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 115

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 115

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continued in it ever since, having built up a large and | public men of the day as many who have been, and lucrative business, which is constantly increasing. are, high in the councils of the nation. He still takes an absorbing interest in national questions, and is out- spoken in his denunciation of what he calls "National Banditti Politicians." On the 4th of April, 1861, Mr. Johnson married Miss Rachel R. Marker, a native of Hendricks County, Indiana. She is nine months her husband's junior. Her parents were from the state of Delaware, immigrating to Indiana soon after their mar- riage. Her father, Curtis Marker, died in October, 1879, having attained the ripe old age of seventy-five. Her mother died suddenly in 1860. Mrs. Johnson lost in the service of the United States one brother at Spring- field, Missouri, and another of tender years, who fell early in the morning of victory, pierced through the forehead by a musket-ball, at Fort Donelson. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson's family consists of one son, Harrie, and two daughters, Rose and Bessie. The wife and mother has proved in every sense of the word a fitting partner to her husband, sharing his trials and helping him to face them, until now, in the sunshine of a happy home, they enjoy the gladness which results from difficulties conquered and obstacles removed. Mr. Johnson has done some good service on the stump in the campaigns of 1872 and 1876, and is regarded as a forcible and effective speaker. He is tall and commanding in appear- ance, being over six feet in height, has keen gray eyes and expressive countenance. If history repeats itself, there is little doubt that Mr. Johnson is destined to come before the public more prominently before many years. While he has not yet reached the point at which men begin to be called wealthy, his circumstances are such that he can look back with a feeling of relief on the privations he has endured, while his progress onward and upward in his profession is as steady as the sun in its course. The same painstaking industry which char- acterized his school and college days is apparent in the lawyer, and he is known at the Indianap- olis bar as a man of tireless energy and unwaver- ing fidelity. His briefs show signs of the most careful preparation, and stand the test of judicial inquiry almost invariably. He is a man who makes no pretense to superiority, thoroughly democratic in his simplicity of manner, but tenacious of his convictions when once formed. He is an advocate of compromise in prefer- ence to litigation; but when compromise fails is always prepared for the legal strife. This trait of character he carries into his position on questions of war. He has no desire for military glory, and unless in case of for- eign encroachment is essentially a man of peace. He believes that Americans, in the settlement of all dis- putes between themselves, should appeal to the ballot and the courts, "the former the greatest right given to man, and the most abused." He is a member of no secret society, and has never aspired to any political distinction. With Henry Clay, he thinks that "the most exalted office is but a prison, in which the incar- cerated incumbent daily receives his cold, heartless visitants, marks his weary hours, and is cut off from the practical enjoyments of all the blessings of genuine freedom." Mr. Johnson's religious ideas are rather on the independent order. His father was a Quaker and ONES, AQUILA, of Indianapolis, was born in Stokes County, North Carolina, July 8, 1811. His father was a farmer, of limited circumstances, which denied him more than very meager oppor- tunities for information or the acquisition of an educa- tion. He remained at home, working upon the farm, until 1831, when his parents started westward, settling in Columbus, Bartholomew County, Indiana, where a son, Elisha P. Jones, had preceded them six years, and who, at the time of their arrival there, was engaged in mercantile business, and held the office of postmaster. Young Aquila Jones at once entered his brother's store as clerk, which position he filled creditably until he left his employment in 1836. At this period he mar- ried Miss Sarah Ann Arnold, and moved to Missouri, but after the lapse of one year he returned to Colum- bus, and purchased a hotel; conducted its business for about eight months, when his wife died. Soon after this sad event he disposed of the hotel and forever bade adieu to that uncongenial line of business-one that was too narrow and circumscribed to suit his tastes or the inclinations of his active and vigorous intellect. He his mother a Methodist, and his views are somewhat tinged with the tenets of both those sects. His ideas on the subject of the Lord's-supper and baptism are rather novel, but he does not obtrude his belief, pre- ferring that all should enjoy perfect liberty of con- science. "Be charitable to all and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," sums up his religion. His political opinions are well defined. He entered the ranks of voters when the Republican party first came into power, and in its early record he still feels no small degree of personal pride, as with it his first votes were cast. He left the party when Sumner, Greeley, Julian, and others did, and attended the Cin- cinnati Convention with the Indiana delegation in 1872. Since then he has in the main adhered to the policy then adopted by the Liberal Republicans, and, as that policy and platform were subsequently ratified by the Baltimore Convention, he has acted with the Democratic party. From his youth up he had always taken a great interest in national politics, and he is probably as well informed on the lives and characters of the leading

