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 105

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 105

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" I myself must mix with action, lest I wither in despair."

He hates all mere seeming, hypocrisy, and pretense, and every form of cant and sham excites his utmost ab- horrence. He gives them no credit for the tribute they pay to the sanctity they pretend. Public corruption has no more consistent foe. It is his boast that no scheme of frauds was ever proposed to him, and that all he has ever learned of them has been learned from public in- vestigations, or the occasional boast of some scoundrel, who was engaged in them, that his villainous acts had accomplished great results. He dislikes sharp men, who prefer to win success by tact rather than by talent, and regards them and their following as among the greatest dangers our country has to encounter. His own opin- ion is to him better than another's, or than all others', and, if it involves moral action, he prefers to follow it alone, rather than be in company with all mankind, with a profession of belief that he does not feel in theirs. He is an excellent member of a minority party, strug- gling for power, with all good principles and promises upon its lips. Its battle is a battle for the attainment of an idea, and he lives in the ideal. But when it be- comes the majority, and, enthroned, falls into offenses against its own platform and into violations of its own promises, he does not fail to rebuke and denounce it, for he has never yet been able to justify a political friend for an act which he condemns in a political adversary. He has seen, as well before as after his denunciations of the faults of his own party, that they shut the door against his own preferment. He did not choose such a course because he did not desire such preferment, but because he held his duty, and the con- ciousness of having done it, to be infinitely higher and more to be desired than any position in any govern- ment under heaven. His life, with all its errors, and they are neither few nor small, and with all its faults,

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and they are both many and great, has been constantly | is still in possession of the direct descendants, while the lived along the line of moral uprightness involved in a rule of conduct written to his son in 1861, just before going into battle, and with it this sketch of it shall end. It is in these words: " Labor to know what is right always, and remember that what you believe to be so, when you are required to act on any subject, is right for you at that time, whatever it may be absolutely, or in the opinion of others, or even of yourself at another time."

ORSUCH, CHARLES WESLEY, Indianapolis, was born September 23, 1844, in Harford County, Maryland. His father, Luther Meridith Gorsuch, and his mother, Sarah Ellen (Henderson) Gorsuch, are still living, in the enjoyment of a ripe old age. The subject of this sketch was very early inured to a life of toil, but found time to attend the schools in his neighborhood, and, with a natural desire to increase his stock of knowledge, became a pupil in the Normal School, Millersville, Pennsylvania, where he remained three years. He left Harford County, the home of his ancestry for generations past, and came to the thriving city of Indianapolis in 1877, and has since then been one of its busy populace. Previous to his coming West he had devoted much time to reading law, and has in him all the elements that go to make up the practical business lawyer. In Indianapolis he has been in the real estate and loan agency business, and has become known to a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Mr. Gorsuch boasts an ancestry of which many inter- esting facts are incorporated in the early history of Maryland. In 1662 his namesake, Charles Gorsuch, of the society of Friends, took up and patented fifty acres of land, being the first legal claim established to soil on the present site of Baltimore. This ancestor married the only daughter of Thomas Cole, to whom five hun- dred and fifty acres of land were granted, and on this land was laid out the first town of Baltimore. In 1726 we find John Gorsuch, a son of Charles, selling portions of the original estate to parties who wished to improve. The history of Baltimore and Maryland would be in- complete, indeed, without the name of Gorsuch. The given name, Charles, is a favorite one in the family, not less than thirty bearing it being now living. By a coincidence as unique as it is remarkable, for five gen- erations back the ancestors of Charles Gorsuch have been blessed with the exact number of ten children to each married pair ; no instance of a second husband or wife occurring in the history of the family for more than one hundred and fifty years. Parallel cases may exist in other family histories, but they must be exceed- ingly rare. Another fact worthy of note is this: the Gorsuch homestead in Harford County, bought in 1664,

