A biographical history of eminent and self-made men of the state of Indiana : with many portrait-illustrations on steel, engraved expressly for this work, Volume I, Part 10

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Cincinnati, Ohio : Western Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1038

USA > Indiana > A biographical history of eminent and self-made men of the state of Indiana : with many portrait-illustrations on steel, engraved expressly for this work, Volume I > Part 10

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early in life. He also studied the languages, particu- larly Latin, French, and German, and was a regular sub- scriber and reader of a German newspaper for many years. He was licensed to practice medicine at the age of twenty-two, and at once located in Boonville, where he began his rounds in the healing art. He was married to Miss Lorinda Baldwin, of Boonville, on February 16, 1828. Miss Baldwin was a young lady of good family, a native of the state of New York, and possessed many attractive charms both of mind and person. She died August 19, 1860, a little more than forty-eight years old, after a long and lingering disease, greatly lamented by all her numerous friends and rela- tives. In some business speculation in 1832 or 1833 Doc- tor Matthewson became much involved financially. He, therefore, gave up his practice in Boonville and went to Bardstown, Kentucky, where he was made professor of music in the college in that place. He filled the chair with entire satisfaction for several years, and then re- turned to his own home and the practice of his pro- fession, having made enough in the time by his knowl- edge of music to pay off all his liabilities and start him anew. He was always a hard student of medicine, as his books of reference evince by their many marginal notes. He was a very skillful, successful, and conse- quently a very popular physician. In his diagnosis and prognosis of diseases he excelled most practitioners, hence to his opinion was given great weight in critical and doubtful cases. He was never a graduate in medi- cine, but attended a partial course of lectures in the Ohio Medical College, of Cincinnati ; yet he knew more about the real and scientific principles and details of the medical sciences than very many of the medical pro- fessors and teachers in the medical colleges of this day. He confined himself closely to his profession, with the exception of the time he was engaged in teaching music in the Bardstown college, for nearly fifty years. His children were five in number, three sons and two daughters; two of the sons died in 1847, before they were grown; this was his first great trouble, and after this he was never known to laugh so heartily as before. His remaining son, Charles Clark Matthewson, is a bachelor, nearly forty years old, and a most excellent and worthy gentleman. He resides at the old home- stead, in Boonville ; is a druggist, and is succeeding well in his business. Isabella Helen, the second child and eldest daughter, was married in April, 1850, to Doctor W. G. Ralston. (See sketch.) Lucy Maria, the other daughter and youngest child, a very beautiful and fascinating young lady and the favorite of her father, was married to John Brackenridge, in April, 1876, and died in June of the same year, just two months after her marriage. Doctor Matthewson was a prudent and suc- cessful business man and acquired considerable property, and was always regarded as honest and upright. He

was for many years skeptical in religious matters, but later in life he often said that his former notions had undergone a change, and that he now entertained the hope and belief that the soul was immortal and would live in the future. He was entertaining in conversation, having read almost every thing that he considered worthy of perusal, making him an acquisition in the social circle. His physical appearance was full and erect ; his complexion was florid; he had full, sparkling hazel eyes, and red hair when young, which became almost white before his death ; his weight was about one hun- dred and sixty pounds, and his height five feet ten inches. In politics he was an old Whig, and afterwards a Republican, but was never a candidate for political favor. He filled the office of postmaster in Boonville for four years, from 1841 to 1845. He died June 22, 1876, of a brief illness, supposed to be heart disease; but had been in a feeble state of health for several years, which was doubtless a gradual softening of the brain. A large number of his friends and the excellent Sax-horn Band, to which he had belonged for many years, attended his funeral. He was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery, near the town of Boonville.

OORE, JUDGE ISAAC S., of Boonville, a promi- nent lawyer of that place, was born May 24, 1831, in Warrick County, Indiana. His father, Joel W. B. Moore, emigrated from near Geneva, New York, to Spencer County, Indiana, in 1827, and two years later removed to Warrick County, where, in 1831, at the age of thirty years, he was elected Probate Judge, in which capacity he served three years. After- wards he filled the office of county clerk for fourteen years. In 1856 he was elected Common Pleas Judge. On the breaking out of the Rebellion, though burdened with his threescore years, he enlisted as a private in the Ist Indiana Cavalry, commanded by Governor Baker, and remained in the service about a year. In all the positions he held he was noted for his zealous regard for the rights of the people, and for the energy and fidelity with which all public duties were discharged. For more than fifty years he was an active and earnest member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He died October 6, 1876. His friends remember him as a kind, agreeable old gentleman. Such was the father of our subject. His mother was Orra Shelby, a relative of Governor Shelby, of Kentucky, who was a brother of General James Shelby, of Revolutionary fame. She was born in 1808, in Clark County, Kentucky. At an early day her father moved to Warrick County, Indiana. Among his goods and chattels were some twenty-five slaves. In 1816 Indiana was made a free state, and slave-holders generally shipped their negroes back to