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had scarcely wound up his hotel business when his [ brother, Elisha P., died. He at once engaged to take the stock of goods, and he immediately succeeded his brother as postmaster, and conducted the business of a "country merchant " for many years successfully, first in conjunction with his brother, Charles Jones, and subsequently with B. F. Jones, another brother, until the year 1856; from 1838 to 1854 he was most of the time postmaster at Columbus, but during the latter year he resigned the office. In March, 1840, he was again married, to Miss Harriet Cox, whose father was the Hon. John W. Cox, of Morgan County, Indiana. He was appointed by President Van Buren to take the census of Bartholomew County, in 1840, and, at the expiration of the succeeding decade he was assigned to the same duty by President Fillmore. He was tendered the office of clerk of Bartholomew County, the accept- ance of which he declined. In 1842 he was elected by a complimentary majority to a seat in the Indiana state Legislature, where he served during the session of 1842-43. In 1854 President Pierce appointed him In- ! dian agent for Washington Territory, but he rejected the appointment. He was then urged to accept a like agency in New Mexico, but he again declined. In 1856 he was elected Treasurer of the state of Indiana. In 1858 he was renominated by acclamation for the same position, but this time he would not consent to remain on the ticket (Democratic), for reasons personal to himself. The Indianapolis Rolling Mill Company selected him for its treasurer in 1861, in which capacity he served until 1873, when he became president, in place of John M. Lord, resigned. In the same year, he was elected to the presidency of the Indianapolis Water Works Company, but he resigned in four months, the rolling mill requiring all his attention. Mr. Jones has had twelve children, only three of whom are dead. His eight sons are well settled in business in this city and county, and are prosperous and highly respected by all who know them. His daughter is the wife of deputy postmaster Holloway. He is a member of the Episcopal Church. Mr. Jones's political sentiments are Democratic, and always have been. Mr. Jones first established a reputation for industry, honesty, in- tegrity, prudence, and a temperate evenness of habit. He always possessed energy, resolution, de- termination, and adopted early in his life for his motto, "I will find a way, or make one." He possesses sound native sense, cautious judgment, keen foresight, and accurate powers of observation. With these endowments, he was prepared for the training processes of life; and it is safe to infer that he was an apt pupil, as unquestionably he was an attentive one. That his career has been a highly successful one, is generally known. He has accumulated wealth simply as a result of the growth and exercise of these qualities.

There are no cascades, whirling eddies, or shallows on Mr. Jones's life-stream ; it has always had an even, deep, and steady flow. He moves steadily on, observ- ing the maxim of Amos Lawrence, "Do what you do thoroughly, and be faithful in all accepted trusts," and forever keeping the current of his endeavor in continual motion, his various faculties employed. He always has a fixed end and aim in view. Weathercock men are nature's failures. There is nothing vacillating about him; and when he acts he does so quietly, but with decision. He wills strongly and positively. There is no ostentation or show about him. He is neither rash nor excitable, and in all his enterprises he "hastens slowly." Mr. Jones's private character is without a stain, and his name carries no blemish. Ordinarily, he is reticent, preferring silence, and allowing others to step to the front. When he does speak, he has pre- meditated his words, and talks to the point. He goes about his work noiselessly, and if he performs a charity it is not blazoned on the corners, or announced through the papers, that every lip may gather it and run. When Aquila Jones-whose life we have hastily and imper- fectly sketched-shall have closed his useful and active career, long, long after he shall have passed