house in which Mr. Gorsuch's mother's ancestry dwelt for more than a century and a half is now in her pos- session by inheritance. The Gorsuch race appears to be long-lived, of stalwart frame and sound constitution, and Mr. Gorsuch relates that a 'nephew of his recently stood on the home-roof in Harford County, Maryland, and saw the residences where still live his great-grand- fathers and great-grandmothers, and grandfathers and grandmothers, both on the maternal and paternal sides. Appleton's Cyclopædia has numerous references to the Gorsuch family, and their connection with public af- fairs in Baltimore and throughout Maryland. Mr. Gor- such is a man of a practical cast of mind ; has the bear- ing of one devoted to business, is well built and strong, has a constitution that insures vigorous vitality, and while he will never make brilliant and impulsive flights, he has that patient perseverance that never tires, and will move steadily forward in the path he has marked out, impressing his life on the society wherein he dwells. He has the natural ability that would make him a writer for the press, but his ambition leads him more into the domain of facts as bearing on the practical re- lations of existence. He is a consistent member of Fletcher Place Methodist Episcopal Church, and is a good neighbor, an agreeable friend, and an honored citizen.

REEN, WILLIAM F., physician and surgeon, of Shelbyville, was born in Rush County, Indiana, April 1, 1831. His parents were Lot and Anna (Cooper) Green. When he had reached the age of fourteen his father died, and the ensuing four years of his life were spent under the care of Thomas McKee, Esq., a pioneer of Rush County. After receiving his primary education he was sent to a select school taught by Elijah Hackleman, ex-state Senator, and subse- quently entered the Shelbyville Seminary, under the charge of W. T. Hatch. As he grew older he utilized his spare time in the winter by teaching a district school in Rush and Fayette Counties. In the spring of 1852 he commenced the study of medicine in the office of Doctors A. G. Selman and E. T. Bussell, of Shelby County. The following spring he entered the office of his brother, J. W. Green, a leading physician of Arling- ton, Rush County, and during that year took a course of lectures at Rush Medical College, Chicago. Not possessing the necessary funds to complete his studies, he opened an office in Shelbyville, where he remained one year. He returned at the expiration of this time to Rush Medical College, and graduated in the class of 1856. He then went back to Shelbyville, where he soon built up a lucrative practice ; his business gradually increased, and his reputation as a skillful physician soon

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became known throughout his own and adjoining coun- ties. In 1853 he was made a Mason, and has since occupied the position of Worshipful Master of W. Hacker Lodge. He was elected High-priest of Shelby Chapter, and subsequently Eminent Commander of Baldwin Com- mandery, No. 2. In his relations as a citizen, the Doctor has proved himself an active and liberal sup- porter of all local enterprises for the improvement of the place, and for six years served the city as a member of its board of aldermen. Although not taking an active part in politics, he is decided in his views, and supports the Republican party. His religious convictions are based upon the teachings of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he and his family are members in good standing, giving freely to its support. He has the full confidence of his fellow-citizens, and is highly esteemed in the best circles of society. As a physician, he ranks among the ablest of his county. He modestly attributes any success he has achieved to hard work and strict attention to his profession. He is quiet and unos- tentatious in his manner. He was married, May 6, 1856, to Miss Jennie Doble. Two daughters have been born to them: Miss Stella, a member of the sophomore class of Indiana Asbury University ; and Miss Lottie, who is attending the public school of Shelbyville.

