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 110

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 110

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mitted to practice at the bar. The following month he opened an office in Warsaw, where he has ever since re- sided, except when professional or official duties neces- sitated a brief absence. In politics Judge Frazer was originally a Whig, but since the dissolution of that party he has been an active worker in the ranks of its legitimate successor-the party of Lincoln, Chase, Sum- ner, and Morton. In 1847, 1848, and 1854, Judge Frazer represented his county in the state Legislature. During the last session of his service in that body, his efforts were mainly devoted to procuring the establish- ment of the common school system of the state. Pre- vious legislation to that end had been rendered ineffect- ual by decisions of the Supreme Court; and, by the wish of the leading friends of education, he was placed at the head of that committee, and thus charged with the im-

RANCIS, HARRY H., editor and proprietor of the Dispatch, of Michigan City, Indiana, was born in that place, February 24, 1852. Ilis fa- ther, a native of Kentucky, died April 17, 1880. He was one of the oldest settlers in Northern Indiana, having gone there in 1832. At the age of seventeen, Mr. Francis entered Racine College, Wisconsin; he went through the regular collegiate course and graduated with full honors, in 1873. The following October he entered the Law Department of Michigan University, at Ann Arbor. During vacation he read law in the office portant subject. He gave his whole heart and mind to

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the matter ; and the result was the school law of 1855, which may be said to be the beginning of the admirable public school system now the boast and pride of Indiana. With a few amendments, the most important of which were urged by Mr. Frazer, that act is still in force, and may be regarded as permanent. He was elected prose- cuting attorney in 1852, and in 1862 received the ap- pointment of assessor of internal revenue. His retire- ment from this office in 1864 practically ended his political career. During the six years following 1865 he was one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of In- diana. Under the treaty with Great Britain, May 8, 1871, President Grant appointed him the United States commissioner, to adjust claims against this government by English subjects, and against the English govern- ment by American citizens, arising from the Civil War. The magnitude and importance of these duties, and the responsibility attending their performance, will, by the general reader, be better understood when it is stated that the commission consisted of but three mem- bers; namely, the Right Honorable Russell Gur- ney, representing the interests of England; Count Louis Corti, of Italy, the joint choice of the high contracting parties ; and Judge Frazer. The respective nations, Great Britain and America, engaged to con- sider the decision of the commissioners as final, and to give full effect to such decision, without any objection, evasion, or delay whatsoever. From 1873 to 1875 Mr. Frazer remained in Washington, adjusting claims for cotton captured or destroyed during the war. These duties were of the greatest responsibility, and involved the consideration of claims amounting to about two hundred and twenty million dollars. As a jurist Judge Frazer is widely known throughout the state, and de- cisions made by him while on the Supreme Bench have gained for him an extended reputation. He was re- cently appointed by the Supreme Court of Indiana one of three commissioners to revise and codify the laws of the state, under an act of the Legislature approved March 28, 1879. His associates in this relation are Hon. David Turpie, of Indianapolis, and John H. Stotzenberg, of New Albany. Judge Frazer was one of the charter members of Kosciusko Lodge, No. 62, Independent Or- der of Odd-fellows, organized at Warsaw, February 7, 1849. He has enjoyed all the honors within the gift of his lodge, and still retains his membership. He attends the Presbyterian Church; he is a strong supporter of that body, and an advocate of its doctrines, although not a communicant. He married, October 28, 1848, at Goshen, Indiana, Miss Caroline Defrees, daughter of James Defrees, deceased. Mrs. Frazer is a sister of Hon. John D. Defrees, government printer, and Hon. Joseph Il. Defrees, ex-member of Congress from what was then the Tenth Congressional District. Mr. and Mrs. Frazer have had seven children, six of whom are still living.

William D., the eldest son, is associated with his father in the practice of law, and is regarded as one of the most promising young men of the county.

