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 II, Part 11

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Cincinnati, Ohio : Western Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1006

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 II > Part 11

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ginning, and has helped make it what it is. While en- gaged in the duties of his profession he was regarded as a careful, judicious, and well-qualified physician, and he acquired a large practice. He is a man of sterling worth of character, and during his long residence in Shelbyville has endeared himself to a large circle of friends. Having acquired a competence through the long and industrious exercise of his professional and business abilities, he now in his declining years enjoys the fruits of a well-spent life.

2000

OCKWOOD, WILLIAM OTIS, was born in West- boro, Massachusetts, February 12, 1814, and died at his home in Indianapolis as the clocks were striking midnight of Thursday, November 13, 1879. After a sharp apoplectic stroke on the previous Tuesday evening, in a coach of the Indianapolis, Cin- cinnati and Lafayette Railway, as the train was about leaving the Plum Street Depot, Cincinnati, he never re- covered a moment's consciousness. A second effusion of blood upon the brain occurred during the night of Wednesday, and thenceforward the progress towards dis- solution was rapid and sure. Mr. Rockwood's ancestry, in bothi lines of descent, was English. His father, the Rev. Doctor Elisha Rockwood, a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1802, was for twenty-seven years minister of the Westboro parish. His mother, Susanna Brigham Parkman, was daughter of Breck Parkman, Esq., a granddaughter of the Rev. Ebenezer Parkman, Esq., the first minister of Westboro, and a clergyman of wide influence. The childhood of Mr. Rockwood was passed in his native town. He studied at Leicester and Am- herst Academies, and finally entered Yale College, to complete a classical course. His passion for the sea was, however, uncontrollable. Permitted to indulge it in a cruise for mackerel, the brief experience only intensified his longing for a sailor's career. After two years at Yale, his purpose remaining unchanged, an opportunity was obtained for him as a common sailor in a cotton vessel, bound for Savannah, and thence for Liverpool. This voy- age satisfied him. He had a severe attack of " cotton" fever, and Captain Dyer's medical prescriptions were more vigorous than agreeable. Reaching home, he became a clerk in his Uncle Parkman's store; during the winter, like many New England boys, taking up the more dignified and lucrative rôle of the schoolmaster. At Westboro and Smithboro his success in maintaining discipline is still referred to by the old boys. In August following the death of his mother, which occurred June 4, 1836, he came West, to Warsaw, Illinois. He was afterwards at Quincy, where he met his future wife, Miss Helen Mar Moore, and at St. Louis, Missouri. From the wreck of business in the latter place, in the disastrous times sub-

sequent to the panic of 1837, a small farm was saved at Wert, near Madison, Indiana, whither he removed with his family. That little remnant of property was, how- ever, soon swept away for a security debt, and he set- tled at Madison as clerk, on a salary of three hundred dollars per annum. Thence he removed to Shelbyville, where he was engaged in milling and as superintendent of the new Shelbyville Lateral Branch Railroad, and finally came to Indianapolis, where he continued to reside until his death. The enterprise in which he was here at first engaged, the manufacture of railway cars, was too extensive for the place and time, and met with but partial success. Soon, however, he received the ap- pointment of treasurer of the Indianapolis and Cincin- nati Railroad, and thus at last, after so many battles with fortune, he found his career, an opportunity con- genial to his talents and tastes. For thirteen years he discharged the onerous and difficult duties of the rail- way treasurership, resigning the place in 1868, that he might bestow needed attention upon his own accumu- lated affairs. Associated with railroad men, he had become increasingly interested in all that belongs to their schemes, and was prominent in the inception of various iron industries, particularly the Indianapolis Rolling Mill and the Roane Iron Company, at Rock- wood and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Of the former he became treasurer in 1872, having previously been an influential director. The business of the latter organiza- tion, originating largely in his sagacity and perseverance, was to the last a source of pleasure and an occasion of reasonable pride. If, in addition to these external inci- dents, an attempt should be made to analyze the charac- ter of Mr. Rockwood, his acquaintances would be likely to think first of his unusual capacity for the dispatch of business. A partial list of the positions he held at the time of his death, to nearly all of which he was ac- customed to give uncommonly close attention, will suf- fice to indicate the amount of work required of him. Besides his duties at the rolling mill, quite sufficient fully to occupy a man, he was a director of the Roane Iron Company, Tennessee (of which he had also been the first president) ; of the First National Bank and the Bank of Commerce, Indianapolis; of the Franklin Fire Insurance Company, and the Bedford Railroad Company; president of the Industrial Life Association ; and treasurer of the Indianapolis Telephone Company, and the Hecla Mining Company. He was also asso- ciated with several other complicated business concerns in different states, each of which required a consider- able correspondence. But this variety and pressure of work delighted him. It seldom fretted or worried him. He could work on with composure until the last bell was ringing, and then step quietly on the rear platform of the train. Notwithstanding the extent of his corre- spondence he seldom clipped a letter or omitted a