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Kentucky, but Mr. Shelby provided for his under the | logic. He gives to a case the most faithful and earnest apprentice laws, and set them free. At the age of work, going about it in a manner that makes one feel there is no such word as fail. Before a jury he speaks generally in a conversational tone that at once enlists the attention. His arrangement and presentation of the facts of his case to the jury are almost marvelous. Of some fifteen murder trials in which he has been retained he has been unsuccessful in two only. He takes pride in being entirely unrepresented in the penitentiary. A man with a better heart in him than Judge Moore can be found nowhere. Poverty and want never applied at his door in vain. None were ever turned away empty. One of the finest traits in his character is his kindness to young men, to whom he is always ready to lend a helping hand. His stanchest friends are among the young men. He has had many students in his office. To all, his time, his counsel, and his books were free. He would hear them recite and explain the lessons for hours at a time, with patience and gentleness. Wherever he is known he is honored. He enjoys the highest respect of the bar of the state. His agreeable manners and his apti- tude for telling a good story render him an acquisition to any circle. He has always been a close student. He devours every thing that comes in his way in the shape of reading. His room is littered with books and papers. At night he generally reads himself to sleep. Since the death of his wife, which happened about two years since, he has lived very secluded. He rarely comes down in town unless business absolutely compels him. His working up of cases and writing of pleadings is done chiefly at home. His partners, Robert D. O. Moore, a younger brother, and Edward Gough, attend to the office business. He has four children, all boys, the youngest attending school and the others engaged in business. Judge Moore is now in the prime of life. If he were but moved by ambition there is no telling to what eminent positions he might not rise. His friends all consider him too modest and diffident, and all will acknowledge these to be very unusual qualities for a public man. twelve years Isaac was employed in the county clerk's office. It proved to be an excellent school for the lad. Here he acquired the ready use of the pen so indis- pensable to the lawyer, and in this place he also found a field for the practice of his inborn courtesy and good- fellowship. His educational opportunities were some- what limited, but he was able to attend one year at As- bury University. He found in his father an excellent instructor, and this, with the public schools and his habit of constant reading, fully compensated for the loss of the full collegiate course. After quitting the clerk's office he pursued his legal studies with General Hovey at Evansville, Indiana, and was admitted to the bar in 1853, after having passed a searching exami- nation. Nearly two years prior to his admission he mar- ried Miss Elizabeth Hudson, daughter of the county sheriff. In 1854 he was elected prosecuting attorney. He served a year and then relinquished the honor and the duties, and moved to Jasper, in Dubois County. He could not forget his old home, and in a year or two came back to it. In politics he was a Douglas Demo- crat, but the war made him a stanch Republican. Two of his brothers-Tanner, a farmer, and James, a young lawyer-were among the earliest volunteers. Both were killed in battle-one at Dallas, and the other at Hatchie Landing. Isaac himself was in the service in 1864. His practice and his fame steadily grew to- gether. In 1868 he was nominated for Common Pleas Judge. The district was intensely Democratic, and there was no hope for his election. He was defeated by only a small majority, however. In 1870 he was again a candidate, and again suffered defeat, but the vote given demonstrated his popularity. He carried his own county by a majority of more than two hundred, at a time when the ordinary Demo- cratic majority was about five hundred; and, though the other four counties in the circuit were largely Dem- ocratic, his opponent was elected by only seventy-two majority. In 1876 he was chosen by the state conven- tion one of the electors at large. Two years later, in 1878, he was the candidate for Secretary of State. Indi- ESTER, JOHN, of Boonville, Warrick County, was born in Fussgornheim, Germany, on the Rhine, Bavaria, November 3, 1837. His father being only a well-to-do mechanic, and his mother having died when he was quite young, seemed to necessitate the lad's staying at home to work, instead of going to school. His educational opportunities-unlike those of his father, which consisted of seven years' schooling and military instructions, after the manner of the Ger- manic tuition laws-were confined to two weeks' instruc- tion at a night school after he had come to this coun- try. In 1851 John and his father came to this country, being followed in a few years by the other children. ana is a state much given to political somersaults, and 1878 proved to be the year when she fell Democratic. So it will be seen that the Judge has been rather unlucky in his political contests. He takes defeat, however, like some old Greek philosopher. Indeed, there is nothing of the modern-school politician about him. He loathes all trickery and chicanery, and would prefer defeat a thousand times to success by dishonorable means. As a lawyer Judge Moore has been eminently successful. For a number of years there has scarcely been an im- portant case in the county in which he was not retained. His briefs in the Supreme Court are masterpieces of

