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 47

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 47

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THE

NINTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT.

ROWN, JOSEPH, banker, of Lafayette, has for a quarter of a century been a valued citizen and business man of Lafayette. His great-grandpar- ents were of Welsh and English nationality, and he seems to have inherited the substantial character- istics of such an ancestry. He was born May 16, 1814, in Gloucester, Providence County, Rhode Island. His parents were Arnold and Elizabeth (Owen) Brown. He enjoyed only the advantages of a common school edu- cation, and this only till he had arrived at the age of seventeen years, when, in 1831, he entered mercantile life, as clerk in a place at Troy, Ohio. The stock was of that miscellaneous nature peculiar to a country store in early times. Here his natural taste and aptitude made him so thoroughly acquainted with the business that after seven years as clerk he was admitted as a partner in the management, remaining so until 1844, when he became cashier of the Miami County branch

of the State Bank of Ohio, at Troy. He remained in this position for about nine years. In 1854 he came to Lafayette, Indiana, where he has ever since resided. In the same year he engaged in the business of private banking with the late William Barbee, Esq., the former president of the bank at Troy, under the firm name of Barbec, Brown & Co. On the death of Mr. Barbee, in 1858, the business was continued by Mr. Brown until 1862, when it was merged into the Second National Bank, with Mr. Brown as president, which office he held for two years. So that for the period of ten years he was engaged in the business of banking, occupying a leading position, and passing safely through several monetary revulsions, in which were wrecked many large and wealthy institutions. Perhaps few men who have been engaged in similar undertakings have, for so long a time and during such perilous periods, been so uni- formly successful; proving that it was not good luck alone, but his prudent business management and intelli- gent comprehension of the duties of his position, which

enabled him to steer clear of financial disaster. Since 1864 he has been engaged with various parties in differ- ent undertakings, such as milling, pork-packing, and other business. He was also interested in a private bank in Attica, Fountain County, Indiana, from 1862 to 1873. Since the latter date he has not been actively engaged in any business except during a part of 1878-79, when he was bank examiner for the state. Mr. Brown, notwithstanding his numerous engagements, has always felt and taken a great interest in educational matters. He was for several years one of the directors of the public schools of Troy, Ohio. At one time he was an active, prominent member of the Order of Odd- fellows, and has filled its several chairs; but in later years his business compelled him to cease from active duties in the order. He is a member, and senior war- den, of the Episcopal Church. Politically, he has al- ways been a radical Republican ever since the formation of that party ; prior to that time he was a strong Whig, and proud of the fact that his first vote for President was cast for Henry Clay. October 24, 1837, he mar- ried Miss Cecelia M. Hale, daughter of Hezekiah Hale, Esq., of Glastonbury, Connecticut. They have no chil- dren. Mr. Brown has always been esteemed as one of Lafayette's most substantial and worthy citizens. Quiet and unobtrusive in his demeanor, thoroughly honest in every position, affable and pleasant in his intercourse with all classes, he has many warm friends, and few, if any, enemies.

ERRY, NINEVEH, of Anderson, was born in Clarke County, Indiana, April 20, 1804. His mother, whose maiden name was Sarah McDon- ald, was a native of Kentucky. His father, John Berry, came from Pennsylvania to this state in 1800. In 1823 he pre-empted four hundred acres of land in Mad- ison County, and lived upon it until his death, in 1834.

