USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > Evansville > A history of Evansville and Vanderburgh County, Indiana : a complete and concise account from the earliest times to the present, embracing reminiscences of the pioneers and biographical sketches of the men who have been leaders in commercial and other enterprises > Part 38
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ville store principally in Philadelphia. There he made a trip every year. It was a long and tedious journey. He went first to Hender- son, thence up the Ohio river to Pittsburgh and took stage over the Allegheny mountains to the City of Brotherly Love. It was a long, wearysome journey then. Having purchased a year's supply, or stock of goods, he returned home over the same route he had gone. His freight, or goods, followed him in the same slow, tedious way.
After pursuing this line of business for several years in a successful manner, he enlarged the field of his labors. In the midst of a vast tobacco region, he saw that he could deal in tobacco in connection with his other business, and by that means enhance his net proceeds at the end of the year. With persistent energy, surmounting every obstacle, he turned everything to good account, and up to the opening of the mighty civil conflict between the north and the south, he had accumu- lated quite a little sum of money out of the mercantile and tobacco business united. With the sound of arms and the tramp of armies over the land, he observed that his sympathies for and with the Union were not in general harmony with that of his friends and neighbors. As the war progressed and its bitterness increased and the red blood of human veins dyed the soil a scarlet hue, his Union sentiments made his situation uncomfortable to a certain degree. He looked upon his growing family with a kind father's solicitude and desire for the wel- fare of each one, and feeling the necessity of better educational advan- tages for them, induced him to move to Evansville, in 1863. As far as is known, he never denied the fact that his Union sentiments had something to do with his change of location at that time.
And now as a citizen of Evansville, having previously carefully and fully considered his course, he engaged in the dry goods business. His un- flagging application and masterful energies applied to business always brought him success. He never undertook anything without having first fully matured all its plans and considered it in its every detail, and consequently he never encountered failure or even a stagnant con- ditiou of trade. After several years of prosperous wholesale mercan- tile business, he bought out his partner's interests and joined in partnership with D. J. Mackey, under the firm name of Mackey, Nis- bet & Co. Still continuing in this vast and increasing business they also engaged in buying cotton and tobacco in large quantities and shipping their purchase to New York and Liverpool. He was the first man in Evansville to go up the Tennessee river at the close of the war and buy cotton for the general market. He thus opened up a new and profitable market to the cotton growers along the river, and brought
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prosperity to their doors. It was like a blessing to those poor, war- ravaged people, from whose ears the terrible boom of cannon and the sound of the tramp of devasting armies had scarcely died out. After several years of activity in the tobacco and cotton business, the firm at length decided to discontinue further purchase of these articles of commerce and devote its entire time to the wholesale dry goods busi- ness. They possessed large interests in the cotton mill, and turned their attention now to its operation on a broader and more successful scale.
A man of such untiring energy and resistless force, as Mr. Nisbet was, could not be restrained to a single line of activity, nor be con- tented with a partial exercise of his business qualifications. So as might be inferred, or perhaps expected, he found exercise for his ceaseless activity in being at the head of other large public enterprises, or in counseling and lending liberal pecuniary support to social and moral movements. It was natural to find him in the van. He was a successful general in business and in social reforms. As an evidence or illustration of this truth, it may be mentioned that he was the first president of the Evansville, Rockport and Eastern Railroad. He was also president of the Evansville, Paducah and Cairo Packet Company, and a director in the Louisville and Evansville Mail Company.
His high moral ideas were not simply exercised on Sunday in church, but as well in his affairs every day of his life. He was an elder in the First Cumberland Presbyterian church of this city, and always took great and unfaltering interest in its affairs, both spiritual and material. He was one of the largest contributors to the fund that built the large, beautiful edifice on the corner of Second and Chestnut streets. His moral activity was no less than his commercial energy; for he was a member of the board of publication, and one of the founders of the board of ministerial relief. This latter is one of the best, greatest, and noblest of its kind in the country. He was one of the trustees of Evans Hall, in the erection of which he took a prominent part. It would require more space than is here to be disposed of in that manner to recount his many private deeds of charity, or relate the many move- ments for the general good in which he concerned himself.