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He finally made his way to Troy, Perry County, Indi- ana, where he worked on a farm for a time at four dol- lars a month, and afterwards for a few months in a brick-yard. He then learned the trade of harness-making, an employment which he followed for ten years. In 1859 he married Magdalena Hochalter, of Newburg, In- diana. After this event he engaged in the grocery and harness-making business in Newburg, until 1870, when he was elected auditor of Warrick County, serv- ing a term of four years, and being afterwards re-elected. The first time he received a Democratic majority of one hundred and seventeen votes; the second time, thirteen hundred and fifteen. In 1878 he received in the Demo- cratic state convention a solid vote from the First Con- gressional District for auditor of state; other counties likewise voted for him, but he finally withdrew in favor of General Manson. Mr. Nester is a kind-hearted, agreeable man, much respected by every one. He has a family of four children.

EWCOMB, DWIGHT, president of the Indiana Cotton Mills, Cannelton, Perry County, was born at Bernardston, Franklin County, Massachusetts, December 1, 1830. His parents were Dalton and Harriet Newcomb. His father was a farmer, and he was brought up on his father's farm, receiving his edu- cation in the common schools of Franklin County. His ancestors were English. He wrought in his younger days as a machinist, but in 1841 he removed to Louis- ville, where for five years he was a clerk in his broth- er's store. Then he engaged in steamboating between Louisville and New Orleans for some five years, when he finally settled at Cannelton as agent of the Indiana Cotton Mills, which had been built some little time pre- vious. He acted in the capacity of agent for the mill for five years, and in 1856 engaged in the coal business, continuing his manufacturing connection at the same time, but subsequently severing it. It was again re- newed on the death of his brother, II. D. Newcomb, in 1876, and he was elected to the same position which had been held by his brother-that of president. The present company was formed in 1853, taking the place of an old one known as the Cannelton Cotton Mills. Mr. Newcomb is a man who has never sought and would not accept public or political office. In politics he is a Democrat, having joined their ranks from the old Whig party. A man full of tact, energy, and en- terprise, he is widely known and respected. From the Western Grocer and Trade Journal of July 6, 1878, we take the following: " No one can overestimate the value of this magnificent, well-arranged, and abundantly sup- plied emporium of manufacture. The whole man is in- formed and elevated; his reason, his taste, his thinking

powers are all ministered to, and not even the stupidest rustic could spend a day in this hive of industry with- out leaving the building a new and wiser man. This concern was established in 1853, and since that time has built up a trade which penetrates Cincinnati, Louisville, Chicago, and St. Louis. The building is a handsome sandstone three-story one, measuring sixty- seven by two hundred and eighty-seven feet, and is in every way well adapted to the purpose for which it is used, and is provided with all the latest improved machinery. The capacity per day of this mammoth enterprise is eighteen thousand yards, and they use each year forty-two hundred bales of cotton. In these works three hundred hands may be seen at all times, busily engaged in running looms, spindles, etc., present- ing, to say the least, a perfect hive of industry. This establishment runs ten thousand eight hundred spindles and three hundred and seventy-two looms. Mr. D. Newcomb, the president, and Mr. E. Wilbur, the su- perintendent, have spared neither labor, money, nor time to make these works complete in every respect. This is the leading cotton mill in the Western country. The goods made at these works are of the best material, and the concern is known far and near for its honora- ble and fair dealing."