LEASON, GENERAL NEWELL, of Laporte, was born August II, 1824, in the town of Wards- boro, Windham County, Vermont, and is the son of Jonathan and Lydia Gleason. His father was a farmer, and taught his boy his own business. Newell received only a common school education until he was nineteen years of age, when he attended an academy at Swanzey, New Hampshire, and afterward one at Towns- hend, Vermont, at the same time teaching school in the winter and working on a farm in the summer. He afterwards studied at Norwich University, Vermont, two years, and graduated in the scientific department of that institution, and at the same time pursued his class- ical studies. He then taught school in various places till 1851, when he was engaged as assistant civil en- gineer on the Jeffersonville Railroad. He afterward held a similar position on the Columbus, Piqua and Indiana Railroad, in Ohio, and had charge of the con- struction of the western division of that line. In the summer of 1853 he was appointed to the position of chief engineer of the Cincinnati, Peru and Chicago Railroad, a newly organized line. In 1857 he engaged in the service of Lewis Broad, Esq., contractor of the Dubuque Western Railroad, and the western division of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad, as constructing engineer and general agent. In August, 1862, he volunteered his services to the general govern- ment, and was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 87th Indiana Volunteers. He immediately joined the Union army at Louisville, Kentucky; was in the campaign through Kentucky after General Bragg, and in the battle of Perryville. A few months after, the colonel of the regiment resigning, he was promoted to that po- sition. In command of his regiment he engaged in the campaign in the summer of 1863 against Tullahoma, and in the succeeding fall against Chattanooga, and was under the command of General George H. Thomas in the bloody battle of Chickamauga, being engaged in the thickest of the fight, where he lost in killed and wounded more than half his men and officers; he was also at the siege of Chattanooga, and the storming of Mis- sion Ridge, on November 25, 1863. In the summer of 1864 he was engaged in the one hundred days' campaign against Atlanta, and participated in the battle of Jones- boro, Georgia, which resulted in the fall of Atlanta, and the occupation of that stronghold. On the 27th of June, while on that campaign, he was promoted to the command of the brigade in which his regiment served- the Second Brigade, Third Division, Fourteenth Army

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Corps-which command he held until the close of the | years' residence in the state, they removed to Marshall war. In the fall of 1864 he, w.th his men, was with General W. T. Sherman in his famous march through Georgia to the sea, thence through the Carolinas to the final surrender of Raleigh, and the march through Vir- ginia to Washington, where the army was disbanded in June, 1865, when he returned home. In the fall of 1865 he was elected, to fill a vacancy, as Representative to the Indiana Legislature, and served in the special session of that year. In the fall of 1866 he was ap- pointed chief engineer, and surveyed and located the Ionia and Lansing Railroad, Michigan. During 1867 and 1868 he surveyed and located, as chief engineer, that part of the Indianapolis, Peru and Chicago Rail- road which lies between Plymouth and Peru, Indiana. In 1869 he was chief engineer of the Grand River Val- ley Railroad, Michigan, locating and having charge of the construction of that line between Hastings and Grand Rapids. Subsequently he held a similar position on the Grand Rapids and Lake Shore Railroad, the Mansfield, Coldwater and Lake Michigan, and the Chi- cago, Danville and Vincennes, while locating and con- structing its Indiana extension. The General has been an Odd-fellow since 1851, a member of the Civil En- gineers' Club of the North-west for about ten years, and a member of the Society of the Army of the Cumber- land. In religion he is an Unitarian. In early life he voted the Democratic ticket, but when the Free-soil party was organized he went with it, and afterwards with the Republican party upon its organization. Gen- eral Gleason was married, January 25, 1855, to Nancy E. Mitchell, daughter of Judge M. G. Mitchell, of Piqua, Ohio, who was for several years, in its early or- ganization, president of the Columbus, Piqua and Indi- ana Railroad Company, and a prominent public man in the early history of Ohio. General Gleason was bre- veted brigadier-general of United States Volunteers, March 13, 1865, " for gallant and meritorious services during the war." He is a man of fine personal appear- ance, standing six feet three inches, military bearing, a noble, intelligent, and refined countenance, of rather slen- der figure, and is now quietly enjoying a retired life with his family, reaping in his more advanced years the ben- efits that result from a well-spent life, having, by energy and perseverance, accumulated a comfortable property. The General has one daughter, a highly educated and ac- complished young lady.