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stroke. The penmanship was deliberate and beautiful. stood higher with those who knew him. He was a farmer, to whose hardy, honest calling he gave his entire life. At an early age he connected himself with the Bap- tist Church. He was always a consistent, upright, worthy member. The mother, Harriet Kingman, was born in the village of Vergennes, in Vermont, in 1794, and died at Pitcher Springs, Chenango County, New York. In her girlhood she was the playmate of the children of General Israel Putnam, in Vermont. For many years before her death she acknowledged the Baptist faith, though she was always very liberal in her views. Deloss Root was educated at the town of Lincklaen, Chenango County, New York, and his life, up to manhood, was spent on the farm; however, he early went into mercan- tile pursuits, and has since been actively engaged in business. In 1844 he embarked in the iron trade at New Lisbon, Columbiana County, Ohio. He came to Indianapolis in 1850, when the population numbered only seven thousand. He was then engaged in the manufacture of stoves, being the only man in that busi- ness in Indiana. He was very prosperous. In 1850 he commanded what was then regarded as an extensive trade-fifteen thousand dollars per annum-but it stead- ily advanced until, in 1868, it reached a maximum of two hundred and thirty-six thousand dollars per year. He was connected with the first rolling mill in Indian- apolis, and was also a large stockholder in the first mill for the manufacture of merchant iron (which he assisted in organizing, as well), then known as the "White River Rolling Mill." This, however, was subsequently merged into what is now the "Capital City Rolling Mill." He was interested in the "Architectural Works," in which was associated with himself Benjamin F. Haugh. Mr. Root retired in about one year, at the same time withdrawing his capital. This is now one of the largest manufacturing establishments of its kind in the state. In 1867 he was a moving spirit and one of the capitalists in the erection of a blast-furnace for ! In the direction of his latest and largest employments his facility was vastly enhanced by his mechanical in- sight. Few men without a formal training in such matters looked farther or more quickly than he into cranks and wheels. He also had a useful faculty of resting. This came partly from the composure of his nerves and partly from his enjoyment of humor. He rarely failed to be diverted by a gleam of wit; a hack- gammon board unfailingly untangled thought; he en- joyed good talkers, and his frequent journeys were always occasions of amusement and rest. Doubtless the quality, and the quantity too, of his work was favorably affected by a certain calmness of judgment, a judicial temper of mind. He took time to hear from both parties, to look at the other side. He was not easily jostled by excitements around him. While feel- ing the deepest interest in questions of public policy, he cast his vote without fury. More important is it, however, to observe Mr. Rockwood's moral traits. He was marked by a conspicuous integrity. It pleased him to do right, to deal fairly. Nothing was so sure to stir the last drop of blood in him as the raising of a ques- tion about his probity. His capacity for friendship was also remarkable. In the midst of the most urgent en- gagements he was capable of writing every day to a man he loved, and for months and years each day ardently looking for the reply. For humanity in general he had a kindly side, trusting men too readily for safety, out of mere good nature or genuine pity. It was seldom that in ordinary conversation he could be betrayed into saying a word in disparagement of any body. He was far more likely to revive some innocent anecdote recalling one's weaknesses, than to publish any thing looking like a fault. Mr. Rockwood was republican in the simplicity of all his tastes. Old world nobilities and class distinctions he thoroughly disliked. He wanted no fustian or pre- tense. Things done for mere pomp were, to him, im- Ir cral things. An intelligent and firm believer in Chris- ! the production of pig-iron, at Brazil City, Clay County, Indiana. This was not only the first established in the state, but the largest in the West. This furnace ran uanity, he was, at the time of his death, a member of Memorial Presbyterian Church. Besides his widow, three children survive him: Helen Mar, wife of the ; steadily and did a large business, the quantity and Rev. Hanford A. Edson; William E., and Charles B.