WEN, RICHARD, the youngest son of Robert Owen, the philanthropist, was born at Braxfield House, near New Lanark, Scotland, January 6, 1810. He was educated chiefly at Hofwyl, Switz- erland, and subsequently attended courses of lectures in Glasgow, delivered by Dr. Andrew Ure, author of the "Chemical Dictionary." He emigrated to the United States, reaching, when about eighteen years of age, New Harmony, the scene of his father's social ex- periments. Here he farmed until the Mexican War broke out, when he obtained a captain's commission in the 16th United States Infantry, one of the ten new regi- ments, and served until the close of the war, being first under General Z. Taylor, and subsequently under com- mand of General Wool. Returning in the fall of 1849, he became assistant to his brother, Doctor D. D. Owen, in his survey of the north-west territories, under the general government, and, in company with Doctor I. G. Norwood, examined the north shore of Lake Su- perior. Some of the maps and many of the wood-cuts in his brother's quarto report of those regions are from his sketches. On invitation of Colonel Thornton F. Johnson, of Kentucky, who carried on the Western Military Institute, first at Georgetown, and later at Blue Lick, Richard Owen was invited to take the chair of natural science and chemistry, at first with the rank of major (the commissions being issued by the governor

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of the state), and later, at the death of Colonel T. F. | Clernand, Colonel Owen's regiment lost heavily, and Johnson, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, as com- mandant, while Colonel B. R. Johnson, a graduate of West Point, was superintendent. These two assumed the whole financial responsibility of the institute, and, on the typhoid fever breaking out at Drennon Springs (to which place Colonel T. F. Johnson removed from Blue Lick), they transferred the whole institution to Nashville, Tennessee, where it became the literary de- partment of the Nashville University. While here Pro- fessor Owen, after taking the necessary course of study at the medical college, received the degree of M. D., and also published a work entitled " Key to the Geology of the Globe," of which the North American Review says, at page 275 of the July (1857) number: "Unity of plan and uniformity of causes are the germinal idea of his system. The aim of the entire work is in the direction in which alone truth is to be sought." A copy of the work being sent to the great scientist Alexander von Humboldt, he replied in an autograph letter, accepting many of the generalizations; and Pro- fessor Dana, in his " Manual of Geology," admits that Doctor Owen, in the above work, was the first to point out the coincidence of continental outlines with great circles which form secondaries to the ecliptic, and hence point to solar influence as remotely the chief cause of land dynamics. In 1858, Professor Owen, foreseeing the threatened rupture between the North and South, sold out his claims in the institute to Colonel B. R. Johnson, the superintendent, who subsequently became General Johnson, of the Confederate army. Professor Owen, on reaching Indiana, was immediately made assistant state geologist, and, later, state geologist, of Indiana, conduct- ing surveys during the year 1859 and part of 1860, and embodying the results in a large octavo volume. On the breaking out of the late war, Doctor Owen was com- missioned by the late Governor O. P. Morton to a lieu- tenant-colonelcy in the 15th Indiana Volunteers, and participated in the battles of Rich Mountain and Green- brier, West Virginia. He was then promoted, and directed to form a new regiment, the 60th Indiana Vol- unteers. During its formation he organized, and com- manded for four months, a camp of about four thousand prisoners, in Camp Morton, Indianapolis, and was com- plimented by a telegram from Secretary Stanton, saying his was the best regulated of all the Federal camps of prisoners. Colonel Owen, with his regiment, in which his two sons were officers, was now sent to Kentucky, and was subsequently, when ordered to the relief of the garrison at Mumfordsville, captured by General Bragg's army. Soon after, however, an exchange of prisoners having taken place, the 6th was assigned to the Fourth Division of the Fifteenth Army Corps, in the Army of Tennessee, as it was first called; and at the taking of Arkansas Post, under Generals Sherman and Mc-