County, Indiana, and are now residents of Argos. Al- though seventy-two years of age-both were born in ISOS-they are blessed with excellent health, and their mental faculties seem strengthened, instead of impaired, by the steady march of time. Samuel W. Gould, the immediate subject of this sketch, was placed at the age of three years in a private school, where he enjoyed the best of instruction for ten years. Such was his advance- ment that when fourteen years old he accepted the charge of a country school for the winter term of three months, and performed the duties of that position in a satisfac- tory manner. His father, being in straitened circum- stances, was unable to aid him further in acquiring an education; but, nothing daunted, he resolved to accom- plish this object alone and unaided, although, when calmly considered, the task seemed almost herculean. It is related of him-in fact, he relates it himself, with pardonable pride-that while a student at college he and three chums, equally needy and plucky, at no time indulged in any of the luxuries of the table, and were frequently deprived of the actual necessaries of life. During the two weeks closing their college term the four students consumed as food only five pounds of crackers, two loaves of bread, and a little liver obtained from the butcher without cost, with only water to drink. In the light of this touching picture of poverty and self- denial, does any reader of this biography question the statement that each of these gentlemen-now practicing physicians, though widely separated- has achieved marked success in life? At the age of sixteen Mr. Gould commenced the study of medicine in the office of James S. Robb, of Zanesfield, Ohio, and completed his professional preparation at the Medical College of Ohio, at Cincinnati. The same year (1858) found him in Allen County, a full-fledged physician, confidently asking the patronage of the public, although but nine- teen years old. During the presidential campaign of 1856 Mr. Gould managed the West Liberty (Ohio) Banner in the interest of John C. Fremont, making it a spicy, aggressive sheet, a favorite with its readers, and a financial success to its publisher. Doctor Gould remained in the practice of his profession in Allen County until 1865, when, removing to Indiana, he finally settled in Argos. Here he built up a large and remunerative practice. As years passed, Doctor Gould felt the necessity for still greater knowledge of his profession, and determined to take a supplementary course of instruction. Accord- ingly in 1869 he entered Rush Medical College, Chicago, where he graduated, and returning to Argos resumed his practice. Doctor Gould is considered not only the best read physician, but the most successful practitioner in the county; and by his skill in the treatment of sub- jects has won more than a local reputation. Residing

OULD, SAMUEL W., physician, of Argos, was born in York Township, Union County, Ohio, June II, 1839. His parents were Daniel and Adelina (Wilkins) Gould, who emigrated to Ohio from the Empire State in 1835. They settled first in Union, then in Logan County, and finally, after thirty | in a small county town, he has comparatively little office

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practice, but visits the houses of an extensive farming community. He is a typical family physician ; of strong character, warm-hearted and generous in his sympathies. He is always calm in the sick-room, impressing anxious friends with his ability and conscious fidelity ; and he enjoys in a marked degree that love and confidence of his patients which belong to such a relation. As a sur- geon he has exhibited a special ability, and has been more than ordinarily successful. Although a skilful operator he never uses the knife unless convinced that it is the only means of prolonging life or preserving an important member. His practice has been eminently suc- cessful, both professionally and financially. Born of Pres- byterian parents and educated under the strict discipline of that Church, he became at an early age restive under its restraints, and subsequently skeptical in certain theo- logical dogmas. He may now be termed a liberal in his religion, his creed being like that of a Revolutionary patriot-to be just and do good, freely conceding to others the right to enjoy and exercise their religious con- victions. He is a contributor and an attendant of the Episcopal Church, of which his wife is a member. In politics he is an uncompromising Republican, earnest and eloquent in the defense of his political faith, but not an office-seeker; believing that a political life is not conducive to the success of professional or business pursuits. Doctor Gould is a member of the Masonic Fraternity, and an earnest and most effective worker in the cause of temperance, having by his eloquence and liberality contributed much to the in- terest and growth of the reform. He is chairman of the public school board, a member of the State Medical Society, and president of the Marshall County Medical Society. He is a regular contributor to the popular medical journals, and a terse and ready writer, with good descriptive powers, and the rare faculty of holding and advocating decided opinions. He married, January 25, 1860, Miss Callie Shafer, of Lima, Ohio, who died June 7, 1864, both their children having been previously buried. December 30, 1867, he married Miss Sarah A. Smith, of St. Joseph, Michigan, a lady of high culture and pleasing appearance. Her intellec- tual and moral superiority make her respected and influential. She is an active member of the Episcopal Church, warm-hearted and benevolent, of generous sympathies and strong attachments. She reads much, observes carefully, and is as thoroughly conversant with current events as with the world of literature and fashion. They have one child, a son. Doctor Gould is of strong physique, active and energetic in his movements, quick to perceive and prompt to decide. ITis character is above reproach, and for his geniality and fair dealing he is highly esteemed by his neighbors and friends. He is an instance of the success that can he gained by a man who thoroughly loves his profession.

