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 9

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 9

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" Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, That thrift might follow fawning."

But he was not of the number. At the grand assizes of the future, posterity will award to the late chief justice of Indiana the white gloves of purity, in token of a lengthened term of public service in which justice was administered without fear, without favor, and with- out reproach. Judge Perkins died of paralysis of the brain, at his residence on West New York Street, In- dianapolis, at midnight, December 17, 1879, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He died full of years and honors. It will seldom fall to the lot of a single in- dividual, in these feverish and changeful times, to fill a position of such high honor and trust in our state such a length of time. As is customary on the death

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of a member of the profession, a bar meeting was called, and, after appropriate remarks, the following memorial was reported by Governor Baker, as chairman of a special committee :

" Again, in the history of the state, death has entered the Supreme Court, and made vacant a seat upon its bench. The chief justice is dead. We meet to do suitable honor to the name and memory, and mourn the death, of Judge Perkins. His eminent suc- cess is an encouragement, his death an admonition. Endowed with strong and active faculties, he pursued the purposes of his life with fortitude and determina- tion, and at the close of his career he stood among the distinguished of a profession in which distinction must be merited to be achieved.

" He was successful in life, and attained exalted position, and enjoyed the admiration and approval of his countrymen, not only because of his excellent natural endowments, but also because his faculties were cultivated and developed by diligent labor, and beauti- fied by extensive and useful learning, and also because his motives were pure and his conduct upright. In this we have a lesson and an encouragement.

"The people gave him high honor, and made it as enduring as the laws and the records of the state. His name is forever interwoven in our judicial history. So long as society shall remain organized under the gov- ernment of law, will the student of laws consult his opinions and decisions. Through coming generations will his labor and learning influence both the legislator and the judge.

" He was an able and a faithful judge, and brought honor in our profession. We will cherish his memory. In his death we are admonished that no earthly dis- tinction can defeat or postpone the 'inevitable hour.'

"'The paths of glory lead but to the grave.'

"To his family and kindred we extend our sym- pathy."

Judge Perkins was married, in 1838, to Amanda J. Pyle, daughter of Joseph Pyle, a prominent citizen of Richmond, Indiana. By this marriage there were ten children, only one of whom survives, Samuel E. Per- kins, junior, now a practicing attorney in Indianapolis, Indiana. He had also six grandsons; four, the children of his daughter, who married Hon. Oscar B. Hord ; and two, the children of his son, who married Sue E. Hatch, one of whom continues the name.

FAFF, WILLIAM ANDERSON, of Indianap- olis, auditor of Marion County, was born in Sur- rey County, North Carolina, October 12, 1831, and is the son of Jacob L. and Sarah (Inman) Pfaff. Mr. Pfaff is the oldest son of a family of six chil- dren, only two of whom are now living. When he was six years old his father, who was a practicing physician of cminence and worth, moved with his family to Morgan County, Indiana, and four years later to Westfield, Ham- ilton County, where the greater part of the life of the sub-

ject of this sketch was spent. His mother died in 1845, when he was still a mere youth. His father lived until the year 1859. During his life-time Doctor Pfaff was a pronounced and enthusiastic Abolitionist, and his home at Westfield was an important station on the "Under- ground Railway." Although he did not live to see the consummation of the great object of his desires in the emancipation of the negro race, the first mutterings of the storm which was to end in civil strife, and event- ually in the freedom of the slave, had commenced to be heard over the land. Brought up by such a father, and surrounded by such influences, it was not surprising that young Pfaff early imbibed a cordial hatred for the institution of slavery ; and the effects of this training and education were felt when he first became a voter. His first presidential suffrage was cast for the ticket of the Liberty party, headed by the names of John P. Hale and George W. Julian, although a forlorn hope. His subsequent political career has been in accordance with his youthful convictions, as the Republican party has always claimed and received his warmest sympathy and support. Mr. Pfaff's early education was of the meager description to be obtained in the old country log school-house, which he attended until his fourteenth year. Upon this scanty foundation he built all his sub- sequent education himself, acquiring by reading and study a good English education, and by contact with the world that knowledge of men and business without which education is itself of but little value. At the death of his mother he entered a dry-goods store as clerk, and there obtained a fair knowledge of that busi- ness. After an experience of four years as an employé he began in trade for himself, which he continued until 1860, the year succeeding his father's death. He was not only successful in business, but made his influence felt in the politics of the county, and in the year mentioned he was elected auditor of Hamilton County, on the Republican ticket, taking his seat in March, 1861. His term of office was four years, and extended over nearly the whole period covered by the war, in which only his official position prevented his being an active participant. At the expiration of his term as auditor, in 1865, Mr. Pfaff removed from Noblesville, the county seat of Hamilton County, to Indianapolis, and engaged in the boot and shoe trade, on South Meridian Street, in company with his brother and John C. Burton, under the firm name of John C. Burton & Co. This connection continued until Febru- ary, 1878, when Mr. Pfaff sold his interest in the busi- ness. In this trade he had been remarkably successful, and had achieved a fine reputation as a business man of probity and honor; but his never-failing interest in pol- itics had made him a prominent figure in Republican circles in Marion County, and he was nominated by the party for county auditor in the fall of 1878, and at the