OOT, DELOSS, of Indianapolis, was born on the third day of February, 1819, in the town of Cin- cinnatus, Cortland County, New York. His

father, Aaron Root, was born at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1781, coming West with his family in 1837, and locating at Hartford, Trumbull County, Ohio, whence, in 1852, he came to Indianapolis, where he lived till his death, August 30, 1854. A modest, unas- suming man, none could say aught against him, none

quality of the iron made always securing for it a ready market. He only recently severed his connection there- with. In 1870, assisted by one other gentleman, he built a similar furnace in Hardin County, Illinois. Mr. Root has been connected with two banks. In 1854 he was appointed by the state a director of the Bank of the State of Indiana, and continued as such until it

was merged into a national bank.

Then he as-

sisted in organizing the First National Bank of the city. He was the third largest stockholder therein, and was a director for about ten years. In connec- tion with Hon. W. H. English and Doctor H. R. Allen, he purchased the street railway, which they con-

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ducted for a number of years. But the enterprise in | in the city, containing seven store-rooms, and requiring which the services of Mr. Root did more directly one and one-half millions of brick in its construc- tion. He is at present connected with the Indian- apolis Stove Company as its president; the com- pany was organized in 1850, being incorporated in to advance the interests of Indianapolis, and wherein perhaps, than any other man, he did more that is worthy a place on the page of the city's history, is the establishment of the present excellent system of 1857. The business is that of manufacturers of stoves, water works. The owners of the canal were Eastern iron fronts, and castings, and they are also dealers in men, who had labored for three or four years in their tinners' stock. The foundry is one of the most com- plete in the western country. It has two molding- rooms, and is thoroughly supplied with all the latest improved machinery and other appliances to facilitate the business and economize labor. Each year they attempts to get a sufficiently large number of the citi- zens to take hold of a plan to establish such a system, operating it with the canal as the motive power. J. O. Woodruff, son of the heaviest owner in the canal, spent two years in trying to organize a company, but manufacture about six thousand stoves, besides a large seemed on the point of failing, when one day he called amount of other casting, requiring, in all, about twelve hundred tons of iron per annum. In all these enter- upon Mr. Root at his office to counsel with him, saying he could get nobody interested in the project. He prises the greatest number of men employed is perhaps came again at noon, as he had been requested to do, three hundred and fifty. In the one establishment there and was referred to the following parties, as men most likely to engage in the scheme : Hon. Thomas A. Hen- dricks, William Henderson, William Braden, and J. O.

Woodruff, all of whom, with Mr. Root, took part in the

matter. Without a dollar of capital they went to work.

Many said that it could not be done, that they were

striving against impossibilities, but the sequel tells.