" To that bourne from whence no traveler returns,"

he will be kindly, affectionately remembered by his kindred, friends, and acquaintances, as a man of gen- erous, noble impulses ; for his sterling qualities of head and heart; for his many acts of kindness and benefi- cence; remembered as one who loved his home, his kindred, his friends, the good that was in the world; as one whose heart was attuned to the music of friend- ship, as the stars are to the melodies of heaven ; as one who had the Christian's love for his fellow-man, and if at times its disc was clouded by a resentment or a doubt they soon vanished in the warm sunshine of his nature, as the ice-jewels of an autumn morning disappear before the radiance of the sun; remembered as one who be- lieved in and acted upon the grand sentiment embraced in Polonius's advice to his son Laertes, in the play of " Hamlet :"

"To thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

ULIAN, JACOB B., was born January 6, 1815, in Wayne County, on a farm lying just south-west of Centerville, Indiana, then a territory. His parents were Isaac and Rebecca (Hoover) Julian. He is, on the part of his mother, of German descent. From his father he receives a blending of French and Scotch lineage. Mr. Julian, who was one of the pioneers of

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Indiana Territory, came from North Carolina in the year 1808, and settled in what is now known as Wayne County. He there married, in 1810, Rebecca, a daugh- ter of Andrew Hoover, whose family had arrived from North Carolina in 1806, but were originally from Han- over, Germany. He was a prominent man in the early settlement of the county, and was a Justice of the Peace at a time when that was a very important office. He was also a member of the board of commissioners, and in after years a representative in the Legislature. In the year 1823, with the intention of making the Wabash Valley his home, he journeyed through the almost path- less forests with his young wife and family, consisting besides Jacob (then eight years old) of his sisters Sallie and Elizabeth, and his brothers, George W., Isaac H., and John M. They had just reached their destination when he was taken ill, died, and was buried on the plains of the Wea. His young and heart-broken widow per- formed the terrible task of returning to her old home with her fatherless children. She survived her husband forty-five years, dying in 1868 at the home of her daugh- ter in Iowa, having reared her children, seen them all married, and lived to see her grandchildren arrive at manhood's estate. John, the eldest brother of Jacob B. Julian, died in 1834, greatly lamented ; his sister Sallie married Jesse Holman; still lives as his widow, in Mt. Vernon, Iowa. Elizabeth was united to Allison Willits, who died some years since ; she afterward married Mr. Beatty, and is now residing in Iowa. Isaac H. is edit- ing a newspaper in San Marcos, Texas. George W., who was for twelve years a member of Congress, and is well known in the political arena, still lives at Irving- ton, a suburb of Indianapolis. Jacob, the subject of this sketch, although he was reared on a farm and taught to work by his good and intelligent parents, who were ambitious to have their children worthy and useful citizens, received a fair common school educa- tion, to which he afterward added a knowledge of Latin and the higher English branches. He thus, as did his brothers and sisters, acquired a taste for books and an appetite for learning, which he has never lost. To the careful guidance of his parents, and especially to that of his mother, he attributes every success that has crowned his path through life. Like many others of the preceding generation, his hours for study were few and far between, most of his time being spent in learning his trade and working at the blacksmith's forge. His thirst for knowledge was so great, however, that he determined upon the adoption of law as a pro- fession; and, obtaining employment in the office of the county clerk he in leisure hours prosecuted his studies in that direction, afterward completing the course in the law office of Judge John S. Newman. In 1839, after a pretty thorough examination, he was admitted to practice, being then twenty-four years of age. On |