longed suffering, he answered, "Oh, yes! yes!" to whatever names they pronounced, till about forty wealthy men were thus proscribed, whose property and lives were speedily sacrificed. He died from the effects of the awful torture. His great-grandson, Colonel Francis Hacker, was the executioner of Charles I, and subsequently a judge under Cromwell. Philip, son of Colonel Hacker, served under Admiral Drake in his victory over the Spanish Armada. After the Restora- tion he fled to Holland, then an asylum for political refugees from almost every country in Europe, and be- came master of a vessel which conveyed emigrants to America. His son, William Hacker, a sailor and inter- preter, married an Irish girl, a refugee from Papal per- secution, and located in Germantown, near Philadel- phia. His sons, John and William, helped build Fort Buchanan, in what is now West Virginia. William's family were massacred near there by the Indians, and, burning for revenge, he passed the rest of his days, so far as known, as an Indian fighter. John moved back to his farm in the region of the fort after Wayne's treaty, and remained there until his death, in 1824. His second son, John Hacker, father of the subject of this biography, came into Greene County, Ohio, in 1805. Attempting afterwards to locate on the Darby Plains, he was driven back by the Indians. He served through the War of 1812, and died in Shelby County, Indiana, in 1834. His first wife, Susanna Smith, was the mother ACKER, WILLIAM, ex-General Grand King of the General Grand Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons of the United States, and ex-Grand Com- mander of the Grand Commandery. of the state of Indiana, Shelbyville, was born near Urbana, Ohio, De- of William Hacker. She died when he was but five years of age. William had in that new country very poor educational privileges, attending school only about two months in the year. But he has always so availed himself of every opportunity to gain useful knowledge cember 5, 1810. He is descended from Wilhelm Heck- į that he has acquired much general information. Until ardt, a wealthy and influential citizen of Saxony, who the age of seventeen he worked on his father's farm in Montgomery County, Ohio, and then learned a trade in Dayton, serving an apprenticeship of four years. He came with his father in 1833 to Shelby County, Indiana, and one year later located in Shelbyville, which has ever since been his home. In 1838 he quitted his trade and engaged in the mercantile business, but was soon obliged to abandon it because of failing health. In 1841 he was elected Justice of the Peace, and re- mained so for five years, during three of which he also collected the revenues of the county for the treasurer. He was secretary of a railroad company for several years, and in 1851 again tried selling mer- chandise. In less than four years his health failed a second time, and he left the business never to engage in it again. In 1852 he was again elected Justice of the Peace, which office he held by subsequent elections thirteen years. During the latter part of this period his hearing became so defective that he was compelled to retire from active business and professional life. In July, 1832, Mr. Hacker joined St. John's Lodge, No. lived in the early part of the sixteenth century. A zealous adherent to the cause of the Reformation, he became an object of Romish persecution, was compelled to flee to England, and his estates were confiscated. There he anglicized his name by changing it to William Hacker. He soon found that he had escaped perse- cutors at home only to meet others more demon-like abroad. While zealously distributing Bibles and Mar- tin Luther's tracts through London and the county of Essex, he was seized, taken before the Bishop of Lon- don, imprisoned, and tortured, to make him divulge the names of those who supplied him with the heretical publications, the ultimate object being to extort from them money for the Papal Church. All means were em- ployed that fiendish ingenuity could devise, yet they could not break his iron will, until, as a last resort, after having stretched him on the rack till his limbs were almost disjointed, they put live coals under him, along the spine, and then applied the rack again. Ex- hausted and almost deranged by this dreadful and pro-

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13, at Dayton, Ohio. In 1835 he was Worshipful Mas- ter of Shelby Lodge, which position he has often filled during the past forty-five years, and almost every year he has occupied some office in that body. In 1845 he became a member of the Grand Lodge. In 1863 he was chosen Grand Master. Retiring in 1865, he was immediately elected Grand Secretary, which station he held three years, when his partial loss of hearing com- pelled him to resign. In 1846 he was made a Royal Arch Mason. In 1848 he helped organize the Chapter at Greensburg, and, although living twenty miles dis- tant, he served the first two years as its High-priest. In 1851 he aided in the organization of the Chapter at Shelbyville, and was for several years its High-priest. He is now its secretary. In May, 1848, he became a member of the Grand Chapter, and from 1855 to 1861 was Grand High-priest. From May, 1865, to October, 1868, he was Grand Secretary of the Grand Chapter. In 1856, at Hartford, Connecticut, he was made a mem- ber of the General Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Ma- sons of the United States. For twelve years in succes- sion he was elected an officer in that body, reaching the exalted station of General Grand King. Mr. Hacker received the Council degrees in Indianapolis in May, 1846, and in 1855 assisted in organizing Shelby Council, No. 3, at Shelbyville, serving for several years as Illustrious Master. He is now Recorder of the Council. In December, 1855, he helped organize the Grand Council of the state, and for the six first years was its presiding officer. In 1865 he was elected Grand Recorder, and filled that station three and a half years. He received the orders of Christian knighthood in Cin- cinnati Commandery No. 2, in the spring of 1848. Three years later he was one of the organizers of Greensburg Commandery, No. 2, now Baldwin Com- mandery, at Shelbyville, and, having passed through all its important offices, is now Recorder. He was one of those who, in 1854, established the Grand Commandery, and was made one of its first officers, continuing in office until 1868. From 1864 to 1866 he held the high station of Grand Commander, and was then elected Grand Recorder, from which position he was obliged, two years later, to retire, because of deafness. He was called in 1855 to preside over the Council of High- priests for the state, and was annually re-elected to that honorable office until 1875, when, because of age and the disability just referred to, he asked to be relieved from further duties in that station. In 1866 he received at Indianapolis the different grades of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite to the thirty-second degree. Mr. Hacker has been connected also with the Independent Order of Odd-fellows, and has filled nearly every office in the order, serving as Conductor in the Grand Lodge, and Junior Warden in the Grand Encampment. He has always been a zealous advocate of temperance, and C-5