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ensuing election was elected by about one thousand ma- jority over his Democratic competitor. The struggle in the county that year was close and exciting, and resulted in an almost complete reversal of the official politics of the county. Mr. Pfaff proved himself an able and effi- cient organizer, and an untiring worker in the canvass. His ability was more evident as a careful, shrewd, and far-seeing manager than in the more public duties of the stump; and he developed a strength that gratified his friends and astonished his opponents, while his per- sonal popularity was beyond all question. The position to which he was elected is one of particularly arduous and responsible duties, involving the expenditure of vast sums of money and a large amount of care and prudence in management; but Mr. Pfaff has proved himself equal to the task, and his administration has been one which reflects credit on himself and is satis- factory to his friends. On July 19, 1855, Mr. Pfaff mar- ried Miss Ann E. Kenyon, a native of New York state. They have a family of four children, three sons and a daughter. Two sons, grown up, are clerks in the audi- tor's office. Mr. Pfaff has been for several years a mem- ber of the Independent Order of Odd-fellows, but does not take an active part. He is a member of the Method- ist Episcopal Church. In public and private life he is a man who commands universal respect, and is regarded as a public-spirited citizen of the highest integrity and honor. He is still in the prime of life, healthful and vigorous, full of life and energy, and in every respect is regarded as a representative of moral and physical worth in his community.

ICKERILL, FRANCIS MARION, was born August 27, 1832, in Brown County, Ohio. His parents, Dennis and Dorcas Pickerill, were plain farm folk ; the former being a son of Samuel Picker- ill, a soldier during the Revolutionary War, who was in all the battles fought under the command of General Mor- gan. His mother, Dorcas Pickerill, was a Jacobs. His parents removed from Ohio, settling in Hamilton County, Indiana, in 1832, entering a large tract of land lying be- tween the Big and Little Cicero Creeks. Young Picker- ill's educational facilities were confined to the ordinary district schools. He devoured eagerly the few books he could reach, and mastered their contents by the light of a shell-bark hickory fire. At seven he lost his mother, and financial reverses came. His father removed to Cicero, Hamilton County, Indiana, and was one of its original founders. A farm was rented, and here our subject re- mained until he had reached his thirteenth year, and then started out to seek his fortunes. In Ohio we find him in the employment of his uncle, at twenty-five cents a day. Again, in Indiana, he became a clerk in a drug-store in Lafayette, then in a hardware store,