Mr. W. F. Nisbet and Miss Sarah F. Arnold were married Novem- ber 23, 1852, by Rev. Mr. Bone, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister in Madisonville, Ky. She was a sweet and lovable lady, a true help- meet all through his life, faithful in every family duty, watchful of her family's happiness, self-sacrificing for their happiness, and devoted to every good cause and work. With such a true companion life was a
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joy instead of a burden, a summer day instead of a winter night, a glory instead of a meaningless span of days. To them were born ten children, whose names are: David A., Sarah A. (Mrs. Grammar), Samuel B., Edward A., Watkins F. (deceased), Jennie, (Mrs. Zareeor), Robert K., Fannie, (Mrs. Holeman), and her twin brother Frank W. and Gus T.
Mr. Nisbet was a man of extraordinary business energy. His faculty was more to move business masses, which is to say, move large com- mereial transactions and set them in motion, than to dwell upon minor affairs. And still no man had a elearer knowledge of the minutia of business or was more perfeet in its details. His ability to handle large masses of business did not interfere with his watchful oversight of the minor matters of affairs. He was a man who eould and did, superintend a wonderful volume of trade, and at the same time order its smallest detail. Exhaustless, tireless in business capacity, he never flinehed from any duty. It was one of his marked traits to be able quickly to eoneentrate his qualifications on business. His judgment about the result of a movement in a commercial enterprise was un- erring. It is not eoarse praise to apply the flattering term of "mer- ehant prinee" to him; for he was indeed that.
Mr. Nisbet was a man of very reserved nature, particularly when it eame to publieity regarding his own life or his family affairs-a very commendable and happy quality. He was always averse to publish- ing anything about himself, and he shrank from print just as one would from a touch with something displeasing and distressing. To his family, no man was more considerate and kind than he.
His death, a truly business calamity, occurred July 7, 1886. His wife survived him eight years. She passed to the beyond Deeember 29, 1894. In a word, she was a noble woman, connecting herself prominently with every good thing in the city, and looking after the poor in a substantial way. Many a load of eoal, or a sack of flour, or piece of beef found its way to the home of the discouraged poor that no one knew of but herself. Her deep christian convictions led her into aetive help of the needy. Her contributions to worthy enterprises were liberal, and she was actuated by the sublime christian doctrine of not letting her right hand know what her left hand did.
SAMUEL M. ARCHER.
One of the most active business men of this city in his day was he whose name stands at the head of this memoir. He was a descendant
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of a sturdy, quict race of people, who early settled in South Carolina. Thomas Archer, the father of the subject of this sketch, emigrated from his adopted state and came to Indiana territory in 1808, settling in what is now Gibson county upon a farm. He took an active part in the public interests of that county. He was in the battle of Tippecanoe under General Harrison. His death occurred in 1840, his wife having died in 1836.
Samuel M. Archer was born in Gibson county on the 24th of Feb- ruary, 1809. He was the fourth son, the last of a family of nine children to pay the debt of nature. In those pioneer times, when a man was obliged to clear his land and raise his crops amid the fear of Indian forays, the opportunities of a boy for education were few. The boyhood of Samuel. M. Archer was not different from boys of his day and locality. His early life was upon the farm and not in harmony with his tastes, and when only eighteen years old he left the farm and began the career of a business man. He took a position as clerk in the general mercantile store of Robert Stockwell, in Princeton, Ind., in 1827. His industry, economy and business tact won him admission to the concern as partner. His enterprise and foresight in time made him sole possessor of the business. For twenty years he continued in bus- iness in this county seat. He was a merchant of the old school, and like his old and highly respected partner, Mr. Stockwell, he com- manded the trade and respect of the community and surrounding country.
Feeling the need of a larger field of business, he came to Evansville in 1855. He embarked in the wholesale and retail dry goods business, taking Mr. D. J. Mackey, then a young man clerking for Mr. Robert Barnes, a merchant, in with him as partner. They established a suc- cessful and thriving business, which extended into Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee. Theirs was the leading business house in the city in establishing a trade in the southern states. Mr. Archer retired from the firm in 1864. This closed his mercantile career, which was suc- cessful from the first to the end.