Christmas eve of the same year, he was married to Martha Bryan, an intelligent and lovable lady, the daughter of Henry Bryan, who resided near Centerville, and was a government surveyor and leading citizen of Eastern Indiana. Mr. Julian has now been in the prac- tice of law or on the bench for a period of forty years, and expects to "die in the harness," working to the last. Until his twenty-fourth year, Jacob B. Julian resided nearly all the time in Centerville and vicinity, thence removing in 1839 to Muncietown for the purpose of practicing his profession. Remaining, however, only eight months, he returned to Centerville, where he con- tinued to reside, being identified with the interests of that section for more than thirty years thereafter, or until October 28, 1872, when he removed to Indian- apolis. In the year 1844 Mr. Julian was elected prose- cuting attorney of the Wayne Circuit, then composed of the counties of Wayne, Fayette, Union, Rush, and Decatur, riding on horseback, as was the primitive cus- tom, around the circuit. In this capacity he served two years, with such entire satisfaction to the community that at the expiration of his term, in 1846, he was elected to the state Legislature, and was re-elected in 1848 to the same position. Mr. Julian was largely identified with the best interests of Wayne County, the building of turnpikes and the construction of public improvements. He also took stock in the Indiana Cen- tral Railway. From the time of its organization, in 1863, he was for ten years, or until his removal to In- dianapolis, president of the First National Bank of Centerville. In 1873 Mr. Julian removed to Irvington, a suburb of Indianapolis, of which he was one of the original proprietors and founders. It is the seat of the North-western Christian University. Mr. Julian con- tributed liberally and used every effort to effect its re- moval from its former location to this charming and picturesque vicinity. In the year 1876 Mr. Julian was made Judge of the Marion Circuit Court, which posi- tion he held two years, and in which he added to his reputation as an able lawyer that of an upright judge. In politics Judge Julian was an old-line Whig, and cast his first vote for General William Henry Harrison, in the year 1836, and was identified with the Republican party from its first inception. He represented that party as a delegate to the National Convention held at Philadelphia in 1856, which nominated J. C. Fremont. In 1872 he joined the liberal Republican movement and voted for Horace Greeley. His last vote was cast for our own popular statesman, T. A. Hendricks, whom he would like to see again nominated and elected. Judge Julian has one son, John F., now in his fortieth year, who is distinguished for his scholarly attainments and his devotion to business as his father's law partner. Personally, Jacob B. Julian is of the pleasantest, genial type of gentleman, who has an encouraging word and

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kindly thought for all who need them. He is now ac- tively engaged in the practice of his profession in the various courts of the state of Indiana.

ULIAN, GEORGE W., was born on May 5, 1817, about one mile south-west of Centerville, then the shire town of Wayne County, Indiana. His father, Isaac Julian, was a native of North Carolina, and removed to Indiana Territory in the year 1808. The family is of French extraction, the first of the name in America having settled on the eastern shore of Mary- land in the latter part of the seventeenth century. A son of his, as appears from Irving's " Life of Washing- ton," was residing in Winchester, Virginia, in 1775, from which place he removed to Randolph County, North Carolina, shortly after Braddock's defeat. Mr. Julian's father, a lineal descendant of his, was promi- nent among the pioneer settlers of Eastern Indiana. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, and, after filling different county offices, was chosen a member of the state Legislature in 1822. He died the year following, when George was six years of age, one of six young children left to the care of a faithful mother, but to an inheritance of poverty and hardship. The history of their early life, if written, were but another chapter from

" The short and simple annals of the poor."

Suffice it to say that, under these adverse influences, George early developed his principal later characteris- tics. He was diffident to the last degree, but was pos- sessed of a strong will. He was particularly distin- guished for diligence and unconquerable perseverance in the path of mental improvement, or in whatever else he undertook to accomplish. After his day's labor in the field, he pored over his tasks till a late hour of the night by the light of a fire kept up by " kindlings," which he regularly prepared as a substitute for the candles which could not be afforded. His only educa- tional privileges were those of the common country schools of the period, and a few good books occasionally borrowed from his neighbors. His principal dependence therefore was self-schooling-ever the grand basis upon which the successful student, whether at home, at school, or at college, must build. From such a prep- aration his next step was teaching, which he followed with credit about three years. It was during his first school that he signalized himself by successfully resist- ing a very formidable effort of the "big boys," rein- forced by some of the hands then at work on the Cum- berland or National Road, to compel him to " treat" on Christmas-day, according to a custom then long prevalent in the West. At the close of this school he engaged himself as "rodman" on the Whitewater Valley Canal,

