply ran so low that Mr. Hunt was obliged to leave his wife and three little children alone in the cabin while he traveled to the trading post, forty miles distant, through a forest with- out roads, for food. He and his family were the first white settlers in that region, and thus opened the way for civilization. In 1834 they removed to LaPorte county, and again were surrounded by pioneer conditions and environ- ments. Mr. Hunt settled at Door Village, in what is now Scipio township, four miles south- west of LaPorte, remaining there two years. He then sold out, and, leaving the family at La Porte, traveled on horseback to Fort Dearborn, at Chi- cago, the western metropolis, then consisting of the fort and a few scattered cabins, with the sur- rounding mud so deep that his horse continually sank to his knees in it. The pioneer spirit being strong within him, Mr. Hunt went from Chicago to the Fox river and in that district entered land. He then returned to Fort Dearborn, purchased another horse, a plow, a drag and some seed wheat and returned to the Fox river, where with intrepid spirit he went to work to make a farm and raise a crop in a region that was wild and un- inhabited. He broke sixty acres of ground and planted his wheat. Then he returned to LaPorte, expecting to take his family to his place on the Fox river the following spring, but that winter the citizens elected him county commissioner, and LaPorte county then showing some signs of rapid ' and substantial development, Mr. Hunt decided to remain and abandon his Fox river prospects. It is probable. that the buffaloes feasted off his wheat crop. After remaining in LaPorte for a year or two, he entered a claim in Kankakee township, where he continued to reside until his death. He was a very energetic, enterprising and successful man, a brave pioneer, fearless and resolute, and the part which he took in the early improvement of the county and in

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shaping its destiny well entitles him to mention among its founders. He died in 1882, and Mrs. Hunt died in 1892.

Albert P. Hunt was born and reared on the old home place in Kankakee township, and per- sued his early education in the district shools, while later he continued his studies in the college at Hillsdale, Michigan, and Earlham College, at Richmond, Indiana. After leaving school he studied law for two years in the office of Williams & Bliss, prominent attorneys of LaPorte. He worked so assiduously and unremittingly in his effort to master the principles of jurisprudence that his health became impaired, and he was obliged to give up the idea of preparing for the bar and enter an occupation that was less sedentary. He then opened a store and engaged in merchan- dising in LaPorte from 1862 until 1868, after which he returned to Kankakee township and en- gaged in farming for ten years. On the expira- tion of that period he returned to LaPorte and conducted the European Hotel for five years, after which he resumed farming in Kankakee, and . through the succeeding five years devoted his energies to the tilling of the soil. His wife then died, and, leaving the farm, he retired from business to make his home in LaPorte with his sister, Mrs. Lovina Wilson, the widow of William Wilson.

On the 5th of October, 1868 Mr. Hunt had been united in mariage to Miss Sarage Frances Couchman Hunt, and for more than a quarter of a century they traveled life's journey happily to- gether, Mrs. Hunt being called to her final rest in 1895. Mrs. Wilson, the sister of Mr. Hunt, was visited by a double bereavement within a short space of time. She not only lost her husband but also her only son, Kanning A. Wilson, who died at the age of twenty-six years. He was a most promising young man. A brilliant young lawyer, he had acquired an exceptionally large clientage. His fine presence and attractive per- sonal qualities won him many friends, and death cut short what would undoubtedly have been a distinguished career.

Mr. Hunt has taken part in public affairs, and in Kankakee township was elected to numerous minor offices, and in the fall of 1894, the Republi- cans wishing a strong candidate for the legisla- ture, placed him in nomination. The county has a Democratic majority, but Mr. Hunt overcame the strength of the opposition and was elected. He gave his county an honorable and creditable representation in the Indiana legislature during the session of 1894-5, and was a member of the

appropriation committee, the committee for ad- justing the boundaries of congressional and legis- lative districts, the committee on health, medicine and vital statistics, and as a member of the com- mittee on contested elections he was instrumental in seating Mr. Miller instead of Mr. Johnson. He was one of the most earnest workers during that session. Mr. Hunt is an earnest, convinc- ing, logical and pleasing speaker. He made an especial study of the financial question and did effective work for the cause of sound money. He has constantly been an advocate of rational, practical and conservative policies in county, state and national politics, and belives it every man's duty to take an interest in the political situation of the country and thus enhance the general wel- fare. For many years Mr. Hunt was an active and effective campaign speaker and worker, but of recent years has left this to younger men. Socially he is connected with the Masonic frater- nity and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and he also holds membership in the Presby- terian church. Fearless in defense of what he believes to be right, loyal in his allegiance to his honest convictions, his course has at all times been actuated by honorable principles and conscient- ious motives, and the esteem in which he is held is the outcome of his own career.