UIPE, JOHN, merchant, of Elkhart, was born No- vember 14, 1825, in Lancaster County, Pennsyl- vania. His father's ancestors were Germans, while those of his mother were natives of Pennsylvania. He received a common school education, and in the spring of 1836 removed with his parents to Center County, Pennsylvania, where he worked on a farm and in a saw-mill until nineteen years of age. In the fall of 1842 he began learning the shoemaker's trade, and served two years and six months, receiving no compen- sation in money. In the fall of 1845 he went to Ohio, where he worked in Ashland and Richland Counties as a journeyman until 1849; he then returned to Penn- sylvania, and in the fall of that year went back to Ohio and opened a boot and shoe shop near the city of Ash- land. December 25, 1849, he married Caroline Hum- ric Houser, and the following spring removed to Rome, Richland County, Ohio, where he continued his busi- ness until the spring of 1852, when he settled in Plym- outh, Marshall County, Indiana. He carried on the boot and shoe trade there until 1860, and then removed to Elkhart, where he has since remained, being now the only merchant who began business there as early as 1860. He was always a careful business man, honest and industrious, and now is about retiring from active life, having secured a fair share of this world's goods. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which he joined in 1851 ; and, besides being a member of the choir, has been a trustee and steward of the Church at Elkhart. He has three children living, one son and two daughters. The son, Henry L. Guipe, is engaged in the boot and shoe business at South Bend with his father, as silent partner.

AM, LEVI JEFFERSON, physician and surgeon, of South Bend, was born in York County, Maine, November 16, 1805. His parents were poor, but honest and industrious. When he was eight years old he learned his letters, and at the age of sixteen be- gan teaching school. He worked his way through Dartmouth College, and immediately afterward, in 1828, commenced the study of medicine, under the tutorship of the late Professor R. D. Mussey. He took his med- ical degree in Bowdoin College, Maine, in 1831, and commenced practice in his native county in the same year. He was elected to the state Senate of Maine in 1836, and was re-elected in 1837, 1838, and 1839. In 1845 he removed to Buffalo, New York. In 1859 hc removed to South Bend, Indiana, and resumed the practice of his profession. On the breaking out of the Civil War he was appointed surgeon of the 48th Regi- ment of Indiana Volunteers, and served in that capacity three years. Most of the time he was detailed division

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surgeon of the Seventh Division of the Seventeenth | Clinton, Franklin County, Ohio, in the sixty-sixth year Army Corps. He was chairman of the board of surgi- cal operators in all the battles about Vicksburg, at Mission Ridge, and Lookout Mountain. At the close of the war he returned to South Bend, where he is still engaged in active business, being one of the leading physicians of Northern Indiana. Declining the position of superintendent, Doctor Ham served as trustee of the Maine Insane Asylum from 1840 until he removed from the state in 1845. He has been an honored member of the Methodist Church for forty-five years, and is one of its trustees. Ile is now mayor of South Bend.

ESS, BALSER, a wealthy farmer and a licensed minister of the Old-school Baptist Church, of Elk- hart Township, Elkhart County, Indiana, was born January 26, 1817, in Clinton Township (now the city of Columbus), Franklin County, Ohio. His parents, Balser Hess and Sally Ann Hess, were na- tives respectively of Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Bal- ser Hess, the grandfather of our subject, was born on shipboard, during the trip of his parents across the Atlantic, while emigrating from Switzerland to America, about the year 1730. His parents settled in Philadel- phia. He was a man of great force of character, un- swerving in his patriotism for his country, and was a veteran in the Revolutionary War, serving during the entire conflict of seven years. Among the many severe battles in which he participated were those of the Bran- dywine, Schuylkill, Cow-pens and Chad's Ford, be- sides others of which the names are not now known. He was with Washington at the crossing of the Del- aware, and remembered hearing him say: "God will build a bridge for us to cross upon before morning." He was once taken prisoner by the British, and con- fined, with seven hundred and fifty other men, in an old sugar-house in New York City for seven days without food or drink, during which time seven hundred died from starvation and exposure; Mr. Hess being one of the surviving fifty when they were exchanged. During the confinement they were guarded by Hessian troops. Their barbarous treatment of the patriots so filled Mr. Hess with righteous indignation that, being a man of great courage and extraordinary physical power, he would, unarmed, engage and punish severely at one time three or four of his hated enemies. Even after the close of the war he could not forget his enmity, and would often at sight assail and severely punish men solely because they were Hessians. Immediately upon his release from prison he rejoined the army. He was a member of the Lutheran Church, and was a man of strong religious feelings, an exemplary Christian, and charitable and generous almost to a fault. He died in