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Ile was one of the founders of the city of Anderson, having in 1826 given to the then village thirty acres of his land, which is now in the center of the place. Nin- evch removed with his parents to Anderson in 1821. Hle attended school a short time in Randolph County, but was chiefly employed in the labors of the farm. By hard work and economy he had accumulated, at the age of twenty-six, about five hundred dollars, a large sum in those pioneer days, and he nobly resolved to employ it in obtaining an education. Depositing his treasure with, as he supposed, a responsible man, he en- tered Bloomington College, but, when he had been there two terms, the individual in whom he had reposed con- fidence failed, and all the hard earnings of the student vanished. Compelled by this misfortune to leave col- lege, he returned to Anderson, where he was soon elected county surveyor, which office he held almost continuously for thirty years. Some time prior to the events just mentioned, Mr. Berry had gained consider- able influence, as shown by his appointment as colonel of militia. He still preserves his uniform as an inter- esting souvenir of those days. In 1838 Mr. Berry was elected county recorder, and remained in that position seven years. The year following he was appointed post- master, and was reappointed in 1843. In 1848, during the war with Mexico, he was appointed assistant commis- sary with the rank of captain; and, after remaining in that country fourteen months, he returned with five thousand dollars in cash and warrants for sixteen hundred acres of Indiana land. The commission then received he still retains; it bears the signature of James K. Polk, and is another memento of by-gone years. From 1853 to 1854 Mr. Berry engaged in the grain and produce trade, and was then appointed mail agent on the Cincinnati and Chicago Railroad. In 1856 he was elected county treas- urer, and served two terms. In 1863 he entered the gro- cery business, in which he was engaged until 1875. In 1862, his son having enlisted in the 34th Indiana Vol- unteers, Mr. Berry, in order to be with him, became a member of the same regiment, being, though sixty years old, so hale and vigorous as to pass muster for forty-five. In March, 1863, he was discharged. He joined the Masonic Fraternity in 1855; has been master of the Blue Lodge ; was elected and installed High-priest of Anderson Chapter, No. 52, in 1875, and in October of that year received the order of priesthood, and is a member of Council No. 43. In religious belief he is a Universalist ; in politics a Democrat, though his first vote was cast, in 1824, for Henry Clay. . Mr. Berry is probably the oldest native inhabitant of the state. He has grown up with Indiana from her feeble beginnings, through the privations and sacrifices of pioneer times and of three wars, until now he beholds her in the pride of her power, and with true patriotism regrets not that the state must increase while he must decrease. ITis

long life has been one of steady and honorable useful- ness, and even now he does occasional surveying. He is a citizen of liberal and progressive views; has always been eminently social and hospitable, and his genial presence cheers all within its influence. Though more than threescore and ten he still retains almost the vigor of youth, and is

" Of stature undepressed in size, Unbent, which rather seems to rise, In open victory o'er the weight Of seventy years, to loftier height."

Mr. Berry was married, March 19, 1833, to Miss Hannah Pugh, by whom he had six children, of whom two daughters survive : Margaret E., wife of E. J. How- land, of Indianapolis ; and Elizabeth, wife of Alexander Clark, of Anderson.

ROWNLEE, WILLIAM R., editor and proprietor of the Anderson Democrat, was born in Coitsville, Mahoning County, Ohio, October 14, 1846. His parents were David and Mary A. (Reed) Brownlee. His early youth was occupied in attendance at the com- mon schools and in working on the farm, his father being an extensive farmer and stock-raiser. In 1864 Mr. Brownlee purchased a large farm near Poland, in North- ern Ohio, and removed thither that his son might there begin a preparation for the ministry. Accordingly, William entered Poland Academy, and after five years of close application graduated with high honors. Not choosing to become a clergyman, he then immediately commenced the study of law under Hon. David Craig, of New Castle, Pennsylvania. Having made satisfac- tory progress in the office, he entered upon a regular course of legal study at the Western Reserve Law Col- lege, at Cleveland, from which he graduated in March, 1869, and without further examination was at once ad- mitted to practice in the United States Courts. Such rigid and long continued application injured his health, turning his hair prematurely gray; and to recuperate his energies he spent nearly a year on Chesapeake Bay, in Virginia. At length, having regained strength, he entered upon the practice of law as a partner of Judge Ruggles, at Canfield, Ohio. In the campaign of 1872 Mr. Brownlee won much reputation as a political orator. In the midst of the canvass, believing he could serve his party to better advantage by publishing a paper, he purchased the Mahoning Valley News, the only Republican journal conducted in that place, and at once removed from the head of its columns the name of Grant and substituted that of Horace Greeley. This audacious step gave him a state reputation as a journalist, and deservedly so, for it was an exhibition of unusual nerve to turn the batteries of a Republican organ upon its own supporters. Of course, the mem-