HORACE WARDNER, M. D., although past the seventy-fourth milestone of a success- ful life's journey, is still one of the active and leading physicians of LaPorte, and has a record of service of which he may be proud, devoted to his fellow men both in private life and especially on the field of battle during the dark days of the Civil war. .

The Wardner family is of German descent. and in the early times the name was spelled both Veidner and Weidner, from which later came the present orthography. Philip Wardner, the foun- der of the family in America, came from Berlin in 1750 and settled in Boston, Massachusetts. where he followed the trade of stonemason and worked on the old statehouse of that city. Later he removed to Almstead, New Hampshire, where he died. His eldest son, Allen Wardner, was the father of Mrs. William M. Evarts, and his broth- er Philip was the ancestor of the branch of the family in which we are immediately interested. This branch later settled in northern Vermont and in New York, and most of its members were farmers, teachers, musicians or physicians. Philip Wardner, the father of Dr. Wardner, was born in Essex county, New York, and was a far-

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mer and mechanic. His wife was Miss Maria Frisby, a native of Vermont, who died in 1839, while he survived until 1882.

Horace Wardner was born to these parents in Wyoming county, New York, August 25, 1829. He was reared on the home farm, and at- tended the public schools until sixteen years old, when, being ambitious to secure higher train- ing, he bought his time of his father and started out to earn money to pay his way through higher institutions of learning. He became a student in Alfred (New York) Academy, which institution later became a college, and in 1888 honored its early protege with the degree of Master of Arts. He was also a pupil and teacher in Cayuga Acad- emy, and altogether spent ten years as a student and teacher in western New York. In 1852 he began the study of medicine in Almond, New York, under the preceptorship of Dr. William B. Alley, and in the following spring went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he accepted a posi- tion as assistant teacher in the Milwaukee Acad- emy, at the same carrying on his medical studies and researches. In the fall of 1853 he went to Geneva, Wisconsin, and established and conduct- ed, through the following winter and spring, an independent private school. But he did not re- linquish his idea of becoming a member of the medical fraternity, and in the fall of 1854 went to Chicago and entered Rush Medical College, where he remained till his graduation in 1856. His first independent practice was in Liberty- ville, Illinois, but after eight months he returned to Chicago and practiced until the beginning of the Civil war. In 1859-60 he was connected with what is now the Chicago Medical College, as demonstrator of anatomy.

In April, 1861, Dr. Wardner received a com- mision as surgeon in the Twelfth Illinois Regi- ment, but after a year President Lincoln promot- ed him to a staff or brigade surgeon, subject to call anywhere, and in this capacity he served in the Second Division of the Army of the Tennes- see until after the battle of Corinth in October, 1862. Returning on sick leave to Cairo, Illinois, he received an order to take charge of the general hospital at Mound City, Illinois, but in February, 1863, was ordered by General Grant to turn over this hospital to the assistant surgeon next in rank, and report to the army at Vicksburg, where he was assistant medical director upon the staff of General Grant. Shortly after his arrival at Vicksburg he became so ill that the surgeons there obtained for him

a leave of absence. On his way up the river he received another order from General Grant, at the- recommendation of the surgeon general, to proceed, at the end of his furlough, to Mound City, and resume charge of the general hospital there. This was a distinct compliment to Dr. Wardner's skill and executive ability. He remained in charge of this hospital until it was discontinued at the close of the war, and he was then sent to Cairo, Illinois, to care for the sick soldiers who were returning from the front. He was thus occupied until September 1, 1866, when- he was mustered out of the service. In Novem- ber following, in connection with the sisters who had been associated with him as nurses during the war, he founded St. Mary's Infirmary at Cairo, Illinois, which has since grown to a large and fine institution, and with which he was iden- tified for over ten years.