and finally he became a partner in a daguerrean gallery in Crawfordsville. Quick to learn, full of ingenious devices, with strong artistic instincts, he had found his sphere, and remained in it for years, acquiring in Du- buque, Iowa, a handsome little fortune. But the old story must here be repeated-investments in wild lands, security debts, depreciation in values, and then came the financial crash of 1857. The previous year, while in full tide of success, he married Miss Mary E. Mat- son, in Prairie du Chien, Crawford County, Wisconsin, the ceremony taking place in the officers' quarters of old Fort Crawford. After the crash, in 1858, Mr. Pickerill became interested with others in a colonizing scheme, and formed the Dacotah Town Company, proceeding to Council Bluffs by river and to Sioux City by wagon. On the route one of the six adventurers left his watch at the last night's resting place, and Mr. Pickerill and another volunteered to return for it. This, going and coming, involved a walk of twenty miles, against a stormy head wind, and thirty-five miles addi- tional through the wilderness, all the work of a day. At Sioux City-consisting of a few log-huts and wig- wams-it was determined to make Nebraska the field of operations; and, after days of toilsome march and search, the site where now stands St. James was selected as headquarters by the adventurers, and the future town was named, in advance, Wacapana, it still existing as a trading post. Sickness at home called Mr. Pickerill away, and, on foot, he plunged into the dense wilder- ness and crossed trackless prairies, a distance of three hundred miles. He resumed his former business at St. Joseph, and in the spring of 1859 again returned to his companions, now nearly destitute of provisions, living on mush and molasses. Erecting a cabin, he put in a crop, and in July again sought civilization. On his re- turn he endured all the privations of pioneer travel, lost his horses, and arrived in Iowa nearly destitute. He pursued his former business at several points, but in 1860, being a loyal man and at all times outspoken, he was driven out of St. Joseph by armed rebels, and escaped only with his life. He again resumed business, but in 1862 he entered into the recruiting service, and participated in the suppression of the Indian revolt near Fort Ridgley, Minnesota. In the fall of that year he came to Indianapolis, and in November, 1863, enlisted in Captain David Negley's company, 124th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, Colonel James Burgess command- ing. He followed the fortunes of that regiment until it was mustered out of service at the close of the war. He engaged with a Chicago house as commercial agent, and was in that city during the great fire and for two years after. He returned to Indianapolis to accept a situation in the photograph supply house of Henderson George, now Henderson George & Co., No 39 Virginia | Avenue, where he yet remains, an honored citizen and

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a business man of marked ability. Mr. Pickerill is of small stature, rapid in his movements, of an active mind, quick at expedients, ingenious by instinct, affable in manner, a member of the Eleventh Presby- terian Church, and has a family of which he is justly proud. His second marriage occurred in Chicago, 1874, to Miss Maggie C. Coates.

ICKERILL, GEORGE WASHINGTON, M. D., of Indianapolis, was born at Cicero, Hamilton County, Indiana, August 31, 1837. To this point in 1832, then almost a vast wilderness, his father and mother, Samuel J. and Mahala M. Pickerill, emi- grated from Brown County, state of Ohio. They were among the earliest settlers in this part of the state, and were the first moving spirits in the now thriving town of Cicero. They owned and lived in the only two-story house in the place. After seeing the wilderness change into a beautiful village and into productive farms, his parents moved to Clinton County, Indiana, near Frankfort, and remained there a few years. The present generation can never fully comprehend the vast labors of the early pioneers. The present dwellers only see the result, but can never hear the ring of the ax of steel wielded by muscles that would put to the blush those of the pres- ent time. Can the mother of the present day, sur- rounded by the little brood around her, with not a thought of fear or harm, realize the condition of the pioneer mother, with her helpless little ones clinging to her, as the war-cry of the savage and the cries of wild beasts are heard approaching, with no bulwark of safety but a frail log-cabin, with an imperfect door and a win- dow of oiled paper? Such was the life of the heroic mother of the subject of this sketch, and such was the life of his brave and daring father. God has blessed them both with good old age. They still live to see the beautiful results of their early pioneer labors, with children and grandchildren to call them blessed. And, thus surrounded, little George and his brother Samuel received the rudiments of an education in a cabin school-house for the most part, built in a dense forest. Here he had his first love-making, when five or six years old, with a pretty girl of about his own age. So ardent was his affection that it could not be controlled, or kept from the eye of the schoolmaster, who happened to be his own father. The result was, the enamored youth was favored with a whipping. And, as he has never mar- ried, there may be truth in the saying that there are hearts that never love but once. In the year 1848 his father removed to Lafayette, Indiana. Here was opened a prosperous business career for Mr. Pickerill, who there carried on a large dairy and stock market. In this our subject was employed mornings and even-