intending to become a civil engineer, but he only re- mained in the service about two months; and the sub- sequent collapse of our grand system of internal im- provements proved a sufficient reason for abandoning this enterprise. It was in the spring of 1839, while teaching in Western Illinois, that Mr. Julian began the study of the law, which he prosecuted chiefly without the aid of a preceptor. He was admitted to practice in the fall of 1840, and followed his profession, save the interruptions of politics, until the year 1860. Through the influence of early associations, he began his political life as a Whig, and gave his first vote for President to General Harrison. He was completely carried away by the political whirlwind of 1840, but he frankly confesses that the sum of his political knowledge at that time was very small, and that the "hard cider campaign" was not so much a battle for political reform as a grand national frolic. So far as ideas were involved in his support of General Harrison, he simply thought him a poor man, who lived in a log-cabin, and would sympa- thize with the large class to which he belonged; while, on the other hand, he regarded Van Buren as an aristo- crat and a dandy. In the year 1844 he engaged for the first time in active politics. He canvassed his county pretty thoroughly for Clay and Frelinghuysen, and was quite successful on the stump. His reading and reflec- tion since the canvass of 1840 had seriously shaken his faith in the Whig dogmas respecting the tariff, a national bank, and the policy of distributing the proceeds of the public lands among the states; but he entered the can- vass of 1844 very zealously, because he believed the triumph of the Democracy would involve the extension of slavery and the danger of a war with Mexico. In spirit and in substance his arguments were identical with those which he urged so vehemently four years later. His opposition to slavery had its genesis in his Quaker training, and the anti-slavery newspapers which fell in his way; and it now became more than ever pronounced through the influence of the writings of Doctor Channing, and the speeches of Adams and Gid- dings. He made up his mind that he would never vote for another slave-holder for President, and his anti- slavery zeal waxed stronger and stronger, while his faith in the soundness of his early Whig teaching con- stantly declined. He, however, remained in his party, and in 1845 was chosen as a member of the Legislature from Wayne County, in which he distinguished himself by his advocacy of the abolition of capital punishment, and his support of what was known as the " Butler Bill," by the passage of which one-half the state debt was canceled, and the state thereby saved from the fearful peril of repudiation. In this instance he did not hesitate to act independently of his party and in oppo- sition to its leaders, many of whom opposed this im- portant and laudable measure. In the spring of this

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year he was married to Miss Anna E. Finch, of Center- ville, and resumed his professional duties; but it was not easy for him to escape the contagion of politics. The old party issues were fading out of sight. "Cheap postage for the people" was taking its rank as a new and important question. The land policy of the Whigs, which looked to the sale of the public domain as a source of revenue, was fatally threatened by the new issue of land reform, which proposed to set apart the public lands for free homes for the poor, and to de- rive a revenue from their productive wealth. The prohibition of slavery in the national territories was rapidly becoming an overshadowing issue. In the mean time, as the national canvass of 1848 approached, the nomination of General Taylor for the presidency by the Whigs was seriously threatened. When it became inevitable, Mr. Julian was placed in a very serious dilemma. It brought on a direct conflict between duty and advantage, between conscience and policy, which it was impossible to escape. His resolve previously made, to abjure politics altogether, and that he would never vote for another slave-holder for President, had to be tested. Wayne County was overwhelmingly Whig, and he was exceedingly reluctant to break with his old friends. But they were extremely intolerant. They could not appreciate his scruples about voting for the owner of two hundred slaves, and in the name of their party they demanded his co-operation in the imperative mood. He finally defied them, and declared his inde- pendence. He was chosen a delegate to the famous Buffalo convention of 1848, and was afterwards ap- pointed an elector for the Fourth Congressional Dis- trict of Indiana. One of his old anti-slavery friends furnished him a horse for the canvass, and he at once took the stump, and for about two months made the country vocal with his Free-soil speeches. He traveled on horseback, generally speaking two or three times each day, and from two to three hours at each meeting. He spoke at cross-roads, in barns, in saw-mills, in pork- houses, in carpenter's shops, in any place in which a few or many people would hear him. He was perfectly psychologized by the anti-slavery spirit, and friends and foes were alike astonished at the rapidly unfolding powers of a soul thoroughly awakened by the truth, while the latter were not a little chagrined to find that they had roused a lion when they thought to crush a worm. The result of this canvass was that, as early as the close of the year 1848, Mr. Julian's Free-soil friends nomi- nated him for Congress. Of course no one then dreamed of his election, but in the following spring the Demo- crats, smarting under their defeat on the issue of the Nicholson letter, and politically powerless in the dis- trict, were quite ready to join the Free-soilers in the congressional canvass. Samuel W. Parker, a prominent Whig politician, and regarded by his friends as one of

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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 115

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