USA > Indiana > Elkhart County > A standard history of Elkhart County, Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development, Volume II > Part 12
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SAMUEL B. THROOP. It was nearly half a century ago when Samuel B. Throop first arrived in Elkhart and made himself a useful factor in the little community by his trade as blacksmith. Later for many years he was one of the leading grocery merchants, and is now living in a comfortable retirement. Since giving up active business he has had leisure to serve the public, and was for four years deputy city assessor of Elkhart.
His relations throughout life have been of an honorable and straightforward character, and both he and his wife are people well connected and of sound American stock. Samuel B. Throop was born in Augusta Township, Grenville County, Province of On- tario, Canada, January 25, 1845. However, his grandfather, Sam- tel B. Throop, was a native Vermonter and of early Scotch ancestry. From Vermont he moved to Grenville County, Ontario, and was one of the first to locate in Augusta Township, where he spent several years in clearing up a farm and subsequently cultivating it, and resided there until his death in his eighty-ninth year.
On the same farm where Samuel B. Throop was born his father Joseph Throop also first saw the light of day, on January 2, 1816. Reared on a farm, he subsequently bought half of his father's homestead and continued in the vocation of general farming and stock raising, until his death in his eighty-second year. Joseph Throop married Jane Eliza Lee, who was born in New York State in 1822, and after the death of her father she came with her widowed mother to Grenville County, Ontario, where her mother
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died at the age of eighty-seven. Mrs. Joseph Throop died February 6, 1914, in her ninety-second year. Her ten children who grew up were Marshall F., Sarah A., Samuel B., Leroy S., Julia MI., Henry M., Joseph A., Jane E., Laura S. and Calvin.
Samuel B. Throop grew up on an Ontario farm, attended the common schools of his locality, and when eighteen years of age was apprenticed to a blacksmith at Brockville, Ontario. His apprentice- ship lasted for two years and three months. He then came across the boundary line to Lowville, Lewis County, New York, and there completed his apprenticeship.
It was on September 30, 1867, that Mr. Throop arrived at Elk- hart, Indiana. It was a small town, with some importance as a railway point, but with little promise of its present prosperity and influence. After about four months as a journeyman worker; he established a blacksmith shop of his own at the northwest corner of Main and Jefferson streets. In the first year of his residence in Elkhart the first brick schoolhouse was built in the city, and it is a fact of historic interest that he did the blacksmith work required in the construction of that building. He continued to follow his trade actively at his shop at the location mentioned until 1883. He then retired from the business, and in 1885 opened a stock of groceries in a frame building, where he continued until 1806. In that year, on the site of his shop, he erected a substantial brick building, and for twenty years was actively engaged as one of the leading grocers of the city. The house in which Mr. Throop and family now reside occupies a lot adjoining his store, and he erected his home there in 1871. The deed conveying this property to Mr. Throop shows it was the third transfer of the property after Doctor Beardsley acquired the land from the government.
Mr. and Mrs. Throop are one of the oldest married couples in Elkhart. On June 4, 1868, Miss Helen F. Evans became his bride. She was born in Cleveland Township and represents an old family of Elkhart County of New England lineage. Her grandfather Fred- erick Evans, spent part of his early life in Vermont, of which state he was probably a native, and from there moved to Canada and lived in the Dominion until his death. Frederick Evans married Wealthy Cleveland, who was born at Canterbury, Connecticut, in 1774. She was liberally educated and all her life was a reader of standard and current literature and to an unusual degree for a woman of her gen- eration and time was actively interested in public affairs. She was an ardent advocate of the temperance cause and was one of the first women in America to support the movement for woman suff- rage. She had an extensive correspondence with the leading men
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and women of her day, including Horace Greeley, the famous New York editor. Mrs. Throop's daughter Mabel has several of the lec- tures and addresses written by this accomplished old lady, and the manuscripts in her own handwriting are a cherished family heir- loom. She also contributed to magazines. It is an interesting fact that she spent her last days in Elkhart County, and though she lived to the advanced age of eighty-six was strong mentally and physically almost to the end. She belonged to the same family as Moses Cleveland, the founder of the City of Cleveland, Ohio.
Hervey Mason Evans, father of Mrs. Throop, was a native of Pawlet, Vermont, where he was reared and educated and learned the blacksmith's trade. From that state he moved to Ohio, and became one of the very first settlers at Euclid, then a wilderness and now a part of the City of Cleveland. From Cleveland in 1835 he resumed his westward journeying and arrived in Elkhart County. His household goods were shipped by way of the canal from Cleve- land to Fort Wayne, and he and his family made the journey by wagon and ox team. Locating in Cleveland township, he entered 160 acres of government land, and subsequently bought eighty acres adjoining. Few of the people of the present generation can imagine, except by great difficulty, what Elkhart County was like eighty years ago. It was little less than a wilderness, filled with Indians, wild game of all kinds and the landscape dotted only here and there with the humble log cabin of some venturesome settler and with a small clearing for his crops. Hervey M. Evans built a log house as the first habitation of his family, and Mrs. Throop was born in that rude and simple dwelling. Another log building he emploved as his blacksmith shop, and this was one of the first shops of the kind in the county. Settlers came from miles around to secure his services in fabricating and repairing the simple stock of farm implements then used, and he often worked far into the night in order to attend to the wants of his customers. Besides working at his trade he superintended the clearing of his land, and continued to live at the old homestead until the death of his wife. He then removed to Elkhart and resided with the Throop family until his death, February 25. 1875. Hervey M. Evans married Maria E. Brown, who was born at Granville, Washington County, New York. May 22, 1803, and died in January, 1872. Her nine children were Henry H., Harriet, Samuel, Logan, George, Hervy R., Lucas, Franklin and Helen F.
Mr. and Mrs. Throop have reared three children: Charles M., Florence M. and Mabel L. Their son Charles married Grace Zorn, and has a son named Harold. Florence is the wife of William G.
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Gordon and their two children are named Helen Margaret and Howard Throop. Mabel, the youngest child, is still at home with her parents and is an active member of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Throop is affiliated with Kane Lodge No. 183, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and both Mrs. Throop and Mabel are mem- bers of Starlight Chapter No. 181, Order of the Eastern Star.
WILLIAM F. SEIDEL is one of the men who, during the past thirty or thirty-five years, have supplied some of the creative skill and energy to Elkhart's industrial progress and welfare. Mr. Seidel for many years was connected with the Conn Company and is an expert maker of band instruments, having served his apprenticeship in Europe before coming to America. He is now president of the Seidel Band Instrument Company, one of the most important recent incorporations in that city.
He was born in the city of Markneukirchen, Saxony, Germany, November 30, 1848. His father, Carl A. Seidel, was a native of the same city, and after an apprenticeship at the cabinet maker's trade he continued business as a journeyman and also as a carpenter and builder in his native city the rest of his active days. Carl A. Seidel married Amelia Duerschmidt, who also spent her life in Markneukirchen. She reared nine sons and three daughters, all of whom married, but the only two who came to the United States are William and his brother Louis, the latter now a resident of Boston, Massachusetts.
William F. Seidel attended school regularly until fourteen years of age, and then, following the sturdy German custom, was ap- prenticed to learn the trade of manufacturing band instruments. After four years he was pronounced a master workman, and then became a real journeyman, working at different cities in France and Switzerland until 1870. In that year he went across the channel to London, and continued as an expert workman in that city until 1881.
Mr. Seidel has lived in Elkhart since 1881, and was one of the experts brought to this locality by Mr. Conn, whose band instru- ment factory was at that time almost in its infancy. Mr. Seidel served as foreman in Mr. Conn's shop for a time, but later was made superintendent of the entire plant and held that highly re- sponsible position until 1913, a period of thirty years. He finally resigned on account of ill health, and spent about two years in recuperating. During 1913 he incorporated the Seidel Band In- strument Company, and as president is supplying his wealth of ex- perience and thorough business ability to making it one of the successful industrial concerns of Elkhart.
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While living in London in 1878 Mr. Seidel married Miss Harriet Harrison, who was born in that city, a daughter of Benjamin and Rebecca (Phillips) Harrison, her parents having spent all their lives in London. Mrs. Seidel was the only one of three children to come to America. Mr. and Mrs. Seidel have reared two daughters and one son, named Lydia, Harriet and Frederick WV. The daughter, Lydia, married Fred Lee of Edwardsburg, Michigan, and they have two sons, named Harold and George. The daughter, Harriet, is the wife of E. Gale Burlingame of Detroit. Mr. Seidel's son, Frederick W., is a successful young dentist at Elkhart and married Miss Mary Chamberlain. Mr. Seidel was reared in the Lutheran Church, while Mrs. Seidel is an Episcopalian. In politics he is independent, but has always been interested in the welfare of his home city of Elkhart, and during his long residence here served four years as a member of the city council, and was chairman of the Improvement Committee in that body.
FREDERICK W. HILLMAN. A business man of Elkhart who has gained the respect and confidence of the community is Frederick WV. Hillman, who has made the most of his opportunities and is prospering as a contractor in sidewalk construction and also has a flourishing coal trade in the city.
He was born in a log house in Springfield Township of Laporte County, Indiana, July 7. 1870. His father, William Hillman, who is now living retired at Elkhart, was a successful farmer and his children owe him much for their individual success in life, since he reared them carefully and gave each a liberal education. William Hillman was born in Mecklinburg, Germany, March 26, 1843, and the name in the old country was spelled Hollmann. Grandfather John Hillman, also a native of Germany, was a substantial farmer in the fatherland, but in 1869 followed some of his children to America and spent the rest of his days in Laporte County, Indiana. John Hillman married Sophia Schumacher, who survived her hus- band and died at the age of eighty-two years. She reared six children : Mary, Frederica and Sophia, twins; John, William and Carolina.
William Hillman grew up in Germany, had the usual training of Germany youth in schools and also in a practical vocation, and was a capable young farmer of twenty-three when he came to America in 1866. After locating in Laporte County, Indiana, he was employed for a time at monthly wage as a farm hand. Later he was able to buy fifty-seven acres in Springfield Township. The land was practically valueless at the time, since it was covered
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with timber and brush, but he applied himself with a hearty good will to clearing it up and to developing the nucleus of a farm. His first habitation there was a log house, and that was the home in which Frederick W. Hillman first saw the light of day. After many years of diligent toil he had placed all his land under culti- vation, and he then sold the first farm and bought a hundred acre place in Pleasant Township. Only a part of that land was im- proved, and he effected a veritable transformation in its appearance and productivity. That was his home until 1910, and since that year he has rented the farm and has lived retired in Elkhart, where he enjoys the comforts of a good home on Laurel Street. William Hillman was married after coming to Laporte County in 1866 to Fredericka Egebracht. She was born in Prussia, Germany, where her parents spent all their lives. William Hillman and his wife reared six children, named : Louis, Frederick W., William H., John, Martha and Ella. They are all well educated people and have each an honorable place in the world's activities. Louis is a teacher in Illinois, and John also follows the same profession, and is located in St. Louis, Missouri. William is a physician at South Bend. Ella married Audra Marvel, who is a teacher at Dwight, Illinois. Martha married Dr. Elmer Mckesson, who is an inventor and manufacturer at Toledo, Ohio.
Frederick W. Hillman grew up on the old farm in Laporte County, attended the rural district schools there, and afterwards enjoyed a course in the Valparaiso University. His father was not the man to rear his children in idleness, and the son when not in school had ample employment for his energies on the farm. He continued a practical farmer until 1900, in which year he moved to Elkhart, and for the next four years was connected with the Acme Bicycle Works. Then after two years in the coal delivery business he engaged as a contractor for the building of sidewalks and other similar construction, and has made that an important feature of his success to the present time. On December 14, 1914, he set up in the coal business, and has a large trade in that line.
On January 23, 1901, Mr. Hillman married Alla Snook. She was born in Elkhart, a daughter of John A. and Amelia (Kantz) Snook. The four children of Mr. and Mrs. Hillman are: Florida, Victor, Irene and Ralph.
JOSEPHI A. S. MITCHELL. The City of Goshen has been honored by the presence of some very able men. Hardly second to any among them was the late Judge Mitchell, who identified himself with that city in 1860, soon went into the army, where he distinguished
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himself, returning in 1865, and from that time forward won all the better successes and rewards of the able lawyer until he was elevated to a place on the supreme bench of Indiana, from which exalted position he was stricken down by death on December 12, 1800.
The lesson and inspiration of his life are found in a devotion to duty such as is rarely excelled. Whether in the smallest or great- est transactions of his life he went straightforward to the fulfilment of duty regardless of what it imposed of personal toil, hardship and sacrifice. That was the quality which distinguished him, whether as a soldier, lawyer, judge or private citizen.
Joseph A. S. Mitchell was born near Mercersburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, December 21, 1837, and was therefore fifty- three when he died. His parents were Andrew and Sarah (Lecron) Mitchell, the former of Scotch and the latter of French lineage. It is said that Judge Mitchell exemplified the characteristics of both lines of ancestry. His Scotch blood showed itself in his sterling integrity, rigid adherence to what he conceived to be right, his steadfastness and independence of opinion. From his French ancestors he gained his suavity, cheerfulness and courtesy of man- ner. Andrew Mitchell was a farmer of small means though of fine character, and died during the childhood of Judge Mitchell. This left the latter to make his own way in the world.
From the home farm, where he spent the first seventeen years of his life and gained what was then considered a common school education, he went to Illinois and by a short course in the academy at Blandinsville fitted himself to become an acceptable teacher. Even so early the cast of his mind was clearly for the law, and it was only a means to an end that he taught school. Returning to Pennsylvania at nineteen, he began the study of law in the office of Riley & Sharp at Chambersburg, and three years later was admitted to the bar.
After several months of travel in the South he came to Goshen in 1860, and, a comparative stranger, opened an office and sought his first fees as a lawyer. From a work which began with promise he was soon called to service as a soldier. He closed up his office, and went to the front with the Second Indiana Cavalry, with which command he spent two years. He was then promoted to captain, and assigned to General McCook's staff as inspector-general, a posi- tion he retained until the close of the war. As a soldier he went or led his company wherever duty, however arduous or hazardous, called him. Unusual service was frequently required of his com- mand on account of the fact that the men were armed with repeat- Vol. II- 8
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ing rifles. Captain Mitchell was in the thickest of the fighting at the great battle of Shiloh. A subsequent illness kept him in the hospital for many weeks. There the favors bestowed upon him because of his rank he shared freely with the private soldiers who were ill in the same room. After his recovery he took part in a memorable campaign lasting five months, in the course of which the Confed- erates were swept out of Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, involv- ing those tremendous battles of Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Resaca and Kenesaw Mountain, in each of which Captain Mitchell was always at his post of duty. Later he shared in the burdens and dangers of that spectacular excursion known as Stoneman's raid, when Kilpatrick's command, though they had discharges in their hands, volunteered to cut off the enemies supplies in the rear of Atlanta. Severing all connec- tion with the Union army, and shaking hands with friends and comrades, the raiders dashed into the rear of the enemy's forces, tearing up railroad tracks, destroying supplies, fighting for weeks against superior forces, sometimes retreating and then advancing, sometimes so hard pressed that it was necessary to call for volun- teers to act as rear guard, who, when resistance was no longer possible, would suffer themselves to be made prisoners, thereby detaining the enemy till the main body of their comrades could retreat to safety without annihilation or capture. Such were some of the main features of Judge Mitchell's service and experience as a soldier.
When the war was over he resumed the practice of law at Goshen, and there in November, 1865, he married Miss Mary E. Defrees, daughter of the Hon. Joseph H. Defrees. Mrs. Mitchell and two children, Harriet and Defrees, survived Judge Mitchell.
About this time Judge Mitchell formed a partnership with John H. Baker, who afterwards became judge of the United States Dis- trict Court, and among the older lawyers of the Elkhart County bar the firm of Baker & Mitchell is one of the best remembered, and until it was dissolved when Judge Mitchell was elevated to the bench it was the leading law firm of Northern Indiana.
His hard work and success as a lawyer were always closely identified with the life of the community and state in which he lived. Early in his career he served as deputy prosecuting attorney. He was elected mayor of Goshen in 1872 and 1874. A distinctive rec- ognition of his success and prominence as a lawyer came in 1879 when the State Bar Association selected him, along with Benjamin Harrison and Azro Dyer, as representative to the convention at Saratoga. In 1880 he was nominated by the democratic party for
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Supreme Court judge of Indiana. He met defeat with others on the state ticket that year, but in 1884 was elected, and had received a second election in November, 1800, only a few weeks before his death. As a lawyer one of the important positions he held was a counsel for the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Com- pany in Indiana, and he held that office until he went on the bench. Judge Mitchell, though reared a Presbyterian, was for more than twenty years an active member of the First Methodist Church of Goshen, was one of its trustees, and was also a trustee of DePauw University.
The work and influence of Judge Mitchell while a member of the Supreme Court, his character, and the scope of his service as a citizen, find their best statement and analysis in the words of a memorial address delivered at Goshen, by Hon. Byron K. Elliott, who was for nearly six years associated with Judge Mitchell on the bench. This sketch of one of Goshen's most eminent citizens may well conclude with a portion of that address.
"It is not too much to say," in the words of Judge Elliott, "that no man in our time had a higher appreciation of the judicial office, or a keener and truer sense of its responsibilities and requirements than Judge Mitchell. His sense of judicial propriety was exquis- itely delicate, and his conception of judicial duty exalted. If he erred at all, his error was in too highly valuing the judiciary. To his mind the judicial department was, indeed, one 'whose steps are equity, whose soul is justice.' The courage required of the judge is more than physical valor. The courage befitting the judge is 'An independent spark from Heaven's bright throne, by which the soul stands raised, triumphant, high, alone.' So stood the soul of the brave Judge to whose memory we pay this day's high tribute of respect. He stood as stands a shaft of granite upreared by a master's hand, four-square to all the winds that blow. His inde- pendence was a conspicuous feature of his well rounded and sym- metrical character and kept him manfully in the path of duty. This fearless independence gave to his pure and spotless integrity an exalted strength and brought him the respect of those who honor the true nobility of manhood. A stern and determined judge when occasion demanded, he was yet kind and merciful ; he felt. I know, that if he must err, it should always be on mercy's side. Inflexible as he was at the demand of duty, the voice of entreaty moved him deeply, although it never carried him from duty's path.
"His high esteem for his office and his enthusiastic love for his profession made him a student of the law from inclination and con- viction, and not from expediency or policy. He was one of the
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men 'whose delight is where their duty leads.' He delighted in his duty because of his deep reverence for jurisprudence. He knew, too, that the unlearned man who assumes the functions of the judge degrades the profession and the office; and for his life he would not have brought reproach upon either by any culpable fault or omission of his own. This high conception of duty moved him to the severest and most determined work. He studied resolutely and as able men study, 'unbiased and unbewildered.' Himself he did not spare; he knew and he heeded the demands of his office, and he gave to it the best days and nights of his life.
"His predominant mental characteristic was power. The light which fell from his mind upon the case brought before him for judgment was not the flickering gleam of the twilight of feeble intellects, but the strong clear light of the sunbeam. Difficulties melted before it as mists before the sunlight, and sophistries per- ished in its glare. His mind was spacious, big and loftily domed. In it thought had free play; ideas attained full stature, neither dwarfed by pressure nor lost in a crowded throng. His capacious mind, with its wide reach of thought, enabled him to securely grasp and firmly hold all the elements of a forensic controversy, so that he was able to marshal them in orderly array and keep them fully in the light until they were seen and known in all their depth and scope.
"A close student, reading much and reading deeply, he was not the unreasoning follower of precedent. With precedents he con- sulted as an equal with equals, not as a servant with a master. The paralysis of precedent did not wither his faculties nor fetter the free play of his reason. He respected precedents, as all just judges must do, and studied them with an earnest and intelligent purpose ; but so strong was his analytical power, so keen his dis- crimination and so sound his judgment that the bad did not mislead him nor the indifferent prevail over his conception of legal truth. He studied authorities as he gave judgments, with rigid impartiality and without bewilderment or confusion. A bold and original thinker, he was nevertheless a conservative judge, for he knew the judge's duty is to interpret and enforce the law, not to make it. Ilis delicate sense of honor would not suffer him to become an inno- vator or an image breaker for the sake of gaining credit for orig- inality, although he was conscious of his own great capacity to construct and create.
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