ings, attending school during the day, but with little interest in its duties. At the age of seventeen he was sent to college, and a new era in his life began. Fun and frolic gave place to serious thought. He entered the North-western Christian University, now Butler, with the thought fixed on his mind by his parents and the many preachers who constantly visited at his father's house-it was a kind of ministers' headquarters for that part of the state-that he was to be a clergyman. With this in view, he began the acquisition of knowledge in earnest. The third year of his college life found him a young preacher, with all the zeal and ambition that a very warm and imaginative temperament could give, giving great promise of success. He was well received wherever he went, and encouraged by Church and people. About this time a change came over his father's busi- ness, and the young preacher had to battle with life for himself. Instead, therefore, of returning to college in the fall, he engaged and taught a school at Lafayette. The proceeds of this he applied as first payment on a home for his father and mother, near Lafayette. The following fall and winter found him at Paxton, Ford County, Illinois, teaching a six months' school and preaching. The next year he taught at State Line City, Illinois. This was a labor not altogether congenial to one of his temperament, but was the best thing that offered itself for the accomplishment of the objects in view-his own improvement, and assisting in liquidating the indebtedness on the property before mentioned. For this purpose he taught two other schools, one at Dayton, Indiana, and another at Lebanon, Indiana. The year the Lebanon school was taught he had again returned to the university, but left it again to resume in- struction. About this time "a change came o'er the spirit of his dream," with regard to the profession that had been chosen for him. While he loved it, it became a very serious question with him whether he was "the right man in the right place," or not. As his own mind became more matured, and his tastes and ambi- tion assumed more definite shape, he found that his mind was decidedly speculative, running into a scientific channel, his late reading being almost wholly of this nature, and the fear arose with him that he was not in his right profession. This solicitude gave rise to a care- ful investigation, the result being the choice of med- icine, as being more in harmony with the constitution of his mind than theology ever could be. During this transition the laws of physical life were his absorbing thought, the harmony, or the want of harmony, be- tween them and revelation. This was a field large enough for the gratification of the most speculative mind. The harmony could not at all times be found. He made a rule for himself: if he could not untie the knot, he would not cut it. The fault was within him- self. If he had known more he might be able to com-

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prehend more of infinite wisdom. Faith in revelation would sometimes tremble-almost fall-yet in the end there was an undying confidence in the wisdom and goodness of God. Neither did the study of medicine breed infidelity in him. His first medical college in- struction was at Ann Arbor University, in Michigan. There was a flaw in his radical mind over the teaching while at this college. Agents and means were used in the treatment of the sick too destructive to life, not at all in harmony with the nature of man. Mercury was the king of medicines. This he could not, would not, tolerate. Believing that any agent that did not work in perfect harmony with physiologic laws was unsuited and hurtful to man, he says:

"I repudiate mercury because there is nothing like it in the whole economy of man. I repudiate it because it lowers the standard of life. I repudiate it because it creates untold more diseases than it cures-if it ever cures at all. I repudiate it because no man knows what the results are going to be after it is given."

After practicing a year (after leaving Michigan Uni- versity) in Indianapolis, he went to Cincinnati, and en- tered the Eclectic Medical Institute, from which he graduated, February 16, 1866. He returned to Indian- apolis and resumed practice, and with this new-medical banner he soon gained friends and patronage, and has remained there to the present. He is still speculative, and anxious to learn of something new which is better than the old. He has written quite freely to medical journals, his essays always being in demand. He is still a hard student. He has never married, but is very fond of the ladies, and thinks he will find time to get a wife before long.

RUNK, DANIEL H., M. D., physician and sur- geon, Indianapolis, was born near Fincastle, Bote- tourt County, Virginia, November 3, 1829. His father, Daniel Prunk, was born in the state of Maryland in 1794, served his country as a soldier in the War of 1812, and died in Illinois in 1861. His wife, Catharine (Edwards) Prunk, the mother of Doctor Prunk, was born in old Virginia in 1796, and still lives, at the advanced age of eighty-four, surrounded by a numerous family of children and grandchildren, and en- joying their appreciative love and affection. In the fall of 1831 the father of Doctor Prunk, not feeling disposed to spend his life in competition with slave labor, re- solved to emigrate to a free state. Reaching Xenia, Ohio, with a family of seven children, he was forced by the severity of the weather to winter there. Resuming his journey next spring, he encountered his full share of the many privations, hardships, and obstructions pe- culiar to a new country, his horses often having to wade side-deep through the sloughs and quagmires which