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bers of the party stopped their papers, but the sub- ! remained several years. From this period until 1864 he scription list was largely increased by Democrats, who gratified his desire for change and travel by visiting the different cities and towns of the state, while following his occupation as a printer. In 1864 he purchased the Ladoga Herald, which he published for eight years, when he removed it to Noblesville, and started The Independent, of which paper he is still editor and pub- lisher. Politically, Mr. Boswell is a Democrat, but until the birth of the Greenback party his paper had always occupied a neutral position. During the past five years The Independent has become the recognized organ of the soft-money party, and it is mainly due to its able articles on the political and financial issues of the day that the vote of that organization has become so materially increased. Mr. Boswell was married, De- cember 25, 1853, to Miss Mariam B. Brasher, daughter of Henry Brasher, a merchant of Terre Haute, by whom he has four children, two sons and two daughters. William John is following his father's old and honora- ble calling of printer. Ida, the eldest daughter, is the wife of George W. Stall, of Terre Haute; and the other two children, Susie and Harrie, are still at home. As his paper is the exponent, so is Mr. Boswell's influence the prime factor in molding the character and action of his party in the county. Possessing limited educational advantages, such as are unknown to the seeker after knowledge among the youth of the present day, his position in the world of progress and the " body pol- itic" is the more creditable when the difficulties that led to it and the obstacles that interposed are known and considered. supported this fearless leader in their cause with enthu- siasm. Mr. Brownlee edited the News until the Demo- cratic party was triumphant in that county, when he sold that paper and bought the Chillicothe Advertiser, the oldest and most trustworthy Democratic journal in Ohio, outside of Cleveland and Cincinnati. In 1876 he purchased, for three thousand three hundred dollars cash, the Scioto Valley Post, and merged it into the Ad- vertiser, which thus became the only Democratic paper in Chillicothe. In buying the Post he bought also its "good will," and bound its proprietor in a written agreement not to use his skill as a newspaper man, either as editor or publisher, within the county of Ross for the period of fifty years. When Mr. Brownlee sold the Advertiser he transferred the Burns contract to his successor. Mr. Burns, in 1878, started a newspaper called the Express, but was enjoined by the Ross County Common Pleas Court from its publication, as it was in violation of the Burns-Brownlee contract. Mr. Brown- lee's knowledge of law proved of great advantage to him, and was the means of settling the question of the validity of a sale of the good will of a newspaper in Ohio. It was in September, 1877, that Mr. Brownlee sold the Advertiser; and he then at once bought the Anderson Democrat, and in less than one year increased its subscription list by over six hundred names. On the 25th of March, ISSo, he was nominated for state Sen- ator from his district, composed of Grant and Madison Counties, on the Democratic ticket, over two of the oldest and wealthiest citizens of his county. As the majority on his side is usually from five to six hundred, this is almost equivalent to an election. Mr. Brownlee is a member of the Independent Order of Odd-fellows, of the Knights of Honor, and of the Improved Order of Red Men. He was married, January 23, 1870, to Miss Mary Cook, by whom he has two sons and one daughter. Though but thirty-two years of age, Mr. Brownlee has already proved himself a man of ability. Bold and zealous, he undertakes what others deem almost impossible; and, being judicious, untiring, and capable, always succeeds. Mental culture and grace of person and manner have developed and supplemented his native talents, till all combined have made him one of the most successful, though the youngest, editors in the state.

OSWELL, WILLIAM H., editor and proprietor of The Independent, Noblesville, Indiana, was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, July 21, 1830, and is the elder son of John and Maria (Still- wagon) Boswell. At the age of nineteen he entered the office of the Terre Haute Express as a printer, where he D-5

AMPBELL, SAMUEL N., elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Noblesville, was born in Greene County, Ohio, May 7, 1816. He is the third son of Samuel and Margaret (Cobb) Camp- bell, both of whose ancestry served in the Revolutionary War. Such were the limited educational advantages of our subject that at the attainment of his majority he was scarcely master of the simple rudiments. About this period he began a systematic course of reading -- par- ticularly history, theology, and the natural sciences- without the aid of a teacher. He has always been a great reader, and is to-day a harder student than most young men, however ambitious. He joined the Meth- odist Episcopal Church when a lad of thirteen, and feel- ing that his mission on earth was that of a minister he began as a local preacher at the age of twenty-one. In 1847 he was ordained deacon, and admitted into the traveling connection in the North Indiana Conference, having moved to that state in 1832 and located in War- ren County. He served for fifteen years on the circuit and on stations; was ordained an elder in 1849, and in 1862 was appointed presiding elder of the Fort Wayne