He went to Louisville, Kentucky, and contracted with Dennis Long for three thousand tons of pipe for water,

Long taking the bonds of the company at par. This

purchase of pipe and sale of bonds gave the movement

an impetus, and now the city has as a result, in propor-

tion to its size, the best system of water works in the

United States. Much credit is due the subject of this

sketch for his soundness of judgment and his perse-

verance, without which the whole undertaking would most certainly have failed of success. He laid eighteen miles of the pipe himself. In the old Indianapolis In- surance Company, now the Franklin Fire Insurance Com-

pany, he was a stockholder and director, and only quite

recently has his stock been sold and his directorship re-

ize, in which he was stockholder and director. He was signed. A bridge-building company he helped to organ-

one of the first stockholders in the Cincinnati Railroad ; a stockholder and director in the Evansville and Indian- apolis Railroad, which was never completed ; interested

in the North and South Railroad, and in the Indian- apolis, Delphi and Chicago Railroad, and the Indian- apolis and Cincinnati Junction, now the Hamilton and Dayton Railroad, and a dealer in the stock of others. He also dealt largely in real estate, laying out Allen & Root's addition, and Allen, Root & English's Woodlawn Addition, together with several smaller ones, aggregat-

ing, in sale of lots, over one million dollars. With all

this he yet found time to engage in building. He has

erected no less than one hundred houses-dwellings and

business houses. Root's Block, at the corner of South and Pennsylania Streets, is the largest single block

are now over one hundred employed. The great amount of work done, and the general prosperity of the busi- ness, give evidence of the solidity, tact, shrewdness, and indomitable energy which characterize his manage- ment of things. During the war he was a heavy con-

tractor for army supplies. It would be difficult to find

a man of greater ability in his calling, or one of readier

dispatch. At one time he was director of a bank, of

an insurance company ; was at the head of all his iron works, besides attending to half a score of other matters.

His goods now are selling most in a territory compris-

ing Central and Western Indiana and Eastern Illinois.

Mr. Root is a member of the Episcopalian Church, having for many years been a vestry-man. He was married to Miss Kate H. Howard, August 15, 1861, at Trinity Church, New York. She is a daughter of the late Major Robert Howard, of the English army, who

had a very eventful and honorable career. He was Irish by descent, his ancestry dating back to the battle of the Boyne. He was a prominent man in the politics of Canada in 1837, and was of exceptional bravery. His home was in Montreal. She has proved a faithful and loving wife, and of this union have come five chil- dren, all boys, only one of whom, the youngest, and a

precocious child, is now living, the others having died at the age of five or six years. Mr. Root is rather short, but heavy, and with fewer gray hairs to tell of his sixty years than might be expected. His eyes are black, bright, and, when he becomes animated in con- versation, sparkling, giving expression to those traits, heretofore referred to, which have characterized his business life, and which have enabled him to push for- ward so successfully the numerous and always gigantic enterprises in which he has been interested, and many of which he inaugurated. Such is the life-record of this quiet, modest, unostentatious business man, who has won for himself an honorable place among the citi- zens of this community, and which the sterling elements

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of his life will enable him to maintain. He is truly the architect of his eminent success, and his remarkable career is most worthy of emulation; and when he shall have passed away the enterprises in the inauguration of which he was the prime mover, and which have done so much to develop the great manufacturing and other industries of Indianapolis, will stand, not only as enduring monuments to his memory, but they will ennoble it.

USS, GEORGE W., adjutant-general of the state of Indiana, was born on the 8th of June, 1845, in a log-cabin in Weston Township, Wood County, Ohio. His father had moved into the wilderness a few months before, and commenced the opening of a little farm, which he purchased for one dol- lar and fifty cents per acre, which he paid by cutting and splitting rails and constructing a fence, at the rate of one hundred rails for one dollar. Here the early childhood of General Russ was passed, amid the homely experiences and trying hardships of a frontier life. In his ninth year he attended his first term of school, in a small log school-house two miles distant from his father's cabin. The way to school was through swamps, which were crossed by the boy upon logs on all fours, a method of transit known among frontiersmen as " coon- ing." With all its hardships, there is a charm about frontier life which renders every incident connected with it dear to the memory of those who have passed their childhood in such scenes. He continued-during the winter months only, however-to attend this school till he was twelve years old, when he prevailed upon his father to permit him to attend a select school at Gilead, Ohio, under an agreement by which the boy was to provide for his own maintenance, his father paying the price of tuition. An arrangement was made with a Mr. Pratt, a wealthy gentleman of Gilead, in whose family young Russ was given his board in con- sideration of his services in taking care of the horses, making the fires, and performing other duties. This opportunity for the acquisition of knowledge was of short duration ; for, a wet season having destroyed his father's crops, he returned to render what aid he could in the support of the family. For this purpose he hired himself to the captain of a canal boat at six dol- lars per month. He soon found the work imposed upon him beyond his capacity. After having been thrown into the canal upon his failure, in some trivial matter, to satisfy the irate mate of the slow-moving craft, he quitted his employment in disgust, after a service of three weeks, abandoning his wages. He next hired himself to Mr. James Ross, a farmer, for whom he worked two months, at seven dollars per month, re- ceiving much assistance in his studies from his em-