of his age, beloved and lamented by a large circle of friends; his widow surviving him by many years, and dying at the ripe age of ninety-five, having dis- charged the varied duties of a long and useful Christian life. Balser Hess, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born February 14, 1786. Mrs. Hess was born February 27, 1792; and they were married April II, 18c9, and became parents of fifteen children, eleven of whom lived to full age. He was a soldier in the War of 1812 with England, having enlisted at the open- ing for one year and re-enlisted at the expiration of his time, and again for the following year, and until the declaration of peace. He was a man of strong religious convictions, and was a licensed minister of the Old- school Baptist Church, but subsequently became sep- arated from it and allied himself with the New-school Baptist Church. During the remainder of his life he was a faithful minister of Christ. He was also a suc- cessful farmer. The migrations of the family were from Pennsylvania to Ohio, thence to Indiana, where they settled in Elkhart Township, Elkhart County, about one mile south of what is now the city of Goshen, but which at that time had no inhabitants, on section 22, where he pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres of land, and afterwards purchased another quarter section. After giving his children all farms, and starting them in business on their own account, he still held as his homestead about a section of valuable land. At the time Mr. Hess came to this part of the country, in 1828, he found Matthew Boyd where Benton now is, Mr. Naufsinger on St. Joseph River, Mr. Garver on Beardsley Prairie, and the teacher of the Cary Mission in Michigan. But on his removal in the spring of 1829 to the county, there were Daniel Cripe, J. W. Violet, James Bishop, John Peppinger, Elias Riggs, William Simpson, Azel Sparklin, Daniel Banter, and Mr. Pier- man. Mr. Hess died November 16, 1857, in the seventy- second year of his age, much lamented. Balser Hess, the subject of this sketch, enjoyed in early youth ex- tremely limited educational advantages. In those days no public funds contributed to the support of the school- ing for the young. Hard work for nine months during each year, and three months of irregular attendance at a common school supported altogether by private sub- scriptions, was the character of the opportunities afforded him until at the age of thirteen. Possessing a quick and observing mind, he had been previously enabled to se- cure a good common school education, and thus become qualified to transact intelligently any kind of business that might come in his way to do. Mr. Hess continued on the farm with his father until he reached his major- ity, when he began clearing and tilling a tract of one hundred and thirty-five acres of wild timber land in Marshall County on his own account, where he remained

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about three years, when he removed to Kosciusko County, where he again began on an unimproved tim- bered farm, staying for about four years. In 1848 he removed to Elkhart County, and located at Waterford. Hle was there for three years, but in 1851 changed to a farm half a mile south of Goshen, and now owned by Doctor Daniel Mallet. Subsequently, in 1865, he re- moved to his present home, about two miles south-west of the city of Goshen. Mr. Hess, although having partially or wholly cleared and improved five different timbered farms, gives no perceptible evidence of the effects of many years of hard physical labor. He stands erect, and moves with that sprightliness and en- ergy that characterized him twenty years agone. In his farming and other business affairs he is prompt, methodical, and systematic, and his business capaci- ties have secured for him a handsome competence. Mr. Hess was educated in the old Whig school of pol- itics, but at the breaking up of that organization, in 1854, consequent upon the repeal of the Missouri Com- promise, he joined the Republican party, to which he has since consistently adhered. Like all men of posi- tive character and independence of mind, he is out- spoken in the support and defense of his political convictions. He is not an aspirant for office. In 1845 Mr. Hess became converted, uniting with the Old-school Baptist Church in 1870, and has ever since been an honored member of that organization. Soon after this his gifts as a speaker and his ability in prayer, together with his earnestness in the work and his known sincerity, led to his being called to the ministry, and he was licensed to preach in 1871, from which time he has de- voted his talents to the work energetically and con- scientiously. He is earnest and convincing, and his able reasoning, sound sense, and good judgment, and above all his acknowledged honesty and purity of pur- pose, make him a reasoner of great power before the people. He is familiar with the creeds of all Churches, and a thorough scholar in ancient and Biblical history. To him much is due for the spiritual and social pros- perity of the Churches over which he is at times called to minister. He is a man of peace in the community in which he lives, and, like his late father, is well qual- ified by his position in his neighborhood to act the part of a conciliator, in which he takes great satisfaction. Mr. Hess was married, May 7, 1840, to Miss Sarah Ann Immell, an exemplary lady, of strong religious convic- tions, and a member of the Old-school Baptist Church. Although mingling but little with the community in a social way, she gave her kind sympathy and aid in times of sickness and distress. She died March 29, 1874. She was the mother of ten children, six of whom are living. Mr. Hess was again married September 22, 1875, to Mrs. Mary Ann Fulton, a lady of marked worth and of strong religious character. She is a member of the

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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 110

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