Dr. Wardner had done considerable private practice in addition to his professional duties at Mound City and Cairo, and during the thirteen years of his practice at the latter city won an ex- tensive patronage. While there he became a member of the Illinois board of health, and for two years was president of the body. He also received an appointment as superintendent of the Southern Illinois Hospital for the Insane at Anna, Illinois, which position he held for twelve years. In May, 1890, he returned to Chicago and located on Drexel boulevard, where he resumed his prac- tice. Not long afterward he came into possession of the Collins property at LaPorte, Indiana, which had been built originally for a sanitarium. He leased it for five and a half years as a general hospital and sanitarium. In 1891 he took up his residence in LaPorte, and in 1896 took charge of this property, giving it the name of the Inter- laken Sanatorium, and managed it successfully and profitably until the fall of 1900, when he sold it to an organized company, which has since conducted the sanitarium under the name of the Home Health Club and Hospital. ·

From 1900 until January, 1903, Dr. Wardner was engaged in private practice and business af- fairs in LaPorte, but he was then requested to return and resume control of his former sani- tarium, and he is now devoting all his time to the duties as physician in charge of the Home Health Club and Hospital, which is a splendid institution in every respect, occupying a fine brick building in a desirable location at the edge of town, with accommodation for about thirty patients, with a full staff of nurses and attend- ants and equipments of the most modern and

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improved character ; it is supplied with radiant heat baths, statical electricty, and other acces- sories for the aid of the physician in his efforts to alleviate suffering.

Dr. Wardner was for some time president of the LaPorte County Medical Society, and is now president of the board of United States pension examiners; and is a member of the American Medical Association and the Indiana State Medi- cal Society. He is a member of the Loyal Le- gion, a life member of the Army of the Tennes- see, and also a life member of the Knight Tem- plar Masons. His politics are Republican, but his chief interest has been centered in his profes- sion, and in the faithful prosecution of its duties he has achieved his greatest success and won the esteem and love of his fellow men. And it is to his honor that he has carried the burden of life's duties much longer than most men, al- though he has well deserved the privilege of lay- ing down his work and enjoying rest and a peace- ful close.

Dr. Wardner was married February 16, 1858, to Miss Louise Rockwood, of Sheboygan, Wis- consin. Mrs. Wardner was with her husband during much of his war service, and was among the noble and patriotic women who sacrificed comforts of home and often their health to aid the suffering.

JULIUS T. KEIL, for nearly thirty years one of the leading general merchants of Hanna, LaPorte county, Indiana, and identified with the business life and the public welfare of that section of the county in as large a degree as any other citizen, is one of that worthy and valuable class of German Americans whose loyalty to their adopted land and whose in- dustry and steady character have been no small factor in the development of the middle west. Mr. Keil's parents were Carl Ludwig and Ern- istina Wilhelmina (Schroeder) Keil, both natives of Germany and of the Protestant faith; the former was a miller and died in his native land, but the latter died at the home of her son in Hanna. There were seven children in this family, but the only one living besides Julius is Emil Louis Keil, a retired miller of West Virginia.

Julius T. Keil, the fifth in order of birth in his parents' family, was born in the province of Posen, Germany, July 1, 1845, and at the age of sixteen years set out from his native land, sailing on a vessel from Bremen, and after a voyage of forty-eight days landed in New York

harbor. He thence came out to Macoupin coun- ty, Illinois, and then to LaPorte county, in 1861, where, having very little capital, he obtained employment, first, as a harvest hand, and then hired out to work by the month. He had ob- tained a good education in the German language, and was not long in learning the English so that he could converse fluently and write it for all business needs. He was industrious and sav- ing of his earnings, and by 1874 he had enough to embark in the general merchandise business in Hanna, where he has met with continually increasing success up to the present time. He has always adhered to strictly honorable methods in acquiring trade, and the people have learned to appreciate his courtesy and to rely on his goods being just as he represents them. His store is a model establishment for a country town, and has a first-class stock of dry goods, fancy and staple groceries, queensware, boots and shoes, etc.

Mr. Keil is a Republican in politics, and has voted for all the presidential candidates from Lincoln down. He has been especially active in matters pertaining to the improvement and betterment of his own township. In 1886 he was elected to the principal township office, that of trustee, and is at present holding that office, through election in 1901. In this office his public spirit has been manifest in many ways, and it was largely through his counsel and ef- forts that the beautiful new school building has been erected in Hanna. It is of brick and stone, was put up at a cost of thirteen thousand dol- lars, is heated by steam, and equipped with all modern educational appliances, and would do honor to a city of much larger size. And he has been efficient in advancing the standards of education in this township, and in many ways taking unusual interest in the welfare of the coming generations. For four years during the administration of President Grant Mr. Keil was postmaster of Hanna, and also served as road superintendent. Besides the prosperous busi- ness which he conducts in Hanna, he also owns sixty acres of choice land in this township.

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A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Laporte County Indiana, Part 140

Author: Rev. E. D. Daniels Publication date: 1904 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1273

Author: Rev. E. D. Daniels
Publication date: 1904
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1273