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District, and returned to station work in 1866, at which he remained five years. He was a supernumerary one year, stationed two years, a conference evangelist for one year, stationed three years, and in 1879 was placed on the retired list for one year. Elder Campbell has been acting in his work for over forty-two years as local or traveling preacher, and this near approach to half a century of busy life has been devoted exclusively to his chosen calling. He was a delegate to the General Con- ference in 1876. Throughout Northern Indiana, where he is best known, Elder Campbell is universally loved and respected. He has been a member of the joint board of Asbury University for six years, and though sixty-three years old is still in excellent health, and bids fair to be spared to a ripe old age. When the call is sounded that will mark his departure from this world he hopes to be found still laboring in the vine- yard of his Master-to die as he has lived, the death of the righteous and the just. He was married, February 23, 1837, to Miss Diana Moore, of Warren County, Indiana. Two sons, William and Milton, are the sur- viving fruits of this union. The former is a business man in Kansas, while the latter is farming in Warren County, Indiana. His two daughters are both dead. He was again married March 31, 1852, to Miss Eliza Dixon, of Mount Carmel, Indiana, by whom he has a son and daughter living. Eddie graduated in 1878 at the Asbury University, and is now studying law ; Lau- retta is at home with her parents.

ASON, THOMAS J., of Lebanon, was born in Union County, Indiana, September 13, 1828. His father, James Cason, emigrated from Union to Boone County, October, 1831, and settled near Thorntown on what had been the Indian Reservation. The county was not yet fully organized, and the Indians had just left. He was by trade a carpenter, and became a prominent farmer of the county. The Cason family were early settlers in America. Their origin, as shown by works on genealogy, was French. Owing to a polit- ical offense against the king they became refugees in Holland, and afterwards joined the forces of William of Orange in his contest in Ireland, where, owing to val- uable services rendered, that king gave them a grant of land. Subsequently, this branch of the family came to America, having a mixture of Irish, Scotch, and English as well as French blood. The grandfather, Thomas, was born in Virginia, December 8, 1759, but went to South Carolina, where he married Margaret Neill, December 30, 1794. The Rutherfords, from which stock Margaret, his mother, descended, were an old English family. Her grandfather on her mother's side was a Harper, of Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, and

from whom the ferry and town received their names. The youth of Judge Cason was spent on the farm; his education was self-acquired, and at the age of seventeen such were the excellent results of his perseverance he was enabled to pass a creditable examination and com- mence the teaching of school, which he followed for eighteen months. During this time he took up the study of law. He entered the office of Hon. Henry S. Lane, afterwards Governor and United States Senator from Indiana, and Colonel S. C. Wilson, of Crawfordsville, and after passing a severe examination was admitted to the bar in March, 1850, and in May of that year com- menced practice at Lebanon, where he now resides. In 1860 he represented Boone and Hendricks Counties in the Legislature; was re-elected in 1862, and during the stormy session of 1863 was the only Republican chair- man of any committee, the House being strongly Dem- ocratic. In 1864 he was elected to the state Senate from the same district, serving four years. During this term he served as chairman of the Committee on Fed- eral Relations, and during his full term in the Senate and his first term in the House he was an active and prominent member of the Judiciary Committee. In March, 1867, he was appointed by Governor Conrad Baker Judge of the Common Pleas Court, and in Octo- ber of that year was elected to the office for the district composed of Boone and Clinton Counties, the district being largely Democratic. He not only overcame the opposi- tion, but was elected by a good majority, and this when his best friends had but little expectation of his living more than two or three months at most, fearing that his death was probable at any hour. Yet the records of the Supreme Court of the state will show as few of his cases reversed as of any judge in the state for the time he was on the bench, notwithstanding his sufferings were intensely severe from his disease. In May, 1872, at the close of his judicial labors, he was nominated to Con- gress from the Seventh District, and at the election fol- lowing was chosen to the Forty-third Congress by a handsome majority. In this contest he was opposed by General M. D. Manson, one of the most popular men in the state, and the then Democratic member in Congress from this district, who had defeated the gallant General Lew Wallace in the election two years before. During this term he served on the Committee of Revision (for revising the statutes of the United States). At the next election he was re-elected to the Forty-fourth Congress, the district being changed to the Ninth, and served during the last term on the Committee of Claims. Re- turning to Lebanon, he abandoned politics, and has since devoted his entire time to the practice of his pro- fession. He was married, January 2, 1851, to Clarinda J. Olive, daughter of Captain Robert Olive, of Boone County, by whom he has had six children, four boys and two daughters, all of whom are living except James