In 1867 Mr. Archer undertook the combined business of banking and insurance, with John D Roche as partner. In 1870 Mr. Roche died, and then Mr. Archer sold the insurance business and pursued that of the bank with undivided energies and attention. He was a most careful financier in his investments, and honest and honorable in all his methods. Up to the time of his death he had been a director and stockholder in the Evansville (now the Old) National bank. For twenty years he sustained this relation with this bank. He was also a
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stockholder in the First National bank, and for a time served on its board of directors.
Mr. Archer married in 1854 Miss Mary E. Snethen, a refined lady, whose native state was Maryland. They had three children : Annie, Lucy and Dr. Charles S. Archer, distinguished by their high aecom- plishments. Mr. Archer was a devoted member of Graee Presbyte- rian church, and one of its officers for many years. He passed to his eternal reward November 9, 1890.
COLONEL JOHN F. GRILL.
Colonel John F. Grill was born in Offenbach, Bavaria, Germany, Sep- tember 11, 1821. He was engaged in the revolution of 1848 against the king, and his valiant conduct and military geuius elevated him to the rank of captain. On the success of the crown and the overthrow of the revolutionists, he came to America, the land of the free. He stopped a few months in Baltimore, and then came on direct to Evans- ville, arriving here in 1852. In his native country he had pursued the trade of a tanner, and had prospered. In this land of his adoption he bought the Stephens tannery in Stringtown, and pushed it to suc- eess. In 1854 he returned to Germany, and brought baek to America his family, consisting of his wife and three children. He sold his tan- nery in 1859. During the mayoralty of William Baker, in 1860, when the spirit of rebellion was lifting up its head in the southern states, he organized a company of Turners and became its captain, a place he filled with skill, due largely to his past military experience in Germany. This company guarded the powder-houses of the city from the rebellious brethren in the south. In 1861 he enlisted as captain of company K, 24th Indiana volunteer infantry, in which regiment he served out the term of his enlistment, three years. On his return home he organized the 143d Indiana regiment, and served as its eolonel till the close of the war, aeting as general of a brigade.
For meritorious conduct he was promoted to the lieutenant colo- neley of the first regiment in which he served. He was a brave man, and his heroism on the battle-field was such as to exeite compliment from his superior offieers. Some of the principal battles in which he was engaged were: Shiloh, Champion Hill. Vicksburg, Grand Prai- rie, Fort Gibson, Jackson, Blackwater, Mobile and Fort Blakely. His military career closed by being honorably mustered out of the service October 15, 1865. In the course of his military duties he was '
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brought into close relationship with General Grant, General Lew Wallace, General Alvin P. Hovey and other distinguished generals, and everywhere he won the confidence and respect of his superiors and the unswerving loyalty of those whom he outranked. His mili- tary record was without a flaw or a reproach. Such confidence did the men of his regiment have in him that they were willing to follow wherever he led.
On the close of the war he returned to his home in this city and engaged in the pursuit of merchandising, a business he followed for many years with such success as to bring him a fair competency. Naturally he was an ardent republican and a great champion of free- dom and American institutions. He loved America for her freedom, and his loyalty amounted to enthusiasm. He was a leader in his polit- ical party and an advisor in its councils. He was elected trustee of Pigeon township in 1870, and re-elected in 1872, closing his second term of office in 1875. None were his superior as a citizen, and his fellow-citizens recognized in him a good officer. He was a Christian gentleman, belonging to St. John's Presbyterian church. He was a member of the Harugari lodge.
Colonel Grill was married to Marguerite Kloninger. in his native land, in 1845. To them were born six children, all residents of this city, as follows : Edward, Philip F., John F., Minnie, Amelia (Mrs. F. J. Scholz), and Elise. The brothers are wholesale dealers and manufacturers of cigars, in this city. Colonel Grill died of congestion of the brain on April 6, 1880. It was the anniversary of the battle of Shiloh. His widow died April 13, 1886.
He was a very sociable gentleman, complaisant and easy of ap- proach. His warm nature and generous impulses often led him to render kind acts and deeds of charity to the needful, and he did not let his left hand know what his right hand did. In his family, his supreme place on earth, he was kind and devoted, and they all loved him in return. He easily won the esteem of his fellow-men in busi- ness, and he rarely ever made an enemy on his own account. His friendship was abiding and true, and his friends were always sure of his support when they needed it. He was possessed of fine business qualities, and chief among these was his executive ability. For him to conceive of a thing, was almost tantamount to his performance of the same; that is to say, to think was to act. His superior intellectual strength was manifest by his great activity, as well as by the ease with which he acquired the English language and his fluency iu the ex- pression of it. His skill and mechanical genius in his trade are 25
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further evidences of his mental acumen and broad comprehension of matters. His early death was a loss to the business interests of Evansville.
CAPTAIN OTTO F. JACOBI.
Captain Otto F. Jacobi was born in Poessneck, Saxony Meiningen, Germany, November 28, 1835. His father, Gottlieb, a native of Silesia, Prussia, and a graduate of the university of Breslau, held for many years a prominent official position under the Duke of Saxony Weimer. His mother, Frederika, was a descendant of the Von Oss- walds, a family conspicuously identified in literary and military circles in Germany. The father died in 1849 and the mother eight years earlier. Captain Jacobi was the eldest son in a family of four, three of whom are now living. His education was received in his native country. He came to America in 1852, and settled in Philadelphia, Pa. There, in 1855, he enlisted in Company D., 1st United States Infantry. He soon attained the rank of first sergeant, which he held for several years, being ever ready for duty, and thus gaining the esteem of his superior officers. When the civil war broke out he was with his regiment, then stationed at Fort Cobb, Indian Territory. He re- mained in the regular army until 1863, when he received a commission as first lieutenant in the 10th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. For faithful and efficient service he was promoted to the captaincy of Com- pany G. on the 23d day of June, 1864, and in 1865 he was appointed assistant commissary of musters by the secretary of war, and was attached to the 1st Cavalry division department of the Cumberland. He acted a conspicuous part in the engagements at Duck Springs, Wilson Creek and New Madrid, Mo., Island No. 10, in the siege of Cor- inth and the battle at that place, at Big Black River, Miss., and in the seige of Vicksburgh, where he received a disabling wound. His honorable discharge from the service followed in July, 1865. Soon after locating in Evansville he began the wholesale tobacco and cigar business. This he sold ont in 1869, and in the next year entered the employ of H. F. Blount, plow works, as book keeper. His service became so valuable to his employer that he was appointed financial manager and admitted to an interest in the profits in 1883. Honor- able and upright in all his life's relations, he commands universal re- spect. He early joined the Masonic order and has attained the rank of Knight Templar. His public trusts have been numerous, and all faithfully executed. As a trustee of Oak Hill cemetery, as trustee and
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treasurer of Willard Library and director of the First National bank, he has rendered useful service to the public. He is also vice president of the Central Trust and Savings Co., the successful management of which has secured to many workingmen the ownership of homes. His marriage occured in 1862 to Mary E. Sawyer, of Corinth, Miss. Of this union five children have been born, of whom two, Otto L. and Sidney F. are living, and three are deceased, Alvin G., Irvin and Harry B. The latter died July 17th, 1888.
SAMUEL BAYARD.
As a financier Samuel Bayard deserves recognition; as a man of honor and influence he merits particular notice ; as a man of purpose and unvarying application to a single pursuit through a long and use- ful life he needs to be presented to the young men just setting out in life as an example of merited success and a pattern to imitate. The name-Bayard-carries the reader's mind naturally back to Bayard, "the good knight," who was born in Dauphiny, France, in 1475, and died in battle in 1524 with his face to the enemy. The Bayards have been a race of warriors, and many of them have died in battle con- tending for what they conceived to be a noble canse. The name of the father of Samuel Bayard was John Francis Bayard, of Grenoble, France. Like the other Bayards of France, John Francis was a soldier, and fought under Napoleon. After his distinguished general had been sent to St. Helena as a prisoner and France was wrenched and torn with a restless, undefined, untamable desire for something she knew not what, John Francis Bayard determined upon emigrating to the new world. Accordingly he arrived at the little French settle- ment of Vincennes, Indiana, in 1817, and laying aside all his warlike life began life over again on a civil basis. It may be said he was almost a pioneer in this French village upon the Wabash. There this pioneer young Frenchman wooed and married Mary Ann Boneau, a member of an old and respected family, which had settled there when that town was a typical French village.
Here Samuel Bayard was born, and here in the splendid schools of the Catholic church he was educated. He attended private schools and the Collegium Sancti Gabrielis, making commendable progress in his studies. But he did not graduate, for the reason that he consid- ered further study needless, since he could ill afford to spare the time from the business career he had mapped out for himself. As far as he
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went his education was thorough and practical. His training now was of the sort gained by experience with various business affairs. He became a clerk in his father's grocery store, then a worker on the paternal farm, now a flat-boat trader with sugar planters on the lower Mississippi, and then maker of ornamental woodwork at home-quite a varied application to business. A skillful penman and a natural aptitude in accounting, he was appointed to the deputy clerkship of the circuit and probate courts in Vincennes, in the year 1847. He profited by his duties in this position, and, when in 1851, the election of a new clerk was about to be held, he entered into the branch of the state bank of Indiana, in Evansville. This bank had been estab- lished here in 1834, and was the first bank organized here. Up to that time no bank had been needed, as the town did not transact a sufficient volume of business to require a ready and extensive means of exchange. Even then the bank was thought to be a needless and unwise undertaking. The business was conducted in a small frame building on Main street, and the cashier had enongh idle time on hands to allow him to act as porter and janitor as well as bookkeeper and cashier. As is well-known, capital, or money, is the foundation of all business transactions, and the volume of money is, in the com- mon acceptance of the term, the index of the prosperity and activity of a city. The advance of business and the growth of a community go hand in hand. They are reciprocal. Banks multiply and do a larger business in proportion to the advance and growth of a people or community. This first bank had a capital, including state and individual stock, of $80,000. In 1843 the capital amounted to $150,- 000, of which $73,000 was held by the state.
In November, 1851, after Mr. Bayard had been with the state bank but a short time, the directors made him teller of the bank. When the bank of Indiana succeeded the old state bank of Indiana, he was made casbier, and G. W. Rathbone, president. The special talent of Mr. Bayard for the conduct of banking finances was of such a character that his services became the life of the new branch bank. On the reorganization of the bank in 1865, by Mr. Bayard, the banking capital of this city amounted to almost two and a half millions of dollars. The men operating the money knew how to faciliate and increase business, and to encourage new enterprises. The new bank was called the Evansville National bank, and Mr. Bayard was made vice-president in 1867, and president in 1876. On the expiration of the charter of this bank in 1885, the Old National bank was founded as the successor in business of the Evansville National bank. It
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began business on a capital of $500,000, and the snug surplus of $250,000, with an average deposit line of over $2,000,000. Mr. Bayard is still the president of the flourishing institution. He is a director in the German bank, and stockholder in the First National and the Citizens National banks. The banking firm of W. J. Lowry & Co., was instituted or created in 1864, with which Mr. Bayard was prominently connected.
Mr. Bayard's far-seeing qualities have been in demand outside of his very busy banking business. He has been connected with several railroads, either as director or a member of the executive committee. He is treasurer of the Evansville gas and electric light company, and has been intimately associated with many movements looking toward the general prosperity of the city and the good of its citizens. He subscribed liberally to the fund for the creation of a public library, for which he purchased in Cincinnati a great many books. His liter- ary taste is of a cultured and high order, and his selections were most fitting to the popular taste. It is said he has one of the largest private libraries in Indiana. Always a student and a close observer, his mind is well-stored with learning, and it is a deligbt to hold con- verse with him. His attention to business has been careful, persever- ing and vigilant, and as a consequence success has attended his efforts. In person he is tall, upright and graceful, with genial features and benevolent disposition. His right hand never knows the liberal gifts of his left hand. He is a man who shrinks from the notoriety of the press, and who has has no sympathy with pretension. His inborn gentlemanly traits, his well-bred manners, and his instinctive refine- ment have made him a useful and popular citizen.
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