many were killed or wounded on each side of him, within a few feet. His regiment was at General Grant's siege of Vicksburg until its surrender, then with General Sherman at the capture of Jackson, Missis- sippi. Subsequently, the 6th was ordered to join the forces of General Banks in the Red River campaign, and Colonel Owen, placed in command of a brigade, lost heavily in killed and wounded at the battle of Carrion-crow Bayou. About the close of the Red River campaign, an offer of the professorship of natural sci- ence in the Indiana State University was made to Doctor Owen, who thereupon tendered his resignation as colonel, to take effect at the close of the campaign. This en- abled him to reach Bloomington, Indiana, the seat of the university, on the first day of January, 1864, after more than two years and a half of service in the Fed- eral army. His connection with this college lasted nearly sixteen years, as he only recently retired to New Harmony, with the intention of pursuing the original researches commenced at Bloomington. These consisted chiefly in demonstrating, by means of the galvanome- ter, the existence of thermo-electrical currents in the earth's crust, chiefly bearing from east to west, and in our north hemisphere from south to north, as high as latitude seventy degrees or thereby. He also constructed an electrical globe to demonstrate and explain the dec- lination and inclination of the compass. Papers con- nected with these subjects, and with terrestrial magnet- ism as bearing on the dynamics of geology, were read by Doctor Owen at several meetings of the American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science, and were also published in various periodicals, as the Scientific Ameri- can, Polytechnic Review, Transactions of Academy of Sci- ences, at St. Louis, Valley Naturalist, and Indianapolis daily Journal. The account of some researches on the fly- ing weevil, made while on his farm, will be found in the Albany (New York) Cultivator, of 1846; and a series of letters on Education were furnished to the South-western Sentinel, in Evansville, Indiana, in 1840; later articles on Education and Agriculture appeared in the Indiana School Journal, Indiana Farmer, Yale College Courant, Reports of the Department of Agriculture, at Washington, Tennessee Farmer, etc., besides papers on the Rain- fall, the Preservation of Timber, the Cause of Indian Summer, and other subjects connected with physical geography, published in various Western periodicals ; also a series of letters from Europe, the Holy Land, and Egypt, partly in the New York Tribune, but chiefly in the Evansville Journal. Many public lectures on scientific subjects were at various times delivered by in- vitation, chiefly in Tennessee and Indiana. In 1872 Doctor Owen was elected president of the Indiana State Agricultural College (Purdue University) ; but, as two years afterwards it was still unorganized, and his labors

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at Bloomington had been continued, with the additional offer of the curatorship of the new museum there (con- sisting mainly of eighty-five thousand specimens purchased from the estate of his late brother), Doctor Owen de- cided to remain, and tendered his resignation as president of Purdue. Wabash College conferred on Doctor Owen the degree of LL. D., and Louisiana also made him honorary member of her scientific association. In 1874 he served as Grand Master, Independent Order of Odd-fellows, of Indiana, and in 1875 was delegate to the Grand Lodge of the United States, which met that year at Indianapolis. Doctor Owen married, in 1837, the fifth daughter of Professor Joseph Neef (formerly an associate of Pestalozzi, and invited to this country for the purpose of introducing that educator's system); and three children, a daughter and two sons, were born to them. The former died, but the two latter are mar- ried, and reside in New Harmony. Professor Owen is the only surviving member of the immediate family of Robert Owen.

WEN, DAVID DALE, M. D., of New Harmony, Indiana, a prominent geologist, was born in Brax- field House, near New Lanark, Scotland, June 24, 1807, and died in New Harmony, Indiana, Novem- ber 13, 1860. He was the third son of Robert Owen- the second son, William, dying earlier-and brother of Robert Dale Owen. He was educated with his young- est brother, Professor Richard Owen, M. D., LL. D., at Hofwyl, Switzerland, and in 1826 accompanied his father to the settlement established by the latter in New Har- mony, Indiana. He subsequently returned to Europe, where he spent two years in studying geology and chemistry, as well as improving himself in painting, for which he had great taste, and in 1833 took up his per- manent residence in the United States. In 1835 he received the degree of M. D. from the Ohio Medical College, and two years later was employed by the Leg- islature of Indiana to make a geological reconnoissance of the state, the results of which were published in a small work, of which a reprint appeared in 1859. He subsequently, under instructions from the United States general land-office at Washington, made a minute ex- amination of the mineral lands of Iowa; and in 1848, having spent the interval chiefly in scientific study, he was employed by the government to conduct the geo- logical survey of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota. The result of his three years' labor in this extensive field was in 1852 published by Congress, in a quarto volume, embracing over six hundred pages, accompanied by nu- merous maps and illustrations executed in the highest style of art. During the next five years, from 1852 to 1857, he conducted the survey of the state of Kentucky, three volumes relating to which, with maps and illustra-

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A biographical history of eminent and self-made men of the state of Indiana : with many portrait-illustrations on steel, engraved expressly for this work, Volume I, Part 10

Author: Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Cincinnati, Ohio : Western Biographical Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1038

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Cincinnati, Ohio : Western Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1038