were very frequently met with, and the children being often transferred in arms across the most difficult por- tions of the way. He at length reached his destination, at Hennepin, Bureau County, Illinois, in the spring of 1832, and set to work to clear a farm and home for his family. The settlers at that time had to live in con- stant fear of the "noble red man," and more than once Mr. Prunk only saved his family from the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the dreaded Black Hawk Indians by taking refuge in the old Florida Fort, about three miles from Hennepin. Society was imperfectly organ- ized, log-cabin school-houses were few and far between, and the schoolmaster was not abroad in the land, in those days of pioneer hardships. Subscription schools for three months in the winter season were the best educational facilities then offered to the most favored families, and the children of the poorer classes were obliged to forego even those meager opportunities. There were few incentives to fire latent powers to noble achievements, save the acquisition of broad acres and their cultivation. It was amid such surroundings and with such advantages that the boyhood and youth of Doctor Prunk were passed. But his restless mind was not content to regard the routine of a farmer's life as the chief destiny of man, and so, at the ear- liest opportunity, spurred on by youthful ambition, he left the parental roof to avail himself of the educa- tional advantages afforded at Lacon, Illinois, work- ing mornings, evenings, and Saturdays to defray ex- penses, until he was qualified to teach a district school. This served the double purpose of enabling him to re- view his studies, and also paved the way for meeting his expenses at the college of Mount Palatine, Illinois, which he entered in 1850. One year later he attended Rock River Seminary, where he numbered among his class- mates John A. Rawlins, afterwards Secretary of War, and Shelby M. Cullom, now Governor of Illinois. His limited means would not permit him to remain there longer than a year, at the close of which he returned home, and in the fall and winter devoted himself to teaching school. In the spring of 1853 he commenced the study of medicine, under the preceptorship of Doc- tor Joseph Mercer, of Princeton, Illinois. He attended the Eclectic Medical Institute at Cincinnati, Ohio, dur- ing the winter of 1853-54, and finally, in 1855-56, re- ceived the degree of Doctor of Medicine and Surgery. His first location as a physician was at Carthage, a beautiful suburban village near Cincinnati, where pic- nics and May parties seem to be a "joy forever." It was on one of these joyous and festive occasions that he first made the acquaintance of an estimable little lady from the blue-grass country, an acquaintance which gradually budded into friendship and love, and ripened into marriage one year afterwards. The following year, by special arrangement, he took charge of the practice

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of Doctor A. Shepherd, at Springdale, Ohio, while the doctor was absent on a foreign tour. On the return of the latter Doctor Prunk was importuned to locate at Rockford, Illinois, and did so in the fall of 1857, just in time to be greeted by the financial crash that swept over the country, so ruinous to business in gen- eral and to state banks in particular. His professional success had been such as to enable him to flatter him- self with brilliant prospects for his future, and a bright recompense for the arduous labors which had preceded his adoption of a profession ; but the crisis came which no amount of skill could overcome, and the effect was to locate him once more in Princeton, Illinois, in October, 1858, when he formed a copartnership with his old preceptor, Doctor Mercer. This connection lasted until April 16, 1861, when special inducements pre- vailed upon him to locate in Indianapolis, just as the echoes from the bombardment of Fort Sumter were reverberating through the land. In September, 1861, he was honored by Governor Morton with a commis- sion as assistant surgeon 19th Regiment Indiana Vol- unteers, to fill a vacancy. He passed a successful and creditable examination before the regular board, and was assigned to duty at the Marshall House Hospital, Alexandria, Virginia, where he served several months, until the extreme illness of his wife hastily summoned him home. June 28, 1862, he was ordered by the Governor to report to Colonel Brown, of the 20th Regi- ment Indiana Volunteers, which lay at Harrison's Land- ing, Virginia, just after the seven days' battle. Sel- dom in the history of war had the fortunes of battle, the terrors of disease, and the elements so effectively combined against the strength of an army. The rank and file were so reduced by losses and sickness that there were scarcely enough able-bodied men left to man the breastworks and the trenches. It is said that even a Kearney and a Hooker dropped tears of com- miseration over the dark clouds that seemed to over- hang the decimated ranks and shadow even hope itself. Men and horses died by hundreds, and Egypt's historic reputation for stench and flies was more than dupli- cated. In the midst of all this, and while bravely at- tending to his duties, Doctor Prunk was attacked with camp diarrhea and typhoid fever, and when the army was ordered to evacuate the place he was shipped to David's Island Hospital, sixteen miles above New York City, where he was confined to his tent six weeks. During his absence the second battle of Bull Run and Centerville had been fought, and the veteran regiment lay near Arlington Heights, very much reduced in num- bers, and under marching orders for the advance on Fredericksburg. He was ordered by General Berry to take charge of all the sick of the brigade, and conduct them to the Third Army Corps Hospital, near Alex- andria, Virginia, where he remained in charge until

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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 9

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