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 75

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

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humble life to an honored position in the community. An old author says: "There is merit without elevation, but there is no elevation without some merit."

IATT, ALLEN RILEY, hardware merchant, of Randolph County, was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, February 20, 1829. His father, John Hiatt, was a native of the same state; and his mother, Rachel Glandon, was born in South Caro- lina. Allen Hiatt is the youngest of nine children. Owing to the death of his father, in the year 1831, the care and responsibility of the family devolved on his mother. With a firm trust in Him who has promised to be a friend to the widow, and a father to the father- less, she nobly met and discharged these duties. Hav- ing herself been in the midst of slavery, she taught her children to abhor the system. In 1833 she removed with her family to Randolph County, Indiana. Of necessity, his education was limited; but, being stim- ulated and encouraged by his mother, his acquirements were above those of the average scholar, and he began teaching school before he was twenty years of age, con- tinuing for five or six years. His mother died in 1844. Although Mr. Hiatt was then but fifteen years of age, such was her faithfulness in instilling the principle of honesty and integrity in his young mind, that it ever afterwards influenced his course and actions in life. In 1856 he entered a store in Ridgeville as salesman and bookkeeper. In 1861 he was employed by Thomas Ward in a hardware store, of which he became the owner in 1865, and where he still continues in the business. Mr. Hiatt is a Royal Arch Mason, having joined the order in 1857. He is not a member of any Church, but holds to the Universalist belief. He married Mary A. Clark, in 1851, by whom he has eight children now living. He believes that "honesty is the best policy," and through all his commercial transactions has made it one of his cardinal principles never to mis- represent any article offered for sale. By diligently pursuing this course he has built up a profitable busi- ness, and, at the same time, has been an honor to the occupation in which he is engaged.

ELM, JEFFERSON, M. D., retired physician and capitalist, of Rushville, though not a native of Indiana, has been identified with her history for more than two-thirds of a century. He is de- scended from the Anglo-Saxons and the Scotch. His paternal grand-parents emigrated at an early day from England to Mason County, Kentucky, where he was born November 27, 1803. His mother's family came

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from Scotland, her native land, and settled in Pennsyl- | elected to the Senate from the county of Rush, which vania near Pittsburgh, where her father was accidentally was then a senatorial district, and served one term of four years. In 1858, having shown himself, in the in- vestment of the proceeds of his practice and in the management of his business, to be an excel- lent financier, Governor Morton appointed him sink- ing fund commissioner, an office he held two years, being one of the three commissioners who, with a president and cashier, had charge of five mill- ion dollars. Two years prior to this Doctor Helm removed to Rushville, and soon after abandoned practice. In the Civil War, at the call for more sur- geons, he was appointed surgeon of the 27th Indiana Infantry, but was favored, on account of age and intimate friendship with Governor Morton, by being placed on the easy service. He served at Shiloh, Louisville, Madison, and Evansville. Doctor Helm is a very large land-owner, his possessions comprising about nine hun- dred acres in Rush and two thousand in adjoining counties, besides a large property in Indianapolis. He helped organize the Rushville National Bank, of which he has since been a director. He married, April 28, 1831, Miss Eliza Arnold, a native of the Isle of Wight, England, and cousin of John Arnold, M. D. By this marriage he has had six children: Alice, wife of B. F. Claypool, a prominent attorney of Connersville ; Eliza- beth, wife of William A. Pattison, a wholesale druggist of Indianapolis; William H., a farmer; Jefferson, an able lawyer of Rushville; Captain Isaac A., 5th United States Infantry, who was first breveted lieuten- ant-colonel, then colonel, and died of cholera in 1867 at Fort Zarah, Kansas, of which he was in command ; and the youngest, Mrs. H. P. Cutter, a widow. Their mother died in 1866. Though seventy-five years old, Doctor Helm is still in possession of vigorous faculties, and attends almost as actively as ever to his business, which is buying and selling land. By this he has amassed an honest fortune. His pecuniary success is largely due to his strong common sense and remarkable judgment ; he reads men by intuition, rather than by the knowledge gained from experience, though that is extensive. While practicing his profession his diagno- sis seemed the swift result of intuition, instead of the slow conclusion of reason ; but this natural facility did not cause him to neglect the study of the science of medicine, and when he closed his professional career he 'was among the best qualified physicians of the state. With these superior talents is united a moral excellence that heightens the character of his influence and exalts him in public regard. Doctor Helm is very widely known. He has been for a very long time in practice, and has formed an extensive acquaintance all through the state. There is a great difference between the call- ing of a medical man now and what it was in the be- ginning of this century. killed. They afterward removed to Kentucky. Before their marriage his father, William Helm, and his mother, Elizabeth Drummond, were inmates of Bryant's Station during its memorable siege by the Indians; and the father was engaged for some time in the border wars. March 10, 1811, the family came to Indiana Territory, and settled on the Whitewater River, five miles below Connersville, in what was known as the " Twelve-mile Purchase." Here Mr. Helm bought three quarter sections of land, and began clearing it. At the beginning of the War of 1812, he was commis- sioned major, and placed in command of the troops guarding the frontier. They were garrisoned in block- houses, built about six miles apart, and extending from the Ohio to Fort Wayne. Before leaving home he pro- tected his cabin by a stockade and trench, that his family might resist an attack. Many were their days and nights of anxious watchfulness; but, happily, the savage foe never did more than to menace them by skulking through the surrounding forest. Major Helm was a brave soldier and a prominent and successful business man. His son Jefferson worked on the farm until the age of sixteen, when he began reading medi- cine in the office of Mason & Moffett, the latter of whom was a skilled physician. Up to this time his winters had been spent at a common school in a rough log house with greased paper windows ; and he never attended school in a building provided with the luxury of glass windows. But, though the houses were rude, the teachers were well qualified. He continued his medical studies three years, living meantime with the Mason family. At the end of that period he formed a partnership with his preceptor, Doctor Philip Mason, and commenced practice in Fayetteville, Rush County. After one year Doctor Mason returned to Connersville, and Doctor Helm went to a point three miles north, and there laid out the village of Vienna, now Glen- wood. He remained there till about the year 1845, when he removed to what is now Farmington, and two years later founded Farmington Academy, where three of his children were prepared for college. Before com- mencing practice he passed a very rigid examination by the Board of Censors of the Third Medical District, at the first annual meeting of the society. This body was organized in 1827, under a special act of the Legisla- ture; but in 1839 was merged into the Fifth District Indiana Medical Society, of which he became a charter member, and occupied the position either of censor or president as long as it existed. With his medical skill and knowledge Doctor Helm combined large political intelligence and ability, and in 1850, as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, he helped to revise the fundamental law of the state. Two years later he was

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ELM, DOCTOR JOHN C., late of Muncie. This sketch is copied from an obituary published in the Muncie Times of April, 1872: "Doctor John C. Helm departed this life on last Monday, April 8, after a lingering and painful illness. At the time of his death he was in his sixtieth year, having been born October 10, 1812. The place of his nativity was Dan- bridge, Jefferson County, Tennessee. His parents were honorable and pious, and from them Doctor Helm inher- ited many of his marked characteristics. He was a man of remarkably clear thought, strong conviction, and an unconquerable spirit ; whatever he did, he did it from conviction and not impulse. Yet he was a man of ten- derest sympathies, ever entering into the troubles and sorrows which afflicted his neighbors. Ofttimes he has been known to stop on the street and soothe the grief of a little child. He was also a man of deep religious faith. He inherited from his parents a spirit of earnest devotion to the cause of his Divine Master, and his love for Christ led him to loathe with unutterable feelings a trickster in the Church, or one who maintained a sham zeal for the cause of morality. Doctor Helm entered the Church very early in life, at what time, however, can not now be clearly ascertained. He was at one time an hon- ored and very efficient elder in the Presbyterian Church of this city. For reasons fully satisfactory to his own mind, he was compelled to leave the Church in which he was born, and which he loved and labored for so earnestly. Those causes which drove him from the Church were a source of unmingled sorrow to him down to his last moments of consciousness. His heart was true and loyal to his Church, and yet, without sacrificing all that a man holds dear to his home, he could not do otherwise than he did. He died loving the Presbyte- rian Church of Muncie and praying for its prosperity, wishing his enemies all the blessings of Almighty God. Doctor Helm's worth as a Christian was not appreci- ated until he passed away; then it became apparent to all. As a physician he had few superiors. He was ever honorable to his brethren in the profession, and extended to them the fullest charity. Those whom Doctor Helm visited as a physician, and to whom he ministered, will long and tenderly remember him. He entered his pro- fession very early in life. Studying with his father, he commenced practicing in his native town of Danbridge in his eighteenth year, 1830; and for the long period of forty-two years, by day and night, in storm and sun- shine, did this man go from house to house, soothing the afflicted, administering to the necessities of the un- fortunate. How many during that long period have arisen and called him blessed ! and yet, after those forty- two years of unceasing hard labor for the good of others, Doctor John C. Helm died a poor man. Like his noble companion, Doctor Willard, who has just preceded him, he has given his life for the good of

others has died a sacrifice to his profession; and the whole community owe him a monument more durable than brass-the monument of grateful remembrance. Doctor John C. Helm was married three times : in 1835, to Miss Ruth Nicholson, of Tennessee; in 1838, to Miss Mary Norris, of Preble County, Ohio; and in 1854, to Miss Eliza M. S. Cox, who now survives to mourn his loss. A good man has passed away ; may we remem- ber his good, and may this community learn to appre- ciate the sacrifices of our board of noble physicians in this place, and hold them in esteem for 'their work's sake.'" Upon the death of Doctor Helm a set of res- olutions was adopted by the Delaware County Medical Society, and by Muncie Lodge, No. 74, Independent Order of Odd-fellows. We publish those framed by the medical society :

" Whereas, It has pleased our Heavenly Father at this time to terminate the useful earthly career of our senior brother, Doctor John C. Helm ; therefore, be it

" Resolved, That, in the death of Doctor Helm, this society has lost a member whose thorough medical ed- ucation, great experience, extraordinary ability, diag- nosis, and strict observance of the code of medical ethics, entitled him to the appellation of 'the best counseling physician in Delaware County.'

" Resolved, That, in the death of our professional brother, the community at large has lost one of its best physicians, and one of its chief cultivators, writers, and promoters of scientific horticulture, and in many other respects one of its most valuable citizens.

" Resolved, That we tender to the bereaved family of Doctor Helm the assurance of our heart-felt sympa- thy with them in their great affliction.

" Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting be published in the county newspapers, and the State Med- ical Journal.

" Resolved, That the society attend the funeral in a body. " H. C. WINANS, "N. W. BLACK, " ROBERT WINTON.

"On motion, the resolutions were adopted, and the society adjourned.

"G. W. H. KEMPER, President, pro. tem. " M. JAMES, Secretary, pro. tem."

IBBERD, JAMES FARQUHAR, M. D., was born at what is now known as Monrovia, Frederick County, Maryland, November 4, 1816. He was the fifth son of Joseph and Rachel Hibberd, who were members of the society of Friends, and whose an- cestors came to Pennsylvania with William Penn. His paternal grandmother was of the Sharples, or Sharpless, family, of Pennsylvania. His mother's maiden name was Wright, of the Warren County (Ohio) family of Wrights, formerly of Pipe Creek, Carroll County, Mary- land, where there was a large relationship among the Farquhars and Shepherds. Doctor Hibberd's ordinary education was begun and continued for a number of

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years in a country school, and was completed in Benja- min Hallowell's Classical School, at Alexandria, Vir- ginia. His opportunities for school education were limited, but from early youth he was a very industrious reader, which gave him a wide range of information, but without definite system or point, because he had access to only a meager assortment of books in the be- ginning, and never had advice as to a proper course of reading. His parents removed from Maryland to War- ren County, Ohio, in 1825, and he accompanied them ; but in the autumn of 1826 he went to Martinsburg, now West Virginia, to his father's brother, Aaron Hib- berd, with whom he lived until the spring of 1837, when he returned to his parents, at Springboro, Ohio. Aaron Hibberd was the owner of a large farm and a woolen manufactory, and the subject of this sketch spent the summers of the ten years he lived with his uncle in labor alternately on the farm and in the factory, and the winters of the same period in school. After his re- turn to Ohio he engaged one year in farming with his father, but the occupation was not to his taste; and, having attained his majority, he accepted an invitation of his cousin, Doctor Aaron Wright, of Springboro, Ohio, to enter his office as a student of medicine. In 1839 and 1840 he attended his first course of lectures in the Medical Department of Yale College, New Haven, Connecticut, and was for the time a private pupil of Doctor Tomlinson. Under the advice of his preceptors and others, he entered on practice in the summer of 1840, opening an office in the village of Salem, Mont- gomery County, Ohio, just as the only doctor in the village removed to the West. This event left a wide expanse of well-settled country open to the enterprise of the young doctor, which he was fortunate enough to make fruitful by entering at once into an extensive and profitable practice. The Doctor speaks of this era as one of peculiar enjoyment. He had been dependent on his own hands, head, and character for the means to obtain his professional education and start in business, and now at once to emerge from the close application of a student in-doors, with its impecunious present and uncertain future, into full, paying practice, involving active out-door exercise, on foot and on horseback, and sufficient and congenial mental occupation; and lifting the veil of the future, so that close at hand he saw his coming ability to make recompense to those incompara- ble friends who had always been true and steadfast in faith and works when a failure must of necessity have changed the whole current of his life; to emerge thus, and change the environment, was like entering a new world, and his whole being, physical and immaterial, responded to the new and invigorating inspiration. It was almost a matter of course that Doctor Hibberd should immediately take an active part in the manage- ment of the schools, and in literary and social organiza-

tions, the establishment of an Odd-fellows' lodge, and presently become earnestly engaged in local politics, and a little further on in general politics, which led to his election to the Ohio Legislature in 1845, and his re-election in 1846. But this service was distasteful. Withdrawing entirely from politics, he devoted himself to his profession ; and, intending to make Dayton, Ohio, his permanent home, as a preparatory step he attended a graduating course of lectures in the College of Physi- cians and Surgeons, New York, in 1848 and 1849; but in March, 1849, just as the commencement exercises were about to be inaugurated, he was tendered the situation of surgeon on the commercial steamer "Sena- tor," and in three days was at sea in that capacity. The "Senator" visited Para, on the Amazon River; Rio Janeiro, in Brazil; lay up a month in the Island of St. Catherine's for repairs; was for two months in the Straits of Magellan and the Patagonian Archipelago in the depths of winter-a dark and dismal time in that high latitude, with an uninhabited wilderness of mount- ains bordering the narrow passages in which they sailed and loitered. After stopping for a time at San Carlos, in the Island of Chiloe ; at Valparaiso, Callao, Lima, Panama, and Acapulco, the steamer arrived at San Francisco, in the latter part of October, 1849, in the midst of that intense excitement which followed the discovery of gold in the sands of the California rivers. This voyage of the "Senator" was full of variety; twice the ship was in the most imminent peril of foundering at sea, and once of being wrecked on the inhospitable coast of Patagonia; and was so long un- heard of that the friends of her officers and crew had for months given them up as lost, yet the varied expe- rience derived from a visit to a city under the Equator, and a call at a penal station in a latitude approach- ing the Antarctic Circle, with large examination of ports and shores and peoples intermediate, afforded an opportunity to an inquiring and retentive mind to gather knowledge useful in all after life. To the in- struction thus received was added the advantage of a six years' residence in California, among a population as cosmopolitan in character as picturesque in appearance. These years were devoted to professional engagements, commercial enterprises, mining occupations, real estate operations, and travels from the head-waters of Feather River to the Mohave Desert, and all along the coast, producing the usual fluctuations in fortune that were the experience of the great majority of early Californians. Wealth accumulated as if by magic, and disappeared as if by sorcery ; coming in a stroke of good luck, without the exercise of unusual acumen ; going in an unlucky whirl of fortune's wheel, without the fault of unusual carelessness. To have lived from 1849 to 1855 in Cali- fornia, but chiefly in San Francisco and Los Angeles, was to have an opportunity to study nature, animate, in-

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animate, and human, under circumstances that will not offer again in a century, if ever. During his sojourn on the Pacific slope, Doctor Hibberd made a visit to his old home and friends in the autumn of 1853, cross- ing Central America by the Nicaragua route, and re- turning by the way of Panama, before the railroad was completed. In October, 1855, he closed his business in California, returned to the "States," and spent the win- ter reviewing professional science, availing himself, for this purpose, of the facilities offered by his Alma Mater in New York, and in June following opened an office in Dayton, Ohio; but in October, 1856, removed to Richmond, Indiana, where he has remained since. In his new home, favoring influences quickly opened the way to active practice, and for many years he did the leading business in Eastern Indiana. In the spring of 1869, abandoning his active professional life, he passed down by way of the Mammoth Cave, Memphis, and the Mississippi River to New Orleans, thence through Mo- bile, Atlanta, Knoxville, and Washington to New York, where, with a friend, he embarked for Havre, France, and the Old World, on the 15th of May. A year was spent abroad, going as far north as Amsterdam and Berlin; as far south and west as Seville and Cadiz, in Spain; across the Strait to Tangiers in Morocco, Africa; and then to Gibraltar, Malaga, and through Spain to Barcelona; and then embarking for Marseilles, France. Having visited all the principal cities and noted places in Western and Central Europe, crossing the Alps twice, to enjoy the mountains and the Italian lakes, a party of six, two ladies and four gentlemen, met by agreement early in October, at Vienna, Austria, to be- gin a journey to the Orient. From Vienna to Pesth, and across the plains of Hungary to the Danube where it enters the Carpathian Mountains; down the Danube, through scenery of unparalleled grandeur and beauty, to Rustchuk, in Turkey; thence by rail to Varna, on the Black Sea, and thence by steamer to Constantinople. From there to Athens, touching at Syra, and across the Grecian Archipelago to Smyrna, in Asia Minor; and thence to Beyrout, in Syria, touching at Cyprus. Leav- ing Beyrout by caravan, they crossed Lebanon to the ruins of Baalbec, and then crossed Anti-Lebanon to Damascus, and down by the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth, and Nablous to Jerusalem, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea. Embarking again, at Joppa, they arrived in Egypt about the first of December, and ascended the Nile to the first cataract, seeing all the wonders of that wonderful land. Early in January, 1870, the party separated. Doctor Hibberd and his companion crossed the Mediterranean to Sicily and Italy, and, having visited all places of note therein, arrived at Turin about the middle of March, to find the Transmontane Railroad blockaded with snow (the tunnel was not then completed) ; they were compelled to cross the Alps on

sledges over the Mont Cenis Pass. After again visit- ing Geneva, Paris, and London, they returned home late in April. Two trips to California, by rail, since his return from Europe, with shorter journeys to sundry parts of the Union, complete the record of the Doctor's travels to date. Immediately after the battle of Stone River, January 1, 1863, he took charge of a volunteer party of surgeons and nurses that were actively em- ployed for a month at Murfreesborough, Tennessee, but he had no official connection with the army. The Doc- tor became a member of Eaton Medical Society in 1842; a member of the Ohio Medical Convention in 1844, and continued for several years, being its secretary, when some of its members originated the State Medical So- ciety of Ohio, in 1847, which latter he assisted to or- ganize, being the secretary. He is now an honorary member of the society. He was a member of the Montgomery County (Ohio) Medical Society in 1856; a member of the Wayne County (Indiana) Medical So- ciety in 1857, and has been so ever since; he was its secretary for several years, and its president in 1860, and several times subsequently. He is a member of the Union District Medical Society, and was its president in 1874; became a member of the State Medical Society of Indiana in 1860, and was its secretary in 1861-62, president of it in 1863, and is still an active and influ- ential member. He is a member, and now president, of the Tri-state Medical Society of Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. He became a member of the American Med- ical Association in 1863; was its first vice-president, in 1866; its representative to the British Medical Association in August, 1869, and its representative to the International Medical Congress, at Florence, Italy, September, 1869. He was a member of the select committee of the Amer- ican Medical Association in 1864, to revise its constitu- tion and by-laws, and has been the chairman of many of its important committees from year to year. He is a member of the Rocky Mountain Medical Association. He was for a long time chairman of the Richmond Med- ical Club, an active professional association that kept no permanent record. He is an honorary member of the Ohio State Medical Society, an honorary member of the California State Medical Society, of the Muncie District Medical Society, and of several county med- ical societies. He has been the president and man- ager of numerous social, literary, and scientific societies, and was for several years president of the Richmond Scientific Association. It has already been stated that he was twice elected to the Ohio Legislature from Mont- gomery County, namely, in 1845 and 1846. During his first year's service he was an active participant in changing the law for assessment of property for taxa- tion from a specific tax on many things to an ad valorem valuation on all things-a radical change, the idea of which was due to Senator Kelly, of Columbus. During

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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 75

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