has been associated more or less with all organizations for the promotion of that cause, especially the Wash- ingtonian Society and the Sons of Temperance. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has held, besides minor offices, that of lay steward in the annual conference from the Indianapolis District. His greatest work in the Church has been in the in- terests of the Sunday-school, in which he has been engaged in every capacity for more than half a century. In early manhood Mr. Hacker became an ardent politician, espousing the political doctrines of Henry Clay, whose leadership he preferred, un- til the death of that statesman. His father left Vir- ginia because of slavery, and his son William inherited an abhorrence of that institution that caused him to join the Free-soil Republicans when that party was formed, and to earnestly advocate its principles. He was married, January 20, 1839, to Miss Mary Ann, daughter of Rev. Thomas W. Sargent, then of Shelby- ville. Mrs. Hacker is a relative of Hon. John Sargent, for many years United States Senator from Pennsyl- vania, and of a celebrated preacher of that name in Maryland. They have had five daughters and two sons, and of the seven children six are living. The oldest daughter lives with her family in Kansas; the next in age, in Washington. She is the wife of Tharp B. Jennings, of the chief signal office. He was sent in 1878 to the Paris Exposition, as the representative of our signal service. The elder son is editor and pub- lisher of a paper; the youngest son is a physician in Indianapolis, and is becoming eminent in his profes- sion. In 1851 Mr. William Hacker was elected mayor of Shelbyville. He has adjudicated many cases for others, but he himself was never involved in a lawsuit, and never had a serious quarrel. This fact sheds a mild luster upon his character, and, with his benevolent la- bors and his high position in the Masonic Order, ren- ders him worthy of universal esteem.

AGEN, ANDREW, treasurer of Hancock County, was born in Arzberg, Germany, February 23, 1834. He is the son of John M. and Barbara Hagen. Mr. Hagen's education was principally obtained in Nordhausen, Prussia, where he attended school until his sixteenth year, when he went to Bavaria, where he ap- plied himself for one year in the study of practical chemistry. During the next two years he traveled over many parts of Europe, visiting the most noted cities on the Continent. November 10, 1852, he came to Amer- ica, and, landing in New York, remained there for a few weeks and then went to Indiana. During the next four years he drifted about the West as a sailor on I.ake Michigan, and a lumberman in the pine forests

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of Michigan. In June, 1856, he was married to Miss Elizabeth Newhart, and soon after opened a grocery store in Fortville, Indiana, in which business he contin- ued until 1877, when he quitted the business. In 1861 he returned to the home of his nativity. He was soon after put under arrest by the military authorities of Ger- many, for non-compliance with the law which required enlistment and service in the standing army of the gov- ernment. This event he had expected and was prepared to meet, and with a commission, signed by the third assistant postmaster, as postmaster at Fortville, he ap- plied to Hon. Joseph A. Wright, United States Minis- ter to Berlin, and through his instrumentality, and that of John Hudson, secretary of the Legation, he was released from custody, and permitted peaceably to return to America. A record was made of these proceedings, which afterward formed the basis of a treaty between Prussia and the United States, made in 1862, by the terms of which naturalized citizens of the United States from Germany should forever be released from military service to the Fatherland. Mr. Hagen was postmaster during Buchanan's administration, and for fifteen years trustee of Vernon Township. In 1876 he was elected county treasurer of Hancock County, and re-elected in 1878, and is therefore serving out his second term of office. Mr. Hagen has been a frugal and enterprising citizen all his life, and, in consequence, has amassed a fortune. Besides owning a large tract of land he is proprietor of a grain elevator and flax mill, in which he employs from forty to fifty men during the season. He joined the Free and Accepted Masons in 1864, and is a highly esteemed member of that brotherhood. He is of Protestant faith, without Church relations of any kind. He is a life-long and steadfast Democrat in pol- itics. He is a quiet, unobtrusive gentleman, always attending strictly to his own business. He is courteous, affable, and obliging, and is held in the highest esteem by the citizens of his county. As a county officer, he is efficient and careful of the county's finances, at all times seeking the fulfillment of the law in the discharge of his official duties. He and his wife have been blessed with five children.