Haymond W black

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R., who died at Washington City, in his twenty-second year, from lung disease, and was buried in the Congres- sional Cemetery in that city. He was a young man of excellent habits and decided promise. The other chil- dren, including Thomas J., who is reading law with his father, are living at home. Mr. Cason is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a Republican in politics, and one of the leaders in the district and state. It will be seen from the foregoing brief statement of facts that Judge Cason has been a man of universal prominence from a time almost antedating his majority. During the war he was an unswerving Union man, and was detained from joining the army only by reason of his health. That has been very poor all of his life, and he never remembers the time he was clear of pain ; and for twenty years, including the time of the war, he suffered intensely from what the best physicians of the state regarded as an incurable disease. He has, however, so far recovered as to have at this time the best health of his life. During the war he was fre- quently consulted by Governor Morton, and was by him, then and since, repeatedly thanked for his assistance and valuable suggestions.

LARK, HAYMOND W., physician and surgeon, was born at Clarksburg, West Virginia, March 7, 1803. Doctor Clark is a lineal descendant of Richard Clark, who emigrated from England to America, and who, after living in Connecticut and Long Island, located in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1678. Richard Clark was also the ancestor of Abraham Clark, one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde- pendence. Alison Clark, the father of the subject of this sketch, emigrated to West Virginia when seventeen years old, in 1787. His father was a member of the Virginia Legislature, sheriff of Harrison County, and held several other minor offices, and died in 1813. Doctor Clark came to Indiana in 1819. His relatives were very desirous that he should learn a trade, and he attempted that of cabinet-maker, but, finding it very distasteful, he abandoned it, to study medicine in the HASE, HIRAM W., president of the Lafayette Savings Bank, and attorney and counselor at law, is a native of Auburn, Cayuga County, New York, where he was born on the 12th of January, 1823, removing with his parents to Oneida County, in the same state, a few months later. The family resided on a farm, and the subject of this memoir enjoyed no ad- vantages of education excepting such as were afforded by the common schools of the country, which were gen- erally open only during the winter months. He im- proved the opportunities afforded him so well, how- ever, that in the fall of 1839, before he had attained office of his brother-in-law, Doctor Joseph Moffett, of Connersville. The foundation on which Doctor Clark began laying his medical studies was such learning as he had derived from common schools, but more partic- ularly from close application in private. He was li- censed to practice medicine by the censors of the Med- ical Society of the Fifth District of Indiana. He opened an office in Noblesville in June, 1826; in Jan- uary, 1827, at Somerset (now Laurel) ; in the spring of 1829 in Connersville; and in January, 1830, he returned to Noblesville. Doctor Clark is one of the oldest physicians in the state, and one of the pioneers of the | his seventeenth year, he successfully passed an examina-

county. In 1843 he served one term in the Legislature. In 1844 he was elected Probate Judge for seven years; was re-elected at the expiration of his term, and served until the office was abolished by law in 1852. Ile was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1850; was for several years connected with the dry-goods business; but never, even for a brief period, neglected his medical practice, which had grown, year by year, larger and more lucrative, and extended all over the county and into adjoining counties. He was married to Miss Almarine C. Bond, of West Virginia, November 23, 1826. They traveled from West Virginia on horse- back, over three hundred miles, to Indiana, in the month of December. They had eight children ; one son and two daughters are still living. The former is Haymond W. Clark, merchant; and of the latter are Julia, widow of the late Jacob B. Loehr, Esq., of Noblesville, and Cassandra, wife of Dewitt C. Chipman, a lawyer of Richmond, Indiana. Up to the formation of the Re- publican party he was a Whig. Since 1856 he has been a strong Republican. In his public and professional life Doctor Clark is no less respected and admired than for his many social qualities in private. He bears the weight of seventy-seven years less heavily than many men two decades younger. His wife, whose age is over seventy-two, is also in the possession of excellent health. And in the quiet and comfort of their home, and with a large and well-selected library, they are spending the evening of their days in peace and happiness, which is the Creator's best return for a life of purity and useful- ness. As an evidence of his liberality as a public ben- efactor, he donated, December 12, 1879, his large and valuable medical library, including all his medical jour- nals, the accumulation of many years, altogether valued at several thousand dollars, to the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons, a new, vigorous, and promising medical institution established at Indianapolis. This valuable gift is to be denominated the Haymond W. Clark Library of the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons.

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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 47

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