[ ployer's oldest daughter, who was a school-teacher. He then devoted himself for a year to assisting his father in clearing and ditching his little farm of fifty-four acres, and, in winter, cutting logs and hauling them to the saw-mill, and feeding cattle, of which his father had a large number. He was now in his fourteenth year. He never abandoned his studies, but employed all his leisure in acquiring knowledge from such sources as he could find. He read all the old books in his neighbor- hood. His parents, though uneducated, constantly en- couraged his love of study, and stimulated his ambition, rendering him every advantage that their limited re- sources could command. He was always greatly at- tached to the sport of hunting with dog and gun. The region in which he lived abounded in game, the pursuit of which not only furnished amusement, but also pro- vided the means of purchasing clothing and adding to his little stock of books. Many a time after a hard day's work the night was spent in the swamps hunting for 'coons. A good "'coon dog" was more highly prized than a horse ; and a good gun was an indispen- sable companion. Once in his early childhood he saw a pack of wolves tear to pieces his father's only cow, within sight of the cabin home, a loss from which the little household of the pioneer suffered for many months. At the age of fifteen he again enjoyed the aid of a teacher. A Mr. Kelley had erected of round logs a school-house and a large building for the accommoda- tion of students. This primitive educational establish- ment, situated in the forest south-west of Fremont, Ohio, was known as Kelley's Academy. The pro- prietor, like his buildings, was rugged and uncouth in appearance, but beneath his rough exterior was a pol- ished mind. He had few equals in his ability to im- part knowledge. He had the faculty of awakening in his students a desire for the acquisition of learning, and a rare capacity for leading their minds in its search. Young Russ remained at this school for three months, paying for his board and washing by clearing ground for Mr. Kelley in the mornings and evenings and on Saturdays, his father sending a five-dollar gold piece as part of the cost of his tuition, the remainder of the fee being afterwards discharged by the pupil out of his pay as a private soldier. After leaving this academy the young man was examined by the county board of Wood County, for a license. A few days afterwards he re- ceived a communication from them which spoke in flattering terms of his attainments, but informed him that he was too young to teach. This was a severe blow to his aspirations after his long struggle. He had no means for further pursuing his studies, and could not hope for further assistance from his father. He endeavored to content himself upon the farm, but every day brought greater discontent. He at last re- solved to offer his services to his country in the war for

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the preservation of the Union, and, without the knowl- | found himself raised to the position of assistant wagon edge of his family, enlisted as a private in Company G master, and second in command of sixty wagons, about three hundred and fifty mules, and one hundred and twenty most profane mule-drivers. This situation he greatly enjoyed, with the novelty of plenty to eat without any diminution of hardship, but with an intermixture of fun and excitement sufficient to satisfy for the time his love of adventure. On arriving at Clinch River, three weeks later, he rode up to Colonel Kise, now residing at Leb- anon, Boone County, Indiana, and tendered his services in an engagement with guerrillas, who were momentarily expected. Colonel Kise, glancing at the ragged and soiled mule conductor and the haggard and dispirited mule which he bestrode, said: "Young man, if you know where you belong, you'd better get there at once, or I'll arrest you as a spy and bushwhacker, and have you shot." Not deriving much encouragement from this remark, the young and almost disconsolate adventurer beat a precipitate retreat to his mule brigade. After crossing Clinch River he learned that his regi- ment was at Knoxville. Becoming weary of the monot- ony of train life, he determined to find some more expeditious mode of travel ; and one beautiful morning, as daylight broke over the mountains, he might have been seen astride a splendid horse, careering over the hills and through the valleys on his way to Mossy Creek, the nearest railroad point, seventy miles away. His magnificent charger carried him safely to his desti- nation in eighteen hours, through a region infested with bushwhackers, who, if they had not mistaken him for one of their own kind, would have made him one of the "missing." He was too cautious to stop to feed his animal, which he left, jaded and foam-covered, standing in the street at Mossy Creek, while he boarded a freight train passing in the direction of Knoxville. At Knoxville he learned that his regi- ment was at Loudon Bridge, where he arrived late the next evening, and was received by his comrades with uproarious demonstrations of gladness; and a bountiful repast of turkey, brought in by the for- agers that day, was spread in his honor. He found that he had been promoted during his absence to the office of sergeant. A few days after his arrival he was engaged in a severe contest with the enemy, his regiment being a portion of the rear-guard of Burnside's army, on its retreat to Knoxville before the pursuing forces of Longstreet. For the first time he was now a participant in a real engagement. He had been in sev- eral skirmishes, but he found it a new experience to retreat with a whole brigade firing at him at short range. His back seemed broader than ever before. He was next engaged at Campbell's Station on the same retreat, the enemy, under Longstreet, formed in three lines of battle, following in plain view and close range of the 21st Ohio Volunteers. He accompanied the reg- iment to Findlay, Ohio, but soon after his arrival there he was taken seriously ill with fever. He was conveyed by his comrades to a hotel, where he lay unconscious for several days. His father, learning of his illness, sent to him his older brother, who took him home. He was excused from returning, as he had not been mus- tered in. He remained at home, working for his father and the neighbors, until the next summer, when he en- listed again as a private, in Company K, 111th Ohio Volunteers. A long march, made in the heat of sum- mer, again made him ill, and he was sent to the West End Hospital, Cincinnati, soon recovering. He rejoined his regiment at Louisville, Kentucky, and marched with them to Bowling Green. His next active service was during the raid of the Confederate Morgan, in 1863. His regiment was stationed at Tompkinsville when Morgan, on the 4th of July, crossed the Cumberland. To escape capture, the Union forces marched, under a broiling sun, over hot sands, thirty miles without a halt, to Glasgow, whence they proceeded to the Ohio River. He remained with his regiment, a part of General M. D. Manson's command, on board transports, guarding the Ohio, to prevent the raiders from recrossing into Kentucky, until the capture of Morgan, when he was detailed, with others, to guard the prisoners to Indian- apolis. This was the first time he ever visited that city, which afterwards became, and still continues to be, his home. On his return to Cincinnati, he again fell dangerously ill, and when his regiment departed upon the campaign in Eastern Tennessee he was left lying on his blanket on the floor of the Cincinnati de- pot, burning with fever and racked with pain. A kind citizen took pity upon his helplessness and procured for him comfortable quarters, when he speedily recovered. This act of kindness, while it resulted in the restoration of his health, caused him to be arrested as a straggler, which could not have happened had he been left at a military hospital, where he might have been properly ac- counted for. He soon was able to elude the vigilance of his guards, and crossed over to Kentucky, determined to make a desperate effort to rejoin his regiment, then at Cumberland Gap. With no transportation, he was obliged to make his way as best he could. Driven by hunger, he applied for food at the invalid barracks at Camp Nelson, near Lexington, Kentucky, and was again arrested as a straggler. Having satisfied his craving for food and rested his weary feet, he managed, the same night, with a replenished haversack, to scale the fence within twenty feet of the sentinel on duty. The next day he fell in with a wagon train loaded with army stores, bound for Eastern Tennessee, and took passage with it as an educator of wild mules. In a few days he | the army of Burnside, which retired in order of battle,

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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 II, Part 11

Author: Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Cincinnati, Ohio : Western Biographical Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1006

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Cincinnati, Ohio : Western Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1006