AGGART, MRS. MARY E., was born in Wash- ington County, Pennsylvania, in 1843. She is the oldest daughter of Samuel S. Rothwell, a Method- ist Episcopal minister, noted in his community for his unflinching integrity and great force of character, as well as for his wonderful magnetic power as a pulpit orator. Mr. Rothwell was one of the original leading Abolitionists of Western Pennsylvania, a friend of Ger- rit Smith and Doctor F. J. Le Moine, of Washington, Pennsylvania; and they together organized the first Abolition societies of that part of the state. Mrs. Eliz-

abeth Rothwell, Mrs. Haggart's mother, is also a native of Washington County, Pennsylvania, and is a woman of extraordinary intelligence and natural mental power, of perfect physical development, and great energy and endurance; is a mechanical genius, and possesses re- markable business ability and executive capacity ; is very positive and determined in her character, and independ- ent in thought and action. Her home and children have ever been paramount with her, though she has always stretched forth a willing hand of support to those around her who needed assistance. She is of English parentage, and has inherited much of the phys- ical and mental nature of English people. Mrs. Roth- well to-day, at the age of sixty-five years, is pointed out as an example of true womanhood, devoted motherhood, and general nobility of mind and character. Mrs. Hag- gart has inherited many of the leading traits, both phys- ical and mental, of her mother, while from her father she inherits her marvelous oratorical gifts and wonderful memory. She is modest, dignified, and unobtrusive ; never indulges in self-laudation, and forms all her opin- ions of topics and individuals coolly, dispassionately, and deliberately; and, although she was reared under the teachings of the Methodist Church, she has never identified herself with any religious organization. She received her primary education in the California Semi- nary, Washington County, Pennsylvania, and subse- quently finished a collegiate course in the South-western Normal College, of Pennsylvania. She was connected with the above-named seminary for several years in the capacity of a teacher, and always excelled as a disci- plinarian, on account of her firm dignity and quiet, posi- tive disposition. Her career as a lecturer may be dated back to girlhood. Her fine essays and original orations, produced while yet a student in the schools above named, made her a great favorite with both teachers and pupils, and placed her always among the more cul- tured people of her native county. At the age of fif- teen she was urgently solicited by some of the leading anti-slavery people of her county to prepare and deliver an address setting forth the horrors and abominations of American slavery as practiced in our Southern States. This invitation she accepted, and her youth and enthu- siasm, as well as logic and eloquence, so charmed and interested the people that she was taken by her friends to a number of anti-slavery mass-meetings throughout Western Pennsylvania, to deliver this address. She was looked upon as a prodigy in oratory, and her father was earnestly petitioned by his friends to place her promi- nently before the public in the capacity of a lecturer and reformer. He, however, entertained very rigid and conscientious views regarding the true sphere of woman, and opposed her entering upon a public career. After completing her course of studies in the college, she set- tled quietly down to the work of a teacher's profession,

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until February, 1867, when she married Doctor D. Hag- gart, an eminent homœopathic physician of Eastern Pennsylvania. In the spring of 1868 she, with her hus- band, located at Danville, Indiana, the Doctor entering upon the practice of his profession, and she upon a life of quiet study and domestic duties, and during this time many of the productions of her versatile pen found their way into the popular magazines of the day. The pro- fessors of the Danville Academy organized during this year a lecture association for the purpose of employing and cultivating home talent, and called upon Mrs. Hag- gart to deliver the third lecture of the course. She con- sented, and made her début as a public speaker in the West to a crowded house in Danville, Indiana. The subject of her lecture was, "Woman's True Culture," and those who had prophesied failure were astounded at the power of the woman orator who had lived so quietly among them. The following notice from the Hendricks County Union, which appeared the day after the lecture, shows how complete and satisfactory was her success